Chapter 46: Pilanba

Just as I was drifting off to sleep this evening, I heard a young girl cheering, "Gorgeous, gorgeous, I am so gorgeous..."

I rubbed my eyes and blinked open them, only to see a colorful, auspicious cloud hovering above the side of my bed. A peerlessly beautiful young girl sat cross-legged upon it. She wore a light purple gauze dress, as ethereal as a dream, and a crown inlaid with fine silver light upon her head. Her hair ornaments trembled gently, and her beauty was soul-stirring, resembling an immortal maiden stepping out of a painting as she smiled down at me.

Was this my primordial spirit, Yu'er? In this form, she seemed reborn, radiating a stunning and dazzling brilliance.

Earlier, out of curiosity, I had asked Teacher Yang to check the Dragon-Seeking Ruler and score my appearance in the divine realm. The ruler had only given me ninety-four points. At the time, I felt that score didn't quite live up to my title as the absolute flower of Kunlun Mountain, but out of trust in the Dragon-Seeking Ruler, I hadn't thought much more about it.

It was only today that I vaguely remembered my true appearance score in the divine realm had actually been ninety-nine, nearly a hundred, always on par with the Third Holy Mother, rather than the ninety-four points given by the Dragon-Seeking Ruler.

Because Yu'er's past self had skin as white as jade and bones of ice, and a beauty so soul-stirring and devastating to kingdoms that it would have easily lured Erlang Yang Jian into her net at a single glance.

Ever since I met Xiaoyue, Yu'er's skin had gradually become less fair than before, and even those once-breathtaking facial features had slowly lost their former luster. Because from that time on, Xiaoyue had secretly cast an evil spell on Yu'er's face and body. Fearing that Yu'er might notice, she kept it subtle, only making Yu'er look slightly inferior to herself in appearance, so as to highlight Xiaoyue's own beauty in front of Yang Jian.

What a scheming person!

When Teacher Xing lifted all the evil spells Xiaoyue had cast upon me, my primordial spirit began to recover its former dazzling brilliance. I proudly admired myself for a moment—this was the true "a single glance could charm a hundred cities" from the past!

In the dead of night, someone suddenly yanked me out of bed. Half-asleep, I was shoved down to sit at my usual writing desk. Two pieces of paper lay before me: one densely covered with handwriting, and the other completely blank.

That person handed me a pen and said in a deep voice, "Copy the contents of the first paper word for word onto the other."

I was so sleepy I could barely keep my eyes open, and my brain was too sluggish to process what was happening. In a daze, I took the pen and subconsciously started copying the text above. I had just finished the first line when I realized something was wrong—everything written there was content designed to clear Xiaoyue of her crimes.

I snapped awake instantly and threw down the pen. "I won't write this!"

Subconsciously, I raised my head to look at the man beside me, and my eyes widened in sudden shock. This man was none other than the martial general who had pleaded with the Jade Emperor and saved Xiaoyue's life when she was sentenced to execution.

He was also the husband of my third aunt, the Celestial Fairy and Jade Maiden, known as the Great Dark Kun-Fu Thunder Emperor, or Thunder Emperor for short.

"Third Uncle-in-law, what are you doing?" I asked angrily, trying to stand up. I had heard rumors before that the Thunder Emperor was Xiaoyue's ultimate lapdog, but I never expected it to be true.

"As long as you write it, I'll give you unimaginable wealth and fame in this lifetime..." The Thunder Emperor snapped his fingers, and a massive pile of gold and silver treasures rained down.

"I don't care for it. I have plenty of my own." I said with utter disdain. Teacher Xing had previously told me that my destiny in this life was blessed with both fame and fortune; I would never compromise my morals for mere gain, especially not to acquit Xiaoyue. Don't even dream about it!

Seeing that I wouldn't fall for this trick, the Thunder Emperor snapped his fingers again, and all the gold and silver treasures vanished, replaced by a room crammed full of gas cylinders. The Thunder Emperor dragged one of the cylinders right in front of me, his expression rather frantic. "If you don't write it, I'll ignite this gas cylinder, and we'll all perish together."

