Chapter 94 Those Fruits Don't Taste Good

"Let's go!"

"Senior Brother..." Wang Xi still wanted to ask more questions, but she couldn't win against Liang Si.

Throughout the journey, aside from giving directions, every decision had been made by Liang Si. Their Master said she was still young and not yet able to stand on her own.

"I know what you want to ask." Liang Si shook his head and tossed down a few strings of spirit stones. "Since they're witches, they should need spirit stones, right? Consider this payment for answering our questions earlier."

"Senior Brother." Wang Xi was unhappy. "We're poor. Can't you just give them gold?"

"No one lives here. They wouldn't even be able to sell it!"

"Then can I pick a melon to take with me?"

"No. I'm afraid you'll start crying while eating it, and I can't stand to see a girl cry." With that, Liang Si lifted Wang Xi and carried her out.

Outside the courtyard, the man from the heavens and the chicken spirit were waiting. "Master, I want to go in and eat something too."

"You're not going." The man from the heavens, after these days of walking, had a noticeably rounder head—at least he no longer looked like a paper effigy.

"Why can they go in, but we can't?" The chicken spirit squatted sulkily to the side. "Master, you eat my flesh every day—I need to find something else to eat to change things up a bit!"

The paper-headed man shot her a look. He seemed to have absorbed some human vitality; his expression was growing livelier. "You were the one who offered me your flesh."

"Go in and you'll die." Liang Si glanced at her coldly.

Every time they'd found a good place to rest, this paper-headed man would try to barge in. But this time, he stood silently outside the courtyard gate—and in the blind spot of the entrance, no less.

The man from the heavens was cunning to the extreme. Other people's lives meant nothing to him, but his own life—aside from when he'd first sought out their Master—he'd never once offered his head up for anyone to cut.

"Die?" The chicken spirit didn't understand, assuming Liang Si was scaring her again.

In the past few days, whenever she approached them, the two disciples would ignore her completely. It was only later that she realized these two liked silence—so she made a point of pestering them.

She'd hoped that by wearing them down, she could get them to reveal Wen Jinge's whereabouts, but it had no effect at all. In the end, it was she who'd been scared off by the ghost stories Liang Si made up.

Her master didn't know how to show the slightest care, nothing like the other one's considerate Master. And when she returned to her master's side, she'd be met with crushing remarks like "You brought this on yourself."

After a while, she no longer dared to bother the two disciples. The past few days on the road had been peaceful—the two parties following each other at a leisurely pace.

"I can't die anyway!"

"Then go in and die." Liang Si even gave her a helpful shove.

The poor chicken spirit was tossed straight into the courtyard. "Fine, I'll go in. Who's afraid of who?"

"Who... who's there?" A child's voice sounded again from inside the house.

"It's me! Just passing through. Got any water? I've come to beg a drink." The chicken spirit eyed the spirit stones lying on the ground.

She wanted them, but feared her master would scorn her for it.

"Why do you do this to yourself?" The paper-headed man let out a sigh.

It was the only time he'd voluntarily stepped ahead of Liang Si.

Liang Si had originally thought they'd finally be rid of the man, but then—"Senior Brother, why is he taking our path!"

The paper-headed man was taken aback. "Aren't you heading to the Thousand Swallows Clan? I'm a god, after all—I've already escorted your Master for free..."

Liang Si: ...

"You're lying! Master split into two routes precisely to shake you off!" Wang Xi said indignantly.

After saying this, she stopped in disbelief. "Senior Brother, Grandmaster's tricks—Master probably knows most of them, right? Could Master have known I'd encounter all this and deliberately sent us this way? He... surely it couldn't be that he predicted this, could it?"

"You're overthinking it." Liang Si shook his head.

In truth, he'd been thinking exactly that all along.

The paper-headed man only wanted to die, but their Master wouldn't allow it—and had shaken him off.

The Grand Master only wanted a body, but when he tried to flee their Master, their Master fulfilled his wish—now he shared a body with Junior Brother Qiao.

The two had been handled differently, yet in the end, both had benefited their Master. They each sought something from her.

When one seeks something, one can be controlled.

What exactly did their Master intend to do?

Was she truly set on becoming the greatest villain under heaven?

"Every single one of them—none are good birds." The paper-headed man clicked his tongue a few times, then burst into manic laughter. "But neither am I. That's why I deserve to die! Hahahaha—I deserve it, I deserve it. Why? Why can't I die?"

Liang Si watched him and shook his head.

"Senior Brother, are we really not going to do anything about that chicken?"

"If she strays too far, she'll be forced back anyway."

"So did you find something?"

"Mm."

Liang Si pulled a recording stone from his sleeve and handed it to her. "Look at it if you want."

"There were recording stones mixed in with those spirit stones!" Wang Xi was pleasantly surprised.

Her emotions always came and went quickly—now she seemed to have fully stepped out of her earlier panic. But Liang Si knew it was nothing but a facade.

When a person learns, while still alive, that they've been dead for fifty years—and that they were the cause of a nation's downfall—their heart would not be at ease.

At first, the chicken spirit thought there was something suspicious about the courtyard, walking cautiously step by step. When she found no mechanisms, she laughed out loud. "I've got some nerve too, huh!"

"Creak—"

The door opened a crack. A small boy peeked out, and only when he saw it was just the chicken spirit did he relax a little. "Sister, did you see two arcane masters when you came in?"

"No, I didn't see anyone on my way over."

"Good." The boy smiled.

It was a perfectly practiced smile—eight teeth, all neat, pleasant to look at.

"Little one, where are your parents?"

"Mother is asleep." The boy glanced back into the house. Following his gaze through the half-open door, the chicken spirit could see someone lying on the bed. "She had to deal with those two arcane masters just now, so she needs to rest for a while."

"Those two arcane masters must have been really insufferable!"

"They were. This family hates arcane masters more than anything in this life. Good thing they're gone." The boy patted his chest. To them, arcane masters seemed to be a taboo that could not be spoken of.

"I'd like to buy some fruit from your courtyard. Could you sell me a few? My master said they look delicious and sent me to buy some."

"Sister." The boy called to her. "Those fruits aren't good to eat."

"Why not?" The chicken spirit casually picked an orange and slowly peeled it. "I think they look delicious."

The boy watched her helplessly, then looked out past the courtyard gate. "Sister, is your master nearby?"

"They've already gone off far away. I'll catch up soon."

"Oh, then come inside with me, sister. There's meat in the house—I'll give it to you for free."

Creak—

The door was now wide open, but the chicken spirit no longer dared to take a single step forward.

The house was gloomy and deep. Rows upon rows of cured meat hung from the beams. At first, the chicken spirit's mouth watered—but then she realized the blackened, smoked slabs were moving. They were the corpses of grown men.

"Mother of mine!" The chicken spirit shrieked, hurling the orange from her hand.

It wasn't an orange at all—it was a peeled, skinless head.