Netherworld Painted Skin Scroll

Chapter 383 Possession
Both of them had been captivated before, and Li Wuxiang and Xu Zhen had each fallen for it before. Therefore, when Li Guichen saw Xue Baoping's expression, he felt uneasy, wondering if she had fallen for Xu Zhen's magic again.

But the next moment, Xue Baoping came to her senses and immediately said, "There's no need to dig. There's a cellar in the Chen family's courtyard, over in the east wing."

Li Guichen nodded: "Okay."

He picked Hu Wei up, and Xue Baoping led him to a room in the east wing. Pushing open the door, they found the small room empty, with a wooden door in the center of the floor. Opening the door, they smelled of earth mixed with a slight musty odor, but it wasn't unpleasant.

Li Guichen looked inside, then immediately jumped in, and Xue Baoping followed suit, closing the wooden door behind her.

The cellar was deep and large, with radishes stacked on three walls, but it wasn't dark at all. Or rather, it gradually became brighter.

This wasn't because there was any lighting, but because as the two sat down on the ground, they slowly realized they could see the sky again. The earth and the house above were still there, but the view in the sky seemed to belong to another space, or direction—just like when a person looks forward, they can see what's in front of them, but when they look to the left, what's in front doesn't block what's on the left.

That's the situation with the sky above now—it's not actually facing the same direction as the thick layer of earth and houses overhead, but it just appears to overlap.

Xue Baoping looked up at the sky and asked in a low voice, "Mr. Li, is a true spirit considered a soul?"

Li Guichen frowned slightly and thought for a moment: "You could say it counts, or you could say it doesn't."

At this moment, Xu Zhen, Li Wuxiang, and Zhao Qi were soaring upwards through the sky. Xu Zhen was incredibly fast, almost becoming a tiny, barely perceptible black dot. Li Wuxiang had nine sword beams around him, like a bright, glittering star. And Zhao Qi trailed a long trail of bloody energy behind him, looking like a fiery meteor.

Xu Zhen was faster, and Li Wuxiang seemed unable to find an opportunity to attack for a while. Xue Baoping quickly asked, "What do you mean?"

Li Guichen looked at her closely and realized that her state didn't seem to be one of fascination. But what was she so happy about when she saw the dragon corpse in the sky?
“The current Zhao Qi is actually a true spirit. If what Xu Zhen said is true, he can also be considered the true spirit of the True Lord of Weishui, and can be considered a part of the soul of the original body. However, this is not like splitting off a part of the original body’s soul, but more like a shadow.”

"When a cultivator develops a Yang spirit, the Yang spirit can no longer be considered human, but rather an immortal, albeit one whose strength is insufficient and can only remain in the mortal world temporarily. Once the Yang spirit has cultivated sufficiently, it can return to its origin and become an immortal... Why are you asking this?"

“Mr. Li, I am useful, very useful. Does ‘origin’ refer to the original self?”

Li Guichen shook his head: "The 'true self' that we usually talk about refers to the person themselves, which is not the same as the 'true self' we talk about when we cultivate. The 'true self' we talk about in cultivation refers to the origin—all living beings in the world have an origin, which is not in this realm. The things that move in the mortal world have souls, and these souls are just projections of the origin in the present world, just like a person's shadow."

“Cultivating to the point of Yang Shen is already very close to the origin. When one becomes a True Immortal or Golden Immortal, one has already returned to the origin. Therefore, the True Spirits in Mount Ling are all projections of this origin, and are considered part of the souls of True Immortals and Golden Immortals, like shadows. Do you understand?”

Xue Baoping thought for a moment: "Is it like Li Wuxiang left Zhao Qi's true spirit here and turned it into a living person, which means he created another Zhao Qi? There are two Zhao Qi in this world now? Just like you and him?"

Li Guichen was silent for a moment: "I am not Li Wuxiang."

After thinking for a moment, he said, "Just assume it is. What exactly do you want to do?"

Xue Baoping did not answer: "Now Xu Zhen claims to be the reincarnation of the true spirit of the True Lord of Weishui, but he can't remember anything before his reincarnation... If he dies, and the true spirit he left behind is brought back to life by Li Wuxiang, then is he truly the True Lord of Weishui?"

