Chapter 9 - Arrogance

On the other hand, Lan SiZhui and the other disciples did not find anything in the area of the ancient tombs, and had moved on to search for clues in Goddess Temple. The more peculiar thing was that human features could vaguely be seen on the statue, appearing to be that of a smiling lady. Hence, someone turned the stone cave into a temple, and the stone platform into a holy seat. The statue was named "Dancing Goddess," and there were worshippers all year round.

There was a close up of the "Dancing Goddess" statue, and everyone couldn't help but feel there was something off with it, thought that was perhaps mainly because of the spooky music.

Jin Ling glared at it with outright hostility. That thing had nearly killed him, and he never did get to claim he defeated it...it was so embarrassing.

At first sight, it did indeed look like a human however, after taking a closer look at it, it would seem rougher. Lan JingYi lifted and lowered the compass of evil, but its pointer still didn't move. A thick layer of incense ashes covered the table for offerings, and disordered candles lay on there as well. A sickly sweet scent came from the plates for holding fruits. Most of the people from the GusuLan Sect had some degree of minor mysophobia.

There was an uncomfortable silence while those who knew what mysophobia looked curious and surprised, while those who didn't tried to pretend they understood by nodding.

Jin Ling was one of the latter, but got too curious and asked Sizhui was mysophobia was.

"It's having a fear of dirty things, mess, that sort of thing." Sizhui said with a patient smile that made Jin Ling feel at ease. Suddenly he realised there was a big dirt stain on his outer robe from when he had fallen over dragging Senior Wei out of the tree hollow. He hastily covered it up with his sleeve. Sizhui laughed, "Senior Wei is right, it's only minor, and I don't think I even have it at all. Of course, I prefer neatness and tidiness but some dirt doesn't make me too uncomfortable."

Jin Ling gave an 'Oh!' of understanding and turned back to watch, internally very pleased that he knew something new about his friend.

He fanned at the air in front of his nose and spoke, "The locals said that it is quite effective to pray at Goddess Temple, but how can it be this ruined? They should at least come and clean once in awhile." Lan SiZhui spoke, "There has already been seven people who lost their souls. Everyone is saying that lightning has let out a fierce creature from the ancient graves of Buddha's Feet, so would anybody dare to come up the mountain? There is no attendance at the temple and so, naturally, there is nobody to clean the place."

A disdainful voice came from outside of the cave, "It's only a stupid rock, given the title of a goddess by who-knows who, and people dare to put it here, accepting incense and worship!"

"Bet you anything it's going to be Jin Ling."  some cultivators muttered amongst themselves behind them.

"Why would I take that bet, of course it'll be him! Who else would say something like that!"

"He's not wrong though, is he?"

The cultivators dissolved into laughter as Jin Ling indeed came into the scene, causing Jiang Cheng to turn around and give them an evil eye, which shut them up effectively.

The time limit for the silence spell was not long, so Jin Ling's mouth could already open. However, nothing nice came out as he looked at the goddess statue and humphed, "These rural villagers don't work hard when they face difficulties, but instead pray to the Buddha and other things every day. There are thousands and millions of people in the world, but gods and Buddhas are already hands-full with their own matters, so who would care about them? Let alone a powerless goddess without status, like this one. If it's really that effective, then I'm gonna pray for the soul-consuming creature in Dafan Mountain to appear in front of me right now. Can the statue do it?"

Jin Ling felt painfully aware how imprecise his assumptions were and how much he sounded like a privileged brat.

Zizhen laughed nervously. "Jin Ling, I can't believe you said that last thing...that was really bold!"

"Are you encouraging him?!" Jiang Cheng snarled. "You little idiot, why do you never think before you speak?"

"It's not like you ever do either!" Jin Ling yelled back.

They both seemed to realise at the same time they were making a scene and sulkily shut their mouths.

Lan SiZhui approached the statue, feeling that something was familiar in her smile. At the same time, someone bumped into him. A cultivator who was originally standing behind him had fallen down without any noise. The others were alert with surprise. Jin Ling spoke in a vigilant tone, "What happened to him?" Lan SiZhui held his sword and bent down to examine it. There was nothing wrong with the cultivator's breathing, like he had just suddenly fallen asleep. Yet, no matter how hard he was pushed or called, he would not wake up.

