Villain Master, my disciples all want to backstab me

Just as Ye Shuang'er was about to sink into despair, a cool current suddenly surged from her body, flowing through her body in the blink of an eye. Those distant memories quickly returned, and she once again "returned" to the stone bridge, reclaiming her original position.

——It was the tea that Ji Tingxue had given him earlier.

This thing was torn off by Ji Tingxue when Bai Yuan and his group first arrived at the Cangwu Abyss. Ji Tingxue gave it to her and Ye Shuang'er, asking them to hold it in their mouths. Ye Shuang'er had originally intended to take it out after entering the Cangwu Abyss, but she accidentally swallowed it.

This unintentional action saved her life at this moment and brought her out of the brink of sinking.

As a price, the tea leaf swallowed by Ye Shuang'er quietly turned into black ash and disappeared in the next second, no longer existing.

"This river..."

Ye Shuang'er took two steps back, not daring to look down the bridge again.

Even though the sound of the river water was becoming more and more obvious, as if something was about to emerge from the bottom of the river.

"It's okay, it's all an illusion..."

"Ha, you scared yourself."

"This place is too weird. It's better to go find Master and Sister Ji first..."

Ye Shuang'er took a deep breath and ignored the sounds under the bridge. While muttering to herself, "This is all fake," she turned around and ran down the bridge, then ran away from the river.

In this process.

The little girl finally realized that her spiritual power was under considerable pressure. Even the threads of Gu extending from her "Innate Gu Pattern" were thinner and shorter than usual. However, some power still remained, which she channeled to form a simple protective layer on her body, isolating it from the outside world.

After Ye Shuang'er left.

The splashing sound in the river continued for a while before finally stopping.

However, a corpse was washed up by the current, slowly climbed onto the shore and stood up.

The body of this "corpse" seemed to be formed from the mud and water at the riverbed, appearing somewhere between reddish and brown. However, after reaching shore, its color began to fade, quickly becoming as white as snow. The surface of its skin even took on the soft, silky texture of a living person.

then.

The face of the corpse also began to change. From the initial appearance of having no features and appearance, it gradually became delicate and pretty... It was clearly a face exactly like Ye Shuang'er's!

of course……

There is still a little difference.

The difference was that, where the eyes should be, there were only a pair of black eye sockets. It was as if the original eyes had been forcibly dug out, making it look particularly creepy.

It raised its head.

The pair of eye sockets without eyes looked in the direction where Ye Shuang'er had just left.

Then, it began to move, chasing after Ye Shuang'er with slow but firm steps.

Although it has no eyes, it seems to be able to "see" everything around it clearly.

……

Ye Shuang'er was in a panic and kept walking through the streets of Cangwu County.

She really didn't recognize Cangwu County at first.

After all, this was her first time here, unlike Bai Yuan, who had been here once before, twenty years prior. Based solely on the few images she'd seen from the white tiger's back when she'd first arrived at Cangwu Abyss, it was difficult to immediately connect the two.

However, as she ran along the way and witnessed one incredible scene after another, she also vaguely realized something -

"Could this be..."

"No, that's not the case. We were clearly heading out of the Cangwu Abyss, and it was Senior Ji who personally took action. How could it be..."

Ye Shuang'er comforted herself in this way, but her body was already shaking involuntarily.

This "shudder," besides the instinctive fear of the unknown, also stemmed from a genuine sense of threat, a threat that vaguely came from...

The little girl looked up at the moon.

At this moment, the moonlight was just tinged with red.

It was this touch of red that made Ye Shuang'er feel uneasy, and there was also an inexplicable strange feeling, as if... the red moon she saw was not the star it should have been, but a special living creature!

At this moment, the "innate Gu pattern" on Ye Shuang'er's forehead quietly lit up, as if she was ready to attack the moon in the sky, but due to the gap in strength between the two sides, she did not dare to put this desire into reality.

Just as Ye Shuang'er was standing on the street that had become empty and deserted because of the appearance of Hongyue, she began to think about the next strategy, especially how to find Bai Yuan and Ji Lingyun.

Suddenly, a shrill cry was heard from a distance.

