Netherworld Painted Skin Scroll

Chapter 330 For Love
"What crime have I committed?" Xu Pianpian glared at Xu Zhen, then narrowed her eyes at Tong Xu, saying fiercely, "You! You must have been talking bad about me again! I'll get you sooner or later—"

Xu Zhen suddenly raised his hand and grabbed Xu Pianpian in his palm from a distance. Before she could finish speaking, Xu Zhen grabbed her by the neck. Just as she was about to struggle, Xu Zhen bit her on the side of her neck.

When he spoke to Tong Xu, he had a set of white teeth, but now those white teeth turned into extremely long fangs. With a cracking sound, the fangs sank deep into Xu Pianpian's neck, crushing her neck bones.

Xu Pianpian screamed in pain, but her neck was still being choked by Xu, and she couldn't move below her neck. She could only shake her head wildly, letting out a sharp hiss like a wild beast in extreme pain.

This wasn't the first time Tong Xu had witnessed such a scene. The instant Xu Zhen raised his hand, Tong Xu made a hand seal, preventing any sound from escaping the room.

Xu Zhen had fangs in his mouth, and blood splattered all over the lower half of his face, but the expression on the upper half of his face was still calm. He was even smiling at Tong Xu, as if to say, "Please excuse my poor performance."

Tong Xu felt a chill run down her spine and turned her face away. After three breaths, the blood flowing from Xu Pianpian's neck was almost reaching Tong Xu's feet before she slowly stopped moving.

Xu Zhen released her grip and lifted her hand, causing Xu Pianpian to fall limply to the ground, remaining motionless. After five or six breaths, she suddenly gasped for breath, her body jerking violently. Then she frantically pawed at the ground, her eyes rolling back, her neck taut, her whole body trembling as if in spasms.

After digging for a short while, she finally took two more deep breaths and her body relaxed. She stopped rolling her eyes and just lay on the ground, panting heavily, her long eyelashes trembling violently, not daring to look at Xu Zhen again.

Xu Zhen sighed: "If you come with me, I'll tell you that once we're here, you have to listen to me. Do you understand?"

“We’ve come to Qingpu Mountain. Sect Leader Tong is the host, and we are the guests. Guests shouldn’t cause trouble for the host. Haven’t I taught you this principle? Pianpian, now that you’ve come to the Central Continent, you should learn to act like a proper person. Otherwise, what are you doing here?”

Xu Pianpian lay on the ground, half her face submerged in blood, listening to Xu Zhen speak while glaring fiercely at Tong Xu.

After Xu Zhen finished speaking, she used this expression to say in a soft and pitiful voice, "I know I was wrong, I will never dare to do it again."

“If you really don’t dare, you shouldn’t look at Sect Leader Tong like that.”

Xu Pianpian quickly buried her face in the blood and whispered, "I didn't."

"Fellow Daoist Xu, she's still a child, let's just forget about it."

Xu Zhen looked at her and said, "Since Sect Leader Tong pleaded for you, let's just let it go. Get up."

Xu Pianpian glanced at Xu Zhen, and seeing that he wasn't angry anymore, she immediately stood up. Looking at the blood-soaked gauze on the ground, she pointed at Xu Zhen and said, "Look at you! What are we going to do now?"

Xu Zhen smiled: "Well done. I'll make as many of these scarves as you need."

"This is what you said—what is it?"

"Sect Leader Tong, go find someone. You can choose the person yourself. It has to be a disciple of a sect that Li Wuxiang can easily wipe out. Find a woman. She has to be beautiful, have a good temperament and manners, and, in your words, be a really good person. Then feed her to Pianpian."

"Have her disguise herself as this person and go to Li Wuxiang's place, then things will be much easier."

Tong Xu looked at Xu Pianpian, then at Xu Zhen: "You want her to infiltrate Li Wuxiang's inner circle and then kill Xue Baoping?"

Xu Zhen smiled slightly: "Yes." Tong Xu fell silent. Xu Zhen's plan was a good one... and Xu Pianpian really pulled it off. She didn't know what kind of demon Xu Pianpian was, but she had one skill: she could eat anything and look like it.

She devoured Lü Zihuan, and became identical to her, so much so that even her master couldn't see through the deception. Her emotions, memories, and habits were also consumed along with her body. However, she retained her own mind and thoughts after the consumption, essentially becoming Lü Zihuan herself, while also incorporating Xu Pianpian's ideas.

If he really found her a disciple from another sect, and she used that disciple's identity to approach Li Wuxiang, Tong Xu felt there was an 80% chance it would work.

But it was at this moment that she remembered Xue Baoping standing among the fiery red maple trees by the Heavenly Lake.

“Actually… it’s not necessary to kill Xue Baoping,” Tong Xu said. “Just making a show of it, creating a false impression, is enough. I don’t mean anything by it, but it’s just for the sake of being safe—in case something unexpected happens later, since Li Wuxiang is so concerned about that little girl, we might be able to use her to blackmail him.”

Xu Zhen didn't speak, still smiling, but his nostrils twitched slightly, and he leaned back, raising his chin slightly to look at her: "Sect Leader Tong, I can smell it."

"what?"

Xu Zhen suddenly leaned forward again, staring at her face: "Soft, and a little sweet—"

He closed his eyes: "Sweet and metallic... Ah, let me think—"

He kept his eyes closed and remained silent for several breaths before suddenly opening them again, but the smile on his face had vanished: "I can sense that you can't bear to hurt that little girl. Sect Leader Tong, this is not right."

Xu Pianpian immediately turned her face, her eyes fixed on her.

Cultivators have excellent eyesight, so the room doesn't need to be too bright; a little light is enough. But at this moment, the eyes of these two "people" were shining brightly in the dim light, giving Tong Xu a fleeting illusion—she wasn't a Nascent Soul cultivator, but simply a mortal who had wandered into the wilderness. Xu Zhen and Xu Pianpian weren't transformed demons either, but two wild beasts lurking in the shadows!

At that moment, she almost felt that the fragile balance she and Xu Zhen had carefully built up over the past few days was about to crumble. Or perhaps this balance had always been an illusion... Xu Zhen had never cared about her thoughts, and simply couldn't be bothered to bother!
It took her a moment to calm herself down, and she quickly curled the corners of her mouth: "Among the people of the Central Continent, who wouldn't feel reluctant? It's just that in this matter—well, Fellow Daoist Xu, if you don't want to cause any trouble, then let's do it your way."

Xu Zhen stared at her for a while, then leaned back in his chair and laughed again: "Sect Leader Tong, please don't take offense. My nose is sometimes sensitive and sometimes not; I must have smelled it wrong. Pianpian, what are you staring at Sect Leader Tong for? Have you forgotten the rules again?"

Xu Pianpian pouted and turned her gaze away.

After the two left the house, Tong Xu immediately extinguished the lights. Xu Zhen and Xu Pianpian also lived in this small courtyard, but in the east wing. The courtyard was small, but since it was a place for cultivators to live, it was built with arrays, so even though the houses were very close together like ordinary people, they could not hear each other's movements.

Tong Xu held his breath and waited for a long time before letting out a soft breath.

She felt a little sorry for Xue Baoping, that little girl, and then, a little sorry for herself.

The young girl was right; she didn't want to join the Taiyi Sect because of love. But she also didn't want to join the Blood God Sect, again for love. And now, being with Xu Zhen and Xu Pianpian was even more so because of love.

However, this feeling is not a romantic love between a man and a woman, but a different kind of feeling that is extremely difficult for people in this world to understand.

(End of this chapter)