With Bitan Manor gone, even if Huang Xiaoyue wanted to stay, he had no reason to.

     He could only go up the mountain.

     Mo Ran hoped to end the battle quickly, so he immediately rushed into the crack in Mount Huang’s boundary, followed by Jiangdong Hall’s disciples. Once inside the boundary, Mo Ran was fine, but all of the disciples from Jiangdong Hall screamed—

     Dead people.

     There were dead people everywhere.

     There were corpses lying all over the ground and hanging from the treetops. They were crawling, twisting, and moving at an extremely slow speed towards every living person.

     Mount Huang had turned into a mountain of corpses!

     Seeing this, Huang Xiaoyue took out a horsetail whisk and whipped it forward. In the blink of an eye, four or five of the corpses were beheaded. Before Mo Ran could react, he realized why this old man had suddenly become so brave… He heard him cry out in pain and fall to the ground in an extremely exaggerated manner. His eyes rolled back as he coughed up blood.

     Mo Ran: “...”

     The disciples of Jiangdong Hall rushed forward in shock, “Elder Huang!”

     “Elder…”

     “It doesn’t matter. I’m badly injured, but I can still do something.” Huang Xiaoyue struggled to get up, but after two steps, his knees gave out and he fell back to the ground, panting heavily.

     The disciples said anxiously, “Elder, you should go outside to rest. There are too many evil spirits here, I’m afraid they’ll damage your heart.”

     “Yes, yes.”

     At first, Huang Xiaoyue tried his best to refuse. But while doing so, he spat out blood, which was mixed with sticky saliva. It was indescribably disgusting. After doing this a few times, Huang Xiaoyue led the disciples of Jiangdong Hall and put on a regretful expression.

     The crowd was like a school of carps crossing a river as they rushed out. The boundary blocked their way, but it didn’t stop them from escaping. This barrier only stopped people from entering, not from leaving. Soon, there were only a few people left from Jiangdong Hall.

     At this time, a young man suddenly descended from the mountainside ahead. The young man had light golden hair, dark blue eyes, and a cold expression. He and Mo Ran were both slightly startled when they saw each other.

     Mo Ran reacted first, “...Mei-xiong?”

     Mei Hanxue nodded. He was cold and not fond of words.

     Mo Ran asked anxiously, “Have you seen my Shizun and the others?”

     “Up ahead.” As he said this, a corpse staggered from behind Mei Hanxue. Just as Mo Ran was about to warn him, he saw a cold sword light. Mei Hanxue had already summoned his sword and, without turning his head, stabbed a hole in the corpse’s chest.

     He pulled his sword out with a slash, black fluid dripping from the tip. His expression was cold as he wiped the blood off his sword. He said, “You go up and keep going straight ahead. The first mountain path is to the left. There are too many corpses. The path is currently being cleared. Everyone is there.”

     Mo Ran thanked him, and was about to catch up. But Mei Hanxue stopped him again.

     “Wait.”

     “Is something the matter, Mei-xiong?”

     “Mm. The Palace Master and Madam Rong were old friends. She was worried and had me turn back to check on those two from Rufeng Sect. How are they? Are they still outside?”

     When Mo Ran heard this, he was relieved, “They’re still waiting outside. Nangong Si used the imprisonment technique on himself. But Huang Xiaoyue has just gone out. I’m afraid he’ll do something to make things difficult for them. I ask you to take care of them.”

     Mei Hanxue pursed his lips and didn’t say anything else. With a tap of his foot, he disappeared at the edge of the boundary.

     Mo Ran immediately rushed to the main group without further delay. It was strange. He originally thought that with so many corpses, he should have seen the remains of some of his own people on the path, but there weren’t any. 

     There were chopped up corpses everywhere. Although it was disgusting, there weren’t any cultivators mixed in with the remains; it was all rotten flesh.

     Was it because all of the sect leaders had brought the best of the best?

