My Disciple Wants to Tease Me Every Day - Chapter 67

: Puzzle
The city lord’s servants had fished out a corpse from the sea. It looked like it had not been dead for long, but after being soaked in the water for a while, the corpse had bloated and rotted, and there were deep holes bitten into it in places. One eye remained but the other was gone, and there were some black insects crawling in and out of the rotting flesh.

As soon as the corpse was brought on shore, there was an overwhelming stench. Some of the weaker people around already could not take it, and ran to the side to vomit.

Di Jiufeng staggered to the front, and was immediately scared stiff by this corpse. She almost couldn’t walk, her eyes open wide, her face as pale as the dead.

Di Jiufeng had seen a few corpses by now, but never one which made her so terrified.

Not only was there disgust, there was also a bone-chilling sense of being watched. It felt like this corpse was alive, and it loathed her to the extreme.

Di Jiufeng shook violently, cold sweat pouring from her forehead, dripping from her sharp jaw to the ground, drop by drop, sweeping away all the warmth in her body.

Di Jiufeng was terrified, of course Ning Guang was the first to notice. She immediately threw aside the crowd and ran to the front, covering Di Jiufeng’s eyes with one hand, then stomping on the corpse’s head with her left foot.

With a crackle, the skull shattered into pieces.

The city lord drew in a cold breath, about to speak, but then he hesitated and walked over. “Uh, that… this, this…”

“That’s not my body.” Lin Hao had also caught up, and after looking at the body, he shook his head with certainty. “Though it is also a man’s corpse, it is not mine. I am missing a section of my little finger, I accidentally chopped it off while playing with an axe when I was young.” He raised his own right hand, and everyone could see that his little finger was clearly missing a section.

But the corpse on the ground, though it’s face was already destroyed, clearly had two complete hands.

The city lord let out a held breath. He wanted to say something to Ning Guang, but she completely ignored him, gently wiping Di Jiufeng’s sweat with a handkerchief.

“A-Feng, you’re so timid, why are you running around like this? Can’t you just stay by my side?”

Di Jiufeng did not respond. Her hands fisted in Ning Guang’s lapel, and she said in a trembling voice, “He, he, he just… he was watching me… the body… it’s, it’s still alive.” She was so scared she couldn’t even form complete sentences, but fortunately, the sense of being watched had disappeared completely when Ning Guang had crushed its head.

Di Jiufeng let out a held breath, but the goosebumps which had risen on her body one after another still made her shiver.

Ning Guang sighed, and pulled her into her embrace. The burning warmth pressed against Di Jiufeng’s body finally let her trembling subside. Ning Guang was about to say something, but right then, she felt the ghostly form’s storage space rock back and forth.

“En?” After a careful inspection, she discovered, to her surprise, that the rocking was caused by that bat. For some reason, it had suddenly gone mad, crashing back and forth within the energy barrier she had constructed, fangs bared, soon ripping off a layer of skin.

The little bat panted roughly, a red light growing from its usually terrified eyes.

Seeing this, Ning Guang suddenly thought of a possibility, and opened the storage space to let it out.

The little bat tumbled out from the storage space. It couldn’t catch its balance, and crashed to the ground. It seemed to have broken its wings, one side dropping, unable to straighten. But it didn’t turn to look. Propped up on one wing, it crawled over to throw itself at the corpse’s side.

It let out a sequence of squeaks. The sharp squeals were full of an unconcealable sadness.

The little bat circled the corpse twice, then threw itself on its face, uncaring of the dirt. It used its own round tummy to rub its half-decayed cheek and nosed at it, like it was trying to wake the person on the ground, but he was long dead, not a bit of soul left. It couldn’t react at all.

The little bat rubbed against it for a while. When it finally accepted the truth, it collapsed on the ground like all its air had been let out, tears pattering from its eyes.

Its movements had not been subtle, and Di Jiufeng was a bit curious. She pulled aside Ning Guang, opening a small crack to look through. She saw the bat’s grief-stricken crying, and vaguely understood something. “He was your master?”

The little bat was crying so hard it was unable to catch its breath, about to faint, it had no energy to respond to Di Jiufeng.

Seeing it like this, Di Jiufeng felt a bit of pity, so she allowed it to take its time and cry, until it had dried out all the tears in its body. After a cup of tea’s time, the little bat’s tears had finally subsided, and it was curled in a sobbing ball.

The little bat was limp, lying on the ground unmoving.

Di Jiufeng pulled Ning Guang over and poked it with the tip of her foot. “Can you talk now? Was this person your master? Make a sound if yes.”

The little bat gave a dispirited squeak.

To tell the truth, Di Jiufeng hoped it wouldn’t. After all, its master was the rare person who knew the truth, but now, this thread of clues had been cut off entirely.

