The Villainess Always Tries to Seduce Me - Chapter 25

Her eyes shimmered slightly, suppressing that ripple of emotion. She spoke coolly, “This Seat has no idea what you are talking about.”

In the concealing darkness, Yun Chuanzhi silently mimicked her words with her mouth, her facial features contorting wildly in a mocking imitation; she then pursed her lips and said nothing more.

Ultimately, Yun Chuanzhi’s physical stamina was lacking. Even after drinking the divine bird’s tears, she couldn’t run for this long, especially not while carrying an adult woman who was significantly taller than her. Soon, her legs went weak.

“No, I can’t keep this up.” She stopped, gasping for breath. Finding a spot against the wall, she set Bai Fenghe down and squatted to wipe her sweat. “Just how big is this palace of yours? I’ve been running along this corridor for so long; I should have found an exit ages ago.”

“It is not large.” Bai Fenghe shook her head weakly. She slowly propped up her body, brushing away her messy hair. “Stop running. It is likely useless, even if you run until dawn.”

Yun Chuanzhi had already suspected as much. She collapsed, exhausted. “Are we being tricked by that Shadow Demon again? But there’s no light at all along this path; how could it have followed us?”

“Ordinary Shadow Demons can only attach themselves to shadows, but if one grows powerful enough, darkness itself becomes the greatest shadow,” Bai Fenghe said softly.

Hearing this, Yun Chuanzhi felt her skin crawl, the hair on her arms standing on end.

“You mean, from the very beginning, we never escaped the Shadow Demon?” She stared up at the ceiling. “Well, that’s it then. Let’s just wait to die.”

The surroundings were as silent as the underworld. Only the rising and falling of two sets of breathing accompanied them; Yun Chuanzhi’s was heavy and ragged, while Bai Fenghe’s was so faint one had to strain their ears to hear it.

“You, little slave, don’t seem afraid of death at all,” Bai Fenghe remarked.

“I’m alright,” Yun Chuanzhi replied, pulling her cold little stone puppet into a forced embrace. “If living is worse than dying, then one won’t fear death. But if every day offers food, drink, sleep, and the leisure to tease birds and enjoy flowers, then dying is a bit of a pity.”

“You live only for eating, drinking, and sleeping?” Bai Fenghe frowned.

“What else is there? I have no family, no attachments, and no grudges to settle. Isn’t eating and sleeping enough?” Yun Chuanzhi smiled, though a hint of longing crept into her voice. “It’s just a shame that bowl of red bean ice wasn’t finished.”

“Now that the night has passed, it has surely melted.”

When she mentioned the red bean ice, her tone was genuinely tragic. Bai Fenghe listened in speechless disbelief, finding it both incomprehensible and inadvertently funny.

The person was facing death, yet was still thinking about a bowl of ice. Truly a person from the lower realms who had seen little of the world. Though Bai Fenghe shook her head, her lips involuntarily curled upward.

However, she quickly realized she was softening and withdrew the smile, her brow furrowing again.

The silence returned. The two sat side by side against the cold wall, each lost in their own thoughts.

“Master, my head is falling off,” Blackie said crossly. He struggled with his limbs until, with a pop, he pulled himself out of Yun Chuanzhi’s arms, his short hands reaching for his own head.

He let out a sharp squeak: “Master, my head fell off!”

Startled by the shout, Yun Chuanzhi stuffed the head back into his arms. “Here, take it! So noisy.”

As the human and puppet bickered, a slight breeze stirred beside them. Yun Chuanzhi stopped laughing instantly and turned her head toward the darkness.

The night was as silent as before, yet it seemed even more profound. Yun Chuanzhi reached out hurriedly to feel around, but only caught a handful of cold air.

“Sect Leader? Bai Fenghe?” She stood up abruptly, her arms sweeping up and down in search, but she found nothing.

Crap. She had lost her. Yun Chuanzhi slapped her thigh and hurried forward.

“Blackie, did you see the Sect Leader?” she asked while groping through the dark. On her shoulder, Blackie’s tone was solemn: “No, Master.”

“What about you?” she asked the cloth dolls sprinting across the floor. The dolls couldn’t speak, so Blackie shook his head for them.

Yun Chuanzhi rarely panicked, but now her heart raced. She had promised Ling Shui and Cheng Jinshu; she couldn’t break her word. She knelt on the spot, lighting a flame with one hand while biting her finger with the other, drawing an array on the ground.

Since they were already under the Shadow Demon’s spell, having a shadow didn’t matter anymore.

With the power of the Phoenix Tears, the array operated much more easily. Fresh blood formed lines that began to glow.

“Stars shift the palace, heaven and earth in four directions. Southeast forms the hexagram, Northwest sets the way.” She recited the incantation at high speed, then gathered spiritual power in her palm and slammed it into the eye of the array. The glowing lines twisted and transformed into a tiny spark of light that settled on her brow.

Yun Chuanzhi followed the spark, running into the darkness until her throat felt parched. The spark floated forward and vanished into a wall.

The silence was gone. Faint, mournful crying echoed from within the wall. Yun Chuanzhi took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and stepped through the wall.

When she opened her eyes, Blackie covered his mouth, and Yun Chuanzhi stood frozen in shock.

She was no longer in the palace. She stood upon a battlefield of overwhelming scale, littered with corpses. Below her feet were countless bodies of demons and evil spirits, piled up like mountains. Above, tens of thousands of demons wailed, a dense cloud of evil things filling the sky and stretching to the horizon.

