As far as he was concerned, Liu Ningzhi should have died that night at the Flower Delight House.
But no kill notification had sounded in his mind, making Ning Que suspect that Liu Ningzhi was still alive.
Or perhaps the woman he had strangled had not been the real Liu Ningzhi.
Now, Liu Ningzhi wore a black top and skirt. Her face was still beautiful enough to topple cities and kingdoms, but it carried an added trace of uncanny allure. Beside her stood another equally alluring woman who looked slightly older.
Presumably, this was the Yin Lotus Cult's Holy Mother...
"Can you tell me what you used to escape death that day?"
Ning Que and Liu Ningzhi faced each other from afar, his clear, ringing voice carrying through the wind and snow.
Liu Ningzhi snorted coldly. "That was my unique secret art, the Paper Soul Technique."
"Using paper as a model, I fashioned someone who looked exactly like me. She was the one who served as the Flower Delight House's leading courtesan in my place all along."
"So that's it..."
Ning Que nodded to himself.
No wonder he had felt something strange when he first met Liu Ningzhi... She had been exquisite, but a little too exquisite.
Her smile had looked false, and her eyes had lacked the vitality of an ordinary person.
Ning Que suddenly found it rather funny. Who could have imagined that the stunning courtesan who drove countless men mad, who made them willing to squander their entire fortunes to buy her freedom, was nothing more than a paper figure?
The ignorant masses had been worshipping a paper figure all along...
"Do you want to become an immortal too?"
Looking at Liu Ningzhi, Ning Que asked another question.
Since ancient times, people had yearned to evolve—ordinary people aspired to the Martial Way; martial artists longed to reach its pinnacle and step onto the path of cultivation; cultivators, in turn, yearned to reach the end of the Dao and glimpse a corner of the road to immortality.
Through generations of exploration by their forebears, they had devised the Martial Way and unlocked the treasures of the flesh. Then, by continuing to explore the Martial Way, they had developed cultivation methods.
The Yin Lotus Cult's Paper Soul Technique was probably an art that lay precisely between martial arts and cultivation methods.
But Liu Ningzhi looked at him in confusion, clearly not understanding what Ning Que meant.
The Yin Lotus Holy Mother beside her, however, paled. "Kill him! He knows too much!"
Liu Ningzhi did not know that the Yin Lotus Cult's true purpose was to investigate the secrets of cultivation. They were simply still feeling their way forward.
Before they found the right path, they needed to conduct experiment after experiment and endure failure after failure.
In the process, their hands had become stained with blood, and they had shouldered the weight of countless lives.
Whose success did not rest upon heaps of bones?
Even the reigning Empress of the Dynasty had climbed to her throne over the piled corpses of her imperial brothers and sisters.
As the Yin Lotus Holy Mother's words fell, a sharp rush of air rang out.
Dark streaks stood out starkly against the snowy white night: several ribbons swept toward Ning Que.
Though called ribbons, they were actually lengths of silk. As if possessed of minds of their own, they coiled toward Ning Que with tremendous speed.
The next instant, however, Ning Que's figure vanished. A dazzling flash of saber light swept out to cut through the silk ribbons.
Clang—
Unexpectedly, Liu Ningzhi's silk ribbons, though seemingly soft, were as hard as steel.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
After the clash, even more silk shot out, sweeping toward Ning Que like a waterfall that blotted out the sky.
"Watch out, Little Juzi!"
At that shout, Ning Que pulled Zhuge Qing aside.
A fierce saber strike swept across like a blade from the heavens, its saber energy stretching several meters long!
Yin Jiuyou slashed out, forcibly cutting the silk into shreds.
Liu Ningzhi staggered back several steps. Looking at the shredded silk inside her sleeves, her expression turned ugly.
"Little Juzi, this witch is an expert in internal force. Even the softest things become incredibly hard in her hands!"
Yin Jiuyou explained why the soft silk had been so impossibly hard.
"So that's it."
Ning Que smiled. It was internal energy.
When it came to internal energy, he feared no one.
Liu Ningzhi truly deserved her position as the Yin Lotus Cult's Saintess. Her skill with those lengths of silk alone was beyond the likes of escort masters Chai Feiying and Tong Chengkun.
In the blink of an eye, Liu Ningzhi attacked again.
She swept her sleeves, sending great swathes of silk flying out.
The silk coiled toward Ning Que's limbs like nimble snakes, trying to bind him.
But Ning Que unleashed thirty years' worth of internal energy, blasting them apart by sheer force.
Snap!
Ning Que even seized the other end of a length of silk, turning it into the center of a tug-of-war between them.
How could a woman's strength compare to a man's?
Especially when Ning Que had unleashed thirty years' worth of internal energy.
Liu Ningzhi was immediately dragged toward him.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
At that critical moment, the Yin Lotus Holy Mother charged in.
She could not simply watch her own disciple perish at Ning Que's hands.
But Ning Que tightened his grip on his saber, and his gaze changed.
"Watch closely. This strike carries thirty years of cultivated power!"
Boom!
Saber light flashed, its dazzling white radiance filling everyone's vision.
It seemed capable of cleaving great mountains and rivers apart!
When the saber light faded, both the Yin Lotus Saintess and the Holy Mother lay in pools of blood.
A deep furrow remained in the ground, stretching before everyone's eyes with horrifying clarity.
Everyone's scalp prickled, their hearts pounding as though they might leap out of their throats.
Some of the Bounty Hunters from the Cave of No Worries swallowed hard, no longer daring to advance.
After all, the Yin Lotus Cult was the strongest faction in the Cave of No Worries.
Like the tangled roots of an ancient tree, it had wormed its way into every household there.
A large portion of these Bounty Hunters were even members of the Yin Lotus Cult!
Yet Ning Que had slain both their Saintess and their Holy Mother.
The shock was immense!
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for killing Liu Ningzhi, Saintess of the Yin Lotus Cult. Awarded 500 Karma Points!] [Ding! Congratulations to the host for killing Liu Qinghe, Holy Mother of the Yin Lotus Cult. Awarded 500 Karma Points!]
After killing Liu Ningzhi and her mother, Ning Que slowly sheathed his saber and smacked his lips.
As expected of the Yin Lotus Cult's Saintess and Holy Mother, killing each had earned him a full 500 Karma Points.
Together with the kills made by the others, notifications of increased Karma Points kept sounding in his mind.
This battle was truly different from his earlier minor skirmishes. Ning Que estimated that, by the time it ended, he would probably have gained over 5,000 Karma Points.
At that thought, a smile appeared on Ning Que's face.
He took Zhuge Qing's hand and started toward the city gate.
As for Zhuge Qing, she had long since been scared witless.
The sight of every slash drawing blood, every slash taking a life, had left her speechless.
She had never killed anyone.
But now that she had joined Ning Que's side, killing would become commonplace.
Or rather, if she wanted to survive, she would have to kill!
Which person here did not have ruthlessness in their eyes?
The wind and snow grew fiercer, but the sounds of fighting gradually dwindled.
They were not a regular army, merely a band of ruthless people brought together by profit.
But when someone proved more ruthless than they were, they did not know what to do.
Ultimately, they were still nothing more than a disorganized mob.
Ning Que shouted up at the city wall, "Listen, you people inside! We don't want to kill without cause. We only want to leave the city. Open the gates!"
Before you continue