Di Jiufeng was very disappointed. She did not speak for a while, until the city lord’s people went off once again to fish up Lin Hao’s real body. She asked the little bat, wishing for a miracle, “Did your master not put a spell on you? I remember that all surveillance bats form a contract with their masters.”

The bat thought, but was very certain its master had never done a spell in front of it, so it slowly shook its head.

“Hmph, your master is truly generous!” Now Di Jiufeng truly had nothing, she could only push Ning Guang to investigate the corpse. She didn’t know if their luck was bad or someone had intentionally done something, but other than a plain and ordinary set of hemp robes, there was not a single thing which could confirm its identity. And its face had already been completely obscured by decay and consumption.

Ning Guang looked, but she truly wasn’t so omniscient as to be able to find something from just a dead body.

But the fact that she couldn’t didn’t mean that no one else could. She called to Qing Yu and beckoned her hand, calling over the flower yao who had been squatting facing away from them and making a guest appearance as a mushroom.

Qing Yu reluctantly walked over. She had already guessed what Ning Guang wanted her to do, but with a flower yao’s sense of aesthetic, she really didn’t want to touch this body. It was ugly and smelled terrible, and it was this stupid bat’s master, it couldn’t have been very smart. But fearing Ning Guang’s power, she still squatted down in the end.

Qing Yu reached out a single finger in disgust, laying it on the corpse.

Right away, a few scenes appeared before her eyes. Next to this fierce sea, this man seemed to be arguing with someone, but Qing Yu could not see that person’s face. She only knew that the last thing he saw before he died was that he was struck by a cloud of demonic energy!

And then, that familiar ball of black fog.

Qing Yu furrowed her brows. “I saw it, it was that ball of black fog again. What could it be? Or should I say, who could it be?”

No one replied. They met eyes, seeing the same bewilderment on each other’s faces. Before, they thought that person was a friend, not an enemy, but now, they seemed to be an enemy, not a friend.

Di Jiufeng couldn’t figure it out. What was their relationship with the demon realm?

This corpse really smelled too horrible. After they failed to find any clues, Di Jiufeng did not want to be so close. She was going to walk away, but as she turned, she accidentally kicked its finger.

Her footsteps paused. Right after, she felt a familiar power coming from her toes.

It was demonic energy, demonic energy of the same origin as the energy inside her body. Di Jiufeng was shocked. She opened her mouth and stammered out, “He, the demonic energy in his body, is the same as mine! It’s so familiar, why would it be so familiar?”

Feeling this power from the same origin, Di Jiufeng had no time to fear. She looked down at the corpse’s face.

She carefully looked over its face again and again, trying in vain to glean some hint from the bloated and rotten flesh.

But unfortunately, there was none…

“What was his relationship to me, why do we have the same sort of demonic energy?! How did he die so suddenly? Did the person who killed him know something?!”

As a cultivator, being corrupted by demonic energy meant death. If she was purely a cultivator, she should have died long ago when the demonic energy activated.

But not only had she not died, she was even able to control demonic energy so proficiently.

It wasn’t like some things would cease to exist as long as she wasn’t thinking about them. Deep down, Di Jiufeng had already begun to wonder whether she was human or demon. But if she was a demon, as a member of the highly-valued blood demon line, what sort of person could have power of the same origin as hers was clear!

They must be family, this corpse on the ground was her family!

As an orphan, Di Jiufeng had always wanted a family. But when someone with a blood relationship to her finally appeared, he was dead!

Di Jiufeng was panicking a bit.

Seeing her at a loss, Ning Guang immediately took her hand and comforted her. “A-Feng, don’t be afraid, just because he’s dead doesn’t mean that the thread of clues is broken. Have you forgotten the Lin family’s genealogical record? If he sent someone to steal the core, he must know something. If I have not guessed wrong, Lin Hao’s grandfather should be a member of the Lin family. If he gave the genealogical record to Lin Hao, that must mean the Lin family has some information. I will go search, maybe we can find some clues.

And, A-Feng, have you seen? There’s something strange about this body.”

Ning Guang’s burning-hot warmth spread through her hand, into her cold fingertips, slowly steadying her heart. Di Jiufeng turned away, took two deep breaths, then asked, “What’s wrong with the body?”

Ning Guang squeezed her hand and said, “This body truly looks like it was murdered and thrown into the sea, I was almost tricked. But I just thought of something. If it was newly dead, the demon soul would not be completely gone. Though my ghostly cultivation would not devour it, there would still be a reaction, but just now…”

Di Jiufeng asked, “Just now what?”

Ning Guang paused, then said, “Just now, I made sure to investigate it with my ghostly cultivation. There is not a trace of a soul left in its body. If his soul was not instantly dispersed, then he must have been dead for a long time. But if his soul was instantly dispersed, it wouldn’t be so complete that not a trace was left behind, so I believe that someone had intentionally preserved his body, just to toss it into the sea now.”

“Intentionally preserved his body, just to toss it into the sea now?”

Notes:

This chapter was translated by Lily.