Chapter 399: The Righteous Die from Talking Too Much

Three minutes ago, when Suolang Baima’s attention was all on Fu Xinyi, Lu Yibei had already started to move.

He urged on the intense psychic energy fluctuation that had inexplicably surged within him, pushing the movement technique from The Diagram of the Gentleman Sword of Taihe to its absolute limit within his capabilities, carrying each unconscious bystander out of the cinema hall.

In this world, slaughter and death play out every moment; there are always lives being taken, eyes losing their light, bodies covered by dust, names forgotten by all.

But this does not mean their lives are as insignificant as grass, nor that their fates were meant to be so.

Although Lu Yibei couldn’t guarantee sending them to a place of absolute safety, before making his move, at the very least he had to get them out of the blast radius of the Alchemical Bomb.

Besides, he could tell that when Suolang Baima attacked Fu Xinyi, she hadn’t used her full strength.

The stronger he became, the more he could sense just how terrifyingly powerful his old man was, and anyone daring to ambush his old man would never be as simple as they appeared.

He sprinted, controlling the Paper Cicada Immortal he carried to charge at Suolang Baima, while summoning with his mind more Paper Cicada Immortals left at the hotel to come over, then repeatedly kicked open the emergency exit doors, carrying each unconscious person to a relatively safe place.

“It is mist and also stars…”

A voice lingered in his mind, whispering; though it repeated the same phrase, when he listened closely, it was as if countless girls were murmuring their own tragic pasts, their words barely concealing a fierce thirst for blood.

With the strange whispers, Lu Yibei felt something minuscule and invisible within him trembling violently, venting a cold and venomous aura. His psychic energy, tainted by that aura, seemed to gain a bizarre vitality, surging in a chillingly uncanny rhythm.

“It is mist and also stars… lips that blow out the flame…”

Only three people were left in the cinema hall, and the whispers in his mind seemed to grow clearer and more forceful.

Lu Yibei’s vision blurred, then was veiled by a faint, yellowed halo like an old film; all colors dulled, only red and black growing sharper-red vivid as blood, black deep as night.

With each breath, the scent of blood seemed to thicken, like a hook baited with temptation, pulling at his consciousness.

“It is mist and also stars, her child, and the lips that blow out the flame in the darkness…”

The whispers grew stronger in Lu Yibei’s ear, as if branding the words onto his soul.

This description of the power…

Damn, is the witch type’s psychic energy about to lose control? Lu Yibei thought.

His body temperature kept dropping, a thin layer of frost forming where he stepped. His will seemed trapped in a cage of darkness and delirium, drifting like smoke, hard to control, hard to focus, all sorts of chaotic and negative thoughts surfacing in his mind.

As he carried the last blood-soaked girl out the cinema doors, he nearly couldn’t resist bending down to kiss her throat, then tearing her skin open with sharp fangs, greedily sucking her hot blood, devouring all her beautiful dreams.

After putting down the last person, suppressing the abnormal urges rising within, Lu Yibei turned and ran back toward the cinema hall.

Just then, the whisper sounded again-not as intense, but especially clear, as if a girl with a malicious smile was lying on his shoulder, murmuring softly in his ear.

“It is mist and also stars, her child, and the lips that blow out the flame in the darkness…”

The voice paused for a moment, then, in the most ambiguous tone, spoke a description of power Lu Yibei had never heard before.

“…the figure awakened outside the paradise, with eyes that can make all things beautiful or fall, yet lies resting and waiting in this morbid flower’s heart.”

As the new description of power echoed in his mind, Lu Yibei felt as if he had suddenly been locked in a torture device, countless spikes piercing his body, pain shooting through his limbs and bones.

His bones cracked as if breaking, blood seeped from his pores and wrapped around his body, and soon his consciousness was engulfed by unprecedented madness…

Hua City, Folk Culture Administration Bureau.

Jiang Li sat quietly at her desk, flipping through the case file of day and night length changes over the past year. After a long time, she held the thick file with a grave expression and sighed silently.

In the past thirteen months, daylight had shortened by 25’30”03, 3’20”17 more than the previous year’s data.

At this rate, the rumors might be true-this world could fall into eternal night in just over a decade.

The situation was worrying.

