Chapter 40
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Meanwhile, in the open space Pavilion hall.
Xu Shuangce suddenly seemed to sense something, closing his eyes for a moment to probe, then opened them and looked towards the door.
The scene of Bai Xian separating his hand in front of everyone stunned them all, except for Mu Duozhu, who sat beside Xu Shuangce and caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, asking subconsciously, “What happened?”
Xu Shuangce didn’t answer, withdrawing his gaze after a moment of contemplation. At this moment, Ying Kai looked at Bai Xian with astonishment and finally said with difficulty, “…Are you not human?”
The mechanical soldiers were made of silk for tendons, gold for bones, and their bodies were encased in stainless steel. Their joints were controlled by screws and copper wedges, and their faces did not have facial features, just a smooth bronze surface. They relied on their spiritual nucleus to sense the Yin and Yang and the Five Elements, and their movements were all controlled by the spiritual power of the Iron Sect. In other words, they were gold-steel puppets whose combat power was enhanced a thousandfold or more.
However, Bai Xian clearly possessed intelligence, and from the outside, he appeared to be a flesh-and-blood human. How could he possibly be artificially created?
“Yes,” Bai Xian said calmly. “Underneath my skin, everything is mechanical. I am indeed not considered a living person.”
No wonder they said that when Du Kaixun turned eighteen, he had already surpassed the lifelong learning of the previous two generations of the Iron Sect — creatures like Bai Xian didn’t need to compete in strength; just his existence alone had already overturned the entire Changsun family. Du Kaixun’s ability to create mechanical soldiers was not only extraordinary but also truly miraculous!
Mu Duozhu said in amazement, “Chengfeng, how could your little brother…”
Changsun Chengfeng sat straight in his armchair. He naturally had a careless and indifferent demeanor, not taking anything too seriously, even when faced with the questioning of the various grandmasters earlier. That demeanor still existed, but now it had completely disappeared. The sunlight did not reach his sharply contoured profile, only casting heavy shadows on his nose bridge and lips, with a faint glimmer of cold light flickering in the corners of his eyes.
He tilted his head slightly upward, exhaling two words coldly, “Forbidden technique.”
“…” The crowd didn’t know what to say for a moment. After a while, Ying Kai hesitated and said, “So, seventeen years ago, you sent Du Kaixin to the Punishment Hall not because he bullied disciples of the Changsun Sect, but because he abused the soldiers he created himself?”
Changsun Chengfeng said coldly, “To me, Bai Xian is no different from a living person.”
—To him, there was no difference.
However, for the six major family masters and the current master of the Iron Sect, having an unnamed Dao companion who turned out to be a manufactured mechanical soldier would not only be a joke if it were to spread, but it would also be a scandal that would shake the world.
“Are you really a mechanical soldier?” Xu Shuangce suddenly asked.
Bai Xian humbly replied, “Yes.”
“But mechanical soldiers have no consciousness.”
Bai Xian replied, “Yes, mechanical soldiers do not have internal organs. I indeed…”
Before he could finish speaking, Xu Shuangce stood up from his seat and disappeared on the spot.
Everyone in the room was stunned, and the next moment, they saw the Sect Master of the Cangyang Sect appear in front of Bai Xian, his left hand containing a cold aura, ruthlessly piercing towards Bai Xian’s chest.
“That time seventeen years ago when Du Kaixun ordered you to be dissected, what did he dissect?”
Bai Xian’s pupils contracted, and he didn’t even have time to retreat. The pressure from the blade-like attack surged towards his heart.
But at that critical moment, not far away, the master of the Iron Sect suddenly stood up—clang!
Buqi Sword half unsheathed, forcefully blocking the hand reaching towards his heart, and in an instant, Changsun Chengfeng appeared in front of Xu Shuangce!
Ying Kai stood up suddenly and shouted, “Shuangce!”
Yuchi Rui and Mu Duozhu also stood up at the same time, and the atmosphere instantly became tense.
“…”
Changsun Chengfeng’s face lost its last trace of gentleness. The sharp cold light of the Buqi Sword flashed, clearly reflecting the fierceness deep in his pupils, like the sharp edges of rocks revealed after the tide receded. He said in a slow and cold voice, “Sect Master Xu, everyone has their Achilles’ heel.”
Xu Shuangce stared at him, squinting slightly.
