Reported dead

"Brother Yang... Brother Yang..."

The Azure Cloud Mountains.

Chen Yang was under a large tree, watching ants climb its trunk.

Suddenly, a servant in green hurried over.

He had shifty eyes and a face full of delighted surprise, as though he had just spotted a bare-bottomed beauty.

"Brother Yang... look, what's that? A Cloud-Shuttle Boat..."

"You little punk, sleeping in broad daylight... whoosh..."

Just as Chen Yang was about to lose his temper, he sprang to his feet.

A Cloud-Shuttle Boat.

There really was a Cloud-Shuttle Boat flying through the sky.

He hadn't heard that any more outer sect disciples were coming to pick servants.

But... why was it wobbling like that, as though it was about to crash?

"Whoosh, whoosh..."

A whistle split the air, and the Cloud-Shuttle Boat overhead really did plunge downward.

When he looked again, there was nothing there, as though everything he had just seen had been an illusion.

"Brother... Brother Yang... where's the Cloud-Shuttle Boat?"

"Do you think you could count me in on this outer sect assignment?"

"I want to try my luck too. What if a fairy takes a fancy to me? Heh..."

The servant disciple shamelessly licked his lips and gave a lewd chuckle.

"Fairy, my ass! What blind old sow would take a fancy to you?"

"Get back to work, or I'll make you sleep with an old sow tonight."

Chen Yang cursed furiously.

He sent the green-robed servant packing with a kick.

Still, he couldn't help looking up at the sky. A Cloud-Shuttle Boat?

But how could a Cloud-Shuttle Boat crash?

He really hadn't heard that any peak would be coming to select servants today.

More importantly, it had fallen so quickly that he wasn't even sure it had been a Cloud-Shuttle Boat.

He lowered his head and went back to watching the ants climb the tree. Whether it was a Cloud-Shuttle Boat had little to do with him.

That wasn't something he needed to worry about.

"Ah... ah..."

Aboard the Cloud-Shuttle Boat, Lin Shisan now regretted his decision so much his guts had turned green.

All along the way, Tiny Waist had piloted the Small Cloud-Shuttle Boat either off course or crookedly.

Or, as it was doing now, straight down out of the sky.

It was even more thrilling than walking a tightrope, keeping him steeped in heart-pounding terror every single moment.

In any case, they hadn't traveled in a straight line once, much less enjoyed the smooth, steady ride of their outward journey, which had felt like walking on level ground.

Heart-stopping thrills were the main attraction.

"Quick... turn... turn that way... we're going to hit it..."

Lin Shisan's face was deathly pale.

This time, his heart had twisted itself into a braided knot.

The wobbling Cloud-Shuttle Boat charged straight toward the valley ahead at the speed of a ten-thousand-meter sprint.

A hundred meters... fifty meters... thirty meters... ten meters... five meters... three meters...

They were about to hit.

Thump...

At the critical moment, the Cloud-Shuttle Boat changed course on its own.

It skimmed past a Snow Willow Tree, narrowly avoiding disaster.

Tiny Waist was so frightened that she hid in Lin Shisan's arms.

Creak, creak...

The Cloud-Shuttle Boat swayed for quite a while before finally landing safely amid a series of jolts.

Without the Cloud-Shuttle Boat's Autonomous Defensive Forbidden Array, Lin Shisan and Tiny Waist would both have ascended straight to heaven on the spot.

"Dark boy, have we landed?"

With her eyes shut, Tiny Waist reached up with both hands and felt Lin Shisan's face.

Lin Shisan was experiencing something even more exhilarating than terror, his blood surging with an instinctive response.

His little heart was about to leap out.

Their faces were almost touching, and Lin Shisan could even hear Tiny Waist's heartbeat.

"We... we've landed..."

Lin Shisan spoke.

He couldn't even breathe properly.

"Good, we've landed. You scared this baby half to death."

"Dark boy, get your filthy paws off me..."

Only after hearing that they had landed did Tiny Waist open her eyes.

Then, with a silky-smooth Capturing Claw Hand, she locked down the web between Lin Shisan's thumb and forefinger.

Next came a Floating Fist, smashing into Lin Shisan and giving him a panda eye.

