Chapter 966: Escape

Raindrops pattered down, making the leaves bob up and down. Wind, heavy with rain, caused the entire forest to sway violently.

The rain had completely transformed the dirt road into a muddy quagmire, making it extremely difficult to traverse.

Despite the treacherous path, someone was hurrying along it.

A slender figure, clad in a straw cape and conical hat, occasionally glanced back, as if wary of pursuers.

As a gust of wind swept by, lifting the veil of the hat, Shangguan Yuting's delicate face was revealed.

Even with the hat, the raging wind blew indiscriminately, leaving raindrops clinging to Shangguan Yuting's face like beads of water on a lotus leaf.

Several black tentacles emerged from her clothes and quickly wiped away the raindrops.

Just then, a burst of wild laughter from behind made Li Sui's heart instantly clench with panic.

"Damn it, after so many years of bad luck, I'm finally turning things around! To think I'd stumble upon a Xinsu, hahaha!!" The voice was coarse and unpleasant, like sawing wood.

As a gust of wind, accompanied by the sound of bells, swept past, a large tree in front of Li Sui crashed down with a roar, blocking her path.

Li Sui turned around and saw a man with a thick, brutal face smiling maliciously at her. "It's no use. You've taken my medicine; your Xinsu tricks won't work now."

Scars on his bald head suggested the man had once been a monk, but the hair around the sides indicated he had long since returned to secular life.

Moreover, if he were truly a Buddhist disciple, he wouldn't be clutching a ring-handled cleaver. "Damn, what a fine look. I've never had a Xinsu before."

"Don't come any closer! Stay away!" Li Sui retreated in panic, but the more she did so, the wider the malicious grin on the man's face became.

A flash of white light, and Li Sui's arms were instantly severed at the root