Transmigrated as the Villain and Driven Crazy by the Vengeful Male Lead - Chapter 34

Chapter 34: The Ice Cave — Miss Jiang Made Me Search Long Enough.

“Pray tell, Second Young Master, what mantra is required for Soul Guiding?”

Su Cheyue: The Soul Guiding mantra is simple. The difficulty lies in how to summon a soul with another soul. You need the Desire-Seeking Pearl.

In other words, you need me.

Chang Huaichen and Jiang Zhiqing exchanged a look, appearing hesitant. Chang Huaichen began rubbing the bridge of his nose again, rubbing even the faint scar at the center of his forehead red. At this moment, Jiang Zhiqing spoke again.

“Second Young Master, follow me.”

Chang Huaichen and Su Cheyue followed behind her. Lü Shuyao moved to follow as well, but was blocked at the door by Jiang Zhiqing. “As I said, this is a matter of great importance. The spiritual power Young Master Lü provided the Second Young Master is sufficient for the transmission spell. Please wait here.”

Earlier, when Lü Shuyao insisted on eating, Chang Huaichen—wary of the fact that the Desire-Seeking Pearl was in Su Cheyue’s hands—hadn’t dared to oppose him so fiercely. But when it came to seeing the corpse, Chang Huaichen’s attitude was ironclad; he would not allow Lü Shuyao to follow under any circumstances.

Lü Shuyao smiled and sat down.

Once they had exited and their footsteps faded away, Lü Shuyao stood up. Just as he intended to follow them down, a sudden sense of weightlessness hit him. Dizziness made his vision go black.

At first, Lü Shuyao thought it was an earthquake, but the vertigo vanished after a few seconds, feeling exactly like being in an elevator with doubled weight.

An elevator?

He recalled the “drop” Su Cheyue had mentioned before. It seemed it was this sensation. Back then, he had been a butterfly in flight and hadn’t felt it.

Last time, after Su Cheyue mentioned the dropping sensation, everyone in the palace had vanished. Lü Shuyao had a premonition it would be the same this time. He dashed down the stairs, and as expected, every floor was empty.

Su Cheyue was gone.

The mere thought of those words was enough to throw Lü Shuyao into a panic.

He scrambled between floors in a frenzy. The sloped stairs Chang Huaichen had specially modified for Su Cheyue seemed convenient, but running on them was exhausting. Lü Shuyao was sweating profusely when he suddenly skidded to a halt on a certain floor.

A realization flashed in his mind.

Elevator… sloped stairs… low temperature…

Lü Shuyao sprinted to the first floor. The lacquered red doors were shut tight; outside the window was the barrier, a mass of swirling clouds and mist where nothing could be seen. But inside the door…

Lü Shuyao checked the first floor’s screen-incense clock.

To test why Palace Master Chang was so obsessed with time, Lü Shuyao had secretly tampered with the incense clocks on every floor when they first entered, slowing the flow of the incense sand to delay the reporting time.

He had seen the clocks once before. As a STEM student, he had a natural sensitivity to such mechanical devices, but since it was his first time modifying one, he hadn’t been very skilled and had nearly scratched the small hole on the first-floor screen.

Therefore, the clock on the first floor should have had a scratch on it.

But the exquisite instrument before him told him that this was not the floor they had entered through.

He suddenly realized that because they had been walking on sloped ramps, their perception of which “floor” they were on had been blurred.

Where did the first floor go?

A layer of sweat broke out on Lü Shuyao’s back.

The temperature plummeted again. His mind raced in the biting cold, and he couldn’t help but shout.

“Su Cheyue? Su Cheyue!”

A soft sound came from behind him. Lü Shuyao spun around: “Su Cheyue!”

“Young… Young Master…”

A soft, feminine voice responded to him with hesitation.

…

When the dropping sensation reappeared, Su Cheyue began to realize this pavilion held a hidden mechanism. There was a moment of darkness during the descent that made him instinctively uneasy, a lingering habit from his long period of blindness.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before his surroundings brightened again. However, the light here was different from the dim yellow candlelight of the pavilion; it was a ghostly blue light reflected off freezing ice.

The exterior of the pavilion seemed to be encased in an ice cave.

Nearby, Chang Huaichen and Jiang Zhiqing seemed accustomed to it. They pushed Su Cheyue into the first-floor sleeping quarters. The layout was identical to Chang Huaichen’s room on the top floor, except now, a layer of frost was rapidly forming over the bed.

