Chapter 30: The Blood Array Is Broken

It hurts so much.

Even as a cultivator, getting hurt still hurts…

When that thought surfaced, Liu Manqing actually felt like laughing.

She looked down.

The corpse puppet’s hand had pierced through her chest, blood gushing out in waves.

The copper bell fell into the mud, rolled half a turn, and was stained red on one side by her blood.

“Sister Liu!”

Luo Zhao’s voice came from afar, twisted with panic.

He turned his head hastily, took only one look, and all the color drained from his face.

Liu Manqing didn’t have the strength to answer him, nor did she have the heart to blame him.

Cultivators seeking the Dao were, by nature, stealing longevity from heaven and earth, contending for life with all living things.

It was no surprise that Luo Zhao fled.

If it had been her, she might not have been any nobler.

She just hadn’t expected that the one to end here today would be herself.

The corpse puppet pulled its hand back, dragging out a large gush of warm blood.

Liu Manqing couldn’t even let out a scream before her entire body was flung away by that brute force.

Thud.

She crashed heavily in front of Zhou Huai, half her body slamming into the mud.

Blood quickly spread from beneath her, staining the muddy water a dark red.

“Bang!—”

On the other side, Tu Lian kicked out.

Sun Buping flew through the air like a torn sack, landing in the mud not far from Liu Manqing.

His chest was caved in, his right arm bent backward behind him, and half his face was smeared with filth and blood.

Tu Lian walked over slowly.

On that stiff, dead face was a dull and cruel smile.

“If you had hidden well, you could have lived a few more years.”

“Too bad you don’t know how to treasure your life.”

Sun Buping suddenly grinned.

His face was covered in blood, and that smile was painfully ugly.

Tu Lian paused.

“What are you smiling at?”

Sun Buping didn’t answer.

He braced himself against the muddy ground with his unbroken hand, forced himself to stand, and dragged his nearly ruined body step by step toward the courtyard gate.

Tu Lian didn’t stop him.

It watched Sun Buping stagger out, like a predator toying with a dying prey.

Only after Sun Buping had left the courtyard did it unhurriedly follow.

The remaining three corpse puppets turned to look at Luo Zhao, who was fleeing.

Luo Zhao had already run some distance.

He heard the commotion behind him, glanced back, and nearly scared his soul out of his body.

All three corpse puppets were chasing him.

“Don’t chase me!”

Luo Zhao was terrified out of his wits and quickly fumbled out two Spirit Travel Talismans.

But before he could slap the talismans onto his thighs, the sound of wind behind him had already closed in, and a pale gray palm was almost brushing his back.

Just then, a soft sound came from behind.

Ding.

The three corpse puppets all froze at the same moment.

Luo Zhao whipped his head around.

Liu Manqing had somehow propped herself up and sat upright.

One hand pressed against her chest, the other clutched the bloodstained copper bell.

Spiritual power barely sealed the wound, but blood still poured out relentlessly.

It hurt so much.

It really hurt so much.

She had once thought she was already used to pain.

Ever since she fled the manor and looked back to see the firelight devouring half the sky, the tears she could cry should have all dried up by now.

Later, she became a loose cultivator, the delicacy she’d been raised with in the inner chambers ground away.

She grew skilled at socializing, using her pretty face to navigate favor among fellow loose cultivators.

Though her talent was dull and Foundation Establishment seemed hopeless, at least she lived more decently than before.

But all these years, she had always felt it was dull.

The immortal path ahead was long severed, and the stability of a mortal’s life was beyond return.

She was caught in between, like a wandering ghost with nowhere to belong, living day by day however she could.

She could no longer remember how long it had been since she’d fought desperately for anything.

Liu Manqing looked at the copper bell in her palm.

It was the most valuable magic treasure she owned, and also an old possession she’d brought out from the manor.

She had never been willing to use it.

Unwilling to let go of past memories, and unwilling to let go of the person she was in those memories.

But now, at this point.

She, had to let go.

Liu Manqing slowly tightened her fingers.

The cracks on the copper bell began to glow.

