Chapter 372: Perplexity
Xu Zhi didn’t really buy into these ghost stories, and she couldn’t be bothered to listen to Jiang Qing play the riddler here.
“The things I believe in the least are prophecies, plans, and destiny.”
“Since you won’t speak, I’ll just try it myself.”
With that, Xu Zhi snatched Jiang Qing’s longsword. Recalling how the girl had done it, she had Xiaoyi bind Jiang Qing to keep her from struggling, then sliced the longsword across her abdomen, creating an opening almost identical to the one on the corpse not far away.
As a large amount of Jiang Qing’s blood spilled out, that sweet, enticing fragrance became even more pronounced.
When Xu Zhi reached her hand into Jiang Qing’s body, goosebumps suddenly erupted across her arm, purely because the sensation was entirely too bizarre.
It was as if… Jiang Qing’s flesh and blood were clinging to her, attracting her, trying to drag her into a deeper place.
No, wait, it wasn’t the flesh and blood, but the extraordinary attribute residing within Jiang Qing’s body.
“What the hell, you’re [Lantern], not [Grail], right?”
Xu Zhi restrained herself from going deeper and looked with shock and suspicion at the pale-faced Jiang Qing. Upon hearing this, Jiang Qing knit her brows, her expression faintly betraying a look of disgust—which was likely a revulsion toward the [Grail].
It seemed they weren’t in league.
Having confirmed this, Xu Zhi pushed further in, until her fingers stopped exactly where the talent circuit was visible.
She didn’t actually know how Jiang Qing had managed to absorb someone else’s talent circuit; she was merely giving it a casual try. Yet, to her surprise, the moment she drew close to the talent circuit, she understood the “method” intuitively.
In that instant, the [Lantern] aspect extraordinary circuit inside her own body seemed to scent some sort of delectable delicacy. Its dormant little tentacles all came “alive,” even slapping frantically against the edges of her circuit, looking as if they couldn’t wait to crawl into Jiang Qing’s body, haul her circuit back, and devour it.
Xu Zhi: …
As she yielded to that inner craving and loosened her self-control, Xu Zhi distinctly felt something incredibly delicious entering her body through her fingertips.
In a split second, it felt as if she were soaked in a hot spring, or perhaps bathing under the winter noon sun—comfortable and intoxicating.
Under the effect of her [Eye of Secrets], she clearly saw the edges of Jiang Qing’s talent circuit turning into specks of light inch by inch, dissolving as they were sucked into her body.
This actually required no special ability or ritual; it could be accomplished purely by relying on “instinct.”
Xu Zhi found herself a little reluctant to stop. The sensation was simply too wonderful. The [Lantern] aspect specks of light that entered her body quickly surged toward the location of her own extraordinary circuit. Following that, those long-awaited little tentacles couldn’t wait to grab the specks of light from the air, eagerly weaving and fusing them into Xu Zhi’s own circuit at every opportunity.
Watching this already incomparably magnificent circuit grow increasingly splendid, an idea even faintly arose within Xu Zhi.
If she just kept absorbing other people’s talent circuits, would she sooner or later create the most powerful [Lantern] circuit in existence?
The moment such a greedy thought surfaced, Xu Zhi finally snapped awake. She quickly withdrew her hand, halting this bizarre devouring process despite the intense protests of the little tentacles inside her.
Even though she hadn’t felt any discomfort, her intuition hadn’t warned her of any issues, and not a single point of suspicion appeared under the [Eye of Secrets] enhanced by her [Authority]—as if she really had just consumed some ultimate tonic—Xu Zhi still stopped.
This was too strange.
Even if there seemed to be no downsides whatsoever, she didn’t want to blindly and inexplicably devour the entirety of Jiang Qing’s circuit like this.
Her act of stopping halfway through clearly caught the dying Jiang Qing off guard, but she no longer had the strength to say anything, merely staring at Xu Zhi in silence.
After a moment’s thought, Xu Zhi replied to her, “I don’t believe in fate, and I don’t know if the prophecy you mentioned was meant to deceive me into giving you a way out, or if you were being serious. I won’t kill you. Whether you live or die will depend on how that destiny of yours treats you.”
As she spoke these words, she saw a flash of surprise in Jiang Qing’s dimming eyes. The girl seemed to want to say something desperately, but the injuries on her body simply wouldn’t permit her to speak, and the extraordinary energy that had been sealed and devoured by Xu Zhi could no longer heal her wounds.
It wasn’t until Xu Zhi uttered the phrase, “You can move now,” that she seemed to receive a pardon, finally catching her breath from the brink of death. However, this was far from enough to keep her alive in the Lost Lands. Having lost half of her talent circuit, she was already half-crippled.
Still, having half of her circuit devoured by Xu Zhi was a much better outcome than having half of it directly shattered. At the very least, the tiny bit of extraordinary energy remaining in her body could still circulate along the ruined circuit. Her self-healing ability was still there, though her aura had plummeted drastically, and she was no longer capable of executing any extraordinary abilities.
The moth that had lingered before her eyes vanished, yet behind Jiang Qing’s fragmented circuit, a stealthy moth silently took up residence.
After Xu Zhi finished speaking, she stood up as if to leave, but Jiang Qing, who had just recovered a bit of her strength, suddenly blurted out, “Wait!”
“You’re just going to leave like this?”
Hearing this, Xu Zhi asked in confusion, “Yeah? Otherwise?”
Jiang Qing found it even harder to understand.
“Aren’t you going to kill me to silence me? Or interrogate me for the things you want to know?”
Xu Zhi simply shook her head. “There’s no need.”
Jiang Qing seemed somewhat unwilling to give up, and she spoke again, “Then can you take me with you?”
“Why would I bring a burden like you along?” Xu Zhi grew even more perplexed.
Jiang Qing couldn’t give a coherent reason. Her usually beautiful golden eyes were filled with confusion, bewilderment, and perplexity. Looking at Xu Zhi with a rare hint of helplessness, she said, “You didn’t kill me. This shouldn’t be happening. I want to follow you and see why.”
Xu Zhi thought something was wrong with her head.
“You’re sick. If you want to seek death, you can commit suicide after I leave.”
Leaving no room for Jiang Qing to protest further, Xu Zhi leapt up into the trees and vanished from Jiang Qing’s sight in a few swift strides.
However, in the high sky far beyond Jiang Qing’s line of sight, Xiaozhen had never truly left; it was vigilantly patrolling Jiang Qing’s location and the surrounding area.
The [Moth] had already been implanted inside Jiang Qing’s body, but this wasn’t entirely foolproof. In the event that Jiang Qing actually made it back alive and a powerful Extraordinary helped her purge the influence of the [Moth], what was meant to be exposed would still be exposed.
But she truly didn’t want to kill Jiang Qing with her own hands at that point in time. Therefore, Xu Zhi came up with a simple solution.
As long as Jiang Qing didn’t die by her hand right now, wouldn’t that be fine?
She wanted Jiang Qing to die under the claws of the native extraordinary creatures of the Lost Lands, or in the dead of night.
And what Xu Zhi needed to do was ensure that no other Extraordinary could get close to this place to rescue Jiang Qing.
The moment she made this decision, Xu Zhi seemed to perceive something. But it was like a fleeting ripple on the surface of the water, or perhaps a sort of hallucination, vanishing instantly without a trace.
