Countless Sanskrit characters flew chaotically into Nanyan’s consciousness, forcibly etching themselves into her mind. Her ears buzzed incessantly, barely allowing her to hear familiar voices nearby.
Diewan, holding Nanyan, spoke venomously: “So young, yet so ruthless. Losing a finger won’t harm a cultivator’s essence. Who do you think you’re impressing?”
Who lost a finger?
Nanyan opened her eyes hazily. Through her blurry vision, she saw the corpse puppet eagerly devouring something. Shifting her gaze, she noticed Shao Cang’s hand—the one that had taught her to write stroke by stroke—was now missing a digit.
“…Shao Cang?” she whispered weakly.
Ji Yang kept his bleeding hand behind his back, his expression calm. “I’m not trying to impress anyone. You’ve sworn a heart demon oath. If this person dies, you won’t want to break your oath by conflicting with me.”
Zhan Xian, his skin slightly bleeding from the mechanical snake’s blade, hissed, “Senior, save me!”
Diewan glanced at the mechanical snake restraining Zhan Xian. Her expression suddenly changed. “This construct is newly made using the Dao-aligned celestial crafting method. The rules of mechanical constructs are extremely strict. You can’t be a cultivator from Fanzhou… Wait!”
While each cultivation path had its secrets, there was one place that encompassed them all—Zizhou.
The more Diewan considered the young man’s previous behavior, the more alarmed she became. Suddenly realizing something, she took out a jade talisman engraved with the Yin-Yang sword from her spatial pouch. She tapped it lightly, enlarging the image. Under an enormous character for “Wanted,” appeared the phantom image of a blindfolded young man with a panicked expression. Though his demeanor was entirely different, the face was unmistakably Ji Yang’s.
Diewan’s scalp tingled, her face pale as paper. She stammered, “You… you’re the wanted criminal in the case of Zizhou Emperor’s death?! How unlucky to get involved with someone like you!”
Though she belonged to the Divine Coffin Sect, it was merely one of the three demonic sects in Sizhou, incomparable to Zizhou’s giants. If Zizhou demanded her from Sizhou, her sect would undoubtedly sacrifice a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator like her without hesitation.
Although Zizhou claimed to be righteous, they were known to use demonic methods against demonic cultivators.
Imagining the torment of soul extraction and refinement, Diewan’s expression flickered. “The small cloud vehicle is nearby. I don’t want to be involved with you. I’ve sworn a heart demon oath and won’t harm this girl. If you release my disciple, I’ll let her go and leave immediately. What do you say?”
Ji Yang stared at Diewan. “Agreed.”
“Thank you, Senior! Thank you!” Zhan Xian felt the snake-like construct loosen around his neck. He immediately darted towards Diewan. However, when he was within five feet, Diewan’s eyes suddenly turned vicious. All her demonic butterflies swarmed into Zhan Xian’s body, and she struck him with a palm, sending him flying towards Ji Yang.
In an instant, a tremendous explosion rang out. Zhan Xian’s body burst, splattering poisonous liquid everywhere. Anyone below Foundation Establishment would die instantly upon contact.
Ji Yang prepared for this, had already dodged behind a nearby bare rock when Zhan Xian was struck. The rock, splashed with the poison, was instantly corroded with countless holes.
Yin Ya was caught off guard and conjured a white umbrella before him. Though hastily deployed, the umbrella, despite being riddled with large holes from corrosion, saved him from the worst.
Diewan retreated repeatedly, completely disregarding her heart demon oath. She shouted, “Corpse puppet, attack! Kill him and that fox now, then destroy the bodies! Don’t let anyone discover we were in contact!”
The corpse puppet roared, its body dripping with poison. It pounced forward, fully exhibiting Foundation Establishment power. The Cliff of No Return was momentarily ablaze with magical light.
Yin Ya’s eyes showed irritation, but he remained cautious. His earlier exchange with Diewan had depleted much of his spiritual energy, barely sustaining his Foundation Establishment illusion. Taking another spirit-restoring fruit might damage his meridians.
As the two found themselves at a disadvantage, Ji Yang’s shoulder was grazed by the corpse puppet. Showing no sign of pain, he lightly retreated three steps and sighed softly. “Brother Yin, do you have a sword?”
“I have all eighteen types of weapons. Can you take care of this stinking corpse?”
“Give me three breaths.”
“Why should I trust you?” Yin Ya detonated three of his previously deployed magical treasures—the Three Light Fan and the Demon-Subduing Mirror—forcing the corpse puppet back three steps. His spiritual power gradually receded to the Qi Condensation realm. Clicking his tongue, he tossed a high-grade magic sword to Ji Yang. “I can’t hold on. Whatever trump card you have, use it quickly.”
Ji Yang caught the sword with his left hand, swung it twice, and closed his eyes. The surrounding wind and sand suddenly froze, as if he had entered a realm of tranquility.
