23 The Twenty-Third Pig

The Twelfth District had no laws. When Li Zhenzhen first arrived, driven mad by poverty, there was no grave she hadn't robbed.

She knew nothing of the tombs of cultivators, but she knew ancient tombs all too well. The burial chambers of high-ranking officials and nobles in antiquity relied on nothing more than shifting sand layers, mercury pools, and self-igniting fire traps. Fearing their final resting places would be plundered, the masters of these grand tombs would stock them with methane and phosphorus. One was a combustible gas, the other a highly flammable substance; once either touched an open flame, an explosion was inevitable.

Fortunately, when Li Zhenzhen was building her chicken coop, she had taken the time to make several fire starters from the fine fuzz of bamboo, which greatly improved the efficiency of her rebellion. Otherwise, she would have had to drill wood for fire today. And who knew how long that would have taken.

On the other side, the cultivator was so stunned by Li Zhenzhen’s feat of burning down everyone’s ancestral graves that he was speechless for a long time. He didn't care that the sacrificial rites had been disrupted; after all, he wasn't a subordinate of the Ghost Lord. If one were to be precise, he had spent a few years as a cleaning servant in the Liuxue Palace of the Immortal Venerable Taiqing. Taiqing and the Ghost Lord were mortal enemies, so he should have been happy to see the Ghost Lord’s ceremony ruined.

But the destruction of Changling was a different matter. His own ancestors rested there.

The cultivator suddenly whipped his head around, staring fixedly at Li Zhenzhen, his eyes burning as if with fire: "You insolent brat, how dare you!"

The sound was like a thunderous drumbeat, and Li Zhenzhen was instantly struck, blood pouring from her seven orifices. She wiped the blood from her eyes and scoffed: "What? If you don't fear life or death, then just fight. Why wouldn't I dare? You’re allowed to hunt us down and kill us, but I can't burn your ancestral grave?"

The cultivator growled: "You commoner of no status, your life is worthless! How can you compare yourself to our ancestors!"

Li Zhenzhen retorted: "Your ancestors are nothing but a pile of dirt now. I’ve scattered them, so what? They’re just dead bodies—what would it matter if I fed them to the dogs?"

Never having suffered such an insulting humiliation, the cultivator’s eyes turned blood-red, and he was so furious he nearly vomited blood. In his blind rage, he disregarded the fact that True Person Qiyan was still waiting for her human medicine and unleashed a blast of violent energy toward Li Zhenzhen.

Trapped in the golden net, Li Zhenzhen could not dodge and took the full force of the blow. The ghost mask she wore had held up for so long, but it could not withstand such abuse; with a "snap," it shattered into powder.

Li Zhenzhen’s blood-stained profile was exposed to the sunlight.

Behind the previously silent curtains, the sound of a falling cup suddenly rang out. Shen Que’s heart pounded violently. Through the gauze, he stared fixedly at that familiar profile.

The emotions in his eyes shifted from disbelief to a heavy sigh, and then to an overflowing, ecstatic joy, his fingertips trembling.

The attendants beside him exchanged glances. Even if this assassin were Lady Weng, having committed such a heinous crime, the Island Master should have had her imprisoned in the sea and executed publicly to set an example. But seeing the Island Master’s reaction now, it was clear he had no intention of punishing her. They truly could not understand how the usually decisive Island Master, who had beauties as plentiful as the river, had fallen for Lady Weng at first sight and become so muddled regarding her affairs.

-

Li Zhenzhen was a little surprised. She had expected that blast of energy to break at least two of her bones, but she only coughed up a bit of stagnant blood.

The cultivator was equally shocked. He had expected a mere mortal to be blown into fragments by that palm strike, yet she remained unscathed. And she was a woman! What kind of monster was she?

"Are you finished?" Li Zhenzhen wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and said calmly: "If you're done, it's my turn."

Suddenly, a brilliant blue light surged from her body, rippling outward like water across a calm lake. The surrounding air was distorted by an invisible matrix, the wind howling more mournfully, and even the falling snow seemed to freeze in place under the pressure of this power.

Wings spread, mind and soul as one. No evil could interfere; nothing could invade.

A frigid energy seeped into the cultivator’s body. Realizing what it was, the cultivator’s eyes widened in horror: "This is... the Qingyun Blade of the Wanqi clan! You are a mere mortal, how could you master such a high-level technique of a Void-Refining cultivator!"

So, the first cultivator she had killed was surnamed Wanqi.

"What Qingyun Blade? Never heard of it. I call this the Pig-Slaughtering Blade." Li Zhenzhen denied it without changing her expression. "You like slow-slicing, right? What a coincidence, I like eating sliced pork too."

"Stay away..." The cultivator’s features twisted in terror: "Stay away, ahhhhh—"

With a piercing scream, the cultivator’s body was sliced into countless pieces by the cyan light blades. Pieces of flesh separated from the fascia, sliding down and rolling across the ground.

Li Zhenzhen finally understood: this Qingyun Blade was just an ancient, cultivation-era laser cutter. Anything it touched along its path would be sliced apart by its destructive power. It even had multiple settings and could change its form at will. If she wanted slices, she got slices; if she wanted cubes, she got cubes; if she wanted shreds... she hadn't tried that yet, but she would next time.

As the Qingyun Blade tried to continue slicing outward, Li Zhenzhen tried reciting the incantation Deng Xizhi had taught her in reverse.

The Qingyun Blade hesitated in mid-air, as if it felt something was wrong with the command. It spun like a clock hand for a moment, seemingly stalling for time. Finally, it reluctantly retreated back into Li Zhenzhen’s body.

Li Zhenzhen felt like she had just recalled a husky.

The other cultivator was terrified. Seeing Li Zhenzhen stand up, he scrambled backward. Li Zhenzhen walked up to him and picked up the golden net from the ground.

"This net of yours is not bad." Li Zhenzhen tucked the net into her waistband: "I’ll gladly accept it."

"I'll give it to you... I'll give you everything, just don't kill me." The cultivator was weeping and snotting, kneeling on the ground and begging piteously: "I have elders at home, my child was just born... he cannot grow up without a father."

Li Zhenzhen felt this line was familiar, but after thinking for a long time, she couldn't remember where she had heard it.

"You talk quite interestingly. If you stepped on an ant today, would you ask the ant if it agreed?"

She crouched in front of him, pinching his chin with her index finger to lift his head, staring at him.

"—We shall never meet again."

With the blade available to play again, it joyfully solidified, instantly slicing the cultivator’s body into pieces.

-

Seeing that even the powerful cultivators under True Person Qiyan had been killed by Li Zhenzhen, the Crane Guards dared not fight further. Wherever Li Zhenzhen walked, the crowd parted like Moses dividing the sea, fleeing in fear to both sides.

Of the forty-nine giant pillars, only broken walls and ruins remained; some leaned as if they would collapse at any moment, while others had already crumbled into piles of rubble. Glazed roof tiles were scattered everywhere, jade-carved doors and windows were shattered, and the paint on the walls peeled away to reveal the rough brick and stone beneath. Broken pearls, jade, and fractured wine vessels lay scattered among the corpses of the slaughtered nobility.

The human sacrifices, however, had escaped the catastrophe because the sacrificial platform was empty and easy to navigate. They huddled in the corner, terrified, and as Li Zhenzhen walked toward them, they squeezed desperately away. Some even curled their feet inward, not daring to let their dirty clothes touch her.

"Snap." Li Zhenzhen cut the chains from their bodies.

"Run," she said. "Run as far as you can. Do not cling to your homeland; wherever you survive, that is your home."