“Corpse Puppet!” Su Wan’er’s expression changed, and she shielded Shen Mo behind her.
At the end of the tunnel, several swaying figures emitting a heavy stench of rot staggered into view.
Their skin was blue-black, their eye sockets hollow, and tattered scraps of clothing still clung to their bodies.
Their movements seemed sluggish, but their claws and fangs were sharp, and foul slime dripped from their mouths.
They were not high-ranking Demonic Cultivators, but the lowest grade of corpses, eroded and controlled by Demonic Qi.
But there were quite a few of them, at least seven or eight, completely blocking the way forward.
Shen Mo’s heart sank.
On any ordinary day, Su Wan’er could have destroyed such fodder with a flick of her fingers.
But now… he felt Su Wan’er’s grip on his hand tighten slightly, her fingertips trembling a little.
“Stay with me, don’t leave my side beyond three steps.” Su Wan’er’s voice was still calm, but Shen Mo detected a thread of tension in it.
She released Shen Mo’s hand and formed hand seals with both hands. A pale cyan, somewhat dim Sword Light emerged from her palm.
The Corpse Puppets caught the scent of living humans and immediately grew agitated, howling as they accelerated their charge.
Su Wan’er’s Sword Light flashed, and the heads of the two foremost Corpse Puppets flew off. But her figure also swayed slightly, and more cold sweat appeared on her forehead.
The third and fourth Corpse Puppets were already upon them, their sharp claws reaching straight for Shen Mo’s face!
Shen Mo instinctively twisted aside to dodge, his movements surprisingly quicker than usual—a near-instinctive reaction honed through countless times of being forced into peril.
But his Cultivation Level was too low. He evaded the vital spots, but the robe at his shoulder was torn, leaving several bloody gashes.
“Mo’er!” Su Wan’er cried out sharply, her Sword Light spinning back to cut the approaching Corpse Puppet in half at the waist, but more Corpse Puppets surged forward.
One Corpse Puppet broke through her increasingly thin Sword Qi network, its rotting palm carrying a foul wind, aimed straight at her back!
“Wan’er!” Shen Mo’s mind went blank.
His body moved before his consciousness, lunging forward to shield her from the Corpse Puppet!
The expected agony did not come.
“Chi——!”
A faint yet piercing sound of something cutting through air rang out.
The Corpse Puppet lunging at Su Wan’er froze mid-motion, a needle-sized red dot appearing at the center of its brow, then silently it turned into a puff of black ash that scattered with a rustle.
Immediately after, several similarly faint and sharp lights shot out from the shadows of the tunnel, precisely piercing the brows of the remaining Corpse Puppets.
In an instant, all seven or eight low-grade Corpse Puppets were reduced to flying ash.
Shen Mo and Su Wan’er looked in astonishment toward the source of the sharp lights.
From the shadows, a hunched, short figure slowly walked out.
It was an old woman, dressed in the coarse hemp clothing common to the Southern Wilderness, her face layered with wrinkles.
“Two little chicks, quite bold, daring to run wild in Black Bone Madam’s territory.”
The old woman’s voice was hoarse, her gaze resting on Shen Mo for a moment.
“Ho, and a rare specimen too. No wonder even these brainless things got restless.”
Su Wan’er forced herself to draw a deep breath, positioning herself more solidly in front of Shen Mo, the Moonlight Sword held horizontally before her. “Senior, who are you? Why did you help us?”
“Help?” The old woman grinned, revealing sparse yellow teeth.
“This old woman has no such leisure. I was merely entrusted by someone to deliver a message, and incidentally… clean up some unruly debris.” She cast a meaningful glance at the black ash on the ground.
“Entrusted by whom? What message?” Shen Mo asked in a low voice, alarms ringing in his mind.
This old woman’s aura was eerie. She seemed ordinary, yet could instantly annihilate Corpse Puppets—definitely no ordinary person.
