Fourteenth, Unorthodox Paths, Part Two
After a brief conversation with others, Mingjin's previous annoyance dissipated somewhat, and his mind cleared up, allowing him to continue the investigation according to the established plan.
Mingjin encountered the Lotus Sisters near the foot of the mountain, where the surrounding vegetation was so tall it blocked out the sun, casting no shadows on the ground. Further up, the forest path became narrower, the trees lower, more scattered, and their leaves changed from dark green to a pale yellowish-green. However, the mountain bushes thickened, and the path was unclear, forcing Mingjin to navigate the forest on her own. Unfortunately, she couldn't go far before her clothes got caught in the bushes, forcing her to use magic to conjure a knife and quickly trim away the protruding branches.
Cultivators often use magic in combat, but the power of magic attacks is dispersed, which might prevent them from killing the evil spirits at crucial moments. Therefore, the elders devised a method to transform their magical cultivation into swords, concentrating the power of their magic to focus their attacks on one target.
Transforming weapons into swords and sabers is a compulsory course for disciples of the Martial Sect. Ming Jin learned how to use a spear under Du Gewen, but even a spear has its limitations; it's impractical in narrow spaces. Therefore, at Mu Ning's request, Ming Jin also learned swords and sabers, and was asked to seek out Huang Jing to practice archery in her spare time. Huang Jing was happy to instruct her, but seeing Ming Jin effortlessly conjure three weapons, he and Zhou Wei laughed heartily, exclaiming, "You're truly amazing!"
As he walked, the ground was covered with fallen leaves and the scent of grass filled the air. But more than that, Mingjin was concerned about the ghostly aura emanating from the surroundings. At first, Mingjin thought the aura was like dust clinging to the ground, but the deeper he went, the more he realized he was wading through water, needing to lift his legs to move forward.
An undetected phenomenon of malevolent spirits. Although Ming Jin sensed something amiss in his surroundings, he wasn't overly worried. These malevolent spirits were also cultivating, diligently improving their abilities. Having interacted with cultivators for a long time, they knew that cultivators could track them using something on their bodies, so they learned to conceal their aura or prevent it from spreading. Malevolent spirits that so brazenly exposed their existence were not first-rate opponents. The reason for establishing independent cultivators in major cities was to allow them to search for and eliminate malevolent spirits lurking within.
While a greedy evil spirit might steal a person's lifespan in one go, a cunning evil spirit will steal a portion of each person's lifespan, profiting without being discovered. Ming Jin and Shen Du, before completing their apprenticeships, investigated a case brought up by Yu Qiao with Du Gewen and discovered that the evil spirit specifically targeted newborn children. It stole the lifespan of infants in swaddling clothes, disguising the deaths as illness or weakness, thus evading detection by many.
After investigating the matter, Dugwen was so angry that he kicked over the table.
Looking from afar, Mingjin spotted a dark shadow moving on a tree trunk. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was an insect. Although Mingjin didn't recognize the type of insect, she observed that while it tried to stay afloat, its slender limbs seemed unable to support its weight, threatening to fall. Intrigued, Mingjin stopped beside the tree, intending to grab the insect. However, before her hand could even touch it—when it was still a finger's width above it—the insect leaped high into the air, hopping from directly in front of Mingjin to her left.
At first, Mingjin didn't realize there was a problem, because in her hazy childhood memories, insects could jump very high. However, what attracted her attention wasn't the insect itself, but the spot where it was. Mingjin was only glancing sideways, only seeing a white, blurry line, which, if not paying close attention, would just look like a white twig. But that twig was moving; as Mingjin turned around, the white twig suddenly multiplied into five branches of varying lengths, connecting to a thicker main trunk.
These are probably skeletons.
Mingjin said to himself.
She felt nothing at first, until she looked up and met a human face, and more importantly, a pair of eyes. Although the face was darker, like a charred log, the most striking feature was the pair of eyes that still retained a human quality. Unlike a normal person's blinking, these eyes moved in perfect unison from left to right. The moment Mingjin saw them, those eyes were already spinning, and at an incredibly fast speed; she could only see a blur of black and white.
