The Unruly Immortals

Li Sui sat in Zuo Qiuyong's study, devouring the flesh with big bites, while teasing the ink monkey sleeping in the pen holder, and didn't forget to take out the three clay figurines to play with.

"Dad, don't worry, I'm doing well here. Aunt is a good person, she takes good care of me. I'll wait for you obediently. A hundred and eighty years is... how many months again?" Li Huowang talked to the clay figurine to amuse himself.

Just as Li Sui put down the flesh and was counting numbers with tentacles, there was a "pop" sound. The lanterns all went out, and the room instantly plunged into darkness.

"Hmm? What's going on?" Before Li Sui could react, she suddenly felt a chill on her neck, and, in the next instant, her delicate head as the An Ping Princess flew up.

Just as the dozen or so tentacles wriggled quickly out of the cut, Li Sui's body was violently knocked away.

A blood-covered dog's head emerged from under the hem of her skirt, immediately sensing extreme danger in the pitch blackness, causing her heart to feel very frightened. "Aunt! Help! Someone's trying to kill me!!"

But there was no reaction at all from Zuo Qiuyong's side, just a room away.

"Oh no! Why hasn't Aunt come? Could she be in danger?"

"Panluo Jiedi! Mohe Wanluo Renli!" With the difficult-to-understand incantations ringing out, Li Sui immediately felt a splitting headache, as if something was drilling into her brain.

She wanted to fight back, but the opponent seemed to be well-prepared, making it impossible for Li Sui to see anything in this darkness. At the moment, she couldn't even see who was attacking her.

"Aunt! Help... help me..." Li Sui used her last bit of strength to fling herself toward the study door.

But just as she was groping forwards and her tentacle was about to touch the doorframe, the entire space of the study suddenly stretched. The doorframe that had been so close was now as far as the horizon.

Simultaneously, a sharp pain suddenly erupted from Li Sui's back, her uncontrollable body stiffened, and when she touched her chest, she found a large, through-and-through hole.

"I can't die! I still have to save my dad!" Thinking this, Li Sui's tentacles instantly drilled out from her shattered body.

But in the next moment, Li Sui felt all her tentacles being forcefully pulled, being torn violently in all directions.

Accompanied by the fierce sound of flesh tearing, the room quieted down in an instant.

For the three who already knew all of Li Sui's abilities, any reaction from her was within their expectations.

"Bro, is this thing dead?" A female voice sounded in the darkness.

The extinguished lanterns gradually relit, and the leader of the three complained discontentedly to his third brother, "Why make it so broken! Do you know how many Immaculate Yangshou Pills this thing would be worth if sold?"

The woman next to him hurriedly persuaded her brother. "Bro, hurry up and clean this place up, stop arguing, this is the master's study after all."

"Should we let the master take a look first?"

"No need, the Lord of the Astrological Bureau is kind-hearted and can't bear to see this." As the big brother took out a patched cloth bag and forcefully scooped it up, all the flesh on the ground was instantly sucked into it.

The three quickly left, paying a respectful bow towards Zuo Qiuyong's room before hastily departing from inside.

Upon exiting the residence of the Astrological Bureau's lord, the trio's brows immediately lifted with joy; this task had yielded a great profit.

"This thing was bestowed to us by the master, don't spread it around. If Zhang Tude finds out, he might ruin things. Let's disperse, leave one by one, and meet at the usual spot outside the city."

Hearing this, the third brother's expression turned indignant, as if he had a grudge against that person. "I don't believe it, dare he steal right under the Bureau's nose? Looking at him, you would think he's the head of the Astrological Bureau."

"There's no need to argue with such people. We are the master's trusted ones now, and soon enough, we will make him tuck his tail between his legs in the Bureau! Disperse!"

Hearing the big brother's words, the siblings nodded immediately, separating to leave through different exits of the Astrological Bureau.

The big brother, carrying the most conspicuous thing, hid as discreetly as possible, reaching the usual spot only after dark.

The place was a ruined temple, but only the siblings knew there was more beneath it—a big pit dug out by a rat demon.

When he had just come down through the hole with the sack on his back, the two siblings couldn't wait any longer and immediately went to him.

"Bro, why are you so slow? If we weren't blood brothers, I'd think you ran off with the goods."

Just as they made contact, the brother opened his mouth, and a few flat black tentacles immediately sprang out, burrowing into his sister's seven orifices.

"Why did you try to kill me!" With the brother's angry roar, the sack on his back squirmed rapidly—Li Sui wasn't dead.

Seizing the chance for a surprise attack on one, the last remaining sibling wanted to run but was too late, ultimately being consumed by the flat tentacles.

When everything settled down, the brother extended his hand to pull the sack from his back, exposing the bloodied gaping hole between the sack and his back.

The sack had already been punctured at some unknown time, and Li Sui's tentacles had long since spread all over the brother's body through this hole.

To be precise, this person was now called Li Sui, the host body of the parasitic Black Taisui.

Controlled by Li Sui, the brother's body staggered and knelt to the ground, choking with sobs as he removed the sack from his back, from which scattered bloody corpses fell out.

As Li Sui absorbed the shadows from the corpse pieces, her thin tentacles became full again.

Li Sui, controlling the new body, found the shriveled, curled human skin among the corpse pieces. It was her father's skin. He'd given it to her for protection, saying that in this world, besides mom, he couldn't leave her unprotected...

Her father's former worries had saved her life.

Sobbing, Li Sui, controlled the new body, continued searching while kneeling on the ground and eventually embraced the three clay figurines tightly to her chest. "Dad! Why did Aunt want to kill me? I clearly liked her so much. Didn't she say I was her family? Were all her words lies?"

This question remained unanswered by Li Huowang a hundred and eighty years later, but Li Sui herself had figured it out.

As this person's matured thoughts merged with Li Sui, she was no longer naive, quickly identifying glaring contradictions from past details.

The biggest contradiction was the Xuan Pin. As the Astronomical Bureau investigator of Da Liang, was it truly so easy for him to come to Da Qi? Moreover, having such a good relationship with Da Qi's Astronomical Bureau? Inviting him so casually?

Combined with different little details, the disappearing writings on the Taoist robe, the changing voice, everything pointed to one thing: Zuo Qiuyong was a fraud, and everything she said was false.