Chapter 34 Jiuyi City, No Return Mountain (18) You cried? You really...
Shi Xianxue had a bizarre dream.
In her dream, she returned to that village.
Every household had its doors wide open, but the once arrogant villagers were nowhere to be seen. The sun had set in the west, and countless crows dotted the landscape. A babbling brook surrounded the lifeless village.
Shi Xianxue found Wu Xiutang's house by relying on her memory.
She pushed open the gate, and what came into view was a row of neatly arranged earthenware pots at the base of the courtyard wall.
The dense array of brown earthenware pots immediately raised a layer of small bumps on Shi Xianxue's body. Her scalp tingled, and she instinctively felt that there was definitely nothing good inside.
Shi Xianxue was never one to act recklessly; she would run faster than a rabbit when danger struck. Her motto was that as long as she didn't turn back, danger would always be one step behind her. So she chose to pretend she hadn't seen anything and turn around and leave.
Suddenly, the earthenware pots seemed to grow legs and chased after her, making a clattering sound.
It felt like a swarm of four-legged insects chasing after her.
Shi Xianxue covered her head with both hands and let out a high-pitched scream like a groundhog. She screamed and desperately rushed towards the door, but the clay pot was obviously faster than her, and it really did grow four legs. In her despairing screams, it gracefully overtook her and ran towards the door.
Shi Xianxue's scream came to an abrupt halt.
No, that would make her seem like she's overreacting.
Those clay pot people ran even faster than her, seemingly avoiding something extremely terrifying, although Shi Xianxue believed there was nothing more terrifying than them.
Before she could even catch her breath, a loud bang rang out outside the door, and the next moment, all the clay pot figures were blasted into the air by an inexplicable force.
The earthenware pot exploded, and countless arms, legs, and heads fell like dumplings being dropped into a pot. Under Shi Xianxue's horrified gaze, a towering mountain of corpses and people piled up in the center of the courtyard.
When a person is in a state of extreme fear, their mind becomes exceptionally clear.
No wonder the whole village was so quiet; it turns out all the villagers were here.
After being dismembered, the head was placed in an earthenware jar. When movement was needed, the jar served as the torso, and the four limbs at the bottom acted as fulcrums, allowing the creature to crawl like a four-legged worm.
The stench of the rotting corpse made Shi Xianxue's eyes throb with pain. She held her breath and backed away step by step, afraid of being noticed by what was outside the door.
However, what you fear most is what happens most often.
Suddenly, a sinister, childish voice came from behind.
Are you curious about how they became like this?
Shi Xianxue was startled by the sudden sound behind her. She turned around trembling and saw a gaunt face in front of her that matched the image of Wu Xiutang from when she was a child.
He still looked like he hadn't grown up, his body thin and frail, as if a gust of wind could overturn him. His face was sunken, but his eyes were bright. He spoke as usual: "It was my master who did it. He said he was granting them eternal life."
Shi Xianxue felt a chill run down her spine.
The young boy, with his head down, seemed unaware of Shi Xianxue's gaze. He said calmly, "I'm next."
Was it him? Was he going to be stuffed into that earthenware jar too? Shi Xianxue tensed up instantly.
The young boy smiled shyly, then stood up and floated into the only intact earthenware pot like a ghost.
Shi Xianxue's vision suddenly darkened until she was completely swallowed by darkness, and she suddenly became a little short of breath.
Suddenly, a familiar bell struck her eardrums, and a beautiful silver butterfly, shimmering with tiny stardust, flew past her eyes.
The butterfly drifted aimlessly through the air, tracing a long, thin silver arc before finally landing a kiss on the boy's damp hair. A brief glimmer of light appeared ahead, and she saw the man easily lift the boy up and toss him onto the cold stone bed like trash.
Seemingly sensing what was about to happen to Wu Xiutang, Shi Xianxue hurriedly chased after him, but missed when she tried to grab the man's shoulder.
She was like a spirit without a physical body; no one but Wu Xiutang could see her, and naturally, she couldn't touch anything.
A profound sense of powerlessness welled up inside me.
Patches of sunlight streamed through the wooden windowpane and fell to the ground. The man began to slowly and methodically disassemble his bones, as if taking apart a toy.
One, two... Because his throat was blocked, the torture became silent and quiet. The boy trembled in pain, but could not make a sound.
The man's back was to the window, the shadow of which covered most of his face. He slowly and deliberately wielded the knife, his movements elegant and precise as he touched the boy's body.
Like an intimate caress, blood flowed inch by inch across the boy's chest, abdomen, and thighs, quickly forming a small, dripping spring that stained the entire stone bed crimson.
Shi Xianxue couldn't bear to look any longer.
After an unknown amount of time, a little tune suddenly began to play in the empty silence.
