Chapter 43: That Look of Seeing One’s Prey Snatched Away…
“Are you truly certain?” Host 6669 asked once more.
Yun Wuxiang: “I am certain.”
System 3339, being extremely considerate and proactive, drafted the host’s binding vow and passed it to its own host. Yun Wuxiang merely glanced at it before giving an affirmative reply in his heart.
Both fragments of Song Yilou let out a foolish, infatuated laugh simultaneously. “Temple Master, how cruel your heart is.”
The temperature in the air dropped significantly, and the stench of ghostly energy grew thick.
Host 6669 couldn’t help but sigh to his system: [What a case of being entangled by a resentful ghost. To encounter this kind of suitor right at the start… Brother Expert really has a tough psychological constitution. Thankfully, my partner isn’t like this.]
[In some moments, he isn’t much better,] 6669 retorted.
[My Host has already signed the liability waiver. Big Shot, please help us out. Song Yilou has truly caused serious damage to my Host’s mental health and is severely impacting the mission progress,] 3339 pleaded.
Host 6669 was surprised. [So active and decisive? Did I see it wrong? That red thread of fate looked a bit off, but it was definitely there.]
The second half of his sentence was mumbled, faint and indistinct, audible only to himself.
He walked up to the side of Yun Wuxiang and Song Yilou, sizing them up. He tentatively placed a hand on the shoulder of the fox-eyed man, his eyes focused intently on Yun Wuxiang’s expression. “Shall I act, then?”
Yun Wuxiang: “En.”
The fox-eyed man didn’t move or flee; he just quietly watched him.
A magnolia flower drifted down from overhead. In the instant it swept past his eyes, a vast, pure spiritual energy poured out in a small stream.
As the flower blocking his vision slid away, the fox-eyed man’s body fell straight to the ground. The ghostly aura on his body vanished; this possessed vessel had thoroughly turned into a corpse.
Behind him, the Ghost Gu, seeing his own death, didn’t fear it but laughed instead. “Temple Master, Yun Wuxiang, are you afraid?”
“Afraid that you can’t kill me yourself, so you seek help from others? How vulgar.”
Song Yilou’s smile faded. His voice, brimming with ghostly energy, rang in Yun Wuxiang’s ear: “You shouldn’t be like this. You’ve been influenced too deeply by that weak, incompetent original body! Wake up! You are not Yun Xinyang! You don’t share a single similarity with him. Just because you blindly lock yourself under a human shell and consciousness, do you really think you are human?”
Yun Wuxiang: “Yes, I am human.”
Song Yilou: “That is stubbornness! You are not human, you are not!”
Host 6669 blinked rapidly. Host 3339 isn’t human?
Looking closely, there was indeed a deeply hidden strand of demonic energy on him. Wait, demonic energy?
Damn! An incompletely awakened Heavenly Demon and a Ghost Gu with deep obsessions—and one of them was the Host? This was absolutely a business deal he shouldn’t have taken!
“What? How could it be like this?”
Host 6669 was suddenly startled, an exaggerated look of anxiety and shock appearing on his face. “Bad news, Brother Expert. My home base is in chaos. I need to go back immediately. I’ve already marked the locations of those Ghost Gu fragments. Take this Mountain Willow Orchid, and you’ll be able to sense them. I’m leaving first.”
Yun Wuxiang caught the flower flying toward him. It was shaped like a young daisy, goose-yellow swept with orange. It wasn’t a precious variety, just plain as a roadside wildflower.
The moment his fingers touched the flower stem, several streams of light appeared in Yun Wuxiang’s perception. The end of each stream was locked onto a trace of ghostly energy.
When he looked up again, that vivid and bright figure had already departed.
[Host, Host 6669 ran away.] Crunch, crunch.
Yun Wuxiang looked at the delicate, cute flower in his hand, puzzled. [Does he think I’ll retaliate against him in the future because of Song Yilou?]
[Host 6669 probably really has urgent business.] Crunch, crunch.
Yun Wuxiang wasn’t a fool, and Host 6669’s acting skills were undeniably fake.
He and Host 6669 had met by chance; the other party’s willingness to help was already generous. Besides, having this flower was enough.
[What is that noise?]
[Nothing, just some static in the system.] 3339 guiltily put down the sunflower seeds in its hand, pretending nothing had happened.
