Chapter 6: The Bane of Her Existence

As the golden light dissipated, an absolute silence descended.

The dilapidated temple, once choked with ghostly energy and howling with sinister winds, was now bathed in the tranquil, silvery moonlight that spilled over its broken walls and ruins.

The terrifying shadow formed from the convergence of a hundred specters, along with Liu Chengfeng who had been devoured by them, had vanished without a trace.

Only a faint, clean scent, reminiscent of sandalwood, lingered in the air.

Lu Hongzhuang stood frozen, her longsword still held in a defensive stance, her mind completely dumbstruck.

She turned her head mechanically, her gaze sweeping over the empty hall before landing on Su Qinghan beside her—the woman who was leaning on her sword, struggling just to remain upright.

Her mind was a complete blank.

‘What just happened?’

‘That was an amalgamation of a hundred ghosts!’

‘A terrifying entity capable of rendering even a peak Condensing Qi Realm martial artist helpless, a creature that would make even a Profound Connection Realm expert’s scalp tingle with fear!’

‘And just like that… it was gone?’

‘Annihilated… utterly obliterated… by a single flick of a yellow paper talisman?’

“The… the specters… how did they…”

Lu Hongzhuang’s voice was hoarse, her throat feeling as if it were filled with sand, and she struggled to form a complete sentence.

Su Qinghan let out a long, slow breath, nearly collapsing onto the hilt of her sword.

She shot Lu Hongzhuang a sideways glance and shrugged, her tone deceptively casual.

“Just as you saw.”

“This is authentic Daoist magic from the Profound School.”

Lu Hongzhuang’s mind reeled as if struck by a heavy hammer.

‘The Profound School?’

‘Daoist magic?’

She stared intently at Su Qinghan, searching the other woman’s deathly pale face for even the slightest hint of a joke.

But there was none.

Her expression was serene, almost matter-of-fact.

In that moment, Lu Hongzhuang’s entire understanding of the martial world was shattered.

Everything she had been taught since childhood, everything she had witnessed with her own eyes, told her that specters were immune to physical attacks.

Only when a martial artist cultivated their vital energy to an exceptionally high level could they hope to burn or dispel them.

That was a power exclusive to the grandmasters of the Profound Connection Realm!

“Are… are you a senior of the Profound Connection Realm?”

Lu Hongzhuang’s voice cracked.

“Did you just… burn your vital energy to incinerate those specters?”

It was the only explanation that could possibly hold her crumbling worldview together.

Hearing this, Su Qinghan fell silent.

She gave Lu Hongzhuang a look one might reserve for a complete idiot.

“If I were such a master, would I have been beaten to a pulp and left crawling on the ground just moments ago?”

“…”

Lu Hongzhuang was speechless once again.

Indeed, a true expert wouldn’t have been left in such a wretched state.

In her weakened condition, she looked worse off than even a novice martial artist just beginning their body tempering.

But… but how else could she explain that mystical, unbelievable scene?

“Don’t overthink it,” Su Qinghan said, waving a dismissive hand and cutting off her chaotic thoughts.

“The sun will be up soon.

Let’s find a place to rest.”

She was simply too exhausted.

That Heaven and Earth Purification Incantation and the final Supreme True One Sword had consumed nearly all the spiritual energy Jiu Li had painstakingly converted for her.

Now, she felt completely drained, her eyelids so heavy she could barely lift them.

All she wanted was to lie down and sleep for three days and three nights.

Only then did Lu Hongzhuang snap back to reality, the pain in her abdomen finally registering.

‘Wait.’

She subconsciously pressed a hand to her lower abdomen.

Liu Chengfeng had struck her there with a powerful palm strike, a blow that should have left her in excruciating pain, her internal organs likely damaged.

But now, aside from a faint, lingering ache, she felt largely unharmed.

A warm current of energy was circulating slowly in her dantian, mending her damaged meridians.

It even seemed to be loosening the bottleneck in her cultivation that had held her back for so long!

“What… what was that pill you gave me?”

