Faking His Death to Escape!

Glass shattered, and they watched helplessly as Li Xia shot out of the cabin in a flash. In that brief moment, those inside even saw the masked boy bend the wing beside the plane with a heavy punch.

With the glass broken, air rushed out of the cabin, and the plane immediately began rocking from side to side.

"No...!"

"He can actually fly?"

"Damn it! Damn it all!"

The powerful suction from outside seemed to clamp around everyone's necks. As they scrambled in panic, some flushed crimson, while others went deathly pale.

But the plane losing its balance immediately afterward was what truly sealed their fate.

The instant its wing bent, the luxurious private jet slipped beyond the pilot's control. Before anyone inside could save themselves, the plane lost its balance and began spiraling and jolting, flinging them every which way.

For a time, curses and screams filled the cabin.

Li Xia floated in midair, relying on his Lightness Talisman and the Great Katsura Tree Mask's ability to fly. His face remained expressionless as he watched the plane spiral rapidly toward the sea below.

To attract the attention of a North American behemoth like the Smith Family, either they've set their sights on my method of crafting premium talismans!

After all, even his low-grade talismans could rival intermediate talismans!

What if he made intermediate talismans?

If he continued growing until he could craft intermediate talismans, and those talismans were also the finest of the finest-premium intermediate talismans comparable to ordinary high-grade ones-then... his strategic value would be immense!

That alone would justify any faction making a move to seize him!

Or they might be after the Shikon Shards themselves! If the Smith Family really is after the Shikon Shards, that would also imply they possess some of the other shards born in this world!

But whichever it was, he could not go to the United States.

He could not place his life in someone else's hands.

Once he went there, he would be utterly at their mercy. They could do whatever they wanted to him!

And with two concealed experts from the Smith Family constantly at his side-two cultivators who always gave him a sense of danger-he could only hide his growing wariness and suspicions while finding a way to save himself.

Kagome's father had inherited Sunset Shrine's property and its modest spiritual lineage, so presumably he had once been a cultivator as well.

In cultivation circles, his title was Shrine Priest.

In other words, the person in charge of a shrine.

Yet the girl's father had still died in a car accident.

And between a car accident and a plane crash, which had the higher survival rate was obvious.

In other words, proposing that they travel by plane had been one of Li Xia's ways of saving himself.

Unfortunately, although requesting a flight to North America aboard the Smith Family's private jet had largely avoided the considerable casualties a civilian flight might have caused, he had still dragged three flight attendants into it.

"Whew... I've become a little too careless since obtaining the Shikon Shards! I have to keep this lesson in mind at all times!"

Li Xia sighed.

Then again, could he really rest easy leaving the Shikon Shards somewhere else?

He had no choice but to carry them on him.

Where should I go from here?

The Smith Family is so powerful that it can influence even the Li Family's main-line members, and its reach extends all the way to the Clan Elders! I definitely can't return to the Li Family! Otherwise, their higher-ups might sell me out, and I'd still be helping those bastards count the money!

I could hide in Huaxia for a while, but if the Smith Family goes mad and sends people to infiltrate the country and assassinate me, I'd still be in terrible danger. I might even drag my dad, my eldest sister, and my second brother into it!

Besides, with that family pursuing me so relentlessly, others are bound to guess that I'm hiding a major secret...

So I'd better fake my death first!

Then I'll go through the Bone-Eater's Well at Sunset Shrine to the Demon World on the other side and use my foreknowledge to seize some opportunities! As long as I grow stronger quickly, I'll make that paltry Smith Family pay when the time comes!

Faking his death was for his family's sake.

It would keep his dad and the others from being targeted or subjected to retaliation.

Forced by the circumstances, he had to set out for the Sengoku Era on the other side before the Protagonist Group came together, before Inuyasha and the others had grown enough to possess respectable fighting strength!

At the plane's crash site.

As expected, there were no survivors.

After all, they had fallen from several thousand meters up, had no ability to fly, and everyone in the cabin was flesh and blood. If anyone could have survived under those circumstances, they must have saved the solar system in their previous life.

After the plane plunged, broke apart, and exploded, Li Xia waited a while before descending from the sky and approaching the area.

