LGHTNOVELBOOK 47: Third Senior Sister's Background
Chu Sang recalled the description of Mu Changqing in the original story. While other villains might have tragic backgrounds, seek revenge, or have hidden circumstances, this person was different. He was purely insane.
A thorough antisocial personality.
A born villain, he was not only cruel to others but also ruthless to himself.
You might think his leg was crippled due to poison from an enemy or someone’s scheme? No, he did it to himself.
Although the original story didn’t describe the specific reason for his self-mutilation, it didn’t prevent Chu Sang from thinking this person was truly bizarre, simultaneously crazy, evil, and strange!
In the original story, he opposed the male and female protagonists without any particular reason. After all, he never needed a reason to harm others. Perhaps it was just a fleeting thought, a slight interest, or simply because he found Mo Qingchen and Qin Xixue’s appearances pleasing and wanted to turn them into puppets…… This person’s strength was extremely high, and the protagonists hadn’t fully developed at that time, nearly falling victim to his poison.
However, as the old saying goes, evil cannot triumph over good. The protagonists ultimately turned defeat into victory, defeating Mu Changqing, this big BOSS, and obtaining a lot of equipment. Those puppets played a significant role in the later parts of the story.
All along, Chu Sang’s motivation for saving the other senior brothers and sisters was secondary to completing her task. The main reason was that she pitied their tragic fates in the original story. Only this Third Senior Brother, she felt…… deserved to die.
If he died, so be it.
His death would spare others from suffering.
Although she inwardly criticized him, he was still her Third Senior Brother. She should try to save him, right? Maybe there was still hope?
The moment Chu Sang took out the Demon Puppet Pearl, Mu Changqing’s expression changed.
In the original story, he was like a person detached from the world, rarely interested in anything except killing and…… the Demon Puppet Pearl.
He was one of the rare puppet masters in the cultivation world. However, puppets were inherently lifeless objects. No matter how skilled the puppet master or how lifelike and exquisite the puppets were, dead things remained dead, incomparable to living beings.
But with the Demon Puppet Pearl, it was different.
The Demon Puppet Pearl could absorb souls and even place them in another vessel, allowing the dead to “resurrect” in another container.
For Mu Changqing, the container was naturally a puppet.
Simply put, placing a living person’s soul in a puppet would give the puppet thoughts, and its appearance would be like that of a living person.
Such puppets could no longer be called puppets. Except for their bodies not being made of flesh and blood, they were almost identical to real living people, even free from the sufferings of birth, aging, illness, and death.
When reading the original story, Chu Sang had actually wondered—— Did Mu Changqing want to turn himself into a puppet? To achieve immortality through another path?
Of course, these were just her speculations, impossible to verify.
“Where did you get this little thing?” Mu Changqing’s interest was entirely focused on the black pearl. He released her, took the pearl, and examined it carefully, no longer bothered about doing anything to her.
“A while ago, I encountered the soul of an old demonic cultivator in a secret realm by chance. I obtained this pearl from him,” Chu Sang explained truthfully. “I know Third Senior Brother is a puppet master, so I thought you might like it.”
“Do you know what this little thing does?” Mu Changqing’s thoughtful gaze fell on her face, with a hint of inquisitive amusement.
“It’s a Demon Puppet Pearl.” Chu Sang replied without changing her expression. “I’ve seen it in the sect’s library. Girls who love reading always have good luck, don’t you agree, Third Senior Brother?”
Mu Changqing covered his mouth and chuckled softly, waving his hand to dismiss her. “I like this little thing very much. Now scram.”
She had just turned and taken a few steps when a fierce, domineering attack suddenly came from behind. Chu Sang thought it was over, wondering if the unpredictable Third Senior Brother had changed his mind and decided to kill her again??
As she was quickly calculating in her mind whether the Vajra Talisman could withstand a full-force attack from a Nascent Soul cultivator, that chilling attack, slightly different from spiritual energy, brushed past her ear and shot directly towards the woods on the left.
With a few agonized screams, three Golden Core cultivators who had intended to ambush her fell to the ground, their heads separated from their bodies. They died miserably, completely silenced.
“It seems you have quite a few enemies.” Mu Changqing lowered his gaze to look at her. The fact that they directly sent three Golden Core cultivators to kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator like her suggested that this new little junior sister seemed to be more troublesome than he had imagined.
Chu Sang shifted her gaze from the “Zhao” character tokens on their waists, raising an eyebrow to meet his playful gaze, and stubbornly said, “Why couldn’t they be here to assassinate you, Third Senior Brother?”
His hands were stained with countless lives, and he had enemies all over the world. There should be many people who wanted to kill him.
