Chapter 335 - 327: All Disputes and Grudges Turn to Void

Song Ciwan sighed softly. "Of all the people you killed, did every single one of them truly deserve to die? Were these all your fathers and brothers? You have that many fathers and brothers?"

The Skeleton Cultivator craned her neck and said, "Many of them were from the brothel!"

"Were there no innocents?"

...

The Skeleton Cultivator fell silent for a moment. With a flick of her finger, Song Ciwan invisibly deployed the "Doubt" Character Technique, causing the other’s conviction to waver and unknowingly speak the truth.

"Zhang Jiuniang deserved to die too! She laughed at me, flaunting any new clothes she got right in my face, and then she’d toss her old clothes to me! She kept saying she was being good to me, treating me like a dear sister, so why give me old clothes instead of new ones? That was clearly charity!"

"There wasn’t a single good person in Songshan Village. They all laughed at me. What right did they have?"

"When those filthy things dragged me away, not a single person came to save me! Not one!"

"Aunt Wang Liu hypocritically tried to persuade my mother to let me go, but what good did that do? She just paid lip service, while I was the one who was actually dragged away!"

"No one saved me. No one saved me! Which of them didn’t deserve to die? Who didn’t deserve to die?"

"Do you have any idea what I went through? There was this fake Scholar who secretly cultivated an Evil Technique. He came to the establishment to practice Yang Supplementing Yin, and every time one of the sisters in the brothel serviced him, she would fall ill. Eventually, no one was willing to receive him anymore. Only me. It was only me..."

"I risked my life to coax and please him until he was utterly compliant. Finally, one day, in a drunken stupor, he revealed his Cultivation Technique to me!"

"Yang Supplementing Yin... reverse that, and doesn’t it become Absorbing Yang to Nourish Yin? I succeeded! HAHAHA, I succeeded..."

"When he came, I would coax him. When he didn’t, I would coax others. Those stinking men came and went, and every one of them became my cultivation resources!"

"I killed again, so, so many people! And I’m going to kill more, so many more. After all, one or two isn’t enough for me to cultivate to the Qi Cultivation Stage..."

"The feeling of killing is just wonderful. The more people die, the Stronger I become. Those people, so glamorous in their daily lives... when they died, I flayed them and pulled their tendons. I would save their faces for last. I love seeing the expressions on their faces..."

"I only kept the skeletons of the ones I liked the most. The ones I didn’t like were all scattered to ash!"

"I liked Zhang Jiuniang the most. Sigh, she was so beautiful. She was so beautiful, so why didn’t she have to go to the brothel? Why was it only me?"

"When I captured her, she still hypocritically asked me if I was doing well, if anyone was bullying me. What? If someone was bullying me, could she have helped me get revenge?"

"Hehehe, hehehe, I just had to peel her skin off and wear it. Then I would become her!"

"It’s so good being Zhang Jiuniang... so good..."

...

As she continued, the Skeleton Cultivator’s sanity began to crumble, her words becoming jumbled and chaotic.

Song Ciwan received another three clumps of human desires. Added to what she had already collected, she had now taken a total of eleven clumps of human desires from the Skeleton Cultivator.

But as the Skeleton Cultivator’s confession poured out, Song Ciwan felt none of the joy of a bountiful harvest.

She asked in a low voice, "Where did you get your later Evil Technique? Where did you learn the pocket trick? Is there anyone else behind you? Why did you capture the Gu Family’s youngest daughter? What did you plan to do with her?"

The Skeleton Cultivator cackled strangely. "The Gu Family’s Little Girl was born at an unusual hour. Though she’s a girl, her body is brimming with yang energy. If I refine her flesh and blood, I can reshape my own. I’ll never have to wear this ugly face again! HAHAHA..."

Two streams of blood flowed from her eye sockets. She struggled to lower her head, and despite being bound by the Fire Rope, she managed to extend her sharp nails and claw at her own face in a strange posture.

She tore off pieces of her dry skin, revealing the pale white bone underneath.

"I had a fortuitous encounter! Do you know I had a fortuitous encounter?"

"Let me go! Let me go, and I’ll tell you where my fortuitous encounter was!"

She craned her head again, desperately meeting Song Ciwan’s eyes, her voice a mix of pleading and threats. "I worship a god! My god protects me! Even if you kill me today, I will be reborn at the foot of my god’s throne!"

"Senior, don’t kill me! This junior Cultivator can lead you to my god!"

[Human desires, the hatred, hatred, hatred of a Demonized Mid-Stage Qi Cultivation Cultivator, nine taels and seven maces.]

The weight of the Skeleton Cultivator’s emotional aura began to weaken noticeably, but her consciousness was still filled with nothing but hatred.

