16 The Sixteenth Pig

Before Li Zhenzhen could react, Deng Xizhi’s voice came again: "Reach down with your left hand, trace a circle with your right palm, lock your fingers into a seal, and retract your left palm."

She barely managed to follow these instructions, tilting her head back to dodge a strike from the masked figure.

"Clasp your hands at your chest, then suddenly cross them."

Li Zhenzhen swept her leg across and formed the seal again.

"Spread them like wings, unify your spirit and mind, and sense the Blade of Blue Clouds surrounding you."

Li Zhenzhen was blasted back two meters by a palm strike. Struggling to keep her hand seal steady, she finally couldn't help but ask, "What is the Blade of Blue Clouds?"

Deng Xizhi: "...The spell barrier you were just trying to cast is the Blade of Blue Clouds."

Forget it, Li Zhenzhen gave up on understanding. "And then?"

Deng Xizhi: "...Ten thousand evils shall not touch, and no thing may invade."

That was as good as saying nothing.

Li Zhenzhen repeated the parts of the incantation she had understood from the male lead.

The surrounding air seemed twisted by some force, and a frigid aura instantly enveloped the entire wooden hut.

The cold wind outside the cave intensified, the temperature inside plummeted, and the icy malevolence surged through Li Zhenzhen’s fingertips into her body, converging in her lower dantian.

A cyan light erupted from her fingertips, and Li Zhenzhen’s gray eyes snapped open.

The sound of the wind seemed to freeze.

The cyan light transformed into a blade, surging toward the masked figure and instantly piercing through his body.

The masked figure let out a shrill scream; his body was torn into fragments by the light blade, dissolving into a wisp of green smoke in the night wind.

The cyan beam of light continued to spread forward, and wherever it passed, the bamboo withered and rocks shattered, leaving behind a silent, desolate wasteland.

The light beam did not stop until it had crossed the entire hill.

Li Zhenzhen sat on the ground, looking at her hands.

She heard footsteps behind her.

Deng Xizhi stood quietly behind her.

He was cold, noble, and otherworldly, yet the cinnabar mark at the corner of his eye was so vivid it looked as if it might drip blood.

With such a deceptive appearance, it was hard for Li Zhenzhen to recall him as the man who slaughtered without mercy.

She didn't understand why he had bothered to guide her, but that didn't matter.

Right now, she had something more important to ask.

"What does 'ten thousand evils shall not touch' mean?" she guessed. "Does it mean ten thousand demons are going on strike?"

Deng Xizhi: "..."

He walked to her side, his long, ink-black hair unbound, spilling behind him like spilled ink.

"You have no understanding of 'ten thousand evils shall not touch,' no spirit body, no spiritual power, and no immortal root."

His fingertips landed on her spine, sliding down slowly like a falling snowflake, gently probing her dantian. "Yet you were able to cast a spell that even a cultivator at the Void Refinement stage couldn't complete, killing a powerful being above your own rank."

Li Zhenzhen probed, "Could it be that I have extraordinary talent?"

"..." Deng Xizhi did not want to answer that. His voice was shrouded in mist, cold and clear, beautiful as a dream. "I heard that an eccentric once appeared in the Voidless Sea who could kill others and steal their spells. It seems you are of the same path."

An eccentric? Could it be one of her colleagues?

Li Zhenzhen was thoughtful. "What happened to that person later?"

Deng Xizhi: "Dead."

Li Zhenzhen: "Who killed them?"

Deng Xizhi: "Me."

Li Zhenzhen: "..."

She lost all desire to continue the conversation. She stood up, brushed the snow off her clothes, supported her right hand with her left, and with a "click," snapped her bone back into place before walking back to the wooden hut.

Deng Xizhi watched her sideways, his voice like jade and ice. "Stealing another's killing move to use as your own—in this act of petty theft, how are you any different from those who steal immortal bones to improve their cultivation?"

Li Zhenzhen stopped.

A moment later, she turned to look at Deng Xizhi. "If someone wants to kill me, I kill them; what is wrong with that? Cultivation is an act of going against the heavens. You, as a sovereign of the realm, why don't you ask yourself how many heavenly treasures you have consumed in your journey, how much blood and slaughter is hidden within, and how many mortals have seen their nations broken and families destroyed because you cultivators exhausted the fortune of heaven?"

"You don't kill, yet people die because of you."

"Rather than questioning me here, you might as well go kill yourself first."

"Because you are no different from those who steal immortal bones to improve their cultivation."

With that, she left the male lead alone in the snow and went back into her room, closing the door behind her.

Deng Xizhi: "..."

Black hair spilled over his snow-white robes. He stood barefoot in the snow, slowly staring at the closed door.

-

Elsewhere, at the Cide Mansion.

"I fear Young Master Yun’s fate is grim this time."

The medical cultivator stood up from the bedside and shook his head. "You all went too far. Digging out someone's immortal root—is that something a human does? The Dao will settle its accounts later. At worst, Young Master Yun will lose his life; at best, he won't even be able to preserve his Foundation Establishment stage."

Madam Nan: "I only ask how to save him."

"It cannot be saved, only delayed," the young medical cultivator said. "The Taiqing Immortal Venerable merely placed the simplest protective restriction on his own immortal root, which is already an act of mercy. It is just that Young Master Yun’s foundation is weak and cannot withstand such vast power. The Immortal Venerable's array is so profound that even if it was cast casually, it is difficult for us to fathom. I can only apply acupuncture to help him linger for a few more days."

Madam Nan tightened her grip on the teacup.

