“Remember this feeling.”
Xiao Jin released him, gasping for air: “The next time you encounter the ‘recycler’ sent by ‘that person’…”
Suddenly, he plunged his right hand into his own chest and dug out that piece of brilliant, golden finger bone: “Crush it.”
Xie Lin instinctively caught the finger bone.
The seabed suddenly shook violently!
The giant dragon’s remains began to collapse. The moment Lin Miaomiao fell from a high place and was caught by Xie Lin using the Heart-Eating Lotus vine, the black lotus on her chest suddenly surged, actually swallowing the finger bone left by Xiao Jin in one gulp!
“Miaomiao?!”
The young girl curled up in his arms, her violet pupils already turned completely black: “Brother… I think… I remember who I am…”
She suddenly tore open her collar.
Where the golden lotus bone was supposed to be embedded, a Heart-Eating Lotus pattern, originating from the same source as Xie Lin’s left eye, now appeared!
Above the sea surface, the carnival of the Pure Sea Grand Festival continued.
When Xie Lin dragged the unconscious Lin Miaomiao onto the reef, the Heart-Eating Lotus had already re-sealed his left eye.
But this time, he could clearly feel seven golden threads added to his body.
Corresponding to the seven fragments of the Golden Lotus Bone he had absorbed.
“If you’re awake, stop playing dead.” He kicked the “corpse” beside him.
Xiao Jin (the right-hand version), who should have dissipated, sat up slowly: “How heartless, even though just now while kissing…”
Xie Lin interrupted him roughly: “That was the transfer of spiritual power from the symbiotic contract.”
“What are you now? A remnant soul?”
Xiao Jin held up his right hand, which was becoming transparent: “Even worse than that. Just the manifestation of the obsession of a certain Golden Lotus Bone.”
He suddenly leaned close to Xie Lin’s ear: “But it’s enough to teach you how to use the Heart-Eating Lotus to find the next one…”
The warm breath suddenly froze.
Xie Lin turned his head and saw a blade tip protruding from Xiao Jin’s chest.
Lin Miaomiao had woken up at some point, the black lotus in her palm transformed into a short blade, piercing straight through his spiritual core!
“The recycler is here.”
Her voice was childish yet cold: “Brother, kill him, now.”
Xie Lin’s Frost Flower Sword moved faster than his thoughts.
The moment the blade severed the head, he saw the last shape Xiao Jin’s mouth made:
【I forgive you】
“The first recycler is in the southeast.”
Lin Miaomiao pulled out the gold-stained black blade: “She is disguised as an elder of the Xuan Tian Sect’s Pharmacy Hall.”
Xie Lin stared at her unfamiliar pupils: “Who are you, really?”
The young girl tilted her head and smiled: “Lin Miaomiao, of course.”
This once innocent and carefree gesture now looked hair-raising.
“It’s just… I remembered the memories sealed by Xiao Jin.”
She lightly tapped Xie Lin’s left eye with her fingertip: “For example, what should have been here.”
The Heart-Eating Lotus suddenly screamed inside Xie Lin’s skull!
He saw a flashback: Himself (the original owner) personally gouging something out of Xiao Jin’s chest, and the shape of that thing was clearly.
“A lotus seed of the Heart-Eating Lotus.”
Lin Miaomiao licked the golden blood off her blade: “Which is… my true body.”
The sea suddenly surged with huge waves.
Standing on the crest of the wave was a golden-armored phantom, identical to the one Xie Lin had seen in the dungeon.
But this time, the Heart-Eating Lotus in his left eye did not feel fear; instead, it trembled with excitement—
Because the remaining gold threads on Xie Lin’s sword tassel were pointing straight to the southeast.
That was where Xiao Jin’s whereabouts were.
There were more secrets to be solved.
And…
Xie Lin reached into his robes.
Hidden there was the last thing Xiao Jin had stuffed into his hands: half a piece of candy soaked in blood.
Xie Lin pinched the half piece of blood-soaked candy, his fingertips brushing over the dried bloodstains on the surface.
Three hundred miles to the southeast, at the Xuan Tian Sect’s Pharmacy Hall.
The “recycler” identified by Lin Miaomiao was hiding there.
“Brother, you hesitated.”
Lin Miaomiao stood on tiptoe and leaned into his ear, the black lotus pattern wriggling on her neck.