The old woman did not answer. Instead, she looked Su Wan’er up and down, a strange light flickering in her murky eyes. “Peak Master Su is quite badly injured. To fall to such a state for a man—is it worth it?”
Su Wan’er’s face paled, and she pressed her lips tightly together.
The old woman did not press further. She fished a pitch-black bone fragment from her robes and casually tossed it to Shen Mo.
“Someone told me to give this to you. Crush it, and perhaps it will point you a way out. However,” she chuckled lowly twice, her gaze sweeping over the fading marks on his neck and the faint binding marks on his wrist, “there’s more than one party coveting that body of yours. Whether it brings fortune or calamity depends on your own fate.”
With that, her figure seemed to melt into the shadows, vanishing silently as if she had never appeared.
Shen Mo caught the bone fragment. It was ice-cold to the touch, carved with twisted Runes, and faintly emanated a palpitation-inducing fluctuation.
He and Su Wan’er exchanged a glance, both seeing the heaviness in each other’s eyes.
This old woman—was she friend or foe? Entrusted by whom?
The eerie green phosphorescence cast their path ahead in an uncanny light.
The stone walls were covered in slick moss, and the water at their feet reached mid-calf, chilling to the bone.
Shen Mo held up his robe hem and walked one step behind Su Wan’er, listening as she discerned the direction ahead.
Every so often, Su Wan’er would stop, press her hand against the stone wall to sense for a moment, then accurately make a choice at the fork.
Ahead was a rusted iron grate, half-submerged in water. Through the other side of the grate came a faint light.
Not the purple of the Demon Territory’s sky, but a pale, vegetal-scented—moonlight.
That was real moonlight.
The moonlight of Moyun Ridge.
“We’re here.” Su Wan’er pushed the iron grate. The rusted bars emitted a dull sound but did not budge. “Probably jammed by something.”
She channeled Spiritual Power and struck the joint of the iron grate with her palm.
The palm strike was not weak, but the rust on the iron grate seemed to absorb the spiritual force like a living thing, instead making the bars’ color turn even darker.
Shen Mo stepped forward and took a slender hairpin from his sleeve.
It was the only thing on him that could still serve as a weapon—one of the betrothal gifts Su Wan’er had given him at their wedding, a White Jade Hairpin, always used only for binding hair.
He snapped off the tail of the hairpin, exposing the sharp broken edge, and used it to scratch a line across the rust on the iron grate.
The rust did not react.
Shen Mo narrowed his eyes slightly, flipped his wrist, and drove the hairpin tip into the deepest crack in the rust, prying with force.
A flake of rust peeled off, revealing iron beneath that was not yet fully corroded.
“Spiritual force gets absorbed,” Shen Mo said in a low voice, “but physical Force does not.”
He pried again and again, rust flaking off piece by piece.
The hairpin broke off more than half, so he continued with the broken end.
Su Wan’er assisted at his side, using Spiritual Power to shake loose the rust whenever it loosened.
Working together for about half an hour, they finally cleared out a rough outline from the iron grate’s rust.
Shen Mo’s fingers were already scraped raw, and the White Jade Hairpin was broken down to only a knuckle’s length.
He drew a deep breath and kicked the iron grate with all his strength.
After a harsh metallic screech, the iron grate slid to one side, leaving a gap half a foot wide.
Just enough for one person to squeeze through sideways.
“You first,” Su Wan’er said.
Shen Mo turned to look at her.
Su Wan’er stood in the Dark Channel’s water, the hem of her robe soaked through, her face pale as paper in the moonlight.
Her eyes were still gentle—so gentle it was almost stubborn.
Shen Mo did not refuse.
He squeezed sideways through the iron grate and stepped into the Night Sky of Moyun Ridge.
Pale moonlight filtered through the gaps of ancient trees. The air smelled of soil and pine resin.
Su Wan’er squeezed through as well, coming to a stop beside him.
Her shoulder was stained with rust, her hair bun slightly disheveled, yet she smiled—a rare sight.
“We’re finally out.”
