After being struck in the face, Butler Zhang spun with the force of the blow, dispelling the attack, but he still couldn't understand. The poison he had given Tao Yaoye was his proudest creation, and who knew how many cultivators had died with grievances in their hearts from it. How had it failed?
Tao Yaoye didn't answer. After confirming that the parrot truly belonged to the eldest Miss Shang, she had become more vigilant.
Everyone in the village knew that a talking demon bird was flying around at random. If the Shang Household had sent even one person to look for it, they would have found the parrot. How could all the later events have happened?
The Shang Household's actions defied common sense. There had to be a problem!
On top of that, the Shang family's young lady had kept people at arm's length. It didn't seem like she was driving them away; rather, she seemed to be saying that the Shang Household was in danger and urging them to leave quickly.
A lazy voice came from behind, answering for Tao Yaoye: "The required introductory course at the Ask Dao Sect is One Thousand Eight Hundred Common Poisons and Their Cures. Would you like to take a look?"
The poison Butler Zhang was so proud of was nothing but a joke to the Ask Dao Sect. No matter how good you were at refining poison, could it really be stronger than the poison refined by Elixir Cauldron Peak?
Butler Zhang whipped around and saw Lu Yang leaning against the doorframe with an ancient sword in his arms, looking at him with a beaming smile.
Butler Zhang understood. Tao Yaoye wasn't the prey. He was.
He asked in a deep voice, "How did you discover me?"
He didn't think he had exposed any flaws. Everyone in the Shang Household was under his control, and no one had leaked the secret.
When Shang Yuan and Lu Yang had been speaking in the room, he had worried that using his spiritual sense openly would alert them, so he had switched to eavesdropping instead. That was how he learned that the two of them were disciples of the Ask Dao Sect.
But Shang Yuan hadn't revealed his identity at the time.
Butler Zhang's hearing was excellent. Even writing and drawing couldn't escape his ears.
Lu Yang smiled. "Do you know what the parrot said in the village?"
"What did it say?"
"It said, 'Who are you? Where is Zhang Guan Jia?'"
"At first, we thought the parrot was looking for Zhang Guan Jia. Later, we discovered that it was simply repeating the words. That was when I started wondering—Zhang Guan Jia doesn't travel the martial world, so where did the parrot hear that sentence?"
"Do you think it's possible that the parrot wasn't saying, 'Who are you? Where is Zhang Guan Jia?' but rather, 'Who are you? Where is Butler Zhang?'"
Lu Yang envisioned a scene:
Twenty days ago, the eldest Miss Shang had accidentally discovered that Butler Zhang's identity had been replaced. She had then asked in terror, "Who are you? Where is Butler Zhang?" Afterward, she knocked over the bird stand, startling the parrot into flight. That was the last sentence the parrot had heard, so in the tailor shop, when it faced Village Head Huang, it repeated those words.
Perhaps the parrot's pronunciation had been inaccurate. Perhaps Village Head Huang's first reaction had been to think of Zhang Guan Jia, whom he had interacted with the most. In any case, the parrot's sentence had become, "Who are you? Where is Zhang Guan Jia?"
Butler Zhang was furious. He had never expected that a foolish bird capable only of repeating words would ruin his plans.
If he had known, he would have slaughtered it back then!
Butler Zhang hadn't been mixing in the martial world for only a day. Facing the two of them surrounding him, he threw his head back and laughed. "I'm at the late stage of Foundation Establishment. If I want to escape, do you think you can stop me?"
Tao Yaoye grew somewhat anxious. If Butler Zhang escaped, they would have no choice but to report it to the sect and let their senior brothers and sisters handle it. Whether they could even trace him afterward was another matter.
This made Tao Yaoye feel somewhat humiliated. She had completed two missions, yet she hadn't expected something to go wrong on her third.
Lu Yang remained as calm and unhurried as ever, making Butler Zhang uneasy. "Have you never considered that if you can poison us, we can poison you too?"
Hearing this, Butler Zhang relaxed and said disdainfully, "I thought it was something serious. Poison? What use would that sort of thing be against me?"