Ye Shuang'er immediately looked up and saw a tall memorial archway standing not far from her. Beneath it stood a figure in red. The figure stood with his hands behind his back, his back to the moonlight. Because of the angle, she couldn't see his face clearly, but his back was incredibly familiar.

"Hey, Master?!"

Ye Shuang'er was delighted and without caring about anything else, she ran directly towards the man in red.

During this process, the man in red did not move.

Ye Shuang'er instinctively felt something was wrong, so she gradually slowed down her pace and stopped more than ten meters away from the man in red. She turned to the side and wanted to take a closer look at the man in red's face from the side to confirm whether she should turn around and run away or pounce on him.

The man slowly turned his head, revealing a face exactly like Bai Yuan's, except that his pupils were red, like a rabbit with red eyes, and he was looking at Ye Shuang'er with a gloomy and cold gaze.

Then, she curled the corners of her mouth slightly, revealing a slightly strange smile, and raised her hand, making a "hooking" gesture:

"Come."

"..."

Ye Shuang'er subconsciously wanted to go over.

But as soon as she took a step forward, she felt something was wrong: this kind of look and temperament were indeed those of her own master... But this was not the master who had been hunted and injured during this period; instead, it was the real "Blood Kite" who always maintained a cold and violent state, making her fear him like a tiger!

"wrong!"

Ye Shuang'er's eyes widened, a trace of fear on her face: "No, you are not Master at all... Who are you?!"

Why would someone so similar to Master appear here? Where is the real Master? Has he been… No, that's impossible. With Master's character and strength, how could he be ambushed by such a creature? He must be hiding behind a deception!

"……hehe."

The "Blood Kite" raised the corner of his mouth slightly, as if smiling.

Without even noticing how its throat moved, a hoarse voice emanated, reaching Ye Shuang'er's ears: "I... am her, and she... is me."

"You are seeing the Master now, why don't you bow?"

"No, you're not..."

Ye Shuang'er opened her mouth to deny it, but found herself speechless. She tried to retreat, but found her feet were nailed to the ground, her entire body held in place by a growing aura. Even lifting a finger seemed incredibly difficult, let alone leaving.

The Blood Kite made the hooking gesture again, and the smile on his face became even wider: "My dear disciple, haven't you always wanted to be closer to your master? Come, come to your master..."

It only takes a few words.

Her voice, from being hoarse and raspy, became fluent, and the familiar scent of peach blossoms began to waft from her body. Aside from a hint of bold crimson at the corners of her eyes, she looked indistinguishable from the real Bai Yuan. To anyone even slightly unfamiliar with Bai Yuan, she could easily be mistaken for the real thing.

Ye Shuang'er was not one of those who was "unfamiliar with Bai Yuan". After all, she was the person closest to Bai Yuan and had seen her master's body several times with her own eyes. She was familiar with every detail of the latter's body. Theoretically, there was no possibility of making a mistake.

but.

Ye Shuang'er was restrained in her steps and unable to retreat. At this moment, the fragrance of peach blossoms overwhelmed her, and her eyes blurred unconsciously for a moment. Then her whole body became dazed, and she began to obey her orders involuntarily and walked slowly forward.

At this moment, Ye Shuang'er still wanted to struggle. Her eyes switched between clarity and confusion several times. Suddenly, she regained consciousness and stopped walking. "You monster pretending to be my master, forget it..."

"Shh~"

"Blood Kite" took a step forward, and the rich and sweet fragrance of peach blossoms came towards her, wrapping Ye Shuang'er layer by layer, and at the same time, her cold and temperatureless hand firmly grasped Ye Shuang'er's wrist.

At this moment, the last trace of clarity in Ye Shuang'er's eyes faded away, and she completely turned into a dazed and lifeless puppet, following the "Blood Kite" back.

The surrounding scenery changed in an instant. The memorial archway, the street, and so on, vanished, replaced by an elegant, ancient manor. Blood Kite and Ye Shuang'er were in the manor's main house. In front of them was a dressing table, and next to it was a wooden window covered with red paper, through which they could see the courtyard outside.

"Blood Kite" sat down in front of the dressing table and motioned Ye Shuang'er to help her dress up.

