The Sect Leader’s Daughter Awakened - Chapter 8

Successfully refined living-corpse puppets were very difficult to deal with. However, after going up against a lightning spiritual root cultivator known for fierce attacks, they had no chance of winning at all. Setting aside the fact that Xi Wei’s cultivation was the highest among everyone present, lightning itself naturally restrained yin and evil things.

Amid flashing lightning, Xi Wei stood in front of Yun Sheng, which basically ensured Yun Sheng’s safety.

Yun Sheng let out a breath of relief. When she looked again at the figure standing before her, another two parts of emotion stirred in her heart. However, though her thoughts turned a hundred times, it was all only in an instant. She quickly gathered away her unnecessary feelings and refocused on the situation before her.

There was no doubt that living-corpse puppets were a hundred times stronger than living corpses. These dozen or so living-corpse puppets alone were enough to keep everyone stuck here. But compared to living corpses, the most important point about corpse puppets was that they had already become puppets. That meant someone had to be controlling them from behind the scenes, and that person would not be too far away.

Having figured this out, Yun Sheng’s heart surged slightly. Her gaze quickly swept over the surroundings while she released her spiritual sense, trying to investigate the area. Unfortunately, after all that had happened, the gray mist around them had not decreased but instead grown thicker, restricting spiritual sense even more than before.

Helpless, Yun Sheng had no choice but to give up on this shortcut. Yet within the range of what she could see, she discovered nothing. She frowned slightly and could only ask the person beside her, whose cultivation was higher, for help. “Xi Wei, these are all corpse puppets. Someone nearby must be controlling them. Right, it’s that flute melody. We have to drag that person out before we can properly resolve what’s happening here.”

Yun Sheng’s reminder was not slow, but in truth, Xi Wei had already thought of all this long ago. The reason was none other than that she understood these ghostly tricks better than Yun Sheng did. Originally, she had not planned to interfere. With the hatred she held toward her sect filling her heart, the fact that she had not taken advantage of their misfortune and finished everyone off already counted as mercy.

But when she heard Yun Sheng’s words, she paused slightly and still agreed. “All right.”

Yun Sheng was someone Xi Wei had known in her previous life. Or rather, someone she had heard of.

This was a person even more unlucky than she was, yet also more fortunate than she was. Her misfortune lay in the fact that she had been used thoroughly, not only ruining herself, but also ruining many people around her. Her fortune lay in the fact that there had always been people by her side protecting her. Even at the very last moment, her father and fellow disciples had stood beside her.

Unlike Xi Wei, who had been alone from beginning to end, like some pitiful worm.

Aside from this, there was something else worth mentioning about Yun Sheng: her alchemy. Yun Sheng’s talent and accomplishments in the path of alchemy were no worse than Xi Wei’s talent in cultivation. She was also a genius.

Perhaps it was mutual appreciation between geniuses, or perhaps it was sympathy born from the similar suffering they had experienced in their previous lives. In any case, Xi Wei had a little more tolerance for Yun Sheng than she did for others. Added to the fact that she did not actually want to stay here and help, when Yun Sheng made her suggestion, Xi Wei simply used a bolt of lightning to force back the approaching living-corpse puppets. Then she grabbed Yun Sheng by the wrist and led her away from the main group.

Yun Sheng had not expected Xi Wei to act with such swift decisiveness, and she was slightly startled. But very quickly, she realized that Xi Wei was taking her toward the direction where the flute melody had come from earlier. Because of that, she did not think too much and merely followed the other woman’s steps by instinct.

Unfortunately, some time had already passed since the corpse puppets revived. The flute melody had long since ended, and the person behind the scenes had already left.

But Yun Sheng was not anxious. She looked left and right, as if searching for something. Xi Wei roughly guessed what she wanted, so she reached into the air with one hand and suddenly pulled out a strand of black energy from who knew where. It was faint, yet its presence was extremely strong.

Yun Sheng was surprised for a moment, then sincerely praised, “You’re really amazing, Fellow Daoist.”

Xi Wei always felt a little strange hearing that form of address. Her thin lips pressed together slightly, and she said, “Just call me Xi Wei.”

Yun Sheng readily agreed. Immediately afterward, she took out a pill from her storage ring, crushed it, and sprinkled it over that strand of black energy. In an instant, a faint light appeared around the black energy. Then the surrounding aura changed, and lines of energy that could not be seen by the naked eye were stained with light, clearly revealing the path the black energy’s owner had previously taken. As long as they followed the line of light, they would definitely be able to find that person.

Xi Wei’s reaction was not slow. Seeing the faint light spread along the traces of energy, turning into lines of varying brightness, she quickly pulled Yun Sheng along and chased after the brightest one.

This line was bound to be the most recently left behind, and also the direction that person had departed in. But they had to be fast. Not to mention how long the pill’s effect could last, once this blatant movement spread to the other party, it would undoubtedly alert them.

Yun Sheng also knew this, so she quickly kept up with Xi Wei’s pace. Unfortunately, there was already a gap between their cultivations to begin with. On top of that, Yun Sheng was only a “delicate alchemist who could not take care of herself.” Very soon, she started to fall behind.

