Vicious Sins
The night was cold and grim, the small town as if dragged into the depths of darkness. Thick Yin Qi materialized into black mist, drifting eerily through the air.
Thud!
With a muffled sound, Zheng Que shot through the air like lightning, landing heavily at a street corner, instantly putting a significant distance between himself and the ghostly creatures pursuing him.
He took a deep breath, not daring to let his guard down for even a moment. Quickly sensing the surrounding ghosts, he immediately fled toward the southwest.
The town, usually silent after nightfall, was now anything but quiet. It was filled with the roars of ghosts, the clatter of overturned furniture, and the collapse of houses, yet not a single human voice could be heard.
Relying on his Underworld Envoy’s ability to sense ghosts, Zheng Que darted through the town with remarkable speed. Finally, after pushing through layers of ghostly obstructions, he reached the town’s entrance.
The stone tablet engraved with the three large characters “Town of Lasting Fortune” was now within reach, and the withered tree adorned with vermilion talismans was already in sight.
Zheng Que quickened his pace, sprinting with all his might toward the town’s outskirts.
The town’s restriction had completely failed, and among the living in the town, he was likely the only one left.
This calamity was not targeting him alone. It was aimed at the entire town.
As long as he could escape, he would have a chance to survive.
In the fleeting moment of that thought, just as one foot was about to cross the stone tablet, his entire body suddenly froze as if locked in place.
An overwhelming sense of terror roared toward him, instantly drowning his mind.
As if by some unseen force, it felt as though something utterly terrifying had set its sights on him.
This sensation was exactly the same as when Cui Ni’er had touched him.
Crack, crack, crack…
Zheng Que immediately felt his body lose control, as if he were a puppet, involuntarily frozen in place. His head mechanically tilted upward bit by bit.
Above, the night sky was deep and vast, with dark clouds covering the crescent moon.
Amidst the swirling mist, like a turbulent ocean, a massive skeletal hand gradually emerged, so immense and towering that it alone seemed to cover the entire town.
The skeletal hand was pale all over, every joint clean and devoid of any flesh. Resembling a human hand, it had seven fingers. At this moment, the three middle fingers pressed slightly downward, while the four fingers on either side curled upward, forming a flower-pinching gesture.
Each finger was connected to dense black threads, resembling a frozen black downpour that enveloped the entire Town of Lasting Fortune.
One of these threads was precisely connected to the shadow beneath his feet.
The night was desolate, with scattered trees looming like ghosts in the distance, and a biting cold wind howling.
On a nameless hillside dozens of miles from the Town of Lasting Fortune, the usual nocturnal sounds of the wilderness seemed to have been silenced by some hidden force, disappearing without a trace around the hill.
In the profound silence where even a needle drop could be heard, two tall figures stood.
The figure on the left was a young scholar. His complexion was fair, his nose straight, and his mouth well-shaped, with an air of refined elegance that suggested he came from a family of scholars and poets. He wore a flowing scholar’s headscarf and a stone-blue round-collared robe, tied at the waist with an embroidered belt, from which hung a warm-textured jade pendant carved in the likeness of the Nine-Child Ghost Mother. In his hand, he held a folding fan, which when opened or closed seemed to reveal faint shadowy figures, exuding an eerie ghostly aura.
[TN: The Nine-Child Ghost Mother is a figure from Buddhist mythology, a reformed demoness associated with protection and dark maternal power.]
The figure on the right was a woman, dressed in a primrose-colored palace gown embroidered with gold, wearing a tasseled floral crown. Her waist was slender as a willow, and she stood with her sleeves gathered, dignified and elegant, so flawless that even the strictest arbiter of etiquette could find no fault.
The pale moonlight fell upon the intricate floral crown, where layers of hair ornaments and tassels cast scattered points of jewel-like radiance. At the center, a nine-headed golden serpent was so lifelike it seemed alive, its crimson eyes like blood not yet dried. The serpent’s mouth held a string of nine tassels adorned with multicolored pearls, hanging down with a cold, tinkling sound, veiling the face and obscuring its features. Only through the shimmering gaps between the pearls and jade could a glimpse of pale skin be caught, with only a single spot of deep crimson lips visible.
Under the profound night sky, even that vivid crimson evoked no hint of allure. She resembled an exquisitely carved doll, beautiful yet utterly lifeless, her entire being exuding a cold eeriness. Amidst the opulence, faint threads of sinister energy lingered.
The two stood several paces apart, silently gazing at the distant Town of Lasting Fortune.
The entire town was now enveloped in dense Yin Qi, with black mist spreading to obscure the view. Ordinary people could not see what was happening inside at all.
Yet these two observed with utmost seriousness, as if their vision was entirely unimpeded.
At this moment, the young scholar suddenly spoke, his tone mellow and gentle. “Vicious Sin: Evil Shadow Play!”
“Master sent both of us to observe this young man, which means he must think very highly of him.”
“But unfortunately, encountering such a Vicious Sin at the Qi Refining Stage. This young man’s luck is not good.”
“He was only a hair’s breadth away from becoming our Junior Brother.”
The female cultivator, delicate as a doll, stood quietly, the pearl veil covering her face utterly motionless. Her voice held no trace of fluctuation or emotion. “A miss is as good as a mile.”
“As early as seven days ago, this Evil Shadow Play should have devoured this town.”
“Master stayed in this town for forty-nine hours longer, already delaying its destruction by forty-nine hours.”
“Moreover, this Evil Shadow Play is cautious. Even though Master has already left, it deliberately waited another three days before beginning to act.”
At this point, the female cultivator paused briefly before continuing. “No matter how highly Master thinks of him, it is now meaningless.”
“He originally had two paths to survival.”
“One was the path of survival left by Master. Master taught him only one spell per day, but on one day, he exceptionally taught two spells.”
“If he had noticed this earlier and consistently used the 【Yin Gathering Art】 to conceal his shadow while traveling during the day, he would not have been ambushed by the Shadow Play of the Evil Shadow Play.”
“The other was his own path to survival. After being ambushed by the Shadow Play of the Evil Shadow Play, because his Divine Soul was stable, he did not immediately lose his shadow.”
“At that moment, the most correct course of action would have been to directly storm into the town mayor’s home and seize that heavenly material and earthly treasure.”
“Then, before anything else, slaughter all the living people in the town.”
“With that heavenly material and earthly treasure stabilizing his Divine Soul at the critical moment, even if he had been touched by the Shadow Play, he could have forcibly broken out of the town just now.”
“And the Evil Shadow Play does not have enough Shadow Play. As long as he left the town, the Evil Shadow Play would not have been able to find him.”
“It is only a pity that he spent the last two days on cultivation.”
The young scholar gently fanned himself, smiling carefreely. “His time was too short, only forty-nine hours, not forty-nine days.”
“Much common knowledge, Master had not yet had the chance to teach him.”
“However, this was always his destined fate.”
“If Master had not come to this town, he would now be like those mortals, without even the chance to struggle.”
As soon as the words fell, he snapped his folding fan shut and calmly concluded. “No need to waste any more time.”
“He has already been targeted by the Evil Shadow Play and will soon be drawn into the Ghost Play.”
“Even a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Stage can lose themselves in the Ghost Play, becoming just another one of the many Shadow Play figures.”
“We can return and report to Master.”
The exquisitely doll-like female cultivator gave a slight nod and said nothing more.
In the next moment, their figures rapidly faded into the night, vanishing in the blink of an eye, like traces washed away by rain.