WJ Chapter 72

Little Star (2)

When Guan Wujue left Guan Muyan’s bamboo house, it was actually quite late. Combined with the overcast sky, the surroundings quickly grew very dark.

This made the Protector’s mood increasingly worse.

He just couldn’t understand it—after so many years of peace and quiet, why did everyone suddenly start causing him problems at this time?

Guan Muyan too, and Wen Feng as well…!

A slightly cold wind brushed past his ear. Guan Wujue raised his hand to press down the hair that had been blown loose, then looked up at the sky.

His brows relaxed slightly as he murmured, “It’s going to rain soon.”

With this weather, it should be rain and not snow.

Guan Wujue suddenly felt like returning to his Qingjue Residence for the first time in a while. He walked a few steps, but kept feeling as if something was still tugging at his heart.

Had he forgotten something important…

The Four Directions Protector thought carefully again, but still couldn’t figure it out. Not until he saw red silk—rare in Xifeng City—hanging in the distance did he suddenly understand.

Oh right, tomorrow was the day the Sect Leader and Ye Ru were getting married.

This should have been a joyous occasion, but in reality it was just a temporary measure by the Sect Leader to protect Ye Ru. By now, news of the marriage between the Zhuyin Sect Leader and the supposedly resurrected Young Master Lin of the Duanmu family had probably spread everywhere. Half the jianghu was likely in an uproar… Yet inside the Zhuyin Sect itself, things were rather cold and quiet.

…That young fellow Ye Ru, he wondered if the boy was feeling sad right now.

Actually, Ye Ru wasn’t much younger than him, but Guan Wujue had always felt from childhood that this person was clearly just a pitiful little thing. However, given the Sect Leader’s style, he must have explained everything clearly from the start. Since Ye Ru had agreed to the marriage, he should have been mentally prepared…

Guan Wujue walked a few more steps with these chaotic thoughts, when suddenly his spine inexplicably turned cold.

He heard a sharp whistling sound by his ear!

In the instant he turned his head, Guan Wujue saw a black shadow lunge out from the side, using its body as a shield to block in front of him.

The Protector’s pupils contracted.

With a squelching sound, it was the noise of a sharp weapon entering flesh.

No blood splattered out.

The black-clothed, black-armored Yin Ghost fell to the ground with a thud, a small silver needle embedded in its back. It was already dead.

——An assassination!?

Who would dare attempt an assassination against him within Xifeng City?

In just an instant, Guan Wujue felt all his nerves explode and tighten. He looked around—it was too dark to see the path clearly, and he couldn’t find any trace of the assassin. Guan Muyan’s residence was located in the most secluded part of the Medicine Gate, and with this terrible weather, there wasn’t a single person in sight!

The Protector habitually reached behind him, only then remembering he hadn’t brought his sword again.

In the blink of an eye, countless silver lights suddenly shot out from the tree shadows to his side, like heavenly maidens scattering flowers or a torrential downpour—impossible to avoid!

But before Guan Wujue could sense any life-or-death danger, he saw a flash before his eyes as Yin Ghosts’ pitch-black figures appeared all around with a series of swooshes, forming a dense formation to protect the Protector in the center.

The Yin Ghosts’ long swords swept across in succession, accompanied by a series of clanging sounds. The silver lights were all intercepted and fell to the ground, revealing themselves to be fine needles identical to the one that had killed the Yin Ghost earlier.

The next moment, several figures lunged out from the direction the hidden weapons had come from—all women in black clothes with black veils covering their faces.

The women on both sides each wielded two small curved blades, attacking the Yin Ghosts with vicious moves, while the woman in the center charged straight toward Guan Wujue.

She shook both hands, and sharp weapons of various shapes flew endlessly toward him. Though clearly launched by a single person in one move, these hidden weapons came from different angles, attacking from all directions. Combined with their varying speeds and the dazzling afterimages of different lights, it was enough to make one’s eyes blur.

Seeing such exquisite hidden weapon techniques, Guan Wujue naturally couldn’t fail to guess the assassin’s true identity. Just the other day he’d mentioned to the Sect Leader about a fight to the death—and here it was!

Seeing the Yin Ghosts about to engage, he couldn’t help but worry. Instinctively wanting to stop them, he called out, “Fall back! Don’t directly…”

But before he could finish his sentence, he fell silent.

More Yin Ghosts emerged from all around, and their number——

Five…

Ten…

Fifteen…

Twenty…

Wait, twenty!?

This was already the number deployed when escorting him from the sect to Wanci Manor last time!

