Chapter 22

Bian Chunchou:...

"Can you handle it?"

"Relax, I won't die."

Wen Xu silently handed over the Wind-Treasure Gourd. "I tried it. This gourd's offensive power isn't very high, but its material is extremely sturdy. Perhaps it can be of some use."

Chen Zui readily reached out to take it. "Thank you, Wen Xu."

As he spoke, he was about to take the gourd and hurry down the mountain with his saber when Wen Xu unexpectedly pulled out his folding fan and fanned Chen Zui away, sending him flying dozens of meters.

"Wen Xu, what are you doing?!" Bian Chunchou's expression immediately turned stern.

Wen Xu turned and gave Bian Chunchou beside him a fan as well. "Who are you? You disguised yourselves as my friends and approached me—what are you after?"

"What are you talking about? Why can't I understand you? Wen Xu, why are you attacking us?"

Wen Xu thought the two of them were putting on a far too perfunctory act. "First, Bian Chunchou would never address me by my full name. He prefers using reduplicated names for his friends. Second, Chen Zui is not someone with brains."

The great figures watching around the Shadow Wall: ...There was really no need to understand your friends quite so thoroughly.

"Furthermore, if Yonglu Mountain's outer disciples truly wanted to call for help, there were plenty of quick ways to notify the sect using talismans or magic artifacts. Why would they need us to personally go up the mountain for help?"

Wen Xu's face remained calm, but he was somewhat anxious inside. When they had encountered the outer disciple of Yonglu Mountain earlier, he had been completely certain that Bian Chunchou and Chen Zui at his side were his teammates. Yet in the blink of an eye, both had vanished. What an unfathomable, ghostly method. Faced with such an opponent, Wen Xu knew he had no power to resist.

Since that was the case, he might as well expose them directly and gamble for a way out.

"Most importantly, this is Yonglu Mountain. The villagers below the mountain live simple, peaceful lives under Yonglu Mountain's protection. How could a red-clad vicious ghost be born here for no reason?"

Upon hearing this, "Bian Chunchou" and "Chen Zui" gave sinister cackles, then dissolved into the wind. The outer disciple on the ground vanished with them.

The empty mountain wilderness fell silent, leaving Wen Xu alone.

This was Wen Xu's first time being alone since arriving in the cultivation world. He felt somewhat unaccustomed to it and unconsciously touched his eyes, though he did not remove the strip of cloth over them.

Bian Chunchou had said that the Mountain Examination and the third trial, the Mind-Question Trial, were connected. Perhaps at some unknown moment, he had already entered the Mind-Question Trial.

So how was he supposed to pass this trial?

Wen Xu had no clue at all. In the end, he simply knew too little about the cultivation world. At that moment, he suddenly missed the old imperial examinations. Studying might not have been as interesting as cultivation, but however varied the exams became, they never strayed from their core. It was nothing like now—standing in the examination hall, yet having nowhere to begin.

Wen Xu steadied himself and keenly noticed that his attention was not as focused as it should have been. Given his temperament, at such a critical moment, how could he possibly let his mind wander to imperial examinations?

This was very wrong. It was not like him at all.

Wen Xu decided to go down the mountain and take a look. He made his way down, quickly arriving at the village where he had once borrowed a cloak. The village was peaceful and tranquil, exactly as it had been four days ago.

Soon, he encountered an old man returning home with firewood. By coincidence, this was the very villager who had lent him the cloak.

"Immortal master, are you borrowing a cloak again today?"

Wen Xu shook his head. "Not today."

"Why not? Does the immortal master look down on us mortals?"

The old man's eyes suddenly turned fierce, and even his voice became savage. He threw down the firewood on his shoulder and lunged at Wen Xu. "Immortal master, give me your Immortal Bone, all right? I'm so old I'm practically one foot in the grave, but I don't want to die! I want to cultivate too! Every day, I watch immortal masters ride the wind past my door, and my heart fills with jealousy! Immortal master, pity this old fellow and give me your Immortal Bone, all right?"

Of course that was not all right. The old man was merely an ordinary mortal. How could he—

Wen Xu turned aside, then suddenly discovered that his cultivation had vanished. The Qi Sea in his Dantian was gone. Even the folding fan and gourd in his hands had disappeared. His hands were empty, and even...

It hurt.

Wen Xu clutched the wound on his body and lowered his head. His arm was bent outward at an unnatural angle, blood dripping onto the dry earth and instantly rolling into bead after bead of crimson dirt.

The wind atop the cliff was cold, and in an instant, it yanked his mind back.

Wen Xu panted heavily and looked up at the three assassins hunting him. The pain in his body nearly left him unable to think. In that instant, he wondered whether everything in the cultivation world had merely been a dream before his death.

The sensation of pain nearly drowned all his consciousness. Wen Xu's heart filled with fury. He did not understand. Why? Why was his fate so miserable? Why did everything he do go against his wishes?

He had been a beggar from birth. To survive, he had worked hard begging in the streets, yet every winter remained just as cruel and cold.

To stay alive, he had truly tried his hardest. So why was Heaven still unwilling to let him go? Why could he not remember people's faces? Why, after studying so hard and traveling to the capital for the examinations, had he been inexplicably hunted to this point? Why, at the moment he had been happiest, had his adoptive father's life been taken away?

Why give him hope of life, only to cruelly snatch it away again?

Wen Xu's heart was filled with indignation and rage. His entire life seemed to have been a struggle against fate, yet he had always been the loser, always toyed with by destiny.

Looking at the gleaming blade before him, Wen Xu thought, To hell with fate!

How could I possibly die at the hands of these three? Even if I jumped off the cliff and killed myself, I would never let others have their way for nothing! I—

In an instant, Wen Xu's reason returned.

Though the overwhelming pain still clouded his mind, he was clearer than ever, because—

At the moment he had looked up just now, he had actually "seen" the faces of those three people clearly. More precisely, he felt that he had seen three different faces.