Having learned from the mistakes of Ming Deyi and Qi Wang Tian, Lin Ji dared not act rashly. After sending Yan Feng back, Lin Ji spent the entire night discussing with members from the other three sects. In the end, they decided to keep the matter quiet for the time being. They wanted to first probe Hulü Yan’s background and then decide whether to inform Hulü Xing.

Lin Ji wasn’t surprised by their agreement. Wu Qi from the Xuan Yun Sword Sect, like him, had benefited from the Hulü Yan incident. Lin Ji had taken Hulü Yan’s eyes, while Wu Qi had taken Hulü Yan’s left leg. That incident caused quite a stir in the cultivation world, and it had also made them a lot of enemies. While those people didn’t dare target the Tai Sheng Sect, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t go after the Xuan Yun Sword Sect. After all, even Cui Yishuang, the top disciple of Yun Yan Sect, dared to mock the Xuan Yun Sword Sect.

Among the three of them, Wu Qi was probably the most eager to resolve this matter. As for Cui Yishuang, she didn’t care about Hulü Yan at all; she was purely after Mi Lu. If she could catch Mi Lu and get evidence of their association, she might be able to force the Mi family to return the half-heart they swallowed, which could then be used by the Yun Yan Sect’s young master.

As for Tian Ming Mountain…

Since the scandal about Tian Ming Mountain broke a year ago, Lin Ji’s opinion of them had plummeted, and now it was at a point of disgust. However, Tian Ming Mountain’s strength was formidable, and its sect master had decades of friendship with Lin Ji, making them inseparable allies. This tightly-knit relationship couldn’t be abandoned overnight.

So, even though Tian Ming Mountain wasn’t directly involved with Hulü Yan, Lin Ji still called Qiu Bei. Qiu Bei was the only disciple under the sect master of Tian Ming Mountain, known for his steadiness and reliability—a valuable ally. Most importantly, Qiu Bei was tight-lipped, knowing what to say and when to say it.

Lin Ji had his reasons for wanting to deal with Hulü Yan privately, bypassing Hulü Xing. He had learned everything from Yan Feng, including the fact that the Medical Hall had once secretly imprisoned Hulü Yan and tried to recover him after throwing him into the Cold Abyss. Hulü Yan held many secrets. Lin Ji now understood that Hulü Yan wasn’t just a sacrificial ingredient for rituals—he was a unique and priceless treasure for the cultivation world.

The excitement and madness in Lin Ji’s eyes couldn’t be contained. So that’s how it is. No wonder, even though the Hulü family had a special physique, it took centuries to produce someone truly extraordinary. This wasn’t just extraordinary; it was like the heavens had gifted them a treasure to solve the problem of declining spiritual energy due to the growing number of cultivators. With Hulü Yan, who would worry about not reaching the Nascent Soul stage?

The only fear was advancing too quickly and raising suspicions from others.

The more Lin Ji thought about it, the more excited he became. He couldn’t sleep that night, his mind filled with images of the boy lying blood-soaked on a sacrificial altar. Lin Ji felt some guilt and remorse, but those feelings were quickly replaced by hope for the future. The boy’s blood on the altar became the threads that wove a dream of stepping on the boy’s corpse to achieve greatness.

Greed is a deadly sin. Even if Lin Ji didn’t act, someone else would.

He thought that the boy’s fate was sealed from birth, and his mother’s downfall was her own doing. It was just a shame that such talent was wasted.

Lin Ji spent three days preparing. That afternoon, he received an urgent message from Yan Feng and set off quietly with five trusted subordinates and the three others. They headed to the Medical Hall, where Yan Feng had found a weak spot in the barrier. To avoid detection by Mi Lu and Hulü Yan, Lin Ji made sure everyone took an elixir to conceal their presence before they set out.

They reached the breach where Yan Feng was already waiting. Outside the barrier, it was still snowing heavily, and the cold wind stung like needles on their faces. The snow had accumulated again, and despite using spiritual energy to walk, they could still hear the crunch of the snow beneath their feet.

Yan Feng, bundled up, was shivering from the cold. When he saw Lin Ji and the others approaching, a glimmer of hope flashed across his blue face. He stumbled toward them, “Sect Master Lin!”

