Ten
"Your master is ill, a very serious blood disease."
Rubbing her temples, Ban Xia was speaking to a corpse puppet, her head feeling like it was about to explode.
"The master is just ahead." For what felt like the hundredth time, the corpse puppet gave the same reply.
"Your master has it hard." Ban Xia gritted her teeth.
Chi Xue had said that if a corpse puppet retained any consciousness, it must be due to a deep obsession.
In the inn, Hong Gu's consciousness had awakened because of her child. So this person before her, who had once followed Xia Zhi with fearful reverence as if he were a god, his obsession was likely his master.
"The master has it hard."
Sure enough, the corpse puppet finally changed its tune, confirming Ban Xia's guess.
"How does your master have it hard?" Ban Xia asked cautiously.
"The master is ill, yet he still manages the business, only able to sleep one or two hours a day."
"Was it your mistress who ordered him to become a corpse puppet for revenge?"
"The mistress's words, the master must obey. The master was saved and brought back to life by the mistress."
"Then how did you become a corpse puppet?"
"The master has it hard."
"I asked how you became a corpse puppet."
"The master has it hard."
"Fine, fine, your master has it hard. Then let me ask you, has your master truly become a corpse demon? Does he have any weaknesses?"
"The master has it hard."
After going in circles and getting nowhere, with the situation inside still unclear, Ban Xia broke down, clutching her head and unable to hold back a groan.
"The master has it hard. The master has been bleeding continuously."
The corpse puppet suddenly added another sentence.
Ban Xia's heart skipped a beat at these words, and she rushed over. "Your master has been bleeding continuously? Where is he bleeding?"
"The master has been bleeding continuously. His chest, bleeding a great deal of blood."
The corpse puppet spoke again, and this sentence struck Ban Xia like a thunderbolt, jolting her fully awake.
Human souls, though formless, are generally the same color when extracted from the body.
Slightly heavier than transparent, an extremely pale eggshell blue, requiring close attention to detect.
Zhan Xiao's soul was no exception. When it was drawn out from between his eyebrows, it struggled fiercely for a moment, unwilling to yield.
"Is this his soul? Can I take another look?" Xia Zhi approached, his breathing somewhat hurried, his originally clear eyes gleaming brightly.
Xuan Ye turned, the soul attached to the blade of his knife, and slowly brought it before Xia Zhi.
"He's bleeding! He hasn't become a corpse demon at all!"
Ban Xia's thunderous voice came from behind.
"Discovering it now, isn't it a bit late?" Xia Zhi whispered, leaning over the knife, utterly unperturbed. He opened his mouth and, in the moment Xuan Ye was distracted, swallowed Zhan Xiao's soul whole.
"That day when Xuan Ye stabbed you, you were already injured! You hadn't become a corpse demon at all!" Ban Xia charged out, leaning on her knees and panting heavily. "Standing in broad daylight, completely unafraid of the sun—you were just putting on an act for us!"
Xia Zhi narrowed his eyes slightly, neither confirming nor denying, as the lower half of his body began to dissolve into smoke.
"You wanted Zhan Xiao's soul!Xuan Ye suddenly realized, his knife trembling as he immediately released not just one but multiple evil spirits, which clung onto Xia Zhi like vines. "It's not revenge you're after—it's his spiritual power!""What I want is not revenge, nor is it his spiritual power." Xia Zhi's voice remained gentle, his body trembling as he tried to break free from Xuan Ye. "The corpse poison on you is seeping into your bloodstream. Release me, and I'll give you the antidote."
"What do you want then?" Xuan Ye remained unmoved. "If not his spiritual power, then what?"
"The antidote is here, only this one pill. If you don't let go, I'll crush it."
"What do you want?!"
Such entanglement.
Xia Zhi sighed. Having restrained himself for too long, the pent-up frustration in his chest suddenly erupted, becoming unbearable.
Energy surged within his body. He had succeeded, feeling a power he had never known before.
"All I want is to live under the sun, just like all of you—to marry, have children, and live a few decades of limited yet fulfilling days!" he declared, suddenly shedding his gentleness. With a roar, he transformed entirely into smoke, coiling around Moon Glow like a serpent. Like dark clouds blotting out the sun, he instantly devoured those evil spirits.
