Ye Huohuo shook her head resolutely, "No, absolutely not!"
"Why? You, you, you..." Nie Ming was so angry he couldn't speak, sputtering out "you" several times without finishing his sentence.
"Ye Huohuo, do you want to die?" Finally, Li Mohan, who had been mostly silent, grabbed Ye Huohuo by her collar, lifting her as if she were a chick, his eyes blazing with intense anger.
The cold aura emanating from him caused those around them to instinctively retreat several steps, leaving only him and the Ye Huohuo he held suspended.
However, Ye Huohuo, who usually flinched at the sight of Li Mohan, found an unexpected surge of courage. She stared directly into Li Mohan's eyes, her expression indifferent and fearless, her chin slightly raised, her eyes filled with disdain, and a cold smile playing on her lips.
"Mr. Li, we are no longer connected. Whether I live or die is my own business. You don't need to worry about me."
Li Mohan narrowed his eyes, gazing at her for a long time, but Ye Huohuo's expression remained stubborn.
She pulled away Li Mohan's hand from her collar, her eyes fixed on him. Every muscle in her lips seemed to strain with effort as she finally managed to utter, "I don't want to be connected to him through the thread of fate anymore. I will find a way to live on my own. You don't need to persuade me, I..."
Before she could finish, Nie Ming flapped his wings and struck her across the face. It felt like a slap, and Ye Huohuo saw stars. The right side of her face burned. "Senior Brother, you..."
"Me, me, me what? Have you forgotten Master's words? To save your life, back then..." Nie Ming landed angrily on a nearby branch, glaring down at Ye Huohuo. He had just flown around in anger, losing several feathers that now drifted slowly in the air, the black feathers glinting silver in the moonlight.
Nie Ming had always been protective of his junior disciples, especially Ye Huohuo, his younger sister. Her difficult fate had evoked his pity, and when they were human, he had never laid a finger on her. Now, as a bird, he had slapped her.
His action stunned everyone around. Ye Huohuo's eyes reddened, and tears welled up, threatening to fall, but she managed to hold them back.
"You dare to cry!" Nie Ming was so furious he stopped stuttering. "Do you still think you're a child? Master put so much effort into keeping you alive, and now you've given up on yourself. Rather than letting others beat you to death, it's better if I kill you now, saving everyone trouble."
With the arrival of Senior Brother Nie Ming's imposing presence, despite being in the body of a mynah bird, he exuded an air of majesty, radiating an aura of spiritual cultivation. For a moment, everyone was silenced, not daring to make a sound, as if even their breathing had become imperceptible.
"Oh, I didn't expect there to be a... very powerful little immortal elder here?" Fang Fang chuckled lightly, her melodious and charming voice breaking the silence.
"Fang Fang, don't be disrespectful to my Senior Brother!" Ye Huohuo's half-face still bore red marks from the slap, stark against her pale complexion and conspicuous in the moonlight. Yet, she held no resentment towards Nie Ming; instead, she felt a pang of sorrow and guilt.
"Senior Brother, I was wrong!" Her voice was very low, sounding meek, a stark contrast to her usual spirited demeanor.
At this moment, Ye Huohuo lowered her head, like a child who had made a mistake, afraid to look up at Nie Ming.
"It's not her fault; it's mine!" Li Mohan seemed to sigh, his previous aggression mostly dissipated. His gaze lingered on Ye Huohuo's slightly red and swollen face, a flicker of guilt in his eyes.
"It has nothing to do with you. After she broke the thread of fate herself, you busied yourself looking for her, and I saw it all. If you hadn't appeared in time, she would have run onto a blade herself just now. Don't cover for her. My junior sister has been spoiled by us since childhood, and we can't indulge her this time. Leave it to me to handle it." The more Nie Ming spoke, the more ashamed he felt, almost to the point of apologizing to Li Mohan on Ye Huohuo's behalf.
"Actually, I..." Li Mohan's face showed a hint of guilt.
