Death List

At noon, the rain curtain remained, the watery mist hazy.

The sky was dim, and the rain showed faint signs of growing heavier.

Chu He hurried to the training ground. There was no one around, only three people in rain capes standing in the middle of the yard—one or two fewer than before.

They spoke in low voices, their faces gloomy. From time to time, words like Li Xiang and the western end of the village drifted over. Clearly, they too knew everything that had happened in the village.

When Chu He approached, he happened to hear about Li Xiang. Though he had experienced it firsthand, the version from their mouths was entirely different.

"You're saying Han... Senior Brother killed the strange entity?"

He pulled down his bamboo hat, hiding the expression on his face.

"Ah... Senior Brother Chu, you're here."

The few who had been talking animatedly were startled out of their wits.

Some even darted their eyes away, afraid that Chu He still held a grudge over yesterday's incident.

"I'm asking you. Where did you get this information?"

"Oh, oh, Senior Brother himself said it. Right, Little Ge was there too. I heard even the floor outside the house was burned through."

The two men pushed a pockmarked man before him. The man called Little Ge looked somewhat uneasy. When Chu He turned his head toward him, he immediately said, "Yes, I was there. Senior Brother just..."

A few minutes later, Little Ge finished recounting Senior Brother's exploits from the night before. Before he could heap on any praise, he suddenly felt the temperature around them plummet.

Crack...

Just as several people were about to complain about the sudden cold, they abruptly noticed that Chu He's lowered bamboo hat had, out of nowhere, been pinched with a tear.

"Senior Brother Chu, you..."

"Hehe, it's nothing. This bamboo hat is just too poor in quality."

Chu He raised his head, revealing a bright smile.

He flexed his fist, as if loosening his fingers.

"Senior Brother is truly incredible. He broke through to the third layer so quickly. Next time we meet, I must ask him to guide me properly."

"Yes, yes. Maybe after his guidance, we'll all break through the first layer?" The others nodded repeatedly, thoroughly agreeing.

"Enough idle chatter. It's time to patrol."

At this point, Chu He composed himself and spoke in a tone that gave away neither joy nor anger.

"Then... aren't we waiting for Senior Brother Liu?"

One disciple asked cautiously.

Chu He waved a hand and shook the raindrops from his cape. "Why wait for that guy? Since he likes being late, let him be late."

"Let's go."

Chu He stepped out first. The others exchanged looks, and all of them could more or less guess that in yesterday's conflict, Chu He might have come out on top.

They immediately said nothing more and hurried after him.

The group followed their usual routine, patrolling along the wall. Perhaps because of the unceasing rain, they found four damaged stone spikes this time.

After the patrol ended, Chu He gave a few simple instructions, telling someone to report the broken stone spikes to the village. He then turned and returned to his quarters.

He changed into dry clothes, sat by the window, gazed at the fine rain falling in slanting, interwoven threads, and opened the illustrated booklet in his robes.

"Cough, cough..."

In the dim secret chamber, the village chief suddenly woke with a start, coughing without pause as strands of jet-black hair spilled continuously from his mouth.

With every strand he spat out, the village chief's complexion weakened another degree, as though his own life force were being drawn away. Already old, he grew ever more decayed. An air of twilight gathered invisibly around his brow.

"Why did four stone spikes break at the same time?"

The village chief muttered under his breath, his eyes bloodshot.

"Perhaps it was the patrol team's doing?"

An icy voice suddenly sounded from behind him.

Han Zhong stood with his arms folded and slowly walked before the village chief.

"No reason for it, and impossible."

The village chief shook his head and exhaled a breath of foul air. "Damaging the stone spikes brings no benefit. Besides, the strange threads wrapped around them are not something a few boys who haven't entered the martial path could destroy. Most likely, some other accident occurred."

Han Zhong nodded, understanding the logic. Then he said helplessly, "Just now, while the patrol team was changing shifts, I went to Master's room and those junior brothers' rooms again. I still didn't find the token. It may truly have been taken away by Master."

As he looked at the increasingly aged village chief, worry faintly surfaced in his eyes.

"Can you hold on in that state?"

"Don't worry, I'm not dead yet." The village chief gathered up the hair scattered across the floor. "Hehe, but that old bastard truly was cautious."

"Cough, cough, cough..."

Before the words had faded, the village chief broke into violent coughing. Blood seeped from his pores.

He hurriedly released the gathered hair and formed seals with both hands. His fingers fluttered like butterflies among flowers, forming several hand signs in succession. At last, he assumed a posture as though cradling a mysterious pill in his palm.

The blood that had seeped out flowed back in strangely. His sagging flesh tightened, his gray-white hair turned glossy black, and his entire body seemed to regain decades of youth, like a final flash before death.

Han Zhong, standing beside him, revealed an envious expression.

This was the power he had been willing to betray his sect to obtain.

A power that could grant immortality...

"Whew... Though more than half its seals bind it, this strange entity is still not something I can swallow right now. I shouldn't have acted so rashly back then." The village chief sighed, seeming to regret what he had done.

"What use is regret? If you hadn't done that, your lifespan would have run out long ago. By now, you might already have one foot in the yellow earth."

Han Zhong sneered, feeling that the man was gaining an advantage and still complaining.

"Yes. Once the bowstring has been drawn, there is no turning back."

The village chief pulled himself together and said to Han Zhong, "Bring him out. I need to finish this perfect vessel as soon as possible."

"Alright."

Han Zhong did not refuse. He turned and walked deeper into the secret chamber. Before long, he dragged out a man nailed to a cross.

Under the torchlight, the man's face emerged.

It was none other than Zhang Li, who had escaped back then!

Zhang Li was unconscious. The skin from his chest to his lower abdomen had been completely cut open. The bright-red flesh and muscle within had already been wholly replaced by black strange threads. Only his limbs and head had yet to be entirely covered.

The rejuvenated village chief used the black strange threads like needle and thread, sewing them bit by bit into Zhang Li's muscles. If the black strange threads ran out, the village chief would use the backlash to spit out more hair from the hair strange entity and continue stitching.

"To forcibly break free while attached by the human-skin strange entity, his will is quite good. Of course, the most important thing is that the human-skin strange entity left a mark on him. The next time he enters the fog, that human-skin strange entity will definitely seek him out."

Han Zhong straightened the cross holding Zhang Li and fantasized, "If we can sew the human-skin strange entity onto Zhang Li's skin, then add muscles and organs sewn from the hair strange entity's strands, he will be the finest vessel for containing the hair strange entity."

Before even an incense stick's time had passed, the village chief's hair had once again become withered yellow and snowy white. He shook out his aching arm, then turned to Han Zhong. "The little strange entity we worked so hard to lure in was pulled out. What about the Immaculate Soul Thread?"

"It's fine. I've already picked suitable candidates. To be safe, I deliberately prepared several more suitable chess pieces."

"Who are they?"

"Hehe, they're all my adorable yet disobedient junior brothers. Their emotions are full, their blood and qi abundant—they are the little strange entities' favorite."

Han Zhong grinned and spat out name after name:

"Li Zhi, Wu Feng, Liu Ci..."

After saying that, his gaze flickered slightly, and he added one more name.

"And Chu He."

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