The Husky and His White Cat Shizun

Chapter 203: The Frightening Ghost Master Chu Let Slip

But Chu Wanning did not stop nor turn back.

He could not turn back.

Clenching his teeth, he endured, but tears still trickled down his cheeks.

He was truly wronged.

But even if wronged, what could he do?

Protest?

Rage?

Having reached this point, how could he still have the face to reveal those truths to Mo Ran? Should he attempt to explain desperately amidst Mo Ran's resentment and ridicule? Or did he wish to hear "imitating the clumsy" followed by "usurping another's nest"?

He left.

That fateful night beside the Bridge of Helplessness, by the turbid Yellow Springs, the conversation between master and disciple might have been swept along by the surging river, flowing down mountains, rivers, and into the Underworld.

If that gentle lad, as delicate as a lotus, were somehow aware beneath the earth, would he grieve and sorrow at such discord within their sect?

Mo Ran stood alone by the riverbank for a while. He realized that perhaps this was simply destiny's doing.

—Chu Wanning had suspected everyone but him.

It was quite coincidental that day. Chu Wanning's Tianwen, which he had summoned to deal with a little ghost while patrolling the back mountain, had not been retracted. It remained coiled around his waist like a decoration.

The golden Tianwen shimmered against Chu Wanning's white garments, its vine-like form, capable of extracting truth and later throttling the very Immortal Emperor, continued to glow.

Yet, Chu Wanning did not take it out to interrogate Mo Ran.

Mo Ran evaded Tianwen and left slowly on his own, venturing deep into the rustling bamboo grove, where the darkness of night was thickest, until he was ultimately consumed by the shadows.

From then on, he began to secretly forge pawns with deliberation, two, four, ten... more and more.

He planted them one by one into the bodies of the disciples on the Summit of Life and Death, turning them into his spies, pawns, and hidden arrows.

After the initial thrill, Mo Ran gradually became restless and gloomy. He grew increasingly irritable, short-tempered, and dissatisfied.

It was too slow.

It wasn't enough.

Afraid that Chu Wanning might sense something amiss, he no longer dared to expend all his power like the first time when creating the precious chess game. Each time, he only created one and reserved half his energy. He also refrained from being confrontational, finally sheathing his claws and returning to sit beneath Chu Wanning to practice cultivation with him.

Calculating in his mind, he thought that Chu Wanning could help him improve his cultivation the fastest, paving the way for his first step towards trampling over the bones of the world. Why not?

On this day, he pushed himself too hard in his practice, exhausting himself until he lost control while perched on a slender branch and plummeted downward.

In an instant, Chu Wanning's white robes flashed past as he caught Mo Ran but was unable to summon a barrier with his hands occupied. The two of them crashed down together onto the ground. Chu Wanning was pinned beneath Mo Ran, groaning in pain. When Mo Ran opened his eyes, he saw that Chu Wanning's hand was scraped, a bloody gash with flesh turned inside out.

Mo Ran stared at the wound, feeling both cruel and excited. His personality had already begun to warp, and he didn't feel much gratitude or guilt. Instead, he found the blood pleasing to the eye and wished it would flow more freely.

But he knew it wasn't the right time. He couldn't reveal the sinister face hidden beneath his hood just yet. So, he helped Chu Wanning clean the wound and bandage it.

Silence persisted between the two, each lost in their own thoughts, as the white bandages were wound around them numerous times.

Then, with a profound tone, Mo Ran said, "Master, thank you."

This unexpected expression of gratitude took Chu Wanning by surprise. He lifted his gaze to meet Mo Ran's face, sunlight casting a gentle glow upon the young man's features, making his brown eyes appear almost translucent.

At that moment, Mo Ran was curious about how Chu Wanning perceived his sincere thanks. Was it a sign of a prodigal son finally returning? Or a beginning of reconciliation?

But Chu Wanning didn't respond. He merely lowered his lashes and let his sleeves fall back into place.

A breeze picked up, and the sunlight was perfect.

In his previous life, he had never truly understood his master, just as his master had misunderstood him.

