Lin Zhiyue stood in the center of the stream, her sea-blue fish tail shimmering with a faint silver light beneath the gradually calming water.
Once the resentful energy completely dissipated, the silhouette of the woman coalesced once more, appearing much clearer than before. Her face was delicate yet pale, her features still retaining the contours of a young girl, but a deep coldness had settled within her eyes.
She stood beneath a fruit tree on the bank. Her form was translucent, and though the dried bloodstains on her clothes remained, the dark red liquid around her facial orifices had faded slightly.
She looked down at her hands, then raised her head to look at Lin Zhiyue. When she spoke, her voice was much calmer than before, yet it still carried a suppressed tremble. “Are you... an immortal?”
Lin Zhiyue tightened her grip on the conch flute and nodded. “I am a disciple of Tiance Palace. We already know what Su Qing'er did. Calm your mind first. If you have any grievances, you can tell them all to me. I will surely obtain justice for you.”
Su Jinyu's lips trembled slightly. Her gaze fell upon the sea-blue tail fin on Lin Zhiyue's lower body, as if she were trying to confirm something.
Then she spoke, her voice rising in waves, carrying a fierce intensity that had been bottled up for fifteen years and had finally found an outlet. “After Su Qing'er murdered me, my soul was locked away. I could go nowhere, trapped day after day in that side room. For over a decade... I have been waiting for an opportunity to leave, waiting for a chance to get close to her and make her suffer the exact same torment.”
“Then one night, I discovered a crack in the formation locking my soul, and I escaped. Afterward, I found a place—as long as I stayed there for a while, my strength would increase on its own. I grew stronger, but I still couldn't enter the imperial palace, nor could I get close to Su Qing'er.”
“I tried many times, but I could never get near her. Until one day, I suddenly sensed my own aura outside the palace—that was when I realized Su Qing'er had taken my mother's relic.”
“After that, I found that I could use this bracelet to send a wisp of my resentful energy inside. Day after day, I channeled my resentful energy into the bracelet bit by bit, until I could finally use it to manifest.”
Su Jinyu's voice paused on the last sentence. When she spoke again, it carried a trace of suppressed trembling. “But after I came in, the first person I saw was not Su Qing'er...”
Lin Zhiyue did not reply immediately.
She knew in her heart that the place Su Jinyu spoke of was the dragon vein and earthly fortune.
But the question was—how could the soul-locking formation suddenly develop a crack? And how did Su Jinyu happen to find the dragon vein and earthly fortune so easily? Without someone guiding her from the shadows, this was far too coincidental.
Lin Zhiyue lowered the conch flute from her lips, softening her tone as much as possible as she spoke. “I understand. I know all about the grievances you have suffered. But as for Su Qing'er, you cannot simply go and kill her directly. There might be another conspiracy behind all this—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Su Jinyu's figure suddenly shook violently. Her eyes, which had regained a sliver of clarity, were once again shrouded by a layer of dark red light. Resentful energy surged from the ground beneath her feet, spreading faster and more violently than before.
Her voice turned from suppressed to broken, yet her consciousness was clearly awake at this moment. “I have waited for fifteen years... Why won't you let me kill her... You are in league with her...”
She struck much faster than Lin Zhiyue had anticipated. As the pressure of a Soul Transformation Stage vengeful spirit poured down, Lin Zhiyue felt her vision darken for a moment. Enveloped by the massive wave of resentful energy, she had absolutely no time to react.
Before her consciousness completely plunged into darkness, the last thing she saw was a complex, apologetic expression appearing on Su Jinyu's delicate, pale face. Her lips moved, silently mouthing a few words: “I am sorry.”
The system's light screen flashed several times within her fading consciousness, with red text scrolling rapidly across: 【Warning! Currently falling into the illusion of a late-stage Soul Transformation Stage vengeful spirit! Warning—because this illusion has merged with the power of the dragon vein's fortune, those who enter will lose all of their memories—system connection obstructed—Warning! Warning!—】
The glowing characters of the final sentence grew too blurry to read, before darkening completely.
At the same time, inside the side parlor, Qi Yan was sitting cross-legged on a futon, meditating with his eyes closed.
He suddenly snapped his eyes open, his sharp gaze shooting toward the direction of Lin Zhiyue's room.
Bypassing the door, his figure vanished from the spot and reappeared dozens of feet away. By the time he swept past the corridors and walls of the side parlor and landed in front of Lin Zhiyue's room, the door remained exactly as it had been after Su Qing'er left.
