After the Immortal Disappeared

Chapter 366: Chapter 365: Blinding Technique

Of course, these two ferocious tigers were also possessed by Evil Ghosts.

Hee Lingchuan kicked the table at one of the tigers and raised his left hand, firing a Sleeve Arrow.

The Sleeve Arrow wasn’t aimed at the tiger, but at Third Master Gan. After the hell he’d been through in that wretched Mirror, there was no way Hee Lingchuan would let the culprit escape.

But Third Master Gan suddenly spun around and flashed the Mirror at him.

Seeing the glint of the Mirror’s surface, Hee Lingchuan dodged without a second thought.

What if he got dragged into the Mirror World again? He probably wouldn’t find another bird that could fly him out.

But he wasn’t pulled into the Mirror. Instead, when the Sleeve Arrow hit the Mirror’s surface, it ricocheted straight back.

Luckily, he dodged just in time. The arrow missed its master and embedded itself in the pouncing tiger instead.

As fate would have it, it struck the tiger right in the eye.

The tiger’s momentum didn’t falter, and it slammed into Third Master Gan, knocking him to the ground.

Hee Lingchuan was right there. With a swift stroke of his blade, he beheaded the tiger.

By now, Wu Jingsong and Xu Dongdong had scrambled to their feet and were locked in a fight with the other tiger.

The headless tiger carcass lay on top of Third Master Gan, its three-hundred-plus-pound weight pinning him down. Hee Lingchuan wasted no time with words. He grabbed both of Third Master Gan’s wrists and gave them a sharp twist. With two distinct CRACKS, they were broken.

Third Master Gan couldn’t help but let out a blood-curdling scream.

Hee Lingchuan reached down and hauled him out from under the tiger’s corpse. ”Stand back,” he called out to Wu Jingsong and Xu Dongdong.

The two did as he said.

Just then, the second tiger pounced. Hee Lingchuan grabbed Third Master Gan, shoved him forward like a shield, and pushed his face toward the tiger’s inch-long fangs and claws.

Third Master Gan screamed, ”Stop!”

A second before the sharp fangs bit down, the tiger snapped its jaws shut, saving him from becoming a faceless man.

Using his captive, Hee Lingchuan forced the tiger into a corner and killed it with a single slash. Then he kicked Third Master Gan in the shin.

Amidst a long, drawn-out scream, Third Master Gan’s shinbone snapped. It twisted at an unnatural angle, and through the torn skin and flesh, the stark white of bone was visible.

Hee Lingchuan despised him for the chaos he’d unleashed and crippled his arms and legs. He’d like to see what other tricks the man could pull now.

Wu Jingsong set a chair upright. Hee Lingchuan grabbed Third Master Gan by the scruff of his neck and slammed him down onto the seat.

Third Master Gan had already passed out from the pain. Wu Jingsong slapped him a few times, swelling his face, but couldn’t wake him.

Xu Dongdong immediately said, ”I’ll go get water.”

He went into the inner room, found a bucket, and filled it with cold water from Mochou Lake. He returned and splashed it over Third Master Gan’s head.

Third Master Gan slowly came to. When he saw Hee Lingchuan’s face, it was as if he were looking at an Evil Ghost. Tears and snot streamed down his face as he cried, ”Spare me! The Divine Woman was the one who hurt you! I’m innocent!”

”Wasn’t it you who marked me with a pillar of light? ’And it was practically in bold!’ Wasn’t it you who summoned lightning to strike us?”

Hee Lingchuan punctuated each question with a slap.

”It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me! It had nothing to do with me!”

”Nothing to do with you?” Hee Lingchuan bared his teeth in a grin. ”Quit playing innocent. You made a Binding Pact with the Divine Woman. I’m just curious, after you signed that pact, are you still human, or are you a Demon?”

’Can humans become Demons?’ He wasn’t well-read, but he’d never heard of such a case.

The Eye Spider had witnessed Third Master Gan making the Binding Pact, but the words on the contract were as tiny as aphids, impossible to make out.

More importantly, while Hee Lingchuan could see the Evil Ghosts possessing the tigers, he couldn’t detect anything abnormal about Third Master Gan.

