Trap

Pay Ling dropped to his knees in a heartbeat. Only then did Pay Xuan let out a shaky breath.

At that exact moment, a voice sliced through the cottage's stillness—icy as a winter gale, laced with a prickly edge of annoyance. "Speak. Pay Clan."

"Fairy Lith," Pay Xuan quickly replied, "we are aware of your highness seclusion and dare not to disturb you lightly. However, my nephew Pay Ling has just returned from Mountain Yuan, claiming to have discovered Wu Tinshee's whereabouts. Fearing to alert the traitor, he refrained from sending the clan's signal. We once thought FellowDao Zheng was in the manor…"

"Wu Tinshee?" 

Before Pay Xuan fully spoke the name, and then the cottage door swung open eerie silently. A figure materialized in a flash, draped in a gauze gown that flowed like midnight ink. A veil on the conical hat shadowed her face, its edges droppin' to her chest, matching the dark color of her ebony dress and heels.

Pay Xuan immediately lowered his gaze, his eyes fixed on the ground, not daring to show the slightest disrespect. Pay Ling, reacting a beat slower, caught a fleeting glimpse of the lady. Her figure was graceful, her waist slender and delicate, yet her aura was sharp as a freshly forged blader adiating an overwhelming presence.

Fairy Lith flicked her hand, and the chime tinkled—soft at first, then sharp, like wind singing through a skull's hollows. Pay Xuan and Pay Ling blinked, heads swimming for a split second. When the fog cleared, that creepy skull wind chime dangled at fairy's waist, swaying like it'd claimed a soul. Tilting the hat, voice sounds cool as frost. "Where's he at?"

Pay Xuan shot Pay Ling a look. Pay Ling steadied himself, fingers tightening around the bullet in his palm and spoke. "Fairy Lith, Wu Tinshee is dead."

"What?!" Pay Xuan yelped.

Fairy Lith, however, remained unfazed. "Where's the cultivation technique?"

"Outside the town," Pay Ling replied. Her aura slammed into him—way beyond Kinson Zheng. When he met Kinson Zheng in the main hall, the man had seemed aloof but hadn't left a particularly strong impression.

Even through that veil, her stare was a bolt of lightning, locking onto him like a predator sizing up its next meal. One glance, and a chill raced down his spine, cold as death's own grip.

Swallowing hard, Pay Ling forced his nerves to steel and pressed on. "I stumbled on Wu Tinshee in a cave. He was already half-dead, bleeding out bad. A fierce fight, I finished him off. I did want to haul his relic back and report, but figured it'd lost on the way, so I stashed it outside the town."

Fairy Lith showed no reaction.. "Name your boon."

Pay Xuan, stood behind her respectfully, broke into a cold sweat the second Pay Ling spilled about killing Wu Tinshee. But Fairy's words eased him, and he started flashing desperate eye signals at Pay Ling, urging him to make requests on behalf of the clan.

However Pay Ling had risked everything to return for his own sake. Why would he care about the clan?

Ignoring Pay Xuan, Pay Ling spoke solemnly, "I beg Fairy Lith to save my sorry hide!"

"Save you?" Fairy Lith's veiled gaze flicked over him, cold and indifferent as a winter moon. "Wu Tinshee's Five Poisons Finger is indeed beyond your current cultivation level to withstand."

She flicked her wrist, and a jade bottle sailed through the air, landing in Pay Ling hands. "Three detox pills in there—swallow 'em all and meditate. As for the Bone Raksha Painting…" Her tone stayed flat, unbothered as a still pond. "Once snag the jade slip and make sure it's the real deal, I'll throw a word to that useless Kinson Zheng for you."

Pay Ling snatched the jade bottle like it was his last lifeline, not even waiting for Fairy Lith to finish her spiel before he poured the whole bottle into his mouth. As the poison that had spread to his left shoulder began to stagnate and fade, he felt a wave of relief and quickly said, "Thank you, Fairy Lith, your highness. The jade slip is hidden beneath a small hill outside the city. There's a marker—three locust trees arranged in a triangular formation!"

With that, his hand hidden deep in his sleeve clamped tight around that bullet, breath held so hard and his chest ached, every nerve on edge.

