Yuchi Rui panted rapidly and moved backward before finally calling out that name with great difficulty, “…Gong Wei…”
The Tower of Rakhasa led out a clang as it left its sheath, the hands which tightly held onto the sword hilt were trembling. His voice had a trace of grief and desperation which he himself did not realize, “Don’t come any closer, Gong Wei…don’t come any closer anymore.”
Before he completed the sentence, Yuchi Rui saw the corpse crawl out of the coffin. Because of its stiff movements with a thump, it fell onto one knee, then slowly stood up.
The pale green, expressionless face stared straight at Yuchi Rui.
The Lotus Immortal never liked to wear headgear since he was a child, and his black hair was always casually tied, exuding an air of uninhibitedness and ease. Even if he just stayed still and did nothing, his lively aura and radiance seemed to be constantly flowing around him, jumping in the air like light notes. When he was willing to be close to someone, he was like a sweet dream that wrapped around that person’s entire world in a quick and lively manner.
But now he was completely still.
His eyes were tightly shut, his face was a deathly white, and an invisible heaviness and rigidity radiated from every strand of his hair.
Yuchi Rui tried not to make any noise, slowly stepping backwards, when suddenly there was a slight, ‘crack!’
A piece of gravel cracked beneath his heel.
As if an invisible string in the void had suddenly snapped, the corpse immediately looked up, staring at Yuchi Rui. Then suddenly disappeared the next moment.
Any other regular person would not be able to react, but Yuchi Rui had fought with him too many times, and his pupils instantly constricted as he pulled out his sword and spun around. With a crisp ‘clang’, the corpse of Lotus Immortal descended like a ghostly shadow and deflected the blade with a wave of his hand, and grabbed Yuchi Rui’s throat.
Yuchi Rui called out angrily, “Gong Wei!”
He tilted his head to avoid Gong Wei’s reach, but the corpse’s five fingers grazed his lower jaw before almost slicing through the solid bronze wall like a knife cutting through tofu in an instant. Yuchi Rui moved to receive the battle, the divine sword Tower of Rakshasa struck, and the bricks of the bronze wall fell like hailstones, but the ghastly white face remained in its place. He was unable to even lengthen the slightest distance between them!
There was another loud clang and Yuchi Rui, with electrifying speed, grabbed him by the back of his neck and flung him towards the open coffin. But there was nothing in his grasp and when he spun around again, he saw a white burial gown hanging from above. The corpse’s feet now stepped on the tile at top of the tomb passage. In an instant, he came face to face with him.
Yuchi Rui felt dread and flew backward, crying out, “Sword out, release technique—”
The spirit of his sword suddenly awoke, and a whistle resounded.
A red-gold halo erupted in all directions, instantly cloaking him in layers of battle armor, blocking off the claws that came for his heart in the nick of time!
The corpse moved with a start and half of its arm was instantly burnt to a crisp.
A corpse has no sense of pain or fear, and would only attack the living like a madman no matter what damage it received. Yet for some reason, after this blow, the corpse gave up on further attacks and slid past Yuchi Rui towards the tomb passage exit.
He must not be let out!
In his desperation, Yuchi Rui had no other choice but to slash his sword at the back of the corpse’s neck, and as his head was about to be separated, the Lotus Immortal suddenly turned around, the side of his face shining so brightly with the light from the blade.
—That face was so familiar, looking as if he had only parted them yesterday.
Yuchi Rui’s sword gave a sudden jolt, and a shudder ran up from his fingertips to the top of his head.
In the next moment, there was a bolt of pain and a crisp ‘ka cha!’. At the same time, his wrist bone was sliced clean off by the palm of the Lotus Immortal, and the Tower of Rakshasa fell to the ground!
His cry of pain was interrupted before it could be uttered, as the bloodied palm of the corpse clamped down on his throat.
“…”
Yuchi Rui couldn’t make a sound and his eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the face of the corpse, which was inches away from his. The countless years of his youth all flashed before his eyes like scattered fragments of light, but soon faded into darkness, and even the endless row of yin candles could no longer be seen.
“…Gong…Wei…”
His throat bones cackled and his intact left hand clutched the wrist of the corpse, but to no avail.
All of a sudden, there was-—ka!