“…Junior didn’t intend to deceive. I beg for sect master’s forgiveness…”
In the midst of the stalemate, Bai Xian’s hoarse voice sounded, and they saw him take a half step back behind Changsun Chengfeng, bowing his head in difficulty. “There is indeed a heart in junior’s chest. Because junior was not born this way, but was refined from a living person by the Second Young Master.”
***
Creak—
The door was pushed open, and Yuchi Xiao stood still for a moment before taking a deep breath and stepping over the threshold.
The layers of curtains hung down, shimmering with a watery light, blocking the scene on the sickbed. Yuchi Xiao stood still, gathering courage and whispered, “Xiang Xiaoyuan.”
There was no response from behind the curtain.
He must still be asleep, he thought.
The warm Qilin Blood Jade Pendant pressed tightly against his palm, causing his fingertips to ache. Yuchi Xiao remembered the scene when he first saw that little demon. The youth stood dumbfounded behind the screen of the Cangyang Sect’s main hall, his eyes black and white, peeking at him furtively, with fear and confusion in his pupils. In an instant, those eyes reflected on the icy-cold and piercing Gouchen Sword, with a sly smile at the corners of his eyes and mouth, completely indifferent to the blood trickling from his throat as the sword edge cut through it. The stark contrast between the blood and his skin sent chills down his spine.
It truly had no comparison, reaching the point of breathtaking beauty and dazzlement.
—Are you truly just a little demon?
Even the slightest thought caused a near-paralyzing mix of bitterness and sweetness to spread from the depths of Yuchi Xiao’s heart, leaving him slightly dazed.
“Yes, that must be it,” he told himself.
“This must surely be the legendary little demon.”
Yuchi Xiao closed his eyes, then reopened them with force. From his bosom, he carefully extracted a silk thread, meticulously threading it through the Qilin Blood Jade Pendant. Without needing to measure, he knew the exact length required for it to hang perfectly from the youth’s waist. After securing it, he tightened his grip on it with determination, as if gaining a certain courage from the painful sensation of the hard jade against his palm.
Then, he finally reached out, fingertips trembling imperceptibly, and forcefully pulled back the curtains of the bed—
His movement abruptly halted.
Upon the bed lay only the outer robe of Cangyang Sect’s sect master, the covers disheveled and the space empty.
“…Xiang Xiaoyuan?” Yuchi Xiao looked around in astonishment, turning around in confusion.
“Xiang Xiaoyuan?”
***
At the same moment, Gong Wei peeked out from the corner of the corridor.
The massive golden ship was complete with pavilions and terraces. On the deck near the stern, there was a small pavilion called the Ice Pavilion, connected to the cabin, intended for storing corpses.
At the entrance of the pavilion stood two Medicine Sect disciples, straight as spears, their gaze fixed ahead without deviation.
Gong Wei shook his head inwardly, snapping his fingers.
The two disciples didn’t even have time to react; their eyes glazed over instantly, staring blankly ahead, motionless.
It made no real difference whether the disciples of the Medical Sect guarded the door or not. Gong Wei walked out of the corridor’s corner cheerfully, and the two immobilized Medical Sect disciples paid no attention, allowing him to push open the door to the Ice Pavilion and slip inside leisurely.
The walls and floors of the burial pavilion were layered with millennium-old profound ice. Gong Wei had been here before when he sent the demon’s body on board. Back then, he was vigorous and physically robust, feeling no cold at all. However, upon entering now, he shivered involuntarily. The atmosphere was eerily quiet inside the pavilion.
The central hall of the pavilion was shrouded in a faint purple array. In the center of the array, hundreds of uncarved profound ice stones were piled into an ice bed. A familiar figure laid quietly on the ice bed, completely naked, covered only by a layer of snow-white funeral robe. A thin red light emanated from the center of his neck and collarbone, flowing like a living thing, gathering in the steel plate beside the ice bed, shrouded in mist.
That was the extracted soldier thread.
If it were an ordinary person seeing their own corpse from a past life, they would certainly experience complex emotions and perhaps even a sense of melancholy. Although Gong Wei couldn’t fathom why he felt this melancholy, in order to conform to the norm, he solemnly closed his eyes, offering a silent prayer for a moment.
Then, he opened his eyes, feeling excited and elated, ready to flip the body over and extract the spine. However, his actions were cautious as he suddenly stopped.
There were two threads of purple and gold-infused spiritual power extending from either side of the ice bed, tightly binding the wrists of the body, but they were difficult to detect under the funeral robe. As long as the body moved, the threads would follow suit, directly alerting Mu Duozhu’s divine consciousness.