There were gasps of "The soul-consuming spirit!"

"That Jin Ling, he really did summon the creature..."

Luckily, that cultivator had actually recovered afterwards and was now watching, flattered, as everyone worried over him.

The dark cave abruptly lit up. The cave was suddenly covered in a red light, as if a waterfall of blood was rolling off its walls. With a few shings , everyone in the cave had either drawn their swords or taken out their talismans.

Instinctively, many cultivators felt for their swords too, then remembered that the pictures were just pictures. However it felt really immersive - the actual room was also covered in blood red light from the light emanating from the board.

At the same time, a person suddenly burst in from outside the temple, holding a gourd of medicinal alcohol. He threw it toward the stone statue, and raging flames sprouted from it, illuminating the stone cave so that it could even pass for daytime. Wei WuXian used up all of the items he had found in the qiankun bag. He threw it away and shouted, "Everyone, go back outside! Be cautious of the soul-consuming goddess on the inside!"

The juniors cheered, "It's Senior Wei!"

"He'll fix everything!"

Others were shocked at the words 'soul-consuming goddess'. Was this what Wei WuXian had discovered? How could the stone goddess statue consume souls?

Someone yelled in surprise, "The goddess's pose had changed!"

Before, the statute clearly had one foot lifted and both of its arms raised upward, its form graceful. However, amid the crimson and yellow flames, it had lowered both its arms and its foot. There was no doubt—it definitely wasn't a mistake of the eye! The next moment, the statue lifted one foot again, and stepped out of the fire! Wei WuXian shouted, "Run, run, run! Stop slashing around! It won't work!"

It was a truly alarming scene - towering flames, blood red light, a suddenly monstrous looking smiling stone statue walking like a human, multi-coloured sword glares flashing as cultivators left right and centre attacked with their swords...

Most of the cultivators ignored him. However, even with so many swords chopping and stabbing, and so many talismans and magical tools being thrown at it, the statue's advance didn't stop at all. It picked up two cultivators and lifted them in front of its face. Their heads drooped. Their souls were sucked away. With no attack methods working properly, the others were finally willing to listen to Wei WuXian's words.

Wei WuXian rolled his eyes. As always, no one ever listened to him until it was nearly too late.

Everyone gushed outside, scattering in all directions as fast as they could. With so many people and faces, the more anxious Wei WuXian became, the longer it took to find Jin Ling. Wei WuXian rode on the donkey and ran into a bamboo forest, encountering the juniors from the Lan Clan as he turned around. Wei WuXian called for them, "Children!" Lan JingYi replied, "Who are your children? Do you know which sect we are from? Did you really think that you would be considered a senior just because you washed your face?"

Wei WuXian clutched his heart dramatically. "Ouch! Jingyi, why are you so cruel to me??" He was talking in a joking way but Jingyi looked genuinely distressed at having said such careless words.

Wei WuXian spoke, "Okay, okay, okay, gege -s. Send a signal and get your clan's... HanGuang-Jun up here!" The juniors nodded a few times, and ran around while searching for signals. Lan SiZhui spoke, "The signal firelights... were all used up during the night at Mo Village." Wei WuXian was shocked, "You guys didn't restock afterwards?" The signal firelights were usually only needed once in over eight hundred years.

The two cultivators behind them who were always bickering immediately started whispering to each other.

"Wow! And to think we're living in a time where two signals are needed so close to each other... how lucky!"

"You call that lucky?? It means that we're unlucky, idiot!"

Lan SiZhui replied bashfully, "We forgot." Wei WuXian tried to scare them, "Is this a matter that you should forget about? If HanGuang-Jun knew about this, he's going to make you sorry." Lan JingYi's face was pale with terror, "It's over. This time, we are gonna be punished to death by HanGuang-Jun..."

Jingyi, Sizhui and the other Lan juniors felt their hearts jump as their secret got revealed to Hanguang Jun. It had been so long ago that Sizhui had never thought to mention it to Hanguang Jun, and they had eventually all forgotten about it - until now!

