"Who is this woman? Why does she look exactly like me?"
Mei Xuan was a modified spirit body, possessing the vitality of the Foundation Establishment Realm. Under Li Chen's almost transcendent application of the Brain Deconstruction Technique, she had even retained her thoughts and consciousness in full, and naturally still possessed the means to observe the outside world through divine sense.
"She looks so much like me. Compared to her, I'm the one who seems like an impostor..."
The moment this utterly absurd thought arose, she recalled Li Chen's strange insistence on recovering the Shaman Folk leader's corpse at all costs. An endless chill abruptly welled up from the depths of Mei Xuan's heart.
"I understand now. This is the Skin-Painting Art!"
"You actually mastered such an advanced Skin-Painting Art!"
As though some crucial point had suddenly been unlocked, Mei Xuan saw the light.
She finally understood where her earlier, overwhelming doubts had come from.
"All along, the strongest technique you truly excelled at was the Shape-Stealing Skin-Painting of the Creation-Promotion Secret Art!"
"We wondered why those Shaman Folk submitted to you so quickly, and why so many Foundation Establishment experts of unknown origin had appeared under your command..."
"So it was all fake!"
"They aren't living people at all. They're artificial people!"
Some questions remained unresolved, such as how Li Chen had made his artificial people so lifelike, with speech and behavior comparable to the real thing. But what she had witnessed with her own eyes was already more than enough to confirm his extraordinarily profound mastery of Shape-Stealing Skin-Painting.
Li Chen said mildly, "You stumbled onto the right answer!"
"I do indeed possess advanced Shape-Stealing Skin-Painting skills, but are you sure that's what I'm using now?"
Mei Xuan froze for a moment, then quickly caught on again. Her