Li Guichen thought for a moment and said, "You can count it or not. I've said before that people in the present world are all projections of the origin in the world. Since the current Zhao Qi and Zhao Qi of the Crimson Heaven have not achieved the status of True Immortal or Golden Immortal, they can also be considered projections of the origin in different present worlds. If you really want to think about it, just think of the true spirit of Zhao Qi here as someone who was reincarnated from Mount Ling."

“When a person dies and is reincarnated, they still don’t remember anything from before. Xu Zhen doesn’t remember anything from before, so he can also be considered to have died and been reincarnated. So am I—that’s why I am Li Guichen, and Li Wuxiang is Li Wuxiang.”

“I understand.” Xue Baoping nodded. “Mr. Li, I may need you to protect me in a little while.”

"What on earth are you going to do?"

"I don't know, I can't say for sure, and I'm not sure if it can be done, but I want to try. I don't know what might happen if I try, but if you think something is wrong with me and you think you can help me, please do your best to help me."

Li Guichen stared at her for a while, then nodded: "Okay."

Xue Baoping then raised her head again and looked at the dragon corpse in the sky.

If Xu Zhen is truly the reincarnation of the True Lord of Weishui, then he really doesn't remember anything.

Because when he rushed into the sky, he shouted that the huge corpse in the center of the sky was his true self, but only Xue Baoping knew that he was wrong.

Those were not the remains of the True Lord of Weishui or the Ninth Prince, but—at least she herself felt certain—the remains of her master, Li Yunxin.

The supernatural power that Li Yunxin taught her was very strange. The strange thing was that it didn't require any energy to circulate when casting the spell, as if even an ordinary mortal could do it.

Xue Baoping wasn't the type to be rigid in her thinking. After acquiring this supernatural power, she wondered if this method, which could bring the dead back to life, could be used on the living. She had tried it on a previous occasion when she encountered critically ill, dying disaster victims on the road, and found it seemed to work—

She drew the talisman, intending to use it on someone, and she could sense it, though it was very difficult. Using it on Hu Wei, whose soul no longer had a physical body, was like pressing a wisp of wind onto paper—effortless and instantaneous. But using it on a living person was much more difficult. A living person's soul was like an extremely heavy stone weighing down their body; her supernatural powers couldn't pry it up. Although she couldn't pry it up, she could feel it "moving" a tiny bit. At that moment, she wondered if, in the future, when her cultivation level was higher, she might be able to create a new physical body for a living person.

However, upon seeing the dragon corpse on the ceiling, she realized that the supernatural power Li Yunxin had taught her seemed to be the same as Xu Zhen's, and had nothing to do with her own cultivation level.

She looked at the pale purple light reflected from the twin stars within the dragon corpse's skull, as if she were looking into Li Yunxin's eyes. Li Wuxiang had once told her that when he planted the seed of calamity on someone, it was as if he saw a ray of red light extending from a great calamity star.

Now, she felt that as soon as she looked at it, the purple starlight in the skull's eye sockets was like a sharp sword piercing directly into her head, giving her an intuition that she could pull anything into the talisman!

This must be the remains of her master, Li Yunxin. He must have died, like the True Lord of the Wei River. What she saw was his true spirit. And the sky she saw in this Myriad Transformations Realm was very likely a realm he himself had created. Now she was in Li Yunxin's grotto-heaven, and she wasn't "borrowing" supernatural powers through layers of barriers—the source of those powers, his original remains, were right above!
Xue Baoping pulled out another talisman from her pouch, bit her fingertip, and began to draw on the talisman. She drew slowly and carefully, trying her best to recreate Xu Zhen's appearance.

Li Guichen watched silently in the darkness, then couldn't help but ask, "Who are you trying to bring back to life?"

Xue Baoping smiled and said, "Xu Zhen."

……

Xu Zhen was still rushing towards the dragon corpse, with Li Wuxiang in hot pursuit, but the distance between them was widening. This wasn't because there was any difference in their strength now, but rather because the sky was truly strange.

After flying into the darkness, the surrounding spiritual energy became abnormal—it reminded him of the atmosphere of the world he came from; the higher he flew, the thinner the air became. But here, it wasn't the air that was thin, but the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. It was as if the high sky of this Myriad Transformations Realm had invaded another world that did not belong to this world, and the spiritual energy there was different from that of the Central Continent—chaotic and turbid, completely unusable by him.