However, Hanguang Jun, reasoning that the fright they'd all gotten at Dafan Mountain was a sufficient punishment, made no comment, so the Lan juniors let out a sigh of relief.

Wei WuXian, "Indeed, he should punish you! Without punishment, you wouldn't remember the next time." Lan SiZhui, "Young Master Mo, Young Master Mo! How did you know that it was not a spirit-consuming spirit or beast, but the goddess statue instead?" Wei WuXian searched for Jin Ling as he ran, "How did I know? I saw."

Lan JingYi also caught up. They each ran on one side of him, "What did you see? We also saw lots of things."

Most of the cultivators wanted to know the answer to Jingyi's question too, as they had seen all that Wei WuXian had seen, yet they had not the faintest idea what was going on.

Jin Ling was wondering he was, since Wei WuXian was still searching for him. The three of them, Sizhui and Jingyi on either side of Wei WuXian, all looked really cool, running with the donkey behind them, yet still calmly talking about the mystery of the soul-consuming goddess, and Jin Ling was starting to feel a bit left out.

"It's simple—if it was a soul-consuming spirit or beast with so many dead spirits in the area, would it have chosen to not eat them? No, it wouldn't have."

This time, there were more than one person who asked, "Why?"

"Just what can I say about your GusuLan Sect..." Wei WuXian could not tolerate it any more, "Why can't you teach less annoying, lengthy nonsense like cultivational etiquette, family trees, and history which requires memorization, and teach more practical things? How is this hard to understand?  For example..." He looked at the donkey, which panted while running, rolling its eyes, "For example, if an apple is put in front of you, and another one is put inside a locked box, which one would you choose to eat? Of course, it would be the one in front of you. This creature only eats living souls, and knows of a way to obtain them. It is both powerful and selective in terms of food."

Lan Qiren's mouth dropped open in anger at Wei Wuxian's audacity in criticising the way of the Gusu Lan Sect education, right in front of two Lan disciples! He felt dread building in his stomach - had Wei WuXian been corrupting his disciples these past few months by telling them this sort of nonsense?!

Lan Xichen, on the other hand, had the nearly opposite reaction, quietly pondering Wei Wuxian's ability to apply metaphors to difficult concepts to make them easier to understand. That was certainly a very useful asset for a teacher to have... Perhaps Wei WuXian was right, and they needed to teach their disciples more practical things. Xichen glanced at his uncle, who seemed on the brink of qi deviation again. Of course, the Gusu Lan sect was built on traditions and teaching their disciples etiquette, history and genealogy were all beneficial in making them more well-versed, polite in the future, maintaining the Lan sect's reputation of producing the most dignified gentlemen, ladies and gentlefolk in general. It would be an arduous task to convince Master Lan to consider adding some practical elements to the syllabus...

Lan JingYi was astonished, "So that's how it works? It makes a lot of sense! Wait, so you're really not a lunatic?"

Wei Wuxian's comically startled face as he realised he'd blown his cover created a wave of laughter in the room. Luckily, Sizhui conveniently changed the topic...

Lan SiZhui explained as he ran, "We all thought that, because the landslide and lightning led to the series of events, it must be a soulconsuming spirit."

Wei WuXian spoke, "Wrong."

"What is wrong?"

"The order and the correlation is wrong. Let me ask you—for the landslide and the soul-consuming events, which ones were the first and second, the cause and effect?"

Lan SiZhui answered without thinking twice, "The landslide was the first, and the soul-consumption was the second."

Sect Leader Yao and his other Sect Leader sheep-friends (who chortled and nodded at everything he said) laughed mockingly amongst themselves. "What type of question is that?? Of course the landslide came first! Something had to cause the sudden cases of soul-consuming!"

Wei WuXian spoke, "Completely wrong. The soul-consumption was first, and the landslide was second.  This first person to lose their soul, the sluggard, was trapped in the mountains for the whole night, and married a few days later." Lan JingYi asked, "Where is it wrong?"

Wei WuXian replied, "It is all wrong! Where would a good-for-nothing and penniless person obtain the money to form such a grand wedding?"

Everyone blinked, particularly Sect Leader Yao and his sheep-friends. They hadn't thought of that side of the situation - being the head of a sect, having ample money to him was something that came naturally.