"Do you want this cricket?"
Mingjin thinks that's probably not the case with crickets.
She took two steps back, getting a clear look at the ghostly figure before her. He wasn't wearing any normal clothes, only two layers of rough, brown cloth. Mingjin didn't think it was because he was poor and had nothing to wear, because what he wore was a single, complete piece, without any patches. Although there were some drag marks, and layers of mud, small twigs, and withered leaves were stuck to it. His hands were white bones, and his feet were covered by the dragging cloth, which could be called clothing, but his head still looked like a normal person's. Avoiding his eerie eyes, it was still a man's head, only his hair was messy, loosely tied back with a wooden hairpin, and long, loose hair covered most of his ears and cheeks. His skin was deathly pale, and his bones protruded, as if he had been starved to death.
"without……"
"But he's mine. Are you trying to take him away from me?"
As she spoke, Mingjin subtly stepped back, trying to increase the distance between them. Her gaze remained fixed on her opponent, noticing that his eyes slowed their rotation until they returned to their clear, black-and-white state, finally settling on the small insect in her hand.
“Although he’s not much of a success compared to the others,” the evil spirit said, slowly turning his right thumb to crush the little bug to death, then throwing the bug’s lumps of corpse down with his left hand, “you can’t just think about taking him away.”
Mingjin was too lazy to listen to the rest of the story, since it was just the voice of someone on their deathbed.
Still in the forest, unable to wield the spear, Ming Jin silently gripped the hilt of his sword with his right hand hidden behind his back. As his opponent, who had been standing still, suddenly swayed from side to side, Ming Jin prepared to strike first, thrusting his sword straight through the floating cloth towards his opponent's throat.
Strangely, Mingjin did not feel any resistance while holding the sword hilt; it was as if her sword had simply pierced through the air.
"Heh..." The demon's body moved, and then it suddenly turned its neck and slammed into the sword with a "thud".
This feels familiar; it's bone.
However, the second time, the demon used even greater force, using its own neck to create space for itself before Ming Jin could retract his sword. Afterward, the demon ceased to have a physical form, becoming only a black shadow, remnants of clothing, flickering aimlessly in Ming Jin's vision, no bigger than the insect it had just crushed. It continued to fly around erratically, occasionally seizing an opportunity to charge at Ming Jin with a pair of white bones in its grasp. However, its speed couldn't surpass Ming Jin's. Although it could hold its own against the demons of You Ran City he had encountered before, the power of this demon's attacks wasn't considered top-tier among the demons Ming Jin had fought.
Mingjin retaliated with her weapon, severing a piece of bone from her palm with almost every strike. Looking at the white, bony things surrounding her, Mingjin realized something was wrong; even after more than ten strikes, she could still see bone fragments on her hand.
If that's the case, then what is the core focus of his attack?
After she slashed at the evil spirit dozens of times, she noticed that her wrists were starting to ache. At this moment, the speed and force of the opponent's attacks were also increasing. The soft thuds of the sword hitting the bone gradually spread throughout the forest, and even echoed continuously.
"Are they planning to wear me out?" Mingjin couldn't help but wonder.
So I decided to put in more effort.
"A strong wind has a tunnel."
As Ming Jin silently chanted the incantation, a massive wind blade slashed towards the upper body of the evil spirit as he swung his sword. The spirit was clearly a beat too slow; the wind blade severed its hand in half, the five fingers falling off together. The residual force of the wind blade grazed the spirit's upper body, leaving a gash.
Hit hard, the evil spirit was startled and fell to the ground. As it stopped, Ming Jin noticed that the wind blade had pierced through the evil spirit's upper body. Yu Feng lifted up the torn corner, and Ming Jin looked closely and found that the evil spirit's upper body was also just bones, with its ribs gleaming white under the fluttering pieces of cloth.
