Wicked Sin

The night was cold and grim. The town seemed to have been dragged into the depths of darkness, where thick Yin Energy manifested as black fog, drifting ominously across the sky.

Thud!

With a muffled sound, Zheng Que's figure moved like lightning, cutting through the air and landing heavily at a street corner, instantly putting a significant distance between himself and the ghosts pursuing him.

He took a deep breath, not daring to be careless in the slightest. He quickly sensed the ghosts around him and immediately fled toward the southwest.

The town, usually silent after nightfall, was now exceptionally noisy. Everywhere, there were the screeches of ghosts, the crashing of furniture, and the collapse of houses... yet not a single human voice could be heard.

Relying on his Yin Profession's perception of ghosts, Zheng Que darted through the town like a bird in flight. Moving rapidly, he finally managed to reach the town entrance through the heavy blockade of ghosts.

The stone tablet engraved with the three large characters "Changfu Town" was close at hand, and the withered tree draped in Cinnabar Talismans was already in sight.

Zheng Que quickened his pace, sprinting toward the outskirts of the town with all his might.

The town's restrictions had completely failed. He was likely the only living person left in the entire town.

The catastrophe unfolding right now was not aimed at him alone, but at the entire town!

As long as he could escape the town, he would have a chance to survive...

As these thoughts flashed through his mind, just as one of his feet was about to cross the stone tablet engraved with the town's name, his entire body suddenly froze as if locked in place!

A massive wave of terror roared toward him, instantly drowning his consciousness.

In the dark, it felt as if some unimaginably terrifying existence had set its sights on him!

This feeling was exactly the same as the one he had experienced when Cui Ni'er touched him that day!

Click, click, click...

Zheng Que immediately felt his body lose control in an instant. Like a puppet, he stood stiffly on the spot, unable to help himself, as his head mechanically tilted upward bit by bit.

Above him, the night sky was deep and dark, with black clouds filling the heavens, obscuring the crescent moon.

Amidst the swirling clouds, which surged like a vast ocean, a giant skeletal hand gradually emerged. It was so massive and towering that it covered the entire town with a single palm.

The skeletal hand was entirely pale. Every bone joint was clean, devoid of any flesh or blood. It resembled a human hand, yet it possessed seven fingers. At this moment, the three middle fingers pressed slightly downward, while the four fingers on the sides curled upward, forming the shape of a flower-offering gesture.

Dense, black threads were connected to each of these fingers. These threads looked like a frozen black rainstorm, encompassing the entirety of Changfu Town.

One of these threads was connected, precisely and accurately, to the shadow beneath his feet...

※※※

The night was bleak and hazy. The scattered trees nearby and afar stood jagged like ghosts, and the cold wind blew bitingly.

On an unnamed hillside dozens of miles away from Changfu Town, the various sounds peculiar to the wilderness at night seemed to have been silenced by some mechanism, vanishing without a trace with the hillside as the center.

In the pin-drop silence, two tall figures stood.

The person on the left was a young scholar with a fair complexion, a straight nose, and a square jaw. His brows exuded a refined, scholarly air, as if he were a gentleman from a family of poets and books. He wore a scholar's cap and a stone-blue round-collared robe, his waist cinched with a brocade belt from which hung a Nine-Child Ghost Mother Jade Pendant of warm texture. He held a folding fan; as he opened and closed it, several flickering, indistinct shadows seemed to emerge, radiating a ghastly, ghostly aura.

To his right stood a woman dressed in a primrose-yellow gold-embroidered palace gown. She wore a beaded floral crown, her waist as slender as a willow, with jade earrings swaying as she stood with her sleeves gathered. She was solemn and elegant, a figure so refined that even the strictest etiquette could find no fault in her.

The bleak moonlight shone upon her intricate floral crown, the layered ornaments refracting tiny specks of precious light. In the center, a nine-headed golden snake appeared lifelike, its crimson eyes resembling fresh, undried blood. The snake's mouths held a five-colored beaded curtain that hung down, veiling her face. Her features were obscured, and one could only catch a glimpse of a single spot of vivid, blood-red crimson amidst the pale skin through the gaps in the shimmering beads.

Under the deep night, this flash of bright red lips stirred no romantic thoughts. She was like a meticulously carved doll—beautiful, yet devoid of life. Her entire being was permeated with a cold, eerie quality, and her opulence was shrouded in wisps of evil energy.

The two stood several paces apart, gazing quietly at Changfu Town in the distance.

The entire town was currently shrouded in thick Yin Energy. Black mist permeated the air, obscuring vision; an ordinary person would be completely unable to see what was happening inside.

Yet, these two watched with intense focus, as if their sight were entirely unrestricted.

At this moment, the young scholar suddenly spoke, his tone mellow and gentle: "Wicked Sin, Evil Shadow Play!"

"Master sending both of us to observe this kid at the same time shows he must think very highly of him."

"But it's a pity. Encountering such a 'Wicked Sin' while still in the Qi Refining Realm—this kid's luck isn't very good."

"He was only a hair's breadth away from becoming our junior brother."

The female cultivator, as delicate as a doll, stood silently. The beaded curtain covering her face did not stir, and her voice remained devoid of ripples or emotion: "A miss is as good as a mile."

"Seven days ago, this Evil Shadow Play should have already devoured this town."

"Master stayed in this small town for an extra forty-nine hours, pushing back the town's destruction by forty-nine hours."

"Furthermore, this Evil Shadow Play is cautious. Even though Master had already departed, it specifically waited another three days before beginning its work."

Having said this, the female cultivator paused before continuing, "Regardless of how highly Master thinks of him, it is meaningless now."

"He originally had two paths to survival."

"One was the path Master left for him. Master only taught him one technique per day, but on one of those days, he made an exception and taught him two."

"If he had realized this sooner and consistently used the Yin Gathering Technique while traveling during the day to mask his shadow, he would not have been ambushed by the Shadow Puppet of the Evil Shadow Play."

"The other was his own path to survival. After being ambushed by the Shadow Puppet of the Evil Shadow Play, he did not immediately lose his shadow because his soul was stable."

"At that moment, the most correct course of action would have been to charge directly into the town mayor's house and seize that heavenly treasure."

"Then, he should have killed every living person in the town first!"

"With that heavenly treasure there to suppress his soul at the critical moment, even if he had been touched by the Shadow Puppet, he could have forcibly broken out of the town just now."

"And since the Evil Shadow Play does not have enough Shadow Puppets, as long as he left the town, the Evil Shadow Play would never have been able to find him again."

"It is a pity that he spent the last two days entirely on cultivation..."

The young scholar lightly waved his folding fan and smiled with an air of ease, "His time is too short. It is only forty-nine hours, not forty-nine days."

"There is much common knowledge that Master has not yet had the chance to impart."

"However, this was his fate from the beginning."

"If Master had never come to this small town, he would be just like those mortals now, not even possessing the qualification to struggle."

Before his voice had even faded, he snapped his folding fan shut with a "clack" and concluded indifferently, "There is no need to waste any more time."

"He has already been targeted by the Evil Shadow Play and will be dragged into the ghost play momentarily."

"Even a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment Realm would lose their way within the ghost play and become one of the many Shadow Puppets."

"We can return to report to Master now."

The female cultivator, as delicate as a doll, gave a slight nod and said nothing more.

The next moment, the figures of the two faded rapidly into the night. In the blink of an eye, they vanished without a trace, as if they were nothing more than marks washed away by rain.