“Wait!” At this moment, a young man kneeling to the right of A’Han suddenly spoke. “Chun Qiao, when you first selected us as Golden Corpse candidates, you said that whether we accepted or refused was entirely our own choice. Now that we have already presented our proofs of loyalty, the Jade Corpse clearly favors this young Daoist brother over any of us. I ask you plainly — if the final choice is this young Daoist as the Golden Corpse, what does the Jade Corpse intend to do with the rest of us?”
The young man was fair-complexioned and slight in build, and his voice was weaker than most — suggesting some manner of constitutional ailment. Though his tone was that of inquiry, he seemed to already understand that he had toiled for nothing, and each word he pressed out was bitten with particular force, clearly carrying an intense sense of grievance.
Both Qin Yao and Lin Xiao recognized this man. He was Tang Qingnian — the same man they had seen at Nanyuan Lake that day, weeping while holding his stepbrother’s corpse. They were both surprised that he still had the nerve to demand an accounting from the Jade Corpse at a moment like this. They wondered whether years of being suppressed by the younger Lady Tang had warped his temperament beyond the ordinary.
Chun Qiao had been watching with a cold smile, waiting for Zeng Nanqin to gouge out his own eyes. Hearing Tang Qingnian speak up, she turned her head and looked at him sidelong. “When has the world ever had so many justifications to offer? You may have presented your proof of loyalty, but the Jade Corpse has no reason she must choose you. Now that a rare body of pure yang has presented itself, who else would be chosen as the Golden Corpse if not him? As for what to do with the rest of you —”
She paused, and a cruelly cold smile spread across her face. “How fortunate that you were all born under auspicious hours and your primal yang energies remain unsullied. Though you cannot be the Golden Corpse, you are more than qualified to become fierce corpses. You will not even need to trouble my master — I will handle it myself, using our Tianyin Sect’s methods to make you into fierce corpses. Were you not seeking to avenge your late mother? With my assistance, I can guarantee you become exceedingly fierce and exceedingly deadly.”
Tang Qingnian and Zeng Nanqin’s expressions changed drastically at hearing this.
Zeng Nanqin shot Chun Qiao a deeply sinister look, then slowly lowered the dagger he had been pointing at his own eye. He swept his gaze across the room, identified his line of retreat, and suddenly flung himself up and sprinted with everything he had toward the hall door. Perhaps driven by the desperate urgency to survive, every ounce of his inner energy was mobilized at once — his speed was practically the equal of a fine horse. He was on the verge of making it out of the hall.
Chun Qiao would not permit him to escape right before her eyes. She immediately raised her right arm, snapped her fingers, and said with cold contempt, “Ungrateful wretch. If you do not wish to become a fierce corpse, then serve as a meal instead.”
She called out to the walking corpses, “Tear him apart and eat him!”
The two rows of walking corpses standing in the hall heard this command, and all at once raised their arms, curling their fingers into hooked claws, and lunged at Zeng Nanqin like wild dogs pouncing on prey.
The hall descended into chaos. With no one to watch him, A’Han was left to one side.
Qing Xuzi and the others could see it all clearly. If they did not act now, when would they? Better to take advantage of the confusion and seize A’Han back first.
Each of them taking up their ritual implements, they were on the verge of charging into the hall. Yuan Jue also moved to summon the disciples standing guard outside the side hall to take their formation positions — when behind them came a deeply chilling sound, as though someone were snickering coldly in the shadows. Yet by the time that sound reached their ears, it seemed to pass through some invisible barrier, arriving faint and ethereal, almost enough to make one doubt it had been heard at all.
At the same instant, the chill inside the hall intensified suddenly — so cold it was nearly enough to freeze one’s exhaled breath — and even the eternal lamps lit at several places around the hall snuffed out with a series of soft sounds all at once.
In the boundless darkness, Qing Xuzi and Yuan Jue both felt a gale tear through their hearts. They cried out together, “The foul creature is here — be on guard!”
Both leapt back to separate positions. Despite their confidence in their own abilities, neither dared engage the Jade Corpse head-on.
Qin Yao was startled and snapped her head around. There, in the near distance, stood a vague and indistinct shadow. In the darkness it emitted a faint, eerie green light, baleful energy surging around it, motionless and silent — looking for all the world like a statue of jade.