“Temple Master, your helper left.” The remaining Song Yilou grabbed his hand, placing his own neck into Yun Wuxiang’s grip. “If you want to kill me now, you can only do it yourself.”
Yun Wuxiang scrutinized the malicious ghost under his hand, whose aura was surging violently. His fingers slowly tightened. “Song Yilou, what exactly is the benefit of you pestering me?”
“You had a time when you were human. You had a mother to teach you. Even if those teachings were flawed, they wouldn’t deviate from human standards. The Toad Envoy wouldn’t teach you to actively provoke the strong.”
Even the little black furball in the Heart Demon Tribulation knew how to judge the situation. It was obedient and well-behaved in front of Yun Wuxiang simply because it sensed the other was stronger than itself and could provide food.
Pure, like an uncivilized beast.
With the childhood Song Yilou as a comparison, Yun Wuxiang felt more and more that the adult Song Yilou before him seemed to have completely abandoned the biological instinct for survival. He was blindly indulging in his own madness and obsession; even the disguise he wore when they first met now seemed incredibly perfunctory.
“You keep saying you want to find your own kind. Are you looking for your kind, or are you looking for death?”
Song Yilou’s ferocious ghostly aura paused. Yun Wuxiang let go of his hand, grabbed him by the collar, and questioned in a low voice, “Now that there is someone who can kill you, why do you still keep staring at me?”
“I only want to die by your hand. I only want you.” The ghost pupils faded from Song Yilou’s eyes, leaving only a stubbornness that even he hadn’t figured out.
“I don’t want you,” Yun Wuxiang said ruthlessly. He let go of his hand, releasing Song Yilou’s collar, and releasing this person.
“You follow me around on your own accord, intruding into my life to satisfy your own selfishness. You want to die, yet you refuse to die properly.”
“Your life, your thoughts, whether you live or die—none of it has anything to do with me. Yet I have to waste my heart, time, and effort to deal with you. Song Yilou, you are thoroughly annoying.”
Back in the System Space, Host 6669 patted his chest. “Scared this baby to death. System, did you see that look in Host 3339’s eyes?”
[I saw it.]
After he killed the part of the Ghost Gu possessing the fox-eyed man, Yun Wuxiang had glanced at him. It was very calm—the kind of calm where the water surface is still, but dangerous undercurrents hide beneath.
“That was the look of seeing one’s prey snatched away by someone else.”
Host 6669’s exaggerated expression faded. An indescribable look appeared on his pretty face as he rubbed his arms vigorously. “Good thing I ran fast, or I would have been sucked into a madman’s vortex of love again. The brains and views on love of demons… each one is more absurd than the last.”
“But on the surface, he really looks like a human. I fought him and didn’t even realize he was a demon. How did that Ghost Gu know?”
[They have a red thread of fate.]
Host 6669: “That red thread was also weird. The color wasn’t healthy at all.”
“What red thread?” A seductive, moving voice came from behind. Just hearing the timbre made one feel the speaker must be a peerless beauty; before even seeing her face, one’s soul would be captivated.
Host 6669 turned around, waved, and greeted, “Sister Supervisor, long time no see. You’ve become beautiful again. Hurry up and restrain your divine abilities. Otherwise, if my wavering will gets hooked by you, I’ll be in big trouble when I get home. The roof will be torn off.”
“Are you sure it’s the roof and not the bed?” The Supervisor smiled faintly, overturning all living beings, hooking souls and snatching spirits.
Host 6669 glanced at the other Hosts passing by in the surroundings out of the corner of his eye, pulling his collar up to cover his face. “My sister, we are in public. Let’s restrain ourselves a bit.”
The Supervisor chuckled twice. “I won’t tease you today. I originally came to ask you why you ran back when the mission was only 65% complete. Turns out, Little Flower, you got mixed up in someone else’s fate again?”
“I didn’t get mixed up in it this time; I ran very fast!” Host 6669 said proudly.
The Supervisor raised her beautiful eyes at him slightly. “Yes, you ran very fast. Fast enough that the mission wasn’t wrapped up. Were you planning to leave the remaining 35% to that little Host in the mission world who just reached Mystic Immortal?”
Host 6669 pointed at his own face. “Sister, look at me. could an ordinary little Host discussing romance scare me into this state?”