The sky held no clarity; a massive, blood-colored setting sun hung at the edge of the world, staining the heavens a deep crimson. It was impossible to tell if it was the color of the sun or the sheer amount of blood mixed into the wind.

In the midst of those ten thousand demons, beneath the red sun, a person stood tall on a floating sword. Her dark hair merged with her black robes, snapping fiercely in the wind behind her. She held no weapon, using only spiritual power to block something.

Countless demons circled her like vultures hovering over a dying person, waiting for the moment they stopped breathing to tear them apart.

“Master, that’s the Sect Leader!” Blackie’s eyes were sharper than hers, and he shouted in his high-pitched voice. Yun Chuanzhi shielded her eyes and looked up, a chill running down her spine.

The woman in black was indeed Bai Fenghe. Every strand of her hair exuded a demonic air; her brows were raised high, and her vivid red lips were curved in a reckless, mocking laugh.

“Master, I am your favorite disciple. Why don’t you just yield and give me a life? What would it matter?” Her voice pierced through the cloud of demons, echoing clearly; it sounded like the most cruel of spirits, making one’s skin crawl.

Master? The woman in black is the former Sect Master, Mingcun? Yun Chuanzhi was dazed. She strode across the mountain of corpses, intending to get a closer look, when her ears caught a weak sound of sobbing.

“No, Master! That is also the Sect Leader!” Blackie saw the crying person first and shouted.

In the midst of the foul-smelling sea of blood and corpses, a corner of deep smoke-purple fabric fluttered in the wind. Yun Chuanzhi hurried forward and saw the woman kneeling on the ground, her ten slender fingers dug deep into the mud, the blood from her fingertips soaking the earth.

“Bai Fenghe!” Yun Chuanzhi realized what was happening immediately. She shouted her name and leaped forward to squat beside her. “This is the Shadow Demon’s illusion! Wake up!”

But Bai Fenghe clearly couldn’t hear her. The normally arrogant and poisonous woman was now crying so hard she seemed about to stop breathing, her features stained with tears like a damp painting.

Blackie climbed onto Bai Fenghe’s head and began hammering her with his little stone hands, but it remained useless.

What do I do? Yun Chuanzhi was at a loss. Just then, the demons overhead let out a world-shaking cry. Yun Chuanzhi looked up sharply.

She saw the “Bai Fenghe” in the sky plunge a sword straight into Mingcun’s chest.

At the same moment, the Bai Fenghe beside her saw this image. Her face tilted up, her eyes became hollow, and she went still as a statue.

For a second, Yun Chuanzhi thought she had actually died. Before she could reach out to cover her eyes, a mountain-collapsing blast of astral wind erupted from Bai Fenghe’s body.

The wind blew everything away; the sea of corpses and the ten thousand demons vanished into dust.

Yun Chuanzhi was hit head-on by the gale. Like a fragile insect, she was thrown against the ceiling before tumbling to the floor. Her vision went dark repeatedly; it took a long time for her to see clearly.

After about fifteen minutes, she managed to crawl up, cursing every ancestor she could think of to vent her frustration as she stumbled back to Bai Fenghe.

“You are a Sect Leader of Mount Buxi! Even I survived the Shadow Demon’s illusion; how could you end up like this?”

Yun Chuanzhi felt like every bone in her body was shattered. She tried desperately to pull Bai Fenghe up, but the woman was like a lump of wet dough on the floor, impossible to lift.

“You fell for it, you idiot!” Yun Chuanzhi’s head was swimming. She grabbed Bai Fenghe’s hair, mussing the silk-like strands until they looked like dry weeds.

“If I had any strength left, I’d slap you twice!” Yun Chuanzhi had completely let go, saying whatever came to mind. “If you don’t wake up, I’m going to die here too!”

Suddenly, lights flickered on. The empty hall appeared beneath their feet, and the night breeze carrying the scent of plants brushed past her nose. Yun Chuanzhi’s strength failed, and she flopped down onto the floor.

Gasping, she wiped the sweat from her face. “Fine. They’re here. I guess I really am going to the grave with you.”

The newcomer arrived with the confidence of someone who had already won, making no effort to hide their presence. Footsteps echoed through the hall, growing closer. When they stopped, Yun Chuanzhi looked up.

The person was covered from head to toe in a black robe, not even a toe showing. Their build was ordinary; neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. Their identity was impossible to determine.

Even their voice was masked by a spell, at times coarse, at times shrill. After a burst of unpleasant laughter, they reached out toward Yun Chuanzhi.

“The arrogant Sect Leader Bai turns out to be nothing but a hollow vessel. She can’t even handle a mere Shadow Demon. Stupid woman,” the person laughed. Then, their palm opened, and Yun Chuanzhi was lifted into the air, her neck falling into their grip.

“It’s a pity such a loyal servant followed you. No matter. She’ll go first, and soon you two can reunite in the underworld.”

As the person tightened their fingers, Yun Chuanzhi gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. At the moment her throat was about to be crushed, the pressure suddenly vanished. When she opened her eyes in shock, she was already hanging onto Bai Fenghe.

Their positions had swapped. A warm, powerful arm was wrapped around her waist, holding her effortlessly with one hand.

The Bai Fenghe who had been in despair just moments ago was now standing tall under the lights, her handsome face wearing a wild, demonic smile: “Guess who fell for it?”

“Self-righteous fool.”

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