Uncanny Immortal 123

Chapter 123

Why had Yan Ling turned into a half-grown child? Someone who could transform into different forms was not a human at all! But there was not a trace of ghostly qi on Yan Ling. What was going on? And how had she gotten in?

Mo Jiangxue saw Xie Qingzheng’s confusion and said coolly, “I’ll tell you slowly later.”

She first settled the wounded and then led Xie Qingzheng to a secret room.

The moment they entered the room and closed the door, Mo Jiangxue turned around, sized up Xie Qingzheng, and said, “You look much more haggard.”

She had just finished a chaotic battle today and had followed them on a whim, without resting. And with so many things having happened these past few days, she did indeed look much thinner and more haggard.

She turned her head away, avoiding Mo Jiangxue’s gaze, and lowered her head. “Don’t look at me. I’m haggard and not good-looking. Master, you also look…”

Also much more haggard. It seemed that the yin poison in her body had acted up these past few days, and she looked even weaker.

Every time she wrote a letter, she would ask about her master’s physical condition. On the way back to Yehuo Cheng, she had opened her master’s replies, and in every reply, her master had said, “I am well. Do not worry.”

If she had known earlier that her master had replied, she would have used a sound transmission talisman to contact her when she had received the first reply, instead of continuing to have someone deliver her letters of greeting.

But there was no point in saying these things now…

Xie Qingzheng looked up and brought the topic back to Yan Ling. “How did Yan Ling get in? Master, why didn’t you send someone to tell us? She is very dangerous.”

Mo Jiangxue took a sip of tea and said slowly, “She had mixed in with the poison corpses three months ago and had been sent to Yehuo Cheng from the front lines. When she was sent over, she was in this thirteen- or fourteen-year-old appearance. I didn’t recognize her at first and thought she was just an ordinary girl who had been refined into a poison corpse. The medical cultivators in the city cured the corpse poison on her. When she regained her senses, she said that her name was ‘Ling’ and that she was a rogue cultivator. When she had just woken up, she was both scared and sad, and had been looking for her parents in the poison corpse group all day, crying all day. She looked very pitiful.”

Xie Qingzheng suddenly remembered that when she had just been brought out of Wen Family Village by the person before her as a child, she had also been crying all the time. She couldn’t help but let out a soft snort and complain, “Master, you are so pitiful to her. When I was sad as a child, why didn’t you think I was pitiful? At that time, I wanted to become your disciple and stay by your side, but you still refused me…”

Why was she now willing to let a suspicious person stay by her side? It was so unfair.

Mo Jiangxue gazed at Xie Qingzheng, and after a long while, her thin lips moved. She said, “Before, I was also pitiful to you. Now, it is because I thought of you as a child that I paid special attention to her.”

She rarely had such moments of revealing her heart. They had not seen each other for three months, and when Xie Qingzheng suddenly heard her say such a thing, her heart pounded wildly, and for a moment, she did not dare to meet her gaze again.

After taking a deep breath, Xie Qingzheng finally suppressed her emotions and said in a hoarse voice, “Master… you, don’t say such things… it may not be much to you, but I do not have your indifferent state of mind. I will misunderstand.”

She did not want to hear such ambiguous words anymore. Hearing them, although she was happy for a moment, it was no different from drinking poison to quench her thirst.

Mo Jiangxue lowered her eyelashes. She just didn’t want her to misunderstand any more…

Xie Qingzheng said, “Master, please continue. I won’t interrupt.”

Mo Jiangxue said, “After I noticed that girl, I walked to her side. Her face had been corroded by the corpse poison, and her appearance was seventy or eighty percent destroyed. But I could still vaguely recognize that she looked very similar to Yan Ling, especially her eyes, which were exactly the same as Yan Ling’s. And she had a fan of Yan Ling’s on her. Only then did I begin to suspect her identity.”

Xie Qingzheng said anxiously, “She has gone to great lengths to get in. She must have ill intentions! And since she can get in like this, can the other people of the demonic cult also get in like this?”

She wondered if there were many spies from the demonic cult in the city now.

