He stared in disbelief at the colorful fine vine that burst from the earth before him, shooting straight through his throat.
At the tip of that vine, a bright silver knife was coiled—the very one that shattered his Spirit Shield and struck his vital point before he could resist.
“I gave you a chance, but you didn’t cherish my mercy.” Only then did Hua Jian slowly rise, turning to look at Liu Yi.
Unseen by Liu Yi, a colorful vine had sprouted from Hua Jian’s calf and burrowed underground.
And it was this vine, at Liu Yi’s first sign of betrayal, that pierced through his neck and sent him straight to hell.
The vine stabbed into his throat but did not exit the other side—instead, it continued upward into his skull.
No one could reply to Hua Jian’s words now. The moment she spoke, Liu Yi’s brain had already been churned to pulp by her vine.
The feeling of killing a cultivator with her own hands was strange.
Hua Jian felt neither sick nor disgusted—on the contrary, it was as if a weight had been lifted from her heart, leaving her feeling much more relaxed.
Because she knew: the one she’d killed deserved to die. If she hadn’t done it, she would have been the one to die.
Standing on the moral high ground made it far too easy—she felt no burden at all.
She even wondered how to use this cultivator’s death to make a statement to those other cultivators who might still have ill intentions.
Tiny tendrils crept from Liu Yi’s seven orifices. Under the onlookers’ horrified gazes, Liu Yi’s head swelled like a sprouting potato.
Two round eyeballs tumbled from his sockets—Hua Jian, in a way, fulfilled her threat.
Something horrific seemed to writhe inside the dead body. Soon, the watching cultivators would understand what was happening.
The dead cultivator was turning into a plant—he was sprouting roots.
Branches, leaves, roots—a colorful plant grew out of Liu Yi’s corpse, using his flesh as soil for new life.
Hua Jian had already withdrawn her killing vine, but left the root system it had created in place.
This scene was all due to those remaining roots acting on their own.
From any angle, this was a textbook case of “killing the chicken to warn the monkeys”—the chicken was dead, and the monkeys were more than properly intimidated, perhaps too much so.
Many cultivators now looked at Hua Jian as if she were a monster.
When she obediently returned to Linglong’s side, resuming her role as a little maid, their fear of Hua Jian transferred to Linglong.
If even her assistant was so terrifying, just what sort of person was this young lady?
Linglong looked at the corpse—now completely a plant—with a complex gaze, wishing she could immediately turn around and scold Hua Jian.
Didn’t she hear a word I said? How is this any different from publicly performing cannibalism?
“You went too far,” Linglong sighed softly.
Hua Jian immediately bowed her head. “Miss is right to reprimand me.”
She thought Linglong was just putting on a show.
“Such a person deserved to die. Why go so far?”
“Miss is right to reprimand me.”
No matter what Linglong said, Hua Jian just repeated the same thing, giving the impression that though she apologized, she’d never hesitate to act.
A tone of sincere contrition with no real regret—truly exasperating.
This also made the nearby onlookers realize that the master-servant relationship between these two wasn’t so rigid.
This ruthless little maid might not follow her mistress’s orders.
And if the maid really did want to act, the kind-hearted-looking young lady likely couldn’t stop her.
How terrible.
Any cultivators harboring thoughts now quickly looked away, fearing Hua Jian might target them next—turning them into potted plants like Liu Yi.
The one killed by Hua Jian was the strongest among them, and she killed him as easily as slaughtering a pig.
The gap in strength was obvious.
The tricks Hua Jian used were familiar to them, but their effects were disturbingly strange—leaving them unable to make sense of her methods.
*
As night fell, Hua Jian and Linglong found a patch of empty ground nearby to sit and review the battle.
This was Hua Jian’s first time beating an opponent with her own abilities, even if she’d used all sorts of tricks midway—at least it counted as a fair win.
But Hua Jian’s takeaway was, “It wasn’t as satisfying as sneak attacks.”
From any angle, ambush was the most efficient form of combat. If she’d been in her home turf, Liu Yi would have been a potted plant already.
Just her mist would have been enough to finish him, and with Hua Jian lurking and ambushing within it, there was no way he could have resisted.
Even Linglong, once drawn into Hua Jian’s domain, wouldn’t have more than a fifty-fifty chance, especially now that Hua Jian had so many trump cards.
