The night was bitterly cold. The town seemed swallowed by the depths of darkness, while viscous yin energy manifested as black mist, drifting eerily across the sky.
Thud!
Zheng Que shot through the air like lightning and landed heavily at a street corner, instantly putting a great distance between himself and the ghosts pursuing him.
He drew a deep breath, not daring to let down his guard for even a moment. After quickly sensing the ghosts around him, he immediately fled southwest.
The town had shed its usual nighttime silence. It was now a cacophony of ghostly howls, household goods toppling over, and houses collapsing... yet not a single human voice could be heard.
Relying on his Yin Profession's ability to sense ghosts, Zheng Que raced through the town, moving swiftly forward. At last, after breaking through the ghosts' many layers of obstruction, he escaped to the town entrance.
The stone stele engraved with the three characters "Changfu Town" was close at hand, and the withered tree hung with Cinnabar Talismans was already in sight.
Zheng Que quickened his pace and charged out of town with all his might.
The town's wards had completely failed. Of all the living people in town, he was probably the only one left.
The calamity unfolding now wasn't aimed at him alone. It had befallen the entire town!
As long as he escaped, he'd have a chance to survive...
His thoughts raced. One foot was just about to cross the stone stele engraved with the town's name when his whole body abruptly stiffened, as if frozen in place!
A tremendous sense of dread came howling toward him, swallowing his mind in an instant.
Somewhere beyond the veil, it was as if an utterly terrifying presence had fixed its gaze on him!
It felt exactly the same as the day Cui Ni'er touched him!
Crack, crack, crack...
Zheng Que suddenly felt his body slip beyond his control. Like a puppet, he stood rigidly in place against his will, his head mechanically tilting upward bit by bit.
The night sky above was deep and boundless, black clouds blotting out the crescent moon.
Amid the thick, rolling clouds, it was as though an ocean surged and heaved. A gigantic skeletal hand gradually emerged, vast and towering, its palm blotting out the entire town.
The hand was bone-white from end to end, every joint clean of even a trace of flesh. It resembled a human hand, except it had seven fingers. Now, its middle three fingers angled slightly downward while the four on either side pointed upward, as if delicately pinching a flower.
Each finger was connected to countless black threads. Like a downpour of black rain frozen in midair, they encompassed the whole of Changfu Town.
One of those threads connected, precisely, to the shadow beneath his feet...
※※※
The night was bleak and hazy. Trees of every shape stood scattered near and far like ghosts, and the wind cut bitterly cold.
On an unnamed hillside dozens of miles from Changfu Town, the countless sounds unique to the wilderness at night seemed to have been silenced by the turn of a hidden switch. Centered on the hillside, they vanished without a trace.
In the stillness, so deep a pin could be heard dropping, stood two tall figures.
The person on the left was a young scholar. He had fair skin, a straight nose, and a square jaw, and his brows bore an air of refined elegance. He looked like a scholar from a family of poetry and books. A carefree scholar's cap sat on his head; he wore a round-collared, stone-blue robe with a brocade sash at his waist, from which hung a Nine-Child Ghost Mother Jade Pendant of warm, lustrous jade. In his hand was a folding fan. As it opened and closed, several wavering shadows seemed to flicker into view, exuding a ghostly aura.
On the right stood a woman dressed in an evening primrose-colored palace gown, its folds embroidered with gold. A jeweled floral crown adorned her head. Her waist was slender as a willow, and green jade pendants dangled as she walked. With her sleeves gathered, she stood poised and dignified, without a single flaw even the strictest code of etiquette could find fault with.
The wan moonlight shone upon her elaborate crown, and the countless jeweled ornaments reflected pinpricks of light. At its center, nine golden serpents looked so lifelike that they seemed ready to slither away. Their scarlet eyes resembled blood not yet dry, and each serpent held a strand of five-colored beads in its mouth. The beads hung with a soft chime, veiling her face. Her features were hidden; only through the glittering gaps between the pearls and jade could one glimpse a spot of vivid red against her pallid skin.
Under the deep night sky, that bright vermilion mouth inspired not the slightest hint of romance. She was like a doll carved with exquisite precision—beautiful, yet utterly lifeless. A chilling eeriness clung to her, and beneath her splendor swirled wisps of sinister energy.
The two stood several paces apart, quietly gazing at distant Changfu Town.
At that moment, the entire town was shrouded in dense yin energy. The black fog obscured the view, so an ordinary person would have been unable to see what was happening inside.
But the two of them watched with utmost attention, as if their vision weren't limited at all.
Just then, the young scholar spoke in a rich, gentle voice. "The Wicked Sin—the Evil Shadow Play!"
"Master sent both of us to observe this young man. He must think very highly of him."
"But unfortunately, he encountered this 'Wicked Sin' while still in the Qi Refining Realm. His luck wasn't very good."
"He was just a little short of becoming our junior fellow disciple."
The exquisitely doll-like female cultivator stood motionless. Not a single bead on her veil stirred, and her voice was equally devoid of emotion. "A hair's breadth of difference can lead to a thousand-mile error."
"Seven days ago, this Evil Shadow Play should already have swallowed the town."
"Master spent forty-nine extra hours in this town, pushing back its destruction by forty-nine hours."
"And this Evil Shadow Play was cautious too. Even after Master had already left, it deliberately waited another three days before making its move."
The female cultivator paused, then continued. "No matter how highly Master thinks of him, it makes no difference now."
"He had two paths to survival."
"One was the path Master left for him. Master taught him one technique each day, but on one of those days, he made an exception and taught him two."
"If he'd noticed that sooner and used the Yin Gathering Technique whenever he went out during the day, concealing his shadow, he wouldn't have been ambushed by the Evil Shadow Play's 'Shadow Puppet.'"
"The other was the path he could have made for himself. After being ambushed by the Evil Shadow Play's 'Shadow Puppet,' his soul remained stable, so he didn't lose his shadow right away."
"At that point, the right thing to do was to storm the mayor's house and seize that heavenly treasure."
"Then he should have killed every living person in town before anyone else!"
"With that heavenly treasure suppressing his soul at the critical moment, he could have forced his way out of town just now, even after being touched by the 'Shadow Puppet.'"
"And without enough 'Shadow Puppets,' the Evil Shadow Play would have been unable to find him once he left town."
"Unfortunately, he spent his final two days cultivating..."
The young scholar gave his folding fan a light wave and smiled with easy composure. "His time was too short. He had only forty-nine hours, not forty-nine days."
"Master hadn't had time to teach him many common-sense things."
"Still, this was his fate from the beginning."
"If Master hadn't visited this town, then he'd be just like those mortals now, without even the right to struggle."
Before his words had faded, he snapped his fan shut. "There's no need to waste any more time."
"The Evil Shadow Play has already set its sights on him. Soon, it'll drag him into the Ghost Play."
"Even a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment Realm would lose himself in the Ghost Play and become one of its many 'Shadow Puppets.'"
"We can go back and report to Master."
The exquisitely doll-like female cultivator gave a slight nod and said nothing more.
In the next instant, the two figures faded rapidly into the night. In the blink of an eye, they vanished without a trace, like marks washed away by rain.
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