“I’ve never seen such a terrifying red thread. My own red thread carrying two death lines is already quite something, but theirs? Those black threads were densely packed, like a red and black zebra.”
The Supervisor was knowledgeable and didn’t show much surprise at his description. “Densely packed death lines. Heh, not a single demon is a good thing. Since that unlucky little Host got entangled by a demon, you should go be a good person to the end and help him cut the fate threads clean.”
Host 6669 knew this Sister Supervisor found demons disagreeable for certain reasons, but… “Sister, that Host is the demon. He’s the one being pestered by a Ghost Gu.”
Don’t just listen to half a sentence and make your own judgment.
“Hmm?” The Supervisor doubted her ears for a moment. Then, seeing Host 6669’s serious expression, she changed her tone after a moment.
“Go back. Finish wrapping up the mission and come back quickly. Also, instruct the World Consciousness to be careful with that Host and his love interest. If there is an accident, send a distress signal immediately, and we will send someone to save it.”
“Investigate System 3339’s backend data. A Host being a demon must be reported in advance. Did it not discover this, or did it intentionally help the Host conceal it? If it’s the latter, process it as a Rogue System and forcibly recall it.”
“3339 shouldn’t have violated the rules. That Host firmly believes he is human. He seems not to have discovered he is a demon yet. His aura is also exactly like a human’s. His state is peculiar. If there is no external stimulus to trigger his demonic nature, he might believe he is human for his entire life.”
Host 6669 defended System 3339, causing the Supervisor to temporarily dismiss the idea of forcibly recalling the system.
Then, he sneaked back to the small world, beat Bailing Xianjun into severe injury, sealed the Protagonist Halo, and sneaked away again.
[Host, you found the person. Is there something weighing on your mind that you didn’t extract the Protagonist Halo?]
“System, my intuition tells me this is the most appropriate way. And we can’t stay here for long.” Host 6669 was most sensitive to intuition.
With his cultivation, he naturally wouldn’t fear Yun Wuxiang, who had just become a Mystic Immortal, or Song Yilou. Even if these two’s true natures were dangerous and their potential powerful, in the face of the massive difference in strength, they were just two saplings that had just sprouted—he could pinch them to death with ease.
But he couldn’t ignore his intuition, which was pounding wildly.
A cultivator’s premonition was never an illusion. He wouldn’t act against his own intuition.
“Hurry up and convey the Supervisor’s words to the World Consciousness, then we leave immediately.”
[Okay… Go, quick! This small world is closing!]
Not long after Host 6669 returned and flashed away again, Yun Wuxiang had just thrown the remaining Song Yilou back into the copper mirror.
[Host, why are you still keeping him? Not killing him?]
Yun Wuxiang: [Host 6669 said I lack combat experience against those stronger than or equal to me. While maintaining the plot, I can’t leave the Mortal Realm casually. Keeping him serves to sharpen my sword.]
With the gifts Jin Hongqi sent, he didn’t lack cultivation resources now; he only lacked combat experience.
Fighting mortals, no matter how exquisite their martial arts, was ultimately different from fighting cultivators. If he landed a sword strike, they would die. Cultivators wouldn’t. Song Yilou wouldn’t either.
Suddenly, Yun Wuxiang sensed a subtle change generating between heaven and earth. He looked up at the sky.
[Host! The world has closed!]
[World closed?]
[Yes, the world is advancing. During this process, to avoid external disturbance, the World Barrier will close. People outside can’t come in, and people inside can’t go out.]
[The World Consciousness was already on the verge of ascension. Its slumber was an attempt to advance, but it lacked enough energy, leading to slow progress. Now that the luck of one and a half Protagonist Halos has returned, it’s going to ascend.]
Yun Wuxiang: [How does this affect my mission?]
[We still have to try our best to ensure the mission is completed to provide energy for the World Consciousness’s ascension.]
[The only impact is that if it fails its ascension, it will be like a cultivator failing a tribulation—its cultivation will regress instead of advancing.]
[From an Energy Point perspective, it will go from a petit bourgeois to a pauper. The Host might not receive energy after completing the task because it will already be in debt. The Energy Points generated by the mission will be used to fill the hole; there won’t be any extra to distribute to us.]
Crack.
The bluestone brick under Yun Wuxiang’s foot suddenly shattered, cracks extending outward from his sole.
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