IVYSCP - Chapter 25

Chapter 25

On the way up the mountain, the Piaomiao Sect cultivators led the way, tense and on guard, wary that a few more vile rotting corpses might crawl out from somewhere.

Ling Qingyue followed behind, looking at the wood carving in her hand.

She hadn't thought much of it when the carving first went missing. After all, a wood carving had been stolen once before, and the Xue family had investigated. Though they never publicly named the thief, Linshui Town was small; anything that happened spread fast. When she saw Meng Qi take the spirit stones, Ling Qingyue had wondered if the town's missing carvings were connected to her, but later she heard that the carving shops had only lost unfinished Liu Qingtang pieces. Two shop owners, unable to carve her likeness themselves, had gotten crooked ideas and tried to steal someone else's. After teaching Meng Qi for a few days, she had sincerely turned over a new leaf, even returning the spirit stones and the carving. Yet within days, the carving was gone again.

At the time, Ling Qingyue had found it strange. There were finished pieces right beside it; why steal a damaged one?

"Careful."

A soft reminder. Ling Qingyue came back to herself and saw the branch stretching across her path.

She stepped around it and turned to Pei Si, pressing a faint smile onto her lips. "Thank you."

That smile fell into Pei Si's eyes and made her thoughts stutter. It was a clear, gentle, stirring smile, the kind Ling Qingyue had never once shown her before. Maybe not just her; no one else seemed to have seen it either. In front of her senior sister Lou Wudu, Ling Qingyue's smile was sly and well-behaved. In front of Yue Shouming and Yu Liuli, her smile turned bright and unguarded. No matter what, it had never been like this: shimmering eyes, a little restrained, a little held back, yet with delight spilling out clear as day.

And that delight was now directed at her.

At this thought, the vexation that had just been stirring in Pei Si's heart scattered like smoke.

Pei Si reached out, her fingertips hooking Ling Qingyue's and then holding her hand. "What were you thinking about, so absorbed?"

Ling Qingyue's eyes were bright, the corners of her lips lifting higher still as she answered. "Thinking about this wood carving."

She lifted it and waved it in front of Pei Si's eyes.

"Me and Liu Qingtang... oh, do you know Liu Qingtang? The one I was just fighting."

Pei Si nodded. "I know. Go on."

She knows?

Before her death, Liu Qingtang had only surfaced once, at that single Ranking Tournament. Later, when Ling Qingyue wanted to find her for another spar, she was gone. Had Liu Qingtang only emerged after she died?

Ling Qingyue certainly didn't think Liu Qingtang had hidden out of fear. From Liu Qingtang's saber, she could feel the other woman's fierce will to fight. Liu Qingtang was not the type to fear a match or a spar.

"The Liu Qingtang just now was formed from this wood carving and a wisp of her divine sense, but in her eyes I saw demonic qi." Ling Qingyue's brows drew together lightly. "I suspect Liu Qingtang may have fallen to demonic corruption."

If that were true, the trouble would be enormous. With her current cultivation, she couldn't even take a single slash from the other woman. It was lucky that just now had only been a faint strand of divine sense attached to a wood carving.

Pei Si's expression turned solemn at these words.

"She and those rotting corpses kept trying to rush toward the town. Do you think there's something in the town drawing them?" Ling Qingyue watched the Piaomiao Sect cultivators clearing the way ahead and sent a transmission through their joined hands.

[Is this connected to Piaomiao Sect? Otherwise, why such a coincidence?]

She threw out question after question, not even waiting for an answer, her little mouth chattering away nonstop.

Pei Si looked at her. The coldness between her brows had completely vanished.

Ling Qingyue finished voicing her doubts and turned her head to find Pei Si gazing at her with tender affection. She froze on the spot.

It was tender affection, wasn't it.

Ling Qingyue felt a little embarrassed under that look. She couldn't quite bear Pei Si watching her like that; it made her restless and overheated.

"I... am I talking too much?"

In the past, someone had also found her talkative. After that, she stopped chattering in front of that person and kept her distance.

