Volume 4, Chapter 46 – Parasitism

The moment those words left her mouth, Bai Zhuqing felt the coiffed woman’s appearance change.

Her face had originally seemed veiled behind a smoky, cloudlike illusion. No concrete features could be seen clearly; it shifted constantly like mist, as though it could form the brow and eyes of anyone in her memory.

But at this moment, as that blur became clear and fixed, Bai Zhuqing discovered to her utter astonishment that the face had actually—actually turned into Bai Xiang’s!

This!

For an instant, her thoughts stopped dead, and the word “Sister” slipped out instinctively.

Then Bai Zhuqing realized something was wrong. In the end, Bai Xiang’s past special training really had worked on her—when she could spend long stretches facing a Bai Xiang in “ragged clothes” doing calisthenics right in front of her, with absolutely nothing held back, and still not entertain any crooked thoughts, then at the very least, she had already risen above that sort of vulgar taste. There was no way she could be bewitched by a similar face that didn’t come with the special effects of an Illusory God.

At once, she forced herself to bite the tip of her tongue. With her free left hand, she also dug her nails hard into her palm, using pain to force herself back to clarity.

“Oh?”

A faint note of surprise came from all around her.

“To have this level of spirit and willpower—you seem like good material.”

“I almost can’t bear to kill you.” Wearing Bai Xiang’s face, the coiffed woman rose from her seated posture, carrying a sword on her back, and descended from midair step by step. “Why don’t you obediently come back with me and serve as an attendant under me… what do you think?”

“Serve your whole damn family!” The more Bai Zhuqing looked at that face, the more revolted she felt. She spat out the curse and swung the Qingwu Sword hard at her.

You even took Sister Xiang’er’s face to try to bewitch me!

A thing with nothing but outward appearance and not a shred of spirit—who do you think you’re fooling!?

Go die!

Her anger overwhelmed her awe of a stronger opponent. At that moment, by a strange twist of fate, Bai Zhuqing stepped, on the level of spirit, into the state of “Feixiang” that Bai Xiang had once described to her. The essence of her body, her qi, and the will of her soul all fused together and poured into this single slash, making the sword-shadow so swift and fierce that ordinary people could barely catch it with the naked eye.

“This kind of thing…” The coiffed woman’s lips curled up. She raised her right hand and caught the blade between just two fingers. “Surely you didn’t think this would work.”

Those below this realm would never understand in their lifetime just how vast the gap was between the station of a Venerable and lower cultivators.

Even if the rules of her divine pool did not encourage her to incline toward the body-cultivation path, this was still just a young girl whose cultivation, at a glance, had not even reached the thunder tribulation stage, yet she actually thought she could injure her with a sword. The idea was simply far too naive.

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Such slow movement. Just by reading your eyes and expression, I can predict everything you will do.

But what she did not know was that Bai Zhuqing had Jade Spirit inside her Inner Body-scape.

Zheng—

Under the assisted control of Jade Spirit Mingxin, the blade of the Qingwu Sword suddenly spun and burst apart, scattering like petals of white light. In the next instant, they gathered into spherical forms of their own and, following different trajectories, slashed at her again.

What!?

The coiffed woman had clearly been completely unprepared for this move. Caught off guard, the two fingers of her right hand were sliced open. Though she instinctively avoided every sword pellet aimed at her vital points, a section of her coiled-up hair was inevitably cut away. When she looked up again, her hair had fallen loose around her shoulders, and she looked rather bedraggled, stripped of the lofty bearing she had made on her entrance.

Her expression immediately turned incomparably dark, and the transformed face she wore condensed with dense, venomous resentment.

“You little bitch who doesn’t know life from death, I’m going to—”

Bang!

Before she could finish speaking, her head exploded into a cloud of blood, as though some extremely high-speed object had struck it from above at an angle. Her body was sent flying backward by the accompanying force of impact, smashing into the ground and kicking up a great spray of dust.

Going to do what to me?

Bai Zhuqing did not react for a moment, but very soon Jade Spirit prompted her to look toward a Great Yu-forged longsword that had appeared in the sky—it was Bai Xiang’s sword, Feixiang Heaven!

“Auntie!?” A subtle delight appeared on the girl’s face. She looked up, and sure enough, saw Bai Xiang standing in the air in a dark black robe-skirt. Her cold golden pupils were not looking at her at all, but were fixed intently on the dust ahead.

Seeing that it really was Bai Xiang, Bai Zhuqing finally let out a breath of relief.

She hadn’t said anything on the way, but in truth, she had been very worried about Bai Xiang. She had feared that the enemy might use some despicable means to pin her down, or even harm her.

And yet now Sister Xiang’er had arrived perfectly fine…

Counting the time it had taken to notify her and the time it took to get here, those people had practically failed to delay her at all.

