In front of him, a piece of paper fell from nowhere. Xie Bai reached out and quickly scanned the words on the note, then without hesitation, he coldly burned the entire note to ashes.

Yin Wushu said that his remaining heart had been tampered with, so he would take a step ahead and not travel with Xie Bai for the time being.

As soon as there was trouble with the book, he disappeared. How coincidental could it be! Saying it's okay is really just fooling around.

His first reaction was to catch up with Yin Wushu and question him, but as soon as this thought flashed, he realized he didn't know where Yin Wushu had gone, what the next destination was, or where the heart was buried...

Just like a hundred years ago, apart from the Tai Xuan Dao and the annual Demon Market, he couldn't think of a third place where Yin Wushu might appear.

Xie Bai stood expressionless in the room, his back straight.

In that moment, he couldn't help but think back to the scene of standing at the door of Tai Xuan Dao years ago. It seemed that overnight he had become a lonely figure, and all the previous warmth and closeness were just illusions.

The taste of being abandoned without a word was extremely bitter, especially since he had experienced it twice.

The little black cat rolled over from the next room, rubbing against Xie Bai's ankles a couple of times before using the bed as a springboard and jumping into Xie Bai's arms, nuzzling against his neck.

Xie Bai stood coldly for a while before lifting the little black cat with his hand, then turned and kicked open the half-open door, heading downstairs.

The stork from the Canghai Bookstore was a bit bewildered when he saw Xie Bai standing in front of him — the person who was warm in the early morning suddenly turned into an iceberg?!

Xie Bai stared at the stork without saying a word, almost making the stork cry.

"Master, please don't stare at me like this..." The stork finally couldn't help but speak, his face full of sorrow.

"Has there been any tampering with the book ’Trivial talk by the western window’

before you gave it to me?" Xie Bai sneered and slammed the entire book down in front of the stork.

The stork looked puzzled. "No."

"Stick out your hands and flatten them." Xie Bai's voice was low and light, against the chilly morning air, making the stork shiver. For a moment, he almost thought Xie Bai was going to chop off his claws, but considering that they were in the Demon Market, where there were plenty of powerful demons around, he had never seen anyone spill blood in the market.

Xie Bai lowered his head and carefully examined the back of the stork's hands, then whispered again, "Spread your fingers apart and turn them over."

The stork obediently complied, turning his palms face up.

Xie Bai frowned, his gaze fixed on the three small blood spots at the tip of the stork's ring finger on his right hand. "Who pricked you?"

The stork only then noticed the three things on his finger, and exclaimed in panic, "Huh? When did these appear? I had no idea, I woke up yesterday morning and they weren't there..."

Xie Bai had seen these three blood spots before; they were left by a kind of spell that controlled a person's actions. But those enchanted by it appeared almost normal, making it difficult for others to notice.

Seeing these blood spots, he could almost be certain that Yin Wushu had cast a spell on this stork, using him to alter the contents of the book.

"Have you read the contents of this book before?" Xie Bai asked.

The stork hesitated and nodded, "I have..."

"Do you remember the contents?"

The stork's face changed color, as if he wanted to kneel down and beg, "Master, you're not going to make me recite, are you?!"

Xie Bai was speechless. "Just remembering the general idea is fine."

The stork didn't dare to be too presumptuous in his words, saying, "I remember vaguely. Can you tell me which part?"

With a slender finger, Xie Bai flipped to that page and pointed to a paragraph in the middle, saying, "After the disappearance of the white tiger, the man in black had something extra in his hand. What's the rest of the content here? Explain it to me."

Hearing this, the stork glanced at the content in the book. "How did it become like this? Let me see..."

After saying this, he directly picked up the book and flipped through a couple of pages, then turned to Xie Bai and said, "I don't remember the exact wording, but this part has indeed been altered. I have some impression of the original content. It was about—"

Following the stork demon's utterance of these words, his expression turned grim, and he appeared to be straining as he continued, "It mentioned the white tiger—"

The stork struggled to continue, repeatedly saying "It said" several times, but couldn't manage to spit out the rest of the content, his face turning red with frustration.

Xie Bai furrowed his brow. "You've been silenced?"

The stork nodded frantically. "I can't say a word, it's driving me crazy."

"What about writing?" Xie Bai asked.

The stork hurriedly grabbed something resembling a yellowed oil paper from the side and took a pen. However, his hand trembled so much that the pen tip couldn't touch the paper no matter how hard he tried.

He was sweating profusely out of anxiety.

Seeing this, Xie Bai raised his hand, conjuring black mist to form bandages around the stork's hands. Then, he took the pen and paper from the stork's hand, firmly pinching the stork's ring finger on his right hand and making a cut with his thumb.

The stork let out a cry, tears welling up in his eyes as he looked at his finger. "It's bleeding..."

Creatures like him belonged to the same category as Lou Xianyue—aside from living longer and having better memories, they were no different from ordinary people, at least in terms of combat strength. Fortunately, this market was considered a low-accident area in the spiritual world, a sanctuary where lower combat strength didn't have much impact.

However, even with lower combat strength, he still had some knowledge of certain spells, especially after reading many books. So he knew that Xie Bai's actions were meant to help him break the curse, but for this type of control curse, it wouldn't immediately take effect once broken; it would take a whole day to completely eliminate its effects.

But waiting another day meant the sea route would be closed, and Xie Bai couldn't afford to delay.

The stork watched helplessly as the three blood spots on his ring finger slowly faded away, only to look up and see that Xie Bai's expression wasn't very pleasant. So, after careful consideration, he cautiously suggested, "How about this, my Lord? You can leave the market first if you have urgent matters. Once the curse is completely lifted tomorrow morning, I'll write down the rest of the content for you. Just leave me a feasible way to contact you."

