Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 169: Preparation Complete

Uncle Hou truly hadn’t grasped the current situation.

He remembered reaching an agreement with Cen Ling, remembered providing supplies to the cultists. Then, after a wave of dizziness, he suddenly realized his body was no longer his own.

It was a woman’s body, currently standing in a corner of the garden. In his hand was a comb-like Immortal E, but for the moment he had no idea how to use it.

…What kind of evil magic was this?!

Startled, he looked up and immediately spotted “his own body”. But that Uncle Hou appeared perfectly normal, showing no signs of being soulless.

“Are you confused about the current situation? Is the pain from your leg distracting you?”

“Hand over the Immortal E’s, or kill Cen Ling. Do that, and I’ll spare your lives.”

It was Fang Xiu’s voice.

Only then did Uncle Hou realize that this body’s right leg seemed broken. The piercing pain swept through his brain. He needed pills—badly. But this wasn’t his body. His medicine was on his real body.

He turned sharply and saw “his body” running frantically toward the garden exit, limbs intact. He only had the offensive tools and Immortal E he’d just obtained. As for healing medicine… He didn’t even know whether the owner of this body had any, or where it might be stored.

Frantically, he reached into the clothing pockets, rummaging desperately.

At the same time, everyone around him, about a hundred people, was doing the same thing. Their movements were almost identical.

Something was seriously wrong. This had to be a taboo.

Now crippled, killing Cen Ling was too difficult. The only option was to hand over the Immortal E. After all, this wasn’t his body. Buying time would be to his advantage.

“How do we hand it over?” he shouted with this body’s throat, and at the same moment, the same question echoed all around him.

“Xiao Tian!” Fang Xiu tossed the hairpin back into the garden, and Xiao Tian caught it steadily.

The sharp hairpin was still covered in blood, though less than before.

Upstairs, Fang Xiu quietly clenched his fist, hiding the bleeding wound in his palm.

Xiao Tian caught the hairpin and slid it into her grip. Jiao Jiao drank down a bottle of dark potion and suddenly unfurled a pair of raven wings from her waist.

She wrapped her arms around Xiao Tian and launched into flight, shooting toward the people shouting, “How do we hand it over?” Like a raptor diving for prey, Xiao Tian snatched the Immortal E’s from their hands in the blink of an eye.

In a flash, she tossed them accurately toward the boat.

But Cen Ling’s golden cage still held, blocking all except Cen Ling himself from leaving.

Uncle Hou used a series of magic weapons and charged frantically at the exit of the garden, while the boat crashed against the cage multiple times in midair but failed to leave the central park.

After a failed strike, Cen Ling landed atop a pile of ornamental rocks in the garden’s center. His gaze locked onto Fang Xiu as he slowly drew a bronze sword from his robe, sinister winds surging around him.

The boatman shouted in panic, furiously paddling to avoid being blown away by the dark wind. Without even looking, Cen Ling slashed his sword toward the boat, breaking through the wooden monk’s water shield.

Had the ferryman not turned quickly, and had Xiao Li not pulled the boat, that sword wind would have split it in two.

Even so, the sudden evasive movement sent the boat crashing into the golden cage. The boat nearly capsized.

Seeing things go awry, Jiao Jiao folded her wings and dragged Xiao Tian back into the panicked crowd on the ground.

Fang Xiu wasn’t surprised.

Cen Ling had distributed so many Immortal E’s, so of course he kept a few powerful ones for himself. With a soul nearly at the level of a ghost immortal, the destructive power of his Immortal E’s far exceeded those of ordinary cultists.

He wasn’t attacking fully yet only because he was concerned about the cultists on the ground. Whether or not they were family didn’t matter—if they were crippled here, there would be no one left to help him smuggle out the E’s.

“These cultists are injured and don’t even have Immortal E’s anymore. Lady A’Shou, please finish them off!”

Yan Yan, who was outside the cage, looked only at his partner, sweating anxiously.

This was a golden opportunity. If they took out these reckless Guishan cultists now, they could proceed with a clean, aboveboard resolution of the E.

A’Shou agreed that this was the right move. Fang Xiu had handled things beautifully.

She began chanting softly. Black and red talismans appeared around her, brimming with power. Then—

They were casually scattered by Bai Shuangying.

A’Shou composed herself and asked politely, “What is the meaning of this?”

Bai Shuangying said, “I don’t understand the scheming of humans, but I understand their methods.” He pointed at Cen Ling. “Now is not the time for you to act.”

A’Shou furrowed her brow. “This chance won’t come again. Please step aside.”

“No. Fang Xiu wants you to stay out of it.” Bai Shuangying stood calmly in front of her, blocking her path. “If brute force could solve this, he would have told me to act long ago.”

“He just wants revenge, personally.”

“No,” Bai Shuangying shook his head. “Cen Ling is just Cen Ling. Killing just one young heir and a hundred core figures, will that really end the Guishan Cult?”

“To give everything just for revenge? My human is not that shallow.”

His voice brimmed with certainty.

Beside Bai Shuangying, Fang Xiu was watching Cen Ling’s furious expression like a spectator at a play.

“We handed over the Immortal E’s! All of them!” the cultists who had been taken over by Uncle Hou’s mind shouted around Cen Ling. “You promised to spare us!”

“Yes, I didn’t kill you.”

Fang Xiu smiled. He leaned on the windowsill, tapping the window frame lightly with his fingers. “Your legs are broken, but you’re still alive. This place is a hospital. Medical supplies are everywhere.”

“Too bad that golden cage is Cen Ling’s spell. I can’t undo that.”

At once, all eyes turned toward Cen Ling. There wasn’t a trace of warmth in them.

Cen Ling gripped the bronze sword, veins bulging on the back of his hand.