Ktf mbgqrf’r tfjv tecu tfiqifrris ab bcf rlvf, tlr mbiijgybcf tjv ecfzqfmafvis yffc ygbxfc ogbw yftlcv.
Temtl Eel ygbxf ogff ja atlr wbwfca jcv ogfrt jlg uertfv lc atgbeut tlr kbecvfv agjmtfj, mjerlcu tlw ab mbeut nlbifcais ecali tf mbeivc’a rff j atlcu yea tf yjgfis wjvf bea atja atf qfgrbc ktb mjwf ab tlr gfrmef kjr Tlcu Bjl!
“Huff… huff…” Ying Kai’s body was soaked in blood, his teeth were so tightly clenched that even his gasps were erratic. He turned his head and shut his eyes tightly, and with another rapid click! click! he broke both the corpse’s arms cleanly into two.
Then, he let go with a shudder.
The corpse fell to the ground with a thud, like a puppet with broken strings.
The tomb passage was now deathly silent, with only two rows of candles crackling and burning. After a long time, Ying Kai finally exhaled a bloodied breath and said with a trembling tone, “Seal the coffin, we’re leaving.”
“…” Yuchi Rui, unable to speak, nodded his head.
The stone door had long ago been smashed to the ground by Ying Kai, and in the distance another trailing set of footsteps rang out in quick succession. It was the awakened corpses wandering the depths of the tomb gathering again. Ying Kai picked up the body of Lotus Immortal, holding the back of his head, which was unnaturally crooked because of the broken neck bone, and looked down for a moment, murmuring in a small voice, “I’m sorry, Zhiyu…it’s Shixiong who has let you down. You sleep well, okay?”
The corpse was lifeless.
Ying Kai’s internal organs felt like they were being burned by a red-hot iron, so hot that his body spasmed and trembled. He took a deep breath, stood up with the corpse in his arms and hobbled towards the golden coffin ahead.
Yuchi Rui did not have the courage to follow, nor even the strength to stand up, half-kneeling, he picked up Tower of Rashasa and suddenly heard behind him—
Puuuuch.
His whole body shook, he couldn’t believe his ears, and stiffened inch by inch as he turned his head back, only to see Ying Kai’s back stopped in front of the coffin, a bloody palm piercing through his abdomen from under his back ribs.
It was the broken hand of the Lotus Immortal.
Immediately afterward, the corpse rolled from his arms onto the ground, standing up with its neck and arms still bent, but with the click, clack and several crunching sounds, it miraculously recovered as before and twisted its head to re-adjust its posture.
“…Ying Kai?” Yuchi Rui asked in a daze
Ying Kai spurted out a large mouthful of blood, unable to support himself any longer, and fell abruptly to his knees!
“Ying Kai!”
Yuchi Rui roared out in anger, got up and rushed forward, however this time the Lotus Immortal moved even faster. Perhaps tired of the battling, right before the Tower of Rakshasa cut down, his right pupil flashed blood-red, reflecting Yuchi Rui’s constricted pupil right in the middle of it…
Wind, footsteps, sound, light…everything in the world suddenly froze in an instant.
The illusion was like a giant net of the abyss, gently and cruelly enveloping everything in sight.
……
In the boundless stillness, Yuchi Rui could only hear his own heart pounding inside his chest, but that sound also became slower and fainter until it was drowned out by the clamor that came at him.
“I heard that Sword Sect Master died a violent death overnight, his sea of Qi was emptied out and his spiritual power was completely depleted…” “How could this happen?!” “It’s a curse, it’s a curse brought on by using the sword as a testimony to cultivate Daoism!”
…
“It’s all because of you!” He heard his mother’s hysterical cries from the hearth and even with so many people, they couldn’t pull her back, “Why did you have to have such an extraordinary talent? It’s all because of you that your father is dead! It was all you!!!”
“It wasn’t me,” he told himself over and over, “it wasn’t me.”
The young Yuchi Rui crouched against the wall in the corner of the hearth, clutching his head and shaking all over. A devilishly faint voice was always picking the right moment to sound out from the bottom of his heart—Are you sure it isn’t you?
If you hadn’t been born, or if you hadn’t been born gifted, could the curse that caused your father’s tragic death have been avoided?
