Chapter 16

◎Youthful Spirit◎

After speaking, Jing Shuxing slapped out a palm, intending to push Chi Lu away, but unexpectedly grabbed the girl’s hand.

Unsure if it was due to blindness, their fingers just happened to cross each other, and both hands perfectly entwined together.

Chi Lu’s eyebrows twitched.

She had just been held by Jing Luoyun, and now Jing Shuxing came along. Even if Chi Lu didn’t care about intimate contact with others, being grabbed by the hand over and over again inevitably bred discomfort in her heart.

But seeing that face, which was enduring great pain and almost shattered, she unexpectedly didn’t have the heart to scold him.

She simply let him hold on.

After the discomfort faded, feelings of grievance filled her heart.

“So, I’ve never been trusted by you.” Chi Lu sighed, a clear sense of loss appearing on her face.

“Even though I don’t expect you to believe me, but I’ve clearly done so much…”

She lowered her head slightly, hiding the strong disappointment and sadness in her heart, and instead she tightly gripped Jing Shuxing’s hand, not letting him break free.

“If you don’t believe, then don’t believe, anyway, it has nothing to do with me.” She was a bit depressed for a moment, then cheered up again.

Chi Lu leaned her body forward, almost touching Jing Shuxing’s nose with hers. She carefully observed the patterns on Jing Shuxing’s face, and examined the direction of his spiritual power.

Due to the decline in his intellect, Jing Shuxing lost his original vigilance. Even when he felt Chi Lu’s warm breath, he just blankly turned his face, not taking any action. 

“I have everything I want, there’s nothing I need to get by using you.” Chi Lu spoke sincerely.

While speaking, she seemed to have a realization. She raised her hand to lightly cover Jing Shuxing’s face, “The formation eye is here, right?”

Linghua Sect was extremely sensitive to the fluctuations of spiritual power. As long as one observed along the spiritual power and spent some time, they could find the general range of the formation eye.

As the Young sect leader of Linghua Sect, Chi Lu often did the task of finding the formation eye. However, this ability had long been used to unlock the prohibitions left by fallen cultivators. She had never encountered a formation with such a small and profound range.

She lowered her eyelashes, held up Jing Shuxing’s face, pulled him closer, held her breath and concentrated. She looked inch by inch for the possible location of the formation eye.

Jing Shuxing’s earlobe suddenly turned red. Even before his intellect had regressed, he was ashamed to be subjected to Chi Lu’s unrestrained behavior, let alone after being dominated by emotions.

The curse mark formation pulled Jing Shuxing’s consciousness into the illusion, but it gave this body a space to recover, allowing it to regain some strength. Jing Shuxing tried hard to pull his hand back, wanting to break free from Chi Lu’s control, but the crimson curse mark that flew up on his face couldn’t be blocked.

And Chi Lu didn’t want to give up the opportunity, she firmly held Jing Shuxing’s fingers, not letting him separate from her.

Under the tug of war, the bracelet on her left wrist collided with Jing Shuxing’s wrist.

A wave of intense pain swept over Chi Lu’s entire body. Even though it was fleeting, it still made her break out in a cold sweat all over. Chi Lu clutched the collar of her chest, her breathing slightly trembling, panting lightly like a survivor of a disaster.

Her gaze moved upward, just in time to see what seemed like a circle of indentations on Jing Shuxing’s wrist. The patterns were delicate and intricate, faintly imprinted on the wrist. Just a moment ago, her bracelet had collided with that circle of indentation.

That was the moment when the pain that made her want to scream out loud swept over Chi Lu.

Chi Lu looked at Jing Shuxing with lingering fear, his face full of surprise, his eyes wide open in a daze, as if he could see everything that was happening.

Was this his feeling now?

Chi Lu subconsciously opened her mouth, wanting to question Jing Shuxing, but quickly realized that facing the “childlike” Jing Shuxing, she couldn’t get an answer at all.

“How about this, if there’s something you want to do, something you absolutely won’t regret, I promise to help you do it. This way… can it prove that I mean no harm?” Chi Lu racked her brains, thinking about how to make Jing Shuxing let down his guard.

Jing Shuxing blinked, very slowly, as if he was weighing, considering how credible Chi Lu’s words were, or as if he had been tormented by the curse mark formation to the point of madness, unable to think.