Even consumed by hatred, she didn’t forget to try and confuse, deceive, and mislead Song Ciwan with her words.

Song Ciwan immediately asked, "Where is your god?"

The Skeleton Cultivator said, "Don’t kill me, and I’ll take you there..."

Song Ciwan turned away, but then pointed toward the inner cave where dozens of skeletons stood. She asked, "Which skeleton is Zhang Jiuniang’s?"

The Skeleton Cultivator froze, not answering.

But Song Ciwan immediately followed the direction of her gaze and keenly locked onto one of the skeletons.

’The Great Derivation Birth Skill detected the causality. There’s no mistake, it’s this one.’

Song Ciwan used Wind Manipulation to move the skeleton to the side. Then, she started a fire, incinerating all the other skeletons in the cave, along with the Blood Pool in front of them, until only ash and smoke remained.

She then lit a Universal Relief Talisman to purify all the filth in the area.

The Skeleton Cultivator, lying on the ground with her head tilted back, stared blankly at the scene, clearly not understanding what Song Ciwan was doing.

Wherever the Universal Relief Talisman passed, the dark, bloody stench in the cave was instantly cleansed.

On the other side, Yao Ermei clutched her head and slowly regained consciousness once more.

"Ah!" Yao Ermei shrieked and shot up from the ground. She fell back down, then scrambled on all fours to get behind Song Ciwan.

"Fairy, save me! Fairy, save me!" Her face streamed with tears as she crawled behind Song Ciwan, curling up behind her slender figure and repeatedly begging for her life.

Yao Ermei wasn’t a fool; she knew who to ask for help.

Song Ciwan ignored this. She yanked the Fire Rope, pulling the Skeleton Cultivator’s body up and forcing her to face Zhang Jiuniang’s remains.

Song Ciwan said, "I am not a Judge. The rights and wrongs of the past are all from your side of the story, and it is not my place to judge. I’ll only ask you one thing: do you truly believe Zhang Jiuniang wronged you? Search your heart and ask yourself, when you killed her and took revenge on her, who was in the wrong? You, or her?"

The Skeleton Cultivator’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to say that of course Zhang Jiuniang was wrong.

However, as the words reached her lips, she suddenly felt a palpitation for some reason. Though she had the appearance of a skeleton, she did in fact still have a heart within her organs.

Her voice changed, laced with a tremble she wasn’t even aware of. "I... I... I didn’t want to... Who told her to always be so good? Since she wanted to be good to me, why couldn’t she have been even better? Why didn’t she go to the brothel in my place? Why? Why? Waaaaah..."

She sobbed, and finally, at a certain moment, she broke down and wailed.

"I was wrong! I was wrong! Waaaaah, Ninth Lady, I was wrong... Be good to me one more time! Hold me..."

The skeleton lay prostrate on the ground, twisting like a worm toward Zhang Jiuniang’s remains under the restraint of the Fire Rope.

But Song Ciwan pulled her back with the Fire Rope, stopping her from crawling over.

The Skeleton Cultivator turned her head and looked at Song Ciwan pleadingly.

The Heaven and Earth Scale appeared: [Human desires, the bitter hatred, sorrow, and excitement of a Demonized Mid-Stage Qi Cultivation Cultivator, seven taels and two maces.]

Song Ciwan raised an eyebrow. ’Bitter hatred and sorrow are understandable, but this ’excitement’ is truly bizarre.’

She tugged the Fire Rope and said, "Go on, then. Your last words."

The Skeleton Cultivator said blankly, "I offered to take you to my god, and you’re still going to kill me?"

Song Ciwan said, "If you won’t speak, then so be it."

The next moment, the Fire Rope tightened. The Skeleton Cultivator’s expression changed abruptly. She tried to scream something more, but her voice was no match for the heat of Song Ciwan’s flames.

Once the Blazing Flame Technique at its ultimate realm unleashed its full temperature, the Skeleton Cultivator was reduced to ashes in an instant.

But Song Ciwan felt something and suddenly activated her Eye of Cyan Nether.

Just as the Skeleton Cultivator turned to ash, a puff of gray gas, so faint it was almost non-existent, suddenly swirled and fled into the distance.

’Evil Cultivators may be weak, but they have many tricks up their sleeves.’

At some unknown point, streams of dark Resentment surged through the world, wrapping around the fleeing gray gas.

Watching all of this through the multiple mountain barriers with her Eye of Cyan Nether, Song Ciwan had a sudden realization: ’The Evil Cultivator is trying to transform into a wraith!’

Since beginning her Cultivation, Song Ciwan had encountered and killed wraiths, and she had encountered and killed demons. But this was the first time she had personally witnessed someone transforming into a wraith—the incident with the Dragon Maiden didn’t count.