The pain brought tears streaming down Lin Shisan's face.

He looked as aggrieved as a mistreated little wife.

All those fanciful thoughts he had entertained a moment earlier were instantly crushed out of existence by her grip.

Sure enough, the disciples of Jade Maiden Peak were all unreasonable witches, fierce as wolves and tigers.

Terrifying.

He was clearly the victim, yet somehow he had ended up cast as the aggressor, sentenced and punished outright without a hearing.

"Heh, heh, heh..."

For once, Tiny Waist looked embarrassed.

She had hit Lin Shisan far too hard.

Not only had his eye swollen into a giant panda's, but tears and snot were smeared all over his face.

"Who's there? Come out!"

Tiny Waist's eyes flashed, her vigilance surging.

She spread her right hand, and amid metallic clattering, the Nine-Section Whip danced.

She lashed a person out from behind a Snow Willow Tree.

"Spare me, Fairy Aunt... spare me, Immortal Lord..."

Tiny Waist swung her Nine-Section Whip again.

The man she had whipped out was so frightened that he dropped to his knees with a thud.

He kowtowed like a pestle pounding garlic, until blood from his forehead obscured his eyes.

"Junior... Junior Brother Lin..."

The blood-covered man happened to look up and see the panda-eyed Lin Shisan, and blurted out in confusion.

But once he got a proper look, his face turned deathly pale, and he stammered so badly that he couldn't get a word out.

His eyes bulged into two bright points, as though he had seen some monstrous horror beyond worldly comprehension, his face filled with fear and unease.

"Senior Brother Zheng..."

Lin Shisan got a clear look at him too.

The terrified man before him was none other than Zheng Qian, who had sold him discarded pills.

What he couldn't understand was why Zheng Qian was so afraid, as though he wasn't looking at a living person.

"Senior Brother Zheng, it's me, Lin Shisan. I bought Body Tempering Pills from you twice. Don't you remember me?"

"Lin Shisan... Junior Brother Lin..."

Zheng Qian's eyes rolled as he examined Lin Shisan again. "Junior Brother Lin, are you a living person or a yin nightmare?"

"Are you asking for a beating, punk?"

Tiny Waist swung the Nine-Section Whip in her right hand, ready to lash him again.

"Dark boy is standing right here, perfectly fine. How did he become a yin nightmare?"

"I'm really not dead, Senior Brother Zheng. Feel my hand-it's warm. And look, I have a shadow. I'm not a yin nightmare."

Lin Shisan walked over as he spoke.

"Junior Brother Lin... you... you're really not dead?"

Zheng Qian felt Lin Shisan's hand.

It was warm.

Looking again, he saw that Lin Shisan really did cast a shadow in the sunlight.

Only then was he certain that Lin Shisan wasn't dead.

"You'd better explain yourself, punk. How did Shisan become a yin nightmare? Otherwise, I guarantee you'll become one right now."

"I..."

Looking at the Nine-Section Whip in Tiny Waist's hand, he remembered the lash he had taken earlier.

He hurriedly said, "They... they all said it... they said you died on Jade Maiden Peak, struck dead by lightning..."

Trembling with fear, he spilled a great heap of rambling nonsense.

The gist was that, of the ten servants who had gone to Jade Maiden Peak with Lin Shisan, only three had returned.

From their accounts, he had learned what happened.

One had died just after they set out, and another had burned to death as they approached Snow Mountain.

One had been burst by a languid, sultry older woman, and another had then been swallowed by a spirit cat.

One had been struck dead while picking Azure Spirit Fruit, and another had been drained through dual cultivation, reduced to a dried husk and used as flower fertilizer.

Finally, they had watched helplessly as a bolt of heavenly thunder shattered Lin Shisan into pieces, leaving not even a scrap behind.

All seven of them, including Lin Shisan, had been reported dead, and even their courtyards had been reclaimed by the Servant Hall.

And just like that, Lin Shisan had died.

That was also why Zheng Qian had been so terrified at his first glimpse of Lin Shisan: he had thought he was seeing Lin Shisan's yin nightmare.

A yin nightmare was a man-eating fiend formed from the spiritual consciousness of someone unwilling to accept their death.