And generally speaking, twenty Yin Ghosts was the standard configuration for when the Sect Leader traveled. Last time, when Yun Changliu had left all the Yin Ghosts with the Protector, it had already been a small breach of protocol.

But this time it wasn’t over yet. The number of Yin Ghosts appearing continued to increase——

Twenty, twenty-five, thirty…

Guan Wujue could no longer even count how many Yin Ghosts there were!

The numerous Yin Ghosts all drew their swords together, protecting the Protector in the center like an iron wall. Forget hidden weapons—not even a mosquito could fly through.

What should have been an extremely dangerous scene instantly became rather ridiculous.

Guan Wujue was simply dumbstruck.

This… this this this…

——Just how many Yin Ghosts had the Sect Leader assigned to his side!?

At this moment, the Protector couldn’t even see the assassin’s form anymore. He could only hear the sounds of fighting and see the Yin Ghosts’ upright, pitch-black backs standing tall.

…Upright, standing.

Indeed, just standing. The innermost layer of Yin Ghosts didn’t even need to fight the assassin—they just needed to stand there.

——Because that assassin had long been intercepted by the outer circle of Yin Ghosts.

Even if they genuinely wanted to fight, they couldn’t reach the enemy at all!

The outcome of the battle was obviously no longer in doubt.

Yin Ghosts weren’t ordinary soldiers—they were the elite of the Zhuyin Sect’s elite. Even with Guan Wujue’s power at its peak, facing such a large group of Yin Ghosts, he wouldn’t dare claim he could remain undefeated.

Moreover, the skill of hidden weapons lay in the word “hidden”—relying on surprise attacks when opponents were unprepared. Once fallen into an encirclement with enemies on all sides, one could say half the battle was already lost.

If this assassin could still escape under these circumstances, the entire group of Yin Ghosts would have to commit collective suicide from shame.

“……”

Inside the “iron wall” formed by those pitch-black backs, Guan Wujue placed a hand on the shoulder of the Yin Ghost in front of him and asked expressionlessly, “How many… of you are there?”

That Yin Ghost clearly had excellent discipline. Without turning its head, while maintaining vigilance, it replied, “Reporting to the Protector, there are a total of fifty Yin Ghosts under your command, awaiting the Protector’s orders!”

One hundred Yin Ghosts had been enough to force Lin Wanxia’s Hunting Geese to mobilize in full force. Now the Sect Leader was actually using fifty Yin Ghosts to protect a single person.

Moreover, someone staying within Xifeng City, the sect headquarters, who would absolutely never encounter thousands of troops…

Protector Guan simply couldn’t accept this. “No… where did the Sect Leader get so many Yin Ghosts to deploy!?”

If he remembered correctly, not long ago some people had just been newly dispatched to protect Ah Ku, and yesterday those hundred Yin Ghosts had been deployed to set up the trap. Judging from the Sect Leader’s tone, the Yin Ghosts around him had been arranged long ago as well…

It was impossible—even if the Sect Leader emptied out the entire Ghost Gate, he couldn’t spare this many Yin Ghosts, could he?

He heard the Yin Ghost still very calmly report, “Reporting to the Protector, this subordinate is also unclear. It’s said that of the Yin Ghosts deployed yesterday, half were fake.”

Guan Wujue: “Fake…!?”

……Fine, the Sect Leader was truly something else.

No wonder the Yin Ghosts had all just watched the show that day. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to fight—they couldn’t fight. If they fought, their cover would probably be blown!

Guan Wujue shook his head with a mixture of laughter and tears, no longer paying attention to the battle. Instead, he walked toward the corpse of the Yin Ghost that had blocked an attack for him.

In an assassination, the first strike was always the most dangerous. This Yin Ghost had died in his place.

Guan Wujue came from the Ghost Gate and understood the fate of so-called death warriors better than anyone. Dying to protect one’s master was the highest honor for a Yin Ghost. Back when he had first entered the Ghost Gate, his initial hope had been that one day he could block an attack for Yun Changliu in this way.

However, now that he had changed from being the protector to being the protected, his feelings were complex. The Protector sighed softly, crouched down halfway, carefully pulled out the hidden weapon and put it away, then closed the deceased’s eyes.

In just that short time, he heard a Yin Ghost say, “Protector, the criminals have been captured!”

Indeed, the assassin had been captured.

They were being held on the ground with their hands twisted behind their backs by the Yin Ghosts. The other two were still struggling unwillingly, but the leader who had charged straight at Guan Wujue from the start was quite calm.

