You Still Have Time to Worry Whether They Live or Die
Shen Ji had been leading his junior brothers and sisters and several villagers around the ever-shifting caverns for a long time.
The moth demon excelled at laying out labyrinth barriers, and with all the caverns here looking alike, the group had grown rather dizzy after wandering around for so long.
Fortunately, Shen Ji had used incantations to carve marks at the cavern entrances along the way, keeping them from becoming completely lost in the intricate maze of caverns.
Finally, after they passed through an extremely narrow connecting passage, the view before them suddenly opened up.
An extremely broad clearing appeared before them, with sheer drops on three sides at its far end. Across the cliffs were three caverns of identical size.
Bizarre, multicolored patterns like those on the moth demon's wings revolved ceaselessly at each cavern entrance, making the world seem to spin with a single glance.
Shen Lan stepped in front of Yan Qing, the youngest, while looking at the villagers. "Don't look directly at the patterns. They can bewilder the mind and may draw you into the moth demon's illusion."
At those words, the three immediately sent their gazes wandering in every direction.
Shen Ji considered the arrangement of the three caverns across the chasm. "Only one of these three caverns should be the moth demon's true lair. If we enter either of the other two, I'm afraid we'll be trapped in an illusion with no way out."
"Senior brother, those odds are far too low. If we pick the wrong one, will we never be able to return to the Sword Sect?"
Shen Ji smiled. "No. Once we kill the moth demon, the illusion will naturally break."
"Well, since the moth demon is injured and its fighting strength has dropped anyway, why don't we split into three groups? Whoever encounters it can just kill it."
Shen Ji shook his head. "We mustn't split up. Although the moth demon is wounded, its strength still cannot be underestimated. Besides, I brought you down the mountain from the sect. Of course I must bring you back safely and give our master an accounting."
Shen Ji drew the sword from his back and smiled. "I'll use a spell to scout ahead first. Stay here and keep an eye on them too. Trust your senior brother. I certainly won't let you become trapped in an illusion."
Jiang Tingxue nodded and squeezed in beside Yan Qing and Song Wensheng. "Don't worry, senior brother. We won't run around again, and we trust you more than anyone."
Yan Qing nodded along. "Mm-hmm, senior sister is right!"
Song Wensheng, meanwhile, wore an air of being the one in charge once their senior brother left and patted his chest. "Senior brother, I'll look after our junior brother and sister. If you need help, remember to call us too."
"Tch, who are you calling your junior sister?" Jiang Tingxue protested.
"There's only one girl here. Who do you think?" Song Wensheng turned his head aside too.
Yan Qing looked between the senior brother and senior sister, neither of whom he could afford to offend, and quietly raised his hand. "I'm the junior sister. I'm the junior sister."
Shen Ji shook his head helplessly and turned away. They really could manage an argument every two hours.
He sent out the sword in his hand, leaped onto its blade, and rode it across the chasm, landing before the three caverns with his eyes closed. Then he formed hand seals, and three things resembling spell rings flew separately from his palms.
Unfortunately, the moment the spell rings touched the bizarre patterns at the cavern entrances, they dispersed into clouds of smoke, unable to enter and scout inside at all.
Shen Ji had no choice but to focus and connect a portion of his divine sense to the spell rings.
The three in the clearing had initially remained properly on guard, but as nothing unusual happened, they gradually relaxed.
Jiang Tingxue sat cross-legged on the ground, fiddling with small stones with her fingers.
Suddenly, several villagers called out "Xiuzhi" from behind her, their voices utterly entranced.
Jiang Tingxue's scalp prickled. Thinking the moth demon had emerged, she looked around but saw no sign of it.
She already disliked Liu Er and the others for being in cahoots with the moth demon, and now she turned and snapped even more irritably, "Hey, what are you yelling for?! Will you only be satisfied once you've actually drawn the moth demon here?"
Unexpectedly, the villagers not only ignored her but stared raptly toward the cliff, constantly murmuring, "Xiuzhi, Xiuzhi, we've come to take you home."
Jiang Tingxue froze for a moment. Their eyes had gone vacant, as though they were possessed.
"Wh-what's wrong with them?"
Song Wensheng said, "It looks like they've fallen under an illusion."
Hearing that, Jiang Tingxue shouted in exasperation, "Hey, stop walking forward! Eldest senior brother just told you not to look at those patterns, so why did you keep staring? You're unarmed-are you not dying fast enough for your liking?"
Clearly, the villagers under the illusion had no awareness at all. They turned deaf ears to Jiang Tingxue's voice and simply kept walking forward, with the cliff now right ahead.
Remembering Shen Ji's instruction to "keep an eye on them," Jiang Tingxue thought something would definitely happen at this rate. She pulled Song Wensheng and Yan Qing beside her into a human wall in front of the three.
Who could have known where the three found their strength? They knocked straight through them and ran forward like madmen.
"Xiuzhi! Xiuzhi!"
"Xiuzhi, we've come to take you home!"
Jiang Tingxue was knocked to the ground, her elbow striking a hard rock and making her bare her teeth in pain.
Song Wensheng, the only one who had not been sent flying, simply grabbed one person's arm in each hand and tried to pull them back, only for both of them to turn their heads at once.
"Aaaaaah!"
Song Wensheng saw blood streaming from the eyes, mouths, and noses of those two faces, like vengeful ghosts that had died by hanging. So frightened that his hands loosened, he stumbled backward repeatedly.
Liu Er and the others were now only a few steps from the cliff.
Jiang Tingxue's mind was filled with nothing but We're done for. Their senior brother had only just finished giving his instructions, and now everyone was about to die. She dared not imagine how they would explain themselves to their eldest senior brother, or how disappointed he would be in them.
Ignoring the pain, Jiang Tingxue sprang nimbly to her feet and used every ounce of her ability to dart ahead of them, her figure swift as lightning, ready to rush over and strike their acupoints.
In the end, her heels stopped just over the edge of the cliff, and the people caught in the illusion were already right before her.
With quick eyes and quicker hands, Jiang Tingxue struck their immobilization acupoints.
Just as she breathed a sigh of relief, thinking she could salvage the situation, disaster struck.
By now, the people bewitched by the illusion were no longer restrained by their acupoints at all. They leaped straight off the cliff, taking Jiang Tingxue down with them.
The change happened so suddenly that Jiang Tingxue had not even had time to register what had happened. She only felt her center of gravity plunging.
"Jiang Tingxue!"
A wrenching pain suddenly shot through her arm. Jiang Tingxue felt her fall stop and looked up, still somewhat dazed.
Song Wensheng lay at the cliff's edge, his face flushed scarlet from the effort of pulling her up.
Yan Qing, who had run over, was already deathly pale with fright. He too lay at the cliff's edge and reached out to Jiang Tingxue.
"Senior sister, quick, give me your right hand."
Jiang Tingxue placed her hand in his. The chasm beneath her feet was so deep that its bottom could not be seen, like a dark, bottomless pit.
A bone-piercing chill shot straight up from the soles of her feet, colder than anywhere else in the caves.
"Those people fell," Jiang Tingxue said, somewhat dazed.
"At a time like this, you still have time to worry whether they live or die? If it weren't for your senior brother here, you'd have become another wronged soul at the bottom of the cliff."