Xi Wei did not look back, but she seemed to sense the movement behind her. Without saying a word, she once again wrapped an arm around Yun Sheng’s slender waist.

In that instant, Yun Sheng’s heart seemed to skip a beat.

Yun Sheng’s tracking pill was very useful. Xi Wei took her along and followed the trail, circling most of the way around Qili Town. In the end, they actually traced it back to the mayor’s house, located at the center of town.

The barrier outside the mayor’s house, which Yun Sheng had personally set up, had not been broken. Earlier, she also had not felt it being touched at all. Yet there was a tracking line leading straight into the residence. No one knew how that person had avoided the barrier.

However, Yun Sheng had no attention to spare for that at the moment. The instant she saw the destination, her expression changed greatly. “Damn it, something happened at the mayor’s house. And two of my fellow disciples were left here earlier too.”

As she spoke, she was about to rush inside.

Xi Wei had just been about to release the hand around her waist, but seeing this, she instinctively wanted to stop her. In the end, because Yun Sheng was charging forward, Xi Wei exerted force with her hand and instead pulled her back, making her crash straight into her arms.

Soft warmth filled her embrace. Xi Wei seemed to smell a faint medicinal fragrance, and her expression went blank for a brief instant.

Yun Sheng felt as though she had crashed into a soft embrace. At the same time, that strange yet familiar faint fragrance once again entered her breath. In the next moment, heat inexplicably surged to her cheeks, and Yun Sheng’s heartbeat stumbled again. Immediately after, she quickly broke free from the other woman’s arms. “We came too late. Something definitely happened at the mayor’s house. We have to save people as soon as possible.”

Xi Wei also snapped out of her brief daze. Hearing this, she gave Yun Sheng a helpless look and said, “Once this line of light appeared, the person inside must have already become wary. If we rush in recklessly now, we may very well crash into the other party’s trap.”

Without a doubt, Xi Wei was right. But Yun Sheng was even more worried about her fellow disciples.

If the person beside her right now had been a fellow disciple from the Zhengyang Sect, then even knowing the danger, Yun Sheng would definitely have brought them and charged in directly. But the person before her was Xi Wei. Their relationship had not reached the point where Yun Sheng could ask the other woman to take risks with her. So Yun Sheng could only grit her teeth and force herself to calm down, though she unconsciously looked at Xi Wei with a gaze full of expectation and pleading. “Then tell me, what should we do?”

Xi Wei paused slightly under her gaze. Her thin lips pressed together. Then, all of a sudden, she drew her sword and brought it down toward the residence ahead.

A full-force strike from someone at half-step Nascent Soul was not weak. Added to that was lightning with extremely destructive power attached to it. Not only did it break through the barrier almost effortlessly, the sturdy blue-brick residence inside was also reduced to ruins beneath that one sword strike.

Yun Sheng had not expected this change. For a moment, she was dumbfounded. “Uh, this…”

Xi Wei half-lowered her eyes, still looking cold and detached. “This way, even if there was an ambush, it’s destroyed.”

Yun Sheng could not refute that. She simply had never imagined that this cool, aloof beauty before her would unleash such violent force the moment she acted. She secretly swallowed and forced herself to move her gaze away from Xi Wei, turning instead toward the residence that had already become ruins.

Heavens knew how many survivors the mayor’s family could still have after that strike. And what about her two fellow disciples? They had already been injured earlier. Now, perhaps they had both been buried in the ruins too, right?!

Yun Sheng was full of worry and hesitated, wanting to speak but stopping herself. Xi Wei, however, had already taken the lead and stepped into the ruins. Her perception was much stronger than Yun Sheng’s. After only a few steps, she stopped, then raised her foot and kicked away the bricks and stones in front of her.

Suddenly, a figure shot out from under the bricks and stones, lunging straight toward Xi Wei, who was closest.

Xi Wei did not panic in the slightest. The instant the figure pounced before her, a bolt of blue-purple lightning suddenly formed out of thin air and struck directly onto that figure. Yun Sheng, half a step slower, had not even had time to raise her heart into her throat before she saw a charred, smoking figure fall in front of Xi Wei.

She choked for a moment. Then her gaze landed on the figure at her feet. After carefully identifying it for quite a while, she finally recognized that this person was the mayor’s daughter-in-law. They had not only met before, they had even spoken to each other and spent a long time in the same room. Yet even so, Yun Sheng had actually not realized that she had already been refined into a living-corpse puppet.

Looking at it this way, perhaps the mayor’s family had been the first to suffer.

But if the mayor’s family had fallen first, then who had sent the request for help to the sect? If this had also been controlled by the person behind the scenes, then what purpose did the other party have in luring them here?

In an instant, Yun Sheng felt an immense sense of danger envelop her, making her back faintly chill. She gripped Ling Yun tightly in her hand and instinctively sought help from the reliable companion beside her. “Xi Wei, something’s wrong here…”

Before she finished speaking, a figure broke free from the ruins. Immediately afterward, it fled into the distance like a ghost.