Head Exchange, Strange Art

The saber came slanting out of the darkness like a streak of startling lightning through black ink.

Chen Xu woke in an instant and tried to roll away.

But at the very moment his body moved, he suddenly felt his lower limbs grow heavy, as though some invisible weight were pressing down on both legs.

His already injured right leg in particular felt leaden, as if it had sunk into a mire, unable to move in the slightest.

As the blade neared his neck, in that critical instant, Chen Xu shook up the heavy cotton quilt covering him and flung it toward the oncoming white blade.

He had spared no expense in buying this quilt. It weighed a full ten jin.

Under normal circumstances, Chen Xu could never have tossed it up one-handed from that angle. But now that all three of his Threefold Attributes had increased substantially, the heavy quilt became, in his hands, like a black cloud swept aloft by a storm.

The black cloud came crashing down over its target. The blade light was instantly swallowed up, along with the twisted figure wielding the saber.

That was not all. Chen Xu immediately braced with both arms and launched himself into the air, bringing his full weight down atop the quilt.

"Aah!"

A blurred yet familiar scream came from beneath the quilt.

It was Lin Qi's voice.

The intruder really was Lin Qi!

In the dark night, Chen Xu's legs remained heavy and powerless, and his vision was too blurred to make anything out. He could only throw his whole body down and use all his weight to pin the struggling figure beneath the quilt.

Rage surged within him. He had decided to suffocate Lin Qi to death beneath the quilt.

"Mmngh, mmngh... Brother Chen, Brother Chen, spare me! Spare my life, and I will repay you someday!"

Chen Xu did not loosen his hold in the slightest. He merely said in a low voice, "Lin Qi, I always treated you as a dear and trusted friend, yet you plotted to harm me. And now you want me to spare you? Never!"

Muffled beneath the quilt, Lin Qi cried, "Brother Chen, Brother Chen, I truly did not come to harm you! I came here... mmngh! I only wanted to exchange heads with you."

Exchange heads?

Such an absurd statement came from Lin Qi's mouth in a tone so matter-of-fact that Chen Xu nearly thought he had misheard.

"Exchange heads?" he asked.

"Yes, exchange heads. Brother Chen, your leg injury will not heal, and now it is impossible, impossible for you to continue down the Imperial Examination path. But you are naturally intelligent, and your literary talent, your literary talent is exceptional. Would it not be a pity to waste such gifts?

"Why not exchange your head for mine? From then on, I will possess your intelligence and literary talent, and I will surely soar through the examination halls!"

Lin Qi's voice came low and strained through the quilt, but gradually, an indescribably eerie and bewitching quality seeped into it.

Chen Xu did not answer, so Lin Qi continued, "Brother Chen, you have no fate with the Imperial Examination in this life. Ten years spent studying by the cold window have all gone to waste. Do you not find that regrettable?"

Chen Xu sneered. "You get to soar through the ranks while I lose even my life. And that is supposed to be not regrettable?"

"How can that count as losing your life? Brother Chen's head comes to me, and my head goes to Brother Chen. Brother Chen will still have a head. Besides, if I carry Brother Chen's head as I rise into the blue clouds, how is that any different from Brother Chen himself passing the examinations all the way?"

Lin Qi's voice drifted out slowly and eerily through the quilt, like a bowlful of nectar-thick slime splashed across the dense night.

It stirred the mind until one grew dazed, feeling in a hazy trance that he truly made perfect sense.

Chen Xu was briefly distracted and nearly fell for it.

But with the growth of his Threefold Attributes, the strength of his Divine Soul had long surpassed that of ordinary people. His lapse lasted only an instant.

At that very instant, Lin Qi's struggle suddenly intensified.

Chen Xu snapped back to himself. "Fuck! Different my ass!"

He swung his powerful right fist and slammed it down at the bulging spot beneath the quilt.

Bang!

The quilt shook under the blow.

Chen Xu immediately pinned the man down with his left fist while his right struck repeatedly—bang, bang, bang! Each punch was heavier and fiercer than the last.