She put down the case file on day and night length changes and was about to pick up the case files on psychic energy fluctuation and Night Corrosion Level changes when a sharp wind suddenly blew in from the window, followed by Bai Kai’s excited shout from the yard.

“It’s snowing! Time to play in the snow, wow~!”

Since Lu Yibei completed the Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts and became the King of Hauntings, Hua City hadn’t seen snow again after that one light snowfall at the start of winter. Bai Kai, who had bought snow toys early and planned to invite a few girls for a snowball fight and then another kind of fight at home, was about to go crazy from waiting.

Men are boys until they die-there’s nothing wrong with that saying.

Though Xing Yuan was keeping him in check now, making a second round impossible, the first round was still a must.

Hearing Bai Kai’s cheers, Jiang Li got up, put on her coat, grabbed her cane, and hobbled to the window to look outside.

At some point, sheets of leaden clouds had gathered in the sky, and goose-feather snow was falling. There was no wind, just a silent snowfall, and soon the small garden of The Midnight Watchers Society was covered in a blanket of white.

Bai Kai was running wild in the small garden like a husky seeing snow for the first time in its life.

Before long, he somehow produced a set of winter gear-cotton coat, scarf, earmuffs, and wool hat-and thoughtfully dressed the mushroom girl squatting in the corner.

“Number One, I’ve had these things ready for you for a while now. You spend all day squatting in the yard-be careful not to get buried by the snow. If they dig you out next spring, your corpse will be rotten.”

“…” The mushroom girl stared at Bai Kai with a gloomy look for a long while, but in the end, she suppressed the urge to plant two poisonous spores on him. She nodded and softly said, “Thank you.”

Then, Bai Kai started making a fuss again. As the snow on the ground grew thicker, he began to roll up snowballs. Li Xuan walked in from the ancestral hall’s main gate, and before he could see what was happening in the small garden, a snowball came whistling out of nowhere and smacked him on the head.

“Bai Kai! Are you looking to die?” Li Xuan growled, bent down, and threw a snowball back at Bai Kai.

“Li, what’s with your attitude? Hey, you can’t hit me, can’t hit me!”

“Damn! Bai Kai, are you even human? You actually put rocks in the snowballs!?”

“Everyone out of the way! Let me deal with him!” With a crisp shout, An Qing suddenly rushed out from somewhere, holding a snowball as big as a family car in her hands.

Bai Kai, “!!!”

“Boom-!”

With a loud bang, Bai Kai, Li Xuan, the mushroom girl, and even An Qing herself were all swept up in the flurry of white snow kicked up by the giant snowball.

Watching her colleagues frolic happily in the small garden, Jiang Li, who had vaguely felt something was off, found her mood lightening as well. She couldn’t help but let a faint smile appear at the corner of her lips.

At this moment, if only he were here too. Jiang Li thought, looking up at the sky.

Snowflakes drifted down, silent and still.

Violent tremors and shockwaves erupted, flames and thick smoke shot up to the sky.

Silence returned after the deafening blast. The boiling air, mixed with scorched dust, danced together before finally turning into fine snowflakes, falling on the walls, the ground, and on Fu Xinyi.

She looked up at the man who wanted to take her life.

He had already been enraged by the explosion just now. Next, he probably wouldn’t hold back at all…

This time, I’m afraid I’ll drag down the fellow sect members who came to help. Fu Xinyi thought.

The burly figure, radiating a suffocating and terrifying psychic energy fluctuation, staggered closer through the thick smoke.

At her feet, in the walls, above her head beyond the layers of buildings-it was as if every corner’s psychic energy was stirring up a cold storm.

In an instant, Fu Xinyi was lost in the eternal glaciers of ancient snow mountains. Snow drifted everywhere before her eyes, the desolate mountains encircled her, and a sense of bleak loneliness enveloped her heart.

In a daze, more and more snowflakes fell from above. Thunderous rumbling came from the sky, the entire valley trembled, and a white tsunami came crashing down, engulfing everything.

She had no doubt that if she remained trapped in this illusion constructed by psychic energy, it wouldn’t be long before she lost all warmth and became a “freshly frozen” corpse. Yet, she couldn’t muster even a hint of resistance in her heart.

Just like how humans face an avalanche.