Wei WuXian finally decided to explain everything.

(you can skip the really long explanation below if you've already read it)

Wei WuXian spoke again "Did you take a look at all of the dead souls floating in Dafan Mountain? There was an old man who died from a hit to the head, wearing burial clothes that were made with fine craftsmanship and fabric. With such extravagant burial clothes, his coffin couldn't have been empty, and there must have been a few burial items to protect it. The coffin that was broken by the lightning was most likely his. Yet, the people who came to retrieve the corpse did not find any burial items, which meant that they were definitely taken away by the sluggard, explaining why he suddenly became rich. The sluggard suddenly decided to marry someone after the night of the landslide, so something unusual must have happened during the night. On that evening, there was a harsh storm and he took cover in the mountain. Where on Dafan Mountain is it possible to take cover from the rain? Goddess Temple. And, when most people go into a temple, there is one thing that they would do."

Lan SiZhui asked, "Pray?"

"That's right. For example, he would pray for himself to be lucky, to become wealthy, to have enough money to marry, and so on. The goddess fulfilled his wish with the lightning that split open the grave, letting him see the treasures in the coffin. His prayers came true and, as the sacrifice, the goddess came to him on the evening of his marriage, and took his soul away!" Lan JingYi, "All of these are just your guesses, right?" Wei WuXian, "Yes, they are guesses. But, following this train of logic, all of the things that happened afterward could be explained." Lan SiZhui, "How can this explain what happened with the girl, A-Yan?" Wei WuXian, "Great question. You guys probably asked around before you came up the mountain. A-Yan had just got engaged during those days. All recently-engaged girls will definitely have the same wish." Lan JingYi was befuddled, "What wish?" Wei WuXian replied, "None other than something that goes like, 'I wish my husband would love me and care for me for his whole life, attracted to only myself'." The boys were at a loss, "Would a wish like this really be able to be granted?"

Wei WuXian held his palms out, "It's simple. If her husband's 'whole life' immediately ended, wouldn't it count as 'loving only one person for his entire life'?" Lan JingYi finally understood and shouted excitedly, "Oh, oh! So, so, so, the reason behind her husband being eaten by wolves the day after her engagement was that it was highly possible for A-Yan to have been to Goddess Temple to pray!" Wei WuXian struck while the iron was still hot , "It was hard to say whether he was attacked by a wolf or something else. There is another factor that is unique to A-Yan: why is that, out of all of the victims, only A-Yan's soul returned? How is she different from everyone else? The difference is that she has a relative who also lost his soul. Or, in other words, a relative replaced her! Blacksmith Zheng is AYan's father, especially one who loved his daughter. So, when he saw that his daughter lost her soul, and there were no ways to deal with it, what was the only thing that he could do?"

This time, Lan SiZhui was quick to reply, "He could only entrust his hope to the Heavens. Therefore, he also went to Goddess Temple to pray, the wish being 'I wish my daughter A-Yan's soul can be found'!"

Wei WuXian spoke with appraise, "This is why only A-Yan's soul came back, and also the reason behind Blacksmith Zheng losing his soul. However, although A-Yan's soul was given back, it was still slightly fractured. After her soul returned, she had unconsciously started to imitate the goddess statue's dance and even its smile."

The similarity of the people who lost their souls was that, most likely, they had all prayed in front of the goddess statue. The prices to pay for their wishes were their souls.

The goddess statue was originally just an average rock which happened to look like a person. Having accepted a few hundred years' worth of worship without any reason, it had gained some powers. Yet, because it was greedy and its thoughts ventured off the wrong path, it had wanted to quickly increase its powers by eating souls. These were souls that it obtained by means of swapping wishes, and could be considered as the voluntarily sacrificed souls of the people who prayed. The two sides had a fair deal, one wish for another, and it seemed to be just and moral. This was why the pointers of the compasses of evil did not move, why the spiritattraction flags did not work, and why the powers of the swords and talismans were all nullified—the creature in Dafan Mountain wasn't any sprite, demon, ghost, or monster, but a goddess! This was an untitled goddess born from the hundreds of years of incense. Using the items used to deal with evil spirits and beasts to deal with it would be like using fire to distinguish fire!

