Ghost Immortal

Lei Jian and the Taoist priest with four eyebrows looked at him at the same time.

Li Feng felt a chill run down his spine, as if a cold snake was crawling up his spine.

"Is it me?"

Lei Jian nodded slowly, his gaze falling heavily on him: "The Intestine-Pulling Prison corresponds to the crime of betrayal. I deduced the trajectory of the formation, and the location of the next sacrifice points to the mortuary. And within the mortuary, the person whose fate is most compatible with the formation's core is you."

Qiu Sheng suddenly stood up, and the bowl of mung bean soup was swept to the ground by his sleeve, breaking into several pieces with a crash, and the soup splashed all over the ground.

His face flushed red: "Senior Uncle, could you have miscalculated? My junior brother has only been in our Maoshan Sect for two months. Who could he have betrayed?"

Master Si Mei didn't speak, but just stared at Li Feng, his eyes filled with complex emotions.

Li Feng, on the contrary, calmed down.

He gently placed the broken porcelain shards on the table, looked up, and asked, "Senior Uncle, what conditions must the offerings for this 'Hell of Intestine Dissection' meet?"

"Betrayal of trust," Lei Jian said solemnly.

"The chosen sacrifice must have committed an act of betrayal. It doesn't have to be a heinous crime like murder or arson. Even if it's just breaking a promise or betraying someone once, as long as they have betrayed the trust of others at a crucial moment, the resentment of the formation will automatically come after them."

Qiu Sheng grew anxious and grabbed Li Feng's arm: "Junior brother, think carefully. What did you do before you came to Qingyan City? Did you offend anyone? Did you betray anyone?"

He was halfway through his sentence when Li Feng's face suddenly turned pale.

Li Feng did recall that he had been raised by the bald old man since he was a child. Although the old man also harbored malice, he was still killed by him in the end. Could this be considered a kind of betrayal?

"You remember now?" Lei Jian asked gravely, looking at his expression.

Qiu Sheng looked at his senior uncle, then at Li Feng, his eyes reddening with anxiety: "My junior brother is such a good person, why should he have his intestines ripped out?"

The Four-Eyebrowed Taoist shook his head: "The Five Elements Guiding Array recognizes resentment, not right and wrong."

Li Fengshen suppressed the chill in his heart and said seriously, "Since the formation has chosen me, Gu Zhenren will come knocking on our door sooner or later. Rather than waiting to die, we should take the initiative to go to the Five Elders Peak and break Zhang Xuanye's formation core."

Lei Jian shook his head: "Breaking the array eye is not that simple. The ancient post road under the Five Elders Peak is full of Gu Zhenren's ghost Gu puppets. Zhang Xuanye's true body is likely hiding there as well. If we go there rashly, we may be playing right into his hands."

"What can we do? We can't just stand by and watch my junior brother get his intestines pulled out!" Qiu Sheng cried, genuinely concerned for Li Feng.

Li Feng glanced down at the vertical eye pattern on the table and suddenly said, "Senior Uncle, does Master Gu know that he is the one who wields the knife? Does he know that he has been working for Zhang Xuanye's benefit from beginning to end?"

Lei Jian was taken aback, then his eyes lit up.

Li Feng continued, "The Gu Master hates the person who sealed his wife and wants to resurrect her. If he knew that everything he's doing not only fails to resurrect his wife but is actually helping Zhang Xuanye transform into an immortal, what would he do?"

The Four-Eyebrowed Taoist clapped his hands sharply: "Given Gu Zhenren's temperament, he would never tolerate being used as a tool! He would turn the tables and join forces with us to deal with Zhang Xuanye!"

Qiu Sheng was overjoyed and grabbed Li Feng's shoulders, shaking him vigorously: "Junior brother, you're so smart!"

"Since Zhang Xuanye wants me to be the last sacrifice, why don't we go with the flow and use me to lure him out?"

"No way!" Master Four Eyebrows was the first to object.

"It's too dangerous! Zhang Xuanye is the personal disciple of the leader of the Zhengyi Sect. He has two hundred years of cultivation, and his power is unfathomable. Even Gu Zhenren was manipulated by him for two hundred years without realizing it. How can you, a junior at the third level of Qi Refining, possibly fight against him?"

"The reason Gu Zhenren was manipulated by him is because Gu Zhenren had an obsession. The deeper the obsession, the easier it is for him to be affected by the great formation," Li Feng said unhurriedly.

"But I have no obsession. Gu Zhenren wanted to revive the female corpse, which is why he was led by the nose by Zhang Xuanye. But I don't want anything. I just want to live and protect my master, senior brothers, and senior sisters from harm. The purer this thought is, the harder it is for the great formation to affect me."

He looked at Lei Jian and continued, "Moreover, Zhang Xuanye's Five Elements Guiding Array needs a wielder to kill people for him, and Gu Zhenren is his wielder."

"But Gu Zhenren is almost out of control now. Last time at the crossroads in the south of the city, the ghost Gu puppets that Gu Zhenren released could not distinguish between friend and foe, and he himself was almost devoured. This shows that Gu Zhenren is turning from a pawn into a player. He is trying to break free from Zhang Xuanye's control."

"If we can find Gu Zhenren, tell him the truth, and let him know that he has been used, he will go crazy."

Lei Jian said solemnly, "Gu Zhenren's Taiyin destiny is deeply bound to the great formation. His obsession has taken root deep in his soul. Once he realizes that he has been a pawn from beginning to end, his obsession will collapse in an instant. No one can predict what will happen after that collapse."

"Maybe they'll go crazy and turn around and help us," Li Feng hoped.

