The soul substitution technique was indeed such that anyone ordinary who heard the conch’s sound would, without exception, fall into a dazed stupor and become bewitched.
The snowy night was already freezing and bleak, and this place was thick with Yin Energy. Once that sobbing, wailing sound arose, the surrounding life energy seemed even more feeble, making it feel more like a nest of ghosts and evil than ever.
A wisp of life energy suddenly shot closer. Its stumbling, staggering movement clearly showed a soul bewitched by the conch’s sound.
This was not unusual. If a living soul hadn’t been lured, it would only prove that these people had gone to great lengths for nothing. Coincidentally, the approaching living soul had a familiar face—it was the very woman who had been offering incense in the temple during the day!
“No wonder she had a Water-Calamity Mark on her face, a look of impending death.” Yinyu was astonished.
She had never abided by any of Wisdom Water Red Mountain’s rules anyway. Now that fate had intertwined them, not helping would make her seem cold and heartless.
Yinyu moved as if to step out. The hands covering her ears immediately released, then hooked around her waist instead. Lian Sheng held her tightly, so tightly she couldn’t take a single step, confining her to the dark corner.
There, the woman’s living soul had already reached the lantern-bearer. All she had to do was snatch the fire from his lantern to become the substitute ghost.
To stop it now would be too late!
The woman thrust her hand into the lantern, like a starving ghost seizing food. She hastily stuffed the ghostly blue fire into her mouth and swallowed it down with force.
The moment she swallowed the ghost fire, the Water-Calamity Mark on her face intensified. The fire inside her seemed to burn her painfully. She howled, thrashing, rolling wildly.
The lead lantern-bearer looked back. “It is done. Let’s go back and drink.” He was entirely satisfied, grinning from ear to ear.
Yinyu tore Lian Sheng’s hand away. “Why stop me?”
Lian Sheng was calm as ever. “This is under the watch of the Heavenly Dao. It’s not good to meddle so openly in the fates of mortals.”
“My intervention also counts as meddling in mortal fates?” Yinyu chuckled coldly. “I already know about the banishment. I thought once I left that place, I’d be free and easy, footloose and carefree.”
“There’s something you may not know.” Lian Sheng hooked her back into an embrace, this time even tighter. “Though you’ve left White Jade Capital, your name is still on the Immortal Register Casket.”
The Immortal Register Casket?
In her dream, Yinyu felt she’d heard of such a thing. It was supposed to be a register recording the lives and duties of gods and Buddhas, bearing the will of the Heavenly Dao.
Lian Sheng’s breath fell on the back of her neck, soft and warm, carrying a trace of puzzlement. “No one can erase your name.”
Yinyu shrank her neck slightly. After a brief moment of shock, she actually smiled. “The Heavenly Dao can’t bear to part with me?”
She pulled Lian Sheng’s hand away again, turned around and pressed close. Their eyes met, and she challenged, “So what? Arriving here, you’ve become so cautious and restrained.”
Lian Sheng wasn’t angered. She knew this person was carefully laying a trap for her again, step by step, just as before. The fleeting, wanton gaze cast upon her was an Inescapable Net she could neither avoid nor flee.
She said plainly, “Caution is natural. This place is called Wisdom Water Red Mountain, not the world called Little Desolate Islet.”
In the distance, the group in mourning clothes was celebrating. Their success had them breaking ranks, scattered about haphazardly. They didn’t even plan to send the woman’s living soul back, treating others’ lives as worthless.
There was a clatter on the rooftop eaves, as if a wildcat had run by.
The lantern-bearer paid the sound no mind. He waved and said, “Everyone, to the Kang house for a drink! We won’t go home until we’re drunk!”
No one answered. The group that had been chatting and laughing moments ago was now staring at him in stunned terror.
The lantern-bearer felt puzzled, then suddenly heard the woman’s living soul behind him let out a shriek like a Fierce Ghost.