Fairy Lith didn't even spare him a glance. With a flick of her gauze gown sleeve and a crisp rang from that eerie wind chime, she was gone faster than a storm, leaving nothing but a shiver in the air.

"… ..." Pay Ling swiped a shaky hand across his brow, wiping away a cold sweat caused by Fairy Lith's overwhelming aura pressure. 

Sure, judging by Wu Tinshee's dying gesture, this bullet in his grip was probably some trump card, but after facing the Fairy Lith? Pay Ling wasn't so sure it'd even threaten her, let alone bring her down.

Lucky for him, this icy queen might be high-and-mighty, but she didn't seem the type to burn bridges after crossing them. That was the best outcome he could to dream of before forcing' himself back here—and now? Well, call it a stroke of luck in a sea of bad breaks.

"Pay Ling, what the hell's your game?!" Having relaxed after Fairy Lith's departure, Pay Xuan snapped to Pay Ling with a stern expression. "A golden chance like this, and you only thought of yourself, not the clan. Don't you forget—the Pay Clan's the one that raised you up, fed you, forged you these past years!"

Pay Ling barely heard him. The detox pills were kicking in, but that creepy gaze from the Bone Raksha Painting still gnawed at him like maggots on a corpse, gettin' worse by the second. How could he supposed to find the patience to deal with the scoldings from chief? 

"Yes chief." He replied, "And yes, I am deeply grateful to the Pay Clan, which is precisely why I fear dying young would stop me to serve the clan in the future. Rest assured, chief, when Fairy Lith returns and removes the Bone Raksha Painting curse, I will put in good words for the clan. Promise."

With that, he threw a quick salute and turned to leave.

He stumbled back to his quarters in a flurry, face pale as a ghost, body swaying like a reed in a gale. Barely managing to close the door behind him, Pay Ling felt his thoughts almost blacked out.

"No!" He chomped down hard on his tongue, the sharp sting jolting him awake, "No, I'm dying. At this rate I can't survive before Fairy Lith retrieves that jade slip."

The only solution was to use the system for cultivation, just as he had done before.

The problem was, he no longer dared to use the Bone Tempering Art with the system's one-click-cultivation.

Who knew if the system would hijack his body to steal from Kinson Zheng or Fairy Lith this time?

If he's caught rummaging through their rooms, or cultivating like some brazen fool, he'd be dead, no question.

"System, I want to cultivate!" In his desperation, Pay Ling suddenly remembered that he wasn't limited to the Bone Tempering Art.

He quickly called out in his mind,

"Select the [Nameless Technique], then choose [Temporary Practice · Smart Duration] and [One-Click-Cultivation]!"

> All-Smart Full-Host Cultivation System™ is at your service!

> Loading service announcement... ==================================================

> One-click-cultivation: Enabled

> Cultivation hosting: Initializing... 

 - Friendly reminder: During cultivation, the host will lose control of his/her body. 

 - Do not panic. This is a normal system function.

> Initializing body control override...

...

The moment the system took over, that Raksha Painting's suffocating stare melted away like snow in a forge. Pay Ling let out a quiet breath, tension easing, and then tensed right back up, eyes locked on what the system would do next. Pay Ling found his body was twisted into a stance worlds apart from Bone Forging Art, his dantian's spirit energy churning in a fresh, unfamiliar dance. With cultivating the detox pills took effect, he could feel the poison in his left shoulder backing off, and the sensation of his shoulder recovered.

Meanwhile, outside Deerspring town, near the three locust trees Pay Ling had described, Fairy Lith successfully found Wu Tinshee's jade slip containing cultivation technique.

Alongside the jade slip were some perk items, but she didn't even glance at them. 

"Although Luo Ciao only formed a low-grade Golden Core, he was still at Core Formation stage for many years. He wouldn't have risked switching techniques without good reason. If this Six Desires Secret Tomes was worth risking his switch-up, it must have some killer spells in it"

Muttering to herself, Fairy Lith pressed the jade slip to her forehead with great expectation.

But the moment the jade slip touched her skin, a frigid beam of cold light shot out.

Whoosh!

Fairy Li reacted swiftly, immediately dropping the jade slip. However, it was too late. The cold light, faster than lightning, smashed directly into her sea of consciousness!