“You’ve been poisoned, and you’re still putting on airs?!” Though Diewan said this, she felt inexplicably more panicked. Steeling herself, she conjured hundreds of demonic butterflies again. Their wings turned into blades, each capable of killing a Qi Condensation cultivator with a single strike. The wings stirred up waves of demonic energy, about to sweep toward Ji Yang.
Suddenly, the hand holding Nanyan felt an intense burning sensation. Looking down, Diewan was horrified to see a layer of blood light flickering around Nanyan’s body. Chains of Buddhist phrases extended up her arm, rapidly draining her spiritual power wherever they touched.
“I’m a Foundation Establishment cultivator! How could I fall to a mere Qi Condensation practitioner?!”
A butterfly wing phantom, sharp as a knife, appeared on Diewan’s right hand. She swung it down at Nanyan. With a clang, the Buddhist chains broke, but a broken section pierced through Diewan’s protective demonic shield and entered her body.
Diewan screamed instantly. Beneath her beautiful exterior, Buddhist chants seemed to murmur, disrupting a century’s worth of demonic energy cultivation.
“Damn you! Die!” Diewan went berserk, throwing Nanyan toward the cliff’s edge. In that critical moment, the sword-wielder murmured, pointing his sword at Diewan and speaking slowly.
“Cycle of Heaven’s Recitation.”
In Diewan’s widened, terrified eyes, a ten-foot-square Daoist disc suddenly appeared in the air. Ancient figures seemed to sing and recite wildly, their gestures sweeping away all worldly evil with sword energy.
Countless blue sword lights flew out from the disc, piercing through Diewan in an instant. One sword light pierced her throat. The disbelief in her eyes was replaced by hatred as she pointed at Ji Yang and Nanyan, seeming to silently utter something before falling to the ground.
“Is she dead?” Yin Ya, nearly exhausted from fighting the corpse puppet, felt slightly relieved seeing Diewan’s death. Just as he thought the puppet might settle down without its master, it suddenly roared to the sky, its decaying flesh turning blood-red.
“Hey, the corpse puppet has gone berserk! Can you still run? The woman is dead, we just need to evade it for thirty breaths.”
Ji Yang had barely caught Nanyan at the cliff’s edge. Looking back, he saw the crazed corpse puppet running towards him. He could have escaped, but suddenly noticed over ten gray ghostly shadows rising from the stone forest direction.
Yin Priests.
“It’s over, dawn is approaching. The Yin Priests are returning to their nests!”
In Filthy Valley, Yin Priests would periodically gather towards the valley’s core to replenish their dispersed yin energy. The timing was unpredictable, but—
Yin Ya grew anxious. He tossed over the silver shark silk he had taken from Zhan Xian and Diewan’s bodies, shouting, “Quick, hide yourselves!”
Hiding was impossible. Even if they could evade the Yin Priests with the silver shark pearls, the berserk corpse puppet wouldn’t let them go.
“Brother Yin, can you wait for us on the cliff for six hours? If no one comes up after six hours, you can leave on your own.”
The corpse puppet hadn’t locked onto Yin Ya’s aura; he could use multiple silver shark silk pieces to evade the returning Yin Priests.
“That’s fine, but what are you planning to do?”
With the corpse puppet within ten steps, Ji Yang lowered his head and whispered in the still-unconscious Nanyan’s ear.
“Ah Yan, are you afraid?”
Nanyan didn’t answer, her eyelashes merely twitching slightly.
Then she felt someone embracing her, falling backward. All she could hear was the whistling wind and the increasingly biting, fishy cold breeze.
…
Nanyan had a long dream. She dreamed of Nan Rao holding her hand, walking in an alley at sunset. She clutched a homework book filled with red crosses from her teacher, sobbing. Nan Rao kept smiling. When Nanyan had cried enough, Nan Rao patted her head, telling her to wait while she bought Nanyan’s favorite white sugar cake.
Nanyan waited at the alley entrance until nightfall, but Nan Rao never returned. Only an unusually cold wind blew through the small alley…
Then Nanyan woke up. Perhaps due to the recent legacy transmission, her body was completely drained of spiritual energy. Opening her eyes, she saw blood-red clouds above and below, with a similarly blood-soaked cliff wall nearby. A withered old tree jutted out from the cliff, looking as if it might collapse at any moment.
Nanyan dared not move. Looking up suddenly, she saw Ji Yang lying on the tree trunk, his body half-covered in black blood and his face pale. Even in his severely injured, unconscious state, one hand still tightly gripped Nanyan’s collar, preventing her from falling.
His hand… his fingers…
Nanyan, who hadn’t cried earlier, now couldn’t hold back her tears. They flowed down her cheeks, quickly soaking Ji Yang’s chest.
“…Don’t worry too much about it,” Ji Yang said hoarsely after a long while, his eyes still closed. It seemed that speaking alone had exhausted him.
“Shao Cang?”
“Given the circumstances, this wasn’t necessary… I just thought you weren’t interested in immortality. I planned to use this incident to emotionally compel you to listen to me from now on.”