"Gu Zhenren and Zhang Xuanye are enemies. Zhang Xuanye used Gu Zhenren to kill so many people and made Gu Zhenren bear the blame for two hundred years. Given Gu Zhenren's personality, he will not swallow this insult."

Lei Jian looked at Li Feng, a complex expression flashing in his eyes.

He discovered that this junior apprentice was much smarter than he had imagined, possessing a calmness and shrewdness beyond his years.

I have to admit, Li Feng is right.

Gu Zhenren is a dangerous person, but the hatred between him and Zhang Xuanye is irreconcilable.

If we can turn Gu Zhenren from an enemy into an ally, our chances of defeating Zhang Xuanye will greatly increase.

The Taoist priest with four eyebrows asked, "Where is Master Gu now?"

Lei Jian took out a Bagua mirror from his sleeve, infused it with spiritual power, and a map of Qingyan City appeared on the mirror.

There are countless tiny dots of light moving slowly on the map, one of which stands out.

The dark red light flickered, appearing and disappearing like a candle flame in the wind that could be extinguished at any moment.

"The abandoned kiln site five miles south of the city," Lei Jian said, pointing to the dark red dot.

"After Gu Zhenren was seriously injured at the crossroads last time, he has been recuperating in the cellar of the kiln. The Yin Sha Gu Qi on his body is getting weaker day by day."

"If this continues, he'll be exhausted in less than half a month. I guess he knows he's about to die, which is why he's becoming more and more crazy and reckless."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

Qiu Sheng gripped the iron whisk tightly in his hand, and unusually volunteered for the task. Now he suddenly took charge.

"Strike while the iron is hot! Last time he chased us all over the crossroads, now it's our turn!"

"It's not about taking his life." Li Feng pressed down on Qiu Sheng's shoulder and shook his head.

"It's to save his life. Gu Zhenren can't die in the kiln's cellar. Once he dies, his Taiyin destiny will automatically be incorporated into the great formation, becoming the last sacrifice. At that time, the Five Elements and Five Prisons will gather, the great formation will be automatically activated, and Zhang Xuanye won't need to do anything else to complete the final step of corpse liberation and immortality."

"So not only can we not let him die, we also have to pull him out of that great formation." The Four-Eyebrowed Taoist nodded.

"But the problem is he's not one of us. He hates us to the core. Last time at the quarry, you were almost killed by him with the Heart-Eating Gu. At the crossroads, he was severely injured by us. Do you think he'll believe us?"

Li Feng smiled and said, "Then it depends on what we say."

The outline of the abandoned kiln site in the south of the city emerged on the horizon.

Li Feng sat on the crumbling wall outside the kiln, holding a withered foxtail grass in his hand, turning it around casually.

He was wearing an ordinary gray cloth short jacket, not a Taoist robe, and his face was smeared with soot from the bottom of a pot, making him look like a fledgling teenager.

Lei Jian and the Taoist priest with four eyebrows hid in the dense forest behind the kiln, both of them concealing their presence.

Gao Feng was released from the small cauldron by Li Feng and hidden in an abandoned brick kiln on the east side of the kiln site. He was just waiting for Li Feng's signal so that he could pounce out and start a massacre.

As for Qiu Sheng and Qiu Lan, they were forcibly kept in the mortuary by Li Feng.

This operation is too dangerous; he cannot risk the lives of his senior brothers and sisters.

Although Qiu Sheng was dissatisfied, he was ultimately silenced by the glare of the Four-Eyebrowed Taoist, and could only squat at the entrance of the mortuary, sulking while holding the iron whisk.

Li Feng jumped down from the crumbling wall, dusted himself off, and walked deeper into the kiln.

The abandoned kiln site covers a vast area, with collapsed brick kilns and mountains of rubble everywhere.

The ground was covered with a thick layer of coal ash, and it felt soft and spongy underfoot, like stepping on rotting flesh.

The air was filled with the pungent smell of sulfur, and an even more subtle and disgusting odor.

The stench of rotting corpses mingled with the strange smell of Gu worms.

By opening his five senses, Li Feng quickly located Gu Zhenren's position.

In the center of the kiln site is a giant brick kiln that has partially collapsed. The kiln opening is mostly blocked by rubble, leaving only a gap about half a person's height.

Dense Yin Sha Gu Qi surged from the crevice, forming a light black mist on the ground that flowed along the surface.

He walked to the brick kiln, squatted down, and called out into the dark crack, "Master Gu, are you in there?"

A low, hoarse, cold laugh immediately came from the cave dwelling.

"You little bastard, you actually dared to come alone? Don't you want to live?"

Li Feng didn't answer. Instead, he took out the broken piece of porcelain from his pocket and casually threw it into the cave.

The porcelain shards flew through the air and landed on the gravel ground with a "clink-clink" sound.

The cold laughter inside the cave abruptly stopped.

Li Feng squatted at the entrance of the cave and said seriously, "Master Gu, you have lived for over two hundred years. Haven't you ever wondered why the resentment left in the corpse is inexplicably drawn away every time you kill someone?"

"Why is it that every time you're about to complete the Gu formation you set up in Qingyan City, it's destroyed from the outside? You're clearly a great shaman from the Southern Frontier, yet you're trapped in this dilapidated city, unable to leave or die?"

There was no sound from inside the cave dwelling.

Li Feng continued, "Because from the very beginning, you were just a knife in someone else's hand. The people you killed weren't killed by you; you were manipulated into killing them."

"You think you're avenging your woman, but in reality, you're just a pawn manipulated for over two hundred years!"

Gu Zhenren roared, instantly enraged.

"You're talking nonsense!"