Don't Pick Up Disciples Randomly by the Roadside - Chapter 13

Shen Chunyi’s heart sank. He moved his lips, but before any sound could escape, the spoon in his hand clattered onto the bed, spilling the remaining porridge and staining the sheets.

Eyes. Golden-red eyes.

An indescribable chaos instantly enveloped him. His vision was gradually obscured by a thick, dark fog. Everything he could see moments before seemed to compress, bend, and twist like water, finally morphing into an unrecognizable, multicolored liquid that gushed from his eyes like a stream.

It felt as though a hand had reached into his skull, kneading his brain, forcefully molding it into shapes beyond his control. Shen Chunyi tried to think—to understand what he was doing or what he intended to do—but the moment his thoughts wandered, that hand would yank them back, teasing and twisting them before crushing them into a tiny, shapeless mass. Until his thoughts were no longer his own, and neither was his body.

He could only sense something soft yet prickly clinging to his brain, then biting into his calf, stinging so sharply it nearly sent him into convulsions.

Xuanshuang Xu’s face and the entire room shattered into a chaotic mess of red, green, and blue specks of light, tangled into a disorderly web. Half of the threads tightened around his consciousness, while the other half sprouted mouths and tongues, gnawing and devouring his body. He couldn’t even feel pain; fear itself felt like a luxury. All he could do was watch helplessly as this incomprehensible mass consumed his legs, waist, and chest. Wherever it passed, it left behind dark, sticky patches of light—damp, cold, dense, and utterly unfathomable.

He trembled, and the tangled threads trembled with him, as if delighting in his utter helplessness, his powerlessness to resist yet forced to endure everything. From this, he was infected with a perverse, almost gleeful sense of schadenfreude.

Xuanshuang Xu gently patted his cheek and sighed, “I used to listen to my master so obediently. Why can’t Master listen to me a little now?”

It was suffocating. Like being pressed into a dark, sticky sea—stifling, oppressive, yet somehow compelling him to surrender and sink into a deep slumber, as if yielding to it would lead him gently into a comfortable, eternal rest.

Just as he was about to lose consciousness, the hand that had been choking him suddenly withdrew. His vision flickered between light and darkness before abruptly clearing.

Before him sat the young man, leisurely perched at the head of the bed, a satisfied curve gracing his lips. Shen Chunyi lay curled in the red bedding, drenched in cold sweat. Though his vision had cleared, it remained hazy. Through the blur, he saw the young man narrow his eyes with a mix of contentment and pleasure, then reach out to gently twirl a strand of Shen Chunyi’s hair. He seemed about to lift it but hesitated, letting it slip loosely through his fingers instead. With a leisurely smile, he asked, “Does Master understand now?”

Shen Chunyi could hear nothing but the pounding of his own heart. Such a level of mental control!

Just now, in that single moment, he had almost completely destroyed his mind—reduced him to a mindless fool or a doll incapable of thought. He possessed such power, yet he had only toyed with him, like a playful tease, leaving behind a strange, lingering attachment to that dark, suffocating embrace. It was as if he had dangled him on a hook, played with him briefly, but hadn’t had his fill—leaving him with a twisted anticipation for the next round of torment.

Shen Chunyi lay buried in the red bedding, his entire body chilled, breathing shallowly.

Xuan Shuangxu’s voice remained leisurely and carefree, even carrying a hint of amusement as he said, “How could Master be so unguarded against me?”

Shen Chunyi did not reply.

Because even now, he was not permitted to control his own body. Xuan Shuangxu seemed to greatly enjoy this sense of control, his voice growing even more amused as he added, “Master now knows I wouldn’t do anything terrible to that girl, right? So next time, leave such matters to me.”

He wouldn’t—he wouldn’t resort to torture or brutal interrogation, but this kind of mental restraint was even more terrifying!

After a long while, the young man, in an act of extreme audacity, reached out and patted Shen Chunyi’s head before finally releasing the restraints on his entire body, watching with satisfaction as Shen Chunyi weakly sat up.

Shen Chunyi seemed as though he had lost his soul—his mind was clear, but his scalp still tingled. His right hand was handed a new spoon by Xuan Shuangxu. Struggling to steady himself, he forced himself to perform the motions of a normal person, stiffly scooping a spoonful of porridge and bringing it to his lips, though he tasted nothing.

Xuan Shuangxu sat opposite him, one hand propping his chin, the other tapping lightly on the table as if nothing had happened, and asked with a smile, “Does it suit your taste?”