The evil spirit touched his wound; his fingers had grown back. His face was still pale, unchanged. He placed his hand on his ribs, then with a fierce effort, ripped the white bones from his body, holding one side and pointing it at Ming Jin. Seeing this, Ming Jin also gripped his sword hilt with both hands, ready for battle.
What alarmed her wasn't the opponent's next tactic, but the fact that the bones the evil spirit had pulled from her body were of an unusually long length. Although it was only a brief assessment, Mingjin could sense that the evil spirit was about the same height as her, but the bones in its hands were about the same length as the sword in her own.
Is this some kind of magic? Or is this bone taken from a person?
The evil spirit assumed a fighting stance, its eyes starting to dart around again, and a bone was growing back from where the white bone had been removed.
Give it a try; weapons created with magic are different from ordinary objects.
Thinking this, Ming Jin stepped onto the ground and was in front of the evil spirit in the blink of an eye. Then, with a horizontal slash, the White Bone Sword broke in two with a crisp sound, and the upper part flew out and landed on the nearby bushes.
A weapon created through magic is solely dependent on the user's magic and will; it only exists or disappears. If it is destroyed, it means that it was a real bone.
"Have you ever fought a tiger?" The evil spirit held the half-bones bone in his hands, his eyes still rolling, but the lines of his face showed his current doubt.
"Tiger? Snake?" The evil spirit realized that Ming Jin was talking to him and turned his eyes around. "I have no interest in those stupid animals."
He then casually tossed the broken bones aside, and with a flick of his wrist, pulled another bone from a tear in his clothes: "What I like are insects. I can tease them, make them compete with others, and easily crush them. Doing something so simple gives me three kinds of fun, and I can't get enough of it. It's just that it takes a long time to find a good one, but the process itself is fascinating. Of course, I don't just like insects; living people are fun too. It's just a pity that people look so strange, so I just piece them together to create a perfect human form."
"So you're the one who kidnapped four people around here?" Ming Jin asked, but he couldn't expect an answer from the other party. After all, this evil spirit had survived until now, and he probably hadn't even remembered how many people he had harmed.
Having said that, the evil spirit stared directly into Mingjin's eyes, clearly not intending to address Mingjin's question: "I have no interest in you. You're shrouded in bad luck. To be alive until now must have been a long struggle, truly an astonishing will. It's a pity that willpower can't be preserved. What a pity. I'm rambling again, and I'm going to get scolded again. Hand over your airs."
Before the spinning eyes could stop, a longsword cleaved it in two. The eerie eyes and the upper half of the skull fell to the ground, leaving the remaining flat surface emitting black smoke.
However, the remaining eyeballs continued to rotate.
"Ah, I feel like I'm missing something." The demon's movements stiffened. Consistent with the top of its head, its entire body began to emanate black energy.
"The remaining part of you will soon be reunited with the part that is missing."
Then, Mingjin seized the opportunity, swapping his sword for a spear, and immediately stepped forward, striking the evil spirit's neck with a powerful blow. The remaining part of the spirit's head vanished instantly. The spirit's body then fell backward, crashing to the ground, and disappeared layer by layer from top to bottom.
Although he had exorcised a malevolent spirit, Ming Jin's burden remained heavy. The spirit's words were ambiguous, and Ming Jin was unsure if he had completed his mission. So he put away his weapon and prepared to search the area again to see if he could find the missing person, or even just a corpse.
"Even if," Mingjin took a deep breath, both in his mouth and in his heart, "it would be good to find even a part of the body."
She walked over, picked up the two broken bones from the ground, and put them in her pouch.
"But now that the weather is getting warmer, if I had really been murdered, would my body still exist now..."
Ming Jin had just finished tidying up his pouch when he was suddenly forced to stop talking before he could finish.
Although she sensed the danger—the sudden surge of ghostly energy pressing down on her like towering mountains—she mustered all her strength to twist her body before the attack struck, fortunately diverting the injury from the back of her neck to her left shoulder. After being hit, Mingjin felt a wave of dizziness and experienced a strange sensation: hearing the sound of her bones cracking. In her hazy vision, her body was forced to fly forward a short distance, landing on her right shoulder and sliding along the ground for a short distance before finally collapsing against a clump of trees.
