It seemed... Lord Chen's deductions had been right!
Only now was Wei Gongcheng utterly convinced. No wonder Lord Wang Ye could entrust a matter of life and death to him. That lord's meticulous thinking was no less impressive than Lord Wang's. When Wei Gongcheng had first heard about the Thousand-Faced Fox, he had never thought so deeply about it.
"General Wei, you don't seem surprised by my appearance?" The kindly-looking old man smiled at Wei Gongcheng. The entire domain of darkness was devoid of color, yet his figure alone was clearly visible, and his voice could be heard as well. It felt exceedingly strange to Wei Gongcheng.
"I merely had my suspicions..." Wei Gongcheng said coldly. "I'm very curious. Why did you suddenly choose to act against me?"
"Because you're more likely to ruin things..." The old man smiled gently. "Your Wind Serpent bloodline is far too unreasonable. No matter how ingenious the deception or scheme, the bloodline in your bodies will sense danger. And since you managed to separate the puppets from the personal guards who weren't puppets, you must have noticed something..."
Hearing this, Wei Gongcheng looked around. "This spell of yours can seal someone off completely, so even sound can't escape, correct? No wonder Jiaming and the others were harmed by you right under the general's nose, despite being so close to the commander's residence!"
"This isn't actually a bad thing..." The old man studied his physique. "Painted Skin Mister's craftsmanship is extraordinary. Even after being made into puppets, they retain the memories of their lives. Isn't that another way of living on? And there's no need to worry about aging, illness, pain, or hunger..."
"Heh..." Wei Gongcheng laughed in anger. "Since you make it sound so wonderful, why don't you try it yourself?"
As he spoke, he clenched both hands, tensing every muscle in his body. Just as he was about to unleash his Qi and Blood, he suddenly felt a chill down his spine. A tingling numbness instantly spread throughout his body, as though all his strength had dispersed. His legs buckled, and he collapsed onto the ground!
What the hell was that?
Wei Gongcheng's heart went cold. He could vaguely sense something clinging to his back...
"Since I knew you were of the Wind Serpent clan, naturally I knew you could summon Yuchi Peng with an eruption of Qi and Blood. How could I let you succeed?"
A flash of astonishment crossed Wei Gongcheng's eyes. He even knew that?
That descendants of the Wind Serpent could activate their bloodline to summon the Heavenly Peng was an absolute Lineage secret, known only to the direct heirs of each generation. Even the secondary branches of the Yuchi Household and Wei Household were kept in the dark. How had this man learned of it?
Could it be...
At the thought of a certain possibility, Wei Gongcheng's heart turned icy cold!
"Speak. Who was the person who controlled Ghost Child and then contacted you?" The old man approached, step by step.
"What are you talking about?" Wei Gongcheng asked, panting heavily.
The damned thing on his back seemed capable of sucking out his vital essence. A moment ago, his whole body had merely been numb and weak, but now he could feel the vital essence he had gathered disappearing bit by bit!
"Why play dumb, General Wei?" The old man put away his smile, his voice turning eerie. "The Wind Serpent bloodline may be troublesome, but that's all it is. With your abilities, you couldn't possibly have guessed our plans. Yet when you divided your forces today, you separated the puppets from the real people completely. Clearly, an expert was advising you. You wanted to lure me out, didn't you?"
The person behind Ghost Child?
Wei Gongcheng was puzzled. That ordinary scholar could command Ghost Child?
Yet he sneered. "Since you guessed that, you still dared show yourself?"
"You wanted to lure me out, but did I not want to get information out of you as well?" The old man sneered. "Who outmaneuvers whom will depend on our respective abilities, won't it?"
"I think so too!" Wei Gongcheng's face twitched. He wanted to sneer as well, but unfortunately, his entire body was paralyzed. He could not even control his facial muscles, managing only a faint twitch to show he would not concede the upper hand.
"Stop struggling..." The old man approached step by step, walking straight up to Wei Gongcheng. At some point, four or five objects resembling steel needles had appeared in his hand, making Wei Gongcheng's eyelids twitch.
"What you're carrying on your back is the Mother and Child Ghosts. Once they latch on and their poison enters your body, even the most capable martial warrior can't move a fraction. Thinking of biting your tongue to unleash your Qi and Blood? Dream on..."
As he spoke, he drove a steel needle straight into Wei Gongcheng's chin, all the way up to the crown of his head. An unprecedented pain nearly made Wei Gongcheng pass out on the spot!
As members of a vassal Lineage, they had undergone training to withstand torture since childhood. Yet no torture had ever felt remotely as terrifyingly painful as this.
And what was horrifying was that despite such agony, every muscle in his body remained slack. He could not even tense them. Being tortured like a piece of dead flesh was enough to break a person in no ordinary way...
