"We have a long time ahead of us..."
The wind and snow in the mountains gradually subsided.
Yan Huanyue's body had been covered in snow for a long time, and she used a magic technique to suppress her breathing, making it cool to prevent exhaling white mist.
She sat motionless in the same spot, looking down at the silver-clad, withered trees not far away, where Fu Yinhuan appeared and disappeared intermittently.
The dark figure was gradually approaching the snow-covered ravine where he had been stabbed in the shoulder and buried by snow.
The string of copper coins and other metal objects tied to Lu Shenchu's waist with a red rope was making a series of crisp clinking sounds, which were also carried on the wind and lingered in the vast wilderness.
If Yan Huanyue could hear it, Fu Yinhuan must have heard it too. He clearly knew someone was following him, but for some reason, he didn't turn around to find the source of the sound.
Lu Shenchu made no attempt to conceal his tracks, leaning on his wooden cane and following the compass, getting closer and closer to the leisurely strolling Fu Yinhuan.
Not far behind Lu Shenchu, who had not noticed, Tan Guiyi deliberately hid behind a tree, constantly concealing her movements, and quietly approached like a flying catkin.
Just as Lu Shenchu turned past a thick old tree, he was facing Fu Yinhuan's back. He quickened his pace and caught up with her.
But the next moment, Yan Huanyue saw Tan Guiyi, who was right behind her, leap onto the old tree and look in the direction of Fu Yinhuan and Lu Shenchu.
After observing for a moment, Tan Guiyi threw a small object at Fu Yinhuan's back before quickly fleeing back into the withered forest.
The object she threw grazed Lu Shenchu's cheek and flew rapidly toward Fu Yinhuan.
Only when the thing got close to Fu Yinhuan did he turn around and look behind him.
He must have recognized Lu Shenchu and assumed it was an attack launched by Lu Shenchu, so he stood calmly with his hands behind his back, quietly watching the small, round black object approach him.
When the object turned around and lay horizontally in the wind as it sped forward, Yan Huanyue could see clearly that it was a copper coin that was round on the outside and square on the inside.
But it was only for a moment. The copper coin hit Fu Yinhuan in the chest. The composed Fu Yinhuan was suddenly knocked back several steps and coughed up two mouthfuls of blood.
In the cold wind, Fu Yinhuan stopped and wiped the blood from her lips with her long fingers.
His blood-stained fingers gently gripped the copper coin. His face was grim as he looked at Lu Shenchu, who was struggling to catch up, as if he were a dead man. "You think you can fight me again?"
Lu Shenchu, his hair disheveled, looked around, wondering who was secretly helping him. Unable to contain his laughter, he shouted, his face half-covered in blood:
“You could have easily dodged it, but you insisted on pretending. Whose fault is it? Did you think you could still break the copper coins with your spiritual power? Although these are my money, I didn’t throw them. Fu Yinhuan, this only proves that you have committed many evils and made countless enemies.”
Fu Yinhuan didn't believe him and sneered, "Your relentless pursuit has ruined my plans. I lured you here originally intending to spare your life and use you for my own purposes..."
Suddenly, he summoned his longsword and swung it at Lu Shenchu. The sword energy slashed horizontally, stirring up a flurry of snow that shattered the bare branches along the way. In an instant, the scene was filled with chaotic snowflakes, making it impossible to see anything.
Lu Shenchu barely managed to dodge using the Qiankun Step, but his arm was still slashed by the sword energy.
Snow and wood chips were scattered everywhere, obstructing his vision. He could only retreat as quickly as possible using his footwork, trying to step out of the range of the sword energy.
Amidst the chaotic snow, Fu Yinhuan made a hand seal with one hand, her eyes fierce, and with one foot on the snow, she slid into the snow at lightning speed, like a black aura of malevolence.
As the gleaming sword tip was about to touch Lu Shenchu's neck, Fu Yinhuan showed no sign of the satisfaction of impending success.
When it comes to murder, as long as the other person is still alive, one has no right to waste emotions beforehand.
Tan Guiyi, perched on an old tree, watched from afar the visible outcome of the snowstorm.
She couldn't help but clench a handful of cold snow in her palm to cool down her fever, which was rising too high due to nervousness and excitement.
She unintentionally caught up with this rogue cultivator from the Xuanjiang sect. She had only come to see why, after this Xuanjiang cultivator led them to the old house and used so many paper figures, the attack seemed to be targeting Fu Yinhuan in the end.
Fu Yinhuan has never killed anyone, at least not in the time she knows.
She was just testing Fu Yinhuan to see what she would be like if she and Yu Zhao weren't there.
