He is a Demonic Cultivator
Bai Feng... isn't that Bai Fangsui's alias?
Less than an hour had passed, and she had already eliminated a hundred disciples!
Yingshi felt a surge of admiration, and then suddenly realized that the name Qifeng Plains sounded very familiar. Had she heard it just now?
She didn't need to think about it for long. The figure that appeared almost simultaneously with the heavenly voice directly explained everything—
The "man" still dressed in cold white clothes flew down from a cliff several meters high and landed in front of Yingshi and the others. Aside from frowning for a moment when she saw Shuangjian, her expression remained unchanged. Without saying a single unnecessary word, she attacked them!
Bai Fangsui was ruthless and spoke little. She was like this in the original book's plot as well, solely focused on eliminating everyone she encountered. However, when she met the male lead, she remembered his kindness from a few days ago and chose to show mercy. She even worried that the male lead, who was hiding his true strength, would have trouble protecting himself in the Tianshan Snow Plains, so she traveled together with him.
But now, Shuangjian had never helped her conceal her female identity; to her, he was just an ordinary passerby.
Yingshi was even a little surprised. Why did it feel like Bai Fangsui really hated Shuangjian?
Her moves were entirely aimed at Shuangjian in the back, completely ignoring her, who was objectively closer, and Qin Yuman, who had absolutely no ability to resist.
Yingshi was extremely anxious, but having been turned into a puppet, she temporarily lost the ability to actively participate in the fight. What made her even more anxious was that when facing Bai Fangsui's attack, Shuangjian didn't respond immediately. Instead, he distracted himself to control her to move further away. That was not how puppets were supposed to be used!
"Don't worry about me! Take care of yourself first!" she shouted hastily, but Shuangjian still persistently led her to retreat to the periphery, a place where she would absolutely not be affected.
Bai Fangsui also seemed to scoff at Shuangjian's distraction. Her eyes grew colder, and in an instant, she had already charged to Shuangjian's side. Her body was shrouded in a hazy spiritual light, incredibly holy and even a bit dazzling, showing its immense strength.
The spiritual light fiercely slashed towards the beaded bracelet on Shuangjian's wrist following her neat attack—but another figure suddenly stood up and intercepted the blow.
Qin Yuman's head hung low, like a corpse resurrected on the spot. He forcefully blocked Bai Fangsui's path. The spiritual light slashed his chest, directly splitting his flesh and blood. The heads of the remaining wooden puppets hidden in his arms were also chopped off, and countless weird heads resembling voodoo dolls suddenly appeared on the snow.
Bai Fangsui's pupils couldn't help but shrink at a glance. She bit her lip, took a step back, suppressed the repulsion in her heart, and flew around to the back, ready to attack Han Shuangjian again...
She remembered this person, the one who had bumped into her at the north of Wendao Peak, vomited blood, and then used her hairpin to mutilate himself.
She had sensed his gloomy and crazy nature at that time, anticipating that he would go astray sooner or later.
Meeting again in the Tianshan Snow Plains today, this person's puppet technique was actually so exquisite, but he used it on a fellow disciple cultivator. As soon as his mind-controlling technique was revealed, it was enough to show his evil nature. What difference was there between him and a demonic cultivator?
The spiritual light in Bai Fangsui's palm turned into an astonishing white rainbow, piercing straight towards Shuangjian's back.
But Shuangjian neither dodged nor avoided it. He just moved his fingertips slightly, and Qin Yuman's figure slid backward quickly like a ghost, bending his hand into an arc that did not conform to human anatomy, once again using his physical body to take her blow.
His palm was directly beaten until it was dripping with blood, making Bai Fangsui's brows jump involuntarily!
When she eliminated disciples, she was always decisive and neat. Every move was aimed at destroying the beaded bracelet, and she would never inflict extra violence. At this moment, however, she passively caused terrifying damage to Qin Yuman, and her mind inevitably wavered...
"Crooked and evil ways!" Bai Fangsui scolded angrily, her eyes cold and sharp. "Do you dare to take one of my moves fair and square!"
...
Shuangjian didn't want to say a single word.
He could feel Yingshi's anxious gaze still locked on him. Perhaps she was just worried about his safety right now and wouldn't link the confrontation in front of her to the original text she had read.
But Shuangjian's heart could not relax. He was afraid that Yingshi would make associations between him and the original male lead, and he was afraid of feeling her disgust and aversion again.
At this moment, he seemed even less able to bear her judgment. Now, recalling the potion splashed on his face on the day they first met, he could no longer recall the throbbing he felt at that time. He only felt as if he were drinking arsenic, experiencing boundless bitterness and sourness.
He swallowed the spreading dull pain, turned his head, and for the first time truly cast his gaze completely on Bai Fangsui, who was attacking again.
His eyes no longer held their previous evasion, leaving only a dead silence as if looking at an inanimate object.
A circle of invisible air waves exploded with the two of them at the center, ruthlessly clearing the surrounding snow and even exposing the black permafrost underneath.
