This was a coffin shop.
The four walls were hung with ash urns of varying shapes and sizes, and sitting behind the counter was an old woman draped in burial clothes.
She was stringing beads, every single “bead” being a shrunk human skull.
“Fresh faces, eh.”
The old woman split her mouth into a grin, revealing seven golden teeth: “Trade memories, or buy a life?”
Slapping the Frost Flower Sword down onto the counter, Xie Lin said: “Buy information.”
The old woman’s gaze glued itself to the sword, her gold teeth suddenly beginning to ooze blood: “The sword of Xuan Tian Sect’s Chief… interesting.”
She pushed an oil lamp forward: “One drop of blood, one question.”
The lamp oil was turbid and emitted a greenish hue, with a few wisps of black thread floating within it.
Xie Lin slashed open his finger, and the moment a bead of blood plunged into the lamp wick, the flame flared up fiercely, reflecting three lines of blood-written characters on the wall:
【The Golden Lotus Host is not dead】
【Trapped in the Twelvefold Dreams】
【Breaking the dream requires Heart-Devouring Tears】
Suddenly knocking over the oil lamp, Lin Miaomiao cried out: “She’s lying! A heart-devouring lotus host doesn’t cry at all!”
Cackling away, the old woman extended six spider-like bone legs from beneath her burial clothes: “Not crying just means it hasn’t hurt deeply enough~”
She pointed toward Xie Lin’s chest: “Like the pain of a broken symbiotic pact?”
Xie Lin’s sword tip pressed against her throat: “Last question where are the Night Watchmen?”
Licking her gold teeth, the old woman said: “The City Lord’s Mansion, of course.”
“Though I’d advise you not to go, that lord is currently ‘dining’…”
The shop suddenly shook violently!
Heavy footsteps drew closer and closer outside on the street, every single stride making the ash urns rattle and clatter in a flurry of sound.
Her face turning pale as paper, Lin Miaomiao said: “It’s the Night Watchmen!”
Kicking open the back window, Xie Lin hauled Lin Miaomiao and leaped out.
As he landed, he cast one final look back, only to see the old woman’s burial clothes torn apart by an unseen force, exposing a withered, shriveled physique crawling with golden threads.
The exact same symptoms as when Xiao Jin suffered the backlash of his forbidden technique!
The closer they got to the City Lord’s Mansion, the denser the golden threads crisscrossing the architecture became.
Squatting on a rooftop, Xie Lin stared at the structure a hundred meters away, built entirely out of giant skulls.
Two statues stood before the mansion gates:
On the left was a Xuan Tian Sect cultivator holding a sword, on the right a Netherworld Palace disciple gripping a lotus.
Both faces were shockingly Xiao Jin’s!
“Something’s wrong.”
Tugging at his sleeve, Lin Miaomiao said: “Evernight City has existed for thousands of years, how could…”
Xie Lin sneered: “An illusion. Someone tampered with the memories of the entire city.”
The hairs wrapped around his wrist suddenly grew piping hot.
Following the sensation, he saw a windchime hanging from the windowsill of the City Lord’s Mansion’s side hall.
Woven out of seven golden threads, it was precisely the technique Xiao Jin used to suppress his backlash!
The roar of a Night Watchman suddenly echoed from the street corner.
It was a giant three zhang tall, its torso pieced together from countless corpses, yet crowned with a neck bearing a head as handsome as an immortal’s.
Xie Lin’s breath hitched.
The brows and eyes of that head shared a seven-tenths similarity with Xiao Jin!
“Jump!”
Cradling Lin Miaomiao’s waist, he rolled through the side hall window the split second the Night Watchman’s giant palm slammed down.
The stench of rot hit them full face.
The moment he steadied his footing, Xie Lin froze in place.
The entire room was piled high with ice coffins, and inside every single coffin lay an “Xiao Jin”!
Some had golden lotus stems pierced straight through their hearts, others were wrapped head-to-toe in heart-devouring vines, and the one closest even twitched slightly.
Covering her mouth, Lin Miaomiao dry-heached:
“Are these all… clones?”
Prying open the nearest ice coffin, Xie Lin watched the instant his fingertips touched the corpse’s skin—the Frost Flower Sword buzzed loudly, and the eyelids of the person inside trembled violently!
“Symbiotic pact…”
Breath slipped past the corpse’s pale lips: “Find… the City Lord…”
The roar of the Night Watchman was inches away.
Before Xie Lin could press for answers, blood-red runes suddenly lit up across the entire side hall—
It was the restriction of the heart-devouring lotus!
Suddenly screaming, Lin Miaomiao collapsed to her knees, black blood oozing from the golden lotus imprint on her chest.
Simultaneously, the “Xiao Kins” inside all the ice coffins opened their eyes in unison, murmuring together:
“Hurry and leave… he’s coming…”
The ground split open with a massive fissure, and managing only to grab Lin Miaomiao’s wrist, Xie Lin plunged into endless darkness.
