Cheng Hui’s heart was totally against this unreliable fiancé declaration. Unfortunately, it was useless. As a corpse, he obviously lost the right to express his thoughts.

Surprisingly, Wu Youzi didn’t show any aversion to his newly accepted disciple suddenly making such a shocking statement. Instead, he sighed, “Sigh… another heartbroken soul.”

Cheng Hui: …???

Wait, is it appropriate for you to talk about such things with a seven or eight-year-old kid? Don’t you feel something’s off? A little kid having a marriage contract with a grown man? Don’t you have any objections?

However, this old Daoist Wu Youzi was evidently more open-minded than Cheng Hui imagined. Not only did he not find anything wrong with a little kid hugging a corpse and calling it his fiancé, but he even showed a bit of delight.

Cheng Hui: …You’re not right!

“Qingyang, do you know what our Corpse Puppet Sect’s main cultivation technique is?” Wu Youzi asked kindly.

The little boy nodded. Despite his young age, he had an unexpectedly calm demeanor.

Wu Youzi stroked his beard, seemingly unsurprised by Lin Qingyang’s familiarity with the Corpse Puppet Sect. After all, their sect was one of the Eight Left Paths, a significant sect in the Xuanheng Realm.

If not for the fact that their main cultivation technique, the Corpse Life Profound Luo Skill, required a corpse as a life-bound corpse, which many found a bit sinister, they might have been considered a righteous sect.

Of course, being one of the Eight Left Paths, the sect’s internal atmosphere was naturally less strict than those righteous sects. 

Although officially they didn’t follow the same path as the demon sects, they couldn’t prevent some people from secretly committing crimes and using others’ corpses for cultivation.

The Corpse Puppet Sect was currently divided into two factions.

Wu Youzi was a key figure in the conservative faction, which focused on cultivating life-bound corpses by collecting various heavenly materials and earthly treasures to refine them. As the strength of the corpse increased, so did their own power.

However, the biggest weakness of this faction was that as their strength increased, the heavenly materials and earthly treasures needed for refining the corpse became more precious. If the corpse’s strength couldn’t be improved, their own power would be suppressed.

In contrast, the radical faction preferred to refine a large number of corpse puppets, winning by quantity. Without the influence of a life-bound corpse, their strength wasn’t suppressed. 

In fact, having a large number of corpse puppets made them second only to sword cultivators in terms of combat power among cultivators.

Originally, these two factions were just different development directions within the Corpse Puppet Sect.

Unfortunately, some disciples of the radical faction were caught red-handed secretly killing cultivators to refine into corpse puppets, damaging the sect’s reputation and causing dissatisfaction among the conservatives, leading to a split.

This wasn’t a secret. It’s not surprising that members of a cultivation family like the Cheng family knew about it. So Wu Youzi didn’t find anything wrong with Lin Qingyang’s choice. In fact, he felt the child was indeed suited for the Corpse Puppet Sect.

“Do you want to refine him into your life-bound corpse?” Wu Youzi looked Cheng Hui up and down, showing a somewhat dissatisfied expression.

Cheng Hui: …Thanks, I’m offended!

Wu Youzi didn’t really think much of Cheng Hui’s corpse. The life-bound corpse was crucial for the Corpse Puppet Sect’s corpse faction cultivation. Generally, they would choose a more powerful corpse if possible.

This “powerful” could mean the corpse had a special constitution before death, like Lin Qingyang’s Blood Fiend Body, or the corpse had high strength before death, allowing it to retain as much power as possible after being transformed into a corpse.

However, Cheng Hui was just an ordinary person when he died. Now that he’s dead, Wu Youzi couldn’t see any special constitution he might have had.

Most importantly, he was missing a heart. A life-bound corpse’s biggest taboo is having an incomplete body, which would naturally put it at a disadvantage. It would be very difficult to compensate for this in the future.

His little disciple was born with a Blood Fiend Body, destined for great achievements. Using such an incomplete corpse as the foundation for cultivation seemed like a loss to Wu Youzi.

Of course, he could gamble on Cheng Hui having some special constitution before death, but that was pure luck. He had high hopes for his little disciple and didn’t want to gamble on his luck.

Wu Youzi wanted to persuade his little disciple, but seeing his determined eyes, he knew he couldn’t sway him.

In fact, it was strange. Even though he had only been with his little disciple for a short time, from his calm demeanor earlier, it was clear this child wasn’t someone easily swayed.

Wu Youzi was a bit conflicted. He could forcibly destroy the corpse and find a better one for his disciple, but… he was here to take in a disciple, not to make enemies. Knowing how much his disciple cared about this fiancé, how could he do something so foolish?

“Um… little disciple, do you want to reconsider?” Wu Youzi thought long and hard but couldn’t come up with a perfect solution, so he tried to persuade him.