Bai Fangsui raised her eyes in astonishment. She hadn't expected her fully charged strike to be dispelled so casually.
She also saw Shuangjian's eyes. Like a mirror image, not only was she repulsed by the gloomy and cold feeling on him due to her sharp perception, but he also seemed unable to hide his annoyance towards her.
Just in the moment she was stunned, a sudden pain came from her arm—unwittingly, the unconscious black-clothed puppet had quietly moved to her side. Its long, thin hand suddenly locked onto the beaded bracelet on her wrist, restraining her with a precise force rarely seen in ordinary puppets.
Bai Fangsui retreated in panic and forcefully blasted it away, only to see that cracks had already appeared on the beaded bracelet...
She was almost eliminated by a puppet just like that!
When she directed her gaze at Han Shuangjian again, her expression was inevitably complex, and a bit of annoyance and astonishment at being inferior in skill arose in her mind.
She had never seen this person's puppet-controlling movements at all. One should know that puppet techniques were divided into controlling living things and controlling dead things. When controlling an actual living person, it could not be done with spiritual power alone; there must be puppet threads as a medium. But he could actually make the puppet attack out of thin air, proving that his strength was unfathomable, far above hers, and far above other cultivators of the same age...
She heard that among the participating disciples in this competition, there was a puppet master named Qin Yuman, but she feared even he could not reach this level.
Then why had she never heard the name Han Shuangjian before?
Except for the emotional entanglement that had brewed up not long ago, he was basically a nobody.
A person with such strength absolutely shouldn't become famous merely through romantic anecdotes with his junior sister...
Just what... was his background?
In just a few breaths, Bai Fangsui struggled to take another move. Her expression became increasingly ugly, her breathing grew heavier, and she faintly showed signs of being outmatched.
Perhaps retreating now was the most correct choice, but how could she be willing to do so?
Being pressed closely by the puppet again, Bai Fangsui swept her peripheral vision over the woman standing blankly far away in the snow. Obviously, that was the other protagonist in the rumors, the Junior Sister surnamed Xu whom Han Shuangjian fancied...
Bai Fangsui had no time to think deeply. She simply seized the opportunity, gritted her teeth, and flew away—she disdained using dirty tricks, but when facing someone like Han Shuangjian who was definitely not a righteous person, it wouldn't hurt to use some schemes.
Master had also once said that those who do not know how to adapt due to some inexplicable persistence in their hearts are undoubtedly fools.
Since she knew Han Shuangjian's weakness, she should use it when necessary!
Thus, a dumbfounded Yingshi saw Bai Fangsui suddenly turn and fly toward her. Her expression was as cold as frost, carrying a surging murderous intent. Her hands quickly formed seals, and a bright white spiritual light, like a heaven-cleaving giant axe, slashed right at her!
Yingshi was firmly controlled by the Celestial Silkworm Weeping Silk. Without the guidance of a spellcaster, she couldn't move an inch. Watching helplessly as the attack was about to fall on her head, she could only hope that Shuangjian would react quickly and use Qin Yuman to take her away—but how could such a complicated and lengthy sounding process be fast enough?!
Moreover, after sustaining several injuries, Qin Yuman's hands no longer looked human, resembling chicken claws. Could he really still drive her?
Despair washed over Yingshi's heart, but how could she just wait for death?
In a flash of lightning, she braced herself and shouted loudly, Heroine, spare my life!
Bai Fangsui's most cared-about secret right now was her identity as a reserve goddess. Pointing it out directly would definitely make her vigilant. Perhaps, in order to interrogate her, she would retract her killing move?
Harboring such a plan, Yingshi attempted to use her mouth—the only thing that could still function—to protect herself. As she shouted, she tightly shut her eyes in fear.
However, even after the echo of her words had drifted halfway across the snowfield, the terrifying blow she had expected never fell upon her.
She still stood perfectly fine in her original spot, completely unharmed.
After a faint and crisp sound, the noises of spiritual energy tearing through the air brought about by the cultivators' clash all stopped. The entire area was left with nothing but silence, boundless silence.
...Heroine?
Yingshi's heart was pounding wildly. Ultimately unable to resist her curiosity, she quietly opened one eye—if her body weren't moving involuntarily, she probably would have been so startled that she'd have fallen flat on her butt in the snow.
Gone. Both Bai Fangsui and Qin Yuman's figures had disappeared!
It was as if the two who had taken turns appearing earlier were merely an illusion within the trial grounds. In the empty snowfield, only Shuangjian stood alone not far away, meeting her gaze and stepping toward her.
...How strange!
Yingshi couldn't help but want to ask: in the moment she closed her eyes, did some sort of time travel occur? Why did everyone suddenly disappear?
She should have been able to smoothly voice her doubts, but for some reason, looking at Shuangjian walking toward her, she once again experienced a subtle sense of coldness.
Unlike that distant look during the pre-competition match at the Yunshui Sect, Shuangjian didn't deliberately send out a cold signal to her this time. It was she herself who inexplicably felt a trace of unfamiliarity.
