Chapter 922: Union

Chapter 922: Convergence

Li Sui sat in Zuoqiu Yong’s study, gorging on flesh while teasing the ink-monkey sleeping in a brush pot, all the while playing with her three clay figurines.

"Father, don't worry, I'm doing just fine here. Auntie is a good person, she takes such good care of me. I’ll wait for you obediently. Now, how many months is one hundred and eighty years again?" Li Sui spoke to the figurines to pass the time.

Just as she set down her meal to count on her tentacles, a sharp "snap" echoed; the lanterns died, and the room plunged into absolute darkness.

"Hm? What’s wrong?" Before she could react, a chill touched her neck, and the delicate head of Princess Anping went flying.

As a dozen tentacles erupted from the severed neck, writhing frantically, Li Sui’s body was violently knocked away.

A blood-soaked dog’s head emerged from beneath her skirt, sensing the lethal danger in the dark, and panic seized her heart. "Auntie! Help! Someone is trying to kill me!"

But from Zuoqiu Yong’s room, just across the way, there was no response.

"No! Why didn't Auntie come? Is she in danger? I have to escape, and I have to save her too!"

"Banruojiedi! Mohewanluorenli!" As the cryptic incantation began, Li Sui felt her head splitting, as if something were burrowing into her brain.

She tried to strike back, but her assailants were prepared; in the void of darkness, she was blind, unable to even see who was attacking her.

"Auntie! Help me, please..." Li Sui lunged toward the door with her final ounce of strength.

Yet as she groped forward, her tentacles inches from the frame, the room stretched into an impossible distance, the door receding to the horizon.

Simultaneously, a searing pain tore through her back; her body stiffened, and when she reached for her chest, she found a gaping hole, clear through to the other side.

"I cannot die! I still have to save my father!" With that thought, all her tentacles burst forth from her mangled frame.

But in the next instant, they were seized and yanked violently in every direction.

With the wet sound of tearing flesh and a spray of gore, the room fell silent.

To the three who knew her every capability, Li Sui’s reactions had all been anticipated.

"Brother, is this thing dead?" a woman’s voice whispered in the dark.

The lanterns were relit, and the eldest brother grumbled at his younger sibling, "Why did you tear it to pieces? Do you know how many Immaculate Longevity Pills this would have fetched?"

The woman urged them on. "Brother, clean this up quickly. Don't argue; this is the Master’s study."

"Should we let the Master take a look?"

"No need. The Master of the Astrological Bureau is too kind-hearted to look at this." The eldest pulled out a patched sack and swept the remains inside.

The trio exited, bowed respectfully toward Zuoqiu Yong’s room, and hurried away.

Once outside, they beamed; this job had been a windfall.

"This was a gift from the Master, so keep quiet. If Zhang Tude finds out, it might cause trouble. Scatter, go one by one, and meet at the old spot outside the city."

The third brother grumbled, "I don't believe he’d dare rob us openly within the Bureau. Look at him—you’d think he ran the place."

"Don't waste breath on his kind. We are the Master’s confidants now; soon, we’ll have him crawling. Go!"

The two nodded and vanished through different exits.

The eldest, carrying the heavy sack, moved with caution until nightfall brought him to the old temple.

It was a ruin, but beneath it lay a secret burrow dug by a rat-spirit.

As he descended, his siblings were already waiting.

"Brother, you’re slow. If we weren't kin, I’d think you’d run off with the prize."

The moment they touched, the eldest’s mouth split open, and flat, black tentacles surged out, burrowing into his sister’s orifices.

"Why did you try to kill me!" the eldest roared, his sack writhing—Li Sui was not dead.

Caught off guard, the first fell, and before the last could flee, he too was consumed by the flat tentacles.

When the dust settled, the eldest pulled the sack from his back, revealing the gaping hole where his flesh had fused with the bag.

The sack had been breached long ago; Li Sui’s tentacles had already permeated the man’s entire body.

To be precise, the man was now Li Sui, the host of the Black Taishui.

Controlling the body, Li Sui knelt, sobbing as she pulled the bloody, severed pieces from the sack.

As she absorbed the shadows from the remains, her thin tentacles regained their strength.

She found the withered, curled human skin—her father’s skin. He had given it to her for protection, saying that in this world, aside from Mother, she was his greatest concern.

It was Father’s worry that had saved her life.

Weeping, Li Sui continued to search until she found the three clay figurines, clutching them to her chest. "Father! Why did Auntie want to kill me? I liked her so much. Didn't she say I was her kin? Were all those words lies?"

Li Huowai, one hundred and eighty years later, did not answer, but Li Sui realized the truth herself.

As the man’s mature memories merged with her own, her innocence shattered, and the contradictions became clear.

The most glaring was Xuan Pin: as the Master of the Astrological Bureau of Great Liang, could he truly enter Great Qi so easily? And be so close to the Qi Bureau?

The vanished text on the robes, the shifting voices—everything pointed to one conclusion: Zuoqiu Yong was a fraud, and everything she had said was a lie.