"Have any of you ever considered—if it were truly as the rumors say, that one only needs to remain conscious during corpse transformation and consume seventy-seven human hearts to become a corpse demon, why would the Xia family decline? Why, after centuries, has only one corpse demon ever appeared?" Swiftly descending, Xia Zhi quickly resumed human form, though his right arm remained smoke, coiling around Xuan Ye's neck.
"Because becoming a corpse demon requires a bridge—a bridge from corpse to human. Just like a medicinal formula, where the main ingredients are ordinary, but the catalyst is eternally rare!"
"This bridge... is Zhan Xiao's soul?"
"Yes. I've waited so long for him to reach this stage—the midpoint between corpse and human, with such powerful spiritual energy. A perfect catalyst!"
"Human souls are extremely difficult to control, so you came to me?"
"I waited for you. After all this time, I finally found a method to extract a human soul while still alive."
"So it wasn't accidental? Zhan Xiao's wife being poisoned, the Xia family's nine members slaughtered—none of it was accidental?"
Xia Zhi chuckled lightly, his pale face glowing with triumph. No matter how deep his schemes, he was still a nineteen-year-old youth, bearing a young man's spirit.
"I'm ill, won't live past this year, know no martial arts or magic—yet I still succeeded." He spoke these words from the depths of his being, exhaling a heavy breath of turbid air. "With planning and patience, nothing in this world is impossible to achieve!"
Yes, planning and patience—just five words.
Before turning eighteen, Xia Zhi also employed planning and patience, but only in business.
He expanded the Xia family's shops from two to dozens in just four years.
Everyone called him a genius, treating him with reverence and affection. The Xia family was especially tender toward him due to his frail health, sparing no expense on countless physicians and tonics—mountain ginseng, deer antler, snow lotus—never stinting.
Xia Zhi felt grateful, working even harder, bustling until heaven and earth grew dark. Each day he toiled mind and body, managing at most two hours of sleep, ultimately making the Xia family the foremost household in Liaodong.
During this time, he experienced shortness of breath, fatigue, and inexplicable red spots on his body. He wasn't without suspicion, consulting the family physicians, but their answers were always strikingly consistent: "Young master merely suffers from weak energy and blood deficiency. There's no need for concern."As time passed, his innate intelligence gradually made him sense something amiss, so he sought out the physician who first came to the house for consultation. A single gold ingot bought him the truth.
"Young master's illness... actually only requires peaceful rest, and you could still live for quite a few more years."
When Xia Zhi first heard these words, he didn't even grasp their deeper meaning.
"But now, with the young master overexerting himself, I'm afraid..."
It was the physician's hesitant words that finally jolted him awake.
His condition was most aggravated by exhaustion - something this earliest attending physician understood perfectly well. So why, then, did the Xia family members diligently serve him medicine and soup without complaint, yet not a single one urged him to set aside his business and rest peacefully to prolong his life?
Since death was inevitable anyway, what difference did three or five years make? The Xia family needed capital to restore their position in the martial world. Better to let him accumulate more wealth for the family while he still could.
It's not like we treated him poorly - just a beggar picked up from the streets. We gave him the Xia surname and made him a master. When he fell ill, he never lacked medicine or care - we even spent fortunes buying thousand-year ginseng.
Faintly, he could hear the collective thoughts of the Xia household: everyone was harsh and cold-blooded, yet everyone felt completely justified in their actions.
Before age nine, he begged on the streets. During bitter winters, he lost three toes to frostbite. At ten, the Xia family took him in, where he learned to read expressions and scheme meticulously to win the old madam's favor. From fourteen, he began handling the family business, starting with learning the abacus, exhausting his life's energy only to meet an early death.
So this was the life he deserved - brief and burning out, without a moment of leisure or beauty. He had never even fallen for any young woman, only known the bloody crawling on all fours through pitch-black nights.
He refused to accept this! Heaven and earth, all gods and buddhas - nothing could calm the rage boiling in his blood!
"So I began planning. The physician said I had at most a year or two left - my time was short."
"I began to understand that what the Xia family called their ancestral business wasn't martial arts training, but corpse manipulation."