As time shifted, the grass and trees passed through winter and spring, and the fire set by the previous Sword Sect Master’s wife when she followed him in death was extinguished in everyone’s memory. It was many years later when the Yuchi family once again welcomed the cries of a newborn, and once again the disciples of the Golden Gate donned mourning garbs and hung up white streamers.
“Who would have thought that two generations of descendants would cause their fathers’ death, what a sin!” There were people outside the hearth sighing, “The previous Sword Sect Master lasted at least a few years back then, but this one sucked his own father dry right after he was born, what a sin!”
“The previous Sword Sect Master cultivated with the skewed intention of seeking ascension, and the subsequent generation of children and grandchildren are all connected to their own father’s spiritual lineage. The greater the talent, the sooner the father’s spiritual power will be depleted…”
“It’s true that the better the son the sooner the old man will die, how can you take shortcuts in cultivation!” “Yes, yes!…”
Yuchi Rui stood in front of the coffin, gazing at the pale, calm face of his older brother in the coffin.
—This face was in all honesty, a bit unfamiliar, after all, he had been sent to the Dai Mountain Correctional Palace after his parents died back then, and hadn’t been back to this home much in all these years.
“Your Lordship.” The escort carefully swaddled a bundle and whispered, “This is the Young Master.”
The cries drew his attention, and Yuchi Rui slowly turned his head back, only to see the baby, who had just been born a few days ago, yelling out every inch of his voice under the faint candlelight of the hearth, his little face flushed red. He was not quite able to make out the deep eye sockets, high nose and other facial features found in the men of the Yuchi family.
“…good.” Yuchi Rui suddenly said in reply.
“He was born with the heavenly spirit root just like I was. No wonder he is the same as me.”
The escort did not dare to think about the meaning behind the words “just like me”, his knees went weak and he knelt down, not daring to say another word.
But Yuchi Rui did not say anything more. He bent down to pick up the baby, but his movements were unfamiliar and awkward, and after several attempts he could only carry the baby swaddle in one hand, like a bundle, and stood in front of the coffin in a daze, whispering, “You are not to blame.”
“Waa—”
“It’s not your fault.”
The baby returned with an even louder wail.
“You didn’t choose to be born,” Yuchi Rui murmured, as if he hadn’t heard, “How can you be blamed for displacing them when they brought you into the world without your permission?”
A muffled thunderclap sounded, and outside the hearse, the rain poured and countless white streamers swayed like long snakes in the wind.
“—Is that really what you think?” That devilishly seductive, malicious voice suddenly emerged, “Are you really so blameless for causing the death of your loved ones at birth?“
The cries of the baby in his arms grew thin. The malicious voice trailed off like countless ghostly shadows gloating in his ears as it whispered, “You’ve earned your position as a Sword Sect Master by killing your relatives, haven’t you?“
“If only you had been born mediocre, all this wouldn’t have happened. You have been secretly rejoicing haven’t you?”
“How do you have the cheek to still be alive?”
…
With a thud, Yuchi Rui knelt onto the ground and forcefully cupped his ears, each word hissed through his bloodied tongue tip and teeth, “Shut up, you are just an illusion, shut the hell up—”
The ghostly shadows burst into laughter, “Only an illusion can let you hear the most truthful voice in your heart!“
“Pierce your eardrums then!“
“You won’t be able to hear anymore if you’re dead. Why aren’t you dead yet?“
…
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!!!—”
The masses of ghostly shadows and ghoulish figures were millions of nightmarish claws ripping into his primordial spirit, sinking him deeper into the deadliest quagmire of the illusion. Yuchi Rui was struggling to stay afloat in a boundless sea of flames. Despite his extreme agony, he could not awaken from it. In his trance, he saw a familiar face gazing down at him. It was the Lotus Immortal.
Then, the ghastly white corpse closed its eyes and turned away, disappearing into the depths of the tomb passage.
The cold wind wailed as it rolled in closer and closer. It was the group of awakened corpses that was wandering and had now gathered again, appearing in twos and threes around the coffin chamber, gradually gathering into a ring of corpses.
They were all former masters of great families and sects before they were dressed in burial robes of different patterns, their decaying eye sockets unable to close, staring straight at the only two living persons from all sides.
