A Persistent Impostor

"That would be cute, though." Sun Yin was back to her bubbly behavior as soon as they went inside their cabin. She was thinking about what Xiang Chun said earlier. "What if we pose as a couple traveling together before marriage?"

"Only you would like that." Lu Bang grunted before heading straight to the bed. "My head hurts. Just stay here. Don't go around on your own."

Since it was just a nap, Lu Bang did not even bother making himself comfortable. He just closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep. Sun Yin did the same, lying next to the man. She removed her circlet and hair ties before lying down. She took a thick partition of her hair and stared at it.

"Say, Lu Bang, will I be prettier if I keep my hair down?"

"Your hair doesn't change your face."

"Am I pretty, Lu Bang?"

"You are. Stop talking now."

She only giggled before lying on her side. She closed her eyes as well and listened to Lu Bang's breathing as if it was a lullaby. She reached out to feel Lu Bang's arm nearest to her, only for it to be given to her. She laced her arms around his. Perhaps it was not a bad way to drift through the afternoon like this.

She had no idea how long had she slept, but a source of dark energy suddenly pierced through her peace. Oddly, both of them tore their eyes open. They got up almost at the same time before looking at each other. They immediately ran out of the cabin towards the ship's deck.

It was quite a festive night by then. The ship crew decided to give the people an outdoor dinner. Sun Yin opened the doors and walked straight to the further side of the deck. She peered down to make out the waters around them. Lu Bang held her by the sash around her waist in case she fell down.

The male looked up at the sails and noticed the strong winds propelling them forward. However, the ship seemed to move so slowly. "Sun Yin." He tugged on the maiden before letting Huaban dive down to the water to check.

"It's underneath the ship? These waters are deep. For someone to make a corpse pyramid just to—"

A scream thundered across the night. Sun Yin and Lu Bang went to the edge of the part of the deck where they were to see the dinner downstairs. The people were crowding at the side... from where they could see floating bodies. Only their backs showed so it was hard for the people not to try to send help.

"No! Get away from the sides!" Sun Yin yelled as she jumped from the railing. It was as if she knew Lu Bang would ride Huaban to catch her before descending to the dining floor.

However, her voice was the corpses' cue to attack. The other fierce corpses shot out of the water and boarded the ship. The crew's first reaction was to direct them back to their cabins. One corpse tried to block the crew that led the people, but Huaban shot through it, sending it overboard.

"Quick! Hide!" Sun Yin yelled as she and Lu Bang tried to throw the corpses back into the water.

Screams obscured their communications, but the crew member knew what was being said. He continued to lead them to the door and let them flood inside.

Sun Yin then hopped to a platform high up the mast and performed hand seals. She then threw out talismans to surround the ship with a yellow shield. Those who were brave enough to fight the corpses wondered what she did—nothing was attacking them from mid-air.

Lu Bang also noticed the shield she kept around the ship. "Are there airborne corpses now?"

"No, I'm calling for help." Sun Yin summoned the triangle blade and knocked the corpses off of the ship. "We need more people. I can't unleash my power. The ship wouldn't be able to take it. Besides, it goes all around the ship. More corpses from the shores wouldn't be able to enter. We just need to deal with the ones trying to get on the ship."

"These things won't regenerate, right?" Lu Bang summoned Huaban back to his hand. "We should cut their limbs off before throwing them out."

"Yeah, but that would—" Sun Yin was still speaking when Lu Bang hopped into the place where the corpses were thickening. She chased him with her gaze, only to freeze at what she saw.

The fierce corpses screamed at the poor humans that defended the entrance to the cabins. Lu Bang landed on one corpse and swung the sword to detach the heads of those around him. In one swing, a dozen corpses were decapitated. He made a lower swing, splitting legs into two. Since he posed as a bigger threat, the corpses concentrated on harming him.

He hopped back thrice and swiped Huaban to rid it of corpse blood. He then drew the blade against his palm, bleeding onto the blade. Huaban reacted, only to form the blood into extensions of her blade. The sword grew in length before Lu Bang started butchering the corpses.

Sun Yin went back on blasting the corpses to keep the ship from sinking. She started aiming at those she could throw towards Lu Bang for him to chop into pieces. She laughed out. "What's this?! You didn't use to show off like this?!"

"Quiet! Concentrate on the enemy!" Lu Bang bled on the handle, creating another blade to incapacitate the corpses. He soon left Huaban to spin around, dicing the corpses that attacked him. He then noticed a presence up in the air, soon seeing a ray of light attacking the barrier. He turned to Sun Yin. "Sun Yin, she's here!"

"Yes, I noticed!" Sun Yin danced around the deck, using her talismans as fan blades to cut through the corpses. She hopped to the platform from earlier and stared through her barrier. Her gaze met with the woman who posed as the Bride.

"What took you so long? Are you really that desperate to get rid of me?" The maiden grinned at the impostor. Her black hair sprawled in the air, creating a rather sinister image of the real Bride.

However, the angry Bride only responded as she fired one beam after another. She was trying to break the barrier through her mediocre [Fire Blast]. She hurled more and more while the corpses from outside the barrier smashed to help her out.

There was only so much that the barrier could take; however, Sun Yin did not fret. She just started laughing and hurled a hand towards the Bride. "My lovely Wu Ming,"—she used the name given to her by the world—"you have failed!"

The Bride stopped and wondered what she meant. She just hurled her hand to the barrier to cast another batch of arrays. However, before she could, a blade flew and butchered half of her right arm off of her. A blood-curdling scream came from her as she cried in pain. She fell from her sword, only to be saved by a man cloaked in [Black Smoke] to conceal his identity. Her sword fell into the water, but that did not matter at the moment.

The blade that spun and cut the Bride's arm danced in the air like a boomerang. It then struck itself against the barrier, shattering it into pieces. Sun Yin was not happy, but the blade seemed not to care. It flew down to the deck and joined Huaban in vanquishing the corpses.

Instead of fighting alongside it, Lu Bang canceled the blood blades on Huaban and left it to go around like a normal flying sword. He hopped out of the way of the vicious newcomer. He looked up at where Sun Yin was before looking in a different direction.

To the delight of the brave mortals, cultivators on their flying swords came swooping down from the air. Their green robes fluttered in the wind of the long night, clearing the ship of any unwanted stowaways. Their leader hopped from his sword to the platform Sun Yin was on. He also sent his other sword down there to fight.

"Thank you for noticing the shield." Sun Yin laughed out when she turned to the young man next to her. "I guess we're indeed too far into the east that you saw us."

"Wasn't that the Bride just now?" Ren Junjie asked without adding to her previous statement.

"If she was the Bride, do you think she'll fail like this?" Sun Yin gestured at the diced corpses on the ship's deck. "If she was the Bride, would she retreat after giving chase this far?"

"If you were the Bride, you wouldn't have to call us." Ren Junjie meant it as a joke, which he rarely had done.

"My army was stolen!" The maiden cried. She grinned bigger at the confused look on the man's face. She then looked down to find Lu Bang before waving at him. She received a wave from him in response. She turned to the young man again. "Let's go down there and help out, shall we?"