He spoke softly, “Who are you really?”

He didn’t expect a response from Chi Lu, he just continued to speak on his own, “Whether you’re a passing god who enjoys watching the show, or a mortal cultivator with ulterior motives, I don’t care.”

“I ask for nothing, only hoping for a worry-free eternal sleep.”

When his rationality was pulled into the abyss, and his body was dominated by emotions, Jing Shuxing had long lost his usual calm and self-control. His sensitive and suspicious mind, and his obvious tendency to self-destruct, were all revealed in front of Chi Lu.

“You wish.”

Chi Lu’s eyebrows knotted, she reached out and poked Jing Shuxing’s forehead, “I won’t let you die.”

With a speed as fast as lightning, she pointed her fingers at Jing Shuxing’s brow, “Found it, the formation eye.”

She quickly pinched the spell and chanted, using her spiritual power to break open a space to move towards the inside of the formation, creating an opening for one person to enter and exit.

Before going to the inside of the curse mark formation, Chi Lu turned her eyes back, and patted Jing Shuxing’s head, “I’ll go and have a chat with the you inside, and give you an answer when I come back.” 

The flow of time inside the formation was much slower than the outside world. The time she spent chatting with the “childlike” Jing Shuxing had already passed unknowingly in the illusion.

Without the aura of the formation master as the key, Chi Lu couldn’t dissolve the curse mark formation.

But by entering the formation eye and using her spiritual power to block the spiritual vein in the formation eye, she forcibly halted the formation. Having cultivated in Linghua Sect for over a decade, she was well-versed in this.

She leaped into the inner side of the formation, and a strong light exploded in front of Chi Lu’s eyes. Before she had time to close her eyes, a series of chanting sounds came to her ears, almost deafening her.

She quickly drove her spiritual power to reduce the sound and brightness, and listened carefully. Only then did she realize that the sound was not monotonous chanting, but a set of rules.

“Not allowed to harbor evil thoughts of escaping Fengyue City.”

“Not allowed to commit suicide.”

“Not allowed to disrespect the city lord or the city lord’s wife.”

“Not allowed to…”

These were the conditions that triggered the curse mark formation, so numerous that it was unimaginable. The pitch-black inscriptions, accompanied by the chanting sound, densely emerged in the strong light.

Not allowed to leave, not allowed to resist, and even not allowed to escape by suicide, one by one, each clearly intended to trap Jing Shuxing in Fengyue City.

Chi Lu squinted her eyes and saw one of the rules. She sighed in annoyance.

Unexpectedly, it was her unintentional words that caused Jing Shuxing to become what he is now.

Chi Lu took a deep breath, ignoring these rules, and went deeper into the inner side.

She never saw Jing Shuxing’s shadow, until she came to a huge black sphere, then Chi Lu finally stopped.

She summoned two light spheres, suspended them in mid-air, and manipulated the floating light to fly towards the direction of the huge sphere.

The pitch-black sphere was filled with a menacing aura, and one could faintly see the ghostly shadows of demons and monsters. When they came into contact with the floating light, they all turned into ashes and dissipated in mid-air.

With a plunge, the floating light dove into the huge black sphere. Chi Lu closed her eyes, fully focused on receiving the information transmitted by the floating light.

It was almost all densely packed, like thousands of hands and eyes of demons. Some of the monsters were recognized by Chi Lu, they were all monsters that Jing Shuxing had slain in the past. Due to the large number of monsters exterminated, the first young master of Fengyue City was deeply loved by the common people, and many of his deeds even spread to Linghua Sect.

This curse mark formation is capable of growth, it will continuously change and cultivate illusions based on the experiences of the curse caster.

Such a formation, there are hardly a few people in the world who can draw it.

A guess surfaced in Chi Lu’s mind, but before she had time to be horrified by her own thoughts, a sword light appeared in the information transmitted by the floating light. The long sword was like a new moon on the horizon, the brilliant white light was like a meteor bending its arc, cutting open the turbid evil aura.

Ever since she met Jing Shuxing, the image of him that Chi Lu had seen was either described as withered or worse than death. She never imagined that she would have the opportunity to see the youthful and spirited side of him that others had once praised so highly.