The sensation of weightlessness lasted a full ten breaths before his back slammed into something soft.
“Welcome to the real Evernight City.”
A languid male voice rang out above his head.
Opening his eyes, Xie Lin saw he was lying on the stamen of a giant heart-devouring lotus, while the man looking down at him…
Wore Xiao Jin’s face.
“Should I call you Xie Lin, or…”
Gently stroking his blood-stained left eye, the man said: “My dear other half?”
The stamens of the heart-devouring lotus abruptly closed inward, sharp barbs scraping across Xie Lin’s back.
Rolling over to tumble down, he brought the Frost Flower Sword up across his chest, the blade reflecting the smiling eyes of the man opposite him—
Those eyes were identical to Xiao Jin’s, save for the crimson bloodshot veins swimming deep within the pupils.
“Not bad reflexes.”
Languidly propping his chin up, the man watched as heart-devouring lotus vines docilely slithered and flattened themselves near his feet: “Pity the symbiotic pact is broken, otherwise you would’ve recognized my aura.”
Xie Lin’s sword tip remained completely steady: “Take off that face before you speak.”
The man chuckled low in his throat, his fingertips brushing across his own jawline. The skin melted away like wax, revealing the ghastly white bone beneath.
It was shockingly a face devoid of flesh and blood!
The bone surface crawled with intertwined golden and red threads, like a puppet that had been stitched back together ten million times.
“How about now?”
A skeletal hand caressed the wrist holding Xie Lin’s sword: “When you personally tore off my skin and flesh three hundred years ago, you were a lot more enthusiastic than this.”
Pouncing from behind, Lin Miaomiao suddenly erupted with blinding golden light from the golden lotus on her chest: “Get away from my brother!”
The instant the golden light touched the skeleton man, he let out a miserable shriek.
Taking advantage of the opening, Xie Lin thrust his sword straight at the man’s throat, only to see the man’s chest suddenly split open, extending three bone fingers wrapped in golden threads that precisely clamped onto the edge of the Frost Flower Sword!
“Little Miaomiao’s defective golden lotus scrap, and you dare act presumptuously?”
Black blood oozed from the bone crevices as the man’s voice retained its smile: “If Xiao Jin hadn’t carved out half a golden lotus to save you back then, you’d have rotted away in the Netherworld Palace dungeon with your mother long ago.”
Xie Lin’s pupils shrank to pinpricks.
The information implied in this sentence was simply too immense—
The golden lotus inside Lin Miaomiao’s body came from Xiao Jin?
What was actually being imprisoned in the Netherworld Palace dungeon was…
“Brother!” Lin Miaomiao screamed suddenly.
The golden lotus imprint on her chest was twisting, as if something was about to burst out of her body.
Trying to pull her back, Xie Lin was abruptly grabbed by the neck by the skeleton man.
The instant the icy bone fingers sank into his flesh, the heart-devouring lotus in Xie Lin’s left eye went violently berserk.
Countless unfamiliar scenes flooded into his mind:
A bone throne beneath a blood moon, himself dressed in dark imperial robes, with thousands of Netherworld Palace cultivators kneeling at his feet;
Xiao Jin chained to the center of an altar, twelve heart-devouring lotus vines plunged into his chest;
And finally, this skeleton man right before him… torn in half with his own two hands!
“Remember now?”
Releasing his grip, the man appreciated Xie Lin’s face flushed red from asphyxiation: “Three hundred years ago, to break through to the Tribulation Stage, you refined me your other half into a vessel for the heart-devouring lotus.”
“What a pity…”
His bone claws abruptly stabbed into his own chest, tearing out half a beating heart.
That heart was wrapped in golden threads, unmistakably the handiwork of Xiao Jin!
“Xiao Jin used half a golden lotus bone to extend my life, just so I could guard these…”
Snapping his fingers, the skeleton man caused the darkness to recede like a tide, revealing the true space they were inhabiting—
This was a circular tomb chamber constructed entirely out of crystal, twelve ice coffins suspended in the center, each coffin sealing a portion of Xiao Jin’s physical body!
Xie Lin’s sword clattered to the ground.
Inside the nearest ice coffin floated a slender right hand, a small mole sitting right at the second joint of the ring finger.
Precisely the spot he had kissed last night in the heat of passion.
“A rather lovely collection, wouldn’t you say?”
Gently stroking the ice coffin, the skeleton man looked intoxicated.
“The left hand is in the East Sea Shark Palace, the right leg is buried in Xuan Tian Sect’s forbidden ground, and the heart was nailed to the Nine Heavens Que by ‘That Being’…” He suddenly leaned close to Xie Lin’s ear: “But the best part is right here.”
The instant the skeleton claw flipped open the central ice coffin, Xie Lin’s blood froze solid.
Suspended within the coffin was a head.
Xiao Jin’s head.