Chapter 30 "If you wish to abandon me, then kill me now..."
Seeing her like this, Nie Guiyu was both annoyed and couldn't help but twitch the corners of his mouth, as if he was about to be amused by her.
Just as he was about to speak, the swordsman took advantage of his distraction and suddenly swung out the Soul-Hooking Rope, snatching the Judge's Pen from his hand.
Before Young Master Nie could react, the swordsman had already made a slash in the air.
A crack appeared in mid-air.
The Great Sage, who had been waiting outside, jumped in upon seeing this, took out his treasure from his ear, shook it, and it transformed into a golden cudgel as thick as a bowl.
He shouted, "You dead beast! You are extremely cunning. Come and fight me, and don't try to escape again!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he grabbed his stick and started hitting.
Young Master Nie was in a fit of anger and, without giving an inch, drew his sword to meet him.
Now that the judge's pen had been taken from him, the swordsman was not afraid that he would run away, so he did not plan to fight him one by two. He picked up his sword and began to fight the group of bandits.
Before long, most of the house was destroyed.
The traveler and Young Master Nie leaped into the air and began their battle.
One was filled with yin energy and wielded a deadly sword; the other was pure of heart and drew a golden cudgel.
The two fought for dozens of rounds, often going back and forth without a clear winner.
In the midst of the chaos, Bao'e suddenly saw her rake through a gap in the air.
"Hey, what are you doing here!" She was overjoyed and stepped forward to take the treasure.
Meanwhile, as Young Master Nie was engaged in a fierce battle, he suddenly saw this fool waving his arms and legs as he ran outside.
He assumed she was going to the Buddhist temple to destroy his physical body, so he quickly descended from the clouds and grabbed her.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
Bao'e stumbled, and seeing the pilgrim catching up, she said, "I'm on my way to save my master. Release my master, and I'll spare your life!"
Young Master Nie stared at her darkly: "I won't let go, what are you going to do about it?"
The swordsman had already killed all the bandits. Upon hearing this, he glanced between the two men and quickly realized something was amiss.
He wiped the blood off his sword and asked Bao'e, "Do you know where his body is? Tell me. Since he is under your and this little elder's control, let me go and destroy his body and kill this monster."
The traveler stopped and asked, "Wumiao, do you truly understand?"
Bao'e nodded: "I know, I know, he told me."
Upon hearing this, Nie Guiyu felt as if his heart had been cleaved in two, leaving him utterly wounded.
He was on the verge of tears, thinking to himself: Oh dear, oh dear! He had trusted her first, and if he were to die now, he would have no regrets.
Unexpectedly, Bao'e said, "He only told me this. This is a secret. I tricked him into coming here and just told me. It's not good to tell anyone else. Whether you kill me or destroy this is up to me."
Young Master Nie was stunned, not expecting her to keep this a secret, and a deep sour feeling welled up in his heart.
The traveler nodded: "That makes sense, that makes sense! We are not useless cowards. If we have the means, we will use them. We will not do such deceitful and harmful things just to win or lose."
The swordsman laughed and said, "It sounds like the young elder is insulting me."
The traveler laughed, “Brother, don’t overthink it. We didn’t know she tricked us into coming here. If it were a legitimate way to ask, we could have exposed it and then gone back to destroy her body. That would have been quite an achievement. But since she tricked us, that’s another story.”
The swordsman agreed.
Upon hearing this, Young Master Nie gripped Bao'e even tighter and said in a sinister tone, "Whether I speak of the burial site or not is my own decision, and no one has forced me to speak. Now that I have spoken, you can kill or destroy it, I can accept it, at most I'll just feel a bit annoyed. But there's one thing: don't think you can easily forget me."
Before Bao'e could speak, the pilgrim sneered, "You mad, wicked devil, you're just spouting nonsense in broad daylight. She's a pilgrim on a journey to the West; why would she care about you? Quickly admit defeat, or I'll spare you a beating!"
Nie Guiyu did not respond to him, his eyes fixed on Bao'e, as if eagerly seeking an answer.