She had heard many stories about avalanches before, but only when she truly faced an avalanche constructed from psychic energy fluctuation did she unconsciously marvel at how there could be such a terrifying silver-white giant wolf in the world. Despair swallowed her whole, her heart ashen.

Suolang Baima stood quietly to the side, watching her, like a Nine-Colored Lotus blooming on the sacred snowy mountain, witnessing countless deaths over the ages, his gaze as indifferent as snow.

At that moment, a slender, fair hand suddenly reached out from behind Suolang Baima, swirling wisps of smoke and cold air as if painting with wild brushstrokes, and grabbed the back of his head. Five fingers slowly tightened, and his skull let out a brittle, mournful crack under the agony.

Immediately after, the hand jerked upward, lifting the burly body from the ground as if pulling up a radish, and flung him behind.

Then…

That figure twisted sideways and stomped fiercely at Suolang Baima’s chest.

“Boom-!”

A thunderous crash erupted, the ground cracked, and the burly man’s body was instantly half-buried in the earth. As he struggled to get up, a pair of slender fingers shot at him like lightning. Just as he raised his head, it snapped back, and one of his eyeballs burst in a spray of blood.

“Ah-!”

Suolang Baima clutched his eye and let out a miserable scream, but deep down, he felt a surge of relief.

He could sense that the girl who had ambushed him was aiming for the weakest spot on his head, trying to pierce through his skull. If his psychic energy fluctuation hadn’t been strong enough to withstand her head-on, he’d already be a corpse.

…

Watching the man who had just seemed as mighty and imposing as a snow mountain, now let out a muffled groan of pain from that blow, Fu Xinyi’s vision blurred, as if blood poured from the sky, staining the snow mountain crimson. Then the snowy illusion suddenly collapsed.

His psychic energy fluctuation had been disrupted by another psychic energy fluctuation!

In the clash of power, that brute was actually at a disadvantage?

Fu Xinyi thought in shock and doubt, staring blankly upward, and saw the silver-haired girl.

She wore a gorgeous blue gown, her figure beneath it half-mature like a young girl, as if silently singing a seductive nocturne. Her crimson eyes fixed on the fallen Suolang Baima, and a tempting yet ferocious smile curled at her lips. “You, look into my eyes!”

A voice with a strange magic rang in his ears. Suolang Baima instinctively looked up, and the moment his gaze met those crimson eyes, his body trembled as if struck by lightning.

Fear.

It wasn’t just the killing intent that overwhelmed him, but also the terror of having his Spirit Pattern suppressed.

Ever since he joined The Midnight Watchers Society, drew the [Snow Lotus] Spirit Pattern, then betrayed The Midnight Watchers Society in pursuit of power, and step by step, through slaughter, watered the Spirit Pattern with blood and advanced it to [Nine-Colored Lotus], this was only the second time he had felt such terrifying suppression.

The first time was from a spell formation in the hands of that legendary man; this time, it was pure suppression of power.

Stared at by those eyes, he seemed to see scenes of his past killings replay before him, and through those terrified, bloodstained faces, he glimpsed something even more hideous and insane.

In a daze, he seemed to have returned to that snowy mountain he visited the first time he sought materials for drawing Spirit Pattern, standing atop the mountain.

Beneath the endless white snow as far as the eye could see, what was buried turned out to be nothing but bones. Then, those bones suddenly began to move, grabbing his ankles and wrists, climbing up his neck and head, savagely tearing at his body.

Hauntings die if they are killed.

So in the past, Suolang Baima never believed in things like karma or reincarnation, but at this moment, he clearly felt that all the people and hauntings he had killed before had come to claim his life.

His blood felt as if it were about to freeze, its flow gradually slowing, the bone-chilling cold spreading through his body.

That kind of cold was not like the biting chill of the snowy mountain, but a sinister, filthy iciness, like touching a corpse just taken out of a freezer.

Suolang Baima realized that if he didn’t do something soon, he would die very quickly.

At the brink of life and death, humans always instinctively make one last struggle.

So, in the instant he was shrouded by the shadow of death, Suolang Baima pushed his psychic energy to the limit.

His whole body twisted wildly like an earthworm leaving the soil, ignoring the constant cracking of his bones, breaking free from Lu Yibei’s suppression.

The moment he broke free, seeing the bizarre scene before him gradually dissipate, his rich combat experience kicked in-he immediately realized that the opponent had just used a power similar to hypnosis or charm, plunging him into an illusion.