’But is he still a normal person?’

Third Master Gan quickly said, ”Of course I’m human.”

”You’re taking over for the Divine Woman. What should I call you, the Divine Fraud?”

Third Master Gan whimpered, ”Young Master Hee, I was blind. Please don’t stoop to my level.”

”What are the terms of the pact?”

”The Divine Woman’s lifespan was at its end. She chose me as her successor to inherit her Divine Techniques so she could die in peace.”

”Passing on her powers before she died? Is there really such a good deal in this world?” Hee Lingchuan asked, intrigued. ”What did she see in you? Your rare talent, or the fact that you’re a local tyrant?”

Third Master Gan’s face was a mask of misery. ”I... I don’t know either! She’s the one who chose me!”

”So are you Third Master Gan, or the Divine Woman?”

”I’m still me! The Divine Woman is dead!”

Hee Lingchuan searched him twice from head to toe. Aside from some gold, silver, and other valuables, he surprisingly found a light-pink, embroidered halter top... But he didn’t find what he was looking for. ”Where’s that Mirror?” he asked.

The Mirror was there before Third Master Gan was pinned by the tiger corpse, but it vanished afterward.

”At Baijiao Temple at the foot of the mountain.” Third Master Gan swallowed. ”What you saw before were all mirror images. The real Mirror itself is enshrined in Baijiao Temple!”

’Mirror images?’ Hee Lingchuan thought back to his first encounter with the Divine Woman. The Mirror on her table had also produced fighters, namely Wu Jingsong and his men. He’d sent a Clone to shatter it, but the whole thing was just a Blinding Technique; he’d still fallen into the Mirror World later.

So, the idea of a mirror image seemed plausible.

Xu Dongdong cut in, ”A mirror image can suck people in?”

”No, no! The Treasure Mirror itself is what pulled you in, but the exit opened here!” Third Master Gan cried. ”Don’t kill me! I’ll take you to it!”

It didn’t seem like this guy had any other abilities; the Divine Woman’s power must have been entirely in the Mirror. The three men exchanged a look and nodded. Wu Jingsong then hauled him out of the bamboo house and threw him onto a horse.

Hee Lingchuan rummaged around in the house for a bit, then came out. Just as he was about to mount his horse, the Divine Bone Necklace suddenly grew hot.

He froze.

’For the Divine Bone to react now... that means...’

”Brother Hee?” Wu Jingsong was waiting for him.

”Let’s go.” Hee Lingchuan swung onto his horse, and the three of them, with Third Master Gan in tow, galloped toward Baijiao Temple at the foot of the mountain.

But after riding for a hundred feet or so, he stopped. ”You two go on ahead. I need to step into the woods to relieve myself. I’ll catch up.”

When nature calls, you can’t ignore it. Wu Jingsong nodded and urged his horse onward.

They rode along the winding mountain path. Before long, they heard the sound of hoofbeats from up ahead. The sound was distant and unhurried; it was clearly Hee Lingchuan, following at a slower pace.

Wu Jingsong and Xu Dongdong didn’t wait for him, continuing straight on.

Their mission in Wuze County was to retrieve Young Master Sha’s lost soul, which was likely trapped in the Mirror. They had no time to waste.

After more than half an hour of hard riding, a small shrine appeared by the roadside ahead, just as he’d said. Its main doors stood open, and not a single light shone from within. It looked rather dilapidated in the darkness of the night.

”This is Baijiao Temple?” Wu Jingsong felt something was off. ’Would such a treasure be hidden in some dilapidated, remote shrine?’

Third Master Gan said with absolute certainty, ”It’s inside!”

But before they could even reach the temple, Wu Jingsong suddenly sensed something was wrong.

Third Master Gan’s body suddenly went limp and collapsed.

He looked down to see that Third Master Gan’s entire body had deflated like a sandbag that had leaked all its sand, leaving only an empty sack.

When he squeezed, Third Master Gan turned to ash and vanished into the air with a PUFF.

’Damn, it was a trick.’