Bao'e replied, "To tell you the truth, since you captured me, I've had a few days where I didn't have to worry about hunger and food was readily available. I'm not an ungrateful person, so there's no need for you to say such things. I won't kill or destroy you; let's have a good fight and see who wins, shall we?"
Young Master Nie forced a smile: "Bodhisattva Bao'e, what a compassionate heart you have, willing to sacrifice to save others. Back then, I ended up with a wretched and miserable body. Today, I'm going to die again. So be it! My body died then, and now my heart dies. This settles the score!"
The traveler sensed the melancholy in his words and immediately realized that he and Bao'e had an affair, but he looked at Bao'e.
He chuckled coldly, "You fool, what trouble have you gotten yourself into while Master is away? You're opening this door to let me in, are you perhaps hoping to ask me to be your guarantor? My dear sister, if we're really going to get married, let's arrange a feast, and then have this monster release Master so we can all enjoy a vegetarian meal together. From then on, Master and I will go to fetch the scriptures in the West, and you can enjoy wealth and luxury here. That would be perfect for both of us. Why bother with fighting and killing, causing all this trouble?"
Hearing this, Zhu Bao'e frowned and huffed angrily, "I've made you sound like a complete idiot, a mere stable boy! Even if it's a good thing you're saying, it makes me lose face and makes me look like a lazybones who can't endure hardship. You've really made me look bad."
"Oh, this really is a good thing. Then there's no need to say more, no need to say more!" Wukong chuckled and said to Young Master Nie, "Brother, let's prepare a feast."
"Nonsense, nonsense!" Bao'e was so angry that she jumped up and down, shook off Young Master Nie's hand, grabbed the rake, and was about to hit the pilgrim.
The pilgrim raised his staff to block her rake, saying, "Fool, you know I'm talking nonsense. Hurry up and pay off your debt. If the monk hears this, it won't just be a matter of me giving you a beating; he'll chase you away."
Bao'e retorted angrily, "If you're really talking nonsense, then I'll give you a good whack with my rake first!"
"Alright, I'll let you hit me, I'll let you hit me." Wukong stuck his head out and said with a grin, "One hit won't be enough to quell my anger, I need to hit you a few more times."
That idiot actually hit him.
To her surprise, his head was like a bronze head; when he struck her with the rake, she was unharmed, but the impact made her hand numb.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" Bao'e couldn't help but shake her hand. "Senior brother, what kind of head do you have? It's so sturdy."
The pilgrim laughed and said, "It is the copper head and iron arm that was forged in Laozi's Eight Trigrams Furnace when he made havoc in the Heavenly Palace."
"Good, good, good! Perfect, it'll be a whetstone to sharpen my palladium."
"Stop talking nonsense!" Wukong said. "Hurry up and subdue that demon so we can get on our way as soon as possible."
Upon hearing this, Bao'e went to see Young Master Nie.
Looking at him, she realized that he had been staring straight at her, his face dark and his emotions unreadable.
She said, "Brother, bring your sword."
Young Master Nie said, "Fighting is useless, winning or losing is useless. If you don't destroy my corpse, I cannot die."
Bao'e said, "Then release my master."
"I won't let go."
"Then take this!"
Bao'e struck him with her rake, but Young Master Nie raised his sword to parry.
Another group of bandits arrived, and the swordsman fought them. Meanwhile, the traveler went to find Sanzang.
Meanwhile, Bao'e and Young Master Nie were fighting. At that time, when they were deeply in love, they would press their chests together like mandarin ducks. Now, as they fought, they fiercely competed to see who was better and refused to back down.
One wielded a rake, the other a sword, and they fought until they reached mid-air.
Suddenly, Young Master Nie stopped abruptly, as she struck his right shoulder with her rake, leaving several gruesome bloody holes.
Startled, Bao'e hurriedly tried to pull the rake away, but he grabbed it and wouldn't let her struggle even a little.
“Bao’e, Bao’e…” He gripped the rake tightly, looked around, and finally looked at her, panting, about to burst into tears, “If you want to abandon me, then kill me now, don’t, don’t leave me here alone to suffer.”
“Brother, I told you long ago that to become an immortal or a saint, one must endure hardship. Being alone is also a kind of suffering,” Bao’e said. “Don’t seek death, and don’t think of me. If you continue to cultivate diligently like this, we will meet again someday.”
