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“Xu Shuangtze!” Ying Kai approached on his sword, looking at the young disciple in Xu Shuangtze’s arms with a tense expression, “How is he?”
Xu Shuangtze should not have come to Dai Mountain, but in this situation, no one cared about that anymore.
The Ding Xian Mausoleum’s hall which was above ground had half collapsed, and the corpse miasma was like a vast, black fog shrouding the ground up to the sky. Hordes of awakened corpses wandered out and gathered from all sides of the wilderness, dragging their feet and hobbling closer to the cultivators.
Not far away, the corpse of the Lotus Immortal was in mid-air, surrounded by three men—Changsun Chengfeng, Bai Xian and Yuchi Xiao—but it seemed that the trio could not hold him back for long.
Yuchi Xiao had to keep a close eye on the Lotus Immortal, but could not help worrying about the situation on the other side. At this moment, his expression showed an indescribable anxiety.  Xu Shuangtze released the hand that was pressing against Gong Wei’s wound. The hideous gash had stopped bleeding, but was still split open, which appeared horrifying.
“He is fine.” He spoke calmly and finally looked away from Gong Wei’s pale face and glanced at Ying Kai. For reasons unknown, he also looked towards Yuchi Rui in the distance who was urgently being treated by the Medical Sect’s disciples.
“Can’t let the awakened corpses escape.” He abruptly said before another pause and then he urged, “Leave this to me, you go after the puppet master.”
Ying Kai wandered the world together with him in their youth, he knew full well that once Xu Shuangtze lended a hand, there was no situation he could not resolve. Nodding, he said, “Okay!” Just as he was about to leave on his sword, he made an unexpected discovery, “—Where is No Way Out? Didn’t you bring it?”
Xu Shuangtze replied, “I didn’t.” ”
“Then how…”
Xu Shuangtze made no response and waved at the nearest medical disciple to beckon him over. The young disciple stepped forward immediately as he panicked before bowing politely. Then, he saw Lord Xu grab his sword, which was hanging from his waist.
The disciples of Mu Duozhu’s Golden Boat Medical Sect specialise in medicine. Their swordsmanship was mediocre, so this sword was also extremely unremarkable. Yet, as Xu Shuangtze grasped the hilt of the sword, his overwhelming spiritual power channeled into the blade. In an instant, the sword glare burst out in a cold light, which startled the young discipline so much that he retreated by a few steps.
Xu Shuangtze said, “Let’s go.”
There was no room for hesitation and Ying Kai gritted his teeth, “Chengfeng, come here. Stay and assist Lord Xu, and remember not to let go of any awakened corpses.” Then, he turned to Xu Shuangtze, “Stay alert!”
Immediately after, he raced on his sword towards the distance. The corpse of the Lotus Immortal, which was being controlled by a puppet master, flew out of Dai Mountain in an instant with both Ying Kai and Yuchi Xiao in hot pursuit.
Back on the ground, figures could be seen swaying in the surrounding black fog. They were the awakened corpses, who were stumbling about and slowly approaching the crowd.  The deceased great masters had already been subdued and laid down to rest in the Ding Xian Mausoleum.
However, there were still many cultivators’ corpses, which they had not had time to deal with. They burst out the instant the barrier formation broke. At this point, they came so near that their tattered burial robes and rotten faces could be clearly seen.
The young medical disciple whose knees went weak from Xu Shuangtze’s imposing aura held back his trembling and cried, “Lord-Lord Xu, please leave the patient to me. I’ll do my best to treat…”
But Xu Shuangtze didn’t seem to hear him.
He stood with the sword in his right hand, and the overbearing pressure emanating from the sword made the air blaze with heat, and with his left hand, he took Gong Wei into his arms again, and spoke without even turning his head, “Stay back.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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It was simply an utter and unilateral massacre.
Xu Shuangtze steadily moved towards the mass of corpses and left a trail of countless remains with every step. When he took his seventh step, the last sword glare destroyed every single corpse, shattering their frames into mere bone fragments, which crumbled all over the ground.
Xu Shuangtze turned around and raised his right hand, blocking Gong Wei in his sleeves as blood and bone rained from the sky.
The surrounding wilderness transformed into a horrifying scene from Hell and everyone fell silent. The chilly wind whipped past the corpses and a disciple suddenly shivered and said, “These, these are all our seniors…”
Indeed, these corpses belonged to seniors from esteemed major families, and if Ying Kai were here, he would never dare to deal with them so viciously and swiftly.