In this light, he is neither a hypocrite nor a foolish saint with a woman's heart.
Faced with the repeated attacks, he also displayed a ruthless side, drawing his sword to strike.
Judging from his cultivation level and methods, he's truly a fine sword.
It's been so long, but I still haven't truly tamed him, and I don't know how to truly control him.
Another thing is that she didn't expect that the copper coin she picked up from the Xuanjiang rogue cultivator in the chaos would have such great power, easily causing Fu Yinhuan to vomit blood.
If she were to appear now, it wouldn't be appropriate for her to ask Fu Yinhuan for a share of the Xuanjiang rogue cultivator's belongings...
He immediately regretted not having secretly robbed the rogue cultivator first.
Suddenly, her eyes widened, filled with shock.
Fu Yinhuan's sword should have pierced Lu Shenchu's neck without any doubt, bringing a magnificent bloom to the snow on this desolate mountain.
Although Yan Huanyue knew that there was no blood on the mountain at that time, and that only Fu Yinhuan was buried in the snow, she still couldn't help but make hand seals to prepare to activate the evil-killing array.
In the blink of an eye, a wisp of white mist floated out from between the eyebrows of the paper figure behind Lu Shenchu. At the critical moment, it grabbed Lu Shenchu's arm, floated into the air, and threw him into the snowdrift.
Like flowing smoke, it swept along the long sword and tightly gripped Fu Yinhuan's neck.
Lu Shenchu rolled around in the snow twice, falling and getting bruised and swollen. He couldn't help but say angrily, "Couldn't you have been a little gentler? I almost broke my arm!"
Fu Yinhuan frantically made hand seals to tear through the white smoke, only to find that the demon soul seemed fairly normal. After examining it, she discovered that it was quite weak, just a small demon, not difficult to subdue.
It's true that even a rogue cultivator with no prestigious title can't summon a powerful demon.
These thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant. He gripped the hilt of his sword, channeled his spiritual power into it, and leaped forward to cleave the white smoke in two.
The white smoke rose leisurely, and Fu Yinhuan suddenly felt a chill in his heart. Before he could react, a slight breeze blew out from the white smoke in front of him and blew straight towards his brow.
Even though Fu Yinhuan reacted quickly and dodged, she was still cut on the neck by the faint wind. Blood spurted out and fell onto the snow, melting into one bloody hole after another.
To Tan Guiyi and Yan Huanyue, who was further away, it appeared as if Fu Yinhuan's neck had been suddenly slashed out of thin air. In an instant, two streams of blood, steaming in the cold wind, flowed from his shoulder blades.
Fu Yinhuan froze, then suddenly fell into the ravine, creating a snow crater.
The sight of blood gushing out without any indication of how the injury was caused sent a chill down Yan Huanyue's spine.
The voice of the white smoke drifted faintly, "I gave you that life-risking money, and you actually spent ten years of your life just to use the Crying Spirit Blade. You really are willing to spend it."
Lu Shenchu, who stumbled and struggled to his feet while leaning on a tree, exclaimed in surprise, "Huh? What Crying Spirit Blade? I didn't use the copper coins either. They must have been lost and picked up and used by the fellow Daoist who helped me earlier. Little Immortal, please return my lifespan. Just take ten years of my lifespan."
The white smoke drifted in mid-air and said casually, "Repay? You've already used the Crying Spirit Blade, how can you repay? They treated you like a human sacrifice, and you still want to pay with your lifespan? Hurry up and go down the mountain."
As they were talking, the white smoke suddenly disappeared into the paper figure, whether it vanished or hid inside waiting for an opportunity was unknown.
Tan Guiyi, who was lying on the tree, had a pale face. Her hands, which were gripping the tree trunk, were so clenched that they bled, but she didn’t even realize it.
The traitor of the Xuanjiang faction is most skilled at using objects to buy life.
This is too insidious and unpredictable, and one can easily harm oneself if one is not careful. Moreover, it does not have the foundation for becoming an immortal. Therefore, she has never thought of practicing the Xuanjiang technique, nor does she like to deal with the Xuanjiang lineage.
Unexpectedly...
My father always told me from a young age that I should never touch anything from the Xuanjiang lineage, and never offend them. I never imagined that it would all come down to just a copper coin...
It was just a copper coin that fell hastily, without any trace of magical incantation; she simply tossed it around, and it sold ten years of her lifespan...
Ten years of life...
ten years......
These words reverberated in her mind, making her ears ring and her vision blur.