After this lengthy explanation, most cultivators were staring at the board with their mouths open. Of course, everything made sense now,  but how did Wei WuXian come up with such a detailed explanation? And the explanation even manage to cover the reason for every little thing, from A-Yan's strange behaviour to the death of her husband.  Maybe the legends about him didn't give enough credit to his genius.

The particular reasoning he used with 'wishing my husband to love me for his whole life' causing his instant death particularly impressed them - Guo Wanxin made a mental note to never phrase any prayer she made in future like that. Not that she would choose to pray for such a ridiculous thing - she wouldn't force her beloved to be bound to her forever, she'd want it to be voluntary.

Lan JingYi shouted loudly, "Wait! Before this, in the temple, someone's soul was also taken away, but we didn't hear him wish!"

Wei WuXian's heart suddenly jumped. He stopped his footsteps, "Someone's soul was taken away in the temple? Describe to me everything that happened earlier, without missing a single word."

It was clear to everyone what (or rather, who) he was worrying about. Wei Wuxian rubbed his nose with mild embarrassment now, seeing his over-reacting past self. But then again, how could he possible let any harm come to his shijie's son? Even though he had acted rather bratty, like his father, he had his mother's blood in him, so there had to be hope. Reflecting back, Wei Wuxian could even say that Jin Ling had matured a lot since that first encounter. Of course, he was still a brat, but a more lovable brat. Not that Wei Wuxian would ever tell Jin Ling that to his face.

Lan SiZhui repeated the scenario both clearly and quickly. When he heard Jin Ling's talk of "if it's really that effective, then I'm gonna pray for the soul-consuming creature in Dafan Mountain appear in front of me right now. Can the statue do it?"

Wei WuXian spoke, "How is this not wishing? It most definitely is a wish!"

The others agreed with Jin Ling, so it was accepted that they had all wished the same thing. At the time, the soul-consuming goddess was right in front of them, so the wish was granted. Then, it was time to seize the sacrifice!

Jiang Cheng was seething with anger. "You're lucky that damn soul-consuming goddess didn't eat you, Jin Ling! If it had, don't expect me to feel sorry for you either, since it would have been completely all your own doing!"

Suddenly, the donkey halted, and ran toward the opposite direction. Wei WuXian was, again, swung off unprepared, but grabbed on to the rope no matter what. However, in the bushes in front of him, there came a noise of chewing, complete with crunches and slurps. An immense figure was crawling in the bush, its huge head on the ground and moving using its stomach. Hearing the noise, it immediately lifted its head. Their eyes met.

After it had eaten the souls of a few cultivators all at once, it could already form clear features. It was the face of a smiling woman, with blood dripping down the corners of its mouth, munching on an arm that had been torn off.

Screams and muffled curses rang through the room at the extremely disturbing pictures.

"Look at the way it's crawling...ewww!"

A strange young cultivator dressed in all black with heavy red eyeliner was gazing at the picture in evident delight, propping her chin on her hand. Her exclamation of "That is so cool!" earned her a couple of weird and concerned looks.

"Thank god I wasn't on that mountain that day, or I would've fainted... " another young cultivator muttered to his friend, "I don't mind spirits or monsters, but I can't handle ripped off limbs..."

Jingyi, overhearing this, gave a snicker. "You just wait, there's plenty of ripped off limbs soon."

Sizhui elbowed him, and turned to give an apologetic smile at the young cultivator, who had frozen with apprehension.

Everyone, following the donkey, ran in the other direction. Lan SiZhui was breaking down, "That is not supposed to happen! The YiLing Patriarch had said before, that high-level ones eat souls, and only low-level ones eat flesh!"

Everyone "ooooh"ed, wondering how the Yiling Laozu, who was in fact right next to the oblivious Jingyi would respond to this contradiction to his methods.

Wei WuXian couldn't help but to comment, "Why are you blindly worshipping him? Even his own inventions were a mess! No rules stay the same in all situations. You can think of it as an infant—when it lacks teeth, it can only eat congee and soup, but when it grows up, it would, of course, also want to eat meat using its teeth. Her powers had just risen greatly, so naturally she'd want to taste something new!"

