Chapter 43

Chapter 43: Into the Trap

His strike landed—

And the Mo Chou before him dissolved into shadow, scattering like smoke.

Fang Xu Cheng’s eyes widened.

A voice drifted behind him, soft and intimate, each word laced with cold. “Xu Cheng… husband… how could you treat me like this?”

Fang Xu Cheng’s hair stood on end.

He whirled.

Mo Chou stood behind him, unhurt, as real as memory. Her eyes were full of sorrow. “I did everything for you. We swore we’d build our careers together and make the Fang Family a great clan among the immortal sects. Why did you leave me to fight alone?”

Her voice softened, turning haunting. “Why did you let me die by myself in the Ming River? The water was so cold…”

Fake.

All of it was fake.

Fang Xu Cheng’s face twisted. He lashed out again.

Mo Chou crumpled, struck down like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Then she appeared at his side, her voice no longer pleading—just hollow despair. “Xu Cheng… I didn’t think you were this kind of person. After I died… did you miss me even a little?”

Fang Xu Cheng ignored her. His eyes were bloodshot as he snarled into the empty air, “Old hag, come out!”

“Stop hiding behind tricks!”

He whipped again and again, lightning snaking through the dark. “Your daughter is dead, do you hear me? If you miss her so much, go die with her!”

Mo Chou kept appearing—shattering, reforming, appearing again. Her questions never stopped.

“Why didn’t you come save me?”

“What were you doing back then?”

“Xu Cheng…”

His restraint snapped.

Fang Xu Cheng spun on her, voice cracking with rage. “Of course I didn’t save you! Even a Divine Transformation cultivator couldn’t stop them—what did you want me to do? Die with you?”

He took a harsh breath, the endless illusions squeezing his mind until it ached. “I didn’t expect those Devil Creatures to be that strong. Blame yourself. Blame yourself for pretending to be kind, insisting on helping Ling Yun Zhou.”

“You deserved it,” he spat. “You deserved it!”

He struck again.

Mo Chou’s eyes bled red tears. “I already died for you. Why would you still lay hands on my mother?”

Her voice sharpened. “Without her, where would you be today? Did you forget who opened your meridians, who hunted down techniques for you?”

“Bah!” Fang Xu Cheng’s face twisted with resentment that had festered for years. “For the last 18 years, I treated her respectfully, like my own mother. Yet she wouldn’t spend a single coin on me.”

His eyes gleamed. “You’re dead. Who can inherit her legacy? And she wanted to send me to the Limitless Sect. If I went into the Limitless Sect, would I even live?”

“Why wouldn’t you live?” Mo Chou asked, voice calm, almost curious.

The question hit like ice water.

Fang Xu Cheng’s mouth snapped shut. He forced himself to breathe, forced his thoughts to settle.

No. Don’t talk. Don’t let her pull words out of him.

He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t try to trick me. I didn’t do anything.”

His voice grew louder, as if volume could make it true. “Mo Chou died to Devil Creatures. It had nothing to do with me.”

“I just pinned the blame on Ling Yun Zhou. That’s all. Everyone said he was a traitor—I repeated it. What’s wrong with that?”

“You still dare say A Chou’s death had nothing to do with you?!”

This time, Second Lady Hu appeared.

Her wedding clothes were splattered with blood now, her expression twisted with hatred. “If it wasn’t you, why would she have gone to the Ming River?”

“She fought and bled in front while you hid behind and stole the credit. You were eating her flesh and drinking her blood!”

“And after she died, you took concubines one after another, lounging on her merits while you rolled around with other women!”

“So what?” Fang Xu Cheng’s lips curled. “She did it willingly.”

Impatience bled into his voice. “Stop putting on an act! You stinking woman—you’re crippled now. What’s the point of all this?”

He lifted his whip, eyes bright with violent certainty. “I’ll tear your valley apart. Let’s see where you can hide.”

Thunder gathered overhead, answering him.

Fang Xu Cheng swung his whip. “Go!”

Bolts crashed down, filling the illusion with lightning and fire.

He laughed through clenched teeth.

Why waste time with fancy tricks? He was the strongest person in this valley now. He would break through by force.

Once he shattered the illusion Formation, the three of them—wounded, weak, crippled—would be at his mercy.

