Chapter 23: Thicket Village (End) Part 2

His Dantian’s Spiritual Power mysteriously replenished—even the shattered Golden Core showed signs of repair!

The Spirit Energy released by a dead Weird could actually mend his damaged body.

He looked up at the sky. “Heaven truly leaves a path for the desperate.”

Wu Xue suddenly spoke. “Something’s wrong. The Six-Armed Bodhisattva is dead, but the Weird Domain hasn’t opened.”

Su Bai recalled the Six-Armed Bodhisattva’s dying words and said troubledly, “It hasn’t really died?”

“No,” Fu Wuxuan said. “The Six-Armed Bodhisattva’s energy body is gone.”

Everyone exchanged glances, unspoken understanding passing between them.

When a Weird Domain’s lord died, the Domain collapsed automatically. But with the Six-Armed Bodhisattva dead and no reaction, It couldn’t be the true Anomalous Domain Lord.

The group fell silent, harboring the guess they hoped wasn’t true.

Li Yulin blurted out carelessly, “If not the Six-Armed Bodhisattva, then the only big Weird left here is that Corpse-Eating Ghost up the mountain, right?”

The group climbed the mountain. The old monk was chanting sutras. Finishing the last page, he set down his prayer beads. “You’ve come?”

His tone was casual, as if greeting visiting friends.

Yun Xueqing didn’t know how to reply. Li Yulin got straight to it. “Grandmaster, you’re this Weird Domain’s lord, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps that’s the case,” the old monk said with a smile as he twirled his long eyebrows. “After becoming an unclean thing, I forgot too many things.”

He brushed off his robes and chuckled. “I know why you’ve come. Let’s do it.”

He dragged his broken body along, harboring no lingering attachments.

Fu Wuxuan returned a faint smile. “It’s a pity that we have to kill you.”

Su Bai glanced at him. Sympathizing with a Weird? What a strange guy.

Yun Xueqing drew the Calamity Blade and stared at it for a moment. Then he heard Fu Wuxuan say, “You did it last time. Let me handle this one.”

The old monk fell silent for a moment before refusing. “No need.”

Fu Wuxuan was surprised. “Aren’t you afraid it’ll damage your Ascetic Training?”

Yun Xueqing’s face showed no expression, his pitch-black pupils calm and still. In a flat tone, he replied, “This is my karma.”

From the moment he had descended upon this temple and entered the Ancestral Hall to meet the old monk, it had become his karmic hindrance.

And his karmic hindrance could only be severed by his own hand.

“You always say things no one understands,” Fu Wuxuan teased. “Do all you chuunibyou types talk like this?”

Yun Xueqing said nothing. He unsheathed the Calamity Blade and pressed it against the old monk’s chest.

To kill someone painlessly, a swift blade sufficed. But what about a Weird? How should he strike?

As Yun Xueqing pondered this, the old monk suddenly reached out and grasped the blade, pulling it toward his own chest.

The Calamity Blade devoured its flesh and energy. The old monk gradually dissolved into points of light. Before vanishing, Yun Xueqing saw his lips move, forming two words.

He said, “Thank you.”

Yun Xueqing closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was back in the abandoned building from the start.

He still gripped the Calamity Blade in his hand.

He stared at the blade for a few seconds, then took it and went outside. He knocked on Fu Wuxuan’s door.

The door opened quickly. Before the other could speak, Yun Xueqing handed over the blade first. “The blade. Here.”

This time, Fu Wuxuan didn’t refuse. After storing the blade in his Storage Finger Ring, he smirked. “We need to get out of here fast, before Wu Xue and the others find us…”

He trailed off and looked at the people approaching them. With a smile, he said, “Speak of the devil.”

Wu Xue walked over with an expressionless face. “You’re not going anywhere. Come back to the Spiritual Energy Special Control Bureau with me.”

Fu Wuxuan didn’t answer. Instead, he glanced behind her and suddenly smiled. “No one’s watching you. Drop the act.”

Wu Xue didn’t speak, nor did she move. She simply blocked the doorway.

Fu Wuxuan sighed. “Still the tight-lipped gourd type. Wonder who you take after.”

Wu Xue stared at his face for a long while before speaking. “Only tonight. After tomorrow, I’ll hunt you down without mercy.”

“Fine, we’ll take our leave then,” Fu Wuxuan smiled. “But before we go, could you remove these handcuffs first?”

Wu Xue pretended not to hear.

“Wu Xue.”

No response.

“Lady Wu Xue.”

Wu Xue silently looked away. “With this, I can track you.”

It was surveillance, but also protection.

Fu Wuxuan understood the implication. He sighed. “I don’t like it.”

Wu Xue ignored him, turned, and walked back to her room. She even locked the door, fearing he might force his way in.

Fu Wuxuan: “…”

He turned to Yun Xueqing. “We’ll deal with the handcuffs later. Escape first.”

“Someone’s hunting you?”

From snippets of conversation between Wu Xue and Su Bai, he vaguely knew that Fu Wuxuan had killed an important figure from an organization called the Divine Temple—seemingly called the High Priest.

Li Yulin had mentioned it before. There were only about a hundred A-Rank Ability Users in the world—rare powerhouses.

This High Priest must have been extremely important; otherwise, the authorities wouldn’t have dispatched two A-Rank Oracles just to capture Fu Wuxuan for killing him.

Yun Xueqing glanced at him. “Hard to kill.”

“What?”

Yun Xueqing shook his head. “Let’s go.”

The two left the abandoned building and headed toward the wilderness.

Time outside a Weird Domain was frozen. It was still just past eleven at night.

