Chapter 15: I'll Take You Away — Abducting a Little Bird

“So, you see me taking the initiative to provoke you as mere amusement, but you have no intention of reaching out to me first?” Lin Zhao’s expression twisted slightly upon learning the reason.

Damn, does that mean I’ve been toyed with by this boss?

Ji Yaoguang smiled faintly, sincere in his tone. “How can it be just for amusement? I was merely waiting for you to finish testing me and to lower your guard. Only when you come to me first will it prove that I have no ulterior motives.”

“Playing hard to get, huh?” Lin Zhao gritted her teeth. “What makes you so sure I’ll come to you? Why can’t I go to someone else?”

Ji Yaoguang gestured toward the altar, now reduced to ruins, and smiled. “Zhao, you can’t just go to anyone here.”

“Don’t call me that so familiarly,” Lin Zhao immediately regretted not having just burned him earlier. “Who is this Bai Ren? Do you know him?”

Ji Yaoguang’s expression grew grave at the mention of that name. After a moment’s thought, he pointed to his own eyes, which glowed with an eerie purple hue. “Have you noticed the color? Isn’t it the same as the sun in the sky?”

Lin Zhao looked closely at his eye and suddenly realized that instead of a dark circular pupil, it was a burning purple tree.

He continued, “It’s only within the eye socket, right?”

Lin Zhao, puzzled, replied, “Obviously.”

Ji Yaoguang reached up and removed the thorny crown adorned with jewels from his hair, placing it aside.

At that moment, the purple glow in his eye seemed to come alive, crawling and spreading beyond the eye socket. Ji Yaoguang quickly put the crown back on, and the purple light slowly retreated, maintaining a faint balance inside.

“What is this?”

“Corruption, erosion—this is the cataclysm that has persisted since the great disaster millennia ago,” Ji Yaoguang said softly with a sigh. “When this purple light spreads deep into my soul, I will become one of the new monsters born in this wasteland. After the disaster, our witch kingdom severed ties with others and did everything possible to block the sun’s corruption, stubbornly surviving…”

“But as long as we live, there is always some degree of corruption,” his voice low, calm, and detached as he recounted the past. “Once it crosses a certain threshold, a person suddenly becomes a monster. These monsters, by their very existence, corrupt the surrounding land and living beings, so when someone approaches that boundary, they are purified by the sacred wood.”

Lin Zhao cautiously asked, “By purification, do you mean like when you made that tree just now, sucking a person into ash?”

Ji Yaoguang was silent for a moment before nodding.

Lin Zhao exclaimed in surprise, “You don’t wait for them to become monsters first?”

Ji Yaoguang whispered, “No one knows what kind of monster a corrupted person will turn into. They are unpredictable and strange, so we cannot wait until then… They are called the ‘First Ghosts.’ Once confirmed, they are to be killed on the spot.”

Lin Zhao began to understand. “But surely there must be some who refuse to give up—people who want to survive and escape here?”

Ji Yaoguang nodded slightly. “Exactly. They have even found ways to control their corruption, hiding within the witch kingdom, intending to turn more people into creatures like themselves. They no longer fear becoming monsters and want others to join them.”

Lin Zhao could not comprehend. “Then why don’t you negotiate? Ask them how they control and use their corruption. After all, they are intelligent beings; surely they don’t want this either?”

Ji Yaoguang sighed softly. “You’ve met them. If you meet Bai Ren again, would you be willing to talk things over?”

Lin Zhao hesitated but decisively replied, “Talk? Of course. Even if he wants to turn me into one of those ghosts, if there is a way, it has to be more important than personal grudges.”

At worst, I’ll kill him a hundred times before talking—doesn’t that count as talking?

Ji Yaoguang smiled. “Zhao, you truly have a broad mind.”

“Naturally!” Lin Zhao nodded.

Ji Yaoguang sighed. “Unfortunately, we have already tried. Their method involves ritual sacrifices of more living beings to share and delay their corruption.”

Lin Zhao grasped the fundamental conflict and asked, “Living beings? Can’t they use livestock or wild animals?”

Ji Yaoguang shook his head. “They need spiritual essence. The stronger and wiser the being, the more spirit they possess, better able to share the corruption. If they sacrificed beasts, the numbers required would be too great for the witch kingdom to bear.”

Lin Zhao suddenly understood why Bai Ren was so delighted upon seeing her.

But she then glanced at her hand and asked, “Were you also someone who escaped here from the witch kingdom to avoid being killed after corruption?”

At this, Ji Yaoguang immediately objected. “How could I have escaped? I was willingly sent by the great army!”