The woman was now a soul out of her body, her mind bewitched by the conch horn’s sound. She believed she’d become a malevolent ghost and thought she had to consume others’ Life Fire to escape her wandering dead state. That’s why she’d seized the fire.
Since she saw herself as a ghost, it wouldn’t be surprising if she let out a ghostly wail upon encountering a threat.
But who had crossed her?
The lantern-bearer whirled around to see a woman tightly holding down the other’s soul, even forcibly prying the swallowed ghost fire out of her throat!
The woman had dived down from the eaves, dressed in a long black skirt. Her face blurred in the light and shadow. Only when illuminated by the ghost fire could her heavily applied makeup be seen.
Powdered face, red lips. Her gaze was sharp and cold. She looked like a formidable character.
The moment she heard the clatter on the roof tiles, Yinyu had sensed someone alive approaching. But she hadn’t expected this person to act so swiftly.
She was still pressed against Lian Sheng, refusing to budge. She glanced over and whispered in Lian Sheng’s ear, “We have company.”
Lian Sheng simply didn’t move, giving a calm “Mm.”
The woman crushed the ghostly fire in her hand. Then she slapped the center of the other woman’s back. The woman’s soul shot out like a deflated balloon, forcibly sent back.
With this, everything the others had done was for naught. Furious, they knew they wouldn’t be drinking tonight.
The lantern-bearer clearly recognized this woman. If it weren’t so cold, smoke would surely be pouring from all his orifices. He hurled his glass lantern to the ground and yelled harshly, “You again! You’ve ruined the Kang family’s affairs three times now! What do you want? Gold? Do you want gold?!”
The woman was silent.
Seeing negotiation impossible, the leader spewed profanities, then told those around him, “Seize her! I want to see how much this little wench is really capable of!”
The group attacked, drawing swords, producing talismans. It was a battle formation only cultivators would employ.
This was a novel sight. Before coming to Wisdom Water Red Mountain, Yinyu had only seen such scenes on television.
The Kang family members numbered roughly twenty. They spread out and surrounded the woman.
The woman’s expression remained unchanged. She still said nothing. With a flick of her wrist, the sword edge turned. Cold light glinted under the moon.
Yinyu lazily slumped against Lian Sheng, as if she herself was the one who could summon winds and rains. She said softly, “The Kang family is rampant and tyrannical. They must have made enemies everywhere in Dark Snow Heaven. See, a hero stepping in to right a wrong has arrived.”
Instead of pushing her away, Lian Sheng seemed resigned to it, only looking rather cold.
Listening to the faint, seemingly absent breaths of the person before her, Yinyu’s heart seemed to grow damp again. “When Dark Snow Heaven still had divine protection, was the Kang family like this too?”
“No,” Lian Sheng turned her head aside, seeking a rare thread of cold in the mingled, sultry breath to cool the distracting desires in her heart.
Yinyu found the ubiquitous snow familiar, the scattered eaves familiar. She hadn’t just been to this place before; she must have lived here for quite a long time.
It must have been her, right? The deity who once protected Dark Snow Heaven, only to vanish without a trace.
In the distance, the group still had the woman surrounded. Someone used a talisman that could summon flames, and the area instantly lit up like daylight.
The woman’s face was now perfectly clear. It was indeed heavily made up—so heavy it seemed deliberate. Any more and she’d look no different from an opera singer.
On closer look, she seemed slightly taller than the average woman, which felt somewhat odd.
The Kang family’s lead lantern-bearer was aggressive. “You madwoman! I think you wanted to snatch the ghost fire yourself, to be the substitute!”
The woman remained silent. She swept out her long sword. The Sword Qi was swift as a lightning bolt.
“It’s always you! If you hadn’t interfered, my young master’s illness would be cured by now! This time we’ll definitely capture you…” The man’s voice cut off abruptly. He stared cross-eyed at his own forelock, then let out a loud yell. A cold gleam flashed, and a lock of his hair drifted down.