Perhaps it was because this was her first time seeing Shuangjian face an enemy head-on, so she was shocked.
He integrated into this alternate world far too well. He handled every opponent with such ease, and his method of controlling puppets was practically uncanny, like a local hidden expert, entirely free of mortal worldliness...
How should she describe it? It was like always interacting with a friend in private, and then one day running into them at their workplace, making you feel,
Chun Ri
Wow, so he has this side to him too.
But this didn't mean a friend was no longer a friend. In fact, the friend was showing a professional side just to protect you!
If she showed discomfort just because she was shocked, wouldn't that hurt her friend's feelings too much?
As soon as Yingshi thought of this, that bit of unfamiliarity lingering in her heart instantly dissipated. Belated relief overwhelmed everything else, and she said with utmost sincerity, Shuangjian! You are really amazing, much more amazing than the original male lead!
She really wanted to rush up and give him a big bear hug!
Although she still wasn't sure what had happened, offering praise first could never go wrong!
...
Shuangjian's stiff fingers finally smoothed out and rested back at his sides.
He unconsciously rubbed the fabric by his fingers lightly, afraid that Yingshi would continue talking about the original male lead, and took the initiative to explain to her at a somewhat fast pace, Bai Feng and Qin Yuman have been eliminated, which is why they were ejected from the trial grounds.
Sometimes, he did not like his own sharpness.
It made it too easy for him to notice the changes in Yingshi's thoughts.
He clearly sensed that the moment he approached her, she had briefly scrutinized him.
Fortunately, in that scrutiny, he had not been cast out...
The two of them were actually eliminated together? So what just happened? Everything was so sudden! Yingshi asked in a daze.
When Bai Fangsui attempted a sneak attack on you, I manipulated Qin Yuman to stop her in time and locked onto the beaded bracelet on her wrist. In her desperation, she took him down with her, Shuangjian answered with lowered eyes.
Is that really how it happened?
Yes.
No.
That wasn't how it happened.
Bai Fangsui had recklessly attacked Yingshi. That strike would have been difficult to block with Qin Yuman's physical body; only if he struck personally would he be in time.
Originally, resolving her smoothly would have been somewhat troublesome.
But Yingshi had closed her eyes.
Thus, in the moment she couldn't see, much more could happen.
...
No, you can't!
Bai Fangsui suddenly opened her eyes, as if waking from a nightmare.
She panted quickly and urgently, her left hand immediately covering her right wrist.
...Right, she had successfully shattered her own beaded bracelet, escaping by means of forfeiture.
But the sinister and evil feeling still seemed to linger on her body. She found it hard to forget the scene she had experienced not long ago—
The spiritual energy she had already unleashed actually froze in mid-air, quietly swallowed by a black substance spreading from behind.
When she turned her head in a wretched and astonished state, she only saw the sky-filling black mist resembling a mountain rising from the ground. They grew infinitely, madly eroding her protective spiritual light. She could feel her own spiritual energy being polluted and melted by this bizarre power... It was as if, it was as if her purification power as a goddess had been reversed against her!
All the strength in Bai Fangsui's body seemed to have been drained. The snow beneath her feet silently collapsed, and a dense, chilling coldness enveloped her. So there existed a moment in this world even more piercing than the mischief of a millennium-old cold jade...
And the person who had brewed all this hadn't even formed a seal; his palm merely seemed to make an empty grasping motion toward her.
...!
Bai Fangsui's hair stood on end. Before she saw Shuangjian's five fingers completely close together, she exerted all her strength and crushed the beaded bracelet on her wrist!
Two shattering sounds overlapped.
The black-clothed puppet man was originally kneeling in the snow in tattered clothes, but as the black mist swept past him, he seemed to be slightly affected as well, and the beaded bracelet on his wrist turned to powder at that very moment.
The wind and snow remained the same. The dense mist that blotted out the sky dispersed, and the two figures, one black and one white, had completely vanished from the snowfield.
...
Bai Fangsui's body trembled faintly. She raised her head and saw that on a certain platform a few meters away, which had similarly dimmed, the black-clothed puppet man who had been eliminated from the Tianshan snowfield alongside her was there. He seemed to be the most heavily injured person in the entire arena, remaining unconscious to this day.
They had both alike been injured by a demonic cultivator!
A demonic cultivator had actually infiltrated this year's Tiangang Martial Tournament!
With such distinct techniques, there was no other possibility...
Logically speaking, nothing that occurred within the trial grounds should escape the watchful eyes of the masters. Yet, the matches had not been halted. This indicated that the demonic cultivator likely possessed some covert method to deceive their senses. Unless one fought him personally, it would be nearly impossible to detect anything amiss... If this was true, it made the situation all the more terrifying!
Bai Fangsui's lips trembled. She had to report this matter to her master as soon as possible!
In the blink of an eye, the rogue cultivator Bai Feng, who had just achieved the legendary feat of shattering a hundred beads in a row, silently vanished into the crowd.
