A blast of power rushed through Jin Xian. Hui was forcibly expelled, and his vision blackened. Hui jolted out of his meditation and almost simultaneously spat a mouthful of blood. He jumped up and ran for the entrance to his vertebra, then hesitated. Dammit! Fa Chuyou has my ghoul skin. If I leave, I…

Wait. Yunxu knows who I am. Then—

No, he knows that I’m the one who used the gem in the Blood Mist Valley. Erlan picked me up after I got the gem. Unless he saw me in that ancestral home, before I picked up the gem, I…

Hui furrowed his brows. The snake-skin technique… obviously would solve this, but I haven’t cultivated it yet! Argh! Even if it only takes me an hour to comprehend it, that could be too long!

He paced back and forth, moving toward the door, then retreating. Hui chewed his lip, nervous. At last, he fished a jade slip out of his storage ring, pressed it to his forehead, then sent it flying out the front of his vertebra.

A knock sounded at the front of his cave seconds later. “Xie Hao, there’s no way. You can’t fool me,” Bai Xue declared.

“You came,” Hui replied, waving his hand to let Bai Xue in.

“Right, but you didn’t fool me. You aren’t waiting anxiously for my arrival, unable to think of another way than getting there with me…” Bai Xue said, sweeping inside. He stopped abruptly and swept his eyes up and down Hui. “Or… are you? No ghoul skin. That’s practically naked, nowadays!”

Hui hugged himself, suddenly feeling exposed. He shook his head. “No! I—I meant literally going somewhere! I need your help to…to go to Corpse Refining Valley. Fa Chuyou’s in danger! I don’t have my ghoul skin, so I can’t step outside myself without someone else to help hide my appearance and aura. Please, Bai Xue!”

Bai Xue leaned against the vertebra wall, still taking Hui in. “I don’t know. I think I might need your help getting there…”

“My, my ghoul-skin is in danger!” Hui tried.

Bai Xue shrugged. He stepped toward Hui, swapping into female form. White hair flowed gracefully down her white robes. She lowered long lashes, cold eyes giving him a look that heated his skin. A cold hand traced his chin. “Haven’t you considered… that you might be in danger?”

“Bai Xue! I—” Hui swallowed. He started to speak, then gagged. Tried again.

“Go on,” Bai Xue purred, leaning close.

“I… I’ll owe you one!” Hui managed.

Bai Xue hesitated. She stopped, then sighed. “When it comes time to cash in all that you owe me… you’d better not run away.”

“I won’t,” Hui said firmly. I’ll play dead first!

She stepped back, swapping back to her male form. He flicked his sleeve, then hung a robe over Hui’s head and hugged him close to his body. “Alright. That should do it.”

“Er… isn’t this… a bit intimate, for two men?” Hui asked.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard the rumors? It’s too late for that, Xiao Hui,” Bai Xue chuckled.

Hui sighed. That’s true!

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Tossing out a fan, Bai Xue stepped onto it, carrying Hui with him. He burst out into the sect and zoomed toward Corpse Refining Valley at top speed. Hui huddled beside him, hidden under the robe. He peeked out.

A few disciples glanced at them. One or two smiled and whispered to one another, amused.

Hui sighed, unable to muster a reaction. Oh well. I won’t be here much longer, anyways. While I’m in the Mysterious Heaven Forest Sect, I’ll find a way to sneak free and make a break for Starbound Sect. After all, they are a righteous sect at the end of the day. Once I reveal myself, they shouldn’t be able to kill another righteous disciple openly!

…Well, that, and it’s closer to Starbound Sect. Even in the worst case, I’ll have a better chance of making a successful break for it.

They swooped into Corpse Refining Valley. Bai Xue hesitated, looking around. “I’ve been there once before…”

Hui burrowed out from under the robe and pointed. “That way.”

Bai Xue blasted off again, zooming off through the dark, quiet valley. Below, coffins turned into blurs of white and wood against the blackened valley floor. The river running down its center became nothing but a shiny blaze of dark water. In the space of a few breaths, they arrived at Fa Chuyou’s cultivation area.

Dark clouds of smoke emanated from the back of the zone, where she kept her refining coffin. Jin Xian stood blankly nearby, staring into the middle distance. Fa Chuyou was nowhere in sight. Hui leaped off Bai Xue’s fan and raced over. “Fa Chuyou!”

Fa Chuyou hung limply over the coffin, her eyes rolled back. Black smoke billowed from the coffin, rushing past her body. He dragged Fa Chuyou away and laid her on the ground.

Bai Xue knelt over Fa Chuyou. He nudged her. “She’s alive.”

“Good.” Hui took a deep breath, then stepped into the smoke. His eyes burned, and his skin ached. Most shockingly, the smoke flickered with death qi. Hui’s eyes widened. He threw his hand out, collecting the death qi into his palm, then, with a backhand, blew the smoke away.

“Eh? Hui, fourth realm? Since when?” Bai Xue asked, startled.

Hui barely heard him. He peered down into the coffin, frowning.

The skin laid below, wrinkled and dried up at the bottom of the coffin. It hissed and popped, as if cooking in oil. Hui frowned. Where’d all the corpse refining fluid go?

He looked up at the retreating smoke, and realization passed over his face. Right.

Liquid. I need more liquid to refine this corpse! Hui cast around, searching for a vial of Yellow Springs River water. Nothing. I don’t see any vials! Does Fa Chuyou keep them on her, in her personal bag of holding? But… I won’t be able to open her personal bag of holding without erasing her seal, and… argh, it’ll take too long!

Liquid! “Bai Xue, do you see any bottles around here…? Anything with liquid?”

“Fourth realm… I need to progress already—eh, huh? I’ll go check,” Bai Xue said, startled out of his thoughts. He rushed off into the cultivation zone, carefully dodging the various strange corpses.

Before Hui’s eyes, the ghoul skin continued to crack and pop. It blackened as it dried up, shriveling away. I don’t have any time. I need… something…

Liquid. Water. An ocean…

Hui lifted his hand to his storage ring and drew out the red gem. A sea of blood qi sloshed inside, liquid-like. It’s qi, not liquid, but… but it’s worth a try!

He held the gem over the coffin and released some of the blood qi into the coffin. The ghoul skin sizzled fiercely as the blood qi sloshed over it, boiling under the heat of the refining corpse. Hui added more, more. The sizzling quieted to a low boil, and the skin stopped shriveling. He poured more.

The blood qi duck hurtled out of his dantian and stood under the gem, beak wide open. Some of the qi diverted from the coffin and splashed down the duck’s throat.

Hui frowned, then shrugged to himself. Oh well. I was planning to feed it blood qi anyways. Two birds, one stone!

Under the influence of the blood qi, the ghoul skin began to lighten. Black gunk lifted off its surface. The previously average-looking skin became perfectly clear, shining with health, so that Hui could hardly believe the skin originally came from a ghoul rather than a living human.

The scrap of snake skin glowed, half-merged into the ghoul skin’s chest. Hui fed his own qi into it, merging the snake skin into the ghoul skin. The blood qi instantly began to boil as the ghoul skin sucked down the blood qi.

Even as the refining process began anew, Jin Xian stepped up behind him and climbed into the coffin. She laid beside the ghoul skin, arms crossed over her chest, a dim expression on her face as though nothing was out of the ordinary.

Hui pressed his lips together, looking at the gluttonous blood qi duck and the cheeky ghoul. Is everyone going to try to steal my blood qi? Elder Sister, Senior Fatty, please! There’s no need! Everyone can have some, in their own time!