“Really?” Lin Zhao stroked her chin. “Who was it that begged me to kill him earlier, then after I shared some of the corruption, suddenly got all shy about dying?”

Ji Yaoguang blushed and said softly, “That wasn’t my intention; I didn’t expect you could share the corruption without a ritual…”

He was prepared to restart…

Wait!

Ji Yaoguang looked up and laughed. “You discovered it so quickly.”

Lin Zhao said proudly, “What’s so hard about it? Bai Ren smiled like a dog when he heard you were coming, then you made a big show demanding to be killed, yet suddenly didn’t want to die… It seems this ability of mine is very important.”

Ji Yaoguang straightened up, his expression serious. “Indeed. I found some lost manuscripts in the Demon Wasteland Sea. The Sixth Witch God once created a pure-blooded Golden Crow, intending to reestablish the Great Sun and eradicate corruption from this world. I thought it failed, but seeing you, I now believe he may have succeeded.”

Lin Zhao thought to herself, of course, I’ve got a simulator with me—do you know what a protagonist template is?

Ji Yaoguang continued, “Therefore, you can’t stay in such a dangerous place. I must take you to the witch kingdom immediately.”

Lin Zhao’s heart leapt with joy. This is the result I was hoping for. “When do we leave?”

Ji Yaoguang rose slowly. “Right now.”

Lin Zhao was more than willing and immediately summoned her mount. “So, which way—east, south, west, or north?”

Ji Yaoguang shook his head slightly. “To prevent the Demon Wasteland Sea’s corruption from spreading to the land, the witch kingdom once mobilized 120,000 witches to seal the entrances to the sea with many twisted seals. Without a special ritual to guide us, it’s easy to get lost and never find the way out.”

He took off the four-layered necklace from his neck, held it in his hands, and softly recited a prayer.

His voice was solemn and steady, but as Lin Zhao listened carefully, she couldn’t help but raise a questioning brow.

The prayer roughly said: “I pray to the Witch God. I have made a significant discovery here. The Golden Crow bloodline has not been broken. I must return to the witch kingdom quickly. Open the path through the Demon Wasteland Sea, or you will regret missing this chance!”

“Wait, is your prayer really that casual?” Lin Zhao was startled. She had hoped to learn it for herself after the simulation ended.

Ji Yaoguang confidently replied, “Don’t worry. The deities dislike long, irrelevant prayers. With this, the response will come fastest.”

Lin Zhao thought, fine, if you say so, I’ll trust you.

Just as she was still doubtful, the beads in Ji Yaoguang’s hands began to float gently, streams of light weaving into a formation. The colorful shining beads settled into their respective places—feathers, metal, branches, and gems arranged in the four directions. Once the positions stabilized, the lights held steady without further change.

“How’s it going? I’ve been waiting almost half an hour and I’m starving,” Lin Zhao grumbled.

Ji Yaoguang smiled and handed her a wooden box. “Hungry? Eat something while you wait.”

“Where did you find this? Do you have a storage device?” Lin Zhao took the box, noticing it was freshly made from moist wood, filled with fresh red and purple mulberries, which surprised her.

“The space in the Demon Wasteland Sea is fragmented and chaotic. Storage treasures can’t be brought here,” Ji Yaoguang said with a smile and a trace of pride in his brow. “As for where these fruits came from, that’s a secret.”

“Secret, huh?” Lin Zhao sneered. “Isn’t it just your own fruit? I’m not complaining.”

Ji Yaoguang fell silent. Zhao is cute, but sometimes your words are hard to swallow.

Another hour passed, and the formation remained inactive.

Lin Zhao had already finished one box of unripe mulberries and was halfway through the second. The Golden Crow beside her impatiently tapped the ground with its tail feathers and finally asked, “Did you say the prayer wrong, so the Witch God won’t respond?”

Ji Yaoguang’s confidence wavered. “It’s unlikely. Even if I angered him earlier, you are very important…”

Just then, the ground beneath them trembled slightly.

Ji Yaoguang breathed a sigh of relief and stood upright with authority. “We can leave now.”

Lin Zhao looked around, and suddenly a grayish-white tree root, nearly a meter thick, sprouted beneath her feet. Ji Yaoguang reached out and tugged it twice. Lin Zhao noticed the root was hollow, bottomless, like a sewer leading to another world… No, seriously? That’s hardly mystical.

“The time and space here are chaotic. This is how we leave,” Ji Yaoguang smiled faintly. “No mistake. Go down.”

Before she could protest, he swiftly grabbed the little bird’s collar and shoved him headfirst into the hollow root tunnel.