She said.
Then that smile froze on her face.
Because in the forest illuminated by moonlight, numerous shadowy figures stood.
They were not living people.
Those figures stood like stone statues, covered in dark moss, eye sockets hollow, the Breath they exhaled always condensing into white mist under the moonlight.
Their numbers were not too many, about thirty or forty Corpse Puppets, arrayed outside the Dark Channel exit, sealing off any retreat with no gap left.
Corpse Puppets.
The one at the very front was exceptionally tall, remnants of shattered armor clinging to its body, two clusters of ghostly green Ghost Fire burning in its hollow eye sockets.
A female voice came from behind the Corpse Puppet crowd.
“Young Master Shen, I have been waiting a long time.”
The voice was gentle and refined, even somewhat courteous, like a host welcoming a late guest.
Chu Yi slowly walked out from behind the Corpse Puppet crowd.
She wore a plain white long dress, her features elegant, bearing a three-tenths resemblance to Yun He, yet lacking Yun He’s aggressive sharpness and possessing instead a scholar’s refinement.
Had one encountered her at a banquet in the cultivation world, one might have taken her for a young lady from a scholarly family.
But in her hand, she carried a lamp.
The lamp shade was transparent crystal, but the wick was a finger-thick bone, burning with an eerie blue cold light that cast her face in half-light and half-shadow.
“I have studied the maps of the Southern Wilderness Demon Territory extensively,” Chu Yi said gently.
“Every secret passage and every Dark Channel around Nan Gong Jin’s old residence is on my diagrams. This iron grate was specifically designed to trap high-ranking cultivators. Had Young Master Shen not labored to pry it open, my people would have had to wait quite a while longer—”
She smiled faintly.
“Thank you both for clearing the way for me.”
Shen Mo’s hand unconsciously clenched the broken hairpin, its tip biting into his palm.
Su Wan’er stepped in front of him, the motion light but resolute.
Before them was Chu Yi of the Nascent Soul Stage; behind them, dozens of Corpse Puppets impervious to blade and spear.
The gap in strength was not something the word “desperation” could bridge.
She took a step forward.
“Young Master Shen, the people by your side have never been able to protect you. I won’t say empty words.”
Chu Yi raised the crystal lamp higher, the eerie blue firelight dancing in the depths of her eyes.
“I need your essence as a medicinal catalyst. After it is done, your life or death will be your own choice. If you wish to live, there is a land beyond the western edge of the Southern Wilderness Demon Territory, outside the jurisdiction of any Sect. I will arrange for you to live under a hidden name, and from then on no one will ever find you.”
Her tone when speaking these words was sincere, not seemingly a lie.
But Shen Mo noticed that what she said was “arrange for you to live under a hidden name.”
Su Wan’er spoke, her voice steady. “He is my Husband.”
Chu Yi looked at her.
“I know,” Chu Yi said. “So I am sorry.”
She waved her hand.
The Corpse Puppet crowd moved.
The Sword Light left its sheath, carving a cold arc under the moonlight.
The Sword Qi slashed at the shoulder of the foremost Corpse Puppet, leaving only a shallow white mark.
The Corpse Puppet’s movements showed no sluggishness whatsoever. It countered with a palm strike, the wind of its palm mixed with a thick corrosive poison.
Su Wan’er pulled back to evade, but was driven by three Corpse Puppets flanking from the sides into a dead corner of the forest.
Her footwork was still nimble, her sword forms still precise, but insufficient Spiritual Power made every slash feel like chopping iron with a dull blade, unable to inflict substantive damage.
Shen Mo charged forward.
His only trump card was himself—she surely would not dare let him be injured.
Sure enough, when Corpse Puppets approached Shen Mo, they were either pulled back by her in time or smashed by her palm.
After repeating this several times, they feared Shen Mo like mice fear cats.
On the other side, Su Wan’er’s back was already against an ancient tree, her sword tip touching the ground, her panting as heavy as a broken bellows.
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