No, stay calm. No need to panic.

As long as he lived, the golden cage would hold. Though the Immortal E’s were no longer on the cultists, Fang Xiu’s people couldn’t take them away either.

All he needed to do was wake the cultists up quickly and make sure the Immortal E’s got transported out.

Even if this round ended in total failure, he could just return the Immortal E’s and try again next time. After all, Guishan had many elite members. It wasn’t just him.

The Underworld had yet to fully understand the situation at the Shrine of All E’s. One failure meant nothing. He would keep trying until he succeeded.

With that in mind, he steadied his breathing. The sword tip turned in a half arc, pointing at the real Uncle Hou who had tried to stay hidden.

Seeing things go south, Uncle Hou’s expression finally changed. He activated his defensive tools in desperation, layering jade rings, protective barriers, and talismanic circles in a dazzling display.

Unfortunately, he could defend against magic but not taboos.

Uncle Hou’s lips went numb. He knew full well that for people like them, when things went sideways, a promise was nothing more than scrap paper.

The cultists had lost their sanity. His magic weapons were useless to them. Amid this chaos, he had no bargaining chips.

In the end, he could only whisper, “Spare me…”

The moment the words left his mouth, Cen Ling seemed to take it as permission. His bronze sword traced a flourish in the air, and with one slash of the sword wind, Uncle Hou was torn apart—limbs, head, and organs scattered in heaps. Blood sprayed in every direction, splashing the cultists nearby.

Uncle Hou was dead.

But his personality still ruled the remaining cultists.

This time, their gazes shifted. Limping and staggering, they rushed to his body, frantically rummaging for pills.

In the chaos, several cultists fell and were trampled to death.

Cen Ling tried to use a spell to stop the mob, but it didn’t work at all. Those who found pills first stuffed them into their mouths as fast as they could, afraid they might not eat enough. The ones behind shoved forward recklessly, terrified they’d get nothing.

Uncle Hou’s body was ground into mush. Blood mixed with pills. His mutilated head rolled along the stone tiles and got stuck in a tangled bush.

The “Uncle Hous” who had taken pills then unleashed all their magic weapons, fighting each other once more. Under Fang Xiu’s cold gaze, this “veteran Calamity Resolver” who had hoarded equipment like a weapons depot was torn to pieces in an instant.

Fang Xiu himself hadn’t moved a single step the entire time.

It was Cen Ling who had killed Uncle Hou and triggered the carnage.

On the boat, Song Zheng and Xiao Li shivered. Even Yan Yan, who wasn’t familiar with Uncle Hou, took two steps away from Fang Xiu.

Once Cen Ling confirmed his people had taken Uncle Hou’s gear, he pulled a bronze shield from his robes and struck it with his sword. A burst of powerful yin energy knocked the cultists on the ground sprawling and shook the boat in the sky.

This time, he didn’t waste time speaking. He charged directly at the boat.

Xiao Li grabbed the oar. Song Zheng touched his bracer. Then they heard Fang Xiu’s calm command—

“Collapse the boat. Target the spatial pouches!”

They acted without hesitation. Just as Cen Ling rushed in, Xiao Li shrank the boat to its original size. With nothing to anchor them, the spatial pouches filled with Immortal E’s fell, along with the ones they had just collected.

Song Zheng activated his anomaly. Leaves in the garden turned into flying blades, slashing the pouches apart instantly.

Thousands of Immortal E’s fell like rain.

On the ground, Jiao Jiao pulled out two more potion bottles. One contained a swirling black-red liquid that looked like human blood.

She looked up at Fang Xiu, then smashed both bottles.

Smoke rolled out again, flooding the fallen Immortal E’s, thick with a pungent scent of blood.

“Again?” Cen Ling cursed and stirred up another dark wind to blow the mist away.

This time, the tactic was familiar. Within half a minute, the people hidden in the smoke reemerged. Most cultists had healed their legs with pills, regained their protective gear, and had much less hostility toward Cen Ling. They practically had “keep my head down” written on their foreheads.

Cen Ling finally relaxed.

His people were steady now. The one upside of being polluted by “Uncle Hou’s” personality was that they knew how to stay alive.

Just as he was about to resume hunting the enemies in the cage, he saw Fang Xiu and Bai Shuangying leap out the window, voluntarily entering the golden cage.

Fang Xiu stepped onto the scattered Immortal E’s below.

They should have been treasures enshrined in the Shrine of All E’s. But now, scattered across the ground they looked more like gray garbage.

Fang Xiu snapped his fingers. A small black dog reappeared by his side.

Seeing the sea of Immortal E’s, the dog wagged its tail excitedly, sniffing around before digging up a red collar from a corner.

It seemed to treat this like a game. With the collar in its mouth, it returned to Fang Xiu. Fang Xiu simply placed the collar—the Fierce Wind E—back around the dog’s neck and sent it away again, back to the hospital room upstairs.

Watching this strange act, Cen Ling felt an ominous premonition.

Then, before his eyes, Fang Xiu pulled out an old book that looked all too familiar.

…Wait, that couldn’t be…

“Yes, I think the timing is just about right.”

“After all this bloodshed, you must be tired. Let’s try something new.”

Fang Xiu spoke lazily. “Let me reintroduce myself. I’m not ‘Hong Shuangxi’. My name is Fang Xiu.”

Before Cen Ling could respond, Fang Xiu opened the book.

He didn’t need to use the Immortal Encounter E to kill anyone. He just needed to use it to tell a story. That way, he didn’t even need full control of it.

Telling a story would be enough.

Targeted individuals: Cen Ling, A’Shou… and Bai Shuangying.

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The author has something to say:

Xiao Fang’s plan was ready. Someone should be able to see it~

Next up, at least, it’s time for Xiao Fang’s past.

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