Xu Shuangtze glanced coldly at that disciple.
Changsun Chengfeng’s heart tightened but before he had time to chide the disciple, he saw that Xu Shuangtze’s sword glare had reached the door of the Mausoleum.
He moved so fast that even Changsun Chengfeng had no time to summon the mechanical soldiers to aid him. The crowd of disciples felt their hearts stop and the cold glow of the sword’s blade reflected in their pupils—
But at the next moment, that powerful sword arc swept up across everyone’s heads, dispersing the dense, black fog, that had spanned a radius of several meters, with pure spiritual power.
Thud!
Several disciples felt a weakness in their knees and knelt onto the ground in a cold sweat. They could only get up after a long time.
Xu Shuangtze casually threw the sword to the young medical cultivator and did not look back at the crowd. He pressed his thumb between Gong Wei’s eyebrows and commanded in a low voice, “Release.”
There was a compelling force carried in this voice as Gong Wei’s body convulsed, unlocking his sea of consciousness.
A ray of spiritual power immediately poured from Xu Shuangtze’s fingertips into his body, flowing to his consciousness and into his limbs, tightly latching onto the Puppet Silk, which constantly extended into the spiritual veins.
Even if the Medical Sect Master came in person, he might not have steadier hands than Xu Shuangtze, nor carry out the treatment with higher precision.
Gong Wei’s upper body stiffened uncontrollably, but Xu Shuangtze pinned him down firmly using his left hand and he could no longer struggle. With his right hand, a gleaming puppet thread seemed to be attached to Xu Shuangtze’s fingertips using spiritual power. With this, the threads were gradually extracted from Gong Wei’s body. It became longer and thinner as it spun out, but did not break off despite its length of several meters.
A medical disciple was surprised and exclaimed, “How, how can he survive…”
When puppet silk enters a living human body, it consumes a large amount of the host’s flesh and blood through the spiritual veins. With time, it grows longer and extends deeper within the body. Most cultivators cannot survive an encounter with the puppet silk. Yet, this low-level disciple from the Cang Yang Sect actually did. One can only imagine the intensity of the pain he must have endured.
“Ahem!” Changsun Chengfeng frowned and gestured to others not to spew nonsense, and said embarrassedly, “Young Master Xiang is worthy to be Lord Xu’s beloved disciple. He is really fortunate.”
Everyone’s first reaction when they heard this was, Cang Yang Sect Master has personally accepted a disciple? How had no one heard of such major news?
Under the curious gaze of everyone, Xu Shuangtze neither confirmed nor denied. He only said to Gong Wei, “Don’t move.”
It could have been Gong Wei’s illusion, but these two spoken words were gentle and deep, bringing him an indescribable warmth. Gong Wei opened his eyes to get a clearer view, but his gaze was blurred. Even though he was inches away, he could only make out the profile of Xu Shuangtze.
Xu Bai is still very good-looking, he suddenly thought in a daze.
Many years ago at the Correctional Palace, when he was being taught via the brush strokes on how to write, he recalled how the cicadas chirped out the window. Then he also raised his head to look up at Xu Shuangtze’s calm face.
At that time, he was still very young and sat cross-legged on a cushion in front of Xu Shuangtze. He always leaned back into his arms. Xu Shuangtze’s robes always carried a faint fragrance of winter’s pine. He liked it so much that sometimes, he would deliberately turn his head just to smell it. Xu Shuangtze would always straighten back his head and say, “Write properly.”
His voice was also gentle and deep, which warmed up Gong Wei’s ears.
It was just that, this warmth didn’t stay with him for long.
When Gong Wei grew up in a blink of an eye, it would seem that he became someone Xu Shuangtze disliked. Later on, when he recalled Xu Shuangtze’s voice, those that first came to his mind were the cold, harsh and unrelenting reprimands.
A trace of grievance appeared in Gong Wei’s groggy consciousness, his lips opened weakly, but only made a few faint breathing sounds.
Xu Shuangtze noticed this and with his finger still twirling the shiny puppet silk, he gently pressed his own head against Gong Wei’s cold sweaty forehead, comforting him, “Almost done.”
At that moment, he raised his hand with force to completely extract the last trace of puppet silk from between Gong Wei’s brows. The thread snapped at the end.
“Ah!”