“…Ying Kai,” Yuchi Rui panted fiercely, the ripping sensation of the intertwining illusion and reality made him unsteady on his feet, shuddering as he gripped the Tower of Rakshasa, “Are you still awake?”
Not far behind him, Ying Kai collapsed in front of the coffin, soundless.
Yuchi Rui shut his bloodshot eyes, and opened them abruptly a moment later. A regular cultivator would have died of the insanity and gone off the rails by now. He could barely maintain his consciousness by biting his tongue. Clang! The Tower of Rakshasa was unsheathed, and he said word by word between his clenched teeth, “Bring it on.”
As if stimulated by the scent of the living, the corpses, one after the other, let out a shrill cry, dragging their rigid strides and advancing at the same time!
—Just as their swords were being drawn, a tune could be heard from the end of the tomb passage.
It came so unexpectedly, like a fresh breeze blowing through the thick corpse air. Yuchi Rui’s first thought was that he had misheard it, but then a figure actually appeared in the tunnel, young and slim, with hands behind his back, looking curiously to the right and left—like a young boy humming a tune just after school.
Was it a hallucination?
There could only be such an unpleasant tune in a hallucination right?
In fact, the tune itself was very familiar to Yuchi Rui, but the man was so tone-deaf that not a single note was in tune from the beginning to the end. And the terrible thing was that he was persistent and serious—the harder he tried, the more out of tune he became.
Yuchi Rui’s primordial spirit was already severely injured. When he heard this heartbreaking song, which sounded like a little fox hanging itself, the breath which he had been struggling to sustain was instantly aggravated into an elevated blood pressure that rushed into his skull as he fell to his knees and spurted out a mouthful of blood!
Immediately afterwards, the rapidly approaching corpses stopped and stood in place one after another, as if they had suddenly entered a sleepwalking state.
What had happened?
Yuchi Rui’s state of mind was now insufficient to support any form of deep thinking, and he could only see the dense sea of corpses rapidly retreating into the distance all of a sudden. Within mere moments, they cleared away like a tidal wave!
Gong Wei rushed forward and finally stopped his outstandingly horrific tune and held Yuchi Rui in his arms, he was agitated with tears brimming in his eyes, “Who hurt you like this? Where is my Shixiong? Shixiong! Shixiong, what’s wrong with you!”
Gong Wei rolled and crawled over to check on Ying Kai, but suddenly felt a tightening sensation around his arm as he was clutched by Yuchi Rui. His eyes were bloodshot and teary, rendering his vision blurred but was driven by strong instincts to force out a few words, “Too…too unpleasant to hear ……”
“…” Gong Wei said coldly, “Yuchi Rui, I haven’t seen you in sixteen years, don’t force me to slap you in the face as soon as we meet.”
Yuchi Rui couldn’t tell if it was another illusion in front of him as he stumbled and fell to the ground.
The illusion cast by Gong Wei’s corpse was so powerful that it would have killed a cultivator with a fully developed golden core. Yet, Yuchi Rui dug his nails deep into the muscles of his palm causing fresh blood to flow down his fingers before he lost his last shred of consciousness, “Quick, get help…”
“Gong…Lotus Immortal…”
Gong Wei was now busy dragging Ying Kai out of the rubble, panting, “Yes, yes, it’s me. Can you express your joy at the long-awaited reunion later?”
Yuchi Rui choked out another mouthful of blood and intermittently added the second half of his sentence, “Lotus Immortal…corpse awakened…and escaped… “
Gong Wei simply thought he heard wrong, his movements abruptly paused and took a long while to turn back in disbelief.
In the distant golden spell formation, four huge dark golden coffins were arranged in a ring, the third one was wide open and empty.
“…” said Gong Wei in disbelief, “That awakened corpse was mine?”
Even with the soul reincarnated the corpse can still rise and even cast an illusion to trap Yuchi Rui and then escape from Ying Kai, what kind of sense was that?
Gong Wei slowly turned his gaze to the miserable Shixiong and his best friend on the ground, and finally a tinge of belated guilt rose up.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He rubbed his hands together sheepishly and said in embarrassment, “I’ll get myself back there and press myself into the coffin, don’t worry.”
