Six
“Where is Ban Xia?”
After splitting open the coffin lid, Xuan Ye gasped for breath, his sword-wielding hand pausing slightly as he struggled to calm his emotions.
Zhan Xiao raised his head, his entire face revealed under the moonlight.
His features were quite ordinary—relaxed brows and eyes, with temples slightly graying.
He didn’t resemble a corpse puppet in the slightest. The only peculiarity was the faint, elusive purple aura swirling around his face.
“What my little ghost means is that he isn’t entirely a corpse puppet. At least half of him is still human, with very weak ghostly energy. That’s why it took so long to find him.”
You Huang, who had been following Xuan Ye, spoke up.
“He’s asking you where that beauty is. Please don’t tell me you’ve already eaten her.” Seeing Zhan Xiao remain silent, he added another line.
“Who is Ban Xia?” Zhan Xiao finally replied after a long pause, the purple aura shifting across his face as he looked at Xuan Ye. “And why did you destroy my belongings?”
As he spoke, he gripped his sword in his right hand, his expression open and composed, which made Xuan Ye pause in surprise.
Having traveled extensively, Xuan Ye could tell that these words didn’t seem like a lie.
“Yesterday evening, did you go to the city and abduct a sick woman?”
Zhan Xiao shook his head.
“Can you transform into smoke, enter someone’s body, and remove their heart?”
Again, he shook his head.
Xuan Ye’s heart began to sink, his vision darkening momentarily. Unwilling to give up, he took half a step closer. “If not you, then who? A conscious corpse puppet capable of free movement in this city—who else could it be but you?”
“I’ve said it wasn’t me. Of course, you people never believe it.”
Zhan Xiao sighed softly, then finally moved, drawing his jade-hilted longsword as the night breeze swept past.
Her head splitting with pain, coupled with inexplicable profuse sweating and utter exhaustion, Ban Xia felt extremely uncomfortable, as if a thousand fires were burning inside her.
Xia Zhi had already transformed into smoke, and from the looks of it, he was about to invade her body.
Aside from tightly covering her mouth, she seemed to have no other means of defense.
The dark smoke drew near, swirling malevolently around her cheeks. A thin wisp slipped through her fingers, slowly seeping between her lips.
It was an utterly revolting sensation—enough to make her wish for death.
Gritting her teeth, Ban Xia felt a fierce courage slowly rising within her. She opened her mouth and bit off a piece of flesh from her palm, then clenched the column of smoke before her.
Before losing consciousness, Xuan Ye had said— You are of the half-god race, your blood can repel demons . Though dazed, she had heard it.
If what Chi Xue said was true, and she was indeed of the half-god race, then her blood should be effective.
It seemed futile. The dark smoke pressed deeper, a tingling numbness already spreading down her throat.
“Whether I live or die isn’t up to you to decide!” Ban Xia roared in fury, biting another gash into her left hand and gripping the tail end of the smoke column tightly. “Get out of me!”
Still, it was ineffective. The dark smoke coiled downward, gradually suffusing her body until it found her heart, wrapping around it like creeping vines.
The pain wasn’t excruciating, but she felt suffocated—as if her heart were clenched in someone’s grasp, stripping her of all autonomy.
Was she doomed to be forever plagued by dying ghosts and monsters, lying helpless like a lump of soft mud, waiting for men with swords and blades to rescue her?
Ban Xia refused to accept it. Every drop of blood in her veins seemed to scream, colliding and burning fiercely, as if searching for an outlet.
The wounds on her palms began to ache. The sparse drops of blood unexpectedly converged into a stream, slowly tracing a bizarre line in the air.Ban Xia stood dumbfounded, feeling as if she hadn't yet awakened from a long dream, certain she had encountered this situation somewhere before.
On some year, some day, in some place, she seemed to have assumed this very posture—hands raised toward the sky—to end an entanglement with someone.
Almost instinctively, she slightly spread her palms upward, then urgently uttered a strange incantation she had never heard or learned before.
Her tone was crisp and decisive, with a hint of ruthlessness. In that moment, Ban Xia became more formidable than ever before.
The thread-like trails of blood began swirling into eerie vortices. With a sharp "snap," they latched onto the black smoke and, following Ban Xia's hand gestures, tore out the smoky pillar like peeling away attached bone.
Her body instantly felt refreshed. Xia Zhi, forcibly uprooted, was wounded. Upon landing, he materialized in human form, gasping heavily as he spat out a viscous stream of black blood.
"I told you, my life and death aren't yours to decide," Ban Xia said calmly yet sharply from where she stood, like a weary eagle suddenly spreading wings that reached for the heavens.
"Elegant Confinement, Elegant Confinement..."
Chi Xue rushed out the door clutching his pot of withered flowers, but Xuan Ye and You Huang had long vanished.
The eerie desolate city lay pitch black, and his calls for "Elegant Confinement" carried a chilling edge as the wind swept them away.
Shivering, Chi Xue lifted the flowerpot to press against his cheek, seeking some comfort.
It was then that the strange phenomenon occurred.
The Layered Lotus, which had remained wilted and lifeless for years, suddenly began blooming beside his cheek—starting from the outer edge, unfolding layers of petals each the size of sunflower seeds.
One ring after another emerged, as if a deadlock had been sprung. The Layered Lotus surged forth, blooming eighteen consecutive layers.
Though scentless and not breathtakingly beautiful beyond its novelty and complexity, the flower possessed one supreme virtue: it could lead Chi Xue to his Elegant Confinement.
After a night of furious blooming, countless petals tilted uniformly, all pointing toward the southwest darkness.
"Elegant Confinement!"
Sprinting through the desolate city, Chi Xue hadn't gone far when the Layered Lotus straightened, vaguely revealing figures ahead.
"Elegant Confinement!"
He called out again and rushed forward, only to discover the person standing before him wasn't Xuan Ye, but Ban Xia with crimson eyes.
Blood still dripped between her palms, her head throbbed as if splitting, yet she remained standing, her mind a chaotic whirl.
"Where's Elegant Confinement?" Chi Xue approached. "Did he go after that Zhan Xiao?"
"The one who turns into smoke and devours hearts isn't Zhan Xiao—it's Xia Zhi, the one who hired us to come here."
"What?"
"He told me that for revenge, his Mother implanted corpse poison in him and made him eat his own heart raw, turning him into a conscious corpse." Ban Xia, still feverish, spoke with dazed certainty. "He said he wants to grow powerful, to rely on us no longer, and personally settle things with Zhan Xiao."
"Then where is he? Did he... did he cause you any trouble, sister?"
"I defeated him, and he fled. Before leaving, he arrogantly claimed that consuming just one more human heart would turn him into... into..."
"Corpse Fiend."
"Yes, Corpse Fiend!" Ban Xia nodded. Having spoken this much, the spiked ball in her mind finally burst, the pain weakening her legs until she collapsed with a "thud," unconscious once more.
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