Lan Xichen raised his eyebrows. Normally, Wei gong-zi liked to boast and act like everyone loved him, even if was mostly as a joke. But then, "no rules stay the same in all situations". Since no one knew he was the Yiling Laozu, he was evidently a lot more inclined to say whatever he was actually thinking.

All the same, he couldn't help but admire Wei Wuxian's adaptive attitude  - he was the absolute opposite of so many of those in sect politics, who stubbornly insisted they were right and stuck to traditions like glue.

The soul-consuming goddess stood up from the ground. Out of the blue, an arrow came with a whoosh and pierced her forehead, the arrowhead appearing out of the back of her head. Hearing the sound of the bow's release, Wei WuXian's looked toward its direction. Jin Ling stood atop a tall hill, not far away, and already had his second feathered arrow on the bow. He pulled to the maximum, and another head-penetrating arrow was released, the strength causing the soul-consuming goddess to stagger a few steps backward.

There were appreciative claps. "Wow! Nice shot!"

Jin Ling tried not to look too pleased with himself, unsuccessfully.

Even Wei Wuxian, known for his skill in archery, was nodding in approval. "Not bad, Jin Ling! I wouldn't have known you had so much strength in you, seeing how small you are!"

Jin Ling blinked, making a weird face that was between happy and angry at Wei Wuxian's clever compliment-insult combo.

With a solemn face, he set three arrows onto the bow at once. Although she was shot in the head twice, the soul-consuming goddess was not angered, and advanced toward Jin Ling with the same smile plastered on her face. Although she danced while walking, her speed was terrifyingly fast, decreasing the distance between them by half in just a few moments. His arm was quite steady, and his shots were accurate, but all magical weapons were useless against it! Both Jiang Cheng and Lan WangJi were at Buddha's Feet, waiting for any news, so who knows how long it would take for them to realize that something was wrong and come up here.

Jiang Cheng tried to hide it, but all his muscled were tense and locked up in fear for his nephew. How did Jin Ling even get out of this? And to think he had been calmly sitting around at Buddha's Feet, thinking that Jin Ling would definitely catch the soul consuming beast.

He flexed his fingers, but Zidian didn't respond. He could feel his golden core (well... not his but...no, he wasn't going to start having another existential crisis here in front of everyone - he shut off the though) however it didn't seem to be responding to his attempts to channel it. They really were in a different world...

To extinguish fire, water was needed. Therefore, if magical weapons didn't work, what about dark sorcery? Wei WuXian unsheathed the sword on Lan SiZhui's waist and chopped off a piece of a thin bamboo, swiftly making it into a flute. He lifted it up in front of his lips and took a deep breath.

"..." His logic seemed very off to a lot of cultivators. How would dark sorcery possibly help calm down this situation? Wouldn't it just make it worse??

Nonetheless, they were all at the edge of their seats, eager to see the Yiling Laozu's famed flute skills for themselves. Unfortunately for them, they didn't exactly get the sweet-sounding melody they were subconsciously expecting...

The shrill timbre of the flute was like an arrow, slicing through the night sky and shooting into the clouds. This should have been a last resort for him, but however, with the situation already like this, it didn't matter what he summoned. It'd be fine as long as the dark energy was strong enough and the killing intent was keen enough, so that it could rip the soul-consuming goddess into pieces!

The music couldn't be described as bad, but it had a distinctly eerie, discordant feel to it that made the hair on everyone's arms rise.

Jiang Cheng raised his eyebrows - he'd already heard his shixiong playing that cursed flute way too many times to be surprised by it - but he was surprised that Wei Wuxian hadn't actually been summoning Wen Ning - he'd thought that Wei Wuxian had secretly conspired to keep Wen Ning alive so he'd always have his loyal henchman.

Lan SiZhui was shocked to the point that he couldn't even move, while Lan JingYi covered his ears, "Look at what situation we are in, and you are still playing the flute? It sounds horrible!" In the battle, three or four of the cultivators who were fighting with the soul-consuming goddess had lost their souls.

Jingyi was aware he was now the butt of most of the jokes the cultivators were making among themselves and crossed his arms sulkily. How was he meant to know that the lunatic was actually the Yiling Laozu! Alright, in hindsight it seemed rather obvious, especially now with the flute, but it's not like anyone was expecting the Yiling Laozu to pop up one day from hell, or wherever he'd been before.