The Kang family had used every talisman they had, pulling out all the stops, yet the woman still handled it with ease.
Seeing this, they grew even angrier. They simply threw out all their talismans at once—wind, thunder, fire, all mixed together in a chaotic mess.
Only then did Lian Sheng extend a finger and gently press it against Yinyu’s shoulder bone, as if to push her away. “This Kang family is no simple matter. Cultivators’ talisman papers can be sold at will, but they’re all quite expensive. For them to squander so many in one go like this is like splashing water or scattering rice.”
That amount of force—if Yinyu hadn’t yielded on her own, how could she have been pushed away?
She leaned crookedly against Lian Sheng’s side, unable to make sense of the flashy spells. “If outsiders really want to control Dark Snow Heaven, they’d likely need the Kang family. There must be someone behind them.”
Surrounded in the center, the woman nimbly dodged all the spells thrown at her, her movements exceptionally light. Her sword couldn’t cleave through lightning, but she guided the lightning to coil around its blade.
In a flash, that long sword was at the throat of the lantern-bearer. The lightning spread, shocking him into trembling violently, his hair standing straight up as if tied in a topknot.
Yinyu couldn’t help it and let out a chuckle. She and Lian Sheng were only pressed against the wall in the dim light, not exactly hidden, just unnoticed. Anyone who looked closely into the darkness would see something amiss.
The laughter carried, and the Kang family members naturally heard it. The lantern-bearer, enduring the humiliation of his upright hair, demanded fiercely, “Who’s there?!”
A quick-witted follower beside him turned toward the sound. Seeing the woman’s sword about to pierce the lantern-bearer’s chest, he hastily threw out a Spirit Talisman to summon a gale, intending to grab whoever was hiding nearby to use as a human shield.
The violent wind whooshed toward them, whipping Yinyu’s clothes and sleeves up and pulling her forward.
Lian Sheng extended a hand in front of her, never once taking such a petty trick seriously.
Yinyu’s hands and feet ached, but as she tilted forward, she felt a strange connection. Her joints creaked faintly, vibrating as if resonating with something.
She narrowed her eyes. Every single Kang family member, without exception, had a faint black mark on their face—tiny, like a round mole.
Strange. There had been nothing there just moments ago.
She also saw that several points on their bodies were shrouded in a faint, seemingly present, sinister evil aura, like marionettes bound by strings at the wrists and ankles.
Those points were deeply familiar to Yinyu. They were the very spots on her own body that often ached.
She didn’t even have to think twice before she was certain they were where Servitude Nails were located. But why did the Kang family members also have Servitude Nails?
Lian Sheng’s hand was still shielding Yinyu, but Yinyu shifted her body, making it look like an accidental dodge. She even tilted into the gust of wind and was precisely snatched away.
Having captured someone, the wind-summoner was smug, showing no sign he thought his method underhanded. He roughly shoved Yinyu in front of the lantern-bearer.
The woman barely managed to stay her thrusting hand. She shot a sharp glare at the wind-summoner but still didn’t speak.
Despite being captured to be a human shield, Yinyu’s expression remained unchanged. Her eyes held no fear. Taking advantage of the extreme proximity, she examined these Kang family members carefully.
Servitude Nails indeed. Except for the sword-wielding woman, everyone present had them.
Perhaps because her True Body had returned, she could even smell a strange, musty odor emanating from the nails, tinged with a faint, almost imperceptible stench of decay.
It wasn’t the first time she’d smelled it. Back on Little Desolate Islet, the scent she caught in the ashes of the Shrine Hall’s incense was just this smell.
What a coincidence. The matter there hadn’t been sorted out, and now she encountered it again here.
The woman withdrew her sword in time, wary of harming an innocent. The instant she pulled back, the others seized the gap to cast their spells.
The Kang family really used every means possible. The talisman paper in the lantern-bearer’s hand burned out, and a clang rang out in the air. A long, thick chain materialized and wrapped itself around the woman.