The Jade Corpse! Qin Yao’s pupils contracted sharply. When had this thing moved up behind them?
Seeing her master and Yuan Jue assume positions like soldiers facing a formidable enemy and begin laying their respective formations, Qin Yao instinctively reached for her neck to activate the Fire Dragon — only to feel nothing there. She abruptly remembered the Soul-Devouring Bell was no longer on her person.
Her expression darkened. She turned instead to reach into her robe for her charm papers — but in that brief moment of delay, a tremendous surge of baleful power came crashing against her from the front. This baleful force bypassed Qing Xuzi and Yuan Jue and, like a pair of enormous claws, reached straight for her face.
Qin Yao stumbled backward several steps. In her desperation, she formed the Shattering Hell Incantation, flung out a charm, and shouted, “Break—!”
Qin Yao had trained painstakingly from childhood, and her foundations were solid. From incantation to charm-casting, her every move was impeccably precise. Against an ordinary ghost or apparition, this single strike would have been more than enough to turn the tide. But the Jade Corpse was a different matter entirely — to her, this charm technique was barely enough to scratch an itch. The force came on with not the slightest diminishment, still clawing toward Qin Yao’s eyes.
Then came the sound of a sword singing from its sheath. A cold gleam flashed before her. Lin Xiao had swept his sword up in front of Qin Yao. The strange force struck the Chixiao Sword and seemed to recoil in pain, rapidly withdrawing — though unwilling to concede, it shifted direction and reached instead for Yuan Jue.
Though the strike had been deflected, the residual impact from that baleful force was still powerful enough to send both Qin Yao and Lin Xiao stumbling backward until they crashed against the partition screen door. It had been left ajar to begin with, and under the impact it burst completely open. The two of them tumbled one after the other into the main hall.
A’Han looked up in disbelief at the sudden appearance of Qin Yao and Lin Xiao — a moment of stunned silence — then broke into wild joy. “A’Yao! Young Lord!”
Chun Qiao was also caught off guard by the sight of Qin Yao and Lin Xiao. Old grudges surged to the surface at once — remembering how Lin Xiao had earlier destroyed one of her most useful weapons. She had half a mind to bypass Qin Yao and charge murderously at Lin Xiao, but seeing that he seemed to care a great deal about the beautiful young woman in front of him, a new thought flashed through her mind. She crossed the distance in a few strides and slammed her palm viciously down toward the top of Qin Yao’s skull, shouting, “You dare come here looking for death!”
Qin Yao quickly tilted her head aside to dodge, braced herself on her elbows, and scrambled awkwardly backward for several steps. Once she had put a relatively safe distance between them, she launched a kick at Chun Qiao’s shinbone.
The sneak attack had failed, and she had nearly been struck by Qin Yao’s counter-strike. Chun Qiao grew all the more furious. She shouted a command, sending the horde of undead surging toward Lin Xiao, while she herself lunged low to grab Qin Yao’s foot. She thought to herself that if she could sever this young woman’s foot right in front of that young man’s eyes, how delightfully satisfying and infuriating that would be.
She had always prided herself on her beauty, and any man she set her sights on, she found a way to pull into her grasp. When she offered herself and a man showed no interest, it was tantamount to touching her most vulnerable spot — she would make him pay back that humiliation many times over, without fail.
This was also the reason she had treated Pei Shao and Xu Shenming with particular coldness among all the soul-lost individuals.
As for a man like Lin Xiao — who not only held her in utter contempt but also showed warm favor to another woman — in her eyes, such a person was guilty of an unforgivable offense, and she would grind his bones to dust before she could expel the vile breath from her chest.
Thinking all of this, she had already drawn a short knife from her robe. She pulled it from its sheath and thrust straight at the vital points of Qin Yao’s chest and abdomen.
Qin Yao had not anticipated that Chun Qiao had yet another weapon. She was a highly capable fighter herself, but this development instantly shifted what had been an even match into a disadvantage. She fought while retreating, and the situation was growing rather desperate.