Lu Hongzhuang looked at Su Qinghan, her face a mask of astonishment.

The pill’s effects were beyond anything she could have imagined!

Su Qinghan had already shuffled over to the base of a Buddha statue with half its head missing.

She plopped down, leaning languidly against the cold stone.

Her eyes half-closed, she gave a listless wave.

“Are you a question demon or something?”

“Can we please just sleep?

I’m so tired…”

Seeing Su Qinghan’s exhausted state, looking as if she might pass out at any moment, Lu Hongzhuang swallowed the rest of her questions.

She surveyed their surroundings—a complete mess.

Outside the hall, the kidnapped villagers were still unconscious, lying scattered about.

Lu Hongzhuang went over and checked each one for breath.

She let out a sigh of relief upon finding they were all alive, merely unconscious from the shock and the corrupting demonic energy.

She moved the villagers into the main hall, then gathered a large pile of dry straw from outside and made a simple pallet next to Su Qinghan.

“Hey, lie down here and rest.

The ground is cold.”

Without so much as lifting an eyelid, Su Qinghan shifted, sliding off the stone base and onto the soft bed of straw.

Lu Hongzhuang lay down a short distance away.

A gap of three feet separated them as they lay back-to-back, neither speaking another word.

Quiet returned to the hall, broken only by the sound of their steady breathing and the occasional chirp of insects from outside.

The fire had long since died out.

Moonlight streamed through a hole in the roof, coating everything in a cool, silver glow.

But Lu Hongzhuang felt no desire to sleep.

Her mind was a tangled mess.

Senior Brother Liu’s betrayal, that bizarre demonic art, and Su Qinghan’s unfathomable methods…

It all felt like a surreal, nonsensical dream.

She turned her head to the side, looking at the figure beside her, already half-asleep.

In the moonlight, her silhouette seemed exceptionally slender and frail, as if a gust of wind could blow her over.

And yet, within that delicate frame hid a terrifying power capable of annihilating a hundred ghosts in an instant.

‘Who is she, really?’

‘And what is this so-called “Profound School”?’

‘Does a system of power that transcends the martial path truly exist in this world?’

Question after question swirled through Lu Hongzhuang’s mind.

She tossed and turned, unable to resist any longer, and finally spoke in a low, cautious whisper.

“Hey…”

“That… paper thing of yours… can anyone use it?”

The question was of vital importance to her.

If anyone could use those talismans, it meant they were a powerful weapon that could be mass-produced and widely distributed!

For the Demon Extermination Division, for the entire political landscape of the world, the implications would be revolutionary!

However, what she received was not an answer.

*Smack!*

A crisp sound echoed, startlingly loud in the silent hall.

Lu Hongzhuang froze completely.

She could clearly feel that she had just been slapped—not too hard, not too soft—on her rear.

‘The sensation…’

Whoosh!

A wave of heat shot up from the base of her spine straight to the crown of her head!

In an instant, Lu Hongzhuang’s face turned so red it looked as if it might bleed.

‘She… She was just… by that woman…’

“Shut up and sleep.”

Su Qinghan’s drowsy, mumbled voice drifted over from beside her.

It was immediately followed by the sound of even, deep breathing.

‘She… she fell asleep?’

‘She fell asleep right after slapping someone?!’

Lying on the straw pallet, Lu Hongzhuang felt as though she were about to burst into flames.

‘Humiliation!’

‘Rage!’

‘How absurd!’

She shot upright, ready to erupt, but the sight of Su Qinghan’s peaceful, sleeping face—made exceptionally pale by her exhaustion—left her simmering rage with nowhere to go.

‘Get angry at someone who’s asleep?’

‘She, Lu Hongzhuang, hadn’t stooped that low.’

She gritted her teeth, her cheeks puffed out, but finally deflated with a sigh and lay back down.

This time, however, she turned over to face Su Qinghan, her eyes shining with startling intensity in the darkness.

She wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.

Now, besides the unfathomable talismans, her mind had one more thing to drive her mad.

This woman…

This woman named Su Qinghan…

Was definitely the bane of her existence!

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