Mo Jiangxue explained, “A person who has been refined into a poison corpse, no matter how high their cultivation is, it is very difficult for their body to recover, and they will not have any spiritual energy on them. They are even weaker than an ordinary person and cannot threaten our safety. Besides, there is an array in the city, and ordinary people cannot get out.”

Xie Qingzheng: “Then how did you confirm that she was Yan Ling, Master?”

Mo Jiangxue said, “At that time, I suspected her identity, so I kept her by my side and observed. The next day, I sent a message to Tan Yao in the Miao region and had her help me to find Tanluan and ask for some information about Yan Ling.”

Xie Qingzheng: “That’s right. Tanluan is more familiar with Yan Ling than the people of the righteous path. The people of the righteous path only know that she is the young master of the Ten Directions Domain, the only daughter of the Lord.”

Mo Jiangxue hummed in acknowledgment. “Tanluan was unwilling to say. I later sent a few more messages but did not receive a reply. It was only two days ago that Tan Yao transmitted a message to me, saying that she had gotten the words out of Tanluan—on Yan Ling’s right arm, there are seven red birthmarks arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper, which is very special. I lifted the girl’s arm and looked, and there were indeed seven moles.”

Xie Qingzheng was puzzled. “Since you have recognized her identity, why not imprison her?”

Mo Jiangxue: “Because she really does not remember her identity as ‘Yan Ling’ and only thinks that she is a rogue cultivator named ‘Ling.’ I kept her by my side to see what her background was. She could not possibly be the daughter of the Lord of the Ten Directions Domain. She is neither human nor immortal, neither demon nor devil. She has the clear qi of a spiritual cultivator and seems to have a deep connection with the righteous path.”

A birthmark in the shape of the Big Dipper…

Xie Qingzheng was lost in thought. “When she attacked our Xuanji Sect before, I also found that she did not have the turbid qi of an ordinary evil cultivator.”

Mo Jiangxue said, “When she was not paying attention, I possessed her and probed her memory. She did indeed have the memory of the identity of ‘Ling.’ A-Ling’s parents were a pair of ordinary rogue cultivators from Gusu in Jiangnan. The family of three would often go out to exorcise evil spirits. One time, when they were exorcising evil spirits, they were accidentally captured by the people of the demonic cult and refined into poison corpses.”

Xie Qingzheng guessed, “Then could it be that Yan Ling possessed A-Ling? No—” Before Mo Jiangxue could speak, she shook her head and denied this guess. “If it were a possession, then what you would have probed, Master, would have been the memory of Yan Ling’s soul, not A-Ling’s.”

Mo Jiangxue nodded. “That’s right. That’s why it was not convenient to mention my suspicions to others before. And her state of mind is also very different from Yan Ling’s. After her body had recovered a little, she had been by my side all along, healing the sick and saving people with me, without a single complaint. She would also find time to make food for the common people and comfort them not to be afraid. The people in Yehuo Cheng all like her very much. If I hadn’t suspected her identity and motive, I would also have thought that she was a lively and clever little girl.”

Children always make people lower their guard.

Xie Qingzheng paced back and forth, thought for a moment, and said, “Master, perhaps she is like me. There are originally two souls in her body, one is ‘Yan Ling’s,’ and the other is ‘Ling’s.’ Before, it was that Yan Ling who had the dominant control of the body. Now, it is A-Ling’s soul that has awakened.”

Mo Jiangxue nodded. “That is what I guessed as well. And Yan Ling’s soul is extraordinary. It is not a human soul, which is why she can transform into different forms.”

Xie Qingzheng: “Yan Ling may still be hiding in that body. Master, no matter what her background is, and what her relationship with the righteous path is, in short, I am not at ease to leave her by your side. You still have to look after and treat the wounded. It is inevitable that there will be oversights. Why don’t I take her to Sect Master Xie’s side and have Sect Master Xie investigate her.”

Mo Jiangxue said, “Mm, I had originally planned to send her over myself. It’s a good thing you’ve come. You can take her tomorrow.”

