Netherworld Painted Skin Scroll

Chapter 360 Li Guichen's Miraculous Healing Skills

There must be countless practitioners in the world who have heard of the name Li Wuxiang, but since he said "you know him too," it must mean that he has not only heard of him, but has actually met him and spoken to him.

Xue Baoping knew that Li Wuxiang was a demon and was afraid of him. However, she also remembered the things they had done together in the past. All the way there, she felt as if there were fighting thoughts in her mind. The memories before Dapan Mountain were very beautiful, but the memories afterward were filled with fear and anxiety, as if they had been divided into two completely different parts.

Thinking back on this now, the memory is from the past—the old Li Wuxiang was a very good person. But those cultivators who had met him in this world certainly didn't like him much. Because those who were even slightly close to him, apart from myself and Senior Sister Mei, all seemed to have bad luck. And those who weren't close to him probably thought he was a jinx, bringing ruin wherever he went.

But when Li Guichen mentioned her… Xue Baoping couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She felt his attitude was very close, as if they were friends. However, there was something strange about this intimacy, and she really couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it.

Moreover, Li Wuxiang had never mentioned this person. The fact that he could ride a horse indicated that he was quite extraordinary, yet Li Wuxiang had never even mentioned him.

He didn't seem like a bad person, which piqued Xue Baoping's curiosity: "You know him? Has he mentioned me to you?"

"Yes." Li Guichen nodded. "Are you going to find him?"

"I...I broke up with him."

Li Guichen first gave an "oh," then hesitated slightly, as if considering whether to continue. But he still asked, "What trouble did you encounter? Were you scattered? Do you need help?"

"It wasn't that it was scattered."

His tone was genuinely kind. He had even heard of him, which showed how much Li Wuxiang trusted him. It was strange; why hadn't he mentioned it? But Xue Baoping didn't know what to say for a moment—she was afraid, she had run away, but she was afraid of the uncertainty of the future, not the past. She didn't want to tell anyone that Li Wuxiang was actually a great demon king.

Li Guichen looked back at the disaster victims, then at E Meifeng: "Is this your child?"

"Huh? No, no, no, she—"

Li Guichen laughed: "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought so. Miss Xue, it's not a good place to talk, shall we go somewhere else?"

There wasn't much point in changing locations. The outskirts of large cities, though inhabited, were often not particularly scenic, especially given the calamities this place had suffered. They chose a house outside the city walls—right against the base of the walls, probably formerly a guard post or something similar. Now, the wooden parts of the house had been burned down, leaving only a stone wall.

When they got outside, Li Guichen told them to wait a moment while he went inside to take a look. Then he said, "It's fairly clean here. Come in."

After Xue Baoping went inside, she found only some black ash pasted on the stone slabs and a few traces of blood on the ground. Several stones from the wall had collapsed into the room, just enough for a person to sit on. Li Guichen unloaded a small bundle from his horse, went into the room, and opened it. The contents of the bundle astonished Xue Baoping—a small stove filled with charcoal, four ceramic teacups, a ceramic teapot, and an oil paper package, which, when opened, was filled with dried meat.

Li Guichen laid everything out on the ground, started a fire, and poured some water from the gourd at his waist to brew tea. He then pointed to the dried meat in the oil paper package: "You two have some, I don't think you brought much food."

Xue Baoping hesitated for a moment as she looked at the dried meat. Li Guichen then smiled: "It's not human flesh. It's not my flesh, don't worry."

Xue Baoping was stunned: "Mr. Li, you really...you really did cut off your own flesh to feed them just now?"

She used to call him Fellow Daoist Li because he looked like a spiritual practitioner. Now she calls him Mr. Li because his demeanor is unusually kind and gentle, reminding her of a schoolteacher.

Li Guichen sighed: "There are too many pitiful people like this, but I can't save them all. I can only help them when I encounter them. Don't worry, I'm not some kind of evil person."

Xue Baoping nodded, glanced outside, and wanted to call E Meifeng in for something to eat. But she found that E Meifeng was now attached to the white horse—this white horse seemed to understand human nature; Li Guichen hadn't even tied it up, leaving it outside. The horse stood quietly, showing no impatience whatsoever.

E Meifeng approached the white horse and reached out to touch it. The white horse lowered its head slightly, inviting her to touch its forehead. The crocodile demon was overjoyed, hugging the horse's head and muttering something in its ear, though it was unclear what it was saying.