Lin Ji, not wanting to waste time with Yan Feng, cut him off with a wave. “Where are the two of them?”

Yan Feng awkwardly pointed inside the barrier, “Inside.”

“Good.” Lin Ji glanced at Yan Feng. “Stay here.”

He turned to the others and said, “You three, come with me. The rest, wait for my signal.”

The Tai Sheng Sect disciples replied in unison, “Yes!”

Yan Feng, shivering uncontrollably, found solace in standing behind the Tai Sheng Sect disciples, feeling like he had finally been pulled from the brink of disaster. He watched as Lin Ji led the three into the barrier, his mind swirling with malicious thoughts. Hulü Yan, no matter how strong you are, can you really take on all three of them?

Yan Feng estimated it wouldn’t take long for Lin Ji and the others to deal with Hulü Yan. All he had to do was wait quietly. He briefly considered warning the remaining members of the Medical Hall but decided against it. Why risk it? What if they took his place in the Tai Sheng Sect?

Just as another cold gust of wind blew in, chilling Yan Feng to the bone, he felt something even colder land on the back of his neck. It was as if someone was breathing behind him, colder than the wind itself.

Yan Feng’s words died in his throat. His expression froze, and he slowly turned his head, only to be met with Hulü Yan’s ghostly pale face and hollow, dark eyes, staring at him from mere inches away.

Hulü Yan?! How was this possible? Wasn’t he supposed to be inside the barrier, surrounded by Lin Ji and the others? How could he be standing behind him?!

Yan Feng’s face contorted with fear, his pupils dilating in terror. He stumbled backward, crashing into a Tai Sheng Sect disciple, and let out a piercing scream, “AHHH—!”

The disciples, startled by Yan Feng’s sudden outburst, turned their heads just in time to see Hulü Yan’s face. Their eyes narrowed.

“It’s Hulü Yan!”

“How did he get out? Wasn’t he supposed to be inside?”

Ignoring their confusion, Hulü Yan grabbed Yan Feng by the hair and began dragging him toward the barrier. Yan Feng screamed in pain, feeling as if his scalp was being ripped off, but he had no strength to resist. His legs flailed helplessly as he was dragged away, shouting for help.

Several Tai Sheng Sect disciples tried to intervene, but before they could get close, a thick green mist rose from the snow, spreading quickly and wrapping them in layers of silk-like smoke.

“Not good!” One disciple covered his face with his sleeve and shouted, “This is the Medical Hall’s illusionary smoke—it paralyzes the limbs!”

“Hold your breath!”

“It’s too late! Yan Feng’s been taken!”

Yan Feng’s voice grew hoarse, but the others were too busy dealing with the smoke to help. Hulü Yan dragged him into the barrier. However, the once warm and vibrant inside of the barrier was now filled with the same eerie green mist. Visibility dropped as the mist thickened, until nothing was visible but swirling green.

All that could be heard were hurried footsteps, sometimes near, sometimes far, making the world feel like a twisted maze.

Suddenly, the grip on Yan Feng’s hair loosened. Struggling to his feet, he realized Hulü Yan had disappeared, leaving him alone in the tightening fog. Dread clawed at his spine, cold sweat drenching his back.

“Hu-Hulü Yan?” Yan Feng’s voice trembled. The unknown fear pressed down on him like a mountain. His legs wobbled so much he almost collapsed.

“Hulü Yan, it’s all my fault. I’ll bow and apologize to you, okay? Just please stop tormenting me,” Yan Feng whimpered.

Before he could catch his breath, a furious voice cut through the mist, “Hulü Yan! Hiding in this mist—what kind of trickery is that? Don’t think I don’t know this is just a distraction. This mist can’t do anything to me!”

It was Lin Ji!

Yan Feng’s heart surged with hope. He called out, “Sect Master Lin!”

“Yan Feng?!” Lin Ji barked in annoyance. “I told you to wait outside! Why are you here?”

“I was dragged in by Hulü Yan!”

