Severing Ties: The Sect Regrets My Departure

Chapter 253: When Void Stone Wax Meets the “Zha” Rune’s Backlash

While Suixing’s Body of Incarnation was busy playing the role of a tyrannical mob boss, bullying the White Jade Fan into submission back at the Listening-to-Rain Pavilion, a very different scene was unfolding in the mortal city.

Xu Wanqing stood frozen in the doorway.

It was as if she had been plunged into an icy cavern. She stared at the empty space where the White Jade Fan had been floating just moments prior, a glacial chill creeping up her spine.

It’s over. Her terrified gaze slowly shifted down to the stray dog lying paralyzed on the dirt floor. It was twitching pathetically, looking exactly like a mutt suffering from a severe terminal illness—except this mutt now housed the Nascent Soul of her junior sister, Lu Qingyao.

It’s really over! Panic clawed at Xu Wanqing’s throat. Her mind raced frantically, desperately searching for a way out of this catastrophic blunder. What do I do? How do I explain this? Even if I had a hundred mouths, I couldn’t talk my way out of this! “Third Senior Sister, how did it go?”

Before Xu Wanqing could formulate a single lie, Jiang Xun jogged back into the courtyard.

Xu Wanqing swallowed a lump of pure anxiety. She pointed a trembling finger at the twitching dog. “This… well… that is to say…”

“Oh, is it finished?” Jiang Xun stepped right over the paralyzed dog without a second glance. He looked at the empty space where Lu Qingyao’s soul had been, then at the pristine, empty puppet resting on the bed. He smiled brightly. “Third Senior Sister is truly amazing!”

“No… wait… there was a bit of an accident—” Xu Wanqing stammered, her face flushed with embarrassment.

“Since Seventh Senior Sister’s matter is perfectly resolved, please, Third Senior Sister, you must quickly help Fifth Senior Sister!” Jiang Xun interrupted, stepping aside.

Fifth Senior Sister? Qin Meran? Xu Wanqing blinked in confusion. She peered past Jiang Xun and spotted a figure creeping into the courtyard with the paranoid caution of a startled rat.

It was indeed Qin Meran. But…

“Meran?” Xu Wanqing gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. “What… what happened to you?!”

Normally, Qin Meran was the epitome of scholarly elegance. She walked the path of the gentleman, her robes always immaculate, her hair meticulously styled, her demeanor refined and aloof.

The creature standing in the courtyard was the exact opposite.

She looked as though she had been dragged backward through a putrid swamp. She was caked in foul-smelling, congealed mud. Her clothes were shredded rags, and what little skin was visible was painted in a horrifying mosaic of purple and black bruises. Worse still, her Spiritual Qi was violently chaotic, her aura flickering so weakly it felt as if she might drop dead on the spot.

“Third Senior Sister!”

At the sight of Xu Wanqing, fat, heavy tears spilled from Qin Meran’s eyes, carving clean tracks through the grime on her face. She let out a wretched wail and lunged forward, throwing her arms open for an embrace. “Save me!”

Faced with a human mudslide radiating a nauseating stench, Xu Wanqing instinctively took half a step back.

That half-step was all it took.

Thump! With a sickeningly dull thud, the lunging Qin Meran caught her toe on the low wooden threshold. Her balance vanished, and she faceplanted directly onto the hard stone floor.

Silence descended upon the courtyard.

A powerful cultivator tripping over a mere threshold was a physical impossibility. Yet, gravity and karma had conspired to ensure it happened right in front of them.

Xu Wanqing stood stunned. Jiang Xun stared in mute disbelief.

As for Qin Meran, she slowly pushed herself up. Her once-pristine face was scraped raw, and her perfectly straight, jade-like nose was now bent at a sickening angle, gushing blood. She reached up, touched her ruined nose, and completely broke down.

She began to sob. It wasn’t a delicate, tragic weeping; it was a loud, ugly, hysterical wail. She cried as if trying to forcibly expel all the horrific, universe-breaking injustice she had suffered over the past two days.

Ever since the “Zha” Rune’s backlash had locked onto her, she had discovered the true, terrifying meaning of being hunted by the universe.

At first, in Cloud Firmament City, it was minor “accidents.” A ship’s cannon randomly misfired in her direction; a Spirit Arrow spontaneously shattered; a Talisman malfunctioned and exploded in her face. Realizing the universe was out to get her, she fled the city in a panic.

But karma didn’t care about geography.

