From what he remembered, Human Face Disease took some time to spread.
Why was it manifesting so quickly tonight?
White No-Face. It had to be White No-Face!
Xie Lian whipped his head around to look at the cold-eyed spectator who had started all this. But before he could open his mouth, someone shot to their feet.
Panting heavily and eyes bloodshot, the person began to criticize Xie Lian. “You…you’re a god, you’re a crown prince, yet you dare to commit robbery?”
Xie Lian was dumbfounded, not understanding why the man had brought up that incident now of all times. “I—”
The man cut him off sharply. “We worshipped you, and what do you do? Rob people! What did you bring? A plague!”
He brought the plague? Shock was written across Xie Lian’s face. “Me…? It wasn’t me! I only—”
The crowd’s patience had finally reached its breaking point.
With red-rimmed eyes, nearly a hundred people surrounded Xie Lian. The one that was closest grabbed the black sword from the ground. Xie Lian stopped breathing.
The man shakily grasped the black sword, mumbling, “You… You need to do penance for your sins, right? You need to atone, right?”
The dark blade coursed with chilling light. Xie Lian’s fear soared to its peak.
There were so many people. If every single one of them stabbed him with that sword, what would be left of him by the end?
There was something that Xie Lian feared even more than the thought of being endlessly stabbed until nothing remained of him but an indistinguishable pile of flesh riddled with thousands of holes. He had a vague yet terrifying feeling that, should he allow them to do this, he might lose a part of himself that would never return.
Unwilling to consider this any further, Xie Lian couldn’t help but cry out.
“Hel—”
Before the phrase “Help me” could leave his throat, the same icy black blade was thrust into his body once again. Xie Lian’s eyes widened in horror.
The razor-sharp sword was stabbed in, then pulled out. The next person followed without wasting a second, and the next stab was shoved into practically the same spot. The sound locked in Xie Lian’s throat finally broke free, and a long, painful scream tore through his entire body.
The anguished scream was so piercing that the people around him were gutted by the sound. Some closed their eyes and turned their faces away.
“…Don’t let him scream. Let’s speed things up and get the job done fast!”
Xie Lian felt someone muffle his mouth and restrain his hands and feet.
“Hold him down and don’t let him fall,” someone instructed. “Also, don’t stab off the mark; it doesn’t count if it’s not fatal!”
“Line up one by one, no cutting the line! I told you guys not to cut—I was here first!”
“Which areas are fatal? How do I know if it counts?”
“Just aim for the heart, throat, or stomach!”
“If you’re not sure you stabbed a fatal area, do it again!”
“No way! Where is everyone else supposed to stab if you get more than one turn?”
The initial hesitation and reluctance had turned into nonchalance. The more time that passed, the more fluid their movements became. The sword moved endlessly in and out.
Xie Lian’s eyes were open as wide as they could be throughout. Fat tears rolled down his face. Deep down, a voice silently, viscerally screamed.
Help me.
Help me, help me, help me.
Help me, help me, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help me!
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts…it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS!
Why can’t I die?
WHY CAN’T I DIE?!
Xie Lian wanted to wail with the most devastating sound, but his throat couldn’t gasp out a single word—it had probably already been sliced through. He wanted to thrash wildly from the pain. It was like suffering the sum agony of countless lifetimes, and he didn’t know if he’d be able to feel any other pain again.
He couldn’t see anything. The world was pitch-black save for the nearby ball of ghost fire, which burned furiously. The ghost fire was growing brighter and stronger, but it still couldn’t escape the cage of White No-Face’s hand.
Xie Lian’s own heartbreaking screams couldn’t be heard, but he could hear another heart-wrenching wail that seemed to come from the flame. Although it wasn’t him, it felt like he was the one making that sound—its pain was the same as his own.
In the end, Xie Lian couldn’t hang on to his sanity. His consciousness had completely shattered, and he was left to blankly gurgle from his throat.
Suddenly, an explosion shook the Temple of the Crown Prince, and a raging ocean of flames burst forth.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah !”
A chorus of screams rang out. The searing fire set everything ablaze; none escaped. Ghost fire surged like blazing ocean waves. In an instant, the hundred living humans inside the Temple of the Crown Prince were reduced to a hundred sets of charcoal-black bones!
When the flame gradually subsided and coalesced once again, the tiny ball of ghost fire was no more—in its place, the figure of a young man was gradually taking shape.
The young man dropped to his knees in front of the scorched, black surface of the altar. Bent over deeply, he clutched his head in both hands. He bellowed in immense, devastating pain.
He didn’t dare look at what had become of the person lying on the altar, for what lay there didn’t resemble a human anymore.
Bones and skulls were strewn all over the interior of the Temple of the Crown Prince. White No-Face cackled uncontrollably as he turned and left the temple. The raging fire hadn’t stopped at the temple’s doors; even the frenzied, disfigured victims outside had been reduced to dried corpses and piles of waste. As if blind to the devastation, White No-Face tread across the ashen, charcoal remains.
The entire forest—no, the entire mountain trembled in agony and grief!
Countless black shadows flew upward into the night sky, souls of the local dead scrambling in terror to escape their resting place, but a strong gust of wind scattered them in all directions. A gigantic mass of black clouds slowly rotated above the Temple of the Crown Prince, rumbling restlessly. It resembled a colossal demonic eye.
This was the birth of a great evil—the signs of a wrath ghost taking form!
Chapter 101:
With Neither Grief Nor Joy, White Cloth Brings Calamity to this World
XIE LIAN COULDN’T tell if he was awake or asleep.
If he was awake, then he was reacting to nothing in the outside world and had no memory of anything. If he was asleep, his eyes had been open the whole time.
By the time he came back to himself, White No-Face had strapped the black sword to his waist like an elder giving a reward to a child.
“This is my gift to you.” He patted the hilt. His voice was gentle and thick with deeper meaning. “It will certainly prove much sharper than any of the others you collected, even the ones from Jun Wu.”
Xie Lian let him hang the sword as he willed, neither speaking nor retaliating. Retaliation would be pointless.
He put on a new set of robes in that state. Armed with a new sword, he dragged himself outside in what felt like a newly born body. He walked out of the Temple of the Crown Prince and toward the darkness.
White No-Face called after him. “Wait.”
Xie Lian paused in his step. White No-Face soundlessly came to his side and placed a white silk band in his hands.