The illusion rippled.

Held.

Fang Xu Cheng’s smile sharpened. Not enough?

Fine.

He swung again, forcing more power out of his meridians. The lightning above swelled, thickening by a brutal margin.

The Formation shook, teetering on collapse, but it held.

Mo Chou’s voice broke apart in the thunder. “Xu Cheng… you… you’re so cruel…”

The sound made Fang Xu Cheng want to vomit.

Seeing the Formation on the brink, he swallowed a handful of pills and wrenched every last thread of power out of his body.

“Boom!”

“Boom!”

“Boom!”

The thunder gathered into pillars, thick and violent, carrying a force that felt like Heaven itself coming down.

It was power enough to rival the first bolt of a heavenly tribulation.

Fang Xu Cheng bared his teeth. He refused to believe it still wouldn’t kill them.

The lightning pillar fell.

This time, the illusion finally tore apart.

Reality snapped into place like a blade sliding home.

Dawn was near.

Jagged rocks jutted from the valley floor, sharp as broken teeth. A solitary grave stood beneath them, the thatched hut half-hidden in the gray morning light.

The memorial tomb had been split open, exposing the space inside.

Three people were there.

Second Lady Hu sat cross-legged on the bed, eyes closed, still forcing poison out.

By the dressing table, Ling Bu Fei lounged with his chin propped in his hand, as if he’d been watching a play. He even dabbed at his eye with exaggerated delicacy, murmuring with theatrical misery.

Beside him stood Bai Meng Jin, holding a bone-white umbrella that gleamed on one side and drank light on the other—black and white turning in a slow, steady cycle.

The Yin-Yang Umbrella.

Lightning still curled around it, writhing like trapped serpents.

The last wandering bolt gathered against its surface and snapped with a sharp crack.

Above Ling Bu Fei’s body, a phantom image of a small cauldron appeared—the Devil-Suppression Cauldron—and swallowed the final remnants of lightning as if drinking them down.

Ling Bu Fei lifted his head, smiled at Fang Xu Cheng, and spoke in Mo Chou’s voice, soft and tender. “Xu Cheng, husband… you’re so cruel.”

The face was handsome. The tone was sweet.

Fang Xu Cheng’s expression turned green, like he’d swallowed a fly alive.

The Yin-Yang Umbrella snapped shut.

Bai Meng Jin—young, clear-eyed, entirely unafraid—spoke in Second Lady Hu’s bitter voice. “Fang Xu Cheng, I’ll send you to join A Chou in the grave!”

Fang Xu Cheng’s eyes went wide. Rage and horror twisted together. “You’re asking to die!”

At that moment, Second Lady Hu’s eyes snapped open.

She surged forward, fingers hooked like claws. “You die first!”

Fang Xu Cheng raised a hand to counter, but he’d just poured almost everything into the thunder. A thin lightning whip formed—weak, ragged—just as Second Lady Hu seized him by the throat and collar.

Strands of Red Thread rose from her body and wrapped around Fang Xu Cheng, binding him in bitter, trembling coils.

Her voice was thick with resentment. “If you weren’t greedy for credit and afraid of death, how would A Chou have ended up like this?”

“You killed her,” she hissed. “You killed her!”

“Senior!” Bai Meng Jin’s face changed. “Don’t—your poison—”

Second Lady Hu didn’t hear, or didn’t care. Revenge was the only thing holding her upright.

Ling Bu Fei’s eyes sharpened. “Watch out! He still has strength left!”

Fang Xu Cheng felt death closing in. Terror blew through him like fire. His survival instinct exploded.

“You damned woman!” Sparks of lightning crawled over his skin. The beginnings of a spell—if it completed, it would turn both of them into ash.

Bai Meng Jin didn’t hesitate.

She grabbed Ling Bu Fei and yanked him forward. “Now.”

She seized his hand and slammed his palm down onto Fang Xu Cheng’s crown.

Spiritual power poured into Ling Bu Fei’s meridians, forcing the vast cultivation sealed inside him to move—violent, unstoppable.

“Ah—!”

Fang Xu Cheng screamed.

Ling Bu Fei’s eyes widened as scenes slammed into his sea of consciousness, one after another—

A forbidden sect art.

Soul Search.