She could go a month or two without feeling hungry after eating. Seeing that she was having fun playing with the horse, Xue Baoping stopped calling out and went to look at Li Guichen instead.

But for a moment he didn't know what to say. After thinking for a while, he could only ask, "Mr. Li, how did you and Li Wuxiang meet before?"

Li Guichen smiled and said, "He didn't mention me to you?"

"No."

“Well, I can’t really say then. It’s not that I can’t talk about my affairs, but since he hasn’t said anything, he probably has his own reasons. But you can tell me anything without worry—you should know Li Wuxiang quite well. Since he hasn’t mentioned it, it means he’s not afraid of you running into me.” Li Guichen said as he boiled water to make tea, then looked up at Xue Baoping, “Why did you two separate? I guess you left Jinshui and followed your Master Zeng to find him, and you found him. I thought you two were inseparable, staying wherever you went.”

These words truly surprised Xue Baoping... He knew everything!

She was now heading to the Eastern Continent; she wanted to get away from Li Wuxiang. But behind this thought, upon encountering Li Guichen, she harbored other ideas—

Xu Zhen is no good person, and it might not be a good thing for Li Wuxiang to be with him. Li Guichen seems to know him quite well, and he's also a highly skilled person...

She stared at the bubbling tea on the small stove, and when the steam made the lid pop open, she said, "Mr. Li, since you are so familiar with him, do you know... that Li Wuxiang is not human, but a demon?"

Li Guichen glanced at her, then looked away to pour tea. After pouring the tea, he handed her a cup: "It depends on how you look at it. If you say he's human, he really isn't; he's just a human skin wrapped in gold. If you say he's a demon... well, you could call him that, a human skin that has become a spirit. But he's practicing the Great Calamity Sword Scripture, and slowly he'll grow flesh and blood, and he'll become human again."

He even knows about the Golden Entanglement and the Great Calamity Sword Scripture!
An unparalleled curiosity arose in Xue Baoping's heart. Equally strong was her hope for help—Li Wuxiang wouldn't tell just anyone these things; this person must be very strong, strong enough that she could entrust them with such a task!

She hesitated for a moment, then downed the tea in one gulp. "Mr. Li, let me tell you. Although I'm no longer with him, I know his situation isn't good. We did meet at Dajie Mountain, and then I went with him to the Shangchi Sect, which is located at Dapan Mountain over there. After we got there—"

She began to speak slowly and in detail, observing Li Guichen's expression as she spoke.

But she couldn't see anything unusual on his face—he was simply listening attentively, occasionally interjecting with a question or two, but never interrupting her narration. The more Xue Baoping spoke, the more familiar Li Guichen seemed… He really resembled Li Wuxiang so much, like a Li Wuxiang who had shed his anger and worries, and who had been tempered by many years of hardship!

"...Then I left. I was so scared, so I left on my own." Xue Baoping sighed as she said this. "These past few days, I feel like I'm dreaming—I used to be with him and never thought about whether he was even human. I also ask myself why I never felt there was any danger before? I think...maybe I was blind."

“Mr. Li, when I said I was blind, I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just that because I like him, I can’t see anything else clearly, and I feel that nothing else matters. But now it’s like I’ve suddenly woken up—as for whether it’s Xu Zhen’s supernatural powers, I don’t know. Maybe it’s his supernatural powers that have brought me back to my senses.”

The pot of tea was finished. Li Guichen held the small ceramic cup between his fingers, slowly turning it as he listened. When Xue Baoping finished speaking, he put down the teacup: "Miss Xue, I have a question for you—that night when Li Wuxiang was eating people in your room, you ran out in fright. Why did you go back afterwards?"

He knew that too! But Xue Baoping wasn't surprised anymore. She frowned and thought for a while, then shook her head: "I can't explain it. I was thinking... I had nowhere to go if I ran away, and if I went back... after all, he's the one I raised, maybe he won't harm me?"

Li Guichen nodded: "What if he harms you? What if he eats you too? Have you thought about that?"

"I did think about it. It was just a fleeting thought. I thought... I might as well eat it, I'd had enough of living by then."

Li Guichen smiled and said, "But you have cultivation now, and you may even be able to live forever in the future. You haven't even traveled all over the world yet, so you don't want to die. Therefore, you think that demon Li Wuxiang is dangerous and terrifying, so you want to stay far away from him."

