“Yes, you will,” Ji Wuxin said.

Only he couldn’t see it anymore. Back then, he had committed suicide to atone for his sins, leaving a wisp of remnant soul to guard the formation. This remnant soul existed dependent on the formation, and now that the formation was destroyed, he would dissipate along with it. After all, he was already dead, his primordial spirit had already perished, leaving only this wisp of consciousness that existed dependent on the formation.

“Wu’er.”

“Hmm? Daddy, where are you?” The little skull wasn’t afraid of the rain, extending his claws to try catching rainwater. But since he only had bones, the rainwater couldn’t be held at all. However, he was still very happy, clapping his hands joyfully. His left and right hand bones aligned perfectly as they clapped together, making clicking sounds.

“Daddy and Mommy have to go far away. Will you stay with big sister?” After Ji Wuxin finished speaking, Su Zhuyi felt another wave of soul pressure pressing down, though this time it was much gentler, giving her no stress.

“Little Baldy, you’re also a cultivator who has entered the gate of cultivation. Under the Wuding Gourd are pressed vast cultivation resources. I’ll give you all those things, but you must swear to take good care of Wu’er.”

Su Zhuyi was delighted upon hearing this and hurriedly said, “Good, I promise you.”

Making a vow – whatever! Anyway, this skeleton frame didn’t hurt people and didn’t need to eat. She could just raise it!

“Then acknowledge him as master.”

What? Su Zhuyi instantly understood Ji Wuxin’s meaning. He wanted her to serve as a servant to a skeleton frame, to acknowledge that little skull as her master! How was this possible?

Su Zhuyi stiffened her neck to refuse, but when the pressure bore down, her neck nearly twisted off. She immediately changed her tune, saying submissively, “Senior, you have the final say.”

Ji Wuxin called the little skull over and said, “Wu’er, Daddy will teach you and big sister to sing.”

“Click clack clack, great!” The little skull was so happy that his jaw fell off. He was stunned for a moment, then fumbled around blindly and reattached it. Only then did Su Zhuyi belatedly realize that he had also picked up and reattached the small arm bone he had thrown out earlier. She hadn’t even reacted when he was clapping just now.

The song Ji Wuxin taught was naturally the incantation of a master-servant contract.

Su Zhuyi was under someone else’s roof and had to bow her head. Seeing that disagreeing would mean death, between dignity and life, she chose the latter. Without life, how would she have a chance to seek revenge and speak of dignity in the future? She hummed along with Ji Wuxin, then saw Ji Wuxin directing the little skull to extend his hand. She could only be forced to extend her hand as well. The skeleton’s finger gently pricked, creating a small wound in her palm. The little skull was startled and repeatedly apologized. What could Su Zhuyi say under the pressure? The master-servant contract required the servant to make a blood oath.

However, the contract formation was unsuccessful.

Neither she nor the skeleton glowed, and she didn’t feel a connection tying their primordial spirits together. What was going on?

Just as Su Zhuyi was somewhat confused, she heard Ji Wuxin sigh, “So that’s how it is…”

“So he has already acknowledged you as master.” Hearing this, Su Zhuyi discovered that there was already a little skull in her dantian consciousness sea! By rights, the little skull’s strength far exceeded hers, so it should have been impossible for her to subdue the little skull. However, this skeleton had no evil nature whatsoever. Having awakened from contact with her blood, he immediately became attached to her. When he was holding her in the formation, he unconsciously acknowledged her as his master. It was just that this kind of master acknowledgment had no contractual binding, and with his powerful strength, if he decided not to acknowledge her anymore, he could easily break free from Su Zhuyi’s control.

Most importantly, the little skull’s strength was too powerful, far exceeding Su Zhuyi’s, so much so that Su Zhuyi hadn’t even noticed there was an additional presence in her consciousness sea before, and she still couldn’t command him at all now.

“Take good care of him,” Ji Wuxin said.

Ji Wuxin had originally been a demonic path great power, skilled in corpse refinement. The corpses he refined were ultimately like living people, extremely fierce yet possessing their consciousness, and could grow to be incomparably handsome. It was just that this kind of cultivation was mostly bloody and vicious, inseparable from the skin, flesh, and bones of other living people. So now, he couldn’t think of any method that would allow the clean and pure Wu’er to once again possess a physical body and live normally under the sunlight like a regular person.

“The Wuding Gourd is his home. I’m entrusting this gourd to your care.” Su Zhuyi’s finger had bled, and now that blood floated on its own to the Wuding Gourd. Immediately after, the boat-like gourd shrank to the size of a peanut, with a red rope loop at the gourd’s mouth that just fit around her finger.

Wuding Gourd! Wuding Gourd!

Ji Wuxin’s famous magic treasure, the world’s number one demonic artifact, the Wuding Gourd, had just come into her hands like this?

Su Zhuyi’s heart was wildly joyful. She was practically dizzy from being hit by this pie falling from heaven. Great fortune follows great calamity!

“You can’t touch anything inside. Only when Wu’er has a physical body and hasn’t become an evil thing will the stone lotus platforms in the gourd belong to you.”

Hearing this, Su Zhuyi’s heart went half cold.

This kind of rotten bones that had been dead for five thousand years – she had never heard of any method that could regrow flesh and resurrect them, unless one took the evil path and cultivated a living corpse. If it were a genuine resurrection from the dead, wouldn’t that be like the Liuguang Mirror? Only Dao artifacts could achieve such things.

In other words, Ji Wuxin had given her a pie, but it was a pie she couldn’t eat at all.

“Wu’er.” Su Zhuyi felt the pressure on her body grow even fainter.

Ji Wuxin’s wisp of consciousness was becoming increasingly weak, about to dissipate in the wind and rain.

