Rong Yueshan slowly stood up amidst the gathered students’ careful glances. She brushed away the dirt on her clothes and returned to standing among the northern college students, as though she wasn’t scared of offending Li Mo at all.

She thought back to what had happened last night, and her lips curled up in a vindictive smile.

Last night, when Rong Yueshan had returned to her cottage, she found another person inside: Yi Qianying. Rong Yueshan had thought Yi Qianying all but dead after having been dragged off into the hall of penitence, so when she appeared once more, Rong Yueshan jumped back in fright. Her first thought was that Yi Qianying had died, and what had appeared in front of her was simply her specter.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” Yi Qianying slowly began. “I’m not a ghost yet, but a human.” She lit up the lamp in the cottage, and Rong Yueshan finally breathed out in relief when she saw Yi Qianying’s shadow cast by the light.

Yi Qianying sat down by her table. Her body was as thin and skeletal as a piece of paper, and her pale face was bloodless. She wore the drab, gray clothes of a convict of the hall of penitence.

“Weren’t you locked up in the hall of penitence? Why are you in my cottage?”

“It’s no surprise that you would be so shocked,” Yi Qianying sighed. “I also thought that I would die within the hall of penitence, but yesterday, Master Rong suddenly brought me out with the approval of the second elder! I was even given the right to go to the otherworld, and I couldn’t believe my eyes!”

By then, Rong Yueshan had calmed down. She slowly sat down in front of Yi Qianying. After hearing her words, her heart sank.

 It looks as though the elders were telling the truth about it being uninhabitable, if Yi Qianying’s being sent there. Otherwise, there’s no reason the second elder would have agreed to let her out…

Yi Qianying smiled self-deprecatingly. “My life isn’t mine to control any longer.” Her tone suddenly turned vicious. “But even if I have to die, there’s someone I have to bring down with me!”

“Who?” Rong Yueshan asked, though she could guess the answer.

“Yun Ruoyan,” Yi Qianying gritted out. “If not for her, there’s no way I would be in such a sorry state! She’s plotted against me at every step along the way, and if I have to die, she will too!”

Yi Qianying turned to Rong Yueshan, a vengeful blaze lighting up her eyes. “Yueshan, will you help me?”

“You hate Yun Ruoyan, but do you think I don’t? I want her to die as much as you do,” Rong Yueshan sighed. “But Yun Ruoyan’s no longer the girl she once was. With the Slaughtering King protecting her, and with her own cultivation as an eighth-rank blademaster, I’m no match for her even if I team up with Pei Ziao. How would we kill her?”

“Yueshan, as long as you’re willing to help, I can kill Yun Ruoyan. You don’t have to sully your own hands.” Yi Qianying immediately dispelled Rong Yueshan’s worries.

“You can kill Yun Ruoyan? How?” Rong Yueshan clearly didn’t believe her.

Yi Qianying smiled. “Shade, come out.”

A black shade detached from Yi Qianying’s body and began moving autonomously. As Rong Yueshan looked at the shade in shock, Yi Qianying briefly explained the shade’s existence to her. It would be able to possess someone and mix into a crowd, but this short-term possession would cause extreme, long-lasting damage to the possessed body, so Rong Yueshan would have to find it a good target. Furthermore, to increase the chance of success, the victim couldn’t have too high a cultivation.

After a moment’s consideration, Rong Yueshan suggested Zhou Lin. During her few encounters with him, she noticed that Zhou Lin was weaker than the other students participating in the expedition to the alternate dimension. Because he was also a recluse, questionable behavior on his part wouldn’t arouse too much suspicion.

With Rong Yueshan’s guidance, the shade successfully infiltrated Zhou Lin’s rooms and possessed his body. During the first twelve to sixteen hours of possession, the victim’s body would be relatively easy to control, but after a set duration, the shade would lose control of its new body. In grave circumstances, the victim might even die immediately.

The shade, using Zhou Lin’s body, successfully entered the deserted island with the other expedition members. However, killing Yun Ruoyan proved to be a difficult task, so its first goal was to lure Yun Ruoyan away from Li Mo so that it could kill her in a one-to-one fight.

As a result, the shade forced Zhou Lin to begin attacking any student it could find. Furthermore, when Zhou Lin’s body began to retaliate against the possession, it killed Zhou Lin, hurt Pei Ziao, and began possessing him instead.