Yuchi Rui panted rapidly and moved backward before finally calling out that name with great difficulty, “…Gong Wei…”
The Tower of Rakhasa led out a clang as it left its sheath, the hands which tightly held onto the sword hilt were trembling. His voice had a trace of grief and desperation which he himself did not realize, “Don’t come any closer, Gong Wei…don’t come any closer anymore.”
Before he completed the sentence, Yuchi Rui saw the corpse crawl out of the coffin. Because of its stiff movements with a thump, it fell onto one knee, then slowly stood up.
The pale green, expressionless face stared straight at Yuchi Rui.
The Lotus Immortal never liked to wear headgear since he was a child, and his black hair was always casually tied, exuding an air of uninhibitedness and ease. Even if he just stayed still and did nothing, his lively aura and radiance seemed to be constantly flowing around him, jumping in the air like light notes. When he was willing to be close to someone, he was like a sweet dream that wrapped around that person’s entire world in a quick and lively manner.
But now he was completely still.
His eyes were tightly shut, his face was a deathly white, and an invisible heaviness and rigidity radiated from every strand of his hair.
Yuchi Rui tried not to make any noise, slowly stepping backwards, when suddenly there was a slight, ‘crack!’
A piece of gravel cracked beneath his heel.
As if an invisible string in the void had suddenly snapped, the corpse immediately looked up, staring at Yuchi Rui. Then suddenly disappeared the next moment.
Any other regular person would not be able to react, but Yuchi Rui had fought with him too many times, and his pupils instantly constricted as he pulled out his sword and spun around. With a crisp ‘clang’, the corpse of Lotus Immortal descended like a ghostly shadow and deflected the blade with a wave of his hand, and grabbed Yuchi Rui’s throat.
Yuchi Rui called out angrily, “Gong Wei!”
He tilted his head to avoid Gong Wei’s reach, but the corpse’s five fingers grazed his lower jaw before almost slicing through the solid bronze wall like a knife cutting through tofu in an instant. Yuchi Rui moved to receive the battle, the divine sword Tower of Rakshasa struck, and the bricks of the bronze wall fell like hailstones, but the ghastly white face remained in its place. He was unable to even lengthen the slightest distance between them!
There was another loud clang and Yuchi Rui, with electrifying speed, grabbed him by the back of his neck and flung him towards the open coffin. But there was nothing in his grasp and when he spun around again, he saw a white burial gown hanging from above. The corpse’s feet now stepped on the tile at top of the tomb passage. In an instant, he came face to face with him.
Yuchi Rui felt dread and flew backward, crying out, “Sword out, release technique—”
The spirit of his sword suddenly awoke, and a whistle resounded.
A red-gold halo erupted in all directions, instantly cloaking him in layers of battle armor, blocking off the claws that came for his heart in the nick of time!
The corpse moved with a start and half of its arm was instantly burnt to a crisp.
A corpse has no sense of pain or fear, and would only attack the living like a madman no matter what damage it received. Yet for some reason, after this blow, the corpse gave up on further attacks and slid past Yuchi Rui towards the tomb passage exit.
He must not be let out!
In his desperation, Yuchi Rui had no other choice but to slash his sword at the back of the corpse’s neck, and as his head was about to be separated, the Lotus Immortal suddenly turned around, the side of his face shining so brightly with the light from the blade.
—That face was so familiar, looking as if he had only parted them yesterday.
Yuchi Rui’s sword gave a sudden jolt, and a shudder ran up from his fingertips to the top of his head.
In the next moment, there was a bolt of pain and a crisp ‘ka cha!’. At the same time, his wrist bone was sliced clean off by the palm of the Lotus Immortal, and the Tower of Rakshasa fell to the ground!
His cry of pain was interrupted before it could be uttered, as the bloodied palm of the corpse clamped down on his throat.
“…”
Yuchi Rui couldn’t make a sound and his eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the face of the corpse, which was inches away from his. The countless years of his youth all flashed before his eyes like scattered fragments of light, but soon faded into darkness, and even the endless row of yin candles could no longer be seen.
“…Gong…Wei…”
His throat bones cackled and his intact left hand clutched the wrist of the corpse, but to no avail.
All of a sudden, there was-—ka!