The two exchanged a look. There was no time for anger. They quickly wheeled their horses around and galloped back toward Mochou Lake.

...

After the group of four departed, tranquility returned to the shores of Mochou Lake.

The light rain had just stopped, and the sounds of frogs and insects once again took over the place.

A few minutes passed. Then, a faint light suddenly flashed from the reeds beneath the stilt house.

SPLISH! Someone’s head broke the surface of the water—

It was Third Master Gan!

He glanced around, and once he confirmed no one was there, he fished a mirror out of the reeds and clutched it to his chest.

Then he blew a whistle.

Not far away in the bushes, there was a RUSTLE, and a large deer ran out, also possessed by an Evil Ghost.

’As long as I get far away from here, I’ll be safe.’

Third Master Gan scrambled ashore. Just as he was about to climb onto the deer’s back, he heard a voice from the side. ”Just as I suspected.”

The shock was immense.

Then, a hand grabbed him by the neck. In the faint light reflecting off the lake, he saw Hee Lingchuan’s face.

”How are you...?” ’The lakeshore is wide open. Where could he have been hiding?’

Hee Lingchuan smiled at him, as if about to speak, then suddenly threw him upwards, and with another swing of his blade, cut him in half!

It happened without any warning. Before Third Master Gan could even react, he had turned to ash upon hitting the ground.

A Copper Mirror fell from his grasp, about to drop into the lake.

A Snake Shedding appeared in Hee Lingchuan’s hand. He used it to cover the Mirror and snatched it from the air.

The deer turned and fled, and Hee Lingchuan didn’t chase it. Only then did he let out a long sigh of relief.

Earlier, he’d used the excuse of relieving himself to duck into the woods. There, he had created a Clone and sent it riding ahead on his horse past the bend in the road. Meanwhile, he had draped himself in Lord Boshan’s Snake Shedding, snuck back to the bamboo house, and waited in silence.

The Snake Shedding allowed him to blend perfectly with his surroundings. Combined with his ”Stubborn” Divine Technique—the same trick that had fooled Second Madam Zhu—he was confident he could deceive whatever might be lurking here.

If there really was something here.

He had been suspicious from the start, and the warning from his Divine Bone Necklace all but confirmed it: the target he was searching for was still nearby and hadn’t gone far.

That meant every word out of Third Master Gan’s mouth was a damned lie!

Sure enough, Hee Lingchuan’s patient ambush had paid off.

Everything he had just witnessed with his own eyes proved it: the one secretly pulling the strings wasn’t Third Master Gan, or even the Divine Woman. It was this Mirror!

The Mirror Master was just a Blinding Technique. ”Trying to fool us twice, hmm?”

The Mirror actually talked back. ”You humans are stupid and greedy. Who’s to blame for that?”

Hee Lingchuan thought for a moment, turned the Mirror’s surface outwards and its back towards himself, then ripped off the Snake Shedding and stabbed at it with the Floating Life Blade.

Stabbing from the back through to the front.

’I remember the front of the Mirror can reflect attacks,’ he thought. ’So it’s better to be sneaky and go for the back.’

The Copper Mirror was exceptionally hard. He stabbed it three or four times with the Floating Life Blade, but it didn’t even leave a scratch.

The Copper Mirror let out a mocking laugh in Third Master Gan’s voice. ”Idiot. You think you can harm my true form with that piece of junk?”

Hee Lingchuan wasn’t worried. He just kept stabbing away. This Treasure Saber had the ”Breaking Army” trait, and though the odds of it triggering were low... he wasn’t in a hurry.

’If I stab it a dozen more times, or a few dozen, its defenses are bound to break eventually.’

As he stabbed, the Mirror taunted him. ”Master Mirror here is the Treasure of the Sect of an Ancient Immortal Sect! You insignificant mortals, you filthy bugs! You truly don’t know your place... OWW!”

With a loud CRACK, the Floating Life Blade pierced through the Mirror, entering from the back and exiting through the front.

”It’s cracking! It’s cracking!” the Mirror shrieked. ”Stop, stop, stop! Stay your hand! You win! I surrender!”