Chapter 350

Chapter 350: Capture Them Alive, Interrogate the Dead

“This one’s stubborn,” Irene (Rebar) said from Yu Sheng’s shoulder, peering down at the black-robed cultivator tangled in her silk. “I’ll give him that. His stamina’s insane.”

Yu Sheng didn’t answer. He approached slowly, eyes fixed on the strange mask covering the man’s face.

Every attacker that had appeared out of nowhere wore one. They weren’t identical, but they all shared the same sickly design: a surface carved with pitted, uneven grooves, like scorched stone eaten away by time, as if whoever made them was trying to imitate an “image” they couldn’t quite remember. Some masks were pitch-black, others a dark, dried-blood red. All of them felt wrong.

After a moment’s hesitation, Yu Sheng reached out and lifted the mask away.

Beneath it was an ordinary man’s face, twisted with pain and fury.

“Do you recognize this?” Yu Sheng straightened and handed the mask to Xuan Che.

Xuan Che turned it over, paying careful attention to the material. “I don’t. It’s just wood—ordinary wood. No additional effect. Looks like it’s only meant to hide the face… and maybe serve as a symbol.”

He lowered his gaze to the bound cultivator. “He looks alive. Not something formed inside the otherworld.”

“Didn’t you say the entrance was sealed by your people?” Irene’s eyes widened. “I even saw the guy guarding the door earlier… Su Yun, right?”

“Su Yun rarely makes mistakes,” Xuan Che said, his expression grim. “Which is exactly why this is so strange.”

He stepped forward and stared down at the captive. “Who are you? How did you enter this secret realm? Who sent you? What is your purpose?”

The questions came sharp and fast. The black-robed cultivator only let out a muffled grunt, then turned his face away with stubborn contempt.

“Like we didn’t see that coming,” Yu Sheng sighed. “You can ask until your throat goes hoarse. He won’t answer. Captured enemies always have to act tough for a while.”

“We still have to try,” Xuan Che said lightly. Then he turned to Irene. “Can you loosen the silk a little? We need to bring him back for interrogation, but you’ve wrapped him like a dumpling. It’ll be a hassle to move him.”

Irene’s mouth tightened. “I don’t dare. That guy has ‘self-destruct’ written all over his brain. If I loosen even a strand, he’ll probably kill himself.”

“That’s fine.”

Xuan Che waved her off and leaned down. He unhooked a medicinal gourd from his waist and gave it a shake. It had sounded empty before, but now it sloshed with elixir. He poured out two pale purple pills, pried at the cultivator’s jaw—

“What’s that?” Yu Sheng asked, curiosity taking over. “Mind control? A walking-corpse pill?”

“A cultivator’s mind isn’t that easy to control, especially a death thrall like this,” Xuan Che said, smiling as he shook his head. “Any pill strong enough to force obedience would burn his brain before it took effect. These simply suppress spiritual power and seal the heart and spirit. He’ll fall asleep. Quietly.”

The black-robed cultivator fought the instant the pills touched his lips, thrashing against the silk with desperate strength.

But who was Xuan Che?

He was the top talent of Grand Void Star’s foremost medical sect. Patients refusing medicine had never been a problem. He lifted a finger, condensed qi into a thin, razor edge, and tapped through the air.

“Obey Doctor’s Orders Finger!”

The cultivator’s mouth snapped open.

No matter how hard his body struggled, the pills went down.

Yu Sheng couldn’t stop himself. “These move names of yours…”

“After Irene’s reminder last time, I benefited greatly,” Xuan Che said, visibly pleased with himself. “My medical-path self-defense techniques may not compare to battle-hardened combat arts, but they’re still centuries of sect inheritance. Each move should have a name. Of course, these are temporary. Later I’ll report properly to my master and seek his elder opinion—”

Yu Sheng stared at him.

Irene looked slightly dazed. If she’d had sweat glands, she would’ve been drenched. “Uh… is it possible I was joking last time? Please don’t take it seriously!”

Xuan Che’s face was completely earnest. “Even jokes can inspire deep reflection!”

As he spoke, the captive was still thrashing, so Xuan Che flicked another “Obey Doctor’s Orders Finger!” and fed him more elixir while calmly explaining, “This medicine is gentle. It won’t damage his foundation, and it doesn’t affect the mind. Perfect for controlling a living captive. The only downside is it’s weaker against true experts, but that’s fine—we refined over a thousand pills earlier… Obey Doctor’s Orders Finger!”

