Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Despite being slashed several times by Yun Jianyue, the Doppelganger could still move, and the hateful aura pouring from its body only grew stronger.

Yun Jianyue promptly tossed the chainsaw aside, pinned the Doppelganger to the floor, and began pummeling it with both fists and feet.

“Bam! Bam! Bam!”

Every blow landed with brutal force.

Each time the Doppelganger took a hit, Zhou Benxin couldn’t help flinching.

He couldn’t help it. The Doppelganger looked exactly like him, so it always felt as though Yun Jianyue was beating him up instead!

“Still spewing that hateful aura, huh? Go on, try it again. I dare you!” Yun Jianyue demanded as she continued beating it.

By the time she was done, there wasn’t a single unbruised patch left on the Doppelganger’s body. At last, it withdrew its hateful aura with a whimper and begged through tears and snot, “I won’t do it anymore! I won’t! Please stop hitting me!”

Yun Jianyue then hoisted the Doppelganger over her shoulder like a sack of grain. She casually picked up the chainsaw from the floor and headed out.

Fang Lin’an’s jaw dropped. Just what kind of hardcore ghost-catching technique was this? She had beaten a sinister, twisted Doppelganger into submission through sheer brute force?

As he stared in horrified disbelief, Fang Lin’an suddenly came to his senses. Grabbing Zhou Benxin, he hurried after her. “Wait, where are you taking the Doppelganger?”

“Back to its old spot, of course. It can go right back to being a Doppelganger.”

By the time she finished speaking, Yun Jianyue had already marched triumphantly into the room where the Doppelganger had once been kept, still carrying it over her shoulder.

The place where it had stood for so many years was now right before its eyes, and intense resentment flashed across the Doppelganger’s face.

Why was it only allowed to be a Doppelganger? Why couldn’t it become Zhou Benxin?

Why?!

Yun Jianyue lowered the Doppelganger to the floor, kicked it into its old position, and ordered it to stand straight. “A Doppelganger should act like one. Turn back into a wooden figure. Hurry up!”

Fang Lin’an and Zhou Benxin rushed inside just in time to witness this scene.

“It can’t turn back into a wooden figure right now. Calm down,” Fang Lin’an said in the interest of fairness.

The Doppelganger spoke up pitifully. “Exactly! I can’t change back!”

Fang Lin’an continued, “I’ll get Martial Uncle Chu. The two of us will set up an altar and perform a ritual to place a new seal on it. Only then will it be able to change back.”

The Doppelganger went from heaven to hell in the space of a second.

Its eyes bulged with rage, and it wanted nothing more than to lunge at Fang Lin’an and tear him apart. But it was afraid Yun Jianyue would beat it again, so it could only abandon the idea, seething with resentment.

“Then why are you still standing here? Hurry up and go,” Yun Jianyue said.

Fang Lin’an told them to guard the Doppelganger while he went to find Martial Uncle Chu.

Before long, Martial Uncle Chu returned with Fang Lin’an, accompanied by several young Taoist priests.

The young priests swiftly set up a ritual table. Fang Lin’an and Martial Uncle Chu had already agreed on how to conduct the ritual.

“Young friend, please escort the Doppelganger into the formation,” Martial Uncle Chu said after drawing a Bagua Formation, entrusting the dangerous Doppelganger to Yun Jianyue, their strongest fighter.

Yun Jianyue slapped the Doppelganger across the head. “Behave yourself. Get in there.”

The Doppelganger gritted its teeth and shuffled forward at a snail’s pace, one reluctant step at a time.

It had clearly been on the verge of success. Why did it now have to return to that wooden body and its lightless existence?

It simply didn’t want to be a Doppelganger anymore. What was so wrong about that?

Zhou Benxin stood in front of the ritual table. He would also need to participate in the upcoming ritual, since he was one of its central subjects.

The Doppelganger finally entered the formation. Just as Yun Jianyue turned to leave the Bagua Formation, it suddenly lunged forward.

Everyone was caught off guard by the sudden turn of events, and the Doppelganger had already knocked over the ritual table.