     He didn’t have the leisure to think about it further. He immediately threw himself into the task of cleaning up the mountain as well.

     Just now, he had been walking along the path everyone had taken to kill those zombies, and the zombies had all been cut down to nothing. But now that he was on the move, he felt even more strange.

     It was too simple.

     He felt that he wasn’t fighting against evil spirits at all. It was as if he was slaughtering ordinary people without the strength to fight back.

     This situation made him uneasy. He vaguely had an extremely terrifying guess…

     “Heeheeheeheehee~”

     Suddenly, a zombie hung down from the tree in front of him. Its hair was disheveled and it reached out its hand to grab Mo Ran’s neck. Mo Ran jerked back, and the zombie immediately turned its head, its nostrils flaring. It grabbed his shoulder with one hand, trying to bring its vicious and rotten face closer.

     Mo Ran was disgusted, but he still took this opportunity to observe it first. Then, he raised his foot and ruthlessly kicked it into the swarm of corpses, knocking down several zombies that were coming at him as well.

     “Mo Ran!”

     By this time, Xue Meng had also fought his way over, and was back to back with him. Xue Meng gasped for breath, with black blood splattered on his cheeks. His eyes were like lightning as he said in a low voice, “What’s going on? These corpses are a joke. How can they be so weak?”

     Mo Ran’s eyes were cold and chilling. In his previous life, Emperor Taxian-Jun had read about all kinds of evil arts. He already had a vague suspicion in his heart, but at the moment, he didn’t have enough clues, so he couldn’t make a confident conclusion.

     Mo Ran gritted his teeth and said, “These aren’t cultivator corpses. They’re ordinary people.”

     “What?!” Xue Meng was shocked. He turned his head and asked, “These people are already fucking rotten into black ash, they’re like charcoal. How can you tell if they’re cultivators or not? I can’t even tell if they’re men or women!”

     Mo Ran didn’t answer directly. Instead, he said, “If I were to fight with you and didn’t have time to dodge, causing you to grab hold of my shoulder, what would you do?”

     “...How could you expose your shoulder to me? This is a taboo in combat. Even eleven or twelve year old disciples wouldn’t make such a mistake.”

     “Why is it a taboo?”

     “Because it’s close to your spiritual core! Grabbing your shoulder is equivalent to grabbing half of your spiritual core. If my other hand can stab your chest, it would immediately determine life or death!”

     Mo Ran said, “Well, just now, a corpse grabbed me like that—”

     Xue Meng was shocked, “How can you be so careless?! Do you want to die?!”

     But Mo Ran interrupted him, “It didn’t move.”

     “Huh?”

     “At such a close distance, it didn’t even think of attacking my spiritual core with its other hand. For cultivators, protecting their spiritual cores and attacking other people’s spiritual cores at close range is already a deep-rooted habit. Just like you said, even eleven or twelve year olds would know to do this. Even if they turn into zombies after death, their fighting styles won’t change. However, this corpse did not do so.”

     Mo Ran paused, then said in a low voice, “Why not? There are only two possibilities: either it can’t do it, or can’t think of it.”

     Xue Meng: “...”

     Mo Ran continued, “Its hands and feet were intact, so it’s impossible that it couldn’t be done when such a rare opportunity had presented itself. So, it can only be that it couldn’t think of it… Most of these corpses were probably ordinary people when they were alive. Once they died, they were no match for these elites. So until now, not a single person has been injured.”

     Xue Meng was shocked, “How can this be? What was Xu Shuanglin doing on Mount Huang with so many ordinary people? If he has the power of the Zhenlong Chess Formation, why didn’t he control cultivators?”

     Mo Ran replied, “It’s the same possibilities as before: can’t do it, or can’t think of it.”

     “How could he not think of it?!”

     “So, there’s only one possibility left. He can’t do it.” Mo Ran’s gaze was heavy. Sparks flashed in his eyes, like boiling molten iron falling into the vast ocean of darkness, “Xu Shuanglin’s spiritual power is not enough to control so many cultivators with his Zhenlong chess pieces.”

