Chapter 217
Chapter 217
In the end, Liu Junyan released his grip.
When matters of principle were at stake, sentimentality was the last thing anyone needed.
The responsibilities he carried were far greater than mine.
Besides, it was much safer for him to protect me than for me to protect all of them.
A Silver Needle pricked the tip of my middle finger, and a drop of blood fell into the bowl, spreading through it in an instant.
Jiang Sique gently stirred the paste-like mixture with the Silver Needle. As he stirred, the Silver Needle rapidly changed color until it resembled a concealed weapon coated in poison.
Next, he spread a translucent yellow sheet of some unknown material across the back of Du Chan’s neck.
One prick.
Then another…
Prick by prick, he traced the two characters of Du Chan’s name on the back of her neck.
Whenever the Silver Needle’s color faded, he dipped it into the bowl to absorb more color. It would fade, then be dipped again… By the end, the yellow sheet had been almost completely dyed red with blood. Only the punctured characters spelling “Du Chan” were black.
Once the name “Du Chan” had fully taken shape, the sheet was placed against the back of my neck.
The moment the cold, damp paper touched my skin, I shuddered involuntarily.
Liu Junyan immediately took my hand and held it tightly.
I looked up and smiled at him. “I’m fine. It’s just a little cold.”
Then I lowered my head.
As far down as I could.
The first time the Silver Needle pierced my skin, there was a sharp sting, like the pinch of an ant. Then a bone-chilling cold burrowed through the needle’s tip and into the flesh at the back of my neck.
Jiang Sique’s movements were swift, precise, and ruthless. The Silver Needle plunged repeatedly into the back of my neck as waves of sinister cold seeped from there into every limb and bone. My head began to swim.
I closed my eyes. A figure suddenly flashed before me and vanished, startling me so badly that I instantly regained some clarity.
But when the Silver Needle pierced me again, I began hearing things.
An extraordinarily hoarse voice was speaking to me. “Xiao Chan… Xiao Chan…”
With every call, my consciousness grew hazy once more.
The voice was like a thread winding around my soul, pulling me toward some unknown destination.
I drifted on and on,
passing through layer after layer of black mist.
The voice calling to me grew louder and louder.
“Xiao Chan… Xiao Chan…”
My Soul Body rose and sank as it drifted. I had no idea how long I floated before a powerful, pungent odor suddenly flooded my nostrils, and my surroundings abruptly lit up.
When flickering firelight entered my vision, I finally realized I was standing inside an enormous underground palace.
Candle flames and oil lamps burned throughout the underground palace.
They had been arranged in an orderly pattern at various points around the chamber. Anyone with a discerning eye could tell that they formed a Formation.
At the very center of the Formation stood a huge, transparent, rectangular… crystal coffin?
No, it wasn’t a crystal coffin. It looked more like an aquarium, one filled to the brim with liquid.
The piercing odor I had smelled came partly from the heavy, unpleasant stench of Lamp Oil permeating the underground palace. The rest of the complex mixture of smells came from the liquid inside the tank.
Floating in the middle of the liquid was a girl who bore a nine-tenths resemblance to Du Chan, though her skin was an unnaturally ghastly white.
Her eyes were closed as she floated on her back. Her lips opened and closed, endlessly calling, “Xiao Chan… Xiao Chan…”
“Du Lian…”
The name slipped from my lips almost instinctively.
The girl’s moving lips suddenly froze. She slowly turned her head toward me and opened her eyes.
They, too, were completely white.
There were no pupils, only an eerie, ghastly expanse of white.
She stared fixedly at me, seemingly unable to understand why the person she had summoned was not her twin sister, Du Chan, but a complete stranger instead.
She suddenly spun around and pressed her entire face against the glass. Her deathly white eyes instantly turned bloodred and ferocious. “You’re not Xiao Chan. Who are you?! Where is Xiao Chan? Xiao Chan! Xiao Chan!”
She screamed hysterically, yet not a single sound escaped.
It was as if her voice had bypassed the air and burrowed directly into my ears — into my mind.
She was screaming inside my subconscious!
“Xiao Chan, come out! I’m alive! Your sister is still alive!”
“I know you can see me!”
“I know you can hear my voice!”
“Xiao Chan, save me. Your sister is alive… I’m alive…”
Bloody tears pooled in her eyes, but the instant they fell, the liquid in the tank swallowed them whole, leaving no trace behind.
One bloody tear after another fell, and one after another vanished.
The liquid in the tank was like a vat of bloodsucking leeches, ceaselessly devouring Du Lian’s vital essence.
No!
At least a leech’s body would swell after drinking blood. This liquid never changed at all.
Seventeen years!
Du Lian had spent seventeen years in this environment, being slowly devoured!
She longed to be discovered. She longed for someone to save her.
She longed for proof that she was still alive!
How tragic.
Before I knew it, I had taken several steps forward and approached the tank.
Then I slowly lowered my head, revealing the name “Du Chan” formed by the yin rubbing on the back of my neck to the frenzied Du Lian.
Her screams and pleas abruptly stopped.
I raised my head and met Du Lian’s stunned gaze.
I was taking a gamble.
Du Chan had stumbled into this area by chance while out sketching.
She might never have visited Qilin Temple, much less witnessed the horrific scenes that had appeared in my dreams.
Yet she had painted them.
So how had Du Chan known what to paint?
I was betting that it had been the psychic connection between twin sisters.
Du Lian had seen those scenes.
In other words, when Feng Lishu used the liquid in the tank to drain Du Lian’s vital essence, Du Lian’s consciousness resonated with Feng Lishu’s, allowing her to witness them.
I stared unblinkingly into Du Lian’s eyes.
Du Lian stared just as intently back at me.
“Are they about to make their move?”
After a long silence, Du Lian’s voice sounded in my mind again. This time, it was hoarse and grief-stricken.
“I’m the one who doomed Xiao Chan… aren’t I?”
I said nothing and simply watched her in silence.
Du Lian closed her eyes in anguish as bloody tears streamed down her face.
When she opened them again, countless fragmented memories that did not belong to me suddenly flooded my mind.
At first, I saw a tiny child, her entire body mottled blue and purple, lying inside an enormous rectangular glass tank.
She lay flat at the bottom, neither breathing nor showing any sign of a heartbeat.
Small patches of livor mortis had even appeared on her skin.
Then someone poured a large quantity of thick, pungent liquid into the tank.
As the liquid level rose, the tiny body floated upward, tossed violently around the tank by the churning current.
Only when the tank was full did the tiny body come to rest, suspended at its center.
I saw what appeared to be thousands upon thousands of fine roots within the liquid burrow into Du Lian’s body… They reminded me of the patterns on the Cangwu Nether Seal.
And of the patterns inside my liquefied ribs.
Her body suddenly arched. Her chest heaved violently, and harsh, rasping gasps rattled from her throat.
The blue-purple discoloration covering her body receded at a speed visible to the naked eye. The patches of livor mortis also faded until, all at once, her eyes snapped open…
Du Lian’s voice echoed through my mind once more. “How could I have forgotten? So I was already dead all along…”