Ktf mbgqrf’r tfjv tecu tfiqifrris ab bcf rlvf, tlr mbiijgybcf tjv ecfzqfmafvis yffc ygbxfc ogbw yftlcv.
Temtl Eel ygbxf ogff ja atlr wbwfca jcv ogfrt jlg uertfv lc atgbeut tlr kbecvfv agjmtfj, mjerlcu tlw ab mbeut nlbifcais ecali tf mbeivc’a rff j atlcu yea tf yjgfis wjvf bea atja atf qfgrbc ktb mjwf ab tlr gfrmef kjr Tlcu Bjl!
“Huff… huff…” Ying Kai’s body was soaked in blood, his teeth were so tightly clenched that even his gasps were erratic. He turned his head and shut his eyes tightly, and with another rapid click! click! he broke both the corpse’s arms cleanly into two.
Then, he let go with a shudder.
The corpse fell to the ground with a thud, like a puppet with broken strings.
The tomb passage was now deathly silent, with only two rows of candles crackling and burning. After a long time, Ying Kai finally exhaled a bloodied breath and said with a trembling tone, “Seal the coffin, we’re leaving.”
“…” Yuchi Rui, unable to speak, nodded his head.
The stone door had long ago been smashed to the ground by Ying Kai, and in the distance another trailing set of footsteps rang out in quick succession. It was the awakened corpses wandering the depths of the tomb gathering again. Ying Kai picked up the body of Lotus Immortal, holding the back of his head, which was unnaturally crooked because of the broken neck bone, and looked down for a moment, murmuring in a small voice, “I’m sorry, Zhiyu…it’s Shixiong who has let you down. You sleep well, okay?”
The corpse was lifeless.
Ying Kai’s internal organs felt like they were being burned by a red-hot iron, so hot that his body spasmed and trembled. He took a deep breath, stood up with the corpse in his arms and hobbled towards the golden coffin ahead.
Yuchi Rui did not have the courage to follow, nor even the strength to stand up, half-kneeling, he picked up Tower of Rashasa and suddenly heard behind him—
Puuuuch.
His whole body shook, he couldn’t believe his ears, and stiffened inch by inch as he turned his head back, only to see Ying Kai’s back stopped in front of the coffin, a bloody palm piercing through his abdomen from under his back ribs.
It was the broken hand of the Lotus Immortal.
Immediately afterward, the corpse rolled from his arms onto the ground, standing up with its neck and arms still bent, but with the click, clack and several crunching sounds, it miraculously recovered as before and twisted its head to re-adjust its posture.
“…Ying Kai?” Yuchi Rui asked in a daze
Ying Kai spurted out a large mouthful of blood, unable to support himself any longer, and fell abruptly to his knees!
“Ying Kai!”
Yuchi Rui roared out in anger, got up and rushed forward, however this time the Lotus Immortal moved even faster. Perhaps tired of the battling, right before the Tower of Rakshasa cut down, his right pupil flashed blood-red, reflecting Yuchi Rui’s constricted pupil right in the middle of it…
Wind, footsteps, sound, light…everything in the world suddenly froze in an instant.
The illusion was like a giant net of the abyss, gently and cruelly enveloping everything in sight.
……
In the boundless stillness, Yuchi Rui could only hear his own heart pounding inside his chest, but that sound also became slower and fainter until it was drowned out by the clamor that came at him.
“I heard that Sword Sect Master died a violent death overnight, his sea of Qi was emptied out and his spiritual power was completely depleted…” “How could this happen?!” “It’s a curse, it’s a curse brought on by using the sword as a testimony to cultivate Daoism!”
…
“It’s all because of you!” He heard his mother’s hysterical cries from the hearth and even with so many people, they couldn’t pull her back, “Why did you have to have such an extraordinary talent? It’s all because of you that your father is dead! It was all you!!!”
“It wasn’t me,” he told himself over and over, “it wasn’t me.”
The young Yuchi Rui crouched against the wall in the corner of the hearth, clutching his head and shaking all over. A devilishly faint voice was always picking the right moment to sound out from the bottom of his heart—Are you sure it isn’t you?
If you hadn’t been born, or if you hadn’t been born gifted, could the curse that caused your father’s tragic death have been avoided?