It seemed incapable of feeling pain. Its bloodred eyes were fixed solely on Zhou Benxin.

“If I can’t live, then everyone can die with me! You were supposed to die when you were five anyway!”

With a savage expression, the Doppelganger seized Zhou Benxin. Zhou Benxin instinctively tried to kick it away, but the Doppelganger was far stronger than he was. In the blink of an eye, it had him completely restrained.
“Zhou Benxin!” Yun Jianyue immediately rushed toward him, but she was still one step too late.

The Doppelganger wrapped its arms tightly around Zhou Benxin from the front.

In the next instant, blood-red light burst from between them. The glare was so blinding that everyone present instinctively shielded their eyes.

When the light faded, the Doppelganger had vanished. Only Zhou Benxin remained, standing frozen in place with a stunned expression.

“What just happened?”

The young Daoist had never seen anything like this before. He trembled in fear.

They watched Zhou Benxin, none of them daring to take a single step closer.

Yun Jianyue also stopped three meters away and watched him warily. “Who are you right now?”

“I’m me. Who else would I be?” Zhou Benxin looked utterly bewildered.

The next second, his face twisted into a hideous expression. He flashed Yun Jianyue an insanely arrogant grin. “I’m Zhou Benxin! From now on, I’m Zhou Benxin!”

Daoist Chu’s expression darkened. “This is bad. The Doppelganger has forcibly seized Young Friend Zhou’s body! Their two consciousnesses are fighting for control!”

Yun Jianyue asked the obvious question. “What happens to whoever loses?”

“The loser’s soul will be devoured by the other and turned into nourishment!” Fang Lin’an’s face looked grim. He had thought this was almost over, only for the situation to take another unexpected turn. The Doppelganger had outmaneuvered them yet again!

Zhou Benxin clutched his head in agony and slowly crouched down. He curled up on the ground, trembling uncontrollably like a zombie on the verge of mutating.

“Get out… This is my goddamn body…”

“I’m the one who should be alive! Give me the body!”

“Fuck you! Get out!”

“I’m Zhou Benxin!”

At that moment, Zhou Benxin looked like a patient suffering from schizophrenia, his mouth constantly spewing words in two completely different tones and styles.

“What can we do now?” Yun Jianyue asked Daoist Chu.

Daoist Chu shook his head slightly. “All we can do is leave it to Young Friend Zhou’s fate.”

In other words, there was nothing they could do to save Zhou Benxin. If he was devoured, their only option would be to destroy the Doppelganger that replaced him.

From inside the jade pendant, Lu Changxue asked worriedly, “What do we do if Zhou Benxin gets devoured? We’ve been through life-and-death situations together. We can’t just stand here and watch him die, can we?”

“I know.” Yun Jianyue’s gaze sharpened, and she strode toward Zhou Benxin.

Fang Lin’an hurriedly shouted after her, “Are you crazy? Don’t go near him!”

Yun Jianyue ignored him and kicked Zhou Benxin in the stomach.

Two cries of pain emerged from his mouth in quick succession.

“Aargh!”

“Aargh!”

“You tried to escape right in front of me! Even if you kill Zhou Benxin, I’ll beat you to death the instant you take over!” Yun Jianyue rained punches down on Zhou Benxin, making the two souls inside him howl in alternating turns.

The real Zhou Benxin finally couldn’t take the beating anymore. He abruptly wrested back control of his body and grabbed Yun Jianyue by the wrist, his face contorted in pain. “Senior, if you keep hitting me, I’m the one who’s going to die!”

Seeing that Zhou Benxin had regained control of his body, Yun Jianyue breathed a small sigh of relief.

But just as she stopped, Zhou Benxin’s eyes instantly turned vicious.

The mountain of a man lunged at her and clamped both hands around her throat. “You bitch! How dare you hit me? I knew you’d go soft on him! Sure enough, all I had to do was let him control the body for a moment, and you stopped!”

Yun Jianyue lashed out with one foot. Zhou Benxin shrieked and jumped half a meter away as his true self seized control of the body once more.

“Senior! I’ve never even had a girlfriend! Don’t you think kicking me in the balls was a little too much?!”