Chapter 4006 — What Was His Intent

That deathly chill, as though rising from the deepest abyss of hell, was enough to jolt even Xu Lingchong out of his daze, shattered as he was by the catastrophe that had just befallen him.

"Where is this place? How did I get here?" Xu Lingchong could not help muttering. No one answered his question; he could only talk to himself.

Then, almost instinctively, he reached down and touched between his legs. Bloody and sticky—even his own hand made him recoil in horror. But there was no help for it: he had to endure the agony and make certain whether his manhood was still there at all.

Even now, Xu Lingchong clung to one ten-thousandth of a hope—what if that snip from the little curly bear had actually gone astray?

Yet the result of his groping confirmation sent a sudden chill through his heart: his manhood had been snipped clean in two by that accursed little curly bear.

Forcing down the panic and terror in his heart, Xu Lingchong fished out, with trembling hands, the severed half still lingering in his trousers. His face was a mask of boundless venom and savagery.

Suddenly Xu Lingchong gave a start, and a look of wild joy spread across his face—for it had just struck him that reattaching a severed limb was no difficult matter at all for a cultivator, especially a high-ranking cultivator well versed in the healing arts.

And the Threefold Pavilion just happened to harbor such an expert. Even if his medical skill could not match that of the legendary Alchemist Sage Zhang Lifeng, it was surely not far off. If he could be persuaded to lend a hand, the severed half in his grasp might yet be grafted back on.

At that thought, Xu Lingchong gritted his teeth and forced himself to his feet. After all, no matter how superb the physician's skill, reattaching a severed limb had one indispensable precondition: the limb must not have been severed for too long. Otherwise, once it had lost its vitality and necrotized completely, even the gods themselves would be powerless. So it was with limbs—and all the more so with something even more precious and fragile.

Nursing that shred of hope, Xu Lingchong at once set about trying to get out. Until this moment he had been utterly distraught, with no idea how he had come to this place; the only way out was to feel his way along.

Yet just as Xu Lingchong was about to grope his way through the darkness, something flickered faintly before his eyes—a fluorite stone had appeared from who knew where, illuminating the surrounding space.

He looked around: four pitch-black walls, and nothing else. Only then did Xu Lingchong discover, to his horror, that barely a zhang in front of him stood a person.

The sight gave Xu Lingchong a violent fright. With the perception of a cultivator at the great perfection of the Foundation Establishment stage, even in pitch darkness, any trace of breath or stir from another could not possibly have escaped his notice entirely—simply impossible.

Yet the fact stood before him: judging by the other's stance, he must have been standing there all along.

"Man or ghost?" Xu Lingchong asked, forcing down his fear, his voice quaking. In his understanding, at such close range only a dead man could have slipped past his senses; a living one could not possibly have done so.

Under Xu Lingchong's terrified gaze, the figure slowly turned around. His body was shrouded in a black cloak, and his face concealed behind a hideous, spine-chilling ghost mask, leaving his true features hidden from view.

"And what if I am a man? What if I am a ghost? Could you resist me either way?" The voice came now near, now far, impossible to pin down—and impossible to use to judge his identity.

Xu Lingchong's expression froze. Even though the other had revealed no aura whatsoever, the mere fact that he could stand here undetected made it plain that his strength far surpassed Xu Lingchong's own—far beyond anything Xu Lingchong could contend with.

Seeing Xu Lingchong's face full of dread and vigilance, the man suddenly laughed, a laugh tinged with unmistakable scorn and contempt. He let it go on until Xu Lingchong was seething, and only then said, "From this moment on, whether you wish to live as a man or as a ghost—that is a question for you to ponder, not for me."

Every word of that sentence struck Xu Lingchong's chest like a heavy drumbeat, leaving him breathless and filling him with dread and trembling from the depths of his soul.

"Who exactly are you, sir?" Xu Lingchong asked, biting down hard on his teeth.

"That is not a question you need concern yourself with. Now, throw away that thing in your hand." The masked man's tone brooked no refusal.

At those words Xu Lingchong's heart lurched. This was his most precious possession of all; he still meant to find someone to reattach it—how could he possibly just throw it away?

"I will count to three. If you have not thrown it away by then, prepare to become a ghost." The masked man's voice was flat, yet beyond all doubt.

Sensing the faint, flickering killing intent radiating from the other, Xu Lingchong's heart skipped a beat—but to simply throw it away was utterly beyond him.

"Three." The masked man skipped straight past one and two. At his word, Xu Lingchong, terrified, hurried to let go.

But it was already too late. A sharp stab of pain shot through his hand—by some means unknown, a great chunk of flesh had been sliced clean away, and it dropped to the ground together with the severed half in his grasp. The sight was too ghastly to behold.

"Very good. Had you not let go, what lies on the ground now would be your entire hand." Amid Xu Lingchong's gasps of horror and pain, the masked man smiled an inscrutable smile.

Then he walked slowly up to him, and beneath Xu Lingchong's utterly shocked gaze, ground the severed half underfoot beyond all recognition, crushing it into a pulp of flesh and blood.

Watching this unfold before his very eyes, Xu Lingchong's eyes nearly split with rage; his jaw clenched tight, his whole body shaking uncontrollably, his eyes bloodshot. His face was a mask of madness—he looked ready to risk everything and fight the man to the death.

Had he sought out a skilled physician earlier, there might still have been hope. But now that the severed half had been reduced to a pulp, even the gods could not reattach it. At this stroke, Xu Lingchong was utterly and completely desolate, every hope extinguished.

Seeing the madness on Xu Lingchong's face deepen and his breathing grow harsher and harsher, the masked man remained unmoved, standing there coldly watching him all the while.

It was a long while before Xu Lingchong finally calmed down again. The hatred in his eyes was undiminished, but at least he no longer harbored the mad urge to fight the man to the death.

At this the masked man laughed in surprise. "To be able to hold yourself back from striking at me—that is no small forbearance. It seems you are not entirely a worthless fool after all."

Xu Lingchong had no choice but to force down the fury in his heart. It was not that he did not wish to strike—he simply did not dare. As a realist who held his own life above all else, however much he craved revenge, he would need the strength to achieve it. Otherwise, striking rashly would be nothing but throwing his life away—and he would never do anything so foolish.