NEBM Chapter 54: Puppet

The two leading roles in Qiongyu Sect’s Dao companion ceremony was Spiritual Master Qiongyu’s disciple, Xue Fengzhi, and Spiritual Master Qi Yu’s disciple, Lian Ru.

Both of them came to the sect very early on and practiced together from a young age. As a result, they developed deep feelings for one another and naturally decided to have a Dao companion ceremony to signify their commitment.

There was only one day left before the Dao companion ceremony. Xue Fengzhi paced a few laps within the confines of his room, his calm almost nonexistent. He was like an impatient adolescent.

He poured himself a cup of cold tea, barely suppressing the restlessness in his heart.

Quickly, quickly, he will soon see A’ru…. Soon, they would be able to stay together day and night and will never be separated.

He was still thinking about his sweetheart, when suddenly a knock came at the door. He snapped to attention. “Who is it?”

A familiar voice came, sounding like a junior sister. “Senior Brother Xue, Senior Brother Xue!”

The voice was urgent, propelling Xue Fengzhi to stride to the door and open it, saying loudly, “What’s wrong?”

The door opened, revealing the junior sister’s anxious and panicked expression. “Senior Brother Xue! Senior Sister Lian seems to be in trouble.

The moment Lian Ru was mentioned, Xue Fengzhi’s attention was one hundred percent engaged.

“What happened?” he said as he hurriedly went out. “What’s so urgent?”

The junior sister shook her head in panic and said, “I, it wasn’t clear. As I was passing her room, I heard Senior Sister Lian screamed. It startled me and I hurriedly asked what happened—Sister Lian won’t open the door and only asked me to invite Senior Brother Xue over.”

Xue Fengzhi also recognized who this junior sister was now. She was someone that Lian Ru had once praised as very talented. He rushed past her, afraid that Lian Ru might have met with a mishap. He didn’t suspect her at all and only hurriedly thanked her before leaving in a hurry.

The junior sister followed him a few steps. Seeing that he wasn’t paying attention to her, she gradually slowed down and eventually stood still.

She glanced at Xue Fengzhi’s disappearing figure, and a stiff smile appeared at the corners of her mouth. Then she looked around, probably to carefully check her surroundings, and changed direction.

As Xue Fengzhi hurried to Lian Ru, he encountered many people along the way. However, he had no time to say hello and only rushed on.

The door to Lian Ru’s room was tightly shut. He knocked a few times and called Lian Ru’s name but no one answered.

Gritting his teeth, Xue Fengzhi tried to push the door open. The door was latched, meaning that Lian Ru should be inside the room.

But why hadn’t she responded?

Xue Fengzhi didn’t have time to think too much. His spiritual force surged and directly broke the door latch. Pushing open the door, he strode into the room. “A’ru?”

The woman sitting on the bed seemed to be in a daze. Waking up, she turned her head toward him and said, “Fengzhi? Why are you here?”

Xue Fengzhi looked at her normal appearance. It seemed that there was nothing serious. His heart settled and he smiled. “Little junior sister came to me and said you were in trouble and was looking for me. What’s wrong?”

He took a closer look at Lian Ru’s face and noticed that she looked abnormally pale. Worried, he said, “Are you uncomfortable? Why is your face so pale?”

Lian Ru moved slightly and shifted her body forward.

Xue Fengzhi didn’t know if it was just his imagination, but he felt as if Lian Ru’s action was very stiff and the way she talked was a little strange.

“My chest hurts a bit …” Lian Ru raised her hand to cover her chest, her face still pale. On closer inspection, there was a tinge of death hidden within that paleness.

Xue Fengzhi noticed something strange. He took two steps forward and stared at Lian Ru tensely. “Why do you have a headache for no reason?”

“It hurts…” Lian Ru bit her lip and, to his surprise, suddenly raised her hands, grabbed her collars, and fiercely yanked open her top.

There was a tearing sound. Xue Fengzhi was too astonished to turn his head and avoid seeing it. And then, he immediately became shocked by the sight in front of him.

Lian Ru’s body was on the verge of collapse. Xue Fengzhi rushed to catch her in his embrace. With his arms wrapped around her, Xue Fengzhi could feel her trembling, as if there was only the skeleton left and no vitality at all. And there, on her chest…

Was a big, empty hole.

Through the hole, he could even see his hands behind Lian Ru.

“A’ru! A’ru!”

He shouted her name with a trembling voice. The spiritual power he tried to pass to her would not take. Within moments, her body was cold, her eyes hollow and lifeless, indicating that she was long dead. While Xue Fengzhi wasn’t paying attention, a strand of black qi quietly slipped away from her fingertip.