"Aah!" Lin Qi struggled and screamed, then shouted heatedly, "Chen Xu, what good does going mad do you? You are a poor farmer's son, not even worthy of being called from a poor scholarly family, yet you dream of advancing through the Imperial Examination. How could that be possible?"

Bang, bang, bang!

Chen Xu said nothing. His punches merely grew more vicious with every blow.

"Idiot! Brat! Line-ending bastard!" Lin Qi screamed curses. "Aah! It hurts! Fool, even if you entered the examination grounds, could you pass as a Xiucai Scholar? Could you become a Juren Scholar?

"When you reached the provincial examination grounds, you would know neither people nor things. You would not even know which way the chief examiner's mansion gate opened, and you still want to become a Juren Scholar?

"Not to mention attaining Jinshi Scholar status! But if it were me... aah!"

This time, Chen Xu found the position of the head beneath the quilt and threw a savage punch.

Bang!

Crash—

In the next instant, the figure that had been passively taking the beating somehow found a burst of strength and abruptly shoved away Chen Xu's restraint.

Chen Xu's waist and abdomen went numb. Caught off guard, he fell backward, his shoulders and back slamming into the edge of the bed behind him.

Suddenly, a wild wind rose outside the window, and the light rain became a downpour.

Yet not a trace of the rain's sound entered the room. Only a thunderous bolt of lightning tore across the heavy night sky, illuminating the pitch-black inner chamber as brightly as day for an instant.

Only then did Chen Xu see that his legs had somehow been wrapped in circle upon circle of ghastly white threads.

The white threads formed a cocoon, tightly binding his legs from his ankles all the way to his waist and abdomen.

No wonder his legs had felt so heavy and powerless. They had been entangled by these eerie threads.

And if he had not seen it clearly now, he would not even have sensed that his legs were bound. He would only have felt weak in the legs.

What kind of sinister technique was this?

In the white flash, a humanoid shadow lifted the quilt and darted into the corner of the room.

At first glance, the figure seemed to have Lin Qi's shape. Yet in truth, calling it a human figure... it looked more like a life-sized statue kneaded from pitch-black soft mud.

As the dazzling white light shone outside the window, Lin Qi, like a soft-mud effigy, twisted his face and laughed lowly. "The Soul-Cutting Silkworm has already wound itself up to your waist. All those blows I took just now were not in vain—I only needed to stall until this moment. Chen Xu, you cannot be saved now, hehe..."

Chen Xu's heart pounded in alarm, yet an even fiercer ruthlessness rose from his bones.

In this damned world, all manner of strange and bizarre arts made people impossible to guard against.

Before, he had not known why his legs were heavy, so it was only natural that he could not think of a response at once. But now that he could clearly see the threads around his legs, what was there left to fear?

Chen Xu reached one hand behind him and felt beneath his pillow.

There lay a kitchen knife he had hidden before going to sleep!

He raised the straight-backed, broad-bladed kitchen knife. As lightning flashed continuously outside the window, inspiration struck Chen Xu, and he recalled a line from the Wood Chopping Saber Technique: when the heart-fire arrives, all things are firewood.

The Wood Chopping Saber Technique could chop not only firewood, but all things beneath heaven.

With the blade poised three inches above, one distinguished wood and recognized grain; what one saw was the opponent's weakness!

Chen Xu focused his mind. In the instant lightning flashed beyond the window, he added one point each to his Vital Blood, Essence, and Divine Soul.

In an instant, his Vital Blood surged and steamed like a great river's rising tide. Chen Xu brought the blade down.

Scorching force ran across the blade's edge, followed by the sound of tearing silk.

Rip—

All the white threads wrapped around him instantly scattered and snapped apart. Chen Xu sprang to his feet, his sinews and bones ringing together.

At that moment, he forgot the pain in his injured right leg. His entire body seemed to turn into a bolt of lightning as he arrived before the terrified Lin Qi in an instant.

"No! How could you possibly cut through my Soul-Cutting Silkworm Silk?"

This was Lin Qi's final scream. "Aah—"

Slash!

The blade light swept past, and a soft, springy head, round as a ball, instantly fell to the ground.