Chapter 612: So What If I’m Despicable?

Inside the taxi, a brief silence passed before Lu Yibei looked at Huá Sāng and spoke again.

“Um… can we discuss something?”

“Sure. Go ahead.” Huá Sāng nodded.

“The situation is urgent, so about the engagement…” Lu Yibei said quietly.

“You brought it up first,” Huá Sāng replied.

“…”

Lu Yibei fell silent for two awkward seconds, then said, “How about this? Starting now, whoever mentions it again is a dog.”

“A dog…” Huá Sāng frowned slightly.

“You don’t like that?” Lu Yibei blurted. “Then you can be a turtle, and I’ll be the dog?”

“Uh, all right…”

The taxi driver glanced at them through the rearview mirror, his expression exceedingly peculiar.

Young people these days sure knew how to have fun.

Subway. Old man. Phone.jpg

————

Half an hour later, the taxi crossed nearly half the city and reached the outskirts of Shizhou City. Lu Yibei and Huá Sāng got out two or three kilometers from where Hu Chuan had attacked the disciples of the Great Pure Palace.

Following the old street, they walked to the dilapidated apartment block they had located using the Death Owl. After surveying the area, they spotted the other Great Pure Palace disciples who had responded to the distress signal in a vacant lot behind the building.

Six or seven disciples stood in a circle roughly two meters across amid the overgrown weeds. Their weapons were already drawn. At the center of their encirclement, a pale-faced girl sat collapsed on the ground.

At first glance, the scene resembled an act of bullying in progress.

Yet the six or seven disciples wore expressions of fear and helplessness, without a trace of a bully’s arrogance. The surrounded girl also looked distinctly abnormal.

Her head hung low, and her drooping hair concealed half her face. Her visible eye was wide open, its pupil unfocused. Blood had stained most of her beige T-shirt red. Both arms hung limply at her sides, and the short blade in her right hand had clearly fused with her flesh.

Two broken swords and several mangled pieces of human limbs lay scattered around her.

“Something seems wrong here,” Lu Yibei whispered to Huá Sāng.

“Mm…” Huá Sāng answered softly.

Their eyes met. Reaching the same understanding, they nodded and hurried forward.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, the nearest Great Pure Palace disciple shuddered. He spun around and growled, “W-who’s there?!”

His shout made the other disciples tense. They turned as one, several weapons flashing with dazzling cold light beneath the afternoon sun.

The atmosphere suddenly grew tense.

Huá Sāng had never expected her fellow disciples to raise their weapons against her. Remembering the transformation Wu Yutang had undergone the previous night, her heart tightened. She instinctively surged her psychic energy and stepped half a pace forward, shielding Lu Yibei behind her.

At that exact moment, Lu Yibei slipped away…

————

Everyone’s gaze remained fixed on Huá Sāng, studying her over and over. Only after more than ten seconds did someone finally recognize her.

“A-are you Senior Sister Huá Sāng?” the disciple asked tentatively.

“Yes, it’s me…” Huá Sāng nodded slightly. Only then did everyone lower their weapons, and relieved breaths rose from the crowd.

Most of them had met Huá Sāng earlier when Qingxiazi assigned the mission, but the image in their minds was still of her former, disheveled appearance.

The scene of the psychic attack was so bizarre that everyone’s nerves were stretched tight. Failing to recognize her at first, they had reacted somewhat excessively.

“What’s the situation?” Huá Sāng asked a familiar-looking junior brother. “Where are the disciples who sent the distress signal?”

“They…” A complicated expression crossed the disciple’s face. “Senior Brother Liao and the others have already…”

“Died?” Huá Sāng asked calmly.

“…” The disciple did not answer, but his lowered eyes said everything.

————

While Huá Sāng spoke with the other Great Pure Palace disciples, the ignored Lu Yibei silently circled around them. He reached the disheveled girl slumped on the ground and crouched in front of her.

“Hey, miss. Are you all right?”

The girl did not respond.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Lu Yibei waved one finger in front of her face.

The girl remained silent.

“Tsk. Looks like she’s completely broken.” Lu Yibei pursed his lips. “That brat Hu Chuan is awfully brazen for a wanted fugitive…”

After observing the girl for several seconds, Lu Yibei lowered his gaze to the weapon in her hand. Then he looked farther down, spotted two strange objects, and unconsciously raised an eyebrow.

One was a pair of smooth, translucent plastic rods. They resembled chopsticks, but were shorter and made from a material not commonly used for them.