The melody is simple and light, like a lullaby to lull you to sleep, but the person humming it has a deep voice and a slow and suppressed rhythm, giving Shi Xianxue a sense of horror, like seeing a withered hand slowly emerging from under the bed and touching her back in the middle of the night.
It's less a melody and more a devil's murmur.
Shi Xianxue felt something was familiar, but before she could think about it, the image quickly swiped past her.
She saw the boy's bones, which had been removed, continue to grow at an astonishing rate. On every night he tried to stand up and walk, the boy's stubborn eyes and the overwhelming hatred deep within them made every hair on Shi Xianxue's body stand on end.
However, the man showed unprecedented patience in this matter, nipping it in the bud as soon as it grew back, and interrupting it immediately as soon as it stood up. The man took pleasure in this and tormented him tirelessly.
The young boy learned to endure endless torture and slaughter. He stopped struggling and would stare intently at the man's face every time his bones were removed and his flesh was cut, as if trying to etch the man's appearance deep into his soul.
It wasn't until the young boy began to use the Soul Transfer Technique, easily transferring the soul of a cat into a human body, that the man's gaze suddenly took on a deep and meaningful intensity.
On a snowy winter night, the young boy, like a fish out of water on a chopping board, was dissected alive by the man. His work became more meticulous as he picked out the spiritual veins brimming with spiritual power one by one, then lured the Gu worms into his belly, devouring the spiritual veins bit by bit.
Seemingly feeling that this was not enough to eliminate the problem completely, the man folded up the dying boy and stuffed him into an earthenware jar in the courtyard, his body twisted into a bizarre posture. The jar was filled with countless poisonous Gu worms. Only when there was no more spiritual energy fluctuation was he thrown out, lying silently on the ground like a dying hunting dog.
The torment, a hundred times more painful than broken bones and torn tendons, caused the boy to convulse uncontrollably. He clenched his teeth desperately, half of his face buried in the mud, seemingly without even the strength to hate, staring blankly in one direction.
As the spring rain subsided, the paulownia flowers bloomed in the spring tide, like the pure and flawless face of a young girl. Shi Xianxue stared at them blankly, but was no longer afraid.
She was just curious about how she had come to see these things. Wu Xiutang was such a proud person that he would never have deliberately led her to see these things... And was this Wu Xiutang's real illusion from the past, or just her own imagination?
Flowers bloom and fade, spring goes and winter comes. The young boy's bones and spiritual veins stubbornly regenerate like nettles, only to be extinguished by the man in bizarre and cruel ways, just as expected. Without spiritual veins, he is like a spine that has been removed, unable to control magical artifacts. His body becomes a sieve riddled with holes, and he can no longer gather spiritual energy to cultivate.
Shi Xianxue felt conflicted and couldn't quite describe her feelings.
So this is why his pain is more intense than that of ordinary people? Shi Xianxue recalled how he almost killed her that day and suddenly felt that it was somewhat understandable.
She knew that one of the elements of a villain's descent into darkness was childhood trauma, but this was still too much for her, a law-abiding young woman.
What deep-seated hatred could drive him to such a brutal attack on a child under ten years old, breaking bones, pulling tendons, and severing spiritual veins? He didn't see Wu Xiutang as a human being, but rather as a fun experiment for his amusement.
Is he purely a psychopath?
If Wu Xiutang is the villain, then his master is the villain among villains, whose methods are far too cruel and inhumane for such a young child.
Before I knew it, the screen had flipped several times.
The young boy discovered that there seemed to be a flame hidden inside him. At first, it was as ethereal as spring mist. When he tried to ignite the mist with his blood, the hazy mist turned into a black flame. So, when the man was about to break his bones again, he sacrificed half of his blood, burning through the man's chest.
The man disappeared, the boy was reborn, and the white kitten was placed into various bodies to follow him.
They stumbled and struggled their way up, growing up through countless near-death experiences.
When he encountered a powerful demon who had lived for thousands of years, he realized that his master, who had tormented him for so long, was actually so weak; simply burning his blood was enough to kill him.
The next moment, his spirit was expelled from his body, and like a butterfly fluttering among flowers encountering a wildfire, it quickly ignited and burned like wildfire.
While spiritual veins can regenerate through demonic bones, the soul cannot. Thus, the golden soul, riddled with holes like deep-sea coral, uncontrollably spread out behind Wu Xiutang.
The soul burned into the shape of unfolded golden butterfly wings. The boy closed his eyes tightly, his expression pained, and the yin-yang symbol intertwined and hooked out a tail in the golden ring on his forehead.
This is the reason why his soul is incomplete. If he continues like this, he will soon exhaust his spiritual energy and die.
Whether he had any independent thought or not, she found herself unable to remain indifferent.
So she walked toward him, and even though she knew she couldn't touch anything, she still chose to gently touch that flame-like spirit. The scorching heat burned in her palm like a furnace.