Gong Wei screamed hoarsely and sharply. The shocking pain made him writhe violently but he was clasped in Xu Shuangtze’s powerful grip. At the same time, the puppet silk exploded into a bright light and prepared to dig back into Gong Wei’s spiritual veins after sensing his blood. Xu Shuangtze glared fiercely at it and a pure gold flame suddenly burst from his fingertips and fired in its direction!
The entire puppet silk thread was scorched by the golden fire and finally dropped to the ground weakly amid the crackling sound, losing every last bit of its spiritual power.
The nervous medical disciples crowding around heaved a sigh of relief.
But not everyone was at ease and a cultivator asked suspiciously, “Huh, what’s going on?”
The flames gradually dissipated, however, the torched puppet silk did not crumble into ash, but remained on the ground. The entire length of the thread turned a horrific blood-red and gave off a glowing eeriness, much like a venomous snake against the ash-grey surroundings.
The crimson lustre reflected in Xu Shuangtze’s eyes and his expression finally changed.
At this point, blood oozed out of Gong Wei’s nasal cavity and then suddenly he threw up a big mouthful of blood!
“Changsun Chengfeng——!” Xu Shuangtze suddenly stood up.
A few steps away, Changsun Chengfeng’s expression was blank, and he couldn’t believe his eyes. Xu Shuangtze raised his hand in the air, blue veins could be clearly seen throbbing under the white skin. The Artefact Sect Master staggered, then flew over uncontrollably at once and was grabbed at his collar by Xu Shuangtze. He was actually yanked here from a distance!
Xu Shuangtze articulated each word, “This is no ordinary puppet silk, it’s the soldier silk.
—The venom was ten-million-fold more potent than regular puppet silk. This was a legendary lethal weapon passed down to every foremost disciple of the Changsun family, the Dual Elemental Divine Soldier Silk!
Changsun Chengfeng was forced to look at the bloodied thread in front of him at close range. If one were sharp enough, they could see that his pupils were trembling profusely at this moment.
“Artefact Sect Master,” Xu Shuangtze said in a cold voice harbouring a clear killing intent, “I want an explanation.”
“Cough—”
Another mouthful of warm blood spurted out of Gong Wei’s lips and the frail body of the little mei demon finally succumbed to the damage, went limp and closed his eyes.
The people around panicked and exclaimed endlessly. The Artefact Sect Master seemed to be yelling something madly, but Gong Wei could not hear a thing. He could only feel Xu Shuangtze’s hand pressing between his eyebrows, and a stream of spiritual power as vast as the raging seas continuously being channeled into his body, desperately maintaining any trace of his heartbeat.
“You won’t die.” Xu Shuangtze leaned close to his ear and whispered.
In the midst of the chaos, his voice remained stable and strong. With each word, his breath gently ruffled Gong Wei’s hair. In a daze, Gong Wei seemed to have felt the touch of Xu Shuangtze’s cold lips on his skin.
Did you just give me a kiss? He thought.
Xu Shuangtze continued, “Sleep.”
The last word he spoke took away Gong Wei’s consciousness.
Everything around him was spinning fast and moving away from him. His primordial soul seemed to have lost all gravity and fell into an abyss, with a distant dazzling ray of light at the end—
Immediately afterward, the winds from a time long ago blew gently across. Sunlight pierced through treetops, shining mottled rays through the elaborately carved windows of the Correctional Palace.
A youth leaned on the window sill and curiously reached out his hand to catch a falling peach blossom petal. He was about to put it in his mouth, but it was swept away by another figure on the other side of the table. The other party frowned and said, “How can you eat that?”
Gong Wei was naturally good-tempered and was not annoyed by this. He grinned back at Xu Shuangtze. At this time, he hadn’t learned to speak in full. He raised his head and said vaguely, “Kiss…Kiss.”
Xu Shuangtze lifted his chin slightly, “What?”
Gong Wei stared at his thin and beautiful lips, and resolutely repeated the new word that he had just picked up, “Kiss…want kiss.”
Sahl: So, I hope those who didn’t like our Xu Shuangtze now feel a little more amenable toward him…  Also, don’t forget that we have our ‘Bad Shixiong’ and some other great works, including an original novel, on our site, go check them out while we wait to see what happens to Gong Wei next week!
Chansie: Next couple of chapters will dive deeper into Gong Wei and Xu Shuangtze’s past relationship. Perhaps this could shed some light on why he behaves the way he does… Stay tuned!