During this time, she had invited almost every famous medical cultivator in the cultivation world, but none could see what was wrong with Deng Xizhi's immortal root.

Except for this medical cultivator, who had studied under the greatest medical expert and saw the crux of the problem at a glance, yet could not break it.

And he even dared to curse the Dao to settle accounts with her to her face.

The tribute received by the Longxue Palace in a year was uncountable. Deng Xizhi occupied eight-tenths of those heavenly treasures alone, while her son couldn't even get a tenth. How could she be content with this!

Although these tributes were sent by cultivators to curry favor with Deng Xizhi, and the other spirit springs and veins were conquered by Deng Xizhi himself, why couldn't he think of her Yun'er?

Deng Xizhi’s talent and comprehension were unique in ten thousand years; even with half an immortal root, he could become a powerful figure.

But her Yun'er was so grown yet so frail. If this continued, he would never make it in this life and could only be an ordinary cultivator.

If Deng Xizhi had even a shred of concern for his kinship with Yun'er, he should have offered up his immortal root voluntarily. Why did she have to rack her brains like this!

Why did everyone have to force her!

Madam Nan trembled with rage, though her face remained impassive. "Is there no other way?"

The young medical cultivator sighed. "Although the world's arrays are myriad, they all stem from the same principles—Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Wind, Water, Fire, Mountain, and Lake—but they rely on the momentum of heaven and earth. Taiqing Immortal Venerable is well-versed in the way of arrays; no one in this age can surpass him. If my master were still alive, perhaps he could crack it a little."

Madam Nan: "If it were you, how long would it take?"

Medical Cultivator: "If I had a year or two, I could try to decipher it, but Young Master Yun cannot wait that long. Let me give you an analogy: Young Master Yun's body is like a canal being constantly drained. In one month at the earliest, or three at the latest, the water will run dry and the person will wither away."

At this moment, Yuan Wenmao stepped in and happened to hear this. "I think, since the array is attached to Taiqing Immortal Venerable's immortal root, if we were to draw out the Immortal Venerable's immortal root—"

The medical cultivator was sick of people who didn't understand medicine but loved to act on their own initiative. "When you pull a tree out, you leave a hole. Young Master Yun's body is already weak; are you trying to kill him faster by punching another hole in him?"

Madam Nan was unwilling to give up.

She looked at Yuan Lianyun, who was pale and fragile on the bed. "Is there really no other way?"

"There is," the young medical cultivator said. "If you ask the person who cast the array to remove it, it would surely be solved instantly."

Madam Nan smashed the teacup in her hand. She was furious at Deng Xizhi but helpless, and said coldly, "If I could invite Deng Xizhi back, what would I need a useless person like you for!"

The young medical cultivator sneered upon hearing this, cupped his hands, and said, "If it weren't for the fact that you and my master had an affair... had a past, I wouldn't want to touch this mess. Since my medical skills are inadequate, Madam should find someone more capable to treat your son. I, this useless thing, will not keep you company any longer."

He picked up his medical kit and walked out of the hall.

Before he could cross the threshold, he suddenly felt a tearing pain in his chest.

He stared in shock at the large hole that had opened in his chest, then slowly slid down onto the stone steps.

-

After the male lead woke up, the already less-than-wealthy household faced even more hardship.

Li Zhenzhen had initially been able to feed herself, but now that she had to bear the expenses of two people, the few copper coins she had saved were quickly exhausted.

Fortunately, A-Heng had not yet returned.

If there were another mouth to feed, Li Zhenzhen wouldn't even dare to imagine it.

Come to think of it, the male lead was not hard to keep.

He wasn't picky, and he had none of the quirks one might expect from a high-and-mighty figure. He basically ate whatever she gave him.

He didn't wake up every day, and when he did, he only drank some water, consuming almost no food. The money was mostly spent on medicine.

Moreover, he was born with a spirit body; even if his cultivation was lost, his body remained clean and untainted. Apart from the fact that his long hair liked to collect lint, Li Zhenzhen felt that taking care of him was about the same as taking care of a cat.

It was just that he ate so little.

Sometimes Li Zhenzhen would have one egg a day, feeding the whites to him and the yolks to the chickens, and he didn't seem hungry either.

Could it be that when she had poked her chopstick into the male lead's ribs, the angle was wrong, causing him to develop diffuse peritonitis?

But don't let his current weak and helpless appearance fool you; according to the original plot, he would eventually return to his peak.

Li Zhenzhen let it be.

For the past few days, she had been sleeping on a makeshift bed in the shed converted from a chicken coop, and she had been frozen awake several times in the middle of the night.

It just so happened that the butcher said his ox had wandered off and fallen off a cliff to its death, leaving the straw originally used to keep the ox warm through winter idle.

Li Zhenzhen spent two copper coins to buy all the straw and hauled it back herself in several trips.

While she was doing this, the Taiqing Immortal Venerable sat on the bed, watching her run back and forth, as if watching a rabbit building its nest.

Every sect had its own set of cultivation methods, but these methods all followed a certain pattern. The Taiqing Immortal Venerable had never seen such a peculiar way of cultivating.

He observed the "rabbit" for a while. "What are you doing?"

Li Zhenzhen: "Laying out straw."

Deng Xizhi: "What is the straw for?"

Li Zhenzhen: "To dry it out and fry eggs."

Deng Xizhi: "..."

His dark eyelashes drooped, and the clear daylight fell upon him, making his exquisite face seem bathed in a halo. "You have become much bolder these past few days."