Painted Skin

Jin Guang looked at the newcomer in puzzlement. "Senior Brother, why are you here?"

The newcomer smiled. "After Master sent you that message, he had a premonition and worried things might change, so he sent me to find you as well! Looks like I arrived just in time! A product of the Blood Demon Path, and a female cultivator whose Buddhist teachings have been demonized—this is rather interesting!"

As he spoke the latter half, the man's gaze had already turned toward the monster and Mirror Flower.

With a beckoning gesture, a three-foot azure blade fell into his hand. An upright, radiant sword intent rose from his body. Before he had even drawn his sword, the layers upon layers of illusions around Mirror Flower had already been forced back considerably.

"Yan Chixia!" Hidden in the shadows, the woman Wang Daoist had called Xiao Wei revealed a trace of hatred upon seeing the man who had suddenly appeared beside Jin Guang. But the next moment, her expression changed slightly, and she pulled the man beside her away to hide elsewhere.

The instant she dodged aside, a golden alms bowl appeared in the sky. A beam of golden light surged from within it, transforming into a descending rainbow.

"Bald donkey, you actually chased us all the way here! A-Yi, let's go!"

As Xiao Wei spoke, she raised her hand and tossed out a sheet of human skin. It drifted lightly through the air and wrapped itself around the golden alms bowl.

The human skin covered the bowl, then twisted, forcibly transforming it into a child that fell to the ground. Yet in the next instant, threads of golden light began to seep from the child's body.

This was the Painted Skin Method. It could use human skin to forcibly twist truth and falsehood; if cultivated to its highest realm, it could even turn falsehood into reality. Although Xiao Wei's Painted Skin was made of ordinary material, the technique itself was exquisitely profound, forcibly sealing one of her opponent's magical treasures.

Then, with a wave of her hand, fox phantoms darted out from beneath her skirt one after another, attacking the monk who was slowly approaching from not far away.

He was a rather lean young monk, handsome with features as delicate as a woman's. Holding a monk's staff, he made the metal rings upon it chime. The sound boomed like a great bell, shattering every fox phantom that came near.

With every step he took, dust trembled up beneath his feet like blossoming lotus flowers, carrying him swiftly forward.

"Where do you think you're going, fiends!" Seeing Xiao Wei and the other man trying to flee, the young monk shook open his long sleeve and released one hundred and eight bodhi seeds. Each bloomed with golden light as they struck into the earth, forming a curtain of light that forced the two, who had been attempting to flee underground, back out.

"Bald donkey! Do you think I'm afraid of you?" Xiao Wei turned around. Demonic energy surged behind her, taking the phantom form of a nine-tailed white fox. With a sweep of both hands, scattered rocks on either side rose into the air and crashed toward the monk upon a demonic wind.

"Amitabha!" For the first time, the young monk stopped walking. He raised his left hand and formed a Vajra seal. Golden Sanskrit characters emerged around him one by one, forming the phantom of a golden bell that enveloped his body and guarded against the demonic arts. As for the flying rocks, they were not sorcery, and he diverted them all with his monk's staff.

Xiao Wei and the man beside her seized the opportunity to leave the range covered by the curtain of light. Protected by the man, they burrowed underground and fled without a trace.

Seeing this, the young monk frowned. He recalled the golden alms bowl that had broken free of the Painted Skin, as well as the bodhi seeds embedded in the earth. Holding the bowl in one hand, with bodhi prayer beads around his neck, golden light emerged in his eyes as he chased after Xiao Wei and the other man, running toward a valley.

Elsewhere, Yan Chixia flicked the three-foot azure blade in his hand, sending out a streak of sword light. In the blink of an eye, eleven streaks of sword light spun and slashed around him in concert with the dancing azure blade.

Under the pressure of that sword light, Mirror Flower retreated again and again. Yet the blood-covered monster paid it no heed, constantly advancing, only to be cleaved apart by the sword light time and again before regenerating.