As he spoke, Butler Zhang's skin grew loose and saggy, as if a snake were shedding its skin. His flesh separated from it, and the skin he shed became a complete human form standing in the middle of the room. Its features were hollow, and it stared rigidly at Tao Yaoye, making one's scalp crawl. The body without its skin collapsed to the ground with a thump.
A Painted-Skin Ghost.
Tao Yaoye's expression turned solemn. Now she understood why Butler Zhang had said poison was useless against him.
Poisons had always targeted the physical body—more precisely, the five viscera and six bowels, muscles, and meridians. Butler Zhang was a Painted-Skin Ghost, whose true form was a sheet of skin. Who would poison the skin?
Besides, how could there be a poison specifically targeting skin? At the very least, Butler Zhang had never heard of one.
Lu Yang had.
Butler Zhang was just about to show off his body when he suddenly discovered that pea-sized blisters had appeared on both his feet. Layer after layer of skin peeled away, while the swollen, itchy blisters burst at the slightest scratch. Butler Zhang had merely rubbed his feet against the ground a few times, yet yellow pus was already flowing out.
"W-What is this?!" There was panic in Butler Zhang's voice.
Butler Zhang had never encountered anything like this. When had he ever been poisoned?
"Athlete's foot."
"What?" Butler Zhang thought he must have misheard.
"You thought I'd been chatting with you all this time? No. I was waiting for you to fall ill."
"I expected you to come looking for Tao Yaoye, so I planted poison in this side room beforehand to induce athlete's foot!"
Butler Zhang's face went pale.
Tao Yaoye's face darkened.
Lu Yang gave a ferocious grin and advanced toward Butler Zhang step by step, frightening him into retreating again and again until he dropped onto the floor.
"H-How did you know I was a Painted-Skin Ghost?!" Unless Lu Yang had known in advance that he was a Painted-Skin Ghost, how could he have used such targeted poison?!
Most importantly, Butler Zhang had never heard of any Painted-Skin Ghost contracting athlete's foot!
Now, the itching in both his feet was driving him nearly mad. He had even begun considering chopping them off. He was forced to devote most of his energy and magical power to suppressing the poison, leaving him completely unable to escape.
Suddenly, Lu Yang vanished from before Butler Zhang's eyes.
"How is that possible?!" Butler Zhang's eyes bulged with rage. Lu Yang had only just reached Foundation Establishment. No matter how exquisite his movement technique was, he shouldn't have been able to evade Butler Zhang's eyes.
"It's an illusion!" Butler Zhang realized it at once and hurriedly rolled away from his position.
Unfortunately, it was already too late. A cold gleam suddenly flashed, swift as thunder. A thin line began at Butler Zhang's forehead and ended at his crotch. Lu Yang sheathed his sword, and Butler Zhang split in two, the cut smooth as a mirror.
"Nicely done." Lu Yang gave Tao Yaoye a thumbs-up.
Just now, Tao Yaoye had used the Thousand Illusions Umbrella to trap Butler Zhang in an illusion. The illusion wasn't perfect. Butler Zhang had roamed the martial world for many years and could see through it in the time it took him to space out.
That instant of distraction was exactly what Lu Yang wanted. Draw the sword, bring it down in a vertical slash, sheathe the sword—all in one breath.
Painted-Skin Ghosts were renowned for their uncanny tricks, not their defenses. When one encountered the strongest offensive sword cultivator, and then lost focus without channeling power to defend, victory was naturally decided in a single move, without the slightest suspense!
The Painted-Skin Ghost's uncanny nature had lost all its advantage the moment Lu Yang saw through its identity.
The Painted-Skin Ghost stared at Lu Yang in disbelief, its mouth opening and closing. One could vaguely make out that it was asking: How did you recognize my true form?
Tao Yaoye looked toward Lu Yang. She wanted to know the answer too.
Lu Yang said nothing. He swung his sword once more, chopping the Painted-Skin Ghost into four pieces. He poured spiritual wine over it, set it alight, and watched as it burned into charred blackness amid the ghost's agonized wails.
Who knew what tricks this thing might have up its sleeve? Kill it first, then explain slowly.
Before you continue