Hui examined the array closely, floating near, then far, circling around it to get a full view of the intricacies of the spell. Although at a passing glance, it looks similar to Senior Chen Wuya’s, on closer inspection… well, let’s just say that Senior would probably peck me to death if I suggested it looked like his array. It’s quite sloppy and amateurish. In fact, it really reminds me more of… of, er, my attempt to modify his array to turn it into a ghost flag. But that was an emergency situation! Of course it would be a bit sloppy.

This array is doing something with her soul, and her qi… I could simply destroy it with death qi, but I don’t know what it’s doing. If destroying it kills her, then… He flicked his eyes at the guard, still standing just outside the isolation barrier and patiently waiting for a signal. It’s not like she could actually harm me, but given the ruckus killing a direct heir to a clan would cause, I’d attract too much attention. Playing dead wouldn’t be an option, either, not without abandoning the entire clone… who knows what they’d do to my poor corpse in their rage, after all!

So in the end, I have to at least understand what this spell is doing, if not why or who put it in her.

Hui sent an experimental bit of qi into the array. The array began to glow red and spun slowly. A second ring of marks appeared and rotated counter to the first set, the two nested inside one another. Hui focused on the array with his third eye, but even then, he couldn’t quite figure it out. Her soul shifted, subtly rotating, and showed different angles of itself.

But why? Hui wondered, frowning. A spell to rotate her soul? What does that even accomplish? Besides, at this low of a level, her soul is barely different from a mortal’s. I don’t understand what the purpose of this spell is.

Experimentally, he grabbed on to a portion of the spell and froze it in place, preventing it from circulating.

Fu Liyu shuddered. Her complexion turned ashen, and she coughed and spat a mouthful of blood. Her soul trembled and showed signs of breaking apart into its component souls, and her dantian, likewise, began to quake and crack.

“What—what are you…” she stammered.

Outside of the isolation array, the guard tensed.

Hui released his hold on the spell and backed up.

Immediately, Fu Liyu’s complexion improved, and her soul and dantian stopped breaking up. She wiped her lips and scowled at him. “What did you do?”

Hui started to back away, then stopped himself. Now is not the time to back down, Hui! Stand firm, or you’re about to get thrown out and executed! He fixed her with a fierce glare and frowned deeply, a look of great concern on his face. “Fu Liyu, has someone put a curse on you?”

“A… a curse?” Fu Liyu asked, startled. She frowned, then shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone who would…”

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You can’t? You treat servants like shit, and you can’t think of anyone who might want to curse you? Hui shook his head internally, flabbergasted. Externally, he put a hand on his chin. “I found a strange array inside you. It appeared shortly after the foreign auras reappeared on your body… I believe the two are connected.”

“An array inside me? What kind? Where?” Fu Liyu asked, paling.

Hui shook his head. “I’m not sure what kind of array it is, nor what its purpose is. As for where…” He pointed to her dantian.

Fu Liyu glanced down and swallowed. She looked back up at him. “Can you remove it?”

“I tried, but…” He glanced at the bloodstains on her robe.

Fu Liyu followed his gaze and nodded. “I understand. So it’s impossible?”

Hui shook his head. “I didn’t say that. If I know who put it on you, or why it’s there, I can almost certainly remove it. Even now, I could remove it, but… until I’m sure it isn’t keeping you alive, I don’t want to blindly remove it.”

“Keeping me alive? Why…” Fu Liyu’s voice trailed off. She furrowed her brows.

“Did Young Miss think of something?” Hui asked.

Fu Liyu shook her head. “No, it’s just that it suddenly reminded me. My mother died suddenly of a mysterious illness when I was young. Is it possible that I have the same illness, and someone secretly put the array inside me to keep me alive?”

“Can you think of anyone who could do that?” Hui asked.

Fu Liyu paused thoughtfully. “Father, of course—our clan Patriarch, Fu Renyi. There’s also the clan physician, Han Qin. He isn’t properly a member of the clan, but is instead a wandering immortal physician who treats several of the small clans in the area. Aside from that…” She scowled. “If it’s instead a killing curse, I can think of a culprit. That bitch Ying Min.”

“Ying Lin?” Hui asked, startled. That little servant girl? She doesn’t even have any cultivation!

“Who?” Fu Liyu asked.

“Er, one of your servant girls?” Hui tried.

Fu Liyu shook her head. “Oh, her. No, not her. Ying Min is an immortal of my generation from the Ying Clan. She stole my fiancé from me the moment our Fu Clan fell on hard times, then threw him aside when her clan’s status continued to grow. Now that they’ve been absorbed into the Mysterious Heavenly Forest Sect as a sub-clan, she thinks of herself as a little princess of that great sect, even though they’re little more than the sect’s errand boys. She’s coming to the banquet as well, probably only because she heard I was going and she wanted to cause trouble. Any time I try to do anything, Ying Min will surely show up and ruin things. I don’t know when she would have cast it on me, but if anyone would have tried, it would be her!”

Hui frowned. “Do you have any idea why Ying Min holds such animosity against you?”

Fu Liyu shook her head dismissively. “Probably some trifling nonsense. She’s always been petty, ever since we were children.”

Hui pressed his lips together. If I had to guess, it isn’t Ying Min. I didn’t sense killing intent from the array, and besides, it doesn’t seem to be directly harming her unless someone messes with it or removes the foreign auras from her body. I guess Ying Min would have the motivation to do it, and maybe she’s petty enough to put an array in Fu Liyu to force her to have foreign auras in her but… I don’t know. Their conflict seems far too petty to me for the amount of effort it would take to formulate a spell array and sneak it into Fu Liyu.

Which leaves Han Qin or Fu Renyi. A physician or her father… if it’s really for healing her, there’s no problem with asking them why it’s inside her. But if they’re the ones who created the array, and it’s there to keep her safe, why didn’t she already know about it? After all, if it’s purely beneficial, there’s no reason to keep it a secret from her.

Dammit, I can’t just ignore the reasons after all. I need to understand who put this in her before I fix it! If it’s even something that can be fixed…