Apart from this, there really wasn't a better solution, and besides, Xie Bai didn't have much time to spare; he still had to continue his journey.

He nodded in agreement to the stork's suggestion, and with his index and middle fingers, he clamped a thin sheet of paper about half the size of a book page. In the lower left corner of the paper, he stamped a small red seal, leaving the rest of the space blank. "Take this paper. After the curse is lifted, write down the rest of the content on it as completely as possible. Once you're done, burn it with a candle, and I'll receive it."

The stork respectfully took the paper, not daring to look at it for too long, and just kept nodding. "Okay, okay, I promise to write down everything I remember."

Xie Bai uttered a "hmph," thanked him, and then headed straight for the exit of the market.

When he completely vanished from sight, the stork turned the paper in his hand over and carefully examined the red seal in the lower left corner. Inside the seal were two ancient characters with a mysterious and eerie style—Yin Ke. (NT: Yin guest)

The stork's legs went weak. "Oh my god!"

*

As soon as Xie Bai left the sea route of the market, he headed straight for the next stop that had been calculated based on the direction.

According to Lou Xianyue's instructions, he had to travel thirty-five hundred miles northeast, with each stop every eighty-one miles, passing through more than forty stops in total. The numbers might seem daunting, but for Xie Bai, it was nothing to be afraid of. He had encountered various unexpected events on the road before, delaying him considerably, and he had already passed around ten stops. Now that Yin Wushu and Li Dong were no longer with him, he would only travel faster alone...

Especially when he wasn't in a particularly good mood.

When he was traveling with Yin Wushu before, they would often encounter unexpected events shortly after setting out, constantly disrupting their journey and slowing them down. Now, Xie Bai was traveling alone, and everything was going smoothly. Every place was calm and ordinary, except for being a bit desolate, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

It made people can't help but suspect whether those two were unlucky or prone to trouble.

Most of these places didn't have any particular customs to observe, so Xie Bai opened the Yin Gate without any hesitation. A distance of a hundred or so miles was nothing to him; it was just a matter of ten minutes. The only trouble was confirming the position of the Ghost Gate.

Fortunately, he always had the compass given by Yin Wushu in his hand, so he wouldn't go in the wrong direction. This was probably the only thing Yin Wushu had done recently that didn't make Xie Bai annoyed.

After stopping and resting along the way, just during the day, Xie Bai had passed more than ten stations, and he was not far from his final destination.

Actually, he could have been faster, but firstly, the little black cat in his arms was too small, and its soul couldn't withstand the back-and-forth between Yin Gates, making it prone to injuries. Secondly... his own body was starting to struggle a bit.

Last night in the market, he had already sensed something unusual; otherwise, he wouldn't have absorbed every bit of heat from each portion of food without leaving any behind. But so many hot and steaming foods and streams of air didn't have much effect; they only slightly alleviated the discomfort.

Today, they were completely useless.

After three o'clock in the afternoon, when the sunlight became weaker as it leant westward, the cold from last night, which could melt away all the heat, began to spread through his bones.

Every time he went through a Yin Gate, he felt a bit colder, and by the time the sun set, even his lips had lost their colour.

The most fatal aspect was that, by nightfall, the place he had reached was near the ancient Peacock Lake.

Under his feet was a sandy sea with undulating dark dunes, and the surroundings were almost identical. There was no difference in sight. Within the visible range, other than sand and bleached tree branches, there was also a weirdly blue deep lake embedded among them.

As the wind blew away a piece of gravel at his feet, a patch of bones emerged from underneath, making the ghostly atmosphere even more eerie against this desolate backdrop.

The temperature difference between day and night in the sandy sea was extremely large. As soon as night fell, all the heat quickly dissipated, and the temperature dropped rapidly, causing even his bones to ache.

Xie Bai leaned against the roots of a withered tree behind a bare sand dune, holding the compass and trying to determine the direction of the surrounding scenery. His expression was still indifferent, except for his furrowed brow, there was no other emotion visible. However, there was already a layer of frost forming on the fingers holding the compass.

Moreover, that layer of frost was gradually spreading towards the back of his hand and his wrist.

His other hand hung at his side, not embracing the little black cat in his arms, afraid of freezing the small creature. But instead of being frozen silly by the temperature, the little black cat crawled up and down Xie Bai's body, bustling about. It bit Xie Bai's sleeve, trying to pull his hand up. However, its effort was too vigorous; instead of pulling Xie Bai's hand up, it ended up tumbling backward, belly up, sprawled across Xie Bai's crossed legs.

With this flip, Xie Bai, who had been searching for direction all this while, finally noticed it. He extended his left hand, which was already covered in white frost, towards the cat and asked softly, "What are you pulling me for?"

The little black cat looked up at him, squinting, finally satisfied.

It adjusted Xie Bai's hand position, then climbed onto Xie Bai's chest, struggled to roll over, with its head hanging down and its feet up, hanging from Xie Bai's body. Its four claws tightly hooked onto Xie Bai's clothes, while using its warm and soft belly to press against Xie Bai's chest, and desperately stretching its neck to lick the frost-covered fingertips of Xie Bai.

Xie Bai looked at its acrobatic posture, silently speechless. After a while, he couldn't help but scold, "Aren't you afraid of freezing your tongue?"

He couldn't bear to watch the little creature exerting so much effort, so he lifted it up with his hand to prevent it from hanging for too long and getting tired, and then falling down directly.

Xie Bai had always been tough, but even the toughest bones would ache when they were frozen to the extreme.

Moreover, it was difficult to discern the Ghost Gates here, and he couldn't find the correct direction no matter how hard he tried. It was truly agonizing.

Just as even his neck began to frost over, a very low and faint female voice suddenly came from the edge of the Peacock Lake, carried intermittently by the passing wind, light and elusive.

 

Translator : DarNan