A’Han was so thoroughly bound he could not move, tipped over sideways like a bundled log, straining to crane his neck and watch the two women fight, shouting urgently one moment after another: “A’Yao, watch your right!” “A’Yao, fall back — kick her!”
He blustered and shouted nonstop without managing to help in the slightest, doing nothing but create distraction.
“Senior Brother, could you please keep quiet?” Qin Yao’s concentration was shattered by A’Han’s calls, and she narrowly escaped a slash to her waist. She was caught between wanting to laugh and wanting to cry. She just needed Senior Brother to stop talking.
A’Han gave a meek sound of acknowledgment and dared not call out again, yet his eyes remained riveted on the two fighters. Whenever it looked as though Qin Yao had been struck, he was so frightened his mouth flew open, and his whole body twisted and thrashed as if he had been dropped into a wok of boiling oil — desperately wishing he could leap up and headbutt Chun Qiao.
Seeing Qin Yao gradually being pushed further and further back, Chun Qiao grew more and more elated. Each slash of her knife was viciously brutal. She sneered, “You have kept ruining our plans time and again. Even if I don’t manage to stab you to death, my master will not let any of you go easily. Dying this way is already too merciful for you.”
Just as she was about to send her knife slashing across Qin Yao’s throat, a figure flashed before her eyes. She took a deep, dull blow to the chest — nearly enough to knock every one of her organs out of place.
She went flying backward and hit the ground, then scrambled back up at once. Looking up at who had struck her, she felt her eyes go wide. How had this man shaken off the horde of walking corpses so quickly? Her gaze fell on Lin Xiao’s sword, and understanding came to her. The last time around, her Tianyin Claw had also been destroyed by that very sword. This blade was truly something peculiar.
Lin Xiao gave her no time to catch her breath. He seemed to materialize right before her like a ghost and struck her chest again with another fierce palm. Chun Qiao could no longer hold herself up and stumbled backward in retreat, crashing ungainly to the floor. She cursed, “You struck from behind!”
Lin Xiao gave a cold laugh, too indifferent to waste words on her. Seeing her fall face-up and expose a vast array of openings, he raised his sword and drove it down in a powerful thrust toward her chest and abdomen. He was on the verge of pinning Chun Qiao to the floor with one blow. Chun Qiao inwardly knew she was in trouble — this man had likely worked himself into a murderous fury precisely because she had nearly killed that young woman, and he absolutely would not let her go easily.
She hurriedly deployed the Tianyin Sect’s strangest life-saving technique, thrusting her knife out wildly. When Lin Xiao drew back slightly to avoid it, she immediately turned and clawed forward across the floor at speed. As she scrambled, she curled her fingers and let out a sharp whistle, attempting to call the undead horde to surround Lin Xiao.
Lin Xiao walked calmly forward to catch up with Chun Qiao, then raised one foot and brought it down onto her right ankle. Expressionlessly, he ground down with deliberate force. There came a low, strangled cry from Chun Qiao, and she was instantly rendered unable to move for the pain.
Qin Yao had never before seen Lin Xiao act with such ruthless ferocity, but she could not deny that it was enormously satisfying and gratifying.
Lin Xiao crouched down, sealed several of Chun Qiao’s major acupoints, then reached his hand toward her bare neck.
Though Chun Qiao was in such pain that every bone in her body felt unhinged, her awareness had not left her. She felt at once alarmed and furious — what strange obsession did this man have? She had tried to entice him before and he had not spared her a glance; now, at a moment like this, could he possibly have taken some sort of interest? And a small flicker of hope stirred in her too — as long as this man harbored any desire, surely she would find a chance to strike back?
But Lin Xiao simply rummaged about at her neck, found the string of bells she had only just acquired, stripped them off without any delicacy whatsoever, rose to his feet, and held them out to the young woman so she could put them back on. “Put it back on quickly,” he said.
Chun Qiao had not expected that all he wanted was to retrieve that young woman’s bell. The hope of a counter-strike collapsed entirely, and she ground her teeth in seething hatred.
Qin Yao accepted the Soul-Devouring Bell from Lin Xiao’s hands with delight, feeling like a warrior reunited with a beloved sword. She immediately summoned the Fire Dragon and turned it against the horde of walking corpses swarming toward them.