Her delicate brows furrowed in pain, and she instinctively tried to pull back, but the flames seemed to come alive, tightly binding her wrist and preventing her from breaking free. She screamed in agony, "Wu Xiutang, let me go! It hurts so much!"
The boy, who had kept his eyes closed, suddenly opened them. The moment his eyes met the golden pupils, Shi Xianxue felt a sudden burning sensation at her fingertips. Golden flames spread from her fingertips to her forearms until her entire body was engulfed in flames, and her bones felt like they were about to be burned through.
Shi Xianxue was in so much pain that tears streamed down her face, but she knew that if he continued like this, she would be burned to ashes. So the next second, she cupped the boy's face in her hands and bravely looked into those golden eyes. "Wu Xiutang, if you don't wake up, I'm going to kiss you, a French kiss, you know!"
The boy looked at her quietly with his eyelashes lowered, but perhaps because Shi Xianxue was too close, or perhaps because he had never seen such a shameless person, a few indescribable fluctuations suddenly appeared in the boy's golden pupils, and some of his pain was taken away.
Because of the height difference, the boy lowered his head slightly, and his hot lips gently brushed against Shi Xianxue's mouth.
Caught off guard by the sneak attack, Shi Xianxue blushed instantly. Suspecting that Wu Xiutang was faking it, she was about to withdraw her hand from her face when the boy suddenly blinked. The gold in the depths of his pupils was like honey shimmering in the sunlight. In the moment Shi Xianxue was stunned, something crystal clear fell and melted into her palm, turning into water vapor that vanished in an instant.
It was so fast that she could hardly keep up with it.
Was he...was he crying?
It's really hard to associate the word "crying" with Wu Xiutang. Shi Xianxue's crow-shaped emoji says: "You cried? You really cried?"
That's really strange.
But Wu Xiutang seemed not to hear her. The blackness in his eyes gradually rose, suppressing the cold gold. His breaths were rapid and intertwined. He stared at her, then suddenly buried his face in her neck, his eyelashes sweeping across the skin of her neck like raven feathers.
It was so itchy that Shi Xianxue could only let her arms hang down at her sides, grabbing the hem of his clothes.
She heard Wu Xiutang's indistinct, painful murmur: "Shi Xianxue, I'm in so much pain."
It sounds like she's being coquettish.
She was surprised and coughed twice, about to say something to comfort him, when she heard the boy buried in her neck speak softly: "I want to kill you, Shi Xianxue."
Hmm? No, bro, is there some necessary connection between these two things?
Wouldn't he feel pain if he killed himself? She went to great lengths to save him, and this is how he repays her? What a heartless ingrate!
Shi Xianxue's pity vanished instantly, as the boy around her neck continued to murmur devilishly, "I'll kill you, I'm going to kill you."
She could hardly believe that Wu Xiutang's hatred for her had reached such a profound level that, in a dream or an illusion, he was still obsessed with killing her.
He has his own consciousness, doesn't he?
The golden butterfly's wings fluttered a few times and began to shrink, and the burning flames also weakened.
She paused for a moment, then moved her hand up and tentatively patted his trembling back. "Alright, alright, I'll kill him then, but can you let me choose how I die?"
The boy gave a muffled "hmm".
Shi Xianxue chuckled and whispered something in his ear.
The boy buried his face even deeper into the ground, his ears turning red. He forced out a few words through gritted teeth, trying to suppress his shame: "Pervert."
Shi Xianxue hugged him wholeheartedly, tiptoed and nuzzled his neck, a few strands of hair brushing against her lips.
The boy's body gradually calmed down under Shi Xianxue's comforting words, and the unbearable burning temperature also subsided.
In the midst of complete silence, Shi Xianxue asked rather inopportunely, "Were you really crying just now?"
"Hehehe, I've never seen you cry before. Could you cry in front of me just once, just for a moment? I promise I won't tell anyone."
The boy's body was as stiff as a stone.
"Alright then, that's a bit much to ask." After not getting a response for a long time, Shi Xianxue compromised and said, "Then can I touch your butt? I've really wanted to touch it for a long time."
This is a dream, not reality; her wish must come true.
As Shi Xianxue spoke, her hand slowly slid down to find a point of leverage, then squeezed hard, before she even had time to savor the sensation.
With a whoosh, as if someone had poured a bucket of gasoline over her head, flames, like tentacles, wrapped around the hem of Shi Xianxue's clothes, and the burning pain was like a volcanic eruption.
Just a second before she fainted, Shi Xianxue was thinking, "This guy is truly the number one male virtue in the world."
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Author's Note: Wu, Pure and Immaculate, Xiu, Pure and Desirable, Tang
Teacher, audacious and lewd, first, wants to be aroused by the snow.
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