Chapter 257

Chapter 257

A conservative estimate put the odds at ninety percent. With Uncle Huo assisting from the sidelines, it would be practically guaranteed.

Liu Junyan’s slit pupils contracted. He was clearly tempted.

Hui Moqiong immediately raised his hand. “Me! I’ll go find Sister Bai! We’ve been through life and death together for so many years. I refuse to believe she won’t do me this favor!”

Hui Moqiong had said that the two of them had depended on each other for many years back in the Qinling Mountains.

To Hui Moqiong, the White Immortal was probably like his own older sister.

Unfortunately, their paths had later diverged, and their relationship had nearly reached the point of complete rupture.

But now, to help me, Hui Moqiong was willing to swallow his pride and bow his head to the White Immortal.

Sometimes I wondered what I had done to deserve so many family members who were wholly devoted to me.

Liu Junyan shook his head. “Songlan wants to see me.”

So the White Immortal’s full name was Bai Songlan.

“Come on, Seventh Master,” Hui Moqiong said. “Let me go first. If my name doesn’t carry enough weight, you can always go afterward.”

Liu Junyan said nothing more. I had no idea what he was weighing in his mind.

Li Qingying prepared a whole table of delicious dishes, and everyone ate, drank, and chatted for a long time.

After the meal, Tang Tang drove Uncle Huo home.

Uncle Huo said he would wait for news. Whenever we needed him, he would come over immediately.

I took a long, satisfying hot shower and changed out of my archery uniform. Though it was torn in a few places, I couldn’t bear to throw it away. I planned to wash it, mend it, and keep it as a memento.

Dusk was approaching.

Liu Junyan was discussing something with Hui Moqiong in the West Room. Exhausted, I got into bed early and planned to doze for a while. I still had something I wanted to tell Liu Junyan after he finished talking and came over.

Instead, I slept until a little after five the next morning. I didn’t even know when Liu Junyan had come to bed.

The moment I moved, he woke up. “You’re awake? Are you thirsty? Hungry?”

“Thirsty.”

I sat up. Liu Junyan had already switched on the bedside lamp and gone to pour me some warm water.

I held the cup in both hands and took a few sips. At last, I was fully awake.

Liu Junyan took the cup from me and set it on the nightstand. “It’s still dark. You can sleep a little longer.”

I shook my head. “I can’t fall back asleep.”

Liu Junyan reached out and gathered me into his arms. I turned onto my side and looked up at him, absently fiddling with a button on his shirt. “Ah Yan, did something happen while I was away? Do you want to tell me about it?”

Liu Junyan instinctively replied, “Nothing happened.”

In truth, I had spent a great deal of time thinking and analyzing things while taking my shower the night before.

Other than me, the most urgent matter right now was probably Lord Xiao.

Liu Junyan wanted to rescue Lord Xiao and stand against the Linghai Dragon Clan. To do that, he had to retrieve his Lifebound Artifact.

Before then, he needed to recover as many of the seven Golden Scale pieces as possible.

Of the known Golden Scale pieces, the only one he had yet to retrieve was the one in Chang City.

With that in mind, I asked directly, “You went to Chang City?”

“Who told you that?” Liu Junyan frowned. “Qingying or Moqiong?”

“Neither of them. I figured it out myself,” I said. “It wasn’t difficult to deduce.”

Liu Junyan stroked my hair and drew a deep breath before finally saying, “Yes. After we returned from the Linghai Forbidden Zone, once I confirmed that you had entered Cangwu Mountain, I had Moqiong make time for a trip to Chang City. He discovered that the Seal I placed in that mountain hollow back then had loosened. Someone had tampered with it.”

“Someone tampered with it?” I sat up in surprise. “Could it have been whoever was behind the person you killed back then?”

“That was our first thought too, but Moqiong investigated and discovered it wasn’t,” Liu Junyan said. “The person who tampered with my Formation was from a fairly prominent Gray Immortal Hall in Chang City. Moqiong’s little sister, Hui Yumo, works there as an errand runner.”
Right. Hui Moqiong had told me about this.

“Moqiong went to his sister to ask what was going on, but she told him outright not to touch that plot of land. Those were the orders of Old Madam Hui, the head of their hall.

“Moqiong then went to Old Madam Hui, hoping she might make an exception for Hui Yumo’s sake. Instead, her people threw him straight out.”

I didn’t understand. “Why is Old Madam Hui being so unreasonable?”

Liu Junyan wasn’t sure either. “Moqiong is as shrewd and resourceful as they come, yet he couldn’t coax so much as a hint out of Old Madam Hui. In the end, Hui Yumo secretly told him that after he left, Old Madam Hui sighed and muttered something about how the proprietor of the Pawnshop could barely save herself now…”

Huh?

Old Madam Hui had mentioned me?

Why?

“It sounds as if she’d originally wanted to ask me for help, but regretted not getting to me in time.”

Liu Junyan looked thoughtful. He had clearly picked up on the same implication.

I continued, “Does she have something she wants to pawn to the Pawnshop? Or does she want to redeem that plot of land because Qiu Fengnian pawned it to me?”

“Absolutely not!” Liu Junyan said at once. “That land cannot fall into anyone else’s hands.”

Confused, I asked, “Ah Yan, what exactly is buried there? You’ve never told me.”

Perhaps he hadn’t been able to tell me before, but now that he wanted to recover the Golden Scale, I would have to find out sooner or later.

“There’s another person buried beneath Qiu Fengnian’s father’s coffin,” Liu Junyan said. “When I approached that graveyard, I sensed an overwhelming concentration of baleful yin energy. After I lifted the coffin, I found a corpse covered from head to toe in hair, with long fangs jutting from its mouth.”

I stared at him in shock. “A zombie?”

So Qiu Fengnian’s father had only remained undecayed and become a zombie because his body had been steeped in that baleful yin energy for years.

“It’s not as simple as an ordinary zombie,” Liu Junyan said. “Judging by what I saw, it may be a Corpse Fiend.”

I was completely baffled. “What’s a Corpse Fiend?”

I had never even heard of such a creature.

Liu Junyan explained, “A Corpse Fiend is formed when a cultivator who has reached an extremely high level dies with a grave injustice unresolved. Even after death, it continues cultivating by absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, as well as the energy in its surroundings. Hair grows all over its body, and the lighter that hair becomes, the greater its cultivation.”

Now I understood. A Corpse Fiend had already been a highly accomplished cultivator in life.

And it continued cultivating even after death.

Something like that… Just hearing about it was enough to know how terrifyingly powerful it must be.

No wonder Liu Junyan had chosen to place it under a Seal first rather than risk rashly retrieving the Golden Scale.

I asked, “What color is the Corpse Fiend’s hair now? Did you get a clear look?”

“White,” Liu Junyan said. “It’s already close to the highest level a Corpse Fiend can reach.”

I was horrified. “Could Old Madam Hui be the one who buried that Corpse Fiend there?

“If she’s raising something that sinister, then Hui Yumo had better leave the Gray Immortal Hall in Chang City.”

Liu Junyan neither agreed nor disagreed. “Old Madam Hui refuses to communicate, so there’s no way to know whether she raised this Corpse Fiend. But now that I’ve decided to intervene in that land, I won’t show the Gray Immortal Hall any mercy — not even for Hui Yumo’s sake!”

Once the Corpse Fiend fully matured, there was no telling what kind of disaster it might unleash.

The Corpse Fiend could not be allowed to remain…