     “But it’s useless for him to control these shrimps.” Xue Meng kicked back another group of zombies. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, “What he did can’t stop anything.”

     Mo Ran didn’t say anything more. The suspicion in his heart was becoming clearer and clearer.

     He looked at the zombies that were fighting with the crowd and soon noticed something extremely strange. When the corpses had their limbs or heads cut off, upon falling to the ground, tiny vines would immediately stick out, piercing directly into their chests. Then, with a “poof,” the flesh on their chests, along with their hearts, would suddenly be pulled into the ground, disappearing without a trace.

     This was something that was easy to discover, but with the chaos surrounding them, everyone was too overwhelmed to notice. Those vines were small and thin; if one didn’t stand quietly at the side to observe, they wouldn’t be able to see them at all.

     “Mo Ran?”

     Xue Meng was still calling him, but Mo Ran didn’t hear his voice at all. Suddenly, he leapt up and grabbed a zombie by the neck, flipping out a concealed dagger and stabbing it straight in the heart.

     Black blood instantly splashed all over his face!

     Xue Meng suddenly opened his mouth and took two steps back. He was actually speechless. He felt that Mo Ran must have gone crazy…

     Mo Ran tilted his face to the side. He quickly and fiercely pulled out the zombie’s black-gray heart and smashed it, revealing a black chess piece.

     This wasn’t surprising. The zombies on Mount Huang were obviously under the control of the Zhenlong Chess Formation. That was why they behaved like this. But this wasn’t the chess piece Mo Ran was looking for. He rummaged through the blood and endured the foul stench.

     Xue Meng could no longer bear it, and bent his body over before vomiting.

     “You—Are you sick?! This is too disgusting… Blgh…”

     Mo Ran ignored him. His fingers moved through the blood clots and soon found what he was looking for. On the back of the chess piece, there was a small red worm tightly clinging to it. It was a gu worm.

     At the same time, dozens of thin and soft vines suddenly sprang up from the ground and attacked Mo Ran’s bloody hands! He quickly dodged, but the vines moved faster and faster, as if determined to wrap the chess piece and the worm into the earth’s core.

     Mo Ran now completely understood Xu Shuanglin’s actions and intentions. A chill ran down his spine and his blood ran cold.

     Because in this world, other than Emperor Taxian-Jun in his previous life, no one else could think of such an evil secret technique!

     Just as Chu Wanning created the Thousand Waves Reversal, everything in front of him, including this chess piece, the gu worms, the zombies—all of it pointed to a formation that Mo Ran couldn’t be more familiar with.

     The Shared-Heart Formation.

     This was a formation that he had created with his own hands in his previous life!

     If he was still guessing before, then the reappearance of this formation was like a harsh blow to his head. It undoubtedly confirmed two things:

     Firstly, there must be someone else, other than himself, who had been reborn in this world.

     Secondly, the person who was reborn must have been familiar with Taxian-Jun’s evil in his previous life.

     Mo Ran’s hands trembled slightly, black blood dripping between the gaps of his fingers. The black chess piece and the scarlet red worm were tightly clenched in his palm.

     He dodged the flying vines, but his mind was already in chaos.

     In the midst of the chaos and horror, his mind jolted back to the shattered memories of his previous life…

     At that time, he had only been nineteen years old.

     Back then, the Heavenly Rift had just been repaired and Shi Mei had just died. After Shi Mei’s death, he secretly practiced the forbidden Zhenlong Chess Formation behind everyone’s back for almost half a year, failing repeatedly.

     Until that day.

     The nineteen year old Mo Weiyu sat cross-legged and slowly opened his eyes. He spread out his palms and saw two pitch-black chess pieces—the first Zhenlong chess pieces he had ever refined in his life.

