Chapter 09: After the Disciple Comes the Master
While meditating, Xie Bailu reminded Xiao Xing, “Keep an eye out. Let me know immediately if Ling Song shows up!”
Her current fear was that Ling Song, worried she might escape again like she did in the demonic domain, would rush into the evil array to catch her without even bothering to break it first…
Logically, Ling Song’s spiritual sense imprint was blocked, so he shouldn’t know she was in the evil array. But what if he, like her, had stumbled into it by chance?
Since this was beyond her control, Xie Bailu only dwelled on it for a moment before pushing it aside, not wanting to ruin her own state of mind.
Just focus on what I can control.
As Xie Bailu continued to meditate and accumulate as much spiritual energy as possible, she saw a man in black suddenly appear at the village entrance.
The sudden appearance of a person had startled her, and she had subconsciously prepared to activate the Divine Movement Art. Fortunately, the black clothes calmed her down. Ling Song always wore red; this person was not Ling Song!
As long as it wasn’t Ling Song, Xie Bailu could relax for the moment. She then saw the man walk straight ahead without pausing.
Xie Bailu watched the man in black for a few moments and gained a direct understanding of what Xiao Xing meant by evil cultivators having a different aura.
The man in black was reasonably good-looking, but his entire being seemed to be shrouded in a black mist, giving him an extremely gloomy air. After looking at him for a few seconds, she subconsciously frowned, feeling a deep sense of unease.
So this was an evil cultivator. He was indeed recognizable at a glance. And an evil cultivator entering the array at this time was likely its master.
Xiao Xing whispered excitedly, “It’s an evil cultivator! Foundation Establishment! Master, if you ambush him, you might be able to win!”
Xie Bailu said, “How? I don’t know how to conceal my aura to get close, and he’s not like Qian Lang, who was distracted by Ling Song.”
Although Xie Bailu said this, her gaze never left the man.
The man in black walked with a leisurely gait, but the killing intent on him was palpable… Was he planning to start slaughtering the villagers? And on his path, the first house was Auntie Huang’s, who had shown her kindness.
Xie Bailu took the dagger from her storage bag and gripped it tightly, but her hand trembled slightly.
After all, the accidental killing of Qian Lang had left a shadow in her heart. It was just that the larger shadow of Ling Song loomed over it, making the matter of killing Qian Lang seem insignificant in the face of life and death.
Although her own life was in danger, she was unwilling to watch people who had shown her kindness die before her eyes. Moreover, if the villagers in the array were slaughtered, she wouldn’t fare well either.
Xie Bailu said, “Xiao Xing, can you control the Divine Movement Art precisely? Make me appear behind that evil cultivator.”
Since approaching him slowly would surely get her discovered, her only option was to flash behind him and catch him off guard.
Xiao Xing was taken aback, then thought for a moment and said, “I can try.”
By controlling the output of spiritual energy, it could control the distance. However, the Divine Movement Art was mainly used for travel. Because the hand seals took too long, no one used it in battle. Xie Bailu’s use of it for a surprise attack was a novel idea, but she would only have one chance.
If she missed, and he counterattacked, Xie Bailu wouldn’t have time to perform the Divine Movement Art a second time.
Xie Bailu was well aware of this, but she had no other choice. She had to take the gamble. Fortunately, she had made quite a few life-or-death gambles since transmigrating and was almost used to it.
Xie Bailu took a deep breath, pushing aside the thought of the dagger piercing a neck and the sticky, metallic smell of blood. She slowly calmed her trembling hands.
He’s an evil cultivator who has harmed countless people. I’m carrying out justice for the heavens, in self-defense!
After steeling herself, Xie Bailu said calmly, “Get ready, Xiao Xing.”
She began to perform the hand seals with the dagger in a rather awkward posture.
Meanwhile, the evil cultivator had reached the first house and kicked the door open.
Hearing the commotion at the door, Auntie Huang came out worriedly to check, only to see a strange man in her courtyard.
Auntie Huang was surprised. “You are…”
The evil cultivator had no patience for words with a mortal. He moved in a flash, appearing in front of Auntie Huang and reaching out to rip out her heart.
Auntie Huang couldn’t react at all, her eyes widening instinctively. The next moment, a warm gush of blood sprayed all over her face.
Am I going to die like this? she thought. I haven’t even seen my daughter get married yet. I don’t want to die…
Huh? Why don’t I feel any pain?
Auntie Huang looked closely and saw that someone had appeared behind the strange man, and a large hole had been torn in his neck. He was gasping for breath, his mouth open, but unable to inhale anything.
“Ahhh…” Auntie Huang couldn’t help but scream in terror.
As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. This time, when Xie Bailu appeared behind the evil cultivator, she immediately plunged the dagger in, infused it with spiritual energy to destroy him from within, and then pulled it out, all in one smooth motion without any hesitation.