As time shifted, the grass and trees passed through winter and spring, and the fire set by the previous Sword Sect Master’s wife when she followed him in death was extinguished in everyone’s memory. It was many years later when the Yuchi family once again welcomed the cries of a newborn, and once again the disciples of the Golden Gate donned mourning garbs and hung up white streamers.
“Who would have thought that two generations of descendants would cause their fathers’ death, what a sin!” There were people outside the hearth sighing, “The previous Sword Sect Master lasted at least a few years back then, but this one sucked his own father dry right after he was born, what a sin!”
“The previous Sword Sect Master cultivated with the skewed intention of seeking ascension, and the subsequent generation of children and grandchildren are all connected to their own father’s spiritual lineage. The greater the talent, the sooner the father’s spiritual power will be depleted…”
“It’s true that the better the son the sooner the old man will die, how can you take shortcuts in cultivation!” “Yes, yes!…”
Yuchi Rui stood in front of the coffin, gazing at the pale, calm face of his older brother in the coffin.
—This face was in all honesty, a bit unfamiliar, after all, he had been sent to the Dai Mountain Correctional Palace after his parents died back then, and hadn’t been back to this home much in all these years.
“Your Lordship.” The escort carefully swaddled a bundle and whispered, “This is the Young Master.”
The cries drew his attention, and Yuchi Rui slowly turned his head back, only to see the baby, who had just been born a few days ago, yelling out every inch of his voice under the faint candlelight of the hearth, his little face flushed red. He was not quite able to make out the deep eye sockets, high nose and other facial features found in the men of the Yuchi family.
“…good.” Yuchi Rui suddenly said in reply.
“He was born with the heavenly spirit root just like I was. No wonder he is the same as me.”
The escort did not dare to think about the meaning behind the words “just like me”, his knees went weak and he knelt down, not daring to say another word.
But Yuchi Rui did not say anything more. He bent down to pick up the baby, but his movements were unfamiliar and awkward, and after several attempts he could only carry the baby swaddle in one hand, like a bundle, and stood in front of the coffin in a daze, whispering, “You are not to blame.”
“Waa—”
“It’s not your fault.”
The baby returned with an even louder wail.
“You didn’t choose to be born,” Yuchi Rui murmured, as if he hadn’t heard, “How can you be blamed for displacing them when they brought you into the world without your permission?”
A muffled thunderclap sounded, and outside the hearse, the rain poured and countless white streamers swayed like long snakes in the wind.
“—Is that really what you think?” That devilishly seductive, malicious voice suddenly emerged, “Are you really so blameless for causing the death of your loved ones at birth?“
The cries of the baby in his arms grew thin. The malicious voice trailed off like countless ghostly shadows gloating in his ears as it whispered, “You’ve earned your position as a Sword Sect Master by killing your relatives, haven’t you?“
“If only you had been born mediocre, all this wouldn’t have happened. You have been secretly rejoicing haven’t you?”
“How do you have the cheek to still be alive?”
…
With a thud, Yuchi Rui knelt onto the ground and forcefully cupped his ears, each word hissed through his bloodied tongue tip and teeth, “Shut up, you are just an illusion, shut the hell up—”
The ghostly shadows burst into laughter, “Only an illusion can let you hear the most truthful voice in your heart!“
“Pierce your eardrums then!“
“You won’t be able to hear anymore if you’re dead. Why aren’t you dead yet?“
…
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!!!—”
The masses of ghostly shadows and ghoulish figures were millions of nightmarish claws ripping into his primordial spirit, sinking him deeper into the deadliest quagmire of the illusion. Yuchi Rui was struggling to stay afloat in a boundless sea of flames. Despite his extreme agony, he could not awaken from it. In his trance, he saw a familiar face gazing down at him. It was the Lotus Immortal.
Then, the ghastly white corpse closed its eyes and turned away, disappearing into the depths of the tomb passage.
The cold wind wailed as it rolled in closer and closer. It was the group of awakened corpses that was wandering and had now gathered again, appearing in twos and threes around the coffin chamber, gradually gathering into a ring of corpses.
They were all former masters of great families and sects before they were dressed in burial robes of different patterns, their decaying eye sockets unable to close, staring straight at the only two living persons from all sides.