It looked like a crystal-clear jade coffin.

The two of them stood face-to-face before the bed. Chang Huaichen asked, “Shall we begin?”

Jiang Zhiqing: “Let’s begin. You, come back.”

The exchange was odd. Stranger still, perhaps due to the resonance of the ice cave, their voices echoed in the room, their tones and pitches gradually converging until Su Cheyue couldn’t tell who was speaking.

Just as Su Cheyue wanted to see what would happen, Chang Huaichen suddenly looked over and said hollowly, “Seal his five senses first.”

Jiang Zhiqing looked over as well.

“Is that necessary?”

In their view, Su Cheyue could only hear but not see or shout. From the dialogue alone, he shouldn’t be able to deduce anything.

Chang Huaichen’s caution at this moment was worlds apart from his usual flippancy. “Seal them.”

Su Cheyue watched Jiang Zhiqing approach and sent a transmission with a faint smile: Being so cautious, is there a secret that cannot be told to outsiders?

Jiang Zhiqing only said, “Pardon me, Second Young Master.”

The moment she raised her sleeve, the thin figure in red behind her suddenly went limp and fell straight to the floor.

Hearing the sound, Jiang Zhiqing didn’t turn back immediately. Instead, she paused, as if a soul had been jolted into her. Her pupils flashed with a complex light, as if two gazes had merged in an instant. Then, realizing something, she spun around: “Huaichen!”

Ignoring the task of sealing Su Cheyue’s senses, she rushed back to check Chang Huaichen’s body: “Huaichen, Huaichen!”

She held him, her hand reaching out but not quite daring to touch him. Her entire body began to tremble. “How can this be… it isn’t the Hour of the Boar (21:00-23:00) yet, how can this be?!”

Unease, rage, fear.

Su Cheyue narrowed his eyes.

The screen-incense clock had not made a sound, yet just now, the Hour of the Boar had passed.

At this moment, quite abruptly, Jiang Zhiqing picked Chang Huaichen up.

A woman, holding a man in a bridal carry.

She placed him into the ice coffin. Su Cheyue couldn’t see clearly what she saw because the distance was too great. He only saw her lose all her usual composure, crying out in a half-frenzied state: “Whose turn is it… whose turn is it tonight?!”

Whose turn for what?

“Qinzhu, is it Qinzhu?! Has Qinzhu recovered from her injury?” She rushed outside the room. Su Cheyue heard the sound of a mechanism being pressed. Turning toward the noise, a long shadow in deep purple dropped down.

Jiang Zhiqing’s tone shifted sharply: “It’s you?”

“Miss Jiang made me search long enough.”

Perhaps because the temperature was too low, Lü Shuyao’s voice wasn’t as light or bright as usual. Instead, it was somewhat dry and heavy, as if someone had lit a fire in his chest.

“Lü Shuyao… where is Qinzhu? You hid Qinzhu?!”

“Didn’t you say it? This is a matter of great importance; fewer people involved the better.”

Jiang Zhiqing’s expression changed. She glanced at the ice coffin, and when she looked back, her face was a mixture of panic and ruthlessness.

“Huaichen can’t wait… Su Cheyue, Young Master Su! I beg of you! Guide the soul—guide my soul!”

Lü Shuyao stepped forward as if casually and asked, “What happened to Palace Master Chang?”

Seeing him draw near, an alarm seemed to go off in Jiang Zhiqing’s head! She suddenly blocked his path and summoned her natal sword to strike at him!

“Zhanquan!”

The two long swords clashed fiercely in the ice cave. The clanging echoed in the confined space, making the very air vibrate!

Lü Shuyao had only recovered ten percent of his cultivation. No matter how fast his footwork or how sharp his reflexes, the Zhanquan sword soon lacked the spiritual power to sustain itself, and its form became unstable. He held his ground silently until Jiang Zhiqing let out a cold laugh and suddenly pivoted her blade, striking toward the man in white in the wheelchair!

Lü Shuyao’s gaze faltered. Without a second thought, he chased after her. Jiang Zhiqing reached the wheelchair but didn’t attack; she braced herself against the armrest and flipped over the closely pursuing Lü Shuyao, grabbing him from behind and locking her palm over his vitals.