Guan Wujue signaled the Yin Ghosts to knock out the two attempting to resist first, then walked forward and reached out to pull off the black veil of the lead woman.

The Yin Ghosts showed surprise in their eyes.

The Protector’s fingers loosened, and the black veil was blown away by the wind, falling among the dust.

Guan Wujue raised an eyebrow slightly, not at all surprised. “Madam Lin, do you have anything to say?”

Lin Wanxia kept her eyes lowered without expression, remaining silent. The Yin Ghosts applied force, and she was pressed to bow her head.

Several strands of hair fell loose, covering that face which was still beautiful but no longer had the youthful beauty of years past.

Her shoulders suddenly trembled as she began to laugh.

“Hehe, hahaha…”

Her laughter gradually became more crazed. Lin Wanxia suddenly raised her head and looked around in a circle. A strange expression of amazement and appreciation appeared on her face as she sighed in a low voice, “So many Yin Ghosts… Yun Changliu really thinks highly of me…”

She seemed completely devastated and driven mad. She lowered her head again with muffled laughter, shaking her head repeatedly in small movements. “Who would have thought, who would have thought! I was actually deceived twice by the same trick! A complete defeat, a complete defeat!!”

“Hehe, Yun Changliu is far more ruthless than I imagined…”

Lin Wanxia’s face contorted. Laughing wildly, she suddenly struggled violently, trying to straighten her waist, but was pressed back down to the ground by the Yin Ghosts.

The woman’s eyes turned an excited red. Like a rakshasa crawling out of hell, she glared at the Four Directions Protector as if she wanted to devour him alive. “Guan Wujue, how does it feel to be used as bait by the master you’re loyal to!? Just a hair’s breadth difference, and you would already be dead here!”

“Ah, it feels quite good,” Guan Wujue crossed his arms and looked at Lin Wanxia with a smile, nodding cheerfully. “I’m happy for the Sect Leader to use me. He can use me however he wants.”

Lin Wanxia’s smile froze. Her face turned from red to blue. She suddenly spat and said viciously, “The victor rules and the loser perishes—if you want to kill me, then kill me! When I become an evil ghost, I’ll come back to seek revenge from you for Jing’er!”

Guan Wujue said, “Who said I’m going to kill you?”

He was too lazy to waste more words with Lin Wanxia. With a casual wave, he gave the order indifferently, “Knock her out and take her down to the Punishment Hall.”

A Yin Ghost struck the back of Lin Wanxia’s head with a chop, and she fell unconscious without even a grunt.

Guan Wujue took a deep look at Madam Lin, watching as several Yin Ghosts came forward to carry her away.

Was it over?

Much simpler than imagined—it had ended just like that.

The remaining Yin Ghosts were still surrounding him. The Protector was about to give further instructions when he saw those Yin Ghosts’ eyes all change at once. They turned around in perfect unison.

They knelt down in worship facing one direction, calling out in unison, “We greet the Sect Leader!”

Guan Wujue started and quickly turned around.

Not far away by the side of the path, a snow-white robe was half-hidden in the darkness.

“…Wujue.”

Yun Changliu called out very softly. For some reason, his voice clearly lacked its usual calm, instead carrying a very slight tremor.

The dark clouds in the sky parted slightly, creating a small gap. Under the faint moonlight that emerged, the Sect Leader stared blankly toward the Protector, his face as pale as a corpse.

Since the last time the Fengchun Sheng poison had fully erupted, the speed of Yun Changliu’s physical decline had been frighteningly fast. Seeing him like this, Guan Wujue was immediately terrified. He ran over, taking two steps at once. “Sect Leader!? How could you come out so late at night!”

But Yun Changliu seemed not to hear Guan Wujue’s words at all. He just said in a dazed, hoarse voice, “I… deployed the Yin Ghosts just to protect you, I didn’t mean…”

Before he could finish his sentence, he swayed and fell toward the Protector’s shoulder.

Guan Wujue quickly stepped forward to support him, both anxious and annoyed. Just as he was about to scold the Sect Leader a few words for not taking care of his body, Yun Changliu’s hands forcefully grabbed onto him.

That unusual strength made Guan Wujue freeze for a moment, and his words didn’t come out.

Yun Changliu pressed his forehead against the Protector’s shoulder, panting with restraint. The ever-increasing pain from the Fengchun Sheng poison forced him to struggle to form words in a trembling, breathy voice:

“Didn’t mean… to use you as bait…”