As time went on, Mo Ran's magical powers grew stronger. His remarkable talent became evident as the number of chess pieces he could create with half his spiritual energy increased – from one, to two, and eventually to four.

But that was not enough.

What he sought was an army of a million strong, a formidable force that could conquer the Peak of Life and Death in one fell swoop, trampling Chu Wanning beneath his feet.

Mo Ran wasn't skilled in mathematics, yet the man who was soon to be the Immortal Treading Emperor was hunched over his abacus, clicking the beads with practiced ease.

When Xue Meng came to visit, he happened upon this scene and curiously approached, asking, "Hey, what are you doing?"

"Calculating."

"What kind of calculation?"

Mo Ran paused, his eyes darkening as he chuckled. "Guess."

"I can't guess." Xue Meng walked over and picked up the ledger in front of Mo Ran, studying it closely while muttering, "One... three hundred and sixty-five days... three hundred and sixty-five of... four... three hundred and sixty-five days... What on earth is this mess?"

Mo Ran remained unperturbed. "I want to buy candy."

"Candy?"

"A single premium candy from the Moonbright Pavilion costs a copper coin. If you save one coin daily for three hundred and sixty-five days, you can buy three hundred and sixty-five candies. If you save four coins each day, it would be..." He lowered his head, counted on his fingers, but couldn't figure it out. He then shook his head and started to use an abacus. "That's one thousand..."

Xue Meng's mental arithmetic was faster. He promptly answered, "One thousand four hundred and sixty candies."

Mo Ran lifted his head, pausing for a moment before he smiled brightly. "You're really quick at this."

Xue Meng, rarely praised by him, was momentarily stunned. Then he laughed heartily. "Of course, I've been helping Mother weigh medicine since I was young."

Mo Ran pondered slightly and chuckled. "Since we can't calculate it anyway, why don't you be kind and help me with this?"

After Shi Mo's passing, Mo Ran hadn't been so calm in a long time. Xue Meng looked at him against the sunlight, feeling a hint of pity.

So he nodded, pulled out a chair, and sat beside Mo Ran.

"Go ahead, tell me."

Mo Ran spoke gently. "If you have ten candies a day, how many could you save in a year?"

"Three thousand six hundred and fifty. No need to calculate, it's too simple."

Mo Ran sighed and said, "Add some more, fifteen a day..." After thinking for a moment, he felt that making so many candies was beyond his limits, so he asked, "Twelve a day then. How much?"

"Four thousand... four thousand three hundred and eighty."

"I want five thousand. Do I have to wait a few more days?"

"It'll take a bit more..." Xue Meng scratched his head, struggling to think, so he asked, "Why do you need so much sugar? You can't even eat it all."

Mo Ran lowered his gaze, hiding the darkness in his eyes. He said, "Next year, the Edge of Life and Death Sect will celebrate its thirtieth anniversary. I want to give each person a candy, so I need to save up starting today."

Xue Meng was stunned. "You actually have such thoughts..."

"Mm." Mo Ran smiled. "Surprised? You'll get one too."

"I don't need one," Xue Meng waved his hand. "I don't need your candy. Come, let me help you calculate how long it'll take to save up for five thousand candies."

He took the abacus and, under the shadow of the blossoming tree by the window, began to calculate earnestly. Mo Ran watched with his chin in his hand, a soft gleam in his eyes. After a while, he chuckled and said, "Thank you."

Xue Meng huffed but remained focused on his calculations, paying him no further attention.

In his eyes were only those clacking black abacus beads, one by one, like black chess pieces, stacking up and multiplying.

Back then, Xue Meng probably never would have imagined that he was calculating not candies, but human lives—lives that toppled the peak of life and death.

Nor would he have known that it was likely his presence by the window, assisting, that faintly stirred a trace of kindness left in Mo Ran's heart.

Thus, out of consideration for their past, Mo Ran ultimately did not give him a single share of those five thousand black beads.

Looking at the number Xue Meng had written down, Mo Ran shook his head. "That'll take too long."

Xue Meng suggested, "Want me to lend you some money?"