Before he could say anything, Fang Fang, unable to watch any longer, pointed at the mynah bird with one finger and put her other hand on her hip. "I say, do you have any semblance of a Senior Brother? Your junior sister is being wronged, and instead of supporting her, you're scolding her."
Nie Ming, who didn't understand much about romantic matters, had only seen Li Mohan anxiously concerned for Ye Huohuo. Combined with Ye Huohuo's occasional mischievousness, he assumed she had simply been temperamental and broken the thread of fate.
Upon hearing Fang Fang's words, he couldn't help but pause, tilting his head and looking at Li Mohan with his small, dark eyes, as if trying to glean something from his expression. "What does she mean?"
Li Mohan's expression was a little unnatural. He nodded, "It's my fault! Ye Huohuo is not to blame, I..."
"It moved! That bag moved! Inside... it looks like it's coming out!" Just then, A Cheng, who had been silent, suddenly yelled, his voice cracking. Simultaneously, the five bodyguards at the foot of the slope screamed and scrambled away in a panic.
It was as if the sack containing the corpse on the ground was a malevolent spirit.
It turned out that while the others were talking, A Cheng, feeling there was nothing for him to do, had gone to the foot of the slope to examine the two large sacks of corpses they had desperately retrieved from the formation, wondering what was different about them.
As he approached the sack containing the woman's body, about two steps away, he suddenly saw the sack seem to move.
However, the sack was placed under the shade of some trees, and moonlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled shadows on the sack. It was unclear whether the sack was moving or if the shadows were shifting due to the wind rustling the leaves.
A Cheng wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, swallowed, and tried to calm his nerves. He took half a step forward, his eyes fixed on the sack.
He had been carrying this sack just moments ago. Based on his years of experience dealing with the dead, he was certain the person inside was beyond any possibility of movement; it was a decaying corpse. How could it move?
But then, the unexpected happened. The sack began to bulge outward from the inside, not like it was being inflated with air, but as if a mischievous child inside was poking at the sack with their fingers.
Once, twice...
When the sack was pushed outward for the third time by something unknown inside, A Cheng finally confirmed it wasn't his imagination; the sack was indeed moving.
He finally couldn't hold back and shouted, "It moved! Something inside the sack moved!"
His voice trembled with tension and fear. He was not afraid of any opponent and had once traversed an uninhabited jungle without fear, yet A Cheng was so startled he cried out like that.
Even Li Mohan was surprised. "A Cheng? What's wrong?"
Everyone stopped their argument and looked at A Cheng. Li Mohan quickly walked over to him, placed his right hand on A Cheng's left shoulder, and the warmth from his palm transmitted to A Cheng's shoulder, steadying his slightly trembling body.
With an embarrassed expression, he looked at Li Mohan, "Boss, I..."
"It's alright! We're all here. You're injured, stand down!"
A Cheng knew this was not the time to be a hero. He was nowhere near as skilled as Ye Huohuo and the others when dealing with such things. He briefly explained what he had seen and then retreated to the back.
Fang Fang circled the sack twice. "The corpse inside can move? That shouldn't happen. I just checked, and it doesn't even have a soul. How can it move? That skeleton was deliberately refined into a living corpse by an expert, which is why it could move and contained its own soul. But this is just an ordinary decaying corpse. How can it move?"
Ye Huohuo also leaned over to look. Indeed, she saw something pointed inside the bag pushing outwards, as if someone was poking the sack with their fingers. At first, she frowned, trying to figure it out. Unable to find an answer, she raised her hand to untie the rope securing the bag.
"You're going to untie it before you even understand what's happening? If it's something powerful, with our current abilities, we might not be able to handle it!" Fang Fang reached out to stop her.
"Are you stupid? If it were something truly powerful, would it be contained by a mere sack?" Ye Huohuo brushed her hand away and, without hesitation, opened the sack.
Everyone simultaneously peered inside. Even A Cheng craned his neck from behind the group to look.
Suddenly, a black shadow shot out from within, charging directly towards Ye Huohuo's face.