At this moment, the sword light unleashed by Li Wuxiang was entirely supported by the blood and qi within his body, as was his ability to escape. Xu Zhen felt that he was exactly the same, but seemed to have an advantage in a slight difference—he only had the skin that had transformed into a dragon body left, while Xu Zhen's body still contained bones!

Just as he was contemplating whether to throw away all his bones, he heard Zhao Qi shout behind him, "Li Wuxiang! Get him down! I can't keep up with you guys!"

Li Wuxiang didn't turn around, and shouted, "You don't need to chase me, just give me a push!"

"it is good!"

Zhao Qi shouted from behind, and after a short while, as if gathering all his strength, he suddenly rushed forward, shoving both palms into Li Wuxiang's back. Li Wuxiang only felt a gust of wind attack him, and before he could speak, his words were blasted back by Zhao Qi—his palms struck Li Wuxiang's back hard, making his blood surge and his bones almost pop out of his throat.

The force of that attack sent him soaring upwards quite a distance, but he also nearly suffered a serious injury!

Li Wuxiang turned his head to look back and saw Zhao Qi suspended in mid-air, his chest heaving as if he were panting, his face full of smug joy: "How was the push? You wait, I'll help you again!"

"You—" He only managed to utter one sentence before spitting out a mouthful of blood.

Zhao Qi was startled. He looked at his hands, then at Li Wuxiang: "Ah... I didn't mean to, I didn't know I was like this—hey! Be careful!"

Li Wuxiang immediately turned to look up and saw Xu Zhen, who had been in the distance, suddenly swooping down. But the next moment he realized that it wasn't Xu Zhen rushing down, but rather that he seemed to have suddenly stopped, and that he himself was rapidly approaching him!

The sword light above his head immediately met Xu Zhen's dragon body, followed closely by eight others. But Xu Zhen neither dodged nor evaded, seemingly intending to take the nine sword energies head-on with his body—

With a deafening roar, the sword energy struck Xu Zhen's dragon body squarely! But contrary to Li Wuxiang's expectations, the dragon's body was like a kite with a broken string, tumbling and rolling in the air by the immense force of the sword energy, its scales shattering and scattering a golden light.

Li Wuxiang was taken aback, but immediately realized: He wasn't rushing towards him, what was wrong with him? Had he fainted due to a lack of spiritual energy here?
But the thought had barely formed when a sudden change occurred—the tumbling dragon's body abruptly stiffened, as if forcibly pulled back by countless unseen threads from the depths of the void. Its previously closed eyes snapped open, revealing a gaze that was neither lucid nor crazed, but instead an inhuman crimson that seemed to originate from the ancient starry sea!

This immediately reminded Li Wuxiang of the scene in the Crimson Sky, the Blood God being pulled by the Great Lord Taizhuo—above, in the far distance, there seemed to be something resembling the remains of the Great Lord Taizhuo. Xu Zhen was possessed and taken over by those things.
How could this be?! He's a Nascent Soul cultivator! What could have driven Xu Zhen's soul out of his body and taken over?!
At this moment, the edges of the shattered dragon scales on Xu Zhen's body began to curl, growing pale veins that spread like fungi. These veins intertwined and burst forth like splashing water droplets, connecting with each other. Xu Zhen's body trembled as these things pulled at him, then slowly turned his head. The movement was stiff and eerie, with a sluggishness that didn't belong to a living being, as if he had become a paper dragon being paraded through the streets.

He stared blankly at Li Wuxiang.

But now Li Wuxiang felt as if he wasn't looking at himself, but at something or someone further below. He slowly opened his mouth, but instead of roaring or howling, he let out a low whisper, as if composed of countless tiny sounds.

The sound penetrated deep into Li Wuxiang's mind, stirring his consciousness and causing him to experience dizziness and nausea for the first time in his life.

"...Here...here it is..."

Then the dragon's body moved. It didn't pounce, but rather "glided" towards him in a seemingly slow manner—the surrounding darkness seemed to become its medium, and space itself distorted slightly in front of it. Li Wuxiang only felt the thing flicker a few times before it was right in front of him.

But he didn't move, nor did he draw his sword again; he simply stood in the void. The enormous fangs were almost touching the tip of his nose, yet the dragon's head didn't lower, as if even now, this thing wearing Xu Zhen's skin wasn't looking at him, but at something else entirely—

"...Ah...you're here...I've been looking for you for so long..."

(End of this chapter)