“Afraid to see the real Xiao Jin?”
Xie Lin backhanded her, pinching her chin: “If you read my mind again, I’ll plant you back into the lotus pond of the Nether Palace.”
The girl giggled, a strange light shimmering in her violet-black heterochromatic eyes: “But you were clearly thinking”
She suddenly mimicked Xie Lin’s tone: “‘If that idiot points his sword at me again, this time I’ll definitely pierce his Dantian.’”
The Frost Flower Sword hummed out of its sheath, but the moment it was about to strike, it was flicked away by something with a “ding.”
Three hawthorn berries wrapped in sugar frosting rolled to Xie Lin’s feet.
“Xuan Tian Sect specialty candied haws.”
A person in red wearing a Noh mask hung upside down from a tree branch, the profound iron token at their waist indicating the status of a Pharmacy Hall elder, yet their voice sounded absurdly young: “New product tasting, murder included.”
The Heart-Eating Lotus in Xie Lin’s left eye suddenly contracted.
There was no aura of Golden Lotus Bone around this person; instead, they were entangled with black spiritual power of the same source as Lin Miaomiao’s!
“Not a recycler.”
Lin Miaomiao suddenly lunged, the black lotus transforming into a long whip and lashing toward the tree branch: “It’s a Heart-Eating Lotus”
“Defector.”
The person in red flipped lightly, and a sentence floated from under the Noh mask that made Xie Lin freeze in place.
“Senior Brother Xiao asked me to deliver a message: ‘Remember to return my sword tassel when you’ve finished the candy.’”
Xie Lin’s sword moved faster than his thoughts.
The moment the Frost Flower Sword pierced the Noh mask, the opponent didn’t dodge or evade, letting the mask shatter to reveal a face eroded by the black lotus.
The right eye was intact, but the left eye was a Heart-Eating Lotus exactly like Xie Lin’s!
“The thirteenth puppet body.”
The person in red licked the scar on their cheek that split all the way to their ear: “It seems the Young Master has forgotten us all.”
Memory fragments suddenly exploded inside Xie Lin’s skull.
In the dark room of the Nether Palace, the young original owner was stuffing lotus seeds one by one into the eye sockets of a death-row prisoner;
When the ninth test subject screamed, Xiao Jin’s footsteps sounded from behind…
“You were deceived by Xiao Jin.”
The person in red suddenly threw a string of candied haws, each berry engraved with a miniature formation.
“The Pharmacy Hall elder is long dead; what’s filling that body now is…”
Lin Miaomiao suddenly screamed and clutched her head.
The black lotus on her chest grew wildly, instantly forming a cocoon-like shield—
Because a golden light was hurtling across the horizon; it was vaguely a flying ship from the Xuan Tian Sect’s Law Enforcement Hall!
“Three breaths.”
The person in red flicked their finger, shattering the candied haws; the exploding formation temporarily distorted the surrounding space.
“Choose the truth or choose your life?”
The hand Xie Lin reached out to grab the person’s collar was suddenly pulled by something.
Looking down, the gold threads remaining on the Frost Flower Sword tassel had somehow wrapped around his wrist, piecing together a crooked, distorted character: “ESCAPE.”
The golden light had reached the zenith.
The person in red sighed and crushed a teleportation talisman: “It seems Senior Brother chose the latter.”
“Next time we meet, I hope the Young Master remembers my serial number—”
In the last instant before the space distorted, Xie Lin saw the figure leaping from the flying ship: snowy Taoist robes, silver silk gloves, and the life-bound sword at their waist engraved with the character “Wind.”
It was Xiao Jin.
The real, complete Xiao Jin.
The landing spot of the teleportation was unexpected.
A dessert shop at the foot of the Xuan Tian Sect mountain.
Xie Lin’s sword had just been placed against the shopkeeper’s throat when he heard a familiar, clear, and bright voice from the inner room: “Add more honey to the osmanthus cakes, and no filling for the chestnut pastries”
The cloth curtain was lifted, and Xiao Jin, holding a food box, stared face-to-face with Xie Lin.
Time seemed to freeze.
Xie Lin’s sword tip pressed against Xiao Jin’s throat, his left eye’s Heart-Eating Lotus warning frantically;
Xiao Jin, however, suddenly raised a piece of sugar cake: “New product tasting, murder included?”