After Lu Shenchu went to investigate Fu Yinhuan and left, Yan Huanyue watched as Tan Guiyi on the tree suddenly lost her strength and fell from the branches where she was hiding.
With a loud thud, he fell solidly, lying face down in the snow, motionless.
As dusk approached and snow began to fall again, she slowly got up and staggered toward Fu Yinhuan.
She checked Fu Yinhuan's breath, paused for a moment, then turned him over and began searching his treasure pouch and other items.
After rummaging through the things, I got up to leave.
Seeing this, Yan Huanyue realized that this was probably how Fu Yinhuan was buried alone in the snow in her previous life.
But Yan Huanyue also wanted to take Fu Yinhuan's things. Even with her cultivation level, the formation she set up might not be able to completely subdue Tan Guiyi.
However, if Tan Guiyi were to force her way through, it wouldn't be impossible for her to be seriously injured. But today's formation is designed to allow her to risk her life to seriously injure Fu Yinhuan and kill her if things go wrong.
Today, Fu Yinhuan lay there waiting for her, hoping that after the heavy blow Tan Guiyi suffered today, she would cherish her life and leave as soon as possible.
Yan Huanyue snapped the spell she had been holding on her fingertips, and Tan Guiyi, who had just climbed up the ravine, was instantly slammed into the depths of the ravine by a powerful force, splashing up a cloud of snow.
With a loud thud, Tan Guiyi lay in a deep snow pit, a trickle of blood oozing from the corner of her mouth, coughing incessantly while covering her mouth.
Tan Guiyi originally thought she was the last one hiding, but she didn't expect that there were still people hiding here.
The snowy dusk was particularly desolate and cold. She climbed up from the depths of the mountain valley and looked up at the vast mountains.
"I wonder which fellow Daoist has set up this formation? I have no intention of disturbing you today. Please tell me your request."
In the misty mountains, a deep voice drifted intermittently on the wind, "Please do me the favor of picking up what is rightfully mine, fellow Daoist."
The voice sounded strange; it was unclear whether it was male or female.
A hunter hiding deep inside, setting up a trap and waiting for his prey to jump in—ha, what right does he have? He's just trying to take advantage of the situation.
Even if they hadn't died here with her, and were instead picking up her belongings, their cultivation level probably wouldn't have been a match for hers.
Tan Guiyi, having already lost ten years of her lifespan, was somewhat dazed and didn't want to waste any more of her life. She left Fu Yinhuan's belongings in the snow pit and tried to climb up the mountain pass.
This time, they were not stopped.
Covered in wind and snow, Tan Guiyi sped away without looking back as dusk deepened.
Snowflakes fell softly from the steep mountain rocks.
After waiting for a long time, Yan Huanyue stood up, made a hand seal, and her misty pink dress, which was originally soaked by snow, suddenly fluttered like smoke and clouds.
She tiptoed lightly and glided gracefully down the mountainside, skimming over the bare treetops, which had been weakened and dried by the north wind, before landing in the ravine where Fu Yinhuan was.
She had found Fu Yinhuan here before.
However, she still had a question in her mind: Fu Yinhuan was still alive, so why did Lu Shenchu leave like this, and why did Tan Guiyi not care at all?
She bent down and pressed her icy index finger against Fu Yinhuan's already slightly cold neck.
There is no pulse.
She wasn't surprised and withdrew her hand to put all the things Tan Guiyi had taken from Fu Yinhuan into her treasure pouch.
He took out the small wooden box, about the size of a palm, that he had obtained from the divine messenger's servant, grabbed Fu Yinhuan, and casually tossed it inside.
The fat mouse, who was lying in the box gnawing on wood and grinding its teeth, twitched its whiskers in contentment, startled by the sudden appearance of the enormous creature and the chill that made it uncomfortable.
"Squeak squeak squeak... squeak squeak squeak..."
Yan Huanyue poured in a handful of rice and said, "You can't eat his flesh. I'll let you out and give you your freedom next spring when it warms up."
The fat mouse darted to the pile of rice and wolfed it down, its whiskers twitching. There was an endless supply of food here, and it was incredibly unrestrained.
.
During the period of faking his death, Fu Yinhuan had a very long dream. The dream seemed both real and illusory. He quietly watched everything in the dream, as if he were experiencing it himself, or as if he was just observing it.
In the midst of this heavy snow, after regaining his senses, the first person he saw was Yu Zhao's young fiancée.
On a snowy day, she was wearing a misty pink dress and asking an old man passing by how much it would cost to take people back to the city in an oxcart.
When she turned around unintentionally, she saw him slightly open his eyes, so she immediately ran over and asked, "Fellow Daoist Fu, you're awake? How are you feeling?"