Zhou Huai sensed something wrong.

“Sister Liu, no, don’t!”

“Manager Zhou.”

Liu Manqing turned her head to look at him and said softly, “With the children gone… does the manor still have a future?”

Zhou Huai’s lips trembled for a long while, but not a single word came out.

He had never imagined things would come to this.

At first, all he’d wanted was to keep the manor alive.

The demon cultivator had forced him.

The people of Taiwei Immortal Sect had refused to act.

This world simply didn’t give mortals a way to live.

He was just a mortal steward guarding a broken manor, wanting nothing more than to live out his life in peace.

Besides bowing his head, what else could he do?

Sensing the subtle fluctuation of spiritual power, one of the corpse puppets had already charged to Liu Manqing in an instant.

The pale gray palm rose again.

Liu Manqing smiled, just as gently as she always had.

“Me, you know…”

She lowered her eyes and murmured to herself, “I’m actually very afraid of death.”

The corpse puppet’s palm came down.

There was no longer a trace of softness in Liu Manqing’s eyes.

Her face was pale to the point of near transparency, the ends of her hair lifted by spiritual light, her sleeves billowing without wind.

Blood, lifespan…

Everything she had accumulated in half a lifetime was now forced into the copper bell in her palm.

The cracks on the bell instantly spread across its entire surface.

“Shatter.”

She whispered that single word.

Boom!

Blazing white spiritual light exploded violently beneath the medicine shed.

Everything in the backyard was swallowed by that single flash of white light.

The formation core beneath the cart was pierced through by the white light, and a dark red column of blood shot up into the sky.

Thick demonic energy churned in the air for a moment, then poured back down into the backyard.

The carriage was blasted into the air along with the shockwave, and the nearest corpse puppet was flung clean away.

The entire backyard shook.

When the white light faded, half of the medicine shed had collapsed.

The carriage frame lay shattered across the ground, spirit herbs burned to ash, and only a few broken fragments of the copper bell remained in the mud.

Where Liu Manqing had been sitting, there was no longer a complete figure.

A bloodstained sleeve fluttered on the broken carriage shaft.

In the wind, it seemed her voice drifted through.

“It hurts so much…”

“I don’t want to come to this world again.”

Zhou Huai was thrown by the shockwave, crashing heavily into a broken pillar of the medicine shed.

Splintered wood stabbed into his shoulder.

He hit the ground and couldn’t get up for a long time, only opening his mouth to vomit a large mouthful of blood.

His ears heard nothing.

Only a ringing.

Staring at the backyard that looked like it had been plowed over several times, he froze as if his soul had been drained.

The blood formation hidden beneath the backyard had been destroyed.

The children, the children had all died for nothing.

Zhou Huai’s lips moved.

“It’s over…”

In the distance, Luo Zhao also stopped.

The smoke and dust from the explosion hadn’t yet cleared.

He stared blankly in the direction of the medicine shed.

The carriage had been shattered into several pieces, the shaft sticking diagonally into the ground beside the formation core, the sleeve hanging from it fluttering in the wind.

He had fled.

Liu Manqing was dead.

Luo Zhao stood still, his hands and feet cold.

He feared death, and he feared losing face, but he had never imagined someone would die because of him.

The three corpse puppets rose again from the smoke and dust.

The two farther away stepped over the ashes and continued closing in on Luo Zhao.

Liu Manqing had given her life, but she couldn’t kill them.

The fear he had just suppressed surged up again, almost swallowing Luo Zhao whole.

A sword’s cry rang out sharply.

A snow-white sword light cut across the backyard, and all three corpse puppets halted at once.

The foremost corpse puppet had just raised its hand when half its skull flew off, the severed edge sealed by frost-white sword energy, spreading downward inch by inch.

Luo Zhao stood frozen.

The next moment, Lu Hanyi landed amid the ruins.

White robes sharp and cold, Zhaoxue pointing downward.

She raised her eyes to the remaining corpse puppets, her voice cold without a trace of fluctuation.

“You vile fiends.”

“Deserve death!”