Gong Wei hadn’t expected Mu Duozhu to have this trick up his sleeve, leaving him momentarily stunned. After pondering for a while, he couldn’t figure out how to untie the golden threads binding the corpse’s wrists without alarming Mu Duozhu, feeling somewhat frustrated, he withdrew his hand.
Was it just a stroke of bad luck today, or was the item in the spine again unextractable?
He took a step back but was unwilling to leave immediately.
The coffin of profound ice was radiant, enveloping the body. The already transparent skin seemed even more translucent, as if it were a human-shaped piece of ice and snow; the wound in the neck had turned into a whitish-blue scar, clean and cruel to the extreme, with only the edges tinged with fragmented gray-white, coagulated flesh and blood. Apart from this, the torso was intact, without any signs of slaughter.
Gong Wei scrutinized the calm face of the body from top to bottom, and a hint of curiosity suddenly surged in his heart.
It was said that Xu Shuangce had slaughtered corpses on Cangyang Mountain, and the blood splatter had remained undefeated throughout the year. When the Alliance Leader personally came to retrieve the body for burial, the Sword Sect’s Yuchi Rui and others waiting at the foot of the mountain had all witnessed the damage to the corpse. Afterward, the news spread far and wide, and everyone knew about Sect Master Xu’s glorious record of relentless corpse slaying, but for many years, no one dared to mention it openly.
Therefore, according to Gong Wei’s imagination, even if he hadn’t been dismembered, his flesh and blood should have been destroyed. However, during the confrontation at Ding Xian Ling, he found that his body’s face was intact, with no apparent external injuries.
So where exactly had Xu Shuangce inflicted his blows?
Gong Wei had always been someone who cared little about life and death, let alone anything that happened afterward. But for some reason, once this doubt arose, it wouldn’t dissipate, leaving him with a vague sense of discomfort.
Why did he feel unsettled by the actions of his archenemy, as if it were to be expected?
He didn’t know.
Gong Wei held his breath and glanced back, but there was no sound from outside, and the two gatekeeping disciples showed no signs of noticing anything amiss. He turned his head back to face the body, swallowed a dry mouthful of saliva, and finally reached out cautiously to pick up a corner of the burial clothes.
—The body was completely naked, with nothing left to the imagination.
The wound that No Way Out had pierced through the chest in the past had now turned pale, the wound clean and cruel, with only the edges tinged with fragmented, solidified flesh and blood. Apart from this, the torso was intact, with no traces of marks whatsoever
“…”
Gong Wei lowered the corner of the robe, feeling doubtful. After standing silently for a moment, his heart suddenly thumped again: did he have my limbs cut off, and were they sewn back before burial by Mu Duozhu?
The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Gong Wei couldn’t help but lift the corner of the funeral robe again to check the hands and feet. Unexpectedly, there were no signs of joints being cut and sewn back on any of the major joints. It wasn’t until his gaze fell on the arms that he suddenly froze.
The corpse did indeed show damage, with a gruesome clamp mark on each elbow, each pointing in the opposite direction.
On his right arm was a clear and complete palm print, with the bones slightly bent, as if forcibly dislocated by internal force during a struggle; even after the joints were pushed back later, the strong internal force of the restrainer still left a slight bend in the arm bones.
The left arm’s skeletal structure remained intact as before, showing no signs of internal damage, only five deep finger imprints embedded in the flesh, leaving behind long claw marks from forced dragging.
Gong Wei’s gaze fell upon those claw marks, his pupils gradually dilating, the noisy sounds of the Lijiang Tavern echoing in his ears. The storyteller downstairs vividly narrated something, while Yuchi Xiao lowered his voice mysteriously: “…After the passing of Law Flower Immortal, the Alliance Leader should have arrived with a sword from Mount Dai, personally charging into the Xuanji Palace, engaging in an aerial battle with Sect Master Xu, only then managing to snatch back Grand Elder Gong’s body. By then, the body had already been damaged…”
“Sect Master Xu was defeated?”
“Defeated! When you return to Cangyang Sect, remember not to inquire recklessly!”
…
Xu Shuangce was defeated by Ying Kai, sixteen years passed in an instant.
Yet those five scars on the corpse’s arm remained vivid and brutal, the curvature fading from deep to shallow until they disappeared, as if reluctantly letting go during a struggle.
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