Ye Shuang'er was slow to react for a few seconds, then she mechanically picked up the comb and began to comb "Blood Kite's" long hair, then tied it into a bun.

After a while.

By the time the "Blood Kite" put on her red clothes and a phoenix crown and came into the yard, the moon in the sky was almost completely red.

Thick, blood-red moonlight streamed down, stained the sedan chair in the courtyard a dark crimson. "People" wearing paper masks and formed from black mist stood like servants on either side of the sedan chair, all of the same height and build, indistinguishable from one another.

"Go."

Blood Kite raised his chin.

"……Yes."

Ye Shuang'er obediently walked to the front of the sedan chair and stood there like those paper figures, watching her eyes and nose and her nose and heart.

"Blood Kite" nodded with satisfaction.

Then, she leisurely got into the sedan chair and cast her gaze towards a certain place:

"The auspicious time has arrived... It's almost time to go meet my true self."

……

Bai Yuan stood on the top of the city wall and looked out the window under the eaves, gazing into the distance.

This is the highest place in the surrounding area.

When standing here, Bai Yuan discovered that the scale of [Cangwu County] was larger than she had imagined.

At first glance, there were twisted and bizarre pavilions and towers everywhere. Some looked as if they had been squeezed by invisible hands, presenting unnatural distortions; others looked as if they had been gnawed away, leaving jagged gaps. A river meandered through the middle, flowing with blood-red water.

In such a complicated environment, it was not an easy task to find Ye Shuang'er and Ji Lingyun.

not to mention……

Bai Yuan raised his head and looked at the full moon high in the sky.

In just a short while, the moon had gradually changed from its initial bright white to a layer of red, with only a small strip of the edge remaining untouched by the red.

In this process.

The houses in the county town began to twist and deform under the moonlight. The once orderly wooden structures began to wriggle as if alive, and the eaves stretched out like tentacles. The human-skin lanterns on both sides of the street went out one by one, and darkness spread like a tide.

At the same time, clusters of strange red fog began to slowly rise above "Cangwu County".

Chapter 138 The red fog is coming!

"Is it about to begin..."

Bai Yuan frowned slightly.

After searching and observing for a while, she had already found some clues about Cangwu County. Adding to the remaining memories of the scene Blood Kite had seen when it came here, a not-too-clear thread had formed in her mind.

Like the Jiang family's ancestral home, [Cangwu County] is also a relatively independent space.

There is only night here, no day.

To be exact...

This "night" is determined by the existence of the moon. In fact, it is divided into two states:

First, when the moon shone brightly under the night sky, the scene Bai Yuan saw was relatively normal. The residents of the county town would emerge from their houses and walk the streets outside—well, let's consider those humanoid figures formed by the black fog as "residents" here.

Second, as the moon gradually turns crimson, the buildings within the county begin to twist and deform, taking on shapes that are impossible in reality and completely unsuitable for engineering. And the "residents" will rush back into their houses, as if hiding from something, leaving only empty streets.

In this second state, the blood-colored moonlight will turn into a hazy mist, which is the misty red mist that appears in Bai Yuan's sight at this moment, covering the sky above "Cangwu County".

Hmm...if we use science to explain it, this is probably the manifestation of "wave-particle duality"?

Of course……

The red fog that permeates the entire county is not just some mist particles.

Bai Yuan could clearly see that within the mist, there seemed to be blurry shadows of human faces, like countless painful, twisted faces struggling, rising and falling, sinking in the mist. From time to time, a shrill wail would emanate, transforming into a tangible sound wave that spread all around, making anyone who heard it shudder with fear.

Bai Yuan knew that this was just the foreshadowing.

When the moon turns completely red...

That was the most terrifying time in this world, and that time might be approaching soon.

"Shuang'er...should be fine..."

"That girl is entering Cangwu County for the first time. She's supposed to have a two-hour novice protection period. As long as she doesn't run around, she should be able to protect herself with the power of her 'Gu Ling Poison Body'. If she stays with Ji Lingyun, it will be even easier..."

Bai Yuan thought so in his heart.

She also knew that this thought was mostly comforting.