"……Um."

"Didn't you ever think that I might not be a good person?" Li Guichen said, pulling his shirt open to reveal his chest.

Xue Baoping noticed the wound on his chest, and then her scalp tingled slightly.

It was a cut… Li Guichen appeared very thin when he was dressed, but his body underneath was muscular. Now, half of his left pectoral muscle was gone, revealing a horrifying wound. But what made her scalp tingle wasn't the wound itself—it was almost healed, with a pale pink membrane growing on its surface.

Rather, it was the things beneath the membrane—there were many things, like rapidly wriggling insects, rising and falling beneath the membrane!

What did you think when you saw my wound?

Xue Baoping pursed her lips: "You...you have some other supernatural powers."

"You think that way, but you're still sitting here talking to me, without even thinking about running away?"

“Mr. Li, you cut off your own flesh to save someone before, I think you are a good person.”

"But Li Wuxiang also saved you, and you know him so well, yet you're afraid of him and want to stay away from him. You want to go to the Eastern Continent—there are so many demons there, far more dangerous than Li Wuxiang, yet you're not afraid of them. Miss Xue, think about it, is your fear of him justified?"

Xue Baoping was stunned for a moment before speaking with difficulty: "I...I know, it seems to make no sense, but...but...Mr. Li, do you know, it's one thing to know a principle, but another thing to feel...Is this Xu Zhen's supernatural power?"

Li Guichen nodded: "Yes. It seems that this is his supernatural power."

"...Mr. Li, can you break this supernatural power?"

"Do you want to? You probably don't right now, do you?"

Xue Baoping closed her eyes, panting. She truly didn't want to. This lack of desire was like someone knowing what they should do, but simply not wanting to—they should be at work, but didn't want to. They should be rushing out to fight the enemy, but didn't want to. They should have reached into that dark hole and pulled the snake out, but didn't want to.

Overcoming this reluctance is easy; it's just a matter of a single thought. But generating that thought is incredibly difficult. She felt like someone standing at a door, with their hand on it, but unable to push it open.

Li Guichen didn't urge him. He picked up a few pieces of dried meat from his bundle and went outside. Xue Baoping saw him give Xiao E two pieces first, talk to her softly, pat her head, and then feed the white horse a few pieces.

A full quarter of an hour passed before he came back and sat down: "Have you thought it through?"

Xue Baoping twisted her hands, her knuckles turning white, and remained silent. Li Guichen sighed, "That Xu Zhen's supernatural powers are truly astounding. You believe Li Wuxiang is a great demon king, and Li Wuxiang actually believes he is also a great demon king—that's almost the ability to make the false seem real. Miss Xue, aside from what you want to say right now, do you also believe that Li Wuxiang was truly a demon in the Eastern Continent before, is that right?"

“That’s for sure, Mr. Li.” Xue Baoping sighed. “I know that whatever he was like before, he’s not the same after he came to the Central Plains. I just… I just…”

Li Guichen waved his hand and said amicably, "Alright, I understand. Xu Zhen can change a person's mind, even Li Wuxiang's mind was changed. This supernatural power is amazing. He can be in a trance while still being clear-headed, so nothing is delayed."

When he said this, he stopped looking at Xue Baoping and instead looked behind her. There was nothing there, just ruins. His gaze was unfocused, as if he were lost in thought.

Xue Baoping finally said, "Mr. Li, don't worry about me. Just go and see Li Wuxiang... I don't know what will happen to him in the future, but he shouldn't be coerced by Xu Zhen to stay by his side."

Li Guichen nodded: "I understand. Even if you understand the principle, you can't escape his supernatural powers on your own."

“Alright, I’ll go. I’m indeed very interested in this supernatural power.” As he spoke, he bent down and reached out. Xue Baoping knew he was going to tidy up the tea set in front of him, so she also bent down to pick up the small teacup for him—

Li Guichen drew the sword from her waist and swung it again. The cold light flashed like lightning, and Xue Baoping's head rolled off. She sat there, swayed slightly, and blood gushed from the severed neck before she fell to the ground.

The crocodile demon outside the door was stunned by the sight. Before she could react, the white horse beside her suddenly opened its mouth, revealing two rows of menacing fangs, and swallowed her whole.

(End of this chapter)