“When willows live, spin the top;

When willows green, release the bell;

When willows die, kick the shuttlecock…”

Ji Wuxin began singing a nursery rhyme to coax children. Though his voice was very soft, in the pouring rain, it seemed so clear and distinct. Su Zhuyi no longer had many memories of her childhood. She only remembered her childhood misery, having long forgotten that even earlier, she too had babbled along with her mother while humming songs.

Her mother was probably a gentle yet weak woman. After being abandoned, slandered, and betrayed by that despicable man, she even disregarded her daughter and jumped into a well. A faint figure floated in her mind, but she couldn’t see that woman’s face clearly, because Su Zhuyi had long forgotten what her mother looked like.

As for her scumbag father, she had killed him with her own hands, but at this time, he was still living well.

Suddenly, she felt very envious of that little skull, having a father and mother who loved him so wholeheartedly. One was willing to give up her own life when giving birth to him, the other exhausting all efforts to commit suicide and atone for sins, just wanting him to become a mountain and river spirit, unconstrained and free.

Such familial love was something Su Zhuyi could never obtain, not in this life or any other. Her mother died because of a man, but never thought to live because of her daughter.

Her father was even more disgusting.

What the little skull possessed was something she had never had and would never have. Su Zhuyi listened to that cheerful song, her heart slightly bitter.

But just then, Ji Wuxin stopped and asked, “Wu’er, do you like the wind?”

“I like it!” the little skull answered happily. Before, he hadn’t dared go outside – he couldn’t bear even a wisp of wind.

There was a trace of laughter in Ji Wuxin’s voice. “That’s perfect, then. Daddy and Mommy are both in the wind.”

As his words fell, no more sound came from the jade Yazi. The nine stone lotus platforms circled in the air for a while, then all flew into the Wuding Gourd together.

Ji Wuxin’s remnant soul completely dissipated, dissipating between heaven and earth, dissipating in the wind and rain. The little skull stood foolishly in place. After calling “Daddy” several times with no response, he turned to look at Su Zhuyi and asked, “Big sister, because I like the wind, did my daddy go into the wind?”

Su Zhuyi: “…”

Looking at this child’s bone structure, he was probably only four or five years old before death, and quite frail at that. She gestured with her hand – this little skull was even a head shorter than herself. Being young was good – he didn’t understand anything and was easy to deceive.

“Yes, being in the wind means he can accompany you at all times.” On this question, Su Zhuyi didn’t speak carelessly. After speaking, she tucked the gourd in her pocket, forced herself to rally her spirits, and crawled back into the pit from before.

Having walked such a long distance earlier, all within the gourd, now outside she could go directly down to the bottom of the pit. Su Zhuyi groped under the coffin and saw vast quantities of spirit stones below. She was immediately so happy her eyes turned red, and she directly took out the Wuding Gourd to pack all the spirit stones inside.

But after packing about half, Su Zhuyi couldn’t pack anymore. She discovered that more spirit stones had already been rooted into by the old tree at the village entrance. Tree roots had penetrated the spirit stones, and the roots were densely tangled together, forming a net that tightly held the other majority of spirit stones and magic treasures in its mesh bag.

She couldn’t dig them out at all, even with her hoe.

Why were these spirit stones supposed to be stored outside the Wuding Gourd? Now that old tree had gotten there first.

Su Zhuyi pondered for a moment and felt she probably understood. Nurturing mountain and river spirits required heaven and earth’s spiritual energy and did not need these spirit stones and magic treasures. Moreover, it couldn’t be done in an enclosed space, so the Wuding Gourd itself had gaps that Ji Wuxin had to leave. He was also worried that someone might coincidentally find those gaps, enter the Wuding Gourd, and destroy the formation, so he also designed heart-tempting traps within the formation. When his remnant soul later appeared, promising the magic treasures and spirit stones under the coffin to that person, that person would naturally exit from under the coffin, which meant leaving the Wuding Gourd. Wanting to enter again would be wishful thinking.

The probability of this was very low, almost impossible, but Ji Wuxin had considered even this impossible scenario for the sake of being foolproof. Who would have known that heaven would open its eyes and directly strike several thunderbolts, not only splitting open the Wuding Gourd but also blasting the coffin and soul-sealing stone together. Thus, everything he had done turned to bubbles.

Truly, no matter how much one calculates, one cannot outcalculate heaven’s blindness.

In her previous life, Ji Wuxin hadn’t succeeded either, otherwise, the Xueluo Sect wouldn’t have massacred the village and burned the old tree. She just didn’t know how he had failed in the previous life. And this little skull – had it appeared in the previous life?

She had never heard of it, so probably not.

Su Zhuyi thought while digging, but after digging for a long time, she couldn’t break through the old tree’s roots at all. She had been seriously injured to begin with, and even soaking in the spiritual spring hadn’t restored her much. Having been drenched by rain and struggling for so long, she really couldn’t persist anymore. She could only use her hoe to support herself, and she limped out of the pit. Just as she emerged, she saw one of the tree roots writhing like a snake. Soon, the root rolled up large amounts of soil and filled the pit back in. In moments, the pit completely disappeared. The ground on this hillside was perfectly flat – where could one tell there had ever been a pit?

Su Zhuyi stared in shock!

This old tree – it had fucking filled in the pit itself? Su Zhuyi had always thought this old tree had just absorbed spiritual energy and lived longer, at most having some weak spiritual consciousness. After all, she dug up and ate its roots daily without seeing it get angry.

Looking at it now, it wasn’t far from becoming a spirit. No wonder, no wonder the Xueluo Sect had expended so much effort to kill it back then.

If it had started filling the pit with soil while she was still inside, she would have been buried alive by now.

This old tree…

It hadn’t killed her.