Bai Xiaochun let out a yelp of fear, and looked over his shoulder, trembling. He also fumbled around behind his back. And yet, he still didn’t have any evidence that anything was there.
However, the feeling only kept getting stronger, to the point where he felt like he couldn’t breathe.
“There’s definitely something there!” Tears welling up in his eyes, he let out a shout as he plastered some paper talismans onto him. And yet, after the shield layers sprang up, he still felt the same.
No matter what he did, he felt like there was someone clinging to him.
“How come nothing works…?” he thought nervously. Gritting his teeth, he unleashed the Living Mountain Incantation, transforming into a stone golem and then back again. Despite that, he still felt like something was there.
In fact, the sensation was even stronger. Most terrifying of all was that Bai Xiaochun was sure that whoever was behind him was absorbing his life force.
“No... that’s my longevity!” he wailed. “That’s my chance to live forever! I don’t want this! Come on, let’s talk things over. Just get off my back....”
He even pulled out the Eternal Parasol and poked it over his shoulder, but whoever was stuck to his back refused to budge.
Bai Xiaochun was starting to feel confused, and he even went so far as to use his Waterswamp Kingdom. However, nothing changed....
“What am I supposed to do? Don’t tell me that I, Bai Xiaochun, am going to lose my life right here!? I refuse to accept this! I'm still young! I haven’t even gotten married yet. I haven’t had kids....” And yet, in his fury and grief, he only continued to descend into confusion.
He started to look a bit listless as he trudged along, even staggering a bit, almost as if he were being pushed forward from behind.
The truth was that he did have a paper person on his back, as if it had always been a part of him. Furthermore, it was greedily sucking away at his cultivation base and life force.
This paper person was different from the others, though. It wasn’t white. It... was red!
Furthermore, it had six eyes, which opened and closed continuously in a very strange fashion.
As he walked along, he didn’t notice how, when other paper people would appear near him and look at him greedily, they would subsequently notice the red paper person on his back, and then shiver and flee.
Eventually, he was completely alone, walking along in confusion and slowly transforming into something more like an old man.
However, at some point as he walked along, a fair, graceful female hand reached out, completely disregarding the presence of the red paper person, to land directly onto Bai Xiaochun’s shoulder.
It was a smack that sent a tremor running through him, rousing him as if from sleep. Suddenly recalling everything which had been going on, he shrieked and leapt forward a few paces before spinning to look back.
What he saw caused his jaw to drop.
Right there in front of him was a beautiful woman in a long gown. She had an odd-looking smile on her face, and it even looked like she had some blood on her lips, as if she had just eaten something and forgotten to wipe her mouth. That young woman was none other than…
“Gongsun Wan’er!!”
In her hand she held a red paper person, who was screaming and struggling as it tried to break free. However, such efforts were useless, and soon, a pleading look could be seen in the thing's eyes.
Looking down at the red paper person, Gongsun Wan’er smiled, and the second pupil in each of her eyes began to shine with cold light. “You really have some guts to bully my big bro.”
With that, she squeezed her fingers together, prompting the paper person to scream as it was crushed to bits!
Then, white wisps of smoke rose up and floated back toward Bai Xiaochun, which was none other than his lost life force being returned to him.
Face turning more ashen, he subconsciously backed up a few steps. For some reason, this version of Gongsun Wan’er seemed like a complete stranger to him.
As he thought back to his past memories, he was certain that it had been a very long time since he felt anything like this. In fact, now that he thought about it, he realized that Gongsun Wan’er had always seemed a bit different after he got back from the Blood Stream Sect.
Plus, the blood on her lips was clearly not her own; it had come from something she’d eaten. Bai Xiaochun immediately began to pant as a hair-raisingly terrifying feeling overwhelmed him.
The sinister coldness in the area far surpassed anything he had felt from the red hats or the blood-soaked buns. Not even the hive of paper people had been as cold as this.
