Chapter 127
Chapter 127
To me, white hair was nothing short of a Curse.
But as Feng Lishu watched my hair gradually turn white, her entire face lit up with excitement. “Yes, that’s it! That’s the state you were in back then. Do you remember, Linu? On Cangwu Mountain, you looked just like this-your hair completely white, your body weak to the point of collapse. I almost had you that time. This time, you won’t escape!”
An eerie red light flickered in her eyes, and the feather-shaped mark between her brows was so crimson it looked ready to bleed.
All I could feel was pain. My ribs hurt. My shoulder blades hurt. Even my eyes burned as though they were on fire.
Feng Lishu dragged me along as she fought her way into the Formation. Suspended in midair, I looked down and saw something I could never have seen from the riverbank.
Beneath the Nine-Yin Spirit-Gathering Formation, within the pitch-black river, enormous masses of black energy were converging from all directions beneath the Black Coffin.
They circled the Black Coffin endlessly, gathering and condensing until they gradually formed the shape of a coiled Dragon.
The coiled Dragon came from the west. After winding around beneath the Black Coffin countless times, it surged straight toward the Pawnshop in the east.
It had a body, but neither its head nor its tail was visible.
The sight immediately reminded me of the image that had appeared on the floor before the shrine in the Pawnshop’s West Room.
They were identical.
What was going on?
Was that image a prophecy?
Or had it been depicting what was actually happening?
Either way, the stronger this coiled Dragon grew, the greater the danger facing the Pawnshop.
Could Liu Junyan and Black Cat really hold it off?
Just what was the truth behind the Nine-Yin Spirit-Gathering Formation?
At first, everyone had told me the Formation might be intended to resurrect Chen Ping and revive an army of Ghost Soldiers.
Then Feng Lishu had told me that someone would ascend to godhood tonight.
But from what I could see, this looked more like a trapped beast fighting back!
It meant to harness the immense power of the Nine-Yin Spirit-Gathering Formation to break free from the Pawnshop — the needle driven into its most vulnerable point!
Feng Lishu, meanwhile, intended to use the Formation to seize my body while completing her Nirvana.
Nirvana… It was the ultimate means by which a phoenix shed its old form and remade itself.
So Feng Lishu’s true form was a phoenix. But what about me?
No matter what I might have been in the past, I now possessed nothing more than a flesh-and-blood body.
And she wanted to steal even that.
In my current state, I no longer had the strength to draw a bow, and Fengwu had already withdrawn into my body.
All I could do was struggle to raise my right hand. I tried to split open my middle finger and form a hand seal, hoping to use the vast river beneath me to summon Water Ripple.
Before I could succeed, however, a clear yet steady voice suddenly rang out from below.
“The Soul-Restraining Treasure Banner, three feet three! The Azure Dragon rises in threefold bends! A lotus canopy crowns its head, while Dragon and Tiger streamers flank its sides! Shake it thrice and heft it thrice-wandering souls and wicked spirits, gather here! Be bound!”
At the final thunderous command, the Yin Wind swirling around us abruptly changed direction and howled toward a single point to the north below.
Everyone froze.
Narrowing my eyes, I looked toward the source of the voice. The first thing I saw was an enormous black banner sweeping rhythmically through the air.
An inverted scarlet lotus was embroidered across its upper half, with a hideous skull directly beneath it. Six long silk streamers hung from the bottom, while two ribbons fluttered at its sides. A Dragon was embroidered on the left ribbon and a tiger on the right.
On the reverse side was a single bloodred word: “Restrain.”
Beneath the black banner stood a young girl with a long braid, dressed in a robe sewn from countless colorful patches.
She sang and danced, tossing the black banner up, catching it, and sweeping it through the air with effortless skill.
For some reason, despite the great distance between us, my vision was extraordinarily clear at that moment.
My gaze remained fixed on the girl’s empty eye sockets.
Both her eyes had been gouged out!
She held the Thousand-Soul Banner in her hand. She had come to seize spirits!
She… was my Senior Sister!
At that moment, tears nearly spilled from my eyes.
Not from fear. Not from feeling wronged. But from joy.
Senior Sister was still alive.
Not only had she survived, but she had also come so far.
Why had she suddenly appeared here?
Then, among the ring of black-clad figures surrounding Senior Sister, I spotted Tang Xun fighting relentlessly.
So Tang Xun had found Senior Sister and brought her here.
Unfortunately, the moment Senior Sister appeared, Second Master Liu, who had been watching from the sidelines, suddenly joined the battle as well.
He was clearly after the Thousand-Soul Banner.
The Nine-Yin Spirit-Gathering Formation and the Thousand-Soul Banner were now locked in a fierce tug-of-war. The Thousand-Soul Banner had absorbed too many of the Souls in the surrounding area, leaving far too few for the Nine-Yin Spirit-Gathering Formation. The formation was beginning to destabilize.
The roar from underground suddenly grew louder.
This time, I saw it clearly. Whenever the roar reached its peak, the dark shadow beneath the Black Coffin sent a vast wave of ripples spreading outward in every direction.
That alone was enough to prove that the roar came from the shadow — or rather, from the shadow’s true body.
“Why?!” Feng Lishu stared at the battle below for a while before muttering, “Why are there always so many people who choose you, no matter the cost? Linu, just what makes you better than me?!”
I was almost used to her unprovoked bouts of madness by now.
But when Feng Lishu pressed her fingers into my nearly liquefied ribs beneath my shoulder blade, the bone-deep, heart-piercing agony still left me drenched in cold sweat, my face deathly pale.
“You have always been my ‘Slave’!” Feng Lishu tortured me as she snarled into my ear. “From the moment you were born, the word ‘Slave’ was branded into your fate. Lifetime after lifetime, you will never escape!”
“You’re nothing but a lowly ‘Slave’. What right do you have to enter into a marriage pact with Brother Qiu?”
“You’re nothing but a lowly ‘Slave’. What right do you have to win Brother Yulin’s heart?”
“You’re nothing but a lowly ‘Slave’. What right do you have to make Brother Yan, who should have ascended as a Dragon, go mad and destroy himself for you?”
“Linu, you deserve to die!”
“Give me your body! Your spirit bone, your Fengwu, your followers — they should all belong to me! I am your master! Everything you have is mine!”
Feng Lishu’s eyes grew redder and redder, while the force in her hand continued to increase. As her emotions surged, the blood-red feather mark between her brows gradually turned black.
Liu Junyan had told me this was a sign that my spirit bone was not merging properly with her body. That meant this was the perfect moment to fight back.
But just as she had said, she had branded some kind of mark into my body — or rather, into my very fate-long ago, making it easy for her to control me.
My thoughts raced. When had her control over me begun today?
It seemed to have started when she suddenly formed a hand seal and said, “Linu, kneel.”
Was it Spirit Speech? Or the One-Word Incantation?
Whatever it was, it came from her mouth.
After she formed that hand seal, every word she uttered exerted control over me.
My best chance of saving myself was to shut her up completely.
With that thought, I clenched my teeth with all my strength. Blood seeped between my lips and teeth, and the pain seemed to free me from her control for a few precious seconds. I forced my fist up and struck Feng Lishu squarely on her still-moving lips…