Shen Chunyi didn’t spare him a glance, merely nodding vaguely. Xuan Shuangxu’s smile deepened. After finishing the bowl of porridge, Shen Chunyi couldn’t eat anything else. He lay back down on the bed, burying his face in the pillow, unwilling to speak another word to him.

Xuan Shuangxu, however, appeared indifferent. He tidied up the food box on his own, took the shawl the girl had left behind earlier, closed the door, and left.

He also extinguished the lamp.

A considerate gesture, as even light had become a source of irritation for Shen Chunyi now. It was too terrifying—that feeling, too spine-chilling.

No matter what, Shen Chunyi couldn’t fall asleep. He stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, trying to restore the flow of his thoughts, prepared to feign death by gazing at the roof until dawn.

In his half-dead state, a communication talisman flew in, interrupting his plan to lie still. It exploded in Shen Chunyi’s mind with a whoosh. Already on the verge of a nervous breakdown, even a small communication spell could startle him.

Shen Chunyi reluctantly accepted it, unrolling it to read, and immediately grew solemn—it was Shi Yun’s case summary. It seemed that while the two of them had been lost in their own world, Shi Yun had likely been working overtime. She had first summoned a coroner, conducted an autopsy, and finally written the case summary late into the night, not forgetting to inform Shen Chunyi. Truly diligent and dedicated.

The results Shi Yun provided aligned perfectly with Xuan Shuangxu’s earlier speculation. The old woman’s esophagus indeed had a bone fragment lodged at the second constriction, which had pierced a nearby blood vessel, causing internal bleeding and death. With ironclad evidence, the mansion’s owner had nothing to say. The case was thus concluded, and Shi Yun mentioned she would return to Taiwu Mountain tomorrow.

Shen Chunyi sat on the bed with his knees drawn up, elbows resting on them, fingers buried deep in his hair. He couldn’t shake the feeling that things weren’t as simple as they seemed.

Lost in his tangled thoughts, he didn’t realize how late it had grown. Earlier, Shen Chunyi had found the room’s incense too heavy and opened the window. Now, a faint chill seeped in from outside, reminding him of the late hour.

Shen Chunyi shook his head, sighed deeply, and rested his forehead in his hand, wondering how he had ended up picking up such a little rabbit of a disciple.

Although his peers had often criticized his teaching methods in the past, Shen Chunyi had never felt there was anything wrong with them. But at this moment, he truly felt a pang of heartache over the utter failure of his educational career.

How had things come to this?

Shen Chunyi couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard he thought.

But sighing was one thing—after sighing, he couldn’t just toss the boy back. Shen Chunyi could only resign himself to his fate, get out of bed to close the window, and prepare to go back to sleep as if nothing had happened.

As he lamented inwardly, he slipped on his white boots. Just as he was about to step down, he caught a faint, elusive fragrance mixed with the soft, cloying scent of incense, seeping through the door crack and drifting into the room.

Shen Chunyi’s alarm bells went off. Benzoin incense!

There were many types of benzoin incense, most of which were emitted by flower and plant spirits. As the name suggested, its hypnotic and sedative effects were astonishing. Among the flower and plant spirits, those not skilled in combat would release this fragrance to first lull their enemies into unconsciousness, then entangle them with vines and absorb them as nutrients.

Why would there be benzoin incense outside the door? And such a potent one at that!

To allow guests on every floor to watch the performances, this tavern had a circular corridor on each level. Bricks and stones were laid between two layers of wooden planks, dividing the space into sections—each section forming a private room. Outside the room doors was a walkway with handrails. If benzoin incense was being burned outside the door, it wouldn’t just affect Shen Chunyi’s room but the entire building—unless this tavern collectively offered insomnia prevention services!

Shen Chunyi had been refining poisons for years, so incense of this level had no effect on him; at most, he found it unpleasant. Though the vague suspicion in his mind grew stronger, the situation wasn’t suitable for rash action. Moreover, he was still speculating about why someone would want to knock out all the guests in the building and couldn’t be entirely certain.

He had just been tricked by Xuan Shuangxu, and his limbs were still weak. Though he had regained some strength, he wasn’t sure if he could actually fight whatever was coming in. If he were to slip up and end up drained dry, it would be quite an unsightly end.

Just as he stepped down from the bed, he heard an extremely faint rustling sound by the window, like freshly turned soil or ants emerging from their nest—a barely audible, continuous, rustling noise.

What was that sound?

He quickly walked to the window and looked out. The streets of Dunan were eerily silent under the bright moonlight, and he saw nothing at first glance. He listened more intently and realized the sound was coming from below.