Faced with this sudden tragedy, Xue Fengzhi’s eyes showed a wild disbelief. This morning’s exultation was now replaced by grief. His spiritual force became chaotic as it moved through his veins. With a scream, he opened his mouth and spit out blood.

“Heh…”

A low, mocking laugh came from behind the screen. Xue Fengzhi turned his head and saw exactly the face he’d seen within the illusion stone. Then, with a light leap, the man in black escaped through the wide-open window. After landing, he quickly disappeared.

At this moment, Spiritual Master Qi Yu and a group of disciples happened to arrive. They’d all been drawn in by the little junior sister’s exclamation that “Lian Ru has an accident.” As they stood by the door, they heard a roar full of heartbreaking grief and hatred. “Yan Jin!”

Spiritual Master Qi Yu’s expression shifted. He gripped one of the disciple’s wrist, shouting, “Go to the forbidden room!”

……

At first, the forbidden room was silent. Until, the faceless man dressed in black began talking.

Without a mouth, the man’s voice seemed to come from his abdomen, sounding dull and heavy. Even so, his tone and manner of speaking sounded exactly like Yan Jin.

“Master, I haven’t seen you for a long time.”

Shen Zhixian narrowed his eyes slightly. “I only have one disciple. What kind of monster are you that you dare to speak so recklessly?”

The man in black ignored his words and continued to say, “Master, disciple have come to save you …”

He moved aside, revealing the way out.

Shen Zhixian checked and found that although the forbidden room’s restriction had not been completely unlocked, the communication-related control had been broken—That is, even if they now violently broke the restriction, it wouldn’t alarm others.

Shen Zhixian’s mind raced. Before he had time to make a decision, the man in black seemed to have heard something. He suddenly turned and ran away!

Although he looked like a slow-witted, wooden person, he ran fast. He seemed to be fairly familiar with the area because he soon disappeared.

Shen Shixian let out light snort. Without hesitation, one hand grasped Yan Jin’s hand while the other pulled out his sword. The cold sword qi shattered the restriction, and his sleeves fluttered as he chased after the man.

As soon as they left, Spiritual Master Qiong Yu arrived with some people, only to find the forbidden room empty and the restriction broken. Spiritual Master Qiong Yu’s face turned ugly. He gritted his teeth and bit out two words, “Yan Jin!”

He snapped, “With this hatred, we can’t coexist under the same sky. I, Qiong Yu Sect, and you are irreconcilable!

Shen Zhixian and Yan Jin weren’t aware of the movement in the forbidden room. At this moment, they were chasing the man in black. However, he soon left Qiongyu Sect and entered a remote location.

Shen Zhixian faintly sensed that something was wrong. He stopped and took a deep breath. “A’jin, strike him!”

Yan Jin’s response to Shen Zhixian’s command had always been faster than thinking. As soon as Shen Zhixian said the words, he pulled out his sword without any hesitation and struck the man with enough force to break a boulder!

The man dressed in black, who always seemed to be three feet ahead of them, stopped abruptly. Then, he shattered into powder.

Shen Zhixian, “…”

The strike was…too strong.

He walked over a few steps and faintly smelled a familiar scent. Shen Zhixian’s expression grew slightly heavy as he bent down and broke off a blade of grass.

The original blade of grass was covered with a layer of fine powder, which looked to be the same kind of ash that contaminated the leaf he’d sent after “A’Lin.”.

“Puppet wood…” Shen Zhixian gritted his teeth. “I’m afraid we’ve been fooled. We’ve been lured away into a trap.”

Someone had used puppet wood to create a dummy and deceive them into leaving Qiongyu Sect. Meaning that something must have happened in Qiongyu Sect. Perhaps, there might now be a new calamity that they’ll be blamed for…

Just as Shen Zhixian was about to say something, Yan Jin’s gaze suddenly focused. His hand shot up into the air and grabbed on to a strand of black qi as thick as a finger. Like a fish suddenly caught from a stream, the black qi struggled desperately.

Shen Zhixian shot a spell at the black qi. “Return to the source.”

The moment the spell merged into the black qi, Yan Jin let go, and the black qi flowed toward a certain direction.

Coincidentally, the source of the black qi was not far away. Within a quarter of an hour, the black qi flashed toward a man dressed in black and happily merged into his body. The man’s face looked exactly like Yan Jin’s.

Shen Zhixian said, “A’jin, strike him again! Wait, don’t strike too hard–”

The man in black heard his voice and was shocked. He immediately turned and ran, his speed faster than the wooden puppet from before.