Excellent footwork!

Lü Shuyao felt that her hands were not small; rather, they were quite large. Those slender fingertips applied pressure. As Lü Shuyao struggled to breathe with his throat gripped, he saw Su Cheyue use all his strength to brace against the wheelchair, attempting to stand, while blurting out: “Don’t kill him!”

The moment those words left his mouth, all three people were stunned.

It took Jiang Zhiqing several seconds to react: “So, the Second Young Master can speak.”

Her palm tightened. Lü Shuyao parted his lips, struggling for air. “Has the Second Young Master been lying to us this whole time?”

Su Cheyue’s brow was knit tight. Lü Shuyao thought all the color had drained from his face.

“Let go,” Su Cheyue said.

“Let go? I can do that.” Jiang Zhiqing’s gentleness was gone, replaced by a cold, sharp threat. “But first, the Second Young Master must summon the soul for me!”

Chang Huaichen had suddenly fainted. One might have expected Jiang Zhiqing, the disciple, to be at a loss, but instead, she had assumed the posture of a controller, refusing to stop until her goal was met.

“Fine,” Su Cheyue agreed instantly. “Let him go first.” He took the Soul-Shifting Knot from his spiritual pouch. “This is the Soul-Shifting Knot; it can also be used for soul guiding. Follow me and recite the mantra to release your living soul—where is Young Master Jiang’s corpse?”

Jiang Zhiqing hesitated for a moment, and her grip loosened slightly. Su Cheyue watched her every move. After a long silence, she asked, “Can the summoned soul enter the Palace Master’s body?”

Su Cheyue replied immediately, “Then Palace Master Chang’s own living soul will be displaced.”

Jiang Zhiqing was unmoved.

Su Cheyue continued, “If you truly wish to do this, to ensure the soul guiding, summoning, and shifting can be done in one go, Miss Jiang should first attempt soul guiding. Then, use the Soul-Shifting Knot to swap out Palace Master Chang’s living soul, ensuring Young Master Jiang’s soul can enter his body.”

Jiang Zhiqing said, “No need.”

“No need for what?”

Jiang Zhiqing offered no explanation. She flipped her broad palm and struck Lü Shuyao on the back of the neck. Su Cheyue cried out in shock, “I already agreed, you—”

“No need to be so nervous, Second Young Master. He has only fainted.”

She began reciting the mantra Su Cheyue had provided. Before long, a wisp of a soul-image floated into the air.

The moment Su Cheyue saw this soul-image, his eyes narrowed.

The soul was tall and elegant, its features remarkably similar to Jiang Zhiqing’s, yet its aura was upright and sharp. It was clearly…

The living soul then recited a mantra of its own and dove into Chang Huaichen’s body.

Su Cheyue probed the inside of the Soul-Shifting Knot. It was empty.

Understanding began to dawn on him.

Su Cheyue said, “It is done. There is no issue with the soul guiding or shifting.”

The soul-image then returned to Jiang Zhiqing’s body. Focus returned to her eyes. “Can we officially begin the soul summoning now?”

In reality, Su Cheyue didn’t know the first thing about summoning souls with the Desire-Seeking Pearl. He had come here to uncover the truth behind the “evil desires” he heard that night, to bring peace to the girls, and to find the bounty.

He hadn’t expected things to become this thorny.

In the end, it was because his current strength was simply too weak. He couldn’t even protect himself, let alone others.

But thinking carefully—call him foolish or reckless—he had never once considered what he should do if he encountered danger. Charging into peril had become an instinct.

In the past, when his cultivation was so high he was nearly invincible, he never noticed the downsides of such an incautious style. But after descending the mountain following his ordeal in the Ghost Purgatory, and experiencing Tianjin Lane and now Zhuohua Palace, Su Cheyue understood: he was currently vulnerable. He could be hurt or killed at any moment.

But even so, there was still someone with him.

That person’s situation was no better than his own. Having survived the Ghost Purgatory, he was also someone who could be knocked over by a gust of wind from a sword—a mere ant in the cultivation world.

Yet he was still willing to stay by his side.

Staying with him through the folly, the danger, and the pain.

Su Cheyue looked toward Lü Shuyao, his mind momentarily going blank.

“Second Young Master?” Jiang Zhiqing’s voice urged him.

“The Second Young Master hasn’t… lied to me again, has he?”