“Obey Doctor’s Orders Finger!”

“Obey Doctor’s Orders Finger!”

Yu Sheng watched in mounting disbelief as Xuan Che fed the man who-knew-how-many pills. At first, the captive fought like a cornered beast. Then his movements dulled. Whether the medicine finally took hold or he simply ran out of will, he eventually sagged, humiliation and rage still carved across his face, and passed out.

For a heartbeat, Yu Sheng honestly wondered if he’d been stuffed to death.

Xuan Che seemed to share the concern. After the cultivator went limp, he hesitated, then produced a few stomach-strengthening digestion pills and popped them into the man’s mouth, guiding the medicine down with a thread of spiritual power.

Irene, delighted to stir trouble, chimed in. “You should’ve at least given him water. He almost choked to death.”

Xuan Che considered that very seriously, then poured half a gourd of water into the already unconscious man.

Yu Sheng tried to stop him. He was too late.

When Irene finally withdrew her silk, the black-robed cultivator lay on the sand with his belly noticeably swollen, sleeping like a corpse. His face didn’t look peaceful, but at least he wasn’t going anywhere—and he couldn’t bite his own tongue in some dramatic suicide attempt.

Yu Sheng stared, swallowed whatever he was about to say, then still couldn’t help it. “Xuan Che.”

“Mr. Yu, please instruct me.”

“In the future,” Yu Sheng said slowly, “you should be a medical examiner.”

“…Huh?”

Ignoring the confusion, Yu Sheng reached out and casually pulled open a door.

On the other side was the grand hall of the Parted Clouds Palace, where several cultivators were already staring over in shock. Yu Sheng had recorded enough coordinates inside the palace that the door no longer had to open into Xuan Che’s pill-refining furnace.

“Take the prisoner over first and tell them what happened,” Yu Sheng told Xuan Che. “Then come back. We’re checking this place again. The entrance was sealed, but these people still showed up. Something’s off.”

“Understood,” Xuan Che said at once. With a sweep of his hand, he lifted the captive into the air and carried him through the door to report to Immortal Yuan Ling.

Yu Sheng waited beside the doorway. Before long, Xuan Che returned.

“Master was startled,” he said quickly. “This is the first time anyone has been attacked while acting in the otherworld—and by other cultivators, at that. He placed the captive in the prison and will interrogate him personally. He told me to return and investigate carefully. Everything will follow Mr. Yu’s arrangements.”

Yu Sheng nodded. He closed the door and headed toward the other black-robed bodies scattered across the yellow sand.

“I already checked them,” Xuan Che said as he followed. “They were cautious. They carried nothing that could prove identity. Even their artifacts and weapons were privately made, or their markings were carefully erased.”

“I know,” Yu Sheng said, waving him off. “If they dared to sneak into the otherworld to assassinate Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain’s people, they’d have habits like that. But I’m not looking for tokens.”

Xuan Che blinked. “Then what?”

“I’m looking for their testimony after death,” Yu Sheng said, glancing back with a faint smile. “We only caught one alive. What if he gives us nothing? While the bodies are still fresh, I’ll interrogate them first.”

He crouched and placed a hand in a patch of blood.

The world drained of color.

Black, white, and gray swallowed everything in an instant. Wind vanished. Sound vanished. A hazy mist lifted along the horizon, and Xuan Che and the others froze in the monochrome stillness, caught mid-breath like figures in an old photograph.

Yu Sheng was used to it.

He clapped his hands, preparing to wake the dead—

And then a faint movement caught the corner of his eye.

A glowing figure shifted nearby.

Yu Sheng lifted his head and saw a girl in bright armor, golden hair falling like a waterfall, a holy sword in her hand. She was looking around with open curiosity, as if amazed by the sudden change in the world.

She stood exactly where the artificial saintess, Luna, had been standing a moment ago.

Yu Sheng paused. The surprise came, then faded just as quickly.

Remembering what he had “seen” earlier, he understood.

“Luna,” he called to the bewildered knight girl. “I’m here.”

The golden-haired girl snapped out of her daze and spotted the only other moving, colored figure in the dead-gray world. She hurried over. “Yu Sheng! This is… what happened?”

“Ah,” Yu Sheng said, eyebrow lifting at how clear her voice was now. Then he smiled. “Welcome to the world on the far side of death.”