Pei Si was also the quiet type by nature. Ling Qingyue was a little worried that Pei Si might also find her noisy. If so, she could be a bit quieter like before, but she wouldn't distance herself from Pei Si.

"No." Pei Si's thumb gently stroked the back of her hand.

Ling Qingyue's eyes brightened. Her mood soared. "Okay."

Up ahead, Lu Yao glanced back and marveled at the pair's leisurely, almost strolling demeanor.

An expert was an expert.

In her eyes, they were reclusive masters hiding their cultivation and status to savor the mortal world's simple pleasures.

"The wood carving?" Pei Si asked.

Ling Qingyue gave it to her.

Pei Si held the wood carving in one hand, her palm and knuckles easily enveloping the entire piece.

Ling Qingyue looked at her hand and a thought suddenly surfaced. Her fingers are so long.

Holding the carving herself, it fit just right, but in Pei Si's grip, her fingers extended a full knuckle beyond it.

She lifted her gaze and stole a glance at their heights. Her own head reached just below Pei Si's brow. Ling Qingyue pursed her lips slightly.

It must be that this body hasn't finished growing yet.

"There's no demonic qi left on it." Pei Si handed the carving back, only to catch Ling Qingyue's little pout of displeasure.

"?"

"What's wrong?"

Ling Qingyue hurriedly shook her head. "Nothing."

When Pei Si looked over in puzzlement, Ling Qingyue asked about something else. "The Immortal-Demon War back then. Do you know about it?"

Linshui Town had some strange tales of the immortal realm that touched on it, but those stories had been rewritten who knew how many times. They couldn't all be taken as truth.

"I know."

"The Formless Demon Lord was slain, the Demon Race driven into the Great Wilderness. Is that true?"

Pei Si nodded, understanding what she was hinting at. "The Great Wilderness is sealed by the Hundred-Sect Restriction. Immortal cultivators stand guard. They cannot come out."

"You suspect there are demons here?"

Ling Qingyue furrowed her brow and looked down at the wood carving. "I keep feeling that the opponent I crossed blades with wasn't the Liu Qingtang I know."

Demonic qi had its distinctions. If a cultivator's heart underwent a great change and they fell to demonic corruption, becoming a demonic cultivator, their spiritual energy would become turbid and foul, the demonic qi ashen or black. But true demons of the Demon Race had demonic qi thick and black as ink, which to cultivators of pure spiritual qi was nothing short of lethal poison.

Ling Qingyue wasn't sure which kind she had glimpsed in the wood-carving Liu Qingtang's eyes.

But from what Pei Si said, the Demon Race had no chance of rising again.

"After a cultivator succumbs to demonic corruption, their heart is no longer as it was. Besides, even if demons truly escaped, they would not come here."

Ling Qingyue laughed softly. "True."

Given the Demon Race's vengeful nature, imprisoned in that desolate place, the first thing they would do upon escape was certainly settle scores with the immortal sects. Why would they come to the mortal realm?

"What's that smell? It's foul."

"More rotting corpses?!"

"Probably not. No movement detected."

The Piaomiao Sect cultivators instantly went on alert, each gripping her sword hilt and warily scanning the surroundings.

The mist in the mortal realm was easily dispersed. They had already ventured deep. A mortal with no spiritual energy who came here would likely be lost for a long while.

"Senior Sister Feng, the mist ahead won't disperse," Lu Yao said to a senior sister beside her.

Senior Sister Feng tightened her grip on her sword and patted Lu Yao's shoulder. "Wait here. I'll scout ahead first."

Lu Yao grabbed her and shook her head. "Senior Sister Feng, this mist is unusual. We still don't know what's inside. Going in recklessly could be dangerous."

Several other Piaomiao Sect cultivators nearby nodded rapidly. "Yes, yes."

Senior Sister Feng hesitated. Yet among those rotting corpses were cultivators of her own Piaomiao Sect. This matter concerned the sect's honor.

"It's a formation, merely an illusion trick." Pei Si raised her hand. A flash of golden light shot through the mist, threading before everyone's eyes like a swimming line.

In the space of a breath, the mist before them parted as if clouds had lifted to reveal the sun. The mountain path was clear and unobstructed.