Moreover, this time she had appeared behind him and controlled the angle of the dagger’s entry. Besides a few splatters of blood on the back of her hand, she was completely clean.
By the time the evil cultivator sensed the sudden presence behind him, it was too late. He had been careless on this mission, not thinking that the mortals in the array could harm him. His guard was extremely low, which gave Xie Bailu an opening.
Xie Bailu gave the man a gentle push, and he collapsed to the ground, dying very quickly. Until the moment of his death, he was filled with shock and disbelief, unable to believe he would die in such a small village of mortals.
Xie Bailu thought, Evil cultivators look down on mortals, but killing an evil cultivator isn’t necessarily much harder than killing a mortal. Aren’t they still flesh and blood? How noble can they be?
Perhaps because it was the second time, or because the man was so evil that her psychological burden was lighter, Xie Bailu didn’t feel nauseous like last time, though she still didn’t want to look at the evil cultivator for too long.
Auntie Huang’s screams brought Xie Bailu back to her senses. She said quickly, “Auntie Huang, it’s me, Xiao Xie. This is the evil cultivator who created the array that trapped you.”
Auntie Huang had collapsed to the ground, covered in blood, a terrifying sight. Her daughter, Da Ni, hearing the scream, ran out of the house. Seeing her mother on the ground covered in blood, she too screamed and collapsed.
Xie Bailu was speechless. “…” She couldn’t blame them. The first time she had seen a corpse she had created, she couldn’t handle it either.
Seeing that Auntie Huang and her daughter wouldn’t recover anytime soon, Xie Bailu suppressed her discomfort and squatted down to search the evil cultivator’s body.
She had to learn from her last mistake. She had killed the person, so she had no psychological burden in taking the evil cultivator’s treasures.
The evil cultivator’s storage bag was hanging at his waist, and next to it was a pitch-black token, exuding the same ominous aura as him.
Xiao Xing shouted, “That token is related to the grand array! Take it, quick!”
Xie Bailu was very obedient. She stuffed the token into her storage bag and continued to search the evil cultivator’s storage bag.
With the master of the evil array dealt with, she was very relaxed. It didn’t matter if the evil array was broken or not. In fact, for her, it was better if it was broken later, to give her more time to prepare.
Therefore, she spread out all the items from the evil cultivator’s storage bag on the ground and went through them one by one.
All the spirit stones were swept into her own storage bag. She didn’t want the change of clothes—ew, what is this disgusting thing!
Xie Bailu saw something that looked like a skull, glowing with a faint blue light. She didn’t dare to touch it and quickly said to Xiao Xing, “Quick, put this thing back in his storage bag!”
Xiao Xing said, “…I don’t have hands! It takes a lot of spiritual energy to manifest hands, you know!”
Xie Bailu thought that made sense. Xiao Xing’s spiritual energy had to be conserved. She could only wrap her hand in a layer of spiritual energy, then another layer with the evil cultivator’s clothes, and stuff all the abnormal-looking things from his storage bag back inside.
She didn’t dare to touch the evil cultivator’s magical treasures, afraid of being tainted by something she shouldn’t. After all, this was a cultivation world; it was better to be cautious.
In the end, Xie Bailu only took the spirit stones, finally no longer penniless.
She decided to find a remote place to burn the evil cultivator’s body and storage bag before the evil array was broken.
Auntie Huang and her daughter, Da Ni, finally came to their senses. They weren’t stupid. Although the scene just now was terrifying, they knew Xie Bailu was saving them. Auntie Huang remembered the fear she had felt when the dead man had suddenly approached her.
Besides, the dead man didn’t look like a good person anyway!
Auntie Huang shakily got up from the ground, and Da Ni quickly helped her up.
Sensing hesitant footsteps outside the courtyard, Xie Bailu turned and saw Da Shi and a few other sturdy men. They had heard the screams and had finally mustered the courage to come and check. The sight of the corpse in the courtyard made their legs go weak.
Despite their sturdy builds, this remote village had no cultivators or demonic beasts. Their lives were peaceful. They had never seen someone die so violently, and in such a gruesome way. They were all scared, but at least as young men, they didn’t scream.
Xie Bailu said, “You’re just in time. Find a wooden plank and carry him outside the village to be burned. This is the evil cultivator who set up the grand array.”
Da Shi was stunned for a moment, then his face lit up. “Then we’ll be saved?”
Xie Bailu said thoughtfully, “At least you won’t die a violent death. I still need some time to figure out how to break this evil array.”
Even if she could break the evil array immediately, she had to delay it, at least until she had a way or enough courage to embark on her escape journey again.
Auntie Huang then said in a low voice, “That man just now wanted to kill me. It was… Immortal Master Xiao Xie who saved me.”
