The empty city was destroyed (18)
"Huh?" Wu Yue looked at the puppet, whose front and back were indistinguishable, with a strange expression. "Is it really a wooden figure?"
"Otherwise what? Do you think we're lying to you?"
"Tsk." Wu Yue rolled her eyes, clearly having been right about Gu Wusi.
"I see now, this is your attitude," Gu Wusi sneered. "Then what's there to talk about?"
"Don't rush, she may not trust you, but I do," Ye Yingying quickly stepped forward and teased. "It's our job to talk anyway."
Gu Wusi didn't speak, but glanced at Ye Yingying with a cold expression, completely devoid of the carefree smile he had shown earlier.
Ye Yingying saw this but wasn't in a hurry to find out why she was like this. Instead, she asked, "I heard you also want to kill the Ghost Calculator?"
Gu Wusi raised an eyebrow: "So what if I am? Do you think I would cooperate with you?"
“Cooperation isn’t a bad thing. Doesn’t Brother Shaoling also want us to cooperate?” Ye Yingying brought up Shaoling to persuade him, and Gu Wusi’s expression clearly softened.
So Ye Yingying continued, "Speaking of which, I haven't greeted Brother Shaoling yet, he..."
Ye Yingying hesitated, because she suddenly realized that the wooden figure was still lying motionless on the ground, which was very strange. Did it really have a soul inside?
Just then, the talismans on the wooden figure slipped off, followed by a creaking sound, as if it were trying to move its clumsy limbs.
Hearing the noise, Gu Wusi sighed, bent down, grabbed the wooden figure's two arms, and lifted it off the ground.
The wooden figure was quite crudely made; apart from the necessary limbs and joints, it didn't even have a face. But as it stood upright, it slowly raised an arm towards Ye Yingying and the others, as if to greet them.
The scene was so bizarre that it caused everyone to fall silent.
Gu Wusi had expected this to happen, and stared at the wooden figure with the look of someone looking at an idiot: "How many times have I told you, they won't appreciate it."
The wooden figure couldn't speak, but stubbornly maintained the raised hand posture.
Ye Yingying snapped out of her daze and tentatively asked him, "Brother Shaoling?"
The wooden figure, having received a response, slowly lowered its arms and then remained motionless once more.
It looked too clumsy and couldn't be connected at all with the lively boy I remembered.
Ye Yingying couldn't help but complain, "Did the fortune teller make this body for him? Has that old man's skill gotten so bad?"
"If you're so capable, say that to his face. Saying it to me won't do you any good." Gu Wusi crossed his arms, his gaze gloomy.
She knew in her heart that this puppet was merely a vessel for the soul and did not need to do anything else. Given her cunning nature, the fact that she was willing to add arms and legs to this puppet was already the limit.
Thinking of this, Gu Wusi unconsciously clenched his arms.
“I’d like to confront him directly, which is why I’ve come to you for a collaboration.” Ye Yingying extended an invitation to her again, “How about it? Consider it for Brother Shaoling’s sake.”
Gu Wusi glanced at her, remaining silent, while the wooden figure beside her also stood quietly.
The two appeared to be not exchanging anything, but Gu Wusi's face would occasionally change, sometimes slightly furrowing his brows, sometimes squinting unhappily, as if he were responding to someone he was talking to.
Seeing this, Ye Yingying couldn't help but wonder if this was also the work of the Ghost Calculator.
Just as they were waiting for Gu Wusi to consider his options, a sudden downpour of snow began. The snowflakes fell in a flurry, quickly enveloping everyone in a greyish-white blanket.
Before Gu Wusi could answer, Ye Yingying worried that the heavy snow would obscure her view again, allowing Gu Wusi to escape.
She thought for a moment, then quietly began to move towards Gu Wusi. If Gu Wusi tried to escape, she would catch her immediately.
Ye Yingying wondered, but to her surprise, Gu Wusi did not back down when she approached. Instead, he relented and asked, "What do you want to know?"
"Hmm?" Ye Yingying had already rehearsed in her mind how to pounce on Gu Wusi and grab his hand, but who knew that he would suddenly agree.
Before she could answer, Gu Wusi continued, "Let me make this clear first, I'm only telling you this. As for the others..."
She glanced at Yun Yanqiu and Wu Yue, her expression indifferent: "No comment."
Ye Yingying blinked. Did she mean she wanted to talk privately?
"Come up and find me when you've made up your mind."
After leaving those words behind, Gu Wusi turned around and jumped onto the rooftop next to him.
Wu Yue could no longer contain her displeasure and snorted, "I thought it was something mysterious, but it turns out it's just hiding on the roof."
It's also because this place is too dark; apart from the small area in front of us, we can't see anything else clearly.
"What? Are you going or not?" Wu Yue asked Ye Yingying.
Ye Yingying didn't hesitate for long and said decisively, "Yes, of course I'll go."
After saying that, she waved to Yun Yanqiu, indicating that he didn't need to worry.
Yun Yanqiu nodded in response, watching Ye Yingying leap up and disappear from sight.
The rooftop was a not-so-spacious platform. As soon as Ye Yingying came up, she spotted Gu Wusi standing in one corner of the platform, scrutinizing her with sharp eyes.
Ye Yingying met her gaze and walked towards her, asking as she went, "How long have you been his puppet?"
"I can't remember, but it must have been after you died."
"Working under him must be exhausting, right? Does that old man complain to you all the time?"
"No, not really. He just throws things around and acts crazy. He only becomes lucid and gives instructions when he needs me to find something."
Ye Yingying was already used to the eccentric nature of the fortune teller, but she didn't expect that the fortune teller Gu Wusi was talking about sounded even more extreme than the strange old man she knew.