Mo Ran smiled. "Not necessary."

After Xue Meng left, Mo Ran pondered and pored over various scrolls, gradually forming an idea—this idea later became the blueprint for Heaven-Stepping Lord's self-created "Shared Heart Formation."

That night, Mo Ran refined ten chess pieces. They were incomplete, made without his full strength, unable to control living beings or even more powerful corpses.

Pocketing these ten pieces, he descended the mountain and headed to Impermanence Town, humming a tune as he arrived at a spot on the outskirts of the town:

Crane Return Slope.

When mortals passed away, they were believed to ride on cranes and ascend to the heavens. This was a simple yet beautiful illusion; in reality, this slope was a cemetery. Whenever someone died in Impermanence Town, they were buried here, the resting place for the townsfolk's bones.

Mo Ran didn't linger. He moved between the rows of graves, scanning the inscriptions on the tombstones. Soon, he stopped before a newly dug grave with bright engravings and fresh fruits and steamed buns placed in front of it. He raised his hand, fingers curling in mid-air, and the earth split open with a crash, revealing a simple coffin buried within the sand and stones.

Due to an experience from his childhood, Mo Ran was not afraid of corpses and had no reverence for them. He leaped down the mound, summoned his broadsword, and pried open the coffin nails before kicking off the thin lid.

Moonlight illuminated the corpse's face. Mo Ran leaned closer, inspecting the body as one would assess the quality of pork.

It was an old man, freshly buried, dressed in burial clothes. His face was shriveled, cheeks sunken, likely due to poor preservation conditions and lack of funds for embalming. The coffin reeked with a strong stench, and some flesh had already begun to rot and maggots infested it.

Mo Ran frowned, tolerating the foul odor as he swiftly donned metal gloves. He grabbed the old man's neck and lifted him out of the coffin. The corpse's head lolled limply, and Mo Ran's eyes were cold as a flash of light signaled the insertion of the precious black chess piece into the old man's chest.

"Be good, be good," Mo Ran petted the corpse's face affectionately, then suddenly smacked it across the cheek, laughing. "Why are you so listless? Stand up straight, my precious little grandchild."

Although the incomplete black chess piece couldn't control a robust corpse, manipulating a thin, elderly man with legs like twigs was more than manageable.

The corpse twitched and groaned, its closed eyes suddenly flickering open, revealing cloudy orbs.

Mo Ran said, "State your name."

"I have no say in it."

"Where are you situated?"

"I am not in control of my location."

"In what era are we now?"

"The times do not belong to me."

Mo Ran narrowed his eyes, weighing the remaining nine broken pieces in his hand. Indeed... It didn't require such immense spiritual energy to manipulate a corpse to this extent, let alone creating such pure black stones.

He grinned, revealing deep dimples, and smiled radiantly. He asked his final question slowly:

"What is it you seek?"

The old man croaked, "What I seek is to be a mere pawn in your game, to shatter into dust without hesitation for your sake."

Mo Ran burst into laughter, highly pleased with the outcome. He then used the remaining chess pieces to create nine more corpses, selecting fresh, recently buried bodies that still had intact flesh and hadn't been devoured.

These corpses were weak and frail, capable of being knocked down by a mere gust of wind, devoid of any strength. But in Mo Ran's eyes, they shimmered with a frenzied, ecstatic gleam.

He fished out ten small boxes from his Qiankun Pouch, opening one to reveal two tiny, crimson insects coiled together, locked in an intimate embrace.

"Alright, you two have had your fun. Now, please restrain yourselves and fulfill your purpose," Mo Ran said lazily. With a flick of his finger, he separated the mating insects and plucked out the male, addressing the first corpse turned chess piece. "Fellow, I beg of you, open your stinking mouth."

The old man obediently opened his mouth, revealing his rotten tongue. Mo Ran tossed the male insect inside, saying, "Swallow it."

There was no resistance, no hesitation.

The corpse willingly consumed the Soul Devouring Bug.

Mo Ran repeated this process, feeding all the male bugs in the boxes to the other corpses before instructing, "That's it, lie back down. Rest now."