The formation was broken.

Lu Yao couldn't help her excitement. "Senior, you're amazing!"

Ling Qingyue shot her a glance.

You and your quick mouth.

Pei Si inclined her head and bid them continue forward.

With such a formidable person accompanying them, the Piaomiao Sect cultivators walked with much greater boldness.

No one was paying them any more attention. Ling Qingyue drew close to Pei Si and said quietly, "I think people who know formation arts are especially impressive."

Pei Si smiled faintly. "...Is that so?"

She still remembered a certain someone muttering behind her back that people versed in formation arts were all dark-hearted schemers who could calculate your inner and outer robes right off your body.

"Yes!" Ling Qingyue nodded. She raised her eyes and saw Pei Si smiling as she looked at her, but she felt that smile was... strange.

It seemed somewhat aggrieved.

As they were speaking, commotion erupted ahead. The Piaomiao Sect cultivators' faces turned deathly pale. Some even dropped their swords, stumbling back and collapsing to the ground.

Lu Yao was also terrified. Her heel tripped on a stone. Her body pitched backward, but in the next moment a steady hand pressed firmly against her shoulder, righting her.

She turned. Her voice trembled. "Senior."

"What did you see?" Ling Qingyue stepped forward. When she clearly took in the scene before her, her expression stilled.

Before them gaped an enormous deep pit, over a dozen meters deep. In the blood-soaked mud at the pit's edge, stark white bones were visible, draped with the sect robes of immortal cultivators from various schools.

"Those rotting corpses crawled out from here." Lu Yao could barely stand to look, but she still saw the countless climbing marks along the pit's edge.

"They were all immortal cultivators."

Looking at the robes in the deep pit, they were not only from Piaomiao Sect but also from other immortal sects. It was just that the years had been long. Without spiritual energy to sustain them, the robes had gradually rotted. They hadn't been able to identify them at first.

Ling Qingyue's gaze darkened as she stared at the bottom of the pit. She felt the shallow depressions of varying depths at the bottom were somewhat strange. They seemed to follow a certain order and pattern. Two were close together, and a little behind them were two smaller shallow depressions, also close together.

If the rotting corpses had all crawled out from here, what posture had they been in to leave these shallow depressions rather than the haphazard traces of bodies lying every which way?

"Ah!"

A Piaomiao Sect cultivator tripped and stumbled forward. The person beside her grabbed her just in time to keep her from pitching face-first into the dirt.

Ling Qingyue looked at the woman's legs and feet, narrowing her eyes. Then she raised a hand to brace against Pei Si's arm and tentatively bent her knees downward, as if to kneel.

Pei Si pulled her back up, a flicker of puzzlement in her eyes. Then she saw the bottom of the pit and understood.

"Senior, what are you doing?" Lu Yao didn't understand.

Ling Qingyue straightened and pointed at the deep pit. "Those rotting corpses. They were originally kneeling down there, side by side."

If this pit had merely been used to dispose of corpses, they could simply have been thrown in. Why bother posing them, and in such a humiliating posture?

In the immortal realm, kneeling to the heavens, the earth, one's parents, and one's master were all proper. Outside of those circumstances, Ling Qingyue could only think of one possibility:

Atonement.

These people had knelt here to atone for their sins.

The rotting corpses that had just rushed toward Linshui Town, plus the scattered, rotted robes at the bottom of the pit... the cultivators kneeling here likely numbered over a hundred.

Under what circumstances could over a hundred cultivators willingly kneel here in atonement?

Impossible.

Then someone had forced them to kneel here and atone.

But what did this have to do with Liu Qingtang?

Could it be... she had knelt here too?

Ling Qingyue thought about it. She felt Liu Qingtang did not seem like someone who would kneel easily.

"Careful!"

Before the sound of a saber's whistle splitting the air reached her ears, Ling Qingyue heard the low, cold voice beside her. Her wrist was seized with force. An arm wrapped around her waist and carried her far away.

She had no mind for the intimate distance between them. Ling Qingyue lifted her gaze toward the person who had suddenly appeared.

"Liu Qingtang?!"

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