Chapter 16 of the original text: "What...did you just call me?"
The voice appeared in Shen Cangyu's mind, and she thought she was hallucinating.
Then, she felt as if something had grown in her brain. She looked closely and saw a green-glowing frame filled with dense text.
Blood dripped from his fingertips, blooming into red plum blossoms on the snow.
Several disciples of the immortal sect lay sprawled at his feet, their faces contorted and eyes bulging, as if they had seen the most terrifying thing before they died.
Their souls had been drained, leaving only empty shells, like cicada molts that had been hollowed out.
He crouched down, grabbed one of the men by the hair, and examined the stiff, distorted face.
"Didn't you all look down on ugly people?" he chuckled, his voice hoarse like sandpaper scraping. "Now, who's uglier?"
What is that? What ugly thing?
Shen Cangyu looked at the words in the green frame, his face showing an indescribable expression.
She must be out of her mind to suddenly see something like that. She forcibly pulled her attention away from the green frame and looked back at her side.
Xu Qiubai looked at the yin-yang fish surrounding Pei Wenjing, quickly made hand seals, and chanted, "Divine movement and intention transformation."
His voice changed tone, and Shen Cangyu guessed that the Xu Qiubai at this moment was not Xu Qiubai, but the Heavenly Fragrance Goddess above him. She had sought divination at the Incense Hall many times in the past, but this was the first time she had truly seen the Heavenly Fragrance Goddess. However, in the current situation, she had no time to think about anything else.
White smoke rose from beneath their feet, enveloping them. Shen Cangyu felt the stone slabs beneath her feet soften, as if they had become as soft as cotton. The surrounding scenery kept changing, and she knew that Xu Qiubai was leading them to change locations.
The white smoke beneath her feet dissipated, and the scene around her reappeared. She saw a mountain of blood-red corpses, their blood melting into the snow and turning into hard ice. The stench was overwhelming and made her nauseous.
In the distance from the mountain of corpses, she saw a strange man with a long tongue.
No, he can't even be called a "person".
The demonic cultivator had a face covered in bumps and bizarre limbs. He was grabbing the head of one of the corpses and licking it with his long tongue, looking terrifying.
When Shen Cangyu saw him, she suddenly remembered the words she had just seen in the green box, and the scene in front of her matched the words in the green box.
Could it be that the person in front of me is the demonic cultivator described in the text?
When the demonic cultivator saw the three people who suddenly appeared, he was stunned for a moment, but he quickly came to his senses, and an excited expression appeared on his face as he pounced on them.
Xu Qiubai raised his sword and thrust it at him, but the blade seemed to cut through the mist. Even Pei Wenjing's mental techniques passed through his body and could not harm him in the slightest.
The demonic cultivator raised his hand and grabbed Xu Qiubai's arm.
Xu Qiubai tried to back away, but his sleeve was torn off, along with half of his arm, leaving it ripped open.
He frowned as he looked at his arm. White smoke enveloped his wound, and it quickly healed completely.
The demonic cultivator said excitedly, "I am a soul, you are a human, you can't hit me."
His smug tone was very arrogant.
Upon hearing his words, Shen Cangyu guessed his identity.
Legend has it that some demonic cultivators destroy their physical bodies, leaving only their souls, to cultivate their souls in the hopes of ascending to immortality. These demonic cultivators feed on the souls of others to strengthen their own. Could this demonic cultivator before me be one of those?
No sooner had the demonic cultivator finished speaking than Pei Wenjing leaped up and kicked him in the face. Pei Wenjing's robes billowed, creating a gust of wind that sent the demonic cultivator flying.
The demonic cultivator was sent flying backward, scraping a deep crater in the snow. He rolled a few times before landing on the ground, staring at Pei Wenjing in astonishment: "How is this possible? How did you manage to bump into me?"
Sensing the aura emanating from Pei Wenjing, he tilted his head and asked in confusion, "Wait... why do you have an aura of death on you? You're not alive!"
Pei Wenjing had just inherited the Tai Chi Daoist arts and could only alter his own Yin-Yang state, relying on this to launch physical attacks against the demonic cultivators. Fortunately, in the years he had spent in Kunlun, in addition to mental techniques, he had also learned a lot of martial arts, which gave him the upper hand when fighting against the demonic cultivators.
The demonic cultivator was forced to flee in a sorry state, realizing that this couldn't continue. Suddenly, he pulled a clump of white divine soul from his pocket and crushed it. As the divine soul dispersed, he revealed a dazed expression, his pimples rolling, and his power greatly increased.
Sensing the familiar aura emanating from the soul he had crushed, Pei Wenjing's face darkened.
The demonic cultivator suddenly increased his speed, and Pei Wenjing was unable to defend himself. He was nearly hit several times, and the wounds on his body increased.
Shen Cangyu snatched the sword from Xu Qiubai's hand and launched several sword attacks at the demonic cultivator, but neither Xu Qiubai nor her attacks could harm the demonic cultivator; they could only distract him for a moment.
Suddenly, Shen Cangyu said, "He is a yin spirit. Try using the Yin-Yang Reversal Technique."
Pei Wenjing glanced at her, then closed his eyes, the surrounding atmosphere shifting.
Upon hearing Shen Cangyu's voice, the demonic cultivators changed their target and pounced on Shen Cangyu.
Shen Cangyu made a hand seal: "Feng Xu Riding the Wind!" and flew out of his attack range.
She had seen Xu Qiubai use the "Wind Control" technique once and remembered his hand gestures. Before that, she had secretly tried it several times, but had never been able to use it.
Different mental techniques require different skills to use, and without guidance, one can only rely on their own understanding to gradually figure it out.
