“How could I be an evil spirit? Look, this is Wang Ruhai's head, and this strange skin here is all that remains after I dealt with him.”
Li Jianfeng held up a bloody, mangled head and a soft, limp skin. One end of the skin hung down, faintly revealing Wang Ruhai's features.
“If you had told me earlier, I wouldn’t have suspected you and almost slandered you.”
“As for the secret signal, it’s actually that there is none. If you had said something, that would be suspicious.”
Lu Xuan put away his silver-white sword and smiled.
“Lu, you really are clever.”
Li Jianfeng’s centipede-shaped scar on his face twitched slightly.
The two of them let go of their doubts and worries as they walked closer together.
When they were less than ten steps apart, Lu Xuan discreetly flicked his fingers.
In an instant, a thin red needle shot out at lightning speed, piercing through Li Jianfeng’s left temple and exiting from the right.
A golden sword light followed, striking into Li Jianfeng’s heart, creating a gaping hole the size of a bowl in his chest.
“Lu, what do you mean by this?”
Blood gushed from the hole in his chest, and red and white brain matter oozed from his temples. Li Jianfeng ignored it and glared at Lu Xuan, questioning him.
“Even after such a serious injury, you show no signs of weakness. You really aren’t Li Jianfeng!”
Lu Xuan retracted the red needle, his expression serious.
“Hahaha, if I’m not Li Jianfeng, then who am I?!”
“Fine, if you don’t recognize Li Jianfeng, how about this one?”
Li Jianfeng reached out and forcefully tore off a layer of skin, revealing a new face underneath.
It was one of the Spiritual Plant Cultivators who had come with Lu Xuan.
“And this one?”
“Surely you recognize this one?”
One pale skin after another fell away, floating around Li Jianfeng. Lu Xuan recognized many familiar faces among them, including He Ping from Hundred Herbs Hall.
His face darkened like water, and three second-grade sword qi talismans quietly slipped into his palm. The Xun Lei Sword Pill in his dantian rapidly expanded and contracted, converting his spiritual energy into sword light.
More than ten skins floated on the ground, swaying wildly in the night breeze.
“Come, take off that skin of yours and join them!”
‘Li Jianfeng,’ or rather the skin he was using, had no intact area left. He laughed maniacally as the ten or so skins formed a half-circle and rushed toward Lu Xuan.
“Hmph!”
Lu Xuan snorted coldly. The three second-grade sword qi talismans lit up simultaneously, and countless sword energies surged out, fanning out and piercing through all the floating skins, causing them to shatter and fall to the ground.
“You ruin my skin? You’re asking for death! I’ll peel your skin off alive!”
The collection of skins he had gathered for some time was violently destroyed by Lu Xuan, and the skin he was using became furious.
A thin, pale, almost transparent skin flew out from Li Jianfeng, covered in layers of human face shadows, silently wailing and chilling the heart.
Lu Xuan’s mind was affected by the countless human face shadows, causing him to pause for a moment. The transparent skin seized that fleeting opportunity and lunged at Lu Xuan.
As the transparent skin quickly approached Lu Xuan’s chest, the Pure Jade suddenly glowed, and a layer of clear spiritual light swept over, pushing the transparent skin aside. Lu Xuan’s entire being was pure and holy, bright and clear, as if he could block any filth.
Taking a deep breath, Lu Xuan’s blood rapidly burned inside him. In an instant, a small blood-red arrow shot out from his mouth, carrying a strong and pure blood energy, striking the unsteady transparent skin.
At the point of contact, a blood-colored flame silently ignited, burning the skin.
This blood-colored flame seemed to restrain the evil spirits, and the layers of human face shadows on the skin turned into wisps of blue smoke, dissipating into the air.
An egg-sized sword pill, made up of countless fine sword energies, silently shot out from Lu Xuan’s mouth.
The sword pill flickered with sword light, and a black wind swirled inside, with thunder appearing.
Endless deep black sword light split from the sword pill, forming a whirlwind of sword energy, flashing with lightning, charging toward the skin.
Under the overwhelming force of countless sword lights, the skin seemed to be frozen in place, watching helplessly as the sword lights rushed toward it.
Pieces of translucent skin fell to the ground, no longer resembling any human shape.
Since Li Jianfeng appeared, the Pure Jade that had been emitting a cold aura finally returned to normal, the chill dissipating, leaving only a faint coolness that seeped into his skin, clearing his mind.
He realized that this variant skin had been successfully eliminated.
Out of caution, he quickly took out several Evil Dispelling Talismans from his storage bag. Layers of pure spiritual light swept across the entire battlefield, ensuring no trace of evil energy remained.
With a wave of his spiritual energy, a fireball the size of a head fell onto the skin fragments, quickly turning all the skins to black ash.
“Before, I recognized you even when you changed forms. But once you turn to ash, I won’t recognize you anymore.”
Lu Xuan sighed, then walked over to where Li Jianfeng’s skin had been removed. He took off his storage bag and used the Evil Dispelling Talismans to sweep over it, turning Li Jianfeng’s remains to ash, which he collected in a jade bottle and buried under a crooked tree.
With that, the variant skin was completely dealt with.
“The outside world is too dangerous. I just came out to help the Wang family with gathering and processing spiritual plants, and I ran into an evil spirit invasion.”
“Fortunately, I faced danger but came out safe, and I got five Ghostface Stone Mushrooms. Hmm, and Li Jianfeng’s storage bag to soothe my wounded heart.”
Lu Xuan took a Blood Essence Pill and swallowed it to replenish his blood energy.
The Xun Lei Sword Pill returned to his dantian. He had poured almost all the sword light he had cultivated into it to prevent the evil spirit from being hard to kill.
He needed to nourish it for a while longer before he could use it again.
After swallowing the Blood Essence Pill, some color returned to his pale face. He checked the direction and headed back toward the outskirts of the secret realm.
“After this disturbance by the evil spirits at the Dragon Beard Grass camp, the surviving Spiritual Plant Cultivators probably won’t return.”
“To avoid any further complications, it’s best to return to the market town as soon as possible.”
“I wonder how the Straw Puppets are managing. The four Iron Claw Crab cubs should still be able to handle things, right?”
As Lu Xuan rushed forward, he reminisced about the spiritual plants and beasts in the Spiritual Field.
On the way, he opened the storage bag he got from Li Jianfeng and found dozens of Dragon Beard Grasses that had been roughly processed, though he wasn’t sure how many were normal spiritual plants.
There were also some pills, two second-grade artifacts, over ten talismans, and more than two hundred spirit stones.
There was no sign of that heavy blade, and he didn’t know how the variant skin had dealt with the other cultivators’ storage bags, as he found nothing.
However, having these was already a pleasant surprise. He didn’t plan to go back to look for storage bags; he only wanted to leave the secret realm and return to his courtyard.
(End of Chapter)