“What’s going on?!” Cui Yishuang’s angry voice came from Yan Feng’s right. “Is this smoke from your Medical Hall? Your people are so useless! First, they die, and now they can’t even control their own traps!”

Wu Qi chimed in from the other side, “Miss Cui, isn’t your Yun Yan Sect also skilled in concocting such substances? Surely this mist is nothing to you?”

Cui Yishuang sneered, “Real clever of you, Master Wu. Now you want to dump the responsibility on me? Our Yun Yan Sect may dabble in medicine, but we can’t compare to the Medical Hall. If we could, this wouldn’t be called the Medical Hall—it’d be called Yun Yan Sect!”

Wu Qi went silent for a moment before responding icily, “Miss Cui, you sure don’t seem worried—still so sharp-tongued even now.”

“Master Wu, you flatter me. How could I ever compete with your eloquence?”

Their bickering filled the fog with tension, until Lin Ji’s furious shout cut through it: “SHUT UP!”

Wu Qi and Cui Yishuang fell silent.

“Now’s not the time to be fighting among ourselves!” Lin Ji seethed. “Argue all you want once we’re out of here.”

As the tension simmered down, Lin Ji took a deep breath, his anger barely contained. He asked, “Qiu Bei, what do you make of this?”

Qiu Bei, who had been silent throughout the argument, finally spoke calmly, “Sect Master Lin, have you ever heard of the Medical Hall’s formations?”

Lin Ji frowned in thought, “I’ve heard a little.”

“In recent years, the Medical Hall has strengthened its internal formations—many of them—and quite a few disciples have died because of them. However, there is one formation that has been in place since the founding of the Medical Hall: the Peach Blossom Formation.”

“The Peach Blossom Formation?”

“The name sounds elegant, but it’s actually brutal and bloody. The formation pattern is a five-petaled peach blossom, which requires four people to be sacrificed. The sacrificed individuals stand at the center of the flower, and their blood activates the formation. Once activated, the four sacrifices will be pulled into the consciousness of the central person, where they can be slaughtered and have their spiritual energy and cultivation absorbed.”

Qiu Bei’s explanation sent a chill through the group, leaving everyone in dead silence. After a long pause, Qiu Bei added, “Sect Master Lin, haven’t you noticed that the five of us are standing in the exact positions of the five petals?”

His words snapped everyone out of their daze.

Yan Feng quickly surveyed their positions, and sure enough, cold sweat drenched him as he realized they were indeed standing in the five-petal formation. His vision darkened, and he nearly fainted on the spot, barely keeping himself upright. He immediately tried to run in the opposite direction.

The others had the same idea, panicked and desperate to escape. None of them noticed that the mist around them had started to recede, revealing peach blossom patterns on the ground beneath their feet.

Drip, drip.

The sound of liquid dripping echoed through the fog. They all looked ahead.

As the mist cleared, a thin figure emerged. Hulü Yan stood there, dressed in black, his hair tied up, revealing his sharp profile and ghostly pale skin. Blood dripped from a cut on the palm of his right hand, sliding down his fingers and pooling into the center of the peach blossom.

The blood filled the flower’s markings, creating a delicate, blood-red pattern that glowed faintly in the sunlight piercing through the fog. In the next moment, threads of blood shot out from the pattern, rushing toward the five-petal positions on the ground.

Lin Ji’s eyes widened as he stared at Hulü Yan’s face, “Hulü Yan?!”

Hulü Yan turned his head, giving Lin Ji a slow smile, “You’ve come.”

With those words, the blood lines filled the markings, and suddenly, the wind howled. A violent gust swept over the five, nearly knocking them off their feet. In the blink of an eye, the world around them transformed.

Everywhere they looked, the scene was drenched in red—so vibrant it hurt their eyes. The overpowering stench of blood thickened in the air, choking them like a noose tightening around their necks.

Yan Feng, the weakest among them, was the first to collapse. Kneeling on the ground, he clutched his throat, retching from the stench.

Wu Qi’s face turned grim, “Where are we?”

Lin Ji gritted his teeth, “We must be inside Hulü Yan’s consciousness.”

