Mu Anxiao clenched her soul sword and moved her arm away from the earlier embrace. "Shen Fengzi, what's going on?" she asked, glancing down at her soul sword.
Seeing Mu Anxiao unharmed, Feng Qishi breathed a sigh of relief. "I summoned your soul sword for you."
"That's not mine," Mu Anxiao turned to Feng Qishi, her expression still tense. "Me, the embrace, what was that? Did you figure it out?"
Because the situation had happened so suddenly, Mu Anxiao hadn't realized if the embrace was a soul or a person.
Like Mu Anxiao, Feng Qishi had only been focused on getting Mu Anxiao out of danger and hadn't noticed anything else.
"I didn't see anything?" he shook his head.
Mu Anxiao: "..." She shifted her gaze to Wan Sha's face.
Wan Sha looked down at Lin Yan, who was lying on the bed. "Not a soul, it's a person."
Mu Anxiao's eyes widened. "Their condition, is it different from his?"
Wan Sha: "Yes, it's different."
Hearing Wan Sha, Mu Anxiao retracted her soul sword and gently touched the arm that had been embraced earlier. "But I didn't feel any warmth."
Feng Qishi: "Maybe you were too nervous."
Mu Anxiao: "..." She glanced at Feng Qishi, worried about the situation of the embrace and those mortals.
Immediately, Piao drifted into the room and looked at Mu Anxiao. "It's not a person."
Hearing this, Mu Anxiao's body stiffened. She turned her head to look at Piao, who was staring at her with excitement. "What do you mean?"
"They have no feet, they're floating, they..." Piao narrowed his eyes. "They are all souls."
Mu Anxiao: "..."
Wan Sha turned to Piao. "Why do I feel like they are people?"
Piao: "I can clearly feel that they are human souls."
Mu Anxiao: "Did they die?"
Piao: "They might have experienced the same situation as Lin Yan."
"Same situation?" Mu Anxiao repeated, looking towards the bed. "What does the demon soul want?"
"They want to lure you out," Feng Qishi said seriously.
Mu Anxiao: "..." She felt uneasy.
Chen: "The Vine Demon really is trying all sorts of methods to harm you."
"..." Mu Anxiao fell into thought, prompted by Chen's words.
Feng Qishi: "What are you thinking about?"
"They want to make me like them," Mu Anxiao said, looking up at Feng Qishi.
"What do you mean?"
"It means they want to kill those people in front of me and then pin all the crimes on me. This way," Mu Anxiao's eyes darkened, "I will suffer the same fate as them."
Piao: "How do you know?"
Wan Sha: "That's their idea."
Mu Anxiao turned to Wan Sha. "It seems you understand many things."
"Yes."
Feng Qishi frowned. "If you understand, why didn't you just say so?"
"Because," Wan Sha pursed her lips and smiled. "I'm the demon soul responsible for luring you out!" Saying this, she waved her hand towards Lin Yan, and Lin Yan disappeared.
Seeing this, Mu Anxiao's eyes widened. "Wan Sha, what do you mean by this?"
"I don't want to forgive you. Meet me at the central plaza tomorrow morning, or those people will die," Wan Sha said and disappeared in a red glow.
Piao: "..." He looked down at Mu Anxiao.
Chen Xin glanced at Mu Anxiao: "..."
Ever since she saw Wan Sha outside, Mu Anxiao had felt that things wouldn't go smoothly.
Indeed, as she had expected, Wan Sha was just a demon soul sent by the Vine Demon to declare war on her.
"So," Feng Qishi's eyes lit up. "If you hadn't told that Wan Sha about Lin Yan being in the ruined temple, they wouldn't have found him?" he asked Piao.
Piao: "I didn't."
"You didn't?" Feng Qishi repeated, frowning. "Then how was Lin Yan discovered?"
Piao: "She brought that Lin Yan back suddenly. We haven't approached him, so whether it's true or not, we need to investigate further."
"This... what's going on?" Mu Anxiao was utterly confused by the situation.
Chen: "After we returned, we went to complete the tasks you assigned us. However, not long after, we encountered Wan Sha. As soon as A Xia saw Wan Sha, she started speaking for you. Before she could finish a few words, she angered Wan Sha. A Xia was severely injured and knocked away by Wan Sha, and Gu Xiao, being a demon soul, was also taken away."
Feng Qishi: "What about you two?"
Piao: "On the way back from the Demon Realm, I was injured, and then I... couldn't use my demonic powers, so I could only obey Wan Sha's orders."
Listening to their words, Mu Anxiao finally understood why Wan Sha kept mentioning Piao and Chen.
The purpose was simple: to fool them.
So, she thought about the face of the embrace and Piao's words, and said, "That wasn't them."
Feng Qishi asked, "What else have you thought of?"
Mu Anxiao glanced at Feng Qishi. "That was a demon soul."
Feng Qishi and the others all focused their gaze on Mu Anxiao's face.
Immediately, after Mu Anxiao said this, everything in the house turned into red beams of light and dispersed.
In the next moment, they were standing in an open space.
Feng Qishi exclaimed, "What's going on?" He looked around.
So many things had happened in quick succession that Feng Qishi's mind had become slow. Especially after Wan Sha's instant change of expression, he was completely at a loss.
Now, he was even more bewildered.
Mu Anxiao tutted. "They really didn't leave us anything." She then looked at the stunned Feng Qishi and asked, "Great Immortal, what's wrong with you?"
Feng Qishi slowly turned his gaze to Mu Anxiao. "It was too sudden."
"Sudden?"
"You don't find it sudden?" Feng Qishi was surprised.
Mu Anxiao shrugged. "I've seen many sudden things. This," she looked at the gradually disappearing plants and trees beside her, sighing, "is considered mild."
"Are you showing off your experiences to me?"
"You could say that," Mu Anxiao spread her hands and looked at Piao. "Is your mansion still here?"
Piao: "It's gone."
Mu Anxiao asked, "Why is it gone?"
Piao: "How would I know? After going to the Demon Realm, everything changed when I returned. This street also changed, I..."
"In other words," Mu Anxiao said speechlessly. "You just forgot the way home, right?"
Piao: "..." He averted his gaze.
Feng Qishi: "So, Lin Yan might still be in the ruined temple?"
Mu Anxiao: "Why do you say that?"
Feng Qishi thought for a moment. "Because of him," he pointed at Piao.
Piao was stunned. "Why because of me?" he pointed at himself.
Feng Qishi set aside all his doubts and suddenly became serious. "You said you didn't approach Lin Yan."
"I didn't approach him."
"When did he appear here?"
"After we returned, while I was recovering from my injuries."
"Did you tell that Wan Sha about the ruined temple?"