However, he wasn’t as fast as Yan Jin’s sword.

Yan Jin’s sword blocked his path. He was forced to turn around, only to meet Shen Zhixian’s sword. Shen Zhixian ruthlessly slashed Frost Return at the man’s face. “You rat who refused to show his face to anyone. How dare you wear this face?!”

Blood splattered, and the carefully fabricated mask was splintered into light smoke, which then spread out, revealing a face that they hadn’t seen for a long time.

“—Yan Shen?” Shen Zhixian stumbled slightly. “You’re not dead yet?”

The man in black with Yan Jin’s face was Yan Shen, whose spirit root Shen Zhixian had severed at the Sword Competition!!

Shen Zhixian had almost forgotten about this character. He knew that Yan Shen’s hands were not very clean. Among the things that he’d done, eighty percent of the time, he had people behind the scene flaming him on. But, Shen Zhixian had always thought that once Yan Shen’s spirit root was broken, he would no longer have any value and would therefore be abandoned.

He was wrong.

Yan Shen’s speed definitely didn’t look like he had no spirit root nor any spirit force.

Shen Zhixian pointed Frost Return at Yan Shen. The sword trembled slightly, as if it recognized devil qi nearby and was growing excited.

—Yan Shen was a devil cultivator.

Yan Shen’s face dripped with blood as countless wounds ran across it, the new intermixed and overlapped with the old. But, he didn’t seem to care and hissed, “Master, long time no see. How can you treat disciple like this?”

Shen Zhixian looked at him and coldly said, “You’d been expelled by me. Being your master, I can’t afford it. I only have one disciple and his name is Yan Jin.”

Yan Shen looked at him with a strange smile. He touched the wounds on his face and laughed, which made him look all the more horrifying. “Master is very good to Senior Brother Yan. But, I don’t know if this goodness is because Master values his brilliance? Or, is it because of something dirty and unspeakable?

His eyes were full of malice, even as he tried to create gaps and wounds between Shen Zhixian and Yan Jin. His spoke viciously, his words sharp like a knife, “Master, ah, you’re once like the moon in the sky. Now, you’re mingling with Yan Jin, this filthy rat that crawled out of the ditch?

For a moment, Yan Jin’s imposing manner flickered. Shen Zhixian didn’t want to talk nonsense with Yan Shen, especially when he sensed Yan Jin’s unease. He raised an eyebrow and pointed Frost Return at Yan Shen.

The ice-cold sword qi coiled around Yan Shen’s body, quickly eroding his blood vessels. The blood instantly froze into ice.

Yan Shen hissed in pain. His throat was frozen, making him unable to say anything. He could only stare at Shen Zhixian with hatred and madness

Shen Zhixian looked at him and said slowly, “Originally, I was too lazy to talk nonsense with you, but since your misunderstanding is so deep…I think it’s necessary to clarify some matters with you.”

He leaned forward slightly, his eyes reflecting the sunlight and his voice was soft. “I’m very good, and Yan Jin is also very good. Between us, there is nothing dirty and nothing that cannot be said. What we have is a very beautiful and sincere affection, primarily because we cherish each other. It is unfortunate that you’ll never experience it in your life. A bit regretful, but it serves you right.”

He added lightly, “Yan Shen, look at you now. You’re like a bug curled up in a corner. Extremely embarrassing.”

Shen Zhixian rarely taunted others, but he didn’t like Yan Shen’s offensive remarks. Let alone Yan Jin, even Shen Zhixian himself felt uncomfortable when hearing those words. He couldn’t help but block his mouth and argue back.

He originally felt that, in this relationship, Yan Jin was too prone to insecurity. Perhaps, because he’d experienced so much pain and suffering as a child. As a result, Shen Zhixian always paid close attention to Yan Jin’s emotions. With much difficulty, he’d managed to coax Yan Jin into being happy, only to have Yan Shen destroy it.

Shen Zhixian really wanted to beat him up a little bit.

Yan Shen apparently didn’t expect that Shen Zhixian wouldn’t even disdain to cover up their relationship. Therefore, when Shen Zhixian confessed it so frankly, he gasped, feeling cold in his lungs. Unwillingness and disgust swept over his whole body. He struggled, exhausting all his strength, until he was finally able to say in a rough and broken voice, “Pei…pei! He…What is so good about him…?”

Yan Shen spit out a mouthful of cold blood. When he spoke again, his voice still sounded unpleasant, but his words came out smoother and clearer, “Master, I’m mediocre so I won’t get your favor no matter how hard I try, but…”

“But, you don’t know. Yan Jin, he is a–”

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