Chapter 138

Chapter 138

For some reason, Bai Xian’er no longer felt like herself.

She wasn’t speaking to me, but neither did she seem to be talking to herself.

Then who were those words meant for?

And who was the “he” she kept referring to?

“Which of the five of us ever truly became a god?”

“What did we gain besides Heavenly Retribution?!”

“Haven’t all these years of imprisonment knocked any sense into you? Are you really going to follow him down that same old path again?!”

Bai Xian’er’s voice grew louder and louder, her emotions increasingly agitated. This was nothing like the behavior of someone on the verge of death.

Even a final burst of vitality before death shouldn’t have been this intense.

What exactly had gone wrong?

As her shouts turned into furious roars, the Talisman Paper on the coffin overhead suddenly began fluttering violently. Many sheets of Talisman Paper burst into flames without warning and turned to ash in an instant.

The temperature in the burial chamber plummeted.

Even more terrifyingly, noises suddenly came from the coffins surrounding me. One wooden peg after another poked through the coffin lids, aiming at me from every direction like a volley of arrows.

Bai Xian’er threw her head back and laughed. Her laughter was both triumphant and desolate.

I instinctively looked up, and everything clicked into place.

Bai Xian’er — no, perhaps this wasn’t Bai Xian’er at all.

Whoever was controlling her and making her say those things, their words were meant for the Gray Immortal.

And they were coming after me.

The Gray Immortal’s resolve was wavering. He was still hesitating.

If that person managed to sway him, I would probably die in this burial chamber today.

The wooden pegs already protruding from the coffins could turn me into a pincushion in the blink of an eye.

I kept my head raised and stared unblinkingly at the coffin above. I made no move to defend myself.

I was gambling.

Gambling on the Gray Immortal’s loyalty.

Gambling on his ability to see the bigger picture.

If a few words could persuade him to turn against me today, then he wasn’t worth my coming all this way to invite him back to be enshrined.

Of course, even if he ultimately chose not to fire, that wouldn’t necessarily prove his loyalty.

Perhaps he was merely wary of Liu Junyan.

But fear could be useful too.

The standoff lasted for more than two minutes. Then the wooden pegs abruptly changed direction and aimed in unison at Bai Xian’er, who lay on the floor.

She seemed to sense it. Her laughter grew even more hysterical, her entire body trembling as tears streamed endlessly from the corners of her eyes.

Before the wooden pegs could fire, Bai Xian’er’s chest suddenly thrust upward, and her entire body arched taut at an impossible angle.

A Copper Coin Net suddenly appeared over her body.

Golden Copper Coin charms strung along Red Thread wrapped around her from head to toe, tightening without pause as though they meant to cut straight into her flesh.

After several rapid, gasping breaths, Bai Xian’er abruptly collapsed and reverted to her true form — a white hedgehog.

Her white Flesh Thorn quills began oozing pus and rotting at a speed visible to the naked eye. In the end, her body became a puddle of putrid flesh.

Throughout the process, the Copper Coin Net continued to contract, digging mercilessly into Bai Xian’er’s body. Like a bloodsucking demon, it drained every last trace of vital essence from her.

The instant Bai Xian’er died for good, the Little Monster let out a heartrending wail and lunged madly toward her.

Unfortunately, before it could take more than a few steps, the wooden pegs shot from the coffins in unison.

The Little Monster was still frozen in the posture of sprinting through the air when the pegs pierced straight through it. Its blood-red eyes bulged wide as it crashed heavily to the floor, dead.
Only then did I quietly breathe a sigh of relief.

The Black Cat meowed and leaped onto the Little Monster. Under my watchful gaze, it suddenly extended its sharp claws and plunged them deep into the Little Monster’s chest.

It rummaged around inside his chest as if searching for something.

A moment later, it withdrew its paw. Clutched in its claws was a jet-black orb.

Was that… the Little Monster’s inner core?

Just as I thought the Black Cat had dug out the Little Monster’s inner core to eat it, its figure blurred, and it returned to the Hexagonal Palace Lantern.

Then I saw the tiny black speck rapidly approach Fu Wan’s dim green glow.

The green glow flared like a bursting spark. After a single flash, it doubled in size.

The Black Cat had actually fed the Little Monster’s inner core to Fu Wan?

Honestly, I was a little jealous.

Liu Junyan had clearly said he’d taken in the Black Cat to be my pet, and I’d always spoiled it plenty. So why didn’t it like me?

Fu Wan’s Essence Spirit hadn’t even fully solidified, yet the Black Cat had been especially close to her from the very beginning.

Why?

Still, jealousy was one thing. I wasn’t angry.

After all, whenever I was in danger, the little fellow was always the first to charge in.

I composed myself, lifted the Hexagonal Palace Lantern, and looked up again.

Most of the Talisman Paper on the coffin above had already burned away, revealing the coffin’s true appearance.

It was a small, transparent coffin. Rather than a traditional coffin, it was shaped like the eight trigrams.

It hung suspended from the ceiling of the burial chamber. Through its eight-trigram-shaped base, I could see a Giant Rat as large as a house cat lying quietly inside.

His entire body was pitch-black, save for a single line of white fur running down his spine.

As the final sheet of Talisman Paper on the coffin crumbled into ash, the entire burial chamber began to shake.

All around me, the coffins whose wooden pegs had been removed collapsed into pieces with a tremendous crash.

Li Qingying’s shout came from outside. “Xiao Jiu, where are you? Hurry out! The burial chamber is about to collapse!”

Then Dou Zhile’s voice rang out behind me. “Big Rat, Shopkeeper Xiao Jiu came all this way to fetch you herself! What are you still lying in there for? How many years have you spent lying around in there? Haven’t you had enough yet? This burial chamber is about to collapse, and my family hardly has any real coffins in here anyway. We don’t need you to be buried with them, mmph-”

Smack!

A slap came out of nowhere and landed squarely across Dou Zhile’s mouth. He immediately covered his mouth and fell silent.

This was the first time since meeting the little old man that I’d heard him say so much in one breath.

And he was hilarious, too.

No, wait. He had always been like this.

I remembered that night when he’d tried and failed to burn himself and Dou Jinsuo alive. As the two of them sat inside that pitch-black coffin, he’d shouted and cursed at his family’s Gray Immortal in exactly the same way.

It was only later, when the situation grew too dangerous, that his true nature had been temporarily suppressed.

The Gray Immortal certainly didn’t coddle him. Dou Zhile was already an old man, yet the Gray Immortal still slapped him in front of his juniors without the slightest hesitation.

Fuming, Dou Zhile sat down on a coffin plank to the side, pulled out his long-stemmed pipe, and lit it. With his back to the Gray Immortal, he puffed away.

Between puffs, he grumbled, “Back then, when you were trapped here, you happened to meet my ancestor. You were the one who shamelessly begged him to worship you, offering to teach him Lu Ban Craftsmanship in return. The Dou Family has kept that promise for generations. After all these years, we finally helped you make it through, so what are you trying to pull now…”