The other was a tangled mass of twisted metal wire that looked like a steel-wool scrubber that had seen years of use.

After pondering for two seconds, he locked his gaze firmly onto the two objects and concentrated.

Come on, do something. Let me see what happened here!

When Lu Yibei’s eyes were exposed to lingering psychic energy fluctuations, they would sometimes show him what had caused those remnants. But this was not an active ability. It could not even be called a passive one. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it did not.

So far, he still did not understand the principles behind this bizarre ability. He could only vaguely sense that it was connected to the core entity of his mythical-type haunting.

Yet when his mother had left him so much useful information in the City of Dreams, she had never mentioned his eyes. It was as though she had no idea that the core entity of a mythical-type haunting would grant them all manner of strange abilities.

That left only one way to trigger the ability—luck!

This time, he seemed to be lucky…

His gaze lingered on the short blade in the girl’s hand and the severed limbs scattered across the ground. Several seconds later, warmth spread through his eyes. Lu Yibei’s vision swam as a familiar dizziness washed over him. The scene before him rippled like a reflection on water disturbed by a stone…

Then…

He witnessed a betrayal and a massacre!

————

“Then what about her…?”

Huá Sāng looked at the girl in the distance, who seemed to have lost her soul. Her gaze lingered on Lu Yibei’s tightly shut eyes for several seconds before she asked the familiar disciple, “What happened to that junior sister? Is she a survivor of the attack?”

“I-I don’t know. Senior Sister Qin and the others arrived first…” The disciple turned toward a tall woman beside him, silently asking for an answer.

“I…” Embarrassment crossed the female disciple’s face. “When we arrived, Junior Sister He was already sitting there, covered in blood and holding that knife. And the knife had fused with her hand…”

The woman fell silent. A panicked male disciple who had arrived with her stepped forward and shouted.

“I think Junior Sister He may have been bewitched and attacked Senior Brother Liao and the others! She must be the murd—”

“Bleurgh—bleurgh—!”

A sudden burst of violent retching cut him off.

Everyone turned toward the sound. They saw a pale young man vomiting his guts out, along with a carpet of tiny white granules. Their expressions gradually turned strange, and whispers spread through the crowd.

“Who’s that?”

“No idea. Senior Sister Huá Sāng seems to have brought him.”

“Has he never handled more than a few haunting incidents? His stomach is far too weak. He saw a little blood and a few severed limbs, and he already started vomiting…”

“…”

Lu Yibei swept his gaze over everyone staring at him, straightened, and rolled his eyes. “What are you looking at? Never seen someone throw up digestive tablets before?”

The disciples fell silent. They certainly had not. Nor had they ever seen anyone eat so many digestive tablets.

“Whew!” Lu Yibei drew a deep breath and steadied himself. Looking at Huá Sāng, he said, “This girl did attack them. She even stabbed one of her companions, but she didn’t inflict the fatal wounds.”

The disciple who had been about to label the girl a murderer flushed and hurriedly asked, “Then who did? Gu He?”

“You could say it was him, but you could also say it wasn’t.” Lu Yibei glanced at the man and continued, “I saw what happened through a special psychic ability of my Spirit Pattern. He merely used his power to bring those objects to life. The objects themselves killed the other three people.”

Lu Yibei had experienced the same bizarre phenomenon only the night before. Even a psychic like him, who could predict danger, had been battered senseless by the objects flying wildly around the room. After those three Great Pure Palace disciples were stabbed by one of their own and then attacked, they had no chance to react.

“Objects?” asked a Great Pure Palace disciple who did not fully understand the situation. “If Gu He controlled objects to kill them, isn’t that the same as killing them himself?”

“Not quite, little girl…” Lu Yibei looked at the young, innocent-looking disciple and explained, “That fellow only granted the objects self-awareness and gave them a little guidance. At most, he instigated the crime. As for how those objects killed the three of them…”

Lu Yibei paused, then abruptly changed the subject. “By the way, have all of you eaten lunch? Why don’t we find somewhere to sit and talk while we eat?”

“We ate ages ago. Just tell us!” someone urged.

“You’ve already eaten? That’s excellent…” Lu Yibei nodded, a crafty smile flashing through his eyes. “The fatal injuries were inflicted by two toothbrushes and a window screen.”

Confusion appeared on the young girl’s face. “How could toothbrushes and a window screen—”

Before she could finish, Lu Yibei suddenly made a strange noise.

“Scrub—scrub—scrub—!”