The shoulder bone cracked even more when Mingjin rolled on the ground.
The pain spread from his neck to his entire brain, rendering Mingjin unable to move on his own. He could still open his eyes, but one eye was pressed against the ground. Mingjin could only resist the pain that coursed through his body, pull up his eyelids, and open his right eye. Through his blurred vision, slick with cold sweat and tears from the pain, he looked down at the black figure walking towards him.
Although it was blurry, Mingjin could vaguely recognize who the person was by looking at the figure. The leisurely fan perfectly inherited its owner's temperament, and Mingjin immediately thought of the last person who was so proud, one of the three people who sat at the next table with them at the Gathering of the Forest.
The newcomer's displeasure extended beyond Ming Jin's line of sight. In such a short time, his two disciples—or rather, his works—had both been killed by the cultivators. Only then did Gong Sha turn his gaze to Ming Jin, who lay on the ground. He recognized him immediately; this was one of the lackeys of the two cultivators who had killed Jiang Duo in You Ran City.
"Why is it them again?" Gong Sha's facial muscles twitched slightly as he thought to himself, "Did something happen to the cultivators that I don't know about? Why are they coming to our door again? This person is still alive? I was just about to break her neck, but did I miss?"
Mingjin could no longer open her eyes, so she was forced to lie on the ground with her eyes closed. Then, with her last bit of free strength, she used magic to heal herself. However, the injuries to her shoulder, neck, and potentially head were too complex to be completely cured with her healing skills.
The footsteps were approaching, and she couldn't possibly make a difference with healing spells in such a short time.
Mingjin decided to give up and summoned Yazi, asking her to fetch reinforcements for him.
She was plunged into darkness, but could hear the ghostly footsteps drawing ever closer. Suddenly, Mingjin realized that it might be better not to send Yazai to find reinforcements. Otherwise, whoever came would likely find her still-dead body, so it was better to wait until she was completely cold before being discovered.
"Oh no, I feel like my heart is starting to die."
However, the footsteps suddenly disappeared. There was some movement, but Mingjin's hearing was very weak, and he could only detect some faint rustling sounds.
"Oh, so fast, who's here?"
Mingjin felt a hand on his neck, and then the pain disappeared instantly. Mingjin could feel his head again.
I miss you so much. My brain, which has been with me for over twenty years, is now separated from you for just a few short moments, and I miss you terribly.
Mingjin heard the sound of someone bending down to straighten clothes, so he frowned and tried to lift his eyelids.
She could still only open one eye, but thankfully the wound had healed and her vision had become much clearer. After opening her eye, she saw someone lying on the ground, facing her, with their eyes directly opposite her only open eye.
This person had no hair or beard; their hair was jet black, long, and soft, tied up in a bun on their head. Their forehead was clean, allowing Mingjin to clearly see their face. This was someone Mingjin had never seen before. Their appearance was unique, deserving the description "refined and handsome," but their prominent bone structure made it impossible for Mingjin to determine whether the person was male or female.
Seeing Mingjin open her eyes, the newcomer smiled. He tucked the stray hairs from Mingjin's forehead behind her ear, then gently rested his hand on the back of her head, before pressing his own forehead against hers. The other person's skin was cool; because of her injury, Mingjin felt her entire brain burning, perhaps that's why the other person seemed so cold.
See you later, I'll come find you.
The man pushed himself up from the ground with his hands, walked a few steps away, and then vanished into thin air.
"you……"
Who are you?
Her hearing returned to Mingjin, and she heard Yazi's voice. Her vision was blurred by sweat, but she could still see the shimmering silver light.
A familiar figure appeared behind Mingjin, following closely behind Yazi's urgent calls. He ran up to Mingjin and knelt down.
"Master Mu..."
After the first visitor left, the therapeutic effects also wore off, and pain once again overwhelmed Mingjin's mind, cold sweat covering her face. Then, she completely lost consciousness.
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