It was an indistinct, sticky sound of friction and footsteps, as if someone who had just crawled out of a swamp or mud pit was climbing up something. Shen Chunyi looked down along the wall and met a pair of bulging, eerie green eyes.

There was a person clinging to the wall beneath his room’s window, like ivy, with all four limbs pressed tightly against the surface, slowly inching upward. The person’s eyes bulged unnaturally, devoid of bloodshot veins but glowing with an eerie green light. Their entire face had a strangely incomplete appearance, with skin covered in a bizarre, garish red hue—like muscle without skin, not entirely clear under the moonlight.

The color combination of this face was too garish—red and green.

“Hello,” Shen Chunyi said gently while reaching for the throwing darts in his sleeve. “It’s not very polite to climb someone’s window in the middle of the night. You might be mistaken for a creep.”

The man froze for a moment, as if not understanding what he was saying. As their eyes met, he suddenly opened his mouth with a cry and spat out a three-foot-long tongue, aiming straight for Shen Chunyi’s face!

Shen Chunyi found it strange. A normal person’s tongue was flat, so why was this man’s tongue cylindrical? The next moment, he understood—what was in this man’s mouth wasn’t a tongue but a vine!

He immediately retreated, throwing out cross-shaped throwing stars that cleanly severed the man’s tongue! Yellow-green fluid burst from the severed end, splattering most of it onto Shen Chunyi’s white robe.

With this distance created, the man finally climbed up. Under the faint moonlight leaking through the window, a shadow stirred at the boundary between light and darkness. Shen Chunyi’s eyes widened as he saw a soft vine, growing at an unbelievable speed, creeping up along the window and winding its way into the room.

And along with this vine, a person also crawled in.

The moonlight was pitifully scarce, making it impossible to see the person’s specific appearance—only a vague silhouette could be glimpsed.

This person looked extremely bizarre, as if their bones and muscles had grown first but their skin hadn’t had time to form. From head to toe, they glowed with an eerie red hue, resembling a human shape but definitely not human.

Shen Chunyi hid in the darkness, staring unblinkingly at this thing. It moved extremely slowly in the room, pausing with each step, its footsteps so sticky they seemed to stretch like threads, as if it had just crawled out of some wet marsh or swamp. Suddenly, it bent over, assuming a posture no human could possibly achieve—crouching on all fours, searching for something unknown.

This person’s vision and sense of smell likely weren’t very sharp. Shen Chunyi had merely stepped back into the shadows, not vanished into thin air, yet it still couldn’t find him.

It seemed to have a poor sense of balance, crawling in a twisted, crooked manner, even bumping into the corner of a table. The soup pot Hongyun had brought earlier was knocked over, and the sweet scent of hawthorn instantly exploded in the room. The spilled sweet soup contained softened apple chunks, sticky and thick. The person’s knee pressed over it, causing them to stumble even while crawling.

Though crawling in a twisted manner, it was generally moving in Shen Chunyi’s direction—it was searching for the life energy of a living person! The person groped around from below, though without any method. Shen Chunyi had truly never seen such a ghostly creature before, observing it with a mix of curiosity and bewilderment. He didn’t notice when one of the person’s arms suddenly elongated, firmly grabbing Shen Chunyi’s ankle.

The person’s skin was smooth and cold, their fingers wrapping around one by one before suddenly tightening. Just as Shen Chunyi was about to kick out, he suddenly sensed something wrong.

One, two, three…

This person’s hand actually had eight fingers! No, no, not just eight! Though the touch was indeed human skin, it was far too cold for a living person, yet not like a corpse either. A corpse’s skin was stiff and lacked elasticity, but this hand felt full of vibrant, springy softness.

Before Shen Chunyi could ponder what this thing was, he discovered something even more unbelievable: at the palm and fingers of this hand, new fingers were growing at an astonishingly fast speed. Even at the fingertips, like the branching roots of an old tree, new joints were splitting off, densely crawling up Shen Chunyi’s calf!

Shen Chunyi swiftly retracted his leg and kicked out with the other, landing a solid blow on the person. The man cried out in pain, letting out a strange shriek before releasing his grip.

It was a sound unlike anything a human could produce, nor did it resemble the roar of any ferocious beast Shen Chunyi had ever heard. Instead, it was like the wind—the howling of a gale tearing through dense leaves and tangled branches!

Shen Chunyi rolled over, grabbed the longsword he had tossed aside earlier, and held it defensively in front of him. He watched with shock and uncertainty as this thing, barely recognizable as human, struggled to stand, fell, stood again, and fell once more. Finally, it seemed to abandon any attempt at standing upright in human form, dropping to all fours and crawling forward, turning to face Shen Chunyi directly.

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