Nanyan shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
She tried to open her spatial pouch to find some medicine, but couldn’t summon even a trace of spiritual energy. Instead, she pulled out a silk handkerchief from her bosom and carefully wrapped Ji Yang’s hand.
“Since jumping down didn’t kill us, heaven must be on our side. How do we get back up?”
“We can’t,” Ji Yang replied, still not opening his eyes. “The core of Filthy Valley was designed to suppress demons and monsters. The earth’s energy here drains all living beings of their spiritual power. Look carefully to your right.”
Nanyan looked up. The blood-red clouds on the right had thinned slightly, revealing another withered tree. A skeleton hung from its branches, its clothing suggesting it had once been a cultivator.
“I still have a bit of spiritual energy left, but the corpse poison has entered my body, damaging my internal organs…” Ji Yang’s voice faltered, growing even hoarser. “My lungs are damaged, and several bones are broken. This little spiritual energy is useless now.”
As he finished speaking, the withered tree beneath them creaked, seeming to lose some of its support.
Nanyan didn’t dare move. When the tree stabilized, she whispered, “…I’m too heavy. I never thought I’d still be a burden even in this situation. Is there any other way?”
Ji Yang fell silent, then suddenly said, “Listen.”
Nanyan listened intently. Suddenly, the blood clouds in the distance surged, and something seemed to shriek as it poured down from above. The surrounding blood clouds instantly darkened. Soon, countless Yin Priests slowly flew into the core of Filthy Valley. The ghostly blue fires in their eye sockets became the most conspicuous light source in the dark pre-dawn sky, forming a magnificent celestial river beneath the clouds. They converged from all directions, carrying the resentful souls of the countless cultivators who had entered Filthy Valley.
They were still far away, unable to detect the two people on the cliff wall.
“It’s beautiful…” Nanyan spoke from a child’s perspective, genuinely finding the deadly Milky Way of Yin Priests beautiful.
“I agree,” Ji Yang said softly. “Once all the Yin Priests return to their nest, we’ll be discovered. Perhaps we’ll become one of them.”
“Can’t we hide with the silver shark pearl?”
“Do you have enough spiritual energy for the pearl to consume?”
Nanyan fell silent. Then she took the silver shark pearl from her neck and hung it around Ji Yang’s.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s fine. We’re in this together now. It’s the same whether it’s on you or me.”
The same, except the Yin Priests would find him a little later.
Half an hour passed. Nanyan could vaguely see blue ghostly lights floating beneath the blood clouds. A sudden thought struck her. “Shao Cang, why don’t you possess my body?”
Ji Yang slowly opened his eyes. They were as calm as a silent sea in the night sky. He looked at Nanyan’s face solemnly and asked, “Why?”
“My body is intact, just lacking spiritual energy. If you possess me… you could get out of here.” She closed her eyes, ready to sacrifice herself.
“…”
Silly girl.
Ji Yang’s gaze gradually cooled, his demeanor changing completely: “Such deep affection. Don’t you know I’ve been using you?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I approached you only because your silver shark pearl was useful to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I taught and cared for you only because of your talent. When you grow up, you could be useful to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I never opened up to you. Didn’t you have any doubts?”
“…”
After a moment of silence, Ji Yang spoke again indifferently: “Actually, even if you hadn’t suggested it, I was planning to trick you and possess your body to escape. Are you still willing?”
“If you survive, investigate what happened to my mother. If she’s dead, bring her back for a proper burial… Also, Qing Tuan likes sweet food. Don’t burn the wrong offerings during the Qingming Festival.”
Another long silence followed, but Ji Yang didn’t refuse.
“Alright.”
He lightly touched Nanyan’s forehead, quietly injecting a trace of spiritual energy. Meeting no resistance, Nanyan allowed him to seal away her consciousness. She collapsed onto him.
“Silly girl, a person can only possess another body once in their lifetime. There’s no rebirth.” Ji Yang sat up, summoning a snake-shaped mechanical construct. He bound Nanyan to it, infused it with his last bit of spiritual energy, and sent it climbing up the cliff wall with Nanyan.
Watching the slowly ascending construct, Ji Yang felt confused by his actions. His calculations weren’t thorough, his cruelty not heartless enough. His words and deeds could only be described as inexplicable.
The blood clouds beneath the withered tree churned, revealing countless faces of resentful ghosts. Ghostly fires stared intently at their prey.
Ji Yang lowered his gaze slightly. His eyes seemed to reflect a sea of blood but showed no fear.
He made no effort to conceal himself with the silver shark pearl. The Yin Priests gradually surrounded him, coalescing into a ghostly visage of the underworld. They spoke ominously:
“Foolish child, have you come here to die?”
Ji Yang’s eyes reflected a galaxy of stars. Though half-covered in blood, he carried himself as if walking through a grand hall, his bearing dignified. He took a step into the void.
“In life, I was reckless and bold. Now, I wish to question the length of the yellow springs.”