Auntie Huang was covered in blood, a shocking sight. Seeing the terrified expressions on Da Shi and the others, she quickly explained, “This is all the evil cultivator’s blood. I’m not injured.”
Her feelings were extremely complicated. She had always heard that immortal masters were high and mighty and never cared about the lives of mortals. But Immortal Master Xiao Xie was willing to save her. She recalled the first time she had met Immortal Master Xiao Xie. Back then, she had been like an ordinary young girl, very approachable.
She secretly glanced at her, thinking that she was still the same now.
Auntie Huang went to wash off the blood. Da Shi and the others brought a stretcher made of a door plank. Xie Bailu didn’t want them to touch the evil cultivator’s body, so she used a wooden stick and spiritual energy to lift the body onto the plank, and they carried it away from Auntie Huang’s house.
The group reached the very edge of the array, which was also the edge of the village, quite a distance from the nearest house. Perhaps because they hadn’t been discreet, many villagers were watching from their houses, and some of the bolder ones had come out, even wanting to get closer.
Xie Bailu said with a serious expression, “All of you go back. Burning an evil cultivator’s body might be dangerous. By the way, do you have any oil at home? Bring some over.”
Whether out of fear of the evil cultivator or of Xie Bailu who had killed him, Da Shi and the others were very obedient and fled as if escaping.
While waiting, Xie Bailu took out the pitch-black wooden token and asked Xiao Xing, “What is this? How do I use it to break the array?”
Xiao Xing had figured it out by now and said happily, “With this, you can freely enter and exit this evil array!”
However, Xie Bailu was not as happy as Xiao Xing had imagined. She shrugged. “I’ll use this if the grand array can’t be broken.”
She couldn’t just abandon the villagers. Besides, studying how to break the evil array could also increase her knowledge of this world and delay her encounter with Ling Song.
Xiao Xing was puzzled. As an artifact spirit, it had only ever interacted with cultivators and couldn’t understand Xie Bailu’s compassion for mortals. But it now trusted her judgment very much and didn’t question her. After all, Xie Bailu had known nothing before, but in just a few days, she had come up with the idea of using the Divine Movement Art to ambush and kill an evil cultivator. As expected of the chosen one!
Xie Bailu put the wooden token away, planning to seriously look for the array eye after burning the evil cultivator’s body. An array without a master would become weaker.
“So it was you who killed my disciple?” A cold voice suddenly appeared behind her. Xie Bailu froze, finding herself unable to move.
A cold aura had appeared behind her at some point. A pale arm, exuding a chill, rested lightly on her shoulder, sealing her Dantian. Her body felt as if it had been frozen, unable to move.
Xiao Xing was as quiet as a quail. Xie Bailu wanted to pretend she wasn’t there, but her life was in danger, so she had to try.
This evil cultivator must be the master of the one she had killed. She hadn’t expected there to be two of them, and even more unexpectedly, this master felt much more terrifying than Ling Song. She suspected he was a Nascent Soul cultivator!
Her heart pounded wildly. Xie Bailu tried and found she could still speak. Before the man could kill her, she quickly dropped to her knees. “Senior, I’m sorry! I didn’t know he was your disciple! He attacked first!”
Although the target wasn’t her, it was indeed the evil cultivator who had attacked first. She was just acting in self-defense!
But clearly, the man wasn’t buying it. A tall, thin figure walked past Xie Bailu and confirmed that his disciple was truly dead before turning to look at her.
This evil cultivator master looked to be in his thirties. The dark aura on him was much heavier than the one she had killed. Just by being looked at by him, she felt like she was going to die.
She had schemed to kill the Eye Demon and had survived Ling Song’s pursuit multiple times with great effort, not to die at the hands of this evil cultivator today!
But Xiao Xing’s brilliance was hidden now, and it didn’t have much power. She usually used it as a search engine. She herself had a low cultivation level. What else could she do…
Xie Bailu suddenly remembered how she had escaped before. Before the evil cultivator master could act, she said quickly, “Senior, there’s something I must confess to you! I wonder if you’ve heard of a person named Ling Song?”
The Nascent Soul evil cultivator’s gaze sharpened. He thought of the red figure he had seen earlier.
It was because his disciple hadn’t come out of the array for a long time, and he had seen Ling Song nearby, that he had rushed into the grand array.
He said without changing his expression, “What about him?”
Xie Bailu said, “Actually, Ling Song is my beloved. He was sparring with Teng Anlan of the Teng family earlier and was afraid I would be bored waiting, so he let me go on ahead. I accidentally wandered in here, which led to the misunderstanding with your esteemed disciple.”
Xiao Xing, who didn’t dare to make a sound, was speechless. “…!!!” Beloved! My master is really daring!