"The Ancestral Fox Remnant Soul will possess you as soon as it touches you, do you know the consequence of her possessing you?" Zhang Shuying furrowed her brow and asked.
I swallowed hard, "My body is the most compatible vessel for her. If she possesses me, I fear no one will be able to force her out again."
"Your understanding is one-sided; Yu Longting went to great lengths to destroy all the Remnant Souls for a reason."
Zhang Shuying tapped her fingers on the table, those bewitchingly deep eyes of hers showing an unusual depth of seriousness, "She can consume your soul in an instant, and from then on you shall never transcend after death. You will cease to exist in this world, understand?"
I felt an indescribable desolation and loneliness in my heart and nodded slightly, "Understood."
I had always known that my end would not be good, but I had never thought that I would be completely erased from this world.
Not even a fragment of my soul would remain...
Father, just how much did you detest me to set up such a situation?
"Where has Yu Longting gone? When will he return?" Zhang Shuying asked.
I replied, "He has gone back to the sect for some business. He will return before Lin Gang's execution."
"Perfect, Lin Gang, that cur, is most afraid of death. Perhaps it's an opportunity," Zhang Shuying said, stroking her chin and assessing.
*
Two days passed in the blink of an eye.
The place where Lin Gang's head would be chopped off was atop a sacrificial altar.
The Four Symbols Soul Banners were hung high, fluttering in the wind.
All those present were people of the Lin family, including Old Madam Lin, Yan Hua, who also came, supported by two young girls.
My mother was somewhat fearful of Yan Hua and pulled me to stand a good distance from her.
Zhang Shuying came late, a blade of foxtail grass in her mouth, walking up beside me, "Who would have thought, Lin Gang, this fellow, has a pretty tough spine."
"He still refuses to hand over the Ancestral Fox Remnant Soul?" From Zhang Shuying's words, I guessed the outcome.
With Lin Gang dead, the Ancestral Fox Remnant Soul would have nowhere to be found.
She had sought Lin Gang for negotiations early in the morning.
Zhang Shuying, frustrated, bit fiercely on the foxtail grass, "I induced the Gu Poison to torture him until he cried for his dad and yelled for his mom. Then I promised to perform a Gu Removal, to let him go. Carrot and stick, both grace and might combined, yet he still wouldn't give in... Could it be that he is truly smitten... unafraid of death for the sake of the fox?"
"Did you search him?" I casually asked.
Zhang Shuying hissed, "No. Why search him? He stinks to high heaven, and this Taoist Master has a preference for cleanliness."
"Nothing, just a woman's intuition. I always feel that he carries some means of self-protection on him." I had witnessed firsthand Lin Gang's cunning, and even Yu Longting had said that Lin Gang would surely play tricks.
It was just unknown what means Lin Gang would employ to cause trouble...
In the front, Lin Huan personally brought Lin Gang up to the sacrificial altar, first confessing his own guilt to the crowd, "To not instruct one's child is the father's fault. The way Lin Gang turned out, it's all my responsibility. As the Patriarch of the Lin family, I hereby admit my failings to all present."
"Dad, don't kill me, I know my mistakes now, I will definitely change, please spare me, I don't want to die... I really don't want to die..." Lin Gang groveled at Lin Huan's feet, abjectly humbled to the dust.
His eye that had been spoiled by the Gu Insects was completely rotted away, and the hollow eye socket was exposed openly to everyone's gaze.
At this moment, with the dark red around his eye, he looked like a rotten apple eaten by worms, both horrifying and pitiable.
Lin Huan, however, was impartial and just, seeing his son in such a state did not soften him; there was only the bitter grief of disappointment upon his face, "Had you known today, why did you do it back then? You are of the Lin family, an upright and honorable Exorcist, yet you served Xuanjing. Aren't you ashamed?"