From Rong Yueshan, the shade found out that Yun Ruoyan was particularly protective of her two cousins, so it rushed in her party’s direction in an attempt to split them up and find an opportunity to kill Yun Ruoyan.

On her Scarlet Eye, Yun Ruoyan arrived at the edge of the northern forest in an instant. Although the forests on the island didn’t have trees as tall as those in the gigantic forest she had been in a few months ago, they grew in such vast quantities that the undergrowth was all but blocked from sight. Yun Ruoyan could only head to where she had split off from the Lin sisters, then began running in the direction where she had seen them last.

“Qingxue, Qingchen!” Yun Ruoyan called out. “Where are you?”

No matter how much Yun Ruoyan called, however, there was no response. Growing more and more anxious, Yun Ruoyan began running faster and faster. About fifteen minutes later, she encountered a mid-rank beast, a bear of some sort. 

Yun Ruoyan inspected the bear’s wound and found that it had been caused by a sharp sword, and its head had been split open by the same weapon. Its beast core had already been removed.

Qingxue and Qingchen probably killed this bear

. Yun Ruoyan glanced all around her and found that there was a scrap of green clothing by a tree branch to the east, which Yun Ruoyan hurriedly retrieved.

She recognized the make of the fabric: it was from Lin Qingchen’s attire! She hurriedly continued toward the east as she kept an eye out for her two cousins.

After another fruitless hour of searching, Yun Ruoyan began to panic. She was initially able to see her cousins’ tracks, but as she walked farther and farther from the shore, those tracks vanished.

“Qingchen, Qingxue, where are you?!” she shouted all around her.

Awoooo!

By the east came the howling of a pack of low-rank beasts, and Yun Ruoyan dashed toward the commotion. Eight red-eyed boars lay on the ground, their carcasses mangled. Their stomachs had been sliced open, and their blood and intestines were leaking out. Their brains and hearts had vanished, but their beast cores had been left behind.

The scene before her was so much like what Zong Yang and Guan Ruliu had described that these beasts had to have been killed by Zhou Lin.

Yun Ruoyan glanced cautiously around her before seeing another scrap of green cloth. 

No, not good—Qingchen and Qingxue did encounter him after all!

That patch of green cloth was, just like the last, caught on a tree lying eastward. In her anxiety, Yun Ruoyan continued proceeding east in search of her cousins. She felt so pressed for time that she didn’t even bother grabbing the scrap from the tree.

After she left, a strange gust of wind blew the patch of green fabric onto a branch pointing toward the west.

As Yun Ruoyan kept walking, she suddenly found herself trapped within a suspicious gray fog. It covered up the sun, and her surroundings were so hazy that she couldn’t see more than twenty feet from her in any direction.

“Qingchen, Qingxue?” Yun Ruoyan continued calling out. Then, she heard rapid footfalls all around her, accompanied by the scraping of a body against the dense foliage.

“Zhou Lin? Zhou Lin, is that you?” Yun Ruoyan immediately raised her guard as she tried to discern the direction the sound was coming from. “Zhou Lin, come out here and face me!” 

“Oh, I don’t dare to stop. Your spiritual sword’s a dangerous match for me,” a hoarse, chilling voice emerged from nowhere. “If that sword pierces me, I’ll lose all the cultivation that I’ve gathered after all this time.”

“What manner of demon are you? Are my cousins with you?!”

“Ha, haha.” The shade laughed coldly. “Yes, I have your cousins.”

“What do you intend on doing?” Yun Ruoyan shouted.

“Don’t worry, my goal has never been your cousins. My goal is you, and those cousins of yours are just bait. If you’ll accept your death gracefully, I won’t hurt your cousins. How about that? Trading your life for theirs isn’t a losing prospect, surely.”

“What grudge do I have with you? Why do you want my life?” she called out, infusing spiritual energy into her ears to better sense where the voice was coming from.

Strangely, Yun Ruoyan discovered that the voice was coming from a different direction than the trees’ rustling. The voice sounded as though it was speaking from above, but the rustling was clearly coming from the forest all around her. In this situation, there was only one possibility: Yun Ruoyan was facing not one, but rather two enemies...

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