He pushed the door open and entered. The room was empty. The jade bracelet lay on the nightstand by the bed, its surface shimmering with an extremely faint halo in the moonlight.
Qi Yan stood by the bed and looked down at the jade bracelet for a moment. He reached out to pick it up, slowly tracing his fingertip along its smooth edge.
...
The sudden explosion of resentful energy first rattled the paper on the window frames. Immediately after, the entire roof of the side parlor seemed to be pushed upward from the inside, the tiles scraping against each other in a series of sharp, rustling sounds.
Cen Xi'er was the first to arrive. Pushing the door open, she saw a red-and-black figure clashing with a dense mass of black resentful energy inside the room. Every time Qi Yan's sword light slashed out, it left a scorching trail in the air, but the resentful energy would simply reform after being sliced apart.
Chu Zhixun and Xiao Yuan followed close behind. Jiang Yuezhan stood at the doorway, his iron sword unsheathed by half an inch but not fully drawn, his attention completely arrested by the commotion before him.
Within a few breaths, Qi Yan's sword light compressed the resentful energy into a corner. As his final strike cleaved downward, the translucent silhouette of the woman tumbled out of the black mist, falling to her knees on the floor.
The tip of Qi Yan's sword stopped less than half an inch from her throat, the crimson spiritual energy on the blade still flickering. When he spoke, his voice was not loud, but it carried a coldness suppressed to the absolute limit. “Hand her over.”
Su Jinyu knelt on the ground, her expression much more stable now.
No longer hiding anything, she raised her head to look at Qi Yan, her tone carrying a calm resignation that had settled in after being pushed to a dead end. “She is in my illusion. Only by fulfilling my ultimate wish can she leave.”
Murderous intent suddenly flared in Qi Yan's eyes. “Then I will kill you—”
Su Jinyu did not flinch. “If you kill me, the illusion will collapse instantly, and she will never be able to come out.”
The room fell silent for a brief moment. Qi Yan did not withdraw his sword, but his gaze lingered on Su Jinyu's face for two breaths. When he spoke, his voice was cold and flat. “Who is helping you from behind? Who told you the location of the dragon vein? Who told you that you could dwell within a relic?”
Su Jinyu's lips parted slightly, as if she wanted to speak, yet she seemed blocked by something. She remained silent for a few breaths before finally speaking in a soft voice, “I will not harm her. She is the destined master of the jade bracelet—she can resolve my obsession and guide me to transcendence.” Having said this, she lowered her head and spoke no more.
Qi Yan stood there without replying immediately. He looked down at her for a moment, an unreadable emotion flickering in his eyes, before he finally sheathed his sword.
When he spoke, his tone had returned to its usual flatness. “Send me in.”
Jiang Yuezhan was the first to speak. “Master—” Qi Yan did not look at him, uttering only three words: “Do not argue.”
Beside him, Xiao Yuan opened his mouth to persuade him, but seeing Qi Yan's expression, he swallowed his words. His master's decision was something even the Palace Master could not overturn...
Su Jinyu raised her head to look at him, her eyes filled with complex emotion. “My illusion contains a trace of the power of fortune. It is no small matter. Even if you are in the Soul Transformation Stage, you will forget everything. Once you enter, you won't know you are there to save someone, nor will you know who she is—you might not even recognize her.”
Qi Yan stood before her, his sword hanging low, his tone flat. “Then we will see once I am inside.”
Su Jinyu fell silent for a moment, ultimately asking no further questions.
She raised her hand, condensing the resentful energy around her body into a thin thread, and extended it toward Qi Yan.
The moment the resentful energy touched his shoulder, his figure faded slightly before everyone's eyes, and in the next breath, his entire outline completely vanished from the spot.
The resentful energy inside the room also retracted rapidly, receding into the ground like an ebbing tide.
Cen Xi'er stood in place, staring at the spot where Qi Yan had vanished. Her fingers tightened and loosened around the hilt of her sword. Finally, she turned around to look at Chu Zhixun and Xiao Yuan, her voice heavy with suppressed emotion. “Will Master remember?”
Chu Zhixun stood beside her, remaining silent for a long time before finally saying, “I don't know, but the illusion of a Soul Transformation Stage vengeful spirit is a trial of near-certain death—”
Rate on N.U.
