Cuicui's face turned deathly pale, and she involuntarily took a step back.
The two figures in the illusion suddenly turned their heads, their faces both bearing identical black holes.
Those black holes grew larger and larger until they engulfed their entire faces.
In an instant, all the scenes before their eyes faded into grayness.
Everyone was once again plunged into chaos.
I don't know how much time had passed before light reappeared before their eyes.
In the dilapidated burial ground, a boy was kneeling beside a corpse. He seemed to have lost his soul, sitting there in a daze for a long time.
Yu Nian's gaze fell on the wedding dress of the corpse. The already hideous face of the young girl was deeply sunken, with only a layer of greenish, shriveled skin tightly wrapping around her bones. There were two blackened holes in her neck, constantly emitting black qi.
The Bride of the Ba was like a withered leaf, making no sound at all.
Yu Nian pursed his thin lips slightly and instantly understood what had happened.
Apparently, the two of them had failed in their elopement. The Bride of the Ba had been drained of her blood by the drought demon and casually discarded in the burial ground.
Although everyone had had a premonition of what was happening before their eyes, this scene was too tragic, and everyone fell silent.
As the sky was getting dark, the boy picked up the corpse and walked quickly and steadily with each step.
Yu Nian frowned. He couldn't quite understand what the boy was doing.
Even if the boy had a high level of cultivation, the life - swapping technique was something that could only be done between two living people. Why did he want to take back a withered corpse?
Yu Nian drew a talisman on everyone to conceal their auras and silently followed the boy.
They saw the boy place the Bride of the Ba in a shabby and dim room, gently cover her with a quilt, and then walked out.
It was very quiet in the room, so quiet that one could clearly hear the boy's breathing and heartbeat from afar.
Not long after, the boy walked in carrying a porcelain bowl.
A silver light flashed, and only then did everyone notice that there was a strangely - shaped dagger in his right hand, the hilt of which was engraved with strange symbols.
The boy walked to the Bride of the Ba's side, cut off a lock of her hair and his own respectively, and then carefully twined the two locks of hair together with his rough and thick hands.
As he twined, he murmured something in a low voice.
A look of confusion flashed across Cuicui's eyes, and she murmured, repeating, "Once the oath is made, life or death, never forsake...?"
This time, Yu Nian was truly surprised.
Combined with the boy's previous actions, all the confusing things became clear at this moment.
What the boy was performing was a kind of evil technique that had almost disappeared.
The reason this evil technique had disappeared was not that it was complex and difficult to understand, but that it was too evil. Not only would it consume a large amount of the merit of the person borrowing the fortune, but it was also extremely difficult to succeed.
In the world of metaphysics, almost no one was willing to take such a risky move.
The risk was too great, and the gain was not worth the loss.
Moreover, this life - and - fortune - borrowing technique was, after all, a matter between two people. To successfully perform it, certain pre - conditions needed to be met, and these conditions generally fell into two categories.
The first was that the person involved needed to give consent, and the consent had to be given three times to be valid.
The rule of three applied. There was still a chance to back out in the first two times. After three times, with heaven and earth as witnesses, the spell would take effect.
For example, sometimes when you were dreaming, someone would plead with you for something, and you would vaguely agree. After agreeing three times in a row, your luck or lifespan would be borrowed.
In this case, the person borrowing the fortune would only lose some merit and yin lifespan and would not go to hell to suffer severe punishments.
But the Bride of the Ba was already dead, and her soul was trapped in the Temple of the Wuxiang God. Now, there was only a wandering soul left in her corpse.
Obviously, the boy was using the second method. As long as the spell - caster was powerful enough, they could perform the spell without the consent of the person involved, but the price was that they would voluntarily fall into the Avici Hell after death and suffer all kinds of torture.
The chance of the boy successfully transferring his lifespan and luck to the dead person was extremely slim.
So the "life or death, never forsake" he had just said was not just an empty phrase but an oath.
The two of them would never forsake each other in life or death. If the technique failed, not only would the Bride of the Ba not be able to come back to life, but the boy would also die.
This was completely a gamble.
On the table beside the bed, there was an ancient book and several bright red blank talismans.
The boy cut his finger and painstakingly wrote two names on the talisman with his own blood, stroke by stroke.
Then, he cut his arm. The warm blood slid into the porcelain bowl. The boy seemed not to feel the pain and quietly waited until the bowl was half - filled with blood.
Cuicui involuntarily bit her lips tightly, feeling as if her heart had been stabbed to pieces by something sharp.
The boy sat down beside the bed, gently helped the Bride of the Ba sit up, and brought the porcelain bowl to her lips.
Naturally, the Bride of the Ba didn't open her mouth, and the blood slid down the corner of her mouth, merging with her blood - red wedding dress.
The boy wasn't angry. Not long after, he filled another half - bowl of blood.
He gently lifted the Bride of the Ba's chin and dripped the blood into her mouth bit by bit.
The Bride of the Ba twitched strangely and then let out a low growl like a wild animal from her throat.
Yu Nian sighed softly. If things continued like this, the boy would die of blood loss before the Bride of the Ba could be resurrected.
Sure enough, after the Bride of the Ba drank the blood for the third time, thick black qi suddenly burst out from her body. In her struggle, she knocked over the bowl of blood again.
Although he knew that the Bride of the Ba had no consciousness at the moment, the boy still coaxed her in a low voice.
"It's okay. Don't be afraid."
One bowl after another...
The boy's figure withered and aged at a visible speed.
Finally, after the Bride of the Ba drank the blood again, she slowly opened her eyes.
She didn't struggle anymore, but there was still no sign of life on her face.
The boy seemed very happy. He quickly pasted a dense layer of talismans all around the bed.
He took out a black bell, stepped on a strange rhythm with his feet, and shook the bell as he walked.
His voice was already very old.
Over and over again, he called out tirelessly.
"Cuicui, let's go home."
.........
Yu Nian blinked and saw wisps of golden light seeping out from the boy's body and gently pouring into the Bride of the Ba's body.
The Bride of the Ba's face became rosy at a visible speed. The black qi around her body gathered into a ball and rushed into the boy's body all at once.
The life - swapping technique had succeeded.
I don't know how much time had passed. The Bride of the Ba began to breathe again. Her gaze was dazed and confused.
"Where is this? What's wrong with me?"
She asked softly.
The boy pulled the quilt up for her. "This is your home. You've been too tired these days. You were just sleeping."
The Bride of the Ba tilted her head. "Really?"
The boy smiled and replied, "Yes."
"Then who are you?"
The boy paused for a moment, looked at the Bride of the Ba seriously, as if he wanted to engrave her appearance in his heart.
"I'm a traveler from afar. You don't know me."
The Bride of the Ba nodded. She only felt a warm current swirling around her body, and drowsiness gradually rose.
"Then I'll go back to sleep... Goodbye?"
The boy smiled again but didn't answer.
If only he had an afterlife. Maybe they could really meet again. Now, he was full of evil qi and was going to find a deserted place to die quietly.
Just as the boy was about to walk out of the door, a sobbing voice sounded.
"Shitou...?"