Most shocking of all was how she had called him big bro, which, for some very odd reason, seemed familiar....
Voice quavering, he continued to back up as he said, “Uh... Wan’er, it's you... what are you doing here...?”
He almost couldn’t tear his eyes away from the blood on Gongsun Wan’er’s lips.
Noticing his gaze, she reached up and touched her lips softly, then licked them clean and smiled at him. It was a smile that caused Bai Xiaochun’s heart to go cold. He couldn't be certain whether he was imagining things or not, but he was almost sure he had seen a second mouth inside of her just now!
In addition, he could see that she had two pupils in each of her eyes!
He was shaking visibly and scared witless, and yet, that feeling of fear also stoked his anger. At the same time, cold sweat began to drip down his back.
Teeth chattering, he said, “Wan'er, I... I have an errand to run, so, um... see you later.”
With that, he prepared to leave.
Gongsun Wan’er covered her smile with a hand, and said, “Ah, why don’t you come play with me, big bro!?”
Strangely, her voice was different from before, and almost seemed like that of a child. As it echoed back and forth in the labyrinth tunnel, Bai Xiaochun’s body went stiff, and his eyes went wide. The way she had called him big bro had already seemed familiar, and now that he heard that child’s voice, his mind began to spin.
Shrieking, he backed up again, eyes filling with incredulity as he pointed at Gongsun Wan’er and blurted, “Wh-who... who... who are you?!?!”
“How could you have forgotten me, big bro?” Although her words were spoken softly, they crashed like thunder in Bai Xiaochun’s mind. Memories flooded into his mind as he thought back to the Fallen Sword World, and how among the banesouls had been a young girl holding a skinned, bloody teddy bear!!
“How is this possible?!?!” he thought, his mouth and throat going dry. He felt like he was going crazy, and couldn’t even breathe. It was almost like being hit in the head repeatedly with a big stick.
Gongsun Wan’er smiled at his reaction. Then she casually waved her right hand, causing a blood mist to spring up next to her, which rapidly converged together into the form of a tall man.
He was burly and well-built, but terrifyingly, had no skin. Blood-slicked muscles were all that could be seen, with occasional blue veins bulging out here and there.
As soon as Bai Xiaochun saw that burly man’s face, a name popped into his mind.
“Lei Shan!!”
This man had once been a chosen of the Profound Stream Sect. Lei Shan! Based on the cultivation base power rolling off of him, his strength was comparable to the Nascent Soul stage. However, his eyes were empty and vacant, almost as if he were a puppet.
“Just wait for me here, big bro,” Gongsun Wan’er said in her child's voice. “I'm still not full yet. I'm going to take teddy to go get a bit more food, and then we can play together. You wait here like a good boy, now. I’ll be very upset if you disobey!” Smiling happily, she turned and skipped off into the distance, accompanied by Lei Shan, who walked alongside her with an expressionless face, the faint sounds of thunder rumbling out from him as he walked.
Bai Xiaochun watched all of this happen with an ashen face. He felt cold all the way down to his marrow, and had already decided that he wouldn’t wait around for Gongsun Wan’er and Lei Shan even if someone threatened to kill him. As of this moment, he finally put the pieces of the puzzle together, and realized that the terrifying young girl from the Fallen Sword Abyss had emerged into the world in Gongsun Wan’er’s body.
Whether it was the haunting of the River-Defying Sect or the deaths on the ship, all of them were carried out by that girl....
And then Bai Xiaochun remembered that she had originally transformed because of a medicinal pill he had concocted, and his heart flip-flopped.
“Um... don't worry!” he said loudly. “I’ll be a good boy. I won’t go anywhere.... Oh, by the way, there’s a guy out there named Zhou Yixing. He's very fair and delicate, and clearly very delicious. Why don’t you go play with him for a bit...?” After waiting for a bit to confirm that the girl was gone, he turned and fled.
1. Lei Shan was last seen "alive" in