"It hurts, doesn't it?" The old man's voice remained exceedingly gentle, yet his eyes held the excited pleasure of tormenting another. "Even in such pain, you don't have the strength to grit your teeth. I wasn't lying, was I?"
Wei Gongcheng stared fixedly at him. In those few seconds, cold sweat had already soaked his clothes, yet he truly could not muster the slightest strength.
"General Wei... since I've been so candid, why don't you be a little candid too?" The old man took out a second steel needle and aimed it at the other side of his chin. "Who exactly is the person advising you from behind the scenes?"
Wei Gongcheng's expression twisted hideously, but he stubbornly endured without speaking.
Seeing this, the old man inserted the second needle without hesitation!
Wei Gongcheng's eyes widened. The man inserted the second needle incredibly slowly, driving it bit by bit into flesh, through bone and meridians. It felt as though hundreds of millions of insects were crawling beneath his skin. That icy agony intensified little by little, almost swallowing his entire consciousness!
"No hurry... we have plenty of time!" The old man's smile grew ever kinder. "Each time I ask and you don't answer, I'll insert another needle. Did you know? That deputy general named Lu Jiaming was a tough nut too, but he only endured four needles. Tell me... how many can you endure?"
"You!!" Wei Gongcheng's eyes nearly split at the corners, bloodshot as he stared at the man. If looks could kill, the old man would have been torn into ten thousand pieces.
"Don't make such a frightening face..." Yet the old man smiled all the more happily. "We still have plenty of time..."
"General... avenge our brothers!!"
Watching the two trails of bloody tears stream from Wei Gongcheng's eyes and hearing the roar he forced out with the last of his strength, the old man shook his head in amusement. "Your general... can't hear you. Within my spell, only I can hear your voice. Otherwise, did you think those brothers of yours... hmm?"
Mid-sentence, the old man's expression suddenly froze. He frowned and crouched down. Wei Gongcheng had fallen to his knees, his head thrown back as he wept blood and roared in fury, but after that roar, he had frozen in that very instant!
"Dead?"
The old man checked the artery in his neck, and his expression instantly changed in shock!
How could this happen?
The Mother and Child Ghosts' poison paralyzed the nerves. This fellow should not have had the strength to kill himself. Even severing his own heart meridians would require gathering his Qi and Blood. Completely paralyzed, he should not have been able to commit suicide...
A bloodline Secret Method?
A trace of vexation crossed the old man's face. He rose and was just about to withdraw his spell when he felt an incomparably terrifying surge of Sha Qi bearing down on him!
Shocked, he whipped his head around, only to discover that, at some unknown point, a towering figure carrying a large saber had begun walking toward him through the darkness.
The man could not see his surroundings clearly, and every step was cautious and slow, but towering fury brewed in his eyes!
"Yuchi Peng..."
The old man glanced at Wei Gongcheng, who was no longer breathing, then chuckled. "So that's it. You used your own life to summon your general?"
He beckoned, and a misshapen creature whose form could not be clearly discerned crawled off Wei Gongcheng's body. A closer look revealed strange figures writhing everywhere in the surrounding darkness, exactly like the thing that had clung to Wei Gongcheng's back. They were so densely packed that the sight made one's hair stand on end.
"Mister Miao kept stopping me from acting against you, saying that you, Yuchi Peng, must never be confronted head-on!" The old man let out a sinister cackle. "I refuse to believe it. Today, I'll see for myself what you're capable of-the strongest head of the Yuchi Household in all its generations!"
"Hei Wu... he's made his move!"
At the hot spring in the mountains, Mister Miao, already dressed, looked toward Liuzhou City and spoke as though sensing something.
"As expected..." Master Huang kept his head lowered, continuing to work on his carving of Wang Ye without looking up. "When you were there to restrain him, he held himself back a little. Now that neither of us is in Liuzhou City, it would be strange if that combative nature of his let him hold back..."
After a pause, he added, "But it isn't a bad thing. Since he's willing to take on Yuchi Peng, his abilities should allow him to keep the man trapped for some time."
"That's not what worries me..." Mister Miao shook his head gravely. "I keep feeling we've miscalculated. We shouldn't have left him in Liuzhou City. We should have had him come guard us instead."
"I told you, you're overthinking it..." Master Huang rolled his eyes. He was about to say more, but something he caught out of the corner of his eye suddenly startled him so badly that he nearly jumped!
Mister Miao sensed it as well and abruptly looked over. At some unknown point, a towering figure had appeared ten meters away. It was none other than Ghost Child, dressed in coarse hemp clothing!
"How did he track us down?" Master Huang instantly lost his composure.
Mister Miao, however, looked behind Ghost Child. "Since you're here, why not come out and meet us?"