At this time, a light laugh suddenly came from outside the door.

Xie Qingzheng’s face changed. “Who?!”

Mo Jiangxue’s face tightened. She flicked her sleeve, and the main door opened. A black shadow flashed past outside the door.

That was not the speed a human should have!

The master and disciple looked at each other and quickly chased after her.

They passed through a few long streets and patches of shacks. Xie Qingzheng’s heart pounded. After a while, she saw two black stone pillars, on which were pasted red and yellow talismans—the Corpse Refining Altar.

She flew over the stone steps on her sword, and Xie Qingzheng saw the several hundred iron cages with talismans pasted on them below.

The cages here had become empty. After more than three months, the poison corpses had more or less regained their senses and had been placed in the shacks on the street. The blood in the Corpse Refining Pool had also been cleaned up.

A thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl was in the Corpse Refining Pool, her head in her hands, her body curled up, and she was moaning, as if in great pain.

The two of them landed. Mo Jiangxue took out her qin, and Xie Qingzheng held her sword, warily looking at the girl in the pool, not getting close.

Mo Jiangxue said coldly, “A-Ling, were you the one who was listening to us outside the room just now?”

The secret room was protected by a barrier. An ordinary person could not get close at all. If one’s cultivation was not above the two of them, even if they got close, they would have been discovered.

But just now, they had not sensed anyone’s arrival at all.

The girl suddenly jumped up and giggled. “Ah, such a low-level little trick really can’t fool you.”

Xie Qingzheng pointed her sword at her. “Yan Ling, what do you really want by getting close to my master?”

Yan Ling, with her left hand, conjured a folding fan, fanned it casually, and with a smile on her lips, she walked towards them, step by step.

“Little Daoist friend, why did you have to come back? Don’t you know that you are very superfluous? If you hadn’t appeared, I would have stayed in Yehuo Cheng with your master and would have healed the sick and saved people with her.”

With every step, her height increased, and the bandages on her face turned to ash, inch by inch, and were carried away by the wind. Her rotting skin healed bit by bit, and her appearance also changed. The simple clothes on her body slowly transformed into the karmic fire red lotus robe of the Ten Directions Domain. The flames and red lotuses on the white robe shimmered with a strange red light under the moonlight.

Xie Qingzheng was provoked by her words, and she said in a cold voice, “She and I are a proper master and disciple. What are you? To pester her for no reason!”

By the time she was ten steps away from them, the girl had completely transformed back into Yan Ling’s appearance, her figure graceful, her face beautiful, and her every move carried a three-part refinement and a seven-part arrogance. But on closer inspection, she seemed a little different from the Yan Ling of before. Her face was paler, her eyes were deeper, and the contours of her features were sharper. The same face, but a different temperament, as if they were two different people.

Mo Jiangxue asked in a deep voice, “Yan Ling, who are you really?”

This person had hidden her strength when they had first met. She was definitely not a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl. It seemed that last year, when she had led her people to attack Green Pine Peak, the one who had been teased was not her, but them.

No wonder she had not made a move that day, but had just stood far away, watching the two sides fight…

After the poison corpses were gone from the Corpse Refining Altar, the patrolling guards were also withdrawn. A sudden fear arose in Xie Qingzheng’s heart. She hooked her finger, trying to release a signal firework.

Yan Ling lightly fanned her folding fan, did not answer their questions, and only reminded them with a smile, “Don’t call more people over to die. I don’t want to go on a killing spree today. I just want to chat with the two of you.”

As she spoke, she released her pressure.

Xie Qingzheng immediately felt that she was being suppressed by a powerful spiritual energy. She thought of the Big Dipper birthmark on Yan Ling’s right arm and quickly asked, “Were you originally from the righteous path? Do you have some connection with our major sects?”

Yan Ling said, “Naturally. I have a deep connection with the seven sects of the Big Dipper. Oh, it’s not seven sects anymore, but four sects, or rather, it will soon become one sect. You are really getting more and more useless with each generation.”

She spoke with an old-fashioned air, not at all like the naive and coquettish young girl from last year.