As he made the sound, he exaggeratedly rubbed both hands back and forth.

That was right. The three Great Pure Palace disciples had been slowly scrubbed to death by the toothbrushes and window screen. The toothbrush bristles had worn away completely, leaving only two bare, chopstick-like handles, while the window screen had twisted into a ball of steel wire.

Apart from the few severed limbs scattered across the vacant lot, the rest of their bodies had been ground into a single mass of sludge. The resulting tableau was decidedly avant-garde.

Lu Yibei had witnessed many haunting incidents, but never anything so revolting. It was even worse than Plague Taisui.

At his gestures, the Great Pure Palace disciples suddenly understood. Their faces turned pale.

Lu Yibei chose that moment to add, “Your three missing fellow disciples have now become a slime-monster-style piece of abstract art. It’s quite a sight! If you search that apartment block carefully, you should find it in the corner of one of the rooms.”

His words confirmed their worst suspicions. Several disciples immediately began vomiting.

“…”

Serves you right for laughing at me! Now you know why I threw up.

And I saw it as though I were right there!

With that thought, Lu Yibei walked around the disciples vomiting their guts out and approached Huá Sāng. He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got a strong stomach.”

Huá Sāng glanced at him and replied calmly, “I’ve seen worse. Would you like to hear about it?”

She had sensed something amiss the moment Lu Yibei asked whether everyone had eaten lunch.

Sure enough, he had been up to no good.

“No, thanks!” Lu Yibei waved a hand and rubbed his stomach. “My stomach hasn’t been doing well lately. I shouldn’t put it through any more…”

After speaking, he looked around, tugged lightly at Huá Sāng’s sleeve, and gave her a look signaling that they should talk in private.

Huá Sāng understood and nodded, following him.

Once they had moved away from the vomiting disciples, Huá Sāng asked, “What is it? Did you discover something else that you couldn’t say in front of them?”

“Yes.” Lu Yibei nodded and lowered his voice. “The situation is a little bad.”

Huá Sāng tilted her head.

“I saw something just now…”

“You didn’t see it through your Spirit Pattern’s ability, did you?” Huá Sāng interjected.

She had already used the Qi-sighting Art to see the dark phantom of the Eifrit Spirit Pattern on Lu Yibei’s hands.

She knew perfectly well that no matter how much the Eifrit Spirit Pattern mutated, it could not grant Lu Yibei the strength he had displayed the previous night, nor could it allow him to reconstruct an entire psychic attack merely by examining the objects left behind.

“…” Lu Yibei was silent for two seconds but did not deny her accusation.

“From what I saw, I realized that aside from a few senior members and people like those we encountered last night who have already fused with objects, most members of the Esoteric Society probably don’t even know they belong to it.”

Huá Sāng frowned. “What makes you say that?”

“Take that girl. Before the short blade in her hand controlled her and made her attack her companions, she seemed to have no idea anything like that could happen…”

Huá Sāng suddenly understood. “I see. You’re saying some disciples may have become Hu Chuan’s eyes and ears without realizing it?”

“Exactly.” Lu Yibei nodded. He glanced back at the Great Pure Palace disciples in the distance and lowered his voice further. “Some of them may already be Hu Chuan’s spies. There may be even more inside the Great Pure Palace. Finding every last one would be impossible.”

It would be like trying to pick a few slivers of ginger out of a plate of shredded potatoes.

“Hu Chuan is like a player with wall hacks now. If we continue allowing disciples who don’t know they’ve joined the Esoteric Society to participate in the pursuit, we may never catch him.”

“However, I’ve already thought of a way to deal with him.”

Lu Yibei knew better than most how to keep himself alive while being hunted.

He put himself in Hu Chuan’s position and more or less guessed what the man was doing now.

Even if his guess was wrong, following his plan would still be far better than letting Hu Chuan see their every move.

Lu Yibei stepped closer, leaned toward Huá Sāng’s ear, and whispered a few sentences. Huá Sāng’s brows gradually drew together.

“That seems rather despicable. I approve of using the plan against Hu Chuan, but using it against Elder Wang too is… I doubt my Shifu will permit it.”

Huá Sāng, the disgrace of the Great Pure Palace, found the idea acceptable enough. But she knew perfectly well that Qingxiazi would never allow them to act recklessly.

“Your Shifu even controls that? You’re a disciple of the Great Pure Palace, but I’m not. So what if I’m despicable?” Lu Yibei demanded righteously.

Huá Sāng fell silent.