Chapter 201
Chapter 201
I had never imagined that bringing Tang Xun’s Souls into the Netherworld Realm would lead us to such a spectacular sight.
I’d thought we would face obstacle after obstacle and only manage to bring her in after a long, grueling struggle.
Whether we could bring her back intact had been another question entirely.
Yet the person behind all this had already paved the way for us.
Or rather, this Paradise Beyond the World was part of his territory to begin with. Everything here was under his control.
If we hadn’t had the Soul-Guiding Lantern or negotiated with Liu Junyan, he would have used the Ghost King Butterfly to bring Tang Xun’s Souls into this realm.
But once the Ghost King Butterfly and the Fragmented Soul left Tang Xun’s physical body at the same time, Tang Xun would truly die.
The Fragmented Soul could enter this place, but it would never return.
Now, however, everything had fallen perfectly into place.
I didn’t understand how these butterflies were able to replenish Tang Xun’s Soul Body.
Nor did I understand why so many butterflies had appeared here.
But… none of that mattered.
What mattered was that Tang Xun’s Soul Body had “come back to life.”
What mattered was that everything had gone smoothly so far.
Just as I gradually relaxed and began admiring the beautiful scenery around me, the Black Cat suddenly let out a sharp cry.
It had been perched on Liu Junyan’s shoulder the entire time, but now its back arched and every strand of black fur stood on end. An eerie light flashed in its dark green eyes as its entire body went on alert.
The next moment, it sprang from his shoulder, bounded through the flowers in the valley, and raced westward.
Something was happening over there!
Liu Junyan and I exchanged a look. He said, “Tang Xun’s Souls have almost fully coalesced. Xiao Jiu, stay here and perform Soul Collection. I’ll go take a look.”
I nodded and warned him, “Be careful.”
Liu Junyan followed the Black Cat westward. The terrain there rose before dipping sharply, and both he and the Black Cat soon vanished from sight.
Unease stirred in my heart.
This was the Netherworld Realm, after all. Even if this remote corner was under the control of Aunt Tang’s destined partner, accidents could still happen.
And even the slightest accident in the Netherworld Realm could cause us enormous trouble.
No matter what, I had to protect Tang Xun’s Soul Body first. With Liu Junyan and the Black Cat in the west, they should be able to handle things for the time being.
Fortunately, the butterflies in the hollow soon stopped merging into Tang Xun’s Soul Body. Their numbers had dwindled by two-thirds.
Tang Xun stood where she was for half a minute before suddenly raising her eyes toward me.
At first, her gaze was dazed. Then clarity returned to her eyes, and she strode toward me.
“Xiao Jiu.”
Hearing her call my name made the tension inside me ease at once.
The Sacrifice of those butterflies had actually restored Tang Xun’s Fragmented Soul.
It was incredible.
“Aunt Tang.” I strode forward to meet her and said, “This isn’t a place to linger. I’ll take you into the Soul-Guiding Lantern first. Our priority is to return to the Realm of the Living.”
Tang Xun stopped beside me and surveyed our surroundings, lost in thought.
Then she nodded. “I’ll leave it to you, Xiao Jiu.”
I squeezed open the cut on my finger again, let the blood drip, and performed Soul Collection.
Once Tang Xun’s Souls had been drawn into the Soul-Guiding Lantern, I picked it up and hurried westward.
I had only just reached the valley’s highest point when I heard a shrill birdcall, followed by the sounds of fighting.
I stopped abruptly and instinctively clutched the Soul-Guiding Lantern to my chest, narrowing my eyes as I looked down.
The first thing I saw was an enormous flock of crows besieging Liu Junyan and the Black Cat.
But by then, more than half the flock had already been wiped out.
The birdcall I’d just heard, however, had come from another direction.
At the sound, Liu Junyan left the remaining crows to the Black Cat and launched himself toward its source.
From my higher vantage point, I had a broader view. In an instant, I locked onto the direction the birdcall had come from.
One look, and it felt as though all the blood in my body had frozen solid.
I saw a familiar face… Feng Lishu.
The last time we clashed, Liu Junyan had bound one of Feng Lishu’s hands with his Copper Coin and Red Thread, forcing her to flee in a panic.
I never expected our next meeting to take place in the Netherworld Realm.
Even less had I expected her to end up like this.
There was something deeply wrong with her. The skin on the hand Liu Junyan had injured last time had completely ulcerated and turned black, and the damage had continued spreading upward. Now, from that arm all the way to one side of her neck, she looked as though she’d been seared with a red-hot branding iron.
Blood seeped from some parts of her skin, while others were black and rotting. She looked utterly hideous.
Before this, almost every time she’d appeared in front of me, she’d been dressed in a red-and-black archery outfit with her hair tied in a high ponytail, looking both striking and capable.
She had probably dressed that way on purpose to imitate my past-life self and confuse people.
But now, despite changing into a flowing, ethereal gown, she…
When I spotted her, she was pinning a girl to the ground, frantically tearing at her.
She was like a savage beast that had yet to gain sentience, one that devoured raw flesh and drank blood!
She seemed to sense my gaze.
Even though Liu Junyan was already closing in on her, she abruptly raised her head and looked straight at me.
Was this the incomparable sensitivity she had toward me?
Her face was covered in blood, and her eyes gleamed with greed and madness.
The instant our gazes met, she released the girl on the ground and lunged at me without the slightest hesitation.
Unfortunately for her, before she could pick up speed, Liu Junyan swept in from the side and sent a vicious palm strike hurtling through the air into her shoulder.
The force of his palm hurled Feng Lishu away. She slammed heavily into a distant mountain peak, and I heard only a muffled groan followed by the sound of her coughing up blood.
I was stunned. Feng Lishu’s strength… shouldn’t have been this weak!
For one thing, her powers of perception seemed to have deteriorated drastically.
In the past, she should have sensed us the moment we appeared in the neighboring mountain hollow.
What had happened to her these past few days?
I watched her crash to the ground. Even after struggling several times, she still couldn’t get up, and a horrifying possibility occurred to me.
Could it be that she’d repeatedly made things difficult for me because she knew these changes were about to happen to her body?
My hand rose unconsciously to my right cheek. Ever since Liu Junyan enshrined a Buddha Lamp for me at Great Dharma King Temple, the ‘Slave’ mark there had been growing fainter and fainter.
Had Feng Lishu become like this because she’d repeatedly failed to deal with me and missed her best chance to replace me?
Could this… be some kind of backlash from the Symbiotic Curse?
But did the Symbiotic Curse even have a backlash?
According to Gu Yan, the Symbiotic Curse existed solely for Feng Lishu to exploit me. It couldn’t be easy to make a curse like that backfire, could it?
Then again, perhaps in my previous life, I’d paid an enormous price to gain that one desperate chance to turn the curse against her.
Just as Liu Junyan and I both rushed toward Feng Lishu, intending to seize the opportunity to finish her off once and for all, a pair of black wings with a wingspan of two or three meters appeared out of thin air.
The wings folded together, shielding Feng Lishu completely. In the next instant, they vanished without a trace.
Liu Junyan turned to look southwest, his slit pupils contracting as a thoughtful expression crossed his face.
I walked over to him and followed his gaze. Far in the distance, I could just make out the indistinct shadow of a mountain range, flickering in and out of sight.
Liu Junyan wrapped one arm around me and pointed toward the shadowy mountains with the other. “Xiao Jiu, do you see those mountains? What do they remind you of?”
Confused, I shook my head.
Liu Junyan let out a helpless sigh. “Xiao Jiu, that’s Cangwu Mountain…”