48: Chapter 48 A fate worse than death

The sacred fork bell hanging at Wu Xi's waist suddenly vibrated.

A faint golden light first welled up on the bell's body; it was very weak at first, as if it would be extinguished by a breeze.

But within just three breaths, the light shot up like crazy—brighter, brighter, even brighter!

The Master of Yinsui Cave, who was kneeling on the ground, was struck by the golden light and instantly acted as if he had been doused with boiling oil; he covered his eyes tightly with both hands, letting out a heart-wrenching groan.

"This is..." The Prefect retreated abruptly.

Wu Xi looked down at the constantly vibrating sacred fork bell at his waist, a glimmer of understanding flashing in his eyes.

"So that's how it is."

He reached out, grasped the sacred fork bell, and gave his wrist a gentle shake.

Ding—a clear chime rang out. It wasn't harsh, but it drilled straight into the depths of one's soul. The golden light surged in response, and the illusion shattered.

The Cave Master let out a miserable scream that pierced through the night sky; the sound was not human at all.

He began to twist crazily, the flesh on his body dripping down like melted wax, hanging down limply.

The first thing to melt away was his face.

Pieces of skin fell off one after another, hitting the ground with a hissing sound, exactly like a red-hot iron block plunged into cold water.

His nose collapsed instantly, his lips rotted away without a trace, revealing a mouthful of sharp fangs.

In the blink of an eye, his entire head turned into a massive skull. His cheekbones protruded high, his jaw jutted far forward, and two balls of ghostly green fire burned in his two hollow eye sockets.

Yet his body barely maintained a human outline, clothes hanging on the bare skeleton, swaying emptily in the wind.

The scene was bizarre to the extreme—a human body with a skull for a head, like a monster assembled haphazardly; it made one's scalp tingle.

"Ah—!"

The Cave Master could no longer be called human—his two bone hands suddenly clutched his skull.

The phalanges were completely exposed, the fingertips digging fiercely into the crown of the skull, emitting a teeth-grinding scraping sound.

"It's all your fault..." His voice had completely changed; the clarity of a young man was gone, leaving only hollow echoes, layered with countless reverberations. "It's all your fault... for making me into what I am now..."

He slowly raised his head.

In the two eye sockets on the skull face, the ghostly fire flickered, almost as if it were crying.

"For making me become... a lonely ghost..."

Before his voice had even faded, he suddenly moved.

The speed was so fast that the trajectory couldn't be seen at all. His skeletal arm shot forward, five phalanges sharp as knives, aiming straight for Wu Xi's throat.

This strike was without warning; from the sudden burst to the attack, only a slight hiss came from the air, the sound of the phalanges cutting through the airflow.

Wu Xi stepped aside, dodging sideways.

The Cave Master missed his strike, and utilizing the momentum of his arm swing, he drifted backward like a withered leaf caught in a gale, landing lightly three zhang away.

He stood still again, his skull tilting slightly, his mandible opening and closing, making a crisp clicking sound.

"It's all you..."

He extended a bony finger, pointing at everyone present one by one. That phalange was thin and long, the tip as sharp as a needle, reflecting a bone-chilling cold light in the moonlight.

"It's all you hypocrites!"

His tone suddenly rose, his skull trembling violently. The ghostly fire in his eye sockets surged crazily, changing from ghostly green to pale white, and then from pale white to blood red.

"I only wanted my whole family to be reunited, what wrong did I commit?!"

That question slammed back and forth in the night sky, carrying the bitterness of tears and the obsession that hadn't been worn down even after ten years.

"The Great King only bestowed upon me the Soul-Splitting Technique, allowing me to alleviate the pain of separation from my sister... but you damned people actually dared to interrupt my soul-summoning ritual!"

His skeleton trembled violently, his clothes billowing with the surging ghostly Qi, making a hunting sound like a tattered flag.

"You hypocrites! Humans are the most sinister things in this world; you deserve to die, you all deserve to die, you deserve to be annihilated!"

His accusations grew louder with each word, until in the end, he was almost roaring.

The mandible of his skull was almost shaken loose, and the ghostly fire spilled out from the eye sockets, flowing down along his cheekbones like two lines of green blood-tears, emitting a hissing corrosive sound.

"Only the Great King is willing to help me..."

His tone suddenly dropped, from a furious roar to an almost aggrieved wail.

That wail tightened the heart even more than the previous roar, like a lost child crying for their mother on a pitch-black road.

"Only he is willing to let me reunite with my loved ones... You people only know how to preach, only know how to stand on the sidelines and point fingers... You don't know anything, you don't understand anything..."

He clutched his skull and suddenly crouched down.

The bony fingers dug fiercely into the gaps of his skull, making a creaking sound.

His entire skeleton curled into a ball, the Daoist robe wrapped around him like a shroud, or a thin quilt covering a dead person.

"Enough."

Third Young Master took a step forward, his black robe remaining motionless in the night wind.

"Resurrection is nothing but a delusion," Third Young Master spoke again. "From ancient times to the present, no one has ever successfully summoned back the soul of the dead. That is not reunion; that is creating evil karma."

He stared fixedly at the Cave Master's skull. "Have you become deluded to this extent?"

The Cave Master slowly raised his head.

His mandible opened and closed, emitting a clicking, strange laugh. "I have always been awake. It is you, Third Young Master, why did you save me back then?"

