Chapter 69: Poisonous Scheme Reversal: Xie Wujiu’s Self-Inflicted Consequences

Shen Yan stared at the phone screen, his fingertips tapping rapidly on the virtual keyboard. Yu Xiaotang’s transmitted “Anti-Demon Water Loop Patch” had automatically loaded, and the system notification tone abruptly sounded: “Detected collaborative permission authentication, program stability increased by forty-seven percent.”

He curled his lips upward: “The little girl is quite reliable at critical moments.”

Before his words finished, Xie Wujiu, pinned to the ground by code chains, suddenly raised his head and laughed wildly, his voice raspy like sandpaper scraping against iron.

“You think… this is over?” He coughed up a mouthful of black blood, yet his eyes burned with madness, “I’m no longer any cultivator—I’m the fuse of this poison core—as long as I still hate, the entire Medicine Valley must perish with me!”

The ground violently shook, the gray-black demon crystal fiercely expanded, its surface cracking with spiderweb-like patterns, a foul black gas surged forth, directly rushing toward the formation eye core.

Shen Yan’s pupils contracted sharply: “Damn, he’s destroying his meridians to detonate resentment!”

Pei Yue reacted faster, ten silver needles had already shot out from her medicine pouch, landing to form a formation. She tapped her toes, her figure spinning away, her hands forming hand seals, cold jade energy erupted along her meridians, the Nine Palace Demon-Sealing Formation instantly took shape. Ice patterns spread from the needle tips, locking the underground spiritual vein nodes like a spiderweb.

“Don’t let him plant the inner demon into the water source!” she shouted lowly.

Shen Yan immediately invoked the patch program, splitting the originally single-line purification script into dual-track parallel operation—the main program continued compressing the poison core, while the secondary line constructed a reverse isolation barrier using Yu Xiaotang’s patch, preventing the black gas from backflowing to infect the purification path.

Golden code and ice-blue talisman paths intertwined in the air, forming a three-dimensional data net, tightly enveloping the demon crystal.

“Warning: target is releasing spiritual resonance waves, interfering with main process.” As the system notice emerged, Shen Yan’s head felt as if struck by a hammer, the image before his eyes distorted, the wind and snow scene from twenty years ago reappeared.

This time, he saw more—behind Xie Wujiu kneeling, stood a girl wearing a copper coin hair tie, being dragged away while shouting: “Senior brother! Don’t worry about me! Run quickly—”

The image abruptly ceased.

Shen Yan violently shook his head, cold sweat dripping: “Another memory trap? Trying to pull me into illusion with obsession?”

He sneered, fingers swiftly tapping: “Since you love playing old movies, let’s run a frame rate check.”

A “reality verification script” instantly ran in his mind, scanning the data stream of the surrounding environment. Indeed, the snowflake descent speed in the illusion was slower than the real world by zero point three seconds, the action latency obvious.

“Full of vulnerabilities.” He disdainfully smiled, directly inputting a forced exit command in his consciousness.

The light and shadow before his eyes collapsed.

Meanwhile, Pei Yue had long detected anomalies in Xie Wujiu’s consciousness sea fluctuations, the cold vein power in her palm forcefully poured into the silver needles, nine needles simultaneously trembled, piercing his key points like brow center, shoulder wells, and chest center, forcibly freezing his spiritual consciousness activity.

“You wanted to awaken everyone?” She coldly stared at him, “But they have long been scorched by your hatred. You think you’re liberating them? You’re merely replicating the massacre of that year.”

Xie Wujiu’s body violently trembled, his lips twitching, yet his eyes remained frenzied.

“Shut up… What do any of you know! That day, my master was clearly trying to save people! He discovered that the ‘Tribulation Inheritance Ceremony’ would trigger backlash from heaven and earth, and wanted to stop it, but was branded a traitor and executed on the spot! And that Celestial Clan Outcast presiding over the ceremony… didn’t even spare him a glance!”

Shen Yan listened, his eyes flickering slightly.

He knew that the “Celestial Clan Outcast” Xie Wujiu mentioned was likely his own biological father.

But he offered no explanation, nor did he refute it.

Instead, he slowly raised his hand, projecting a faint image from his phone—the very image of that copper coin hair tie, accompanied by fragmented log recordings:

“Brother… don’t hate anymore… I just hope… you can live well…”

The voice was childish, choked with tears.

Xie Wujiu’s smile froze.

He stared wide-eyed, fixated on that hair tie, his lips trembling as if trying to speak, yet no sound emerged.

The air seemed to solidify.

Three seconds later, a muffled thud echoed from within him.

