Chapter 21
Chapter 21: Evil Arts and Spirit Theft
Pain drowned Zhao Chun’s mind.
She didn’t know where Yue Zuan dragged her. The world came and went in blurred flashes—stone against her cheek, the scrape of her breath, the sour taste of blood. Her senses faded until there was almost nothing left but the sound of his muttering, low and constant, like a prayer spoken backward.
She forced her eyes open, teeth clenched so hard her jaw ached. “If I’m going to die,” she rasped, “at least let me understand what’s happening.”
Yue Zuan snorted. “Asking everything isn’t a good habit.”
He sounded amused, certain she was trying to stall. “Stop dreaming. This Wind-Halt Forest is under my control. Not even a bird can slip in.”
“And your Senior Brother?” He chuckled softly. “His spiritual power is sealed. He can’t break my Spirit-Binding Rope.”
Zhao Chun couldn’t let him stop talking. If the conversation died, the pain would swallow her whole.
So she kept asking—voice shaking, breath ragged.
He ignored her until she asked about the Liao siblings.
“Dead,” he said coldly.
Then, with vicious satisfaction, “Don’t worry. You’ll be next.”
His right hand twisted, fingers warping into a claw, and lunged for her dantian.
Zhao Chun thrashed on instinct. “If I’m dying anyway,” she spat, “then I’ll take you with me!”
She grabbed his fingers with both hands and kicked upward, heel slamming for his abdomen.
The blow did nothing.
She’d expected that. She was an early Qi Refining Stage cultivator. He was at the Foundation Establishment Stage. The gap between them was a cliff.
Yue Zuan laughed, anger sharpening it. “Still fighting? Fine. Then you can suffer awake.”
At some point he stopped her bleeding. Forced a pill between her lips. Warmth spread—clarity, cruel and bright.
He wanted her conscious for every moment.
Zhao Chun swallowed against the nausea rising in her throat.
How short her life had been. Promises left unkept. The little things Zhou Pian Ran had asked her to bring back. The casual vow to her Senior Sisters—she’d be back on time.
A strange heat stirred in her chest, sudden as a spark.
It flared.
It swept through her, hot and fierce, as if fire had been poured into her veins.
And at the same time, it felt as though a huge hand reached into her dantian, fingers closing around her spirit roots—trying to rip them out, alive.
Zhao Chun’s body buckled. She curled on the ground, mind splitting with pain.
She heard Yue Zuan hiss, sharp and startled. “What is this…? It burns!”
Burns.
She felt it too.
Something at her chest radiated terrifying heat—so hot her skin felt too tight. Her dantian screamed. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think.
The hand in her dantian tightened and wouldn’t let go. It was gripping all three spirit roots, but the burning was unbearable. It wanted to finish fast—tear them out, end it.
Then it suddenly loosened, as if flinching.
A pause.
And then it went for the weakest one.
The wood spirit root.
That one came easier. The invisible grip seized the pale green thread and yanked it from Zhao Chun’s dantian in a violent, wrenching pull.
The loss was immediate—an emptiness that made her whole body tremble.
But in the same instant, her metal and fire spirit roots surged.
Without the wood element to temper them, they seemed to embrace each other, intertwining, growing brighter and stronger with fierce, wild joy. Even through the pain, Zhao Chun could sense it—something in her was exulting.
Yue Zuan exhaled a sound of bliss.
He lifted the extracted wood spirit root—an intangible, pale green wisp—and swallowed it as if it were medicine. Obsession flashed across his face.
Not enough.
His hand plunged back toward her dantian.
This time, the moment he touched her spiritual core, a burst of gold-red flame leapt from his fingertips and climbed his arm.
Yue Zuan jerked back with a strangled shout, trying to cut off the technique. Too late.
His arm blackened in an instant, flesh charring, skin cracking.
The flame didn’t die.
It drilled deeper—through meat, into bone.
“Ah—!”
He hit the ground, screaming, rolling. The fire sank into his marrow, then surged into his dantian and began burning the foundation of his spiritual power.
Zhao Chun forced herself up, shaking. Her hand flew to her chest.
Something small and round pressed against her palm—searing hot. She yanked her hand back with a gasp.
A bead.
So it was you.
A bleak laugh scraped out of her throat. She could barely stand. She couldn’t fight him like this.
But Yue Zuan, half-mad with pain and rage, still turned toward her with murder in his eyes. He was going to drag her down with him—burn or no burn.
He lunged.
And in the split second before he reached her, something slammed into him from the side.
A body.
A dark blur.
Meng Han.
Still bound at the wrists and ankles, caked in dirt—so filthy Zhao Chun realized, with a jolt, that he’d crawled out. Inch by inch, through stone and grime, without spiritual power, without free limbs.