Mu Changqing narrowed his eyes, “I don’t have enemies.”
He always preferred to eliminate problems at the root. In his dictionary, there were only dead people, not enemies.
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As soon as Chu Sang returned, she ran into Tantai Ming who had come looking for her.
She would always punctually bring Tantai Ming to practice swordsmanship in the back mountain every night, but tonight she had disappeared.
Tantai Ming wasn’t just being mischievous. He was worried that something might have happened to her. When he asked Wen Renyue, he learned that she had recently taken a lot of beast food.
He quickly put two and two together and rushed to the Eastern Peak. Seeing Chu Sang return alive and well, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and gave her a punch. “Why did you come here? Didn’t I tell you not to come before? When Third Senior Brother goes mad, truly no one can stop him!”
Chu Sang almost fell backwards. She rubbed her nose and said, “I was just curious.”
“A ninety-jin little junior sister with ninety-nine jin of rebellion.”
He sighed, “Truly frightening!”
Chu Sang, “……” That’s quite unnecessary!
“Third Senior Brother may be a bit perverted, but he doesn’t seem as terrifying as the rumors say……” She rubbed her chin and took out a token from her bosom, tossing it to him. “By the way, Seventh Senior Brother, just now three Golden Core cultivators tried to assassinate me. Third Senior Brother took the initiative to help me deal with them. This is the token I took from them.”
“There’s a ‘Zhao’ character engraved on the token, just like the ones we saw last time. It seems they were sent by Zhao Yun’s side. They probably followed us after seeing that we obtained the lotus seed. We need to be more careful in the coming days.”
Tantai Ming took the token and looked at it, letting out a cold snort. “These villains have actually set their sights on us. I’ll teach them a lesson.” He promised, “Don’t worry, Little Junior Sister. I’ll guard the mountain entrance. I’ll take down one if one comes, and a pair if two come!”
“Seventh Senior Brother, I believe in you. You’ll definitely beat them until they cry for their parents!” Chu Sang cheered him on. After thinking for a moment, she patted his shoulder, signaling him to lower his head, and whispered something to him.
Tantai Ming’s eyes widened slightly, seemingly surprised that it could be done that way. He came back to his senses and curved his lips in a mischievous smile. “Leave it to me!”
Then he dashed down the mountain. Chu Sang thought that the Zhao family would probably be in for some trouble for a while.
Of course, this was purely to annoy the other side and wouldn’t solve the fundamental problem.
Knowing that they had obtained the Chaos Blue Lotus seed, Zhao Yun wouldn’t rest until he got it back. They were out in the open while the enemy was hidden; it was impossible to guard against everything.
Ah, if only they had a sect protection array.
Normally, any major sect would have its own protection array. Only disciples of the sect could enter the formation, while outsiders couldn’t enter the sect without permission, or they would be instantly killed.
Unfortunately, Lingqing Sect was an exception. It had fallen so far that it didn’t even have a spirit vein, let alone a sect protection array.
The difficulty of obtaining a sect protection array was no less than buying a spirit vein, perhaps even more difficult.
The latter was just a matter of spirit stones. As long as the price was right, it wasn’t particularly difficult to purchase a medium to high-grade spirit vein.
But the former wasn’t just a matter of spirit stones.
To create an advanced sect protection array, the cultivator needed to be at least a Nascent Soul stage array master. There were very few cultivators above the Nascent Soul stage on the Spirit Abyss Continent, mostly elders or patriarchs of major families and sects, let alone array masters.
They were all elusive, difficult for ordinary people to find.
Setting aside the fact that someone of her status and position couldn’t even come into contact with such figures, even if she knew them, they wouldn’t lack spirit stones and wouldn’t bother to create a mountain protection array for an unknown small sect.
Unless she could obtain a favor from those great figures.
Chu Sang sighed. She’d better rely on herself.
She spent another whole month in the library.
She allocated all ten points to comprehension, barely able to create a low-grade sect protection array that could resist intrusion from Golden Core stage cultivators and below, but that was the limit.
Once faced with Nascent Soul cultivators or Divine Transformation stage or even higher-level powerhouses, this array would be useless.
She could only make do with this array for now. If there was an opportunity in the future, she would replace it with a high-grade mountain protection array.
Chu Sang looked at her attribute values.
[Physical Constitution: 15, Comprehension: 23, Aptitude: 1, Luck: 7]
Currently, she could barely create a low-grade mountain protection array. Besides comprehension, the bigger reason was that her cultivation level wasn’t high enough. If she were at the Golden Core stage now, she might be able to create a medium-grade sect protection array.