Like the reverberation of a Contract breaking.

The Black Patterns on the surface of the demon crystal began to peel off on their own, turning to ash and scattering. The once violent, churning black energy slowly reversed direction, flowing back into the center of the Formation Eye, where it was gradually devoured by the Purification Program.

Shen Yan held his breath: “He’s voluntarily releasing his Obsession…”

Pei Yue also sensed the change. Her Silver Needle trembled slightly, ice patterns crawling across the ground toward the demon crystal, merging with the Golden Code to form a closed loop.

“The final layer of Encryption… was locked at the cost of his youth and Cultivation Base,” Shen Yan murmured. “Only by letting go of his Obsession can it be unlocked.”

As his words fell, Xie Wujiu suddenly coughed violently, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

Immediately after, his dark hair turned stark white at a visible pace, his skin withered, wrinkles crept across his forehead, and his entire being seemed drained of all vitality as he collapsed to his knees.

A System Notice popped up: “Karma closed loop completed. Contamination level zero.”

Shen Yan let out a long sigh, his fingers loosening so much he nearly dropped his phone.

Pei Yue quickly steadied him by the shoulder: “Can you hold on?”

“I’m fine,” he smiled, his gaze behind his glasses still clear. “Just a bit mentally drained, considering I just crawled back from the brink of being a vegetable.”

She said nothing, only quietly pressed her other hand against his back, channeling a thread of Cold Pulse Energy into him.

Shen Yan paused but did not push her away.

The two stood on either side of the Formation Eye, watching Xie Wujiu slumped on the ground.

Now aged beyond recognition, he trembled as he reached into his robes, feeling for a tattered strip of cloth—a fragment of that copper coin hair tie.

“She… will never come back…” he mumbled, his voice so hoarse it was almost inaudible.

Looking at him, Shen Yan suddenly felt this man was no longer hateful, even pitiable.

A lonely soul fed on hatred for twenty years, who in the end merely wanted to hear his sister say, “Don’t hate anymore.”

The wind ceased.

The golden light gradually faded, the Code chains on the ground slowly sinking into the soil, leaving only faint traces.

The water source returned to tranquility, the stream once again clear, reflecting the sky and drifting clouds.

Pei Yue put away her Silver Needle, walked over to Xie Wujiu, crouched down, and placed a Pill into his mouth.

“This is a Soul-Calming Pill. It can keep you from going mad,” she said flatly. “But whether you can wake up depends on how much light remains in your heart.”

Xie Wujiu showed no reaction, only clutching that strip of cloth tightly, his knuckles white.

Shen Yan walked over and looked down at him. “You say I carry the blood of an executioner, yet here I stand, saving everything you wanted to destroy. You say the Heavenly Dao is unjust, yet you dragged the innocent into hell with your own hands. Revenge isn’t wrong, but using others as sacrifices—that’s madness.”

Xie Wujiu’s eyelids twitched, but he still didn’t look up.

Shen Yan said nothing more and turned toward the stream.

The water’s surface reflected his and Pei Yue’s figures, standing close together.

He suddenly reached out and gently touched her wrist.

Pei Yue froze.

“Just now… thank you,” he said. “If you hadn’t been cooling me down the whole time, I would’ve blown up the furnace long ago.”

She glared at him. “Cut the act. I haven’t settled the score with you yet over that Energy Transfer incident.”

“How do you want to settle it?” He blinked. “Should I hold a pill in my mouth and give you a reverse Energy Transfer?”

“Looking for a beating.” She raised her hand as if to hit him but paused mid-air, the tip of her finger lightly brushing a small scar on his temple—a wound from flying debris during the earlier battle.

The touch was light, like a feather grazing his skin.

Shen Yan didn’t move.

The two fell silent for a moment.

In the distance, a Medicine Boy passed by with a lantern, glanced at them from afar, then quietly retreated.

Shen Yan pulled out his phone. The last line of the Notice flashed:

【Mission Complete】

【Source Code Spiritual Root Stability: Eighty-Five】

【Emotional Variable Interference: Continuously Rising】

He stared at the words “Emotional Variable” for two seconds, then decisively flipped the phone over and stuffed it into his pocket.

“Let’s go,” he said to Pei Yue. “We still have to write the daily report when we get back, or the Elder Council will accuse me of abandoning my post again.”

Pei Yue nodded and was about to step forward when she suddenly glanced back at Xie Wujiu.

The old man remained kneeling in place, his white hair disheveled, still repeating a single phrase under his breath.

His voice was faint, yet it clearly reached both of their ears:

“Little junior sister… senior brother… was wrong…”

(End of Chapter)