True to his reputation as Xiaoyue's most loyal lapdog, he was utterly devoted to her.

Perplexed, I asked, "Is it really worth it for a green tea bitch like Xiaoyue?"

"I just love Xiaoyue, and she is beautiful!" the Thunder Emperor roared, lunging forward to pin me onto the bed as he tried to tear at my clothes with malicious intent.

"I even called you Third Uncle-in-law, have you no shame? Preying on a junior!" I screamed, struggling and fighting back. At that critical moment, the Thunder Emperor pressing down on me was yanked off my body by someone. It was Yang Jian, his face contorted with fury, his entire body radiating a piercing, frigid aura.

The Thunder Emperor conjured a pair of divine thunder hammers in his palms, and amidst swirling hammer shadows, bolts of heavenly thunder roared as they struck toward Yang Jian. With agile movements, Yang Jian leaped into the air, dodging the barrage of heavenly thunder. At the same time, the third eye on his forehead suddenly flared, shooting a fierce beam of laser light like an electric arc straight at the Thunder Emperor. Failing to evade in time, the Thunder Emperor was struck square in the chest. He staggered back several steps, the fabric over his chest scorched black by the intense heat, emitting a pungent, burnt stench.

Next, Yang Jian seized the advantage and lunged forward with his three-pronged, double-edged spear, engaging the Thunder Emperor in a fierce melee.

At that moment, a disheveled woman in tattered, blood-stained clothes with wildly unkempt hair—looking precisely like a street lunatic—abruptly appeared at the doorway. Her face was sallow and grotesque, her skin resembling wind-dried salted meat, terrifying to the extreme.

"Ah—Yu Li, I want you to die!" This horrifyingly deformed madwoman uttered a voice identical to Xiaoyue's.

I was utterly dumbfounded with terror. Had it not been for the voice remaining the same, no one could have ever guessed that this disfigured monster before me was once the exquisite and beautiful Xiaoyue. I never imagined that once Teacher Xing broke the evil spell Xiaoyue had cast on my face, it would backfire and disfigure Xiaoyue into such a state.

Her eyes bloodshot and wearing a frantic expression, she lunged toward me. Terrified, I screamed repeatedly, "Yang Jian, save me! Yang Jian, save me—"

However, Yang Jian was preoccupied with his battle against the Thunder Emperor. Hearing that I was in danger, he anxiously tried to rush over, only to be intercepted and ambushed by the Thunder Emperor. At that instant, a flash of neon light appeared in mid-air, and an ethereal immortal consort with an exquisite and magnificent dress descended gracefully—it was none other than my mother, the Heavenly Consort.

Her gaze fierce, she brandished her long sword, thrusting blow after blow at Xiaoyue as she shouted harshly, "Don't you dare touch my daughter—"

Simultaneously, a massive horde of demons and spirits surged into the room. Xiaoyue had secretly colluded with the demon and ghostly realms for a long time to handle her affairs. This time, Yang Jian had brought along twelve hundred grass-headed gods to counter those fiends. Combined with the Heavenly Consort's profound magical powers, the demons and Xiaoyue were temporarily beaten back.

The next day, Teacher Xing told me that after Xiaoyue and those demons were repelled the night before by the combined forces of the Heavenly Consort and Yang Jian, they had turned around and attacked the residence of him and Teacher Yang.

That night, Xiaoyue's appearance had become utterly terrifying. Her long, disheveled hair hung down, her pupils had vanished from her eyes, leaving only chilling, lifeless whites. Her disfigured face was hideously distorted, resembling a vengeful female ghost crawling straight out of an old horror movie. Floating up to the ceiling, she had lunged fiercely toward the sleeping Teacher Yang...

Teacher Xing snapped his eyes open with keen alertness, striking out with a palm imbued with deep magical power toward Xiaoyue. At that critical juncture, the lapdog Thunder Emperor stepped forward without a single moment of hesitation, acting as a human shield to block the blow for Xiaoyue. Teacher Xing's palm landed heavily, shattering the armor on the Thunder Emperor's body into countless pieces. Accompanied by a muffled groan, he vomited blood and was sent flying backward like a kite with a broken string.

