Chapter 216: The Little Girl, Huang Quan

At Qilin's headquarters, Xiong Da lay sprawled on the ground like a mountain of flesh, fast asleep. Not far from him were the bubbles Yu Xian had left behind. Each bubble was configured as a teleportation portal, with a number from 1 to 100 displayed on its surface. Every number linked to a different destination.

Xiong Da was the bubbles' security guard, though in reality, he was more like the organization's beloved mascot. Whenever members of Qilin passed through the bubbles, they would bring him food. Before anyone realized it, he had grown even fatter.

Suddenly, a bubble flew out from one of the teleportation bubbles. Then a furry arm holding a feather reached out and stabbed Xiong Da hard in the backside, and blood spurted out.

Xiong Da let out a miserable howl, clutching his backside and springing to his feet. He hurriedly looked behind him, but found nothing. His head was filled with question marks, as he suspiciously glanced around.

Meanwhile, the battle between Yu Xian and the Ghost-Masked Man was in full swing. The Ghost-Masked Man attacked relentlessly. His body had no fixed form whatsoever. If Yu Xian did not possess spatial abilities, he would never have been able to withstand the assault.

The Ghost-Masked Man's attacks were fundamentally impossible to defend against. For example, when he threw a punch and Yu Xian blocked it with one hand, his thumb could branch off into another hand and continue attacking. Even if Yu Xian blocked that one with his other hand, it could branch again, growing yet another arm to launch another attack.

The entire process was incredibly fast, even faster than lightning. Before Yu Xian could even blink, the beating had already landed.

Yu Xian possessed similar abilities, such as the myriad transformations granted by the Pangu Transmutation. However, he could not transform nearly as quickly. If he did attempt to transform in a battle, he would only create even more openings.

Yu Xian had also considered growing several more arms to counter the Ghost-Masked Man, but that would have been pointless. He had never trained to fight that way before, so even if he created extra arms, he would not be accustomed to using them. His combat effectiveness would even decrease instead.

At that moment, Little Nora's head emerged from Yu Xian's shoulder once again as he excitedly said, "Big Bro, I got the black bear blood."

Yu Xian dodged one of the Ghost-Masked Man's deadly spikes. "Did you communicate properly with Xiong Da first?"

Little Nora scratched the back of his head with a guilty expression. "He was sleeping, and I felt bad about waking him up."

Getting a bad feeling, Yu Xian hurriedly asked, "Did you at least go easy on him?"

Little Nora repeatedly nodded. "Don't worry, Big Bro. I stabbed him in the butt. There's plenty of flesh there, so he'll definitely be fine!"

The corner of Yu Xian's mouth twitched. He had an ominous feeling that the little troublemaker in his family had definitely caused trouble. Still, Xiong Da was a bear, so surely he could bear with him and forgive him.[1]

Yu Xian did not dwell on it. After all, he was still in the middle of a battle. By now, his fight with the Ghost-Masked Man had turned into the latter attacking relentlessly, with him dodging nonstop to conserve energy. However, evading attacks still required concentration.

With his terrifying speed, to the Ghost-Masked Man, a kilometer was no different than a small step to a regular human. The second Yu Xian stopped teleporting, the Ghost-Masked Man could bridge the gap and strike him down in a flash.

The Ghost-Masked Man appeared before Yu Xian at tremendous speed, thrusting all five razor-sharp fingers toward his head. Perhaps because Yu Xian had spent the entire fight dodging, even the Ghost-Masked Man failed to anticipate his sudden counterattack. In an instant, Yu Xian teleported behind him and severed his head with a Vajra Feather.

Countless spikes erupted at once. At that moment, the Ghost-Masked Man's body resembled a sea urchin, indiscriminately attacking everything around him.

Unfortunately for him, Yu Xian had already prepared for this. Instead of dodging, he used his wings as shields to block the incoming spikes while splashing a large amount of black bear blood over the severed head.

Yu Xian knew that the Ghost-Masked Man's head was not truly a head. Strictly speaking, he did not have a head at all. He was a creature similar to a slime or mud golem, and any part of his body could serve as his head.

However, Yu Xian had never been targeting the Ghost-Masked Man's head in the first place. His true target was the Ghost-Masked Man's Star Divine Artifact.

As black bear blood poured over the ghost mask, the black liquid clinging to it immediately shrieked and rapidly detached itself. Yu Xian teleported above the ghost mask and immediately enclosed it inside a bubble. He poured all the black bear blood into the bubble, completely submerging the mask within it.