Firelight flickered in the abandoned building as someone cooked. High up in the deep building, San Zhi leaned idly against the windowsill, watching their escaping figures with an eerie smile.

Though it was an escape, Fu Wuxuan’s pace was unhurried, leisurely like a stroll in the countryside.

Yun Xueqing glanced at the wild, overgrown bushes and hesitated. “Where can we go to escape their pursuit?”

“We can’t escape. The organization always has someone who can use Oracle: Trace Seeking. Even without that,” Fu Wuxuan raised his hand, indicating the handcuffs, “with these on, they’ll always find us.”

It sounded like no matter where they fled, they’d be caught.

But Fu Wuxuan changed tack. “There’s one place, though—even an S-Rank Oracle couldn’t monitor it.”

Yun Xueqing fell silent for a moment, then looked up at him.

Their gazes met, and they spoke in unison: “A Weird Domain.”

Yun Xueqing suddenly recalled that when he first met San Zhi, the man had said there was a nearby town where a B-Rank Weird Domain was about to form. Maybe they could hide there.

But both of them were in poor condition now. Forcing their way into a B-Rank Weird Domain would be too reckless.

Yun Xueqing asked him, “What happens if you get caught?”

Fu Wuxuan thought for a moment. “If the Special Control Bureau catches me, they torture me to death. If the Divine Temple gets me, I die on the spot.”

Either way, death.

Yun Xueqing paused. “Let’s hide in the B-Rank Weird Domain.”

The authorities had announced Anle Town as a Weird descent point, so most residents had evacuated early.

The already sparsely populated town felt even more desolate after everyone left.

Dim yellow streetlights buzzed with a sizzle, their glow faint and unsteady. In the vast town, only a few scattered pedestrians wandered.

The passersby were mostly neatly dressed young people. Yun Xueqing guessed they were Oracles seeking to enter the Weird Domain and boost their Spirit Energy.

The town wasn’t large—a few hours sufficed to circle it. There were no notable sights, save for the central square with its massive fountain. At the fountain’s center stood a white statue.

The statue depicted a young man with enormous wings folded neatly behind him. His features were a classic Euro-style pretty boy, with curly long hair cascading to his shoulders, holding a book in hand.

Under the moonlight, the pristine statue took on a holy glow, radiating divinity.

Yun Xueqing had never seen such a statue. “Is this a god?”

Fu Wuxuan glanced at it and fell silent in an eerie manner for a moment. “This is the High Priest in the eyes of the people.”

The High Priest he had killed.

Yun Xueqing didn’t respond. He looked down at the polished stone base, intricately engraved with text.

He expected a biography, but it was praise instead.

Sentient beings suffer, and he weeps for them; Weirds disturb the people, and he rushes to aid. Hailed as a god by the masses, he seeks no acclaim and feels no bitterness.[1]

Yun Xueqing blurted, “The wording’s contradictory. If he’s called a god by the people, you should remove the ‘seeks no acclaim’ part.”

Fu Wuxuan, who had felt a twinge of sentiment seeing remnants of his old acquaintance, suddenly laughed. “Talk like that, and he might crawl out of his grave to kill you.”

Yun Xueqing followed up. “Why did you kill the High Priest?”

The High Priest clearly commanded great prestige. Fu Wuxuan could even joke about him—their relationship seemed decent. What reason did he have to kill him?

Yun Xueqing didn’t doubt that Fu Wuxuan had done it.

If he hadn’t, given the man’s personality, he’d proclaim his innocence to the world instead of fleeing pursued by multiple factions.

Fu Wuxuan’s gaze grew distant, unwilling to dwell. He joked, “First, figure out where we’re staying tonight. Empty houses everywhere—pick any.”

Yun Xueqing drawled, “You look like a burglar.”

Fu Wuxuan smiled faintly when voices suddenly came from behind. “Dong Jun! What a narrow path for enemies. Today, it’s either your death or mine!”

He turned at the sound. “In both those outcomes, it seems I die?”

Before he could make out who it was, a beam of light struck him.

Thinking it was an Oracle attack, he dodged instinctively—but failed.

Crimson moonlight bathed him, like a bucket of blood poured from above.

Yun Xueqing beside him looked up. The once-pale moon had turned blood-red—the Weird had descended.

Yun Xueqing opened his eyes again to a blinding white. When his senses returned, he was in a cramped room.

He lay on a simple iron bed, dressed in blue-and-white striped clothes. An IV dangled from his arm, and iron cuffs pinned his wrists, rendering him immobile.

Before he could grasp the situation, a voice came from the adjacent bed. “You’re an Oracle who came in too, right? I saw you in Anle Town.”

Yun Xueqing turned his head to see a handsome young man, bound the same way.

Unsure of the circumstances, he remained silent.

But the other continued. “Looks like we’ve been caught and thrown in this hospital. No idea what’s going on.”

“I’m Ye Xuechun. You?”

“Being tied up here is so boring… Can you not ignore me? Talk to me?”

Ye Xuechun was quite talkative, but his good looks and pleasant, soothing voice made it tolerable rather than annoying.

Yun Xueqing thought for a moment. “Did you come in alone?”

“Yeah,” Ye Xuechun laughed. “Took a wrong turn, ended up in Anle Town. Bad luck—right when the Weird Domain hit.”

Less bad luck, more clueless.

Any normal person would sense something off about Anle Town’s desolation. Only he bumbled right in.

“You two are so noisy!”

Yun Xueqing found the voice somewhat familiar.

Recalling, it was the one from town who wanted to kill Fu Wuxuan.