Good.

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That meant she couldn’t possibly have been hurt either…

“Take Leying and hide.” Bai Xiang gave the instruction simply, then reached out and caught Feixiang Heaven. With a sweep of her sleeve, she dispersed great swathes of dust and smoke, exposing the coiffed woman—or rather, the headless corpse of that unfamiliar Immortal Venerable expert.

From this angle, the corpse had not merely lost its head. Its neck and part of its chest cavity had also been blasted apart by Feixiang Heaven’s strike. The way it lay sprawled on the ground without getting up seemed to prove that she was dead beyond doubt.

But Bai Xiang was no longer someone who knew next to nothing about Immortal Venerables.

Knowing her opponent would not die so easily, she locked onto the residual aura left on the corpse, fully activated Jade Spirit Mingxin and Taishang Resonance, and almost by reflex looked farther away—toward that overturned black sedan resting upside down on its four wheels.

With a single glance, her gaze pierced through the dozens of meters between them and clearly saw the face of one dying kidnapper hanging upside down inside the car suddenly blur, then open a black eye from the center of the forehead.

Once that eye appeared, it rapidly grew, and like a kaleidoscope or a face-changing trick, a completely new face grew out over it, fully covering the “man’s” original features.

But this was a woman’s face.

Young and beautiful, yet completely unfamiliar—utterly unrelated to Bai Xiang. Presumably, this was her true face.

As if sensing something, the woman twisted that new body slightly and turned her head directly to meet Bai Xiang’s gaze.

Bang!

A sword-shadow flashed past, and her head exploded again.

Crash!

The underside of the sedan was suddenly split open. A dark-jade longsword spun out, dragging with it a blurry afterimage clutching a person. Without a word, it fled at once, streaking out of the city at tremendous speed.

She’s running?

Bai Zhuqing instinctively took two steps forward.

She had assumed Bai Xiang would give chase immediately.

But instead, she saw that white-haired figure suddenly whip around and glare at her from against the light, those cold golden pupils descending over her in full.

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This! What exactly is…!?

An involuntary chill rose in Bai Zhuqing’s heart. She watched as Bai Xiang caught her natal Dao sword, and in the next instant felt that face suddenly loom before her, ghostlike, right up close.

Whoosh!

A pale, slender hand reached out and clamped directly around the contour of her cheek.

“Ah—!”

Then, before she could react, a scream formed from a familiar voice rang out beside her ears, and it felt as though a woman’s face were being stripped from her own like a mask—precisely that coiffed woman who had just shown her true appearance!

Pfft!

Bai Xiang clenched her fist and crushed that illusory face in one squeeze. Only then did her form blur, turn, and go after the culprit and the hostage.

So just now I was… possessed by some filthy thing?

Watching Bai Xiang vanish, Bai Zhuqing felt a wave of delayed fear.

According to Jade Spirit’s calculations, she had most likely had her mind seized just now and, in accordance with the enemy’s intent, called out “Sister” one extra time.

Even though she had snapped awake almost immediately, she had still fallen for it.

Immortal Venerable.

Venerable.

For experts who bore such titles, had the strangeness and unpredictability of combat already reached this level…?

For a moment, confusion and disappointment welled up in her heart.

But very quickly, Bai Zhuqing remembered that she had also cut the other party’s fingers.

I shouldn’t let my spirit sink like this… she told herself inwardly.

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The enemy is indeed extraordinary, but I too have mastered Jade Spirit Mingxin, and with it I can even command the path of sword pellets!

If I continue cultivating like this, it’s not as though I have no hope of winning!

With that thought, the girl quickly pulled herself together.

She first ran back to her car to check on her little sister, who still had not recovered from her dizziness, then picked up the phone that had fallen to the ground, restored communications, and reported everything that had happened here.

[Sis got there? Whew… good, then it’s fine.]

Bai Maoxu sounded deeply relieved.

And that was true enough.

As long as Bai Xiang was able to shoulder something, nothing had gone wrong so far.

At the same time, movement came from the other phone as well.

[We’ve investigated all the information on the Chilong Dao resident named ‘Liu Yong,’ and we can basically confirm that this person has no biological parent-child relationship with his father and mother.]

Huh?

This investigation result… putting aside whether it was bizarre or not, Bai Zhuqing simply couldn’t understand how this was the right thing to be bringing up at a moment like this.

We’re investigating why he was kidnapped, not digging up his family gossip!

[That is exactly what we’re talking about,] Aurora stressed.

[Clearly, there is another secret hidden in Mr. Liu.]

[May I presumptuously ask one more question—has he ever shown any special talent?]

[In other words, the kind of talent where nobody else could do it, and only he could.]