The following day, Mo Ran conjured another ten black chess pieces, also damaged but without expending much spiritual energy. Afterward, he attached all the remaining female Soul Devouring Bugs to the chess bodies and secretly implanted them into some junior disciples.

At first, these disciples only felt a slight itch on their backs but didn't experience anything unusual. Mo Ran wasn't in a hurry; he was waiting...

When the female Soul Devouring Beetles laid their eggs, they left behind larvae that resonated with the male beetles within these disciples' hearts.

In this way, two unrelated pawns became interconnected through the adult and larval beetles, forming a parent-child puppet pair.

It was like flying a kite – the fragile corpses served as the kite string, one end tied to Mo Ran, the other to the more powerful Zhenlong black piece. Mo Ran only needed to issue a command to the corpse hiding the adult beetle, and the other corpse encapsulating the corresponding larva would mimic the exact same action.

This was called Shared Mind.

This ultimate technique was conceived by Mo Ran himself. Before him, only Grandmasters had access to the Zhenlong Chess Game. Those individuals were not lacking in spiritual energy, nor were they deranged enough to attempt creating thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of Zhenlong chess pieces. Thus, they had no need to devise such cunning methods.

And at that time, the Mo Ran, who was obsessed with dark arts, was utterly unaware that he had done something horrifying that no one in the cultivation world had accomplished in tens of thousands of years —

He had made a cataclysmic demonic technique accessible to anyone.

Available to all.

"Brother!"

Suddenly, a fierce cry echoed in his ear.

Mo Ran jolted awake, a bloody flash already darting before his eyes.

The vengeful spirit of the phoenix buried within Phoenix Mountain had sprouted more vines than before, striking fiercely. Phoenixes were creatures known for their swift flight, and Mo Ran was unable to evade in time. His shoulder was suddenly slashed open, blood gushing out in an instant.

Xue Meng exclaimed, "Are you alright?!"

"Stay back!" Mo Ran gasped, his gaze icy as he stared at the serpentine blood vines slithering on the ground, ready to pounce again for another assault. He sternly warned Xue Meng, "Quickly, go to Master! Tell him to stop! Make everyone stop!"

Blood dripped steadily, but he held tightly onto the heart in his hand, along with the chess piece.

Thoughts raced through his mind, a myriad of emotions surging.

This was indeed the Heart Connection Formation, even more refined than in his previous life. But no matter how improved, its principle remained the same: only by preserving the parent body here could the power of the child body on the other side be unleashed.

Mo Ran's fingers clenched around the precious chess piece, his entire body still trembling— not from the pain in his shoulder, but from the chill and fear creeping up from his feet.

There was no doubt that someone had been reborn.

But did that person know that he, too, was a revenant, living a second life? If they did, then...

A chill ran down his spine, and Mo Ran suddenly felt utterly hopeless.

Before him, he could almost see Heaven-Stepping Lord's pale face, adorned with a nine-tasseled crown, trembling with malevolence as he sneered with bared teeth.

He sat high on his dragon throne, propping his chin up with one hand, cold and mocking—

"Grandmaster Mo, run if you can. Where do you think you'll escape to?"

Phantoms swarmed around him like a tide, all the people he had killed in his past life, all the debts he owed.

He saw Shi Mo drenched in blood, saw Wanning's ashen face, saw a hanged woman dragging her three-foot-long white silk, and a man whose belly had been ripped open, intestines spilling onto the ground.

They were all coming to claim their due.

"You can't hide forever."

"Some already know the filthy soul hidden inside your shell. You'll never find peace in the afterlife."

Mo Ran closed his eyes.

If the person behind the scenes truly knew that he had also been reborn, and if that person were to expose every detail of his past, then... what should he do?

He dared not entertain such thoughts any further.

Author's Note: Boss says, "I enjoy this feeling, where I can see you, but you can't see me."

Dogzi: Who exactly are you?

Boss: I am a young Azure Dragon, a young Azure Dragon, with many little secrets, little secrets!

Dogzi: ...Scram!