As expected, his little disciple shook his head firmly, indicating that if he had to separate from his fiancé, he would rather give up cultivating the Corpse Life Profound Luo Skill and switch to another technique.

Wu Youzi: …

Seeing the child’s stubborn eyes, Wu Youzi seemed to foresee the difficult days ahead.

“Alright then…” Wu Youzi shook his head. He was just trying. He wasn’t too concerned about whether he could persuade him.

After all, in their conservative faction, there were more than a few like Lin Qingyang. Or rather, it was precisely because of their deep affection for their life-bound corpses that they found the radical faction particularly distasteful, seeing them as mere puppets, completely different from their own spiritual life-bound corpses.

Wu Youzi waved his hand again, and the corpses were buried underground by the surging soil.

There were still a few corpses of demon sect disciples on the ground. Wu Youzi asked Lin Qingyang, “I wanted to ask earlier, what’s the deal with these people?”

Those demon sect disciples had turned into skeletons, but their clothes remained, making it easy to identify them.

Lin Qingyang shook his head, indicating that he had been hidden in a secret room by the servants and didn’t know what happened outside.

Wu Youzi shook his head, not intending to investigate further. How these people died wasn’t important. Given the usual behavior of those demon sect disciples, whenever they encountered a righteous disciple, if their strength was slightly inferior, they would be ‘righteously’ killed.

Sometimes, even some left-path experts would find them displeasing and kill them on a whim.

Like these unlucky ones, they might have been killed by a passing powerful figure.

None of this concerned Wu Youzi. The Cheng family’s revenge was for Lin Qingyang to take…

Wait, something seemed off?

Wu Youzi looked at Lin Qingyang strangely, “Your surname is Lin? What’s your relationship with the Cheng family?” He clearly remembered the plaque above the main gate outside said Cheng Mansion.

“Cheng Hui is my fiancé,” Lin Qingyang said confidently.

Cheng Hui, who had been watching for a long time and was ignored: …I refuse to acknowledge this, thank you!

Wu Youzi suddenly had a headache. He originally thought Lin Qingyang was an orphan of the Cheng family. If he was an orphan, naturally, he wouldn’t have any relatives, and Wu Youzi could take him in without any issues. Perfect!

But!!!

This was all based on Lin Qingyang having no parents. If he was just staying with the Cheng family and still had living parents, Wu Youzi would have to communicate with them.

Their Corpse Puppet Sect wasn’t like those demon sects. They didn’t sever family ties. If they were taking someone’s child, they should at least inform the parents.

Wu Youzi had a headache, “Do you have any other family?”

Lin Qingyang shook his head, “No, I’m the only one in my family. My parents arranged the engagement when I was still a baby. My family faced a disaster not long ago, and I’ve only been at the Cheng Mansion for three days.”

Wu Youzi was overjoyed to hear this. A disaster is great… ahem, I mean, it’s too bad, but having a disciple with no ties is wonderful!

Wu Youzi controlled his rising smile, rolled up his long sleeves, and took the two of them into the sky.

In the clouds, there was a silver leaf hidden. The leaf was as big as a house, with some meditation cushions and low tables on it. The tables had tea sets, emitting a faint fragrance.

Lin Qingyang carefully placed Cheng Hui beside a meditation cushion, tore off a piece of his clothes, poured some tea, and gently wiped the blood off his face.

Cheng Hui lay expressionless on the ground, letting Lin Qingyang clean his blood-stained face with a black-and-white face.

Cheng Hui’s death wasn’t pretty.

He thought if he were this little boy, he wouldn’t have the courage to do these things. He didn’t understand—how old was Lin Qingyang?

According to his words, they had only met for a day or two. Forget about having any emotional foundation, what does a little kid know about love?

Why was he so determined to continue this engagement?

Wouldn’t it be better to forget about him after his death and find a pretty girl to be his dao partner?

Why was he so fixated on a corpse?

He couldn’t figure it out!

“Huahui, don’t worry. Once I refine you into my life-bound corpse, from then on, we’ll share joy and sorrow. You live, I live. You die, I die,” Lin Qingyang said, looking at Cheng Hui with those pure, clear eyes.

Cheng Hui couldn’t help but laugh and cry. This promise was indeed very sincere, almost moving him to tears. Unfortunately, if the one making the promise were a girl, it would be perfect.

Speaking of girls, he couldn’t help but think of the beautiful woman who appeared several times during his near-death experience…

Wait…

Cheng Hui suddenly froze.

He… seemed to have forgotten what that beautiful woman looked like.

He tried hard to recall. They had met so many times, and he had a deep impression of her beauty. But now, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t conjure her image in his mind.

Cheng Hui: …What the heck???

I lost my heart, not my brain, right?

Why do I feel like my memory is fading? Am I going to become an idiot…

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