The ordinary people, including the pilot and flight attendants, had not even left fragments of bone behind.

But the bodies of the two middle-aged men who had made him feel wary and threatened remained relatively intact, rather than being vaporized by the explosion's heat. They had probably exhausted every means at their disposal trying to save themselves. Though they had ultimately failed to survive, they had at least left whole corpses.

Li Xia breathed a sigh of relief at the sight.

"It looks like this plane crash can finally come to a satisfactory conclusion."

The crash site was not too far from the coastline.

That day, some fishermen not only saw the plane crash, but also spotted a middle-aged figure in tattered clothes coming ashore from the sea. The man hurried along, seemingly letting them glimpse his face by accident before vanishing without a trace.

This middle-aged man was one of the Smith Family's two experts, resurrected by the Shikon Shards and then controlled through the Great Katsura Tree Mask.

After making the man show his face by the sea, Li Xia destroyed the body and erased all traces.

Even his soul was wiped out.

Now Li Xia could disappear for a while.

But before that, he had to retrieve a few things.

I can't go home. It would be too easy for someone to pick up on a clue and ruin the plan.

The thought of the better part of a cubic meter of high-quality spirit fluid stored in the safe in his quiet room in the industrial district made Li Xia's heart ache.

Lying low to escape the Smith Family's pursuit amounted to cutting off his own supply line.

He wondered which lucky person would ultimately get their hands on all that high-quality spirit fluid.

Thank goodness I prepared backup hideouts in advance!

Those backup hideouts were, naturally, Mayu's home and the school.

If he had left his things at alternative sites connected to the family, retrieving them now might alert the Li Family and expose the fact that he was still alive.

At that thought, Li Xia silently counted himself lucky.

Collecting himself, he disguised himself and put on his mask, then visited both the school and Mayu's home in the dead of night. (See Chapter 14.)

Surveillance systems were not yet widespread in this era, nor had they reached the scale of the later surveillance network that extended even into mountainous areas. Thus, he slipped into the school's personal storage area along a familiar route without alerting anyone, carefully leaving no traces behind.

At school, he retrieved four bottles of ordinary spirit fluid he had stored in his personal storage room beforehand, a talisman brush, several bottles of spiritual ink, and two pairs of binoculars.

At Mayu's home, he also dug four bottles of ordinary spirit fluid, a box of cinnabar, and two stacks of talisman paper out of the debris in a corner of the burned wardrobe.

Looking at the eight large bottles before him, totaling twenty liters of spirit fluid, along with the few talisman-making supplies, Li Xia breathed a sigh of relief.

How clever of me!

These twenty liters of spirit fluid and the talisman-making supplies would be among the resources he relied on to establish himself in Inuyasha's world, beyond the Bone-Eater's Well!

Unfortunately, these preparations were hardly worth mentioning compared with what he had actually prepared!

For example, there was a big-wheeled off-road vehicle worth hundreds of millions in peninsula currency that could be disassembled and reassembled, along with other means of transportation such as an off-road motorcycle and a Merida Sixth-Generation Bicycle. There were also two pistols, a Barrett Sniper Rifle, an MP7 Submachine Gun, and several crates of ammunition. He had prepared even more medical first-aid supplies.

Unfortunately, all those things were stored in a warehouse in the industrial district.

Had he known this would happen, he would have moved everything out beforehand.

Now, he had a home he could not return to.

Outside, the Smith Family plotted against him at every turn; within, the main line's higher-ups were blinded by greed.

He could only go to the Demon World on the other side of the well.

"Whether it's the Smith Family or those Li Family bastards who sold out their own clansman, just you wait!"

With his bundle on his back, he made a trip to a pharmacy.

He paid cash for some ordinary medicine.

Without further hesitation, Li Xia headed straight for Sunset Shrine.

He did not know whether he could use the Shikon Shards to pass through the ancient well and reach the Sengoku Era on the other side, but he had to try.

At the Higurashi Family home.

Kagome, who had been resting, abruptly sat up in bed.

"What's going on? Why are Shikon Shards approaching at this hour?"

"One, two, three... seven in total!"

"Is it the person I sensed that night?"