"Your previous appearances in Zhixian, Mihai, and Yuancheng were all while you were looking for something for him?"
Not entirely.
"What do you mean?" Ye Yingying paused in her steps.
Gu Wusi lowered his eyes, picked up a strand of hair with his fingertip, and played with it in his hand: "Half of me was testing for him, and the other half was me looking for things."
"An experiment? What does he want to do?"
"He wanted to see how many people his crafted magical artifact could control, and to what extent he could control them."
"A magical artifact?" Ye Yingying frowned in confusion.
“It’s that bell that Xue Guan is holding,” Gu Wusi explained. “You know Xue Guan, right? That ‘miracle doctor’ from Zhi County.”
Was it him? Ye Yingying recalled that frantic voice from back then, but she was blind in Zhixian at the time and spent most of her time in the inn, so she didn't participate much. Yun Yanqiu, on the other hand, might know something.
Whether she asked or not didn't matter. Gu Wusi told her everything about what happened in Zhi County: "The Ghost Calculator has made a bell called the 'Soul-Scattering Bell,' saying that shaking it can control people with weak spiritual power to use him."
"However, there is no definitive conclusion on the power of this newly forged magical artifact, so he asked me to find a place to test it out quietly."
"So that's how you found Zhixian?"
"Of course, Zhi County is located in a remote area, and almost no cultivators would visit it, making it the perfect place for testing."
"And what about Xue Jian?"
“Him,” Gu Wusi blew away a snowflake that had fallen on his hair, “He just happened to be in that place researching his living puppet, and I bumped into him. I thought, why not use such a convenient guy? So I simply lent him the bell, killing two birds with one stone.”
"What a brilliant move! Gu Wusi knows he's a demonic cultivator, yet he still aids and abets evil." Ye Yingying's expression gradually turned serious. This woman clearly didn't care about the distinction between good and evil when she did things.
Although Ghost Calculator is not exactly righteous, he is by no means a demonic cultivator. Yet he has now allowed his subordinates to do such a thing.
Gu Wusi ignored Ye Yingying's expression and continued, "As luck would have it, he has something I've been looking for."
"What is that?"
“Azure Nether True Fire.” Gu Wusi said, her hands suddenly stopping. She lifted her eyelids and calmly looked at Ye Yingying. A cold light flickered in her dark pupils.
Gu Wusi's eyes were like those of a lurking python, fixed intently on its prey.
However, Ye Yingying had no intention of becoming her prey. She glared back fiercely and continued to ask, "So, you went to the Secret Sea and Yuan City also for the Azure Nether True Fire?"
“No.” Gu Wusi raised his eyebrows. “I went to Yuancheng to get fire, but I went to the Secret Sea only to kill people.”
"Murder?" Ye Yingying suddenly thought of Lin Shiyou. "Why did you kill him?"
"He's too greedy. I just helped him out of fun and asked him to keep an eye on the movements of the Azure Nether True Fire as a reward. Who knew that guy would be so arrogant and keep the information from me, trying to use this little bit of information to order me around."
Mentioning this, Gu Wusi couldn't help but sneer contemptuously: "Don't you know your own worth? You think you're qualified to negotiate with me? If you can't see your place, you deserve to die."
Ye Yingying remained noncommittal, then asked, "So it was you who sent 'Qin Zhiqing' to find the Azure Nether True Fire?"
"Yes," Gu Wusi replied. "I gave her a new life; she should repay my kindness."
"Then why didn't you kill her?"
"Why would I kill her?" Gu Wusi retorted. "She's so amusing. The comical way she ruined her own life is something I never get tired of watching."
"Speaking of which, what happened to Miss Qin afterward? Did she continue to be the young mistress of the Qi family, or was she taken home and punished after the engagement was broken off?"
Ye Yingying's eyes twitched involuntarily, and she sneered, "She didn't choose any of them, she disappeared."
Gu Wusi was stunned, and the unrestrained mockery on her lips vanished instantly. She clicked her tongue and reverted to her previous indifference.
Ye Yingying noticed her change and didn't give her a friendly look. She simply asked, "What do you want with the Azure Nether True Fire?"
"Naturally, it's to kill him," Gu Wusi replied listlessly. "Unfortunately, it recognizes its master, but the most crucial layer isn't in my hands, so I can't attract it in the end."
"The Azure Nether True Fire can kill him?" Ye Yingying looked surprised; it was the first time she had heard this news.
"you do not know?"
"I……"
Seeing Ye Yingying's hesitant expression, Gu Wusi narrowed his eyes, raised his hand to cover the lower half of his face, and looked at Ye Yingying with a hint of scrutiny and amusement.
"I found out in the Sutra Repository. You didn't go there when you were with him?" Gu Wusi's tone became increasingly flippant, seemingly carrying a hint of sarcasm.
Ye Yingying had visited the Scripture Pavilion many times, but she couldn't recall any mention of the Azure Nether True Fire in any of the books there.
She glanced at Gu Wusi again and noticed that he had raised his chin, looking defiant.
Ye Yingying immediately realized what was going on, her gaze darkening: "Where you found out is not important, what's important is how to kill."
She then flipped her palm, and a ball of bluish-green flame rose from it. The flame was clearly divided into three layers: an inner and outer layer of deep blue, and a bright white center. The three layers of flame intertwined, dangerous yet alluring.
Gu Wusi's gaze was drawn to the Azure Nether True Fire, and a surging desire flickered in his deep eyes.
Ye Yingying raised her hand, holding the flame between her eyes so that it was directly facing Gu Wusi's face, and said firmly, "Tell me, how do you kill Ghost Calculator?"
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