He blinked weakly, and she said with a hint of guilt:
"I'm so sorry, I used some spiritual energy to warm your body and barely managed to take you down the mountain. My cultivation is not good enough, and I can no longer carry people on my sword... But this old man is willing to take us back to the city, so don't worry."
She bent down and helped him up, and his still somewhat cold hands gripped hers tightly.
The wind and snow made the oxcart even colder. He leaned against a pile of cabbages, which were covered by straw mats, but he wasn't.
The little girl took a thick coat from her treasure pouch and draped it over him. She walked beside the carriage and whispered that everyone was worried about him and had been looking for him. She would ask him every now and then if he was still in pain.
But he kept thinking, Yu Zhao doesn't actually like you...
However, the art of faking death and exchanging lives always has some flaws that are difficult to remedy.
He had never thought that the memory loss after waking up for just one day was a major oversight or would have a significant impact.
Later, he forgot the flutter in his heart at that moment, and the softening of his heartstrings that day.
But in the end, I realized that a person's true feelings are really related to chance; forgetting for a moment may mean forgetting a lot.
Especially since he was not a good person.
He knew perfectly well that good people, whether he liked them or not, would never harm him, while evil people, he could treat kindly if he liked them, but if he didn't like them, he would still torment them even if he were given a life.
The next day, Yu Zhaoli stood by his bedside and said, "We were all very worried when you disappeared. Guiyi kept looking for you, going out in the heavy snow day and night and refusing to come back."
“Don’t let Gui Yi’s usual cheerful personality fool you. She’s been secretly crying every day these past few days. We searched the whole neighborhood, and in the end, my junior sister brought you back on her way.”
He looked up and saw that wisp of pink standing alone under the south window not far away, bathed in the warm winter sun, giving him a bright smile.
In that instant, Fu Yinhuan thought, "I heard you have a pure spirit body. Now that most of my cultivation has been destroyed, since you can save me once, then save me a second time."
This is teaching her how treacherous the world is; charging her a small fee is really not unreasonable...
.
"woke up?"
Fu Yinhuan opened his eyes and looked at the person before him. Two worlds intertwined, and he suddenly felt a little dazed. He softly called out, "Huanyue..."
He was slapped hard across the face and fell to the side, his forehead hitting the black wooden wall carved with strange runes, and a trickle of blood slid down his cheek.
"Tell me, where did you steal the lives from those three life bottles in your treasure pouch?"
Yan Huanyue watched as Fu Yinhuan shakily propped herself up against the wall and sat up again, the chains on her limbs rattling slightly.
He looked down at his half-open clothes and saw that on one side of his ribs, on the white bone, flesh buds were slowly wriggling and repairing themselves.
He looked up and said, "You wanted to torture me, torturing my body by a thousand cuts, why didn't you wait until I woke up?"
Yan Huanyue shooed away the fat mouse that had crawled to her feet and was squeaking around, smiled slightly, and said:
"Let's test the knife, let's test the medicine. After all, we still need to use your flesh to make medicine, and then feed it to you so that you can live a little longer, and I can live a little longer by being skinned alive. We have a long time ahead of us, so don't be in a hurry."
He stared at her, his thin lips moving slightly, and murmured softly, "We... still have a long time ahead of us..."
.
In the room filled with the smell of medicine, Lu Shenchu lay on the table, laughing loudly at the paper figure on it:
"I knew you didn't have any copper coins to give me ten years of lifespan. Those were copper coins that urgently summoned you to save my life. So you're quite the liar, little immortal. With just one sentence from you, that person will probably have to carry this shadow for the rest of their life."
The paper figure remained silent.
Lu Shenchu then asked, "Little Immortal, how come you have so much time to help me with my spiritual inquiries now? Didn't you only respond to spirits three times a month when the sky darkens?"
-----------------------
Author's Note: Thank you to all the little angels who voted for me or watered my plants with nutrient solution between 23:36:03 on 2023-11-16 and 00:41:34!
Thank you to the little angel who threw the landmine: 1 weak and pitiful one;
Thank you to the little angels who watered the nutrient solution: MaiMai is so cute 20 bottles; Did you think seriously today? 10 bottles; SangSangNa and JiaYue 5 bottles; ZhuYu and ChengZi 3 bottles; HuiDuDu 2 bottles; Little Rabbit ZaiZhi wish fulfilled, Another day of looking for books, All things must have fruit, A little cutie, TaoTao wants to sleep early, Heart, ZhouMan's sword bone, Curry Curry Curry, NanNan, Late procrastinator 1 bottle;
Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