“…Ying Kai,” Yuchi Rui panted fiercely, the ripping sensation of the intertwining illusion and reality made him unsteady on his feet, shuddering as he gripped the Tower of Rakshasa, “Are you still awake?”
Not far behind him, Ying Kai collapsed in front of the coffin, soundless.
Yuchi Rui shut his bloodshot eyes, and opened them abruptly a moment later. A regular cultivator would have died of the insanity and gone off the rails by now. He could barely maintain his consciousness by biting his tongue. Clang! The Tower of Rakshasa was unsheathed, and he said word by word between his clenched teeth, “Bring it on.”
As if stimulated by the scent of the living, the corpses, one after the other, let out a shrill cry, dragging their rigid strides and advancing at the same time!
—Just as their swords were being drawn, a tune could be heard from the end of the tomb passage.
It came so unexpectedly, like a fresh breeze blowing through the thick corpse air. Yuchi Rui’s first thought was that he had misheard it, but then a figure actually appeared in the tunnel, young and slim, with hands behind his back, looking curiously to the right and left—like a young boy humming a tune just after school.
Was it a hallucination?
There could only be such an unpleasant tune in a hallucination right?
In fact, the tune itself was very familiar to Yuchi Rui, but the man was so tone-deaf that not a single note was in tune from the beginning to the end. And the terrible thing was that he was persistent and serious—the harder he tried, the more out of tune he became.
Yuchi Rui’s primordial spirit was already severely injured. When he heard this heartbreaking song, which sounded like a little fox hanging itself, the breath which he had been struggling to sustain was instantly aggravated into an elevated blood pressure that rushed into his skull as he fell to his knees and spurted out a mouthful of blood!
Immediately afterwards, the rapidly approaching corpses stopped and stood in place one after another, as if they had suddenly entered a sleepwalking state.
What had happened?
Yuchi Rui’s state of mind was now insufficient to support any form of deep thinking, and he could only see the dense sea of corpses rapidly retreating into the distance all of a sudden. Within mere moments, they cleared away like a tidal wave!
Gong Wei rushed forward and finally stopped his outstandingly horrific tune and held Yuchi Rui in his arms, he was agitated with tears brimming in his eyes, “Who hurt you like this? Where is my Shixiong? Shixiong! Shixiong, what’s wrong with you!”
Gong Wei rolled and crawled over to check on Ying Kai, but suddenly felt a tightening sensation around his arm as he was clutched by Yuchi Rui. His eyes were bloodshot and teary, rendering his vision blurred but was driven by strong instincts to force out a few words, “Too…too unpleasant to hear ……”
“…” Gong Wei said coldly, “Yuchi Rui, I haven’t seen you in sixteen years, don’t force me to slap you in the face as soon as we meet.”
Yuchi Rui couldn’t tell if it was another illusion in front of him as he stumbled and fell to the ground.
The illusion cast by Gong Wei’s corpse was so powerful that it would have killed a cultivator with a fully developed golden core. Yet, Yuchi Rui dug his nails deep into the muscles of his palm causing fresh blood to flow down his fingers before he lost his last shred of consciousness, “Quick, get help…”
“Gong…Lotus Immortal…”
Gong Wei was now busy dragging Ying Kai out of the rubble, panting, “Yes, yes, it’s me. Can you express your joy at the long-awaited reunion later?”
Yuchi Rui choked out another mouthful of blood and intermittently added the second half of his sentence, “Lotus Immortal…corpse awakened…and escaped… “
Gong Wei simply thought he heard wrong, his movements abruptly paused and took a long while to turn back in disbelief.
In the distant golden spell formation, four huge dark golden coffins were arranged in a ring, the third one was wide open and empty.
“…” said Gong Wei in disbelief, “That awakened corpse was mine?”
Even with the soul reincarnated the corpse can still rise and even cast an illusion to trap Yuchi Rui and then escape from Ying Kai, what kind of sense was that?
Gong Wei slowly turned his gaze to the miserable Shixiong and his best friend on the ground, and finally a tinge of belated guilt rose up.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He rubbed his hands together sheepishly and said in embarrassment, “I’ll get myself back there and press myself into the coffin, don’t worry.”
