Chapter 22: The Twenty-Second Pig

"That is good," the noble girl said, letting out a sigh of relief. "If they weren't here of their own volition, they would be too pitiful."

Heng Yu replied submissively, "It is all due to the Island Master's benevolence."

Just as the first group of human sacrifices was being laid out, the second group was shoved onto the altar. Seeing them about to be bound to the stone pillars, Li Zhenzhen gave Heng Yu a light push from behind, signaling that it was time to take action.

Heng Yu lowered his eyelids. She had expected him to follow their plan: walk onto the altar and recite the lines originally intended for the heroine. She hadn't expected this young man to suddenly improvise.

With a loud *bang*, Heng Yu smashed his wine flagon. He reached out, drew the sword from the waist of the noble standing to his left, and plunged it into the man who had just arrogantly declared, "These people are honored to be offerings to the Ghost Lord; they are here of their own free will."

The fat man’s expression of contempt froze. As agonizing pain surged through him, he looked down in disbelief at the blade buried in his belly, then back up at Heng Yu.

"You wretch!" he shrieked two seconds later. Trembling with pain and finally realizing he needed to flee, he tripped and fell due to his massive girth. "How dare you wound me... Help! Help me!" As he crawled forward, his face twisted with malice as he called to his attendants: "It hurts, it hurts! Kill him... quickly, kill him, kill him, kill him!"

The nobles scattered in a panic. Before Heng Yu could strike a second blow, the Crane-Garbed Guards swarmed him and disarmed him. To slaughter a descendant of the nobility during the Ghost Lord’s ceremony was an unforgivable crime punishable by immediate execution.

A guard pinned Heng Yu to the ground and raised his long sword. The blade glinted with a toxic, sickly green hue as he prepared to strike him down. Heng Yu reflexively drew a short dagger from his leg, intending to block, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Li Zhenzhen watching him.

He suddenly went limp, letting the sword descend toward his chest.

Everything happened in a flash. In the critical moment, as the guard’s tip touched Heng Yu’s collar—

*Clang!*

A butcher's knife flew through the air, colliding with the bronze sword before embedding itself deep into the pillar behind Heng Yu. Li Zhenzhen pulled him back, the guard’s blade narrowly grazing her shoulder and leaving a trail of blood.

Heng Yu’s hair tie came loose; he was practically pulled into her embrace. She smelled of winter, mingled with the thick, murky scent of blood—like melting ice revealing the dark earth beneath the snow.

Since the day she had saved him on the street, he had never been this close to her. She had talked of a six-month agreement, but in truth, she had never wanted him to stay by her side. Later, she had even used the excuse of returning to mourn his grandfather to make it clear he should leave the cabin. Now that the man was buried, what difference did it make where he mourned?

Heng Yu greedily inhaled her scent, unable to resist resting his head on her shoulder.

With such a major incident occurring, the ritual slaughter on the altar had ceased, and more Crane-Garbed Guards surrounded them from all sides. Amidst the panicked cries of the elite, Li Zhenzhen pulled her butcher’s knife from the pillar. She rolled on the ground with Heng Yu, dodging a barrage of blades, spears, and axes. She even had the presence of mind to grab the fat man Heng Yu had only half-killed and slit his throat with a single stroke.

She had known it would be trouble the moment Heng Yu chose to attack that fat man. He could have chosen anyone, yet he picked a two-hundred-pounder. He could have stabbed anywhere, yet he chose the belly. With that thick layer of fat, the blade hadn't even reached the internal organs.

All that "fierce" effort, and the damage was barely half a point. Besides, if you're going to kill someone, you might as well finish the job; his half-hearted attempt was driving her obsessive-compulsive tendencies up the wall. A finishing blow was only polite.

The altar was in total chaos. The hourglass on her mission panel still hovered in the air. Li Zhenzhen checked the progress bar: 34%.

*Only 34%?*

As waves of guards poured in from the entrance, Li Zhenzhen cut down a few and dragged Heng Yu onto the altar.

"Recite," she commanded.

Heng Yu looked confused.

"The lines I copied for you," she urged. "Quickly, just say something."

Heng Yu: "..." Although he didn't understand why, he knew his sister must have her reasons. In a state of profound absurdity, he recited the heroine's lines:

"First, don't call me 'hey,' my name is Ning Songluo. Second, as a high-and-mighty Island Master, your heart is truly vicious, and you harm the innocent. You will face retribution, and that retribution is... even if every man in the world were to die, I would never fancy you!"

Li Zhenzhen: "?"

Shen Que: "..."

The crowd felt as if something bizarre had been injected into the middle of a life-or-death struggle, and they couldn't help but glance toward the person behind the curtains. *Who exactly did you just say you wouldn't fancy?*

Heng Yu closed his eyes in despair after finishing. *Maybe it would be better if that sword had just killed me.*

Li Zhenzhen felt a bit awkward too, clearing her throat. It hadn't felt shameful when she was copying it down, but it sounded vicious when spoken aloud. However, she watched as the mission progress bar flickered with red light and soared to 71%.