His tone suddenly turned sharp. "Ten years ago, why did you save me from that Hell?!"

Third Young Master was silent.

His fingers clenched at his sides, then loosened, then clenched again.

"When I saved you from there back then," he finally spoke, his tone lower than before, "it was not to let you turn into this ghostly appearance today."

"But I would rather you hadn't saved me back then!"

The Cave Master stood up abruptly, his entire skeleton emitting a loud cracking sound, like an old tree trunk being snapped by lightning.

The ghostly fire in his eye sockets sprayed out directly, condensing into a ball of pale white flame cloud above his head. Within the flame cloud, several human faces vaguely floated—old and young, male and female.

"I would have been better off dying with my father, mother, and sister back then!"

He spread his arms, bones ghastly, as if to embrace something invisible, or as if welcoming a fate that was destined to be unavoidable.

"Humans are the most sinister things in this world! They all deserve to die out, they all deserve to be annihilated! You so-called Cultivators, so-called Righteous Path, are nothing but a pack of jackals in human skin!"

The Prefect stood to the side, listening to this conversation, hearing words like "ten years ago," "saved," and "family gone together," when a scene suddenly exploded in his mind.

It was an old case he had seen in the deepest secret archives of the prefectural office when he first took office.

"Could it be..." The Prefect suddenly turned his head to look at Third Young Master. "He is the... sole survivor of that cannibalism tragedy from back then?"

Third Young Master nodded slowly.

"Correct."

"Ten years ago, there was a great plague in Qi Prefecture. Refugees were everywhere, with starved corpses littering the fields. In the city, there was Jishi Hall, a family of four—an old father and mother, a son and a daughter, who practiced medicine for generations."

"At that time, the plague was spreading wildly. The city opened its gates to provide disaster relief, and refugees were dying batch after batch. Yet, not a single one of the family of four at Jishi Hall fell ill. An evil cultist seized the opportunity to stir up trouble, claiming that Jishi Hall was hiding an Immortal Pill, which could cure all diseases and grant immortality if consumed."

He paused here.

"And so, on a rainy night, three hundred refugees surrounded Jishi Hall completely."

"They dragged out the master, the mistress, and the little girl who was only seven years old. Three hundred people—one bite for you, one bite for me—ate them clean."

"Stop talking!" The Cave Master clutched his skull and let out a heart-wrenching wail.

"I was lured away by the evil cultist at the time, and only realized I had fallen for the trap after chasing them for thirty li. By the time I rushed back to Jishi Hall, there was nothing left in the courtyard but a pile of broken bone fragments. I searched the entire courtyard and finally, in a large vat filled with water—"

He turned to look at the Cave Master. "I found that little boy hiding in the water. He was shivering like a sieve, yet he couldn't even cry out."

The Cave Master's entire skeleton was shaking, emitting a chaotic clicking sound.

"Ten years." Third Young Master extended his hand as if to touch something, but stopped abruptly in mid-air.

"I taught you to read, taught you cultivation, and gave you a brand-new identity, just wanting you to live again. I told myself that as long as you could live well, it would be the best tribute to your departed family."

His hand dropped.

"But ten years have passed, and I didn't expect that you would turn around and collude with ghostly entities, becoming this neither-human-nor-ghost appearance today."

"Then what do you want me to do?!"

The Cave Master raised his head abruptly, the ghostly fire in his eye sockets spraying out directly.

"You want me to forget? Forget my father being alive and disemboweled? Forget my mother having her neck snapped by people? Forget my sister? She was only seven! Seven years old! She was pressed onto a chopping block by those people, calling me 'Brother,' calling for me to save her—"

The skull trembled violently, the mandible opening and closing, unable to make a sound for a long time.

Only the ghostly fire in the eye sockets jumped crazily, filled with despair and heart-wrenching hatred.

After a long time, he finally made a sound again.

"Your father and mother risked their lives to hide you, not to let you become this ghostly thing you are now."

Third Young Master took a step forward, each step feeling like walking on the tip of a knife. "If they could see you now, they wouldn't be able to close their eyes even in death."

"I can't care about that anymore."

The Cave Master's voice suddenly became very light.

"As long as I can reunite with my family again," he said, enunciating each word, each one like it was squeezed out from between his teeth, "I am willing to pay anything."

His bony fingers clenched fiercely, the joints emitting a teeth-grinding friction sound, exceptionally jarring in the dead silent night.

"Soul, Physical Body, conscience, humanity... anything will do."

He turned his head abruptly, the two hollow eye sockets on the skull face staring straight at Wu Xi's face.

There was no warmth in those eyes, no emotion, only two bottomless abysses.

"It's all you."

"It's all because of you! You disrupted the Great King's plan, ruined my soul-summoning ritual; my ten years of hard work have all been ruined by you, damn it!"

A crisp cracking sound.

His entire skeleton instantly expanded, the robe on his body directly torn apart, tattered fabric pieces flying in all directions like butterflies.

Dark, heavy ghostly Qi gushed out from the gaps of every one of his bones, and behind him, it condensed into a huge black ghostly claw, the tips sharp as knives, flashing with cold light.

"I want you to die!"

The ghostly claw, carrying a world-destroying shriek, broke through the air and descended, striking straight at Wu Xi's crown.