She seemed to be a witch type haunting; hypnosis and charm were common innate skills for their kind.

Of course, illusions could kill too, just as he used psychic energy fluctuation’s tremors to construct a half-real, half-illusory snowy mountain, letting life wither in the wind and snow.

He believed that this girl before him also had ways to take lives within illusions.

Thinking this, Suolang Baima quickly retreated, stabilized himself, then looked up, staring at the girl ahead with suspicion and uncertainty, not daring to meet her eyes again.

“Who are you? Why did you attack me?”

He tried his best to control his tone, but there was still a slight tremor in his voice.

“Me? Just a passing Witch. As for why I attacked you…” Lu Yibei replied nonchalantly, glancing at the electronic clock not far away. “Because the movie is about to start, and you’re messing around here, making me late for my movie.”

If taking part in the ambush of Lu Ming was Suolang Baima’s gravest sin, then making Lu Yibei miss her long-awaited “Love and Magic Girls 3” was a crime on top of a crime!

Suolang Baima, “???”

Just because you’re late for a movie, you want to kill someone?

They say most witch types are old monsters who have lived for hundreds of years, with bumpy love lives and extremely twisted minds-looks like it’s absolutely true.

However, compared to the aberrant type and evil spirit type whose brains are complete mush, at least witch types are beings you can communicate with.

Thinking this, Suolang Baima glanced at Fu Xinyi not far away, and said in a deep voice, “Witch, I’m only here to kill this one person. After that, I’ll leave. Whatever you want to do, suit yourself.”

As if she hadn’t heard Suolang Baima at all, Lu Yibei looked coldly at Fu Xinyi and said, “Girl, lend me your sword!”

“Uh, oh, okay.” Fu Xinyi nodded blankly.

As soon as she finished speaking, Lu Yibei darted forward, picked up Fu Xinyi’s soft sword from the ground, and her psychic energy fluctuation suddenly surged, unleashing a monstrous, bloody ferocity, mercilessly attacking Suolang Baima.

Though she acted overbearing, she knew her suppression of Suolang Baima wouldn’t last much longer.

The fully awakened charm ability she’d just used would be much less effective if used twice in a row on the same target, and inside her there was still a mass of Hundred-Armed Giant’s power that could blow her to pieces at any moment.

So, even though she regretted not being able to throw out a few lines of trash talk before killing, she had to finish this quickly.

They say villains die from talking too much. Lu Yibei figured that as a barely righteous character, if she kept talking, she might get killed too.

“….”

This crazy woman!

As the fierce attack swept toward him, Suolang Baima gave Fu Xinyi a deep look and retreated in panic.

Facing this witch type haunting, he had no guarantee of victory-in fact, his chances were pitifully low. If he could retreat, perhaps giving up on ambushing a mere Midnight Watchers Society reserve operator wasn’t such a bad choice?

After a brief thought, Suolang Baima gritted his teeth and shouted, “In that case, I won’t disturb your movie. I’ll spare her life and leave right now.”

However, the only answer he got was a falling blade.

The Taihe Gentleman Sword, unleashed in nearly perfect form, whipped up storm after storm, clinging to the soft sword. With Lu Yibei’s continuous swings, the blade brought forth gusts of wind and thunderous roars.

Watching Lu Yibei’s sword moves-each stroke flowing like ink, as smooth as drifting clouds and flowing water, yet incredibly powerful-Fu Xinyi’s eyes widened. In her life, only her senior sister had ever wielded the Taihe Gentleman Sword with such mastery.

But why does she know our Great Pure Palace’s sword technique? Fu Xinyi wondered.

Suolang Baima swung his curved blade, retreating step by step until he was forced into a corner. Eyes bloodshot, he was about to throw himself forward in a desperate fight against this madwoman who wouldn’t listen to reason.

Just then, a loud crash came from not far away, and two figures burst through the cinema lobby wall.

One man and one woman-the man pale and haggard, the woman with a pair of rabbit ears on her head.

“Suolang Baima, we’re running out of time, why are you still… What the hell! Why is she here?”

Ms. Rabbit, who had come to provide backup, caught sight of the nearly deranged Lu Yibei and shuddered, letting out a startled cry.