The very day she left the city, she bumped into a gang of murderous Rogue Cultivators. Naturally, they were weak trash. Annoyed and impatient, Qin Meran slaughtered them in seconds. Yet, in their dying breaths, the trash somehow managed to poison her with ‘Qi-Dispersing Powder.’ It wasn’t lethal, but it completely short-circuited the Spiritual Qi in her Dantian, sealing her cultivation.

Unable to use her powers, her journey back to the Azure Mystic Sacred Land became a waking nightmare.

When she tried to fly using Magical Artifacts, the artifacts would inexplicably malfunction, rocketing her wildly across the sky before detonating like fireworks.

When she was forced to walk through the Heaven-Leveling Mountains, the environment itself turned hostile. If she took a step, she walked into poisonous miasma. If she took another, she was attacked by man-eating flora. She fell into random, inexplicably deep pits so often she lost count. On the rare occasion nothing tried to kill her for a full hour, she felt like burning incense to thank the heavens.

Terrified of the wilderness, she rerouted through mortal cities. But the bad luck merely shifted mediums. If she walked down a street, someone dumped a bucket of sewage out a window precisely onto her head. If she sat on a chair, it instantly splintered into dust. Local street thugs constantly harassed her.

And finally, she was chased by a pack of ordinary stray dogs. It should have been a minor annoyance. Except, the exact dog she tried to kick somehow experienced a miraculous, one-in-a-billion genetic awakening, unlocking a dormant Demon Ancestor bloodline on the spot. It proceeded to tear several chunks of flesh out of her calves before Jiang Xun happened to pass by and save her.

Hearing this absurd, tragic tale, Xu Wanqing was utterly dumbfounded. “Fifth Junior Sister… you and this ‘Zha’ Rune truly share a profound fate.”

That was the absolute worst thing she could have said. Qin Meran sobbed harder, slamming her fists into the dirt. Why me?! She had orchestrated a brilliant, meticulous plan to steal a blessing, and the universe had rewarded her by turning her life into a slapstick horror show!

“The backlash of the ‘Zha’ Rune won’t be easy to eradicate,” Jiang Xun noted dryly. “The top priority is healing Fifth Senior Sister’s physical injuries. If she has her strength back, at least she won’t be entirely helpless when the next disaster strikes.”

“Yes! Yes!” Qin Meran begged, looking up with bloodshot, desperate eyes. “Third Senior Sister, please help me!”

Seeing her once-proud junior sister reduced to a sniveling, battered wreck, Xu Wanqing’s heart softened. “Of course. Sit up, Junior Sister.”

She quickly withdrew a porcelain bottle, popped the cork, and gently fed a Pill into Qin Meran’s mouth. “This is a Dispelling Pill. It will rapidly clear the Qi-Dispersing Powder from your system. Sink your mind into your Dantian, concentrate your spirit, and…”

Before she could finish the sentence, Qin Meran’s eyes bulged. Her face turned an alarming shade of gray.

“Bleurgh!” Qin Meran violently vomited a massive mouthful of black blood. Her already chaotic aura completely shattered, spiraling into a catastrophic meltdown. Visibly, the life force began draining from her body as she collapsed, twitching.

“What?!” Xu Wanqing shrieked, jumping back. She hurriedly looked down at the bottle in her hand and felt the blood freeze in her veins.

She had grabbed the wrong bottle.

She hadn’t given Qin Meran a Dispelling Pill. She had given her a Spirit-Severing Pill—a highly toxic narcotic that looked identical but actively destroyed a cultivator’s Dantian and Dao Platform! While Qin Meran was too strong to be crippled instantly, the poison was currently ravaging her internal organs.

But the horror didn’t stop there.

The absolute microsecond Xu Wanqing realized her medical malpractice, the frozen curse resting within her own chest violently awakened.

“As a benevolent soul,” the merciless, booming voice of the Void Stone Wax echoed in her skull, “you administer medicine with reckless disregard for human life! You poison the injured! Deserves Penalty! Deserves Penalty!” An excruciating, soul-rending agony instantly exploded within Xu Wanqing’s chest, dropping her to her knees beside her choking junior sister.

As the agonizing torture tore through her nerves, a hysterical, numb thought flashed through Xu Wanqing’s mind. She had been terrified of triggering the curse all day. She hadn’t been punished for butchering Lu Qingyao’s soul transfer. She hadn’t been punished for losing the invaluable White Jade Fan.

Yet, the very second she tried to genuinely help her cursed junior sister, she accidentally poisoned her and triggered a maximum-level Penalty.

Whose bad luck is this anyway?!