     Before this, he had tried thousands of different methods, all of which ended in failure. He could not understand the obscure words written on the forbidden scroll, but he couldn’t ask Chu Wanning.

     In fact, during that time, he was no longer willing to talk to Chu Wanning. Shi Mei’s death became a gap between them that could never be bridged. This Shizun and disciple pair had long since died, and existed in name only.

     In his final months before revealing his demonic face, he would occasionally encounter a man in white walking on the same path. But every time they met, he would pretend he didn’t see him and walk away without a word.

     In fact, they had passed each other several times on Naihe Bridge. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Chu Wanning seemed to want to say something to him; it was a pity that his dignity didn’t allow him to take the initiative to call his disciple. And Mo Ran wouldn’t give him any more time to hesitate. He just left and never looked back.

     In the end, they parted ways.

     Without anyone’s help, it took a long time for him to barely understand the meaning behind the incomplete forbidden technique scroll. He also had to learn the most crucial point of the Zhenlong Chess Formation:

     All the chess pieces—whether the black chess piece, or even the more powerful white chess piece that could emphasize with the caster—were formed by the spiritual energy of the caster.

     And every time a chess piece was formed, the spiritual energy required was astonishing. Refining one black chess piece would be equivalent to performing hundreds of moves, while refining one white chess piece would be enough to drain the spiritual power of a zongshi like Chu Wanning in an instant.

     In other words, even if a person was exceptionally clever and had a thorough understanding of the Zhenlong Chess Formation, it was of no use. Without enough spiritual power, one could only talk about it on paper.

     Although Mo Ran was talented and had abundant spiritual energy, he was still a youth who hadn’t yet reached the age of twenty. Therefore, he put in all of his effort countless times, but in the end, only managed to form two black chess pieces.

     At this moment, they were lying in his palm.

     Mo Ran stared at the two black chess pieces with a strange gleam in his eyes. In the dark room, only a candle that was about to burn out was lit, illuminating his face.

     He did it.

     Back then, he didn’t care about the number of chess pieces at all. He was only overjoyed that he managed to form them at all.

     He did it!

     He was clearly such a handsome person, but he suddenly had the ferocious appearance of a beast.

     When he walked out of the dark room he had been practicing in, he felt dizzy. It was half because of bliss, and half because these two chess pieces had drained all of his spiritual energy. His entire body was exhausted.

     Stepping out into the dazzling sunlight, he felt dizzy and couldn’t breathe. His face turned red and white, and his vision went blurry. He vaguely saw two disciples of Sisheng Peak approaching, and hurriedly rushed to hide the two black chess pieces in his qiankun pouch. His legs went weak, and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

     In his half-asleep, half-awake state, he knew that he had already been brought back to the disciples’ room and was laying down on a bed that wasn’t very spacious. He opened his eyes slightly, and saw a person sitting by the bed.

     He was feverish, his head aching. He couldn’t see the person’s face clearly, and could only vaguely feel that person’s eyes looking at him. They felt so concerned, so attentive, so gentle, and even seemed to be filled with self-reproach.

     “Shi…”

     His lips opened and closed, but his voice was so hoarse that he couldn’t finish his words, and tears began to flow from his eyes.

     That white figure paused for a moment, then Mo Ran felt a warm hand on his face, wiping away the tears on his cheeks. That person sighed softly and asked, “Why are you crying?”

     “...”

     Shi Mei, did you come back?

     Please don’t go away… Don’t die… Don’t leave me alone…

     Ever since mother left, there’s no one else in the world who treats me gently like you. There’s no one else who doesn’t despise me and would be willing to stay by my side…

     Shi Mei, don’t go…

     He couldn’t stop his scalding hot tears no matter what. He felt so useless, but only kept crying. Even in his dreams, he kept crying.

     That person sat by his side and stayed with him, later holding his hand without a word. That clumsy person just stayed by his side and didn’t leave for even a moment.