Jin Ling pulled out his sword. He was already less than two zhang away from the soul-consuming goddess. His heart thumped like crazy and all of the blood in his body went toward his head, if I can't slice off her head with this blow, I will die here—death it is, then!

Jiang Cheng's face went nearly as purple as his robes.

"JIN LING!!!!" he roared. "WHERE DID YOU LEARN THIS KIND OF ATTITUDE?? DID I ASK YOU TO GET YOURSELF KILLED?? YOU IRRESPONSIBLE, RASH, LITTLE-"

Jin Ling covered his ears and yelled back, "YOU TOLD ME TO GET THE SOUL-CONSUMING CREATURE AT ANY COST!"

"BUT NOT YOUR LIFE- "

Guo Wanxin coughed. "As touching as this ardent display of mutual affection is, I believe you are being a nuisance to the general public."

Still seeming to steam with anger, they both shut their mouths with a snap. Wei Wuxian shook his head, thinking to himself, "They really do have the same temperament..."

At the same time, from within the forests of Dafan Mountain, a tinkling sound appeared. Tinkle tinkle, tinkle tinkle. It echoed in the silent woods, resembling the sound of iron chains colliding and being dragged on the ground. It came closer, and became louder. For some reason, the sound gave the people an uneasy sense of threat. Even the soul-consuming goddess stopped dancing. It raised it arms, blankly staring into the dark of which the sound came from. Wei WuXian put away his flute and carefully looked into the direction. The ominous feeling that he felt became stronger and stronger, but because it was willing to come due to the summoning, it would at least be something that listened to him.

The ones who knew who was going to show up were shaking their heads, mildly amused - it had been such a dramatic entrance!

The ones who didn't know felt the suspense built up and up until, all of a sudden, the tinkling noise stopped.

A figure emerged from within the darkness. After having a clear view of the figure and the face, the cultivators' expressions became twisted. Even when facing the goddess statue that could suck away their souls at any minute, the group did not cower or show any fear, but however, their shouting voices right now were filled with terror that they could not conceal. "... The 'Ghost General', it's the 'Ghost General', it's Wen Ning!"

The screeches and gasps of fear were even louder than that for the crawling soul-consuming goddess. To accompany the dramatic eerie music was a close up of the Ghost General's emotionless face - no pupils, hair flying wildly and beast-like in the wind, grey skin marked with black veins - the words Wen Ning, Ghost General, appeared on the top right corner, as if it weren't clear enough already who it was.

Jiang Cheng tried to subdue the mixed feelings in his heart. The instinctive hatred felt at the sight of Wen Ning's face was hard to get over. He knew now that Wen Ning really was a sweet, gentle boy most of the time, and the times where he'd done grievous sins were not actually his fault. Furthermore, he'd saved Jin Ling that time in the Guanyin temple. But, he was also the one who recently told him about the golden core transfer from Wei Wuxian...as much as he knew he needed to know, he wondered sometimes if it'd be better he just...never knew, just as Wei Wuxian planned. But then Jiang Cheng would've kept being horrible to him forever and Wei Wuxian wouldn't have protested and... Jiang Cheng cut his thoughts off there, making a mental note to sort through his thoughts properly later on.

The title of the "Ghost General" was as infamous as that of the YiLing Patriarch's. Most of the time, the two appeared together. The word only referred one person—the right-hand man of the YiLing Patriarch Wei Ying, who had helped with the tyrant's crimes, stirred up wind and waves, played the jackal to the tiger, overturned the world with him, and most of all, was a fierce corpse who should have been turned into ashes a long time ago—Wen Ning!

Sizhui raised an eyebrow at the extravagant descriptions of Wen Ning. They really were over-the-top...

Wei Wuxian asked Lan Zhan, "Where do you think Wen Ning is now?"

"Hm."

Wei Wuxian forgot that Lan Zhan harboured some sort of grudge against Wen Ning and tried to restrain a bout of laughter. He answered himself, "He's probably still in the woods near Lotus Pier, wondering where everyone has gone! Hopefully we won't be stuck here too long..."