Still standing at the center, Hulü Yan pulled out Ming Deyi’s Corpse Transformation Pearl from his pouch. He was well-practiced in using it. Soon, black water seeped from between his fingers, and countless corpse puppets crawled out from the spreading pool.

In an instant, the blood-red world around them turned into a living nightmare.

Lin Ji and the others were forced to retreat. They even recognized some familiar faces among the corpse puppets.

“M-Ming Deyi?” Wu Qi’s lips turned pale as if he had seen something unbelievable. He raised his voice and shouted to Lin Ji, “Sect Master Lin, it’s Ming Deyi!”

Lin Ji’s expression was no better than Wu Qi’s. He clenched his teeth, “I see him.”

The corpse puppet at the front was indeed Ming Deyi, his body devoid of any human vitality. His skin was dried and blackened, and his face had sunk in, revealing the outline of his skull.

Ming Deyi, once the master of corpse refinement, had refined countless corpses. But who would have thought that he too would one day become someone else’s puppet?

Not just Ming Deyi—Qi Wang Tian and his subordinates, along with several elders from the Medical Hall, were all among the puppets. The sight was terrifying.

“How could this be…?” Lin Ji muttered, “I couldn’t sense that boy’s cultivation at all. How could he be this powerful…?”

As Lin Ji’s voice trailed off, Hulü Yan looked up, a strange smile spreading across his face. “Shall we play a game? You run, and I’ll chase you. Every time I catch you, I’ll remove a part of your body.”

Yan Feng staggered, letting out a despairing scream, “NO—”

—

Meanwhile, Mi Lu had been waiting outside. He found the Medical Hall’s tools surprisingly useful; with just five smoke tubes, he had successfully trapped the five Tai Sheng Sect cultivators in the mist. However, he knew that his Foundation Establishment cultivation level wasn’t enough to defeat them inside the mist.

Mi Lu didn’t dare act recklessly and placed his hopes on Hulü Yan inside the formation. Hopefully, Hulü Yan would come out soon.

However, after waiting all afternoon and through the night, with the sun shining warmly on him the next morning, Hulü Yan still hadn’t emerged. Instead, the five Tai Sheng Sect disciples seemed to have found a way to break through the mist. They charged out, swords in hand, catching Mi Lu off guard.

One of the disciples angrily slashed through several smoke tubes and glared at Mi Lu. “You, Mi Lu! As the sole heir of the Mi family, how dare you ally yourself with Hulü Yan, the outcast of the Hulü family? You’ve brought disgrace to the Mi family!”

Mi Lu calmly summoned his life-bound magical artifact, the Bi You Sword, and coldly looked at the furious disciple. “Your sect master and the others have already divided up Hulü Yan’s organs, yet you still want to hunt him down. I couldn’t bear it and helped him find a way out. And now, you accuse me of colluding with him? You take the benefits and leave me with the blame. Is everyone from the Tai Sheng Sect this hypocritical and shameless?”

The disciple’s anger flared. “Who are you calling shameless?”

“Whoever fits the description.” Mi Lu sneered. “You hypocrites are so worn out from traveling that your true faces are showing. If you call me and Hulü Yan partners in crime, then what does that make you? Your hands are drenched in blood, your actions filled with malice, yet your mouths are full of righteousness. You bring shame to your sect.”

“Mi Lu!” The disciple’s veins bulged as he snarled, “If you repent now and turn back, we might still consider bringing you back for the sake of the Mi family.”

“In your dreams.”

“What?”

“If I had to follow you back, I’d rather join the Demonic Realm. At least they don’t wear two faces like you.”

“You dare slander the Tai Sheng Sect like this?! In that case, don’t blame us for being ruthless!”

Before the disciples could attack, Mi Lu struck first, his Bi You Sword dancing in his hand. As the disciples instinctively dodged, Mi Lu summoned five short swords to strike at them. However, they quickly deflected the attack with their own swords, producing a series of sharp clashing sounds.

Knowing he couldn’t win against them, especially not five at once, Mi Lu used the momentary distraction to flee into the Peach Blossom Formation.

The five disciples immediately chased after him.

Author’s note:

Tune in for the exciting showdown in the formation, featuring Hulü Yan’s madness!