She made a decision.
Next time, she would increase her aptitude!
Who would be the best to extract points from? After considering, she decided on Third Senior Brother with his 80 corruption value.
When Chu Sang went in the morning, there were a few more dead bodies on the bamboo house floor.
When Chu Sang went in the afternoon, the row of corpses on the floor had disappeared. The smell of blood in the room had become even stronger, even overpowering the strong scent of alcohol.
When Chu Sang went the next day, there was a new row of puppets in the corner. “……”
The blood-tinged alcohol scent in the room lingered, but Chu Sang hadn’t heard any news of missing people down the mountain. It seemed that the people Third Senior Brother killed every day weren’t ordinary civilians or innocent cultivators from down the mountain. So where did these corpses in his room come from?
Chu Sang accidentally found a token in the woods of the Eastern Peak.
No one else recognized what this token was, but Wen Renyue stared at it in silence for a long time before speaking, “This is a token of the Beast Refining Sect disciples.”
“Look, doesn’t the shape carved on the front of the token look like a beast’s skull? The beast skull’s mouth is wide open, and that ball of fire in its mouth is the Eight Yin Evil Fire that their sect worships. And the pattern on the back……”
“Third Senior Sister, how do you know so much about this?” The patterns on this token were complex, and the text wasn’t the common script used in the cultivation world. Ordinary people really couldn’t recognize it.
And if she remembered correctly, wasn’t the Beast Refining Sect one of the five major sects in the demon realm? There shouldn’t be many disciples in the cultivation world who would recognize it, right?
Wen Renyue’s eyes darkened. Meeting the curious gazes of Chu Sang and the others, she put down the token and sighed lightly, “Well, I’ve already let go of this matter, so there’s no harm in telling you.”
“I am a demon race.”
The three were shocked.
Wen Renyue continued, “I was born in the Beast Refining Sect, but when I was seven years old, something happened.” She paused, that memory was truly not very pleasant, so she glossed over it. “Afterwards, I defected from the Beast Refining Sect, fled all the way to the Central Continent, and was accidentally picked up by the Sect Leader and brought to Lingqing Sect. Since then, I’ve been living here.”
Chu Sang suddenly realized that Third Senior Sister was originally from the demon race. No wonder when she first saw her, she felt that her attire and appearance didn’t quite match the style of the Central Continent.
“The Beast Refining Sect is also a famous beast taming sect, almost on par with the Beast Taming Sect, one of the Eight Great Immortal Sects.”
“But while the Beast Taming Sect practices techniques of mutual understanding and assistance between humans and beasts, with equal contracts, the Beast Refining Sect takes the opposite approach, practicing a very insidious path.”
“They torture beasts, refine beasts, train the servile nature of beasts, making them submit to their will. The contracts they form are one-sided master-servant contracts that only take from the beasts……” Wen Renyue said solemnly, “One of the main reasons I left the Beast Refining Sect back then was that I disagreed with the sect’s philosophy. Their methods of treating contract beasts were too cruel. Countless beasts died at their hands, and even the beast clans deeply hate this sect.”
It sounded like this Beast Refining Sect was truly despicable and deserved to die. So Third Senior Brother was killing these evil people.
This seemed…… somewhat at odds with his image in the original story of being capricious and brutally murderous?
However, Mu Changqing was definitely not a good person. He absolutely wouldn’t do something like seeking justice for beasts. So, why was he taking revenge on the disciples of the Beast Refining Sect?
“Well, well, little junior sister, how many days have you been eavesdropping? Why not come to me openly?” A sword thrust from behind. Fortunately, Chu Sang dodged quickly, otherwise, the sword would have pierced straight through her heart.
“……Third Senior Brother.”
Chu Sang felt she had been too hasty in her judgment. This person was truly born evil.
She decided to cover herself with Vajra Talismans from head to toe in the future, to prevent losing her life at any moment.
Mu Changqing waved away the few sword-wielding puppets and smiled at her. “Why do you keep coming to secretly watch me? Do you really want to stay and keep your senior brother company?”
“Third Senior Brother is so lonely by yourself, I do want to come and keep you company, but your room is too frightening, and there are often corpses appearing. I’m scared.” When she widened her eyes, they looked particularly cute and innocent, making it hard for people to refuse.
“Senior Brother, we should be good people and not kill indiscriminately.”
“You don’t want me to kill people?”
Mu Changqing’s gaze circled her face a few times, his smile unchanged, looking as if he was very open to negotiation. “Alright.”
“As long as you can break the formation on this mountain and let me out, I naturally won’t be bored enough to kill people anymore.”