     Mo Ran thought of the two Zhenlong chess pieces in his qiankun pouch. He knew they were the source of evil, the seeds of the devil. But they were also a bargaining chip he used to fight against the heavens and the earth when he couldn’t get what he asked for.

     Refining the chess pieces didn’t require only spiritual power, but also the sacrifice of his otherwise clean soul.

     Mo Ran muttered. Under his wet eyelashes, his eyes were hazy as he looked at the mirage of Shi Mei, “I’m sorry… If you were still here, I also…”

     I also don’t want to walk down this path.

     But he no longer had the strength to say the second half of his sentence, and he fell into a deep sleep once more.

     When he woke up again, the white-clothed person had already left. Mo Ran felt that it was a dream he had while he was unconscious, but he remembered that there was originally a pot of incense burning in the room, which Xue Zhengyong had given him to calm his mind. The incense was very fragrant, but he didn’t like the smell of it.

     But the smell was already gone.

     The very long incense stick wasn’t burnt out, but rather it had been extinguished by someone.

     Who had come?

     He sat up and stared blankly at the incense burner. He thought about it for a long time, but couldn’t figure it out. In the end, he simply didn’t want to think about it anymore. He saw his clothes and accessories, as well as his holy weapon and qiankun pouch, all neatly placed on the table. He came back to his senses and hurriedly got up barefoot to get his qiankun pouch.

     When he opened it, it was still tied with the same three knots he had used before he fainted. No one had touched them.

     Mo Ran breathed a sigh of relief and rummaged through the pouch. He saw that the two Zhenlong chess pieces, as black as night, were tucked away in the corner, lying dormant like two unsuspecting ghostly eyes waiting to devour him.

     He stared blankly at the two pieces for a while, in a daze.

     This was probably fate—if Chu Wanning had flipped through Mo Ran’s qiankun pouch that day, everything would have changed.

     But Chu Wanning wouldn’t casually go through other people’s things. Even if the bag had been open, he wouldn’t have looked twice.

     Mo Ran took out the chess pieces. His adam’s apple bobbed and his heart thumped like a drum. What should he do now? How should he use these two chess pieces…?

     This was the first time he had been able to refine such a weapon. He couldn’t wait to try it—but who should he look for? In a flash of lightning, an extremely crazy idea suddenly came to him.

     Chu Wanning.

     He wanted to put the chess piece into Chu Wanning’s body.

     After he fought his way in, would that cold, heartless, hypocritical man be obedient to him from now on? Would he not be able to stand if told to kneel?

     Could he make Chu Wanning kneel down in front of him and apologize? Could he make Chu Wanning call him master? Could he stab and bite him?!

     The extreme excitement caused the light in Mo Ran’s pupils to twist and distort.

     Yes, torture him…

      What would make this high and mighty immortal feel the most pain? The most shame?

     Humiliate him…

     Mo Ran tightly held the two chess pieces, his mouth growing hot and dry. He was overcome by a sense of excitement and anxiety. He licked his chapped lips. He couldn’t wait. He couldn’t wait to see Chu Wanning lower his pale neck. He would reach out and touch it, feeling the slight trembling, and then…

     Break his neck? Crush his bones?

     Mo Ran was unhappy.

     He felt empty and unsatisfied for no reason.

     It was too boring to let Chu Wanning die. Even in his imagination, he didn’t like it. He wanted to see him cry, wanted to see him kneel; he wanted to see him suffer a life worse than death, filled with shame and rage.

     He felt that there was a better way to vent his anger.

     He put a chess piece to his lips, feeling the cold touch against his lips as he murmured in a low voice, “You can’t stop me, Chu Wanning. The day will soon come when I make you…”

     …Make him what?

     At that time, he hadn’t yet thought it through. He didn’t know that a large part of his raging desire was lust, the need to conquer Chu Wanning. But he already had that terrifying male instinct. He wanted to bury the first chess piece into Chu Wanning’s body.

     He wanted to dirty him.

     He got up, pushed the door open, and walked out—