"Heaven and Earth Mystic Sect..." Incantations rang out. Jin Guang, having recovered somewhat, held up his treasure mirror and shone it upon the monster. Mirror light like a crystalline pillar shot forth, electric arcs flashing through it. The monster's body continually melted away, and within the dark, bloody filth, a pitch-black heart that beat without cease gradually emerged.

Yan Chixia seized the opportunity. With a turn of his wrist, the eleven streaks of sword light and the azure blade in his hand linked head to tail, transforming into a lightning rainbow that struck the heart. Its might was boundless, its sword intent unending.

The pitch-black heart sensed the danger as well. Blood light surged forth in wave after wave, and within that radiance appeared faces both old and young, male and female. Their expressions were savage and twisted; pain, venomous resentment, and madness mingled with the blood aura as it surged upward to meet Yan Chixia's sword-light rainbow head-on.

Unfortunately, most of the savage faces on the black heart were illusory. As the sword light continued to fall, those faces went from vanishing and reappearing at once to becoming increasingly indistinct. In the end, Yan Chixia cleaved the heart in two with a single strike.

Strangely, Mirror Flower showed no reaction throughout, leaving the vigilant Jin Guang rather puzzled.

But when Yan Chixia cut down the heart, a faint lotus fragrance drifted through the air. The glazed radiance around Mirror Flower's body suddenly trembled, and in the next moment, dazzling, kaleidoscopic light emerged from within it. Countless colors shifted and changed, making her seem both sacred and fallen.

"Damn it! Are these two one soul in two bodies?" Jin Guang's expression changed slightly, but Yan Chixia shook his head. "No! Junior Sister, do you remember the Painted Skin that Martial Uncle mentioned when he traveled the mortal world, the one that escaped from his hands?"

"You mean they're that married couple? Didn't they already exchange their hearts back? How did things end up like this?"

Jin Guang was greatly astonished. Back when his master told him that a Painted Skin had escaped from his grasp, he had not believed it. Later, he pestered his master into telling him the whole story, and learned of a tale that was anything but pleasant.

The story began with a somewhat renowned scholar surnamed Wang, who encountered a beautiful woman of unknown identity. The woman claimed to be a concubine who had run away from home. Unable to restrain himself, the scholar brought her home to live with him.

After several couplings, the scholar's vital yang essence was stolen, severely damaging his primordial vitality. It so happened that Jin Guang's master passed through the area at that time. Seeing the scholar's brow darkened and his vitality scattered, he intended to accumulate virtue through good deeds and lend a helping hand. Yet the scholar did not appreciate it. In the end, it was only after the scholar's wife pleaded with him that the scholar was allowed to see his "lover's" true appearance.

Afterward, the scholar begged Jin Guang's master to save his life and received a whisk for protection. In Jin Guang's master's view, the Painted Skin was no more than a minor demon. No matter what, it should not have dared act recklessly before a True Person like him. In the end, that assumption prevented him from saving the scholar, who was killed when the Painted Skin dug out his heart.

When the scholar's wife came begging for help again, Jin Guang's master could only use a wondrous method to reconstruct the scholar's heart while he still had one breath left. Then he sought out an eminent Buddhist practitioner. With the scholar's wife's consent, he used the Mirror Flower Water Moon Method to draw out the aura of her heart, split it in two, and give half a heart to the scholar, bringing him back to life.

According to Jin Guang's master's original expectations, although the scholar's reconstructed heart was fragile, supported by his wife's heart, it would merely leave him somewhat weak in his early years. After a few years, once the new heart had fully grown, he would naturally be fine.

For that reason, Jin Guang's master had even taught the scholar's wife a method to reclaim her half of the heart. Yet now, for some unknown reason, the scholar had become a product of the Blood Demon Path, while his wife had learned the Mirror Flower Water Moon Method and fallen into the demonic path.

P.S. These chapters are rather important, and I've buried quite a few foreshadowing threads in them, so please don't mind! Yu Chen will be the protagonist again next chapter. Also, please bookmark and recommend!