A Big Air Bullet, a mouthful of Illusory Dream Flower mist—if Linglong ran into either, she’d be gloriously KO’ed.
But Linglong wasn’t concerned whether Hua Jian preferred sneak attacks or frontal combat. What she wanted to discuss was something else: how to handle Liu Yi’s body.
“You went too far just now.”
“There’s no one else here, so drop the act,” Hua Jian waved her hand. “That topic’s long over—we’ve already played out the scene for others.”
Why bring it up again?
“I’m serious. What you did was too extreme,” Linglong repeated.
Hua Jian blinked. She finally realized Linglong hadn’t been acting with her earlier.
So Linglong’s feelings were genuine?
“But he wanted to kill me!” Hua Jian whispered, reminding Linglong who the other person was.
He wasn’t a good guy—he’d already shown her malice. Even after surrendering, he’d tried to stab her in the back!
Was there any problem with killing him as a warning?
Linglong quickly grabbed Hua Jian’s wrist to calm her. “I didn’t say it was wrong to kill him.”
Though she was the Saintess of the Jade Pool, Linglong wasn’t all that saintly.
If she’d been in Hua Jian’s shoes, she wouldn’t have hesitated, either.
From the beginning, she hadn’t cared about Liu Yi’s life or death, but about how Hua Jian handled things afterward.
“Your method certainly intimidated everyone, but if someone bears a grudge and uses this against you in the future, it’ll cause big trouble.”
Killing was one thing, but turning the corpse into a potted plant was just too twisted.
That was the warning Linglong wanted to give Hua Jian.
“Listen to me—never do this in front of others again, understand?”
The Little Dragon Girl’s voice was full of real, unmistakable concern. Hua Jian could feel that Linglong was truly looking out for her.
Did I really do something wrong?
Hua Jian bit her lip, thinking hard, struggling to accept that she might be at fault.
It wasn’t until Linglong lightly tapped her head that Hua Jian snapped out of her daze, a look of horror dawning on her face.
“Oh no—did I go mad just now?”
She realized her mindset had gone strange.
It was one thing to kill in self-defense, but after the fine vine stabbed through his neck, something inside her had shifted.
It was as if a beast inside her heart had awoken.
Driven by some inexplicable emotion, she mercilessly turned Liu Yi’s corpse into a giant potted plant, and didn’t even feel she’d done anything wrong.
Even when Linglong pointed it out, her first thought wasn’t, “I was wrong,” but “Was I wrong?”
That was not normal—very much not normal.
“A bit like it, but your soul is stable—it’s not demonic deviation.” Linglong nodded, then shook her head.
If it were demonic deviation, Hua Jian’s soul would have shown obvious changes, but there was none of that.
Besides, demonic deviation doesn’t happen so easily.
It takes a long buildup of pressure, finally exploding in a moment. That’s what counts as deviation.
“You’re always so carefree—it won’t happen to you.”
“I can’t hide dark thoughts inside, showing only my sunny side to friends?” Hua Jian felt as if she’d been silently looked down upon.
Is it my fault my mindset’s weird? Anyone else in my shoes would have become a villain by now!
Might have even turned into a peerless demon!
“Doesn’t seem likely.” Linglong kept shaking her head.
She figured Hua Jian’s everyday antics were already dark enough—hard to imagine she was hiding anything worse.
Maybe, just maybe, Hua Jian had never really counted as a “good girl.”
Cheating, mugging, ambushing and robbing—since when were those the acts of a good person?
“I’m turning evil! I really am!” Hua Jian could feel the dark thoughts surging, about to overthrow this clueless young lady and show her not to speak so carelessly!
Then her face was cradled by Linglong.
“Hua Jian, don’t treat my words as a joke. This is extremely, extremely important. I don’t want to see the day when you and I stand as enemies.”
Linglong’s colorful eyes locked on hers, and she spoke with the utmost seriousness.
She was truly afraid Hua Jian would continue falling, that her small misdeeds would grow until she crossed lines that could never be uncrossed.
Linglong was scared—she didn’t want to watch Hua Jian become her enemy.
That was why she so earnestly warned Hua Jian: this must not continue.
“Leave everything else to me from now on. You’d best not get any more blood on your hands.”
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