*Whatever. As long as the mission is completed, let it be vicious.*

Li Zhenzhen began fighting her way out with Heng Yu. They were like two small boats struggling against a torrential current; before long, she was covered in blood—some hers, some others'. She couldn't count how many people she had killed, and her clothes had become heavy, soaked through with liquid. She discarded the dead soldier’s outer garment but kept her ghost mask on.

Not far away, behind the curtains opposite the altar, the person sitting in the shadows remained unmoved, witnessing the bloody slaughter as if it were nothing. It didn't matter to him how many guards Li Zhenzhen killed. People could be raised, soldiers could be recruited; to those in true power, these guards—who terrified the common folk—were merely a higher class of ant colony.

If they all died, he could simply raise another batch.

But Li Zhenzhen could feel that gaze, following her like a shadow. The person behind the curtain was watching her. He seemed more interested in her than in the ritual she had ruined.

Li Zhenzhen felt a tinge of regret. When she had arrived, Shen Que had just finished pledging marriage to the Ghost Lord; she had only managed to catch a glimpse of his back. Having been in this small world for so long—and having almost become a human cauldron for his sister—they were practically half-relatives. It was a pity she hadn't seen his real face yet.

Li Zhenzhen killed a guard attempting to ambush Heng Yu. Just then, a large golden net descended from above, binding them tightly. Two cultivators arrived, standing on long swords, hovering high in the air.

The material of the net was unknown, but the golden threads bit into Li Zhenzhen’s skin like a knife through lard. With a slight tug, the threads began to corrode her flesh, no different from a slow, agonizing execution. The pain made her vision go black. The cultivator holding the net looked down at her from above, arched an eyebrow, and laughed. "I thought, given the commotion, it would be some earth-shattering figure. Turns out, it's just two mortals." As he spoke, he bounced the net, as if weighing them—the same way Li Zhenzhen would weigh a cut of pork.

Heng Yu, having been struck on the back of the head earlier, had lost consciousness. Li Zhenzhen reached out to shield him, keeping the golden threads from touching him.

The other cultivator bowed toward the person behind the curtain, his tone extremely arrogant: "We are cultivators from the residence of True Immortal Qiyan. Hearing that someone was disrupting the ceremony, and fearing that the Island Master—a mere mortal—might struggle to resolve it, she sent us to lend a hand."

The remark was an insult, but the person behind the curtain seemed not to notice the subtext, laughing, "My sister is very thoughtful."

"Then we shall take these two away."

"True Immortal Qiyan happens to be missing a 'meat-based' ingredient for her alchemy. She is kind-hearted and does not wish to harm the innocent, but look—the ingredient has delivered itself."

The cultivator made the decision for Shen Que and prepared to tuck Li Zhenzhen and Heng Yu into his storage ring.

"Wait," Li Zhenzhen said, looking up from the golden net. Her body was shredded, yet her tone was as calm as if she were chatting about the weather. "You want to use me for alchemy—did you ask for my opinion?"

The cultivator laughed, as if hearing something ridiculous, and turned to his companion: "This mortal speaks quite amusingly. Does she think that when they step on an ant today, they must ask the ant for permission?"

The other cultivator retorted with disdain, "Why bother arguing with a mortal? Let's just take them back to answer to True Immortal Qiyan. The world is full of people who overestimate themselves; if they don't suffer a little, they'll never learn their place."

Li Zhenzhen: "Is that so?"

The cultivator, provoked by her tone, sneered, "What? You still intend to resist?"

Before he could finish, a deafening roar tore through the thick, bloody air. The ground shook violently, and a plume of smoke erupted nearby, expanding and rising at an astonishing speed, staining the gray sky a strange, eerie orange-red.

The nobles beneath the altar fled in panic; pillars collapsed, glass shattered, and screams and cries for help mingled together. Some noble youths, protected by their servants, were crushed into pulp by falling stone pillars before they could escape. In an instant, the altar had transformed from a hell for the sacrifices into a hell for everyone.

Someone finally realized the location of the flames and shrieked in terror: "It's Changling! Changling is burning!"

Changling was the burial ground for the ancestors of the Wuhuan Island nobility; to them, it was a holy site. Now that it was being razed to the ground, some of the older nobles nearly lost their minds. Ignoring the falling beams, they rushed toward Li Zhenzhen. "Who exactly are you! Why burn the tombs of our ancestors! Do you not fear retribution?"

"Why burn your ancestors' tombs?"

Blood streamed from the corners of her eyes down her nose. Li Zhenzhen spat out a mouthful of blood, looked up at the old man's dazed and hateful expression, and suddenly burst into a wild, joyful laugh.

"Why, of course, it’s to let your ancestors' tombs emit blue smoke!"

She waved her hand toward the thick, green-tinged smoke rising into the clouds, laughing until she was out of breath.

"—Look, isn't that smoke thick and green?"