"Qingshan." Just as Xie Yaohuang's emotions were running high, Abbot Chunhui called out his dharma name and tapped several acupoints on his back. Xie Yaohuang jolted awake, exhaling a long breath before pausing, as if furious at himself for having spoken so much. He abruptly turned away.
Abbot Chunhui sighed. "Your vital energy is unstable. Return to your room for medicine and rest awhile."
Xie Yaohuang scoffed, glancing at Tang Lici. "If you don’t know what’s good for you, I’ll kill you right now." With that, he strode off.
Tang Lici closed his eyes.
"Overwhelmed by bloodlust, driven to madness and death."
This madman hadn’t mastered the Rebirth Manual well, but his mind was already teetering on the edge of insanity.
"Amitabha." Abbot Chunhui sighed. "He, too, is a pitiable soul."
"Who is he?" Fu Zhumei asked, utterly bewildered.
"Xie Yaohuang, Yaohuang Xie," Tang Lici said softly. "Yaohuang—the king of peonies. Xie Yaohuang is the Ghost Peony." Then, with a slight lift of his brow, he turned his gaze to Zhong Chunji, who stood motionless nearby as if her soul had left her body. "Miss Zhong, it’s been a while. Are you well?"
Zhong Chunji, her face veiled in black gauze, shuddered violently.
Abbot Chunhui spoke gently. "Miss Zhong, proceed."
Step by step, Zhong Chunji moved forward. With her left hand, she gripped Tang Lici’s iron shackles, while her right hand suddenly drew a sharp dagger. She yanked him forcefully. Tang Lici swayed on the shackles, exposing half his back. Without hesitation, Zhong Chunji slashed downward with the dagger in her right hand—just as she had done to Fu Zhumei—intending to carve a deep gash into his back.
"A-Li!" Fu Zhumei cried out.
Tang Lici swayed with the shackles, spinning lightly in a circle.
A faint ding sounded as the shackles snapped in the wind. The first segment of the broken chain shot upward, striking Abbot Chunhui’s acupoints squarely while he was completely unprepared. At the same time, dozens of cold glints flashed—poisoned needles that had been embedded in his acupoints and the fragments of shackles he had twisted off now flew in all directions, piercing the chests of the eighteen guards surrounding him.
The eighteen men collapsed instantly. These men were brawny and strong, but not true martial arts masters. Tianqing Temple had placed too much faith in the iron prison, unaware that Tang Lici, first, feared no poison, and second… feared no injury.
He had indeed been strung up on torture devices and shackles, but those devices and shackles were not firmly secured to the frame. Earlier, in the darkness, Fu Zhumei had been too agitated, focused solely on explaining how Xue Xianzi had died, oblivious to when Tang Lici had weakened most of the shackles' joints, leaving only the barest connections.
With so many torture devices hanging from him and so many wounds inflicted, how could A-Li still move? Earlier, when he allowed Ghost Peony to humiliate him, was he truly powerless to resist, or was it all an act of feigned weakness?
Seeing Tang Lici suddenly take action, Zhong Chunji screamed and, without a second thought, threw down the dagger and fled. But after just one step, Tang Lici seized her and dragged her back.
Half of Tang Lici’s face was smeared with blood, his lips slightly cracked at the corners. It should have been ghastly, yet it wasn’t unpleasant to look at. He licked the wound at the corner of his lips, his tongue stained with a faint trace of blood, like a touch of pale pink. Zhong Chunji stared at his tongue, her heart filled with despair.
Young Master Tang… knew the delusions in her heart.
He could effortlessly use those delusions to lure her into submission.
The reason she had no way out, the reason she had become a sinner—it was all because she had succumbed to his temptations."Miss Zhong." Tang Lichen's voice was gentle, yet his hands showed no mercy as he tore open her sleeve with a sharp rip—inside her sleeve was hidden a box. Had that earlier knife strike succeeded, whatever was inside this box would likely have been plunged into Tang Lichen's spine.
"How has Snow Thread been?" He took the box from her sleeve and asked with a smile.
Zhong Chunji trembled uncontrollably. "I... I... he..."
Tang Lichen slowly opened the box. Inside, a massive spider raised its head, its dazzling pale golden halo on its back striking fear into the heart. He shuddered slightly, nearly dropping the box.
A Gu Spider.
So the foreign object nurtured within Fu Zhumei's spine was most likely also a Gu Spider.
Which meant... he was the same as Chi Yun.
He would end up exactly like Chi Yun.
Tang Lichen gave a light cough, and both Zhong Chunji and Fu Zhumei saw blood seep from the corner of his lips. Yet his expression grew even gentler. "A Gu Spider?"
Zhong Chunji remained silent.
"The antidote?" Tang Lichen coughed again.
"Gu Spiders... Gu Spiders have no antidote." Zhong Chunji's voice sounded as if someone were choking her throat. She knew exactly how Chi Yun had died. "But Gu Spiders have a Gu King... they obey the Gu King's commands..."
"Oh? And where... is this Gu King?" Tang Lichen asked softly.
Zhong Chunji shook her head violently, the black veil covering her face slipping off. Beneath it, her face was ghostly pale, her eyes swollen and red from crying, as if she too had suffered greatly these past few days. "I don't know... please... don't kill me..." She trembled. "I... I didn’t mean to... didn’t mean to kill Master... I didn’t want him to die..."
Tang Lichen tilted his head, as if genuinely curious. "You didn’t want him to die—but did you want him to live?" With a backhanded slash, he severed the shackles binding Fu Zhumei. Fu Zhumei collapsed forward, and Tang Lichen caught him with his left arm while his right hand, still holding the knife, dug out a living Gu Spider from the wound on Fu Zhumei’s back.
This Gu Spider was slightly different from the one in the box—it was pale pink, as if it had gorged itself on human flesh and blood.
Zhong Chunji stared at Tang Lichen in terror. She opened her mouth. "You can't kill me, A—" Before she could finish, with a swift motion, Tang Lichen drove the pink Gu Spider, still impaled on the knife, straight into her mouth.
His movements were too fast; Zhong Chunji had no chance to evade. Her meager martial skills were nothing before Tang Lichen. Only when the spider and the blade pierced her throat, blood spurting out, did she realize what had happened. She wanted to say something more, but Tang Lichen had already lost interest. Supporting Fu Zhumei, he walked toward Qing Hui.
Zhong Chunji fell backward. The dying Gu Spider bit her throat once before perishing. Her eyes bulged, her face turned blue-purple, swelling and cracking as strange fluids oozed out. Only after a long while did she finally lie still.
You didn’t want Snow Thread to die—but you left him no chance to live.
So-called innocence is nothing but self-deception.
The warriors Tang Lichen had shot in vital points earlier were not unconscious, merely severely injured and paralyzed. They watched helplessly as Tang Lichen unsealed Fu Zhumei’s pressure points, removed the long needles embedded in his body, and then abducted Abbot Chun Hui with him. They also witnessed Zhong Chunji’s gruesome death, their faces ashen as if they had seen a ghost.
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