Chapter Fifteen: The Fifteenth Pig
At that moment, Li Zhenzhen heard a faint, delicate sound overhead—like the wings of a mayfly being crushed. Behind the curtain, the candlelight flickered gently. Deng Xizhi’s thick lashes drooped as she blinked slowly. The system, oblivious to the tension, babbled on, “At least give him some tonic to replenish his blood and qi! Look at how much blood he’s lost!”
This time, Li Zhenzhen didn’t argue back. Instead, she coaxed it, “Alright, alright. Tomorrow I’ll make him some brown sugar water to boost his meditation energy… Wait, did I just hear a chicken escaping?”
The system tilted its head to listen, but unable to enhance its senses due to a broken connection, it heard nothing and doubted, “Did you really?”
“Damn it.” Li Zhenzhen suddenly stood up. “The chicken’s running down the mountain!”
“…I knew that chicken was restless.”
The system had been craving that chicken for a long time. Hearing its food source was escaping, it abandoned any discussion about the protagonist’s nutritional regimen and leapt out the window, chasing after it in a panic. “I’ll catch it immediately!”
Li Zhenzhen watched the system’s retreating figure and settled back by the fire. She poked at the embers and murmured, “Since you’re here, why not show yourself, friend?”
Suddenly, the rooftop crackled as bamboo strips snapped. These strips, she had painstakingly shaved and laid piece by piece herself. Thinking about having to redo the roof made her hands ache. “The window’s open; please use that to come in.”
A pause on the roof was followed by muffled whispers in the dark. Three shadowy figures leapt through the window, all wearing ghost masks.
Ghost-faced men again.
Li Zhenzhen felt a twinge of disappointment.
While Li Zhenzhen could perceive nothing unusual, Deng Xizhi sensed at a glance that these three were no ordinary mortals. Two were at the Refining Artifact stage, and one was a high-level cultivator in the Void Refining realm.
He had slain countless outsiders before; the feeling of killing such beings was no different from dispatching ordinary cultivators. Yet, strangely, the woman he had gutted was still alive.
Deng Xizhi lightly rubbed his thumb—the very same motion he had made after killing the female protagonist.
Li Zhenzhen addressed the leader of the ghost-faced men, “Are you here to kill me or to question me? I said all I had last time.”
The three exchanged glances.
The leader answered, “Neither. We’re here to capture you.”
Li Zhenzhen blinked. “Capture me? For what?”
The seemingly honest ghost-faced henchman replied, “The island lord wants to take you to be made into a furnace vessel for his sister.”
Li Zhenzhen was speechless.
Deng Xizhi remained silent.
Li Zhenzhen pointed to herself. “Me?”
The henchman nodded.
She asked incredulously, “I’m a woman. Can a woman really be made into a furnace vessel for another woman?”
The henchman’s expression was indescribable, but with the mask, she couldn’t see it clearly. “Though it’s never been done before, in principle it should be possible.”
Li Zhenzhen sighed and stood. “Then come and try.”
From the first moment of combat, Li Zhenzhen realized these three, though seemingly clumsy, were truly formidable—stronger than all her previous opponents combined.
Perhaps considering the high-ranking figures' distaste for mutilating furnace vessel corpses, they held back from lethal blows.
Before five minutes had passed, one of the “clumsy” ones slammed her against the window with a heavy palm.
The bamboo strips couldn’t withstand the force and shattered instantly.
Li Zhenzhen spat blood as her internal organs were battered into a mess.
Seeing the window she had spent two days making reduced to splinters made her head throb.
The ghost-faced man glanced at the wrecked window and, recalling her warning not to tread on the roof, felt somewhat ashamed. “Sorry, I misjudged the strength.”
Li Zhenzhen was speechless.
Two more ghost-faced men attacked from the sides.
She desperately recalled the hand seals the male cultivator had made but couldn’t discern what she was doing wrong. No matter how many times she tried, nothing happened.
Spotting an opening, she slipped past one ghost-faced man’s crotch, then with a backhand plunged her pork cleaver into the back of another’s skull.
Bending backward, she slashed the throat of the third.
She heard a crisp snap—the sound of her wrist bone fracturing.
Blood sprayed out, brain matter splattering onto her face.
The last ghost-faced man hesitated, either shocked that a woman dared to maneuver between men’s legs or stunned that a mortal could kill two Refining Artifact cultivators in succession.
Li Zhenzhen leaned against the wall, clutching her broken wrist, gasping for breath.
She had none of Han Xin’s pride; in a life-or-death fight, survival was all that mattered.
Yet the situation was grim.
Exhausted, legs weak, one hand broken, and still one ghost-faced man left—the strongest one.
There was no way she could win.
Might as well become the furnace vessel.
A woman’s fate is a woman’s fate.
Closing her eyes could make it all pass.
Li Zhenzhen tried her seals again and again, attempting to activate her powers.
Still no success.
Just as in the previous relentless battles, every attempt was futile.
Even the divine search ability she had accidentally triggered when killing the fisherman failed to manifest.
Why?
What had she done wrong?
The last ghost-faced man stepped over his fallen comrades.
They were merely killing machines of the island lord, unconcerned by the deaths of their own.
He looked at Li Zhenzhen with a hint of admiration. “Your body is remarkably resilient—truly suitable to be a furnace vessel.”
Li Zhenzhen was speechless.
He seemed to take this capture mission seriously at last, pondering aloud, “It’s 1,350 kilometers to the Qiyan Pavilion. You’re a mortal, unable to teleport; you can only fly slowly. If I catch you, will you try to escape along the way?”
Li Zhenzhen: “...Probably.”
“Then there’s no choice.” He looked regretful but also somewhat ashamed. “I'm sorry, but I cannot assist with that request.