He couldn’t throw a proper punch. He couldn’t swing a blade.
So he used what he had.
Meng Han opened his mouth and clamped down on Yue Zuan’s throat like a starving beast.
Blood exploded across the cave.
Yue Zuan’s scream turned into a wet gurgle. Meng Han bit deeper, tore harder, and didn’t let go until Yue Zuan stopped moving.
A Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator died there—under the hands of two Qi Refining Stage disciples.
Meng Han’s voice came out rough and thick, smeared with blood. “In my pouch… healing pills. Take them. Then help me get this rope off.”
Zhao Chun’s hands shook as she obeyed.
She found the bottle—Nourishing Restoration Pills—and swallowed one.
Warmth spread. Her wounds sealed. Bruises faded. Even the stabbing pain dulled—though her dantian still throbbed, a deep ache that wouldn’t ease.
Useful. Too useful. If she lived long enough, she’d need to get more.
She steadied her breathing and focused her spiritual energy, working at the Spirit-Binding Rope. It was a spiritual tool. The bound couldn’t break it if their spiritual power was sealed—but Zhao Chun could.
The glowing coil loosened.
Meng Han stood, spitting blood to the side. He wiped his face twice with a look of disgust, then spat at Yue Zuan’s corpse. “Good riddance.”
His eyes shone with fierce excitement as fear drained out of him, leaving only exhilaration. “Junior Sister, we search this place. Carefully.”
“That old monster was a real Essence Condensation Stage great cultivator before he was exiled. I don’t know how he crawled back to the Foundation Establishment Stage after being crippled, but he definitely had valuables. Today, it’s all ours.”
Zhao Chun nodded. They split up and began tearing through the cave.
The result was disappointing. Aside from a few withered spirit herbs, there was nothing worth mentioning.
Meng Han frowned, muttering, “That doesn’t make sense…”
Then his gaze sharpened. He remembered how Yue Zuan had summoned the Spirit-Binding Rope as if he hadn’t been carrying it. His face lit. “A storage magic tool!”
He strode to Yue Zuan’s body and searched his waist. His hand came away with a dark green brocade pouch.
“Junior Sister. Look.”
Zhao Chun stared, still not understanding, and Meng Han explained quickly. “A Storage Brocade Pouch. Essence Condensation Stage cultivators use these. 10 zhang of space inside. Hard to make, extremely rare—one pouch costs 50 spirit jades.”
Spirit jades were higher currency. Zhao Chun knew the math in theory—one spirit jade was worth 1,000 Cui Stones—but in reality, even 1,000 Cui Stones might not trade for one spirit jade. Too few people were willing to lose money exchanging them.
A normal Foundation Establishment Stage Storage Bag held only one zhang of space and still cost five spirit jades. Zhao Chun had never dared dream of buying one.
50 spirit jades.
That was at least 50,000 Cui Stones.
Her eyes widened despite herself.
Yue Zuan was dead. Meng Han easily erased the spiritual mark and poured the contents out onto the stone.
“I got lucky,” he said, practical as ever. “But the real reason he couldn’t fight back was you, Junior Sister. That fire—whatever it was—made him helpless.”
He looked at her. “We split it. Seven for you, three for me. Fair?”
Warmth spread through Zhao Chun’s chest—something close to gratitude, something close to relief.
She shook her head. “Senior Brother, don’t say that. If you hadn’t killed him when you did, I’d be dead.”
“Fifty-fifty,” she insisted. “Half each.”
Meng Han hesitated, then grinned—quick and bright. “Fine. You’re honest. I like that.”
He bent to count. Zhao Chun’s gaze drifted to a battered old booklet among the scattered items.
She picked it up and began to read.
Her skin prickled.
The farther she went, the colder her blood became.
“Senior Brother Meng,” she said, voice tight. “Look at this.”
Meng Han leaned in. By the time they finished, both of them were slick with cold sweat.
It was Yue Zuan’s personal record—notes on Changhui Sect’s various secret arts.
And tucked among them was an evil technique called Sun-Swapping Spirit-Stealing Grand Art.
The method was vicious.
It used the blood of both caster and victim as a catalyst. The caster forged spiritual energy into their hand, reached into the victim’s dantian, and tore out their spirit roots—then fed them to themselves, strengthening their own roots and sending their cultivation surging upward.
That was only the upper portion.
The lower portion claimed that once the caster reached the Essence Condensation Stage or above, they could seize other people’s spirit roots and make them their own.
The risk was extreme. The caster could die as well.
Zhao Chun stared at the page, throat dry, and nausea rolled through her.
It was the kind of thing that made your scalp go numb.