Young Master Nie shook his head slightly: "No, no, I only understand now."
He gritted his teeth and suddenly made a decision.
In an instant, the earth shook and the sky trembled.
The Buddhist temple not far away was mostly destroyed, and a cold corpse flew out from it and was caught in the hand of Young Master Nie.
The corpse looked exactly like him; it was his body.
But then he clenched his five fingers together, about to destroy the corpse.
The swordsman was right. The corpse had only suffered minor injuries, yet Nie Guiyu was already sweating profusely from the pain, as if he were about to turn into dust and smoke.
His eyes never wavered, fixed intently on Bao'e.
Bao'e exclaimed in shock, "Heavens! Heavens! Are you really trying to kill yourself?"
She tried to stop him with her rake, but the rake was firmly embedded in his shoulder and she couldn't remove it.
She advised, "Brother, at least eat something before you die, so you can die a full-fed ghost!"
Young Master Nie did not stop, and forcefully dug out a broken heart from the cold corpse.
"Bao'e," he gasped, about to shove the heart into her hand, but there was a hint of infatuation in his eyes as he looked at her, "This is the only thing I want before I die, take it."
Bao'e was truly frightened and waved her hands repeatedly, saying, "I only eat vegetarian food now and don't touch meat anymore."
No sooner had he finished speaking than a staff bursting forth with thousands of golden rays cleaved down from the side, snatching away the ghost's corpse and subduing him.
"You wretch, don't try to kill yourself, or we'll see who comes to get you." The traveler rushed over, followed by a Hades who looked anxious and worried.
When Nie Guiyu saw the King of the Underworld, his face stiffened and turned cold.
Hades cried out urgently, "My son, why seek death? Quickly come with me to the underworld to atone for your sins!"
Bao'e stared blankly: "That old hag, who are you calling?"
The traveler grabbed her and explained to her.
It turns out that there are ten Kings of the Underworld, and Nie Guiyu is the offspring of one of them.
Because Nie Guiyu spent most of his time cultivating himself in a Buddhist temple, the two were not close.
After his father died, he went to the underworld and became the King of the Underworld. When his father also died, he was made a soul-collecting messenger.
Although this young master Nie lived a little longer, he harbored some resentment towards his father and refused to obey orders. He secretly took the Soul-Hooking Rope and the Judge's Pen and came to this temple to become a Ghost King.
The traveler went to the underworld to investigate, and the King of the Underworld learned of his son's whereabouts and rushed over, just in time to run into Wukong, who was looking for Sanzang.
Bao'e was stunned and said, "I just said it casually, how did it actually bring his father here?"
The traveler laughed so hard he almost fell over.
On that side, Nie Guiyu was determined to die and had no intention of leaving with the King of the Underworld.
The King of the Underworld pleaded and begged in every way he could, but to no avail.
Helpless, he glanced at the lonely heart in Bao'e's hand, figured out the reason, and finally lowered his voice to coax him in the dark: "My son, come with me. First, you will be punished and atone for your sins, and then you can focus on your cultivation. When the journey to the West is over, it will not be too late to meet with whomever you wish."
Upon hearing this, Young Master Nie relaxed slightly, and his expression softened.
He glanced at Bao'e furtively, about to ask her what she was planning, but before he could finish, his injuries were too severe, and he swayed slightly before fainting.
While he was still unconscious, Hades hurriedly apologized to Bao'e and the Monkey King, and then took Young Master Nie back to the Underworld.
Meanwhile, Bao'e and the Monkey King unleashed their fury, slaughtering all the little ghosts in the haunted temple, and then went to the Buddhist hall to rescue Sanzang.
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Author's Note: The first storyline combines elements of Nie Xiaoqian from *Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio*, a touch of the White Bone Demon, and the Four Sages Testing the Mind of Zen. Sha Wujing isn't a male guest, but he's still present, so his storyline will be briefly mentioned. Next, the storylines of Longevity Mountain and the White Bone Demon will be written together, mainly focusing on the seemingly righteous Taoist priest and a gender-swapped version of the gluttonous White Bone Demon.
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