He glanced at the blood inside the bubble, and the corner of his eye twitched. Just how large a wound did Little Nora make in Xiong Da's backside to collect so much blood at once?

Sure enough, the rules were the rules, and their effect was terrifyingly powerful. The Ghost-Masked Man completely lost his connection to the ghost mask. His body shifted continuously as countless heads bulged from the liquid, all roaring furiously at Yu Xian. "Give it back!"

Yu Xian merely smiled. He dipped his hand into the black bear blood. "You want it? Then come and take it!"

Yu Xian instantly closed the distance between them and unleashed a furious barrage of punches. Without the ghost mask, the Ghost-Masked Man had lost more than half his strength and was unable to fight back.

After struggling a few times, the Ghost-Masked Man could only helplessly take the beating. Yu Xian kept applying more black bear blood as he struck, which made the black liquid body convulse violently. Eventually, one of his punches blasted a soul out of the black liquid. The instant it was exposed to the light, it let out a shrill scream and disintegrated into nothingness.

Little Nora excitedly swayed on Yu Xian's shoulder. "That was a Yellow Springs Water Ghost!"

Seeing that his attacks were effective, Yu Xian began punching with both fists. "Take this, and this, and this, and this..."

He knocked more and more souls out of the black liquid, and they vanished moments later. As more souls were expelled, the once-hideous black liquid gradually became clearer.

Yu Xian threw another punch, knocking out the final soul. It belonged to a thin old woman. She raised her head and screamed, lingering for a moment before dissipating.

Yu Xian threw another punch, but stopped just before it struck the Ghost-Masked Man. After the final soul was knocked out, the Ghost-Masked Man unexpectedly transformed into a little girl who appeared to be around six years old.

She lay curled up, her worried brows tightly furrowed. Her round, chubby face made her look aggrieved, pitiful, and easy to bully.

Yu Xian had intended to punch her, but upon seeing this, he instinctively changed his fist into an extended index finger and flicked her cheek instead. The soft flesh of her cheek wobbled slightly and proved remarkably springy.

The moment he touched the little girl's cheek, he also received a piece of information. The little girl's name was Huang Quan. She had originally been a sacred spirit born from Wang Chuan, the spirit of the River of Forgetfulness, and had come into existence within the underworld of a certain world.[2]

Although she had been born from the River of Forgetfulness, she was innocent and kindhearted. Protected by her mother, she passed through countless years in peace. Then one day, she discovered an old woman desperately clinging to a blade of grass beside the river, refusing to let go. Out of kindness, Huang Quan went over to help her up. That one act of kindness led to disaster.

The old woman was a malicious ghost unwilling to accept her death. By pretending to be pitiful and feeding Huang Quan sweet lies, she successfully earned the girl's trust and eventually used Huang Quan's body to return to the mortal world.

Later, the old woman continued deceiving Huang Quan with honeyed words, asking, "Since you have the power to help others, why not help even more people?"

In the end, large numbers of malicious ghosts seized control of her body like cuckoos taking over another bird's nest, gradually suppressing Huang Quan herself. Thus, the Yellow Springs Water Ghost was born and began committing all manner of evil. Huang Quan could only watch helplessly, unable to resist. There were simply too many malicious ghosts inside her, and she had completely lost control of her own body.

After witnessing everything Huang Quan had gone through, Yu Xian could not help feeling sorry for her. It was a classic tale of the farmer and the snake, an act of kindness repaid with betrayal. Fortunately, it was finally over.

He gently embraced the frightened Huang Quan, who was afraid he would hit her, and said with both helplessness and sympathy, "All right. I know none of this was your fault. Don't be afraid. I won't hit you."

Huang Quan cautiously opened her eyes and looked at Yu Xian as she spoke in a tiny voice. "Pinky promise?"

Well, would you look at that! This girl speaks Sichuanese.

1. The original contains a pun on 熊孩子 (xióng háizi), an idiom meaning a naughty or troublesome child, and 熊, meaning "bear." Little Nora is the "troublesome child," while Xiong Da is literally a bear. The English wording uses "bear with him" to preserve the wordplay. ☜

2. 忘川河 (Wàngchuānhé), or the River of Forgetfulness, is a mythical river in the Chinese underworld. In later folklore, souls pass through it before reincarnation and lose the memories of their previous lives. ☜