"They spoke to me about corpse demons, but never let me learn corpse manipulation. All along, I was never truly part of the Xia family - unworthy of touching their ancestral craft."
"Then you started looking - looking for someone not famous, but whom the Xia family absolutely couldn't afford to provoke, right?" By this point, Ban Xia completely understood, connecting everything into one long thread.
"You were the one who brought Zhan Xiao's wife to the Xia family, and you who sent her back, directing Zhan Xiao to seek the antidote."
"Along the journey, you controlled his wife to bite him at the right moment and position - that would be simple enough."
"You knew he would seek revenge, and counted on his temperament, knowing that seeing his wife suffer like that, he would never leave those corpse puppets alone. Knowing yourself and your enemy - you truly are a master merchant!"
Xia Zhi fell silent, slowly lowering his head.
Besides Zhan Xiao, he also had to control Old Madam Xia's emotions, keeping her balanced between madness and reason, ultimately using her to pass all the Xia family's corpse manipulation secrets to him.
Others lived simply by living, as nature intended. But for him to live, he had to scheme and calculate every step of the way."You came to the inn, entered Chi Xue's body, yet refused to eat his heart. This was also part of the act, wasn't it?" Ban Xia took another step closer. "You wanted us to know you're a pitiful soul with a conscience, so we'd cooperate and ultimately help you extract Zhan Xiao's soul."
"It was an act, but I do have a conscience. I only eat the hearts of the dying, and I've always paid my dues."
"A person with a conscience would use others to slaughter the entire family that adopted them? Ha!"
"I have a conscience, but it comes at a price. Only when absolutely necessary, when the price is worth it, will I betray my conscience." Xia Zhi spoke calmly, with no lack of sincerity. "I'm a merchant, not a madman."
His words carried hidden meaning, and he had been holding Xuan Ye without moving. Ban Xia froze momentarily before immediately understanding: "You mean you don't actually want to kill him?"
"My work is done. Why create more bloodshed? Moreover, I don't wish to make enemies of the Demigod Clan." Xia Zhi said: "As long as you promise to never reveal my secrets and cease all entanglement with me."
"You won't kill again?" Ban Xia was clearly wavering.
"Why would I kill?" Xia Zhi responded without hesitation. "I'll dispose of all the corpse servants from the Xia family, focus on business, marry a wife, have three children, and live happily with my family - basking in the sun and swinging on swings." His voice grew increasingly soft toward the end, the yearning so bone-deep it couldn't possibly be feigned.
"I also want the antidote." Ban Xia said loudly.
Xia Zhi smiled faintly, holding the small pill in his left hand as he slowly raised it above her palm. "Swear an oath. I don't trust you. I want him to swear."
"If the entire Xia family deserved death, what about Zhan Xiao? What about his wife? Did they deserve death too?" Xuan Ye, who had remained silent until now, suddenly spoke. "You say you won't commit evil anymore, but what about the wrongs you've already committed? Don't they require repayment?"
Xia Zhi didn't answer, only snorted lightly and tightened his grip.
"That day when I stabbed you, it must have pierced your lung. How is it now? Does it still hurt?" Quite unexpectedly, Xuan Ye suddenly asked another question.
Xia Zhi frowned, ultimately unable to endure it, and coughed softly.
The wound immediately throbbed with intense pain, and dark purple viscous blood seeped through his heavily bandaged wrappings.
In that moment, Xia Zhi suddenly understood something, and the smoke ring in his right hand abruptly tightened.
If he had swallowed the soul, he should have immediately evolved into a Corpse Demon, should no longer feel pain, and the wound should have begun healing instantly.
"What have you done?!" he hissed, his entire upper arm transforming into smoke that coiled around Xuan Ye's neck like a vicious snake. "What exactly have you done?!"
"Like you, I performed an act." Xuan Ye said calmly, his eyes deep and profound as he flicked his fingers. Moon Glow circled back, severing the column of black smoke with one strike.
"If you think you can control my life and death, you've gravely underestimated our Demigod Clan!" he declared, fingers slightly spread as sharp energy carrying Moon Glow instantly pierced through the fierce wind.
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