Shen Cangyu thought it would take her a long time to figure out this mental technique, but unexpectedly, she managed to release it successfully at this critical moment.
"Heavenly Thunder." Several paper talismans dissolved, and blue-purple lightning rushed towards the demonic cultivator, enveloping him and forcibly forcing him away.
"So annoying!" the demonic cultivator yelled amidst the lightning, suddenly raising his hand to grab his head, his fingers digging into his forehead.
Seeing this scene, Shen Cangyu couldn't help but shudder, remembering her own death in her previous life.
A hole appeared in the demonic cultivator's forehead, from which countless vengeful spirits emerged, carrying a dense aura of death that gradually enveloped them.
Xu Qiu raised his hand, and white smoke swirled around them, forming a barrier. The ghosts crashed straight into the barrier, but it remained unmoved, firmly protecting them within.
Xu Qiubai said, "As long as these three incense sticks are still burning, I am invincible, but once the incense goes out, I will be unable to protect you. We must find his weakness as soon as possible."
Pei Wenjing didn't speak, but kept throwing paper talismans at the demonic cultivator, trying to exhaust his energy. The paper talismans were mental techniques he had accumulated and sealed inside paper, and their effects were the same as ordinary mental techniques, but the number of paper talismans was limited, and sooner or later they would run out.
However, the energy stored in his inner core is no longer sufficient to support him in continuously using his mental techniques.
Shen Cangyu's attention returned to his mind, and he looked at the text on the green frame. Only one part of the text on the green frame was clear; the rest was as if it were covered by fog, and he could not see what was written on it.
But even just the section of text that she could clearly read, scrolling down from top to bottom, would take her quite a while to read, because most of it consisted of useless descriptions of scenery and expressions. She would have to sift through it to find out which parts were useful information and which were just useless nonsense.
Shen Cangyu read ten lines at a glance, his eyes quickly scanning the text before finally settling on a single word.
fire.
She shouted to Pei Wenjing, "Senior Brother, use fire!"
Pei Wenjing threw out the last few paper talismans with the power of the Ninefold Fire, and the flames swept towards the nearby ghosts, but the effect was minimal.
"It's no use."
"Use the Tao method!"
Their voices rang out simultaneously.
“The Taiji gives rise to the Yin and Yang, the Yin and Yang give rise to the Four Symbols, and the Four Symbols give rise to the Eight Trigrams.”① Shen Cangyu said quickly.
Pei Wenjing paused, a series of deductions flashing through his mind. He said, "Li represents fire."
A burst of fire shot into the sky, scorching outwards, engulfing the spirits and melting them.
Not enough, still not enough...
Seeing the surrounding Yin spirits engulfed in the fire, the demonic cultivator turned to flee. Pei Wenjing burned the energy in his inner core to its maximum intensity, releasing all the flames to bite behind him, trying to stop him.
At that moment, Shen Cangyu's voice rang out beside him: "Feng Xu Yu Feng!"
A gust of wind whipped up the flames, which crashed towards the demonic cultivator with the force of a wildfire.
The flames burned relentlessly, trapping him within and growing ever more intense.
【bite】
A crisp sound rang in Shen Cangyu's mind, and the green frame in her mind vibrated and automatically rolled upwards.
A piece of text that was originally blurry gradually became clear.
Many years ago, he was just the son of an ordinary woodcutter, born with a large bluish-black birthmark covering half of his face.
The village children screamed and ran away when they saw him, while the adults frowned and spat on the ground: "Bad luck!"
His father would beat him when he was drunk, calling him a "ghost-faced plague god." His mother died early, and no one protected him. Later, when a famine struck the village, someone started saying that the disaster was brought by his face.
That night, the villagers rushed into his house with torches, beat his father to death, tied him up, and were about to throw him into the deep mountains to be eaten by wolves.
He fled, covered in wounds, stumbling and disappearing into the depths of the dense forest.
He hadn't eaten for three days, and was so hungry he was seeing stars. He collapsed in a dilapidated temple, waiting to die. A traveling merchant who was taking shelter from the snow in the temple saw his horrifying appearance and grabbed a stick to beat him.
He didn't know where he got the strength, but he lunged forward and grabbed the other person's throat.
A warm current instantly spread throughout his body, the hunger disappeared, and even the old wounds on his body no longer hurt.
He stared at his hands, trembling all over.
So it turns out... people can be eaten.
Suddenly, a voice rang in his ears: "From now on, you are you, others are you, and everyone in the world is you."
He could improve his cultivation by eating people, and he gained the ability to take revenge on all those he hated.
Shen Cangyu sensed an indescribable sadness from the words, and she couldn't help but clutch her heart.
Something's not right...
Her feelings while reading this passage were very different from the previous one. When she read the previous passage, she only felt dizzy and lightheaded. But when she read this passage, she felt as if her soul had been pulled into that green frame, and she had become that demonic cultivator whom everyone hated.
Her mind swung back and forth between the reader and the character, and she suddenly realized that words could also convey pain.
Shen Cangyu forcibly pulled her thoughts back from the green frame. At this moment, the energy within her body was chaotic, a side effect of forcibly using a large amount of mental techniques. She was already used to it, and she suppressed the chaotic energy within her body.
Pei Wenjing, who was beside her, stumbled forward before her, but she caught him quickly.
But she overestimated her arm strength and her current condition.
Shen Cangyu felt a sudden weight on her, causing her to stumble and fall to the side. She saw stars and felt a heavy weight on her. Pei Wenjing's breath fell on the crook of her neck. Just as she was about to push him up, she heard him whisper in her ear, "What...did you just call me?"
Senior Brother...
She turned her head to look, but his eyes were closed, and he had fainted.
A note from the author:
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