Realizing the situation was dire and showing not the slightest hesitation, Xiaoyue completely disregarded whether the Thunder Emperor lived or died and turned to flee. However, Teacher Xing's second palm followed swiftly behind. A wave of irresistible, immense force crashed into Xiaoyue, and her entire cultivation was completely destroyed under that single blow.

Perplexed, I asked, "Wasn't Xiaoyue ordered by the Jade Emperor to be locked in the dungeon for punishment? How was she released so quickly?"

Teacher Yang provided the answer to that: "The one who came to attack everyone last night probably wasn't Xiaoyue's true primordial spirit, but her divine sense."

The deeply scheming Xiaoyue had realized something was amiss the moment Teacher Xing broke the evil spell on me, and she had preemptively extracted her divine sense to flee. What came to attack us last night was merely that divine sense.

Her divine sense and Xiaoyue were one and the same; since Xiaoyue's face was disfigured, her divine sense would naturally be disfigured as well.

I found Xiaoyue's disfigurement rather peculiar. Back then, fearing I would notice, the evil spell Xiaoyue cast on my primordial appearance wasn't very obvious. Even if karmic backlash doubled the effect, it shouldn't have deformed her face to this extent. It looked almost as if breaking the evil spell had inadvertently triggered some sort of chain reaction.

Unable to puzzle this out, I temporarily set the thought aside.

I brought up Yang Jian again and remarked with a tut, "I always used to think Xiaoyue was Yang Jian's white moonlight. Who would have thought that this white moonlight was actually reflected in a cesspool?"

Teacher Yang massaged his temples. "What kind of white moonlight has a heart that black?"

Thinking of Ding Yuan, Xiaoyue's heavenly soul reincarnation in the mortal world, I couldn't help asking, "What about Ding Yuan? Can she still return?"

Teacher Yang replied, "The heavens once gave Xiaoyue a chance to reform and see if she could mend her ways, but she failed to grasp it. Ding Yuan's nature remains scheming and suspicious. Because of her suspicion, even though Zhong Yang had already brought her to the cultivation ground, she kept procrastinating and never let Teacher Xing help her retrieve her primordial spirit and true form. As for whether she can return, it all depends on whether she can reform herself in this lifetime!"

I sighed, "Even if Ding Yuan could go back, with her primordial spirit disfigured, her mind deranged, and locked up in a dungeon, she'd be better off not going back at all!"

That night, as soon as I fell asleep, I suddenly found myself enveloped in a thick fog. It felt as though I had lost my way in the mountains, trapped within the mist with no way out. Suddenly, the figure of an old Daoist nun flashed before my eyes. Wandering aimlessly for a long time, I finally spotted a living person and rushed over, shouting, "Quickly save me, I'm trapped here!"

Hearing the voice, the person stopped. The old Daoist nun wore a five-flower brocade hat, a gold-woven robe, phoenix-topped cloud shoes, and a double-tasseled silk sash around her waist. She looked to be about sixty years old, with deeply sunken eyes, a high-bridged nose and prominent forehead, and a thin, cruel jawline, making her look both ugly and eccentric.

Standing outside the mist, she glared at me with aged, vicious eyes. That hateful gaze forced me to grind to a halt.

I suddenly remembered who this old Daoist nun was. She was the Pilongpo Bodhisattva from Journey to the West who had once helped Sun Wukong deal with the Centipede Spirit, and she was also the biological mother of the Star Lord Maori, one of the Twenty-Eight Mansions—Xiaoyue's grandmother.

"Hmph, you people harmed my granddaughter to this extent; I will come for each of you to settle accounts and avenge my granddaughter!" With that, she flicked her whisk and turned away.

"Waa—" A sharp, fierce cry wailed from the crib, snapping me violently out of the dream.

As soon as I opened my eyes, a sudden, piercing pain and an itchy sensation crawled all over my cheeks, as if I had been bitten by some venomous insect. Ignoring the abnormality on my face, I hurriedly turned my head to check on the baby. It was then I saw seven women standing by the bed, wearing sheer silk dresses and bearing bewitching appearances, their eyes suffused with evil Qi. Innumerable dense spiderwebs surrounded them, fluttering without any wind.

The baby's hands and feet were already tightly bound by those spider threads, his delicate skin flushed red from struggling. He wailed helplessly in terror and despair, his cries piercingly grating in the eerie atmosphere.

I instantly recognized those seven women as the spider spirits who had once captured Tripitaka and were later subdued by Pilongpo, banished to clean the courtyards in the Thousand Flower Cave of Mount Ziyun. I rebuked angrily, "Mere insignificant spider spirits, utterly ignorant of the Mandate of Heaven, daring to come and trespass in my home!"

Realizing I was awake, the seven spider spirits flashed a look of timidity, unwilling to face me head-on. They swiftly whipped up their delicate spider threads, extending them toward the window, and vanished without a trace in a split second.

The next day, I video-called Teacher Xing. He used Samadhi True Fire to burn away the spider threads wrapped around the baby. Because the baby was still too young and had been frightened out of his three souls and six spirits by the spider spirits last night, Teacher Xing retrieved them for him as well.

The sudden stinging pain on my face was also caused by the bites of those seven spider spirits from the previous night. Teacher Xing captured all seven of them and tossed them into a giant cauldron, reducing them to ashes.

I complained, "Are they jealous of my good looks? Why do they all target my face?" Lately, anyone coming to pick a fight would always mess with my face.

Teacher Xing explained slowly, "Ever since Xiaoyue ruthlessly disfigured you, although I helped restore your appearance, your face is now the most vulnerable part of your entire body. Naturally, they are going to strike at your weakness."

Teacher Xing told me that my primordial spirit had been captured by Pilongpo and imprisoned on Mount Ziyun, which explained why I had dreamed of getting lost in the mountains with no way out.

With a thought, he summoned his primordial spirit, the Kunlun Divine Lord. A brilliant golden light burst forth from his body like a shooting star tearing through the sky, heading straight for Mount Ziyun. Seeing my primordial spirit Yu'er still wandering around the mountaintop unable to find a way out, he suddenly materialized out of thin air. Yu'er cried out in pleasant surprise, "Master."

He nodded slightly, gently waving his sleeve. The enveloping mist instantly dissipated, the sun shone brightly, and the mountaintop bloomed with birdsong, fragrant flowers, and lush green pines lining the path.

He took Yu'er by the sleeve, preparing to ride the clouds and leave together, when suddenly his deep, hawk-like eyes locked onto the peak of the mountain, his brow furrowing. "A formation targeting Yang Yue has been set up on Mount Ziyun!"

No wonder Teacher Yang's health had been deteriorating day by day recently; it turned out Pilongpo had laid down a formation against them.

The Kunlun Divine Lord casually snapped a tree branch from the roadside and gave his sleeve a gentle flick. That branch shot forward like an arrow released from a bow, tearing through the sky with a dazzling golden trail dragging behind it like a shooting star, carrying immeasurable might. "Boom—" A heaven-shaking explosion blasted from the mountaintop, followed by billowing black smoke. The formation meticulously arranged by Pilongpo was thus obliterated by his casual toss.

The Kunlun Divine Lord brought Yu'er back to the mortal world. Before returning the primordial spirit to my body, he told Yu'er one thing:

"Pilongpo will not let this rest. During this period, she has been gathering forces from the Buddhist realm to move against you. Fortunately, your household also has a heavyweight from the Buddhist realm helping you fight her!"

"A Buddhist heavyweight?" Yu'er didn't react for a moment.

At that moment, far up in the clouds, a magnificent female figure slowly appeared, stepping upon colorful auspicious clouds. She wore a light, elegant plain robe with exquisite gemstone pendants around her waist, bathed in an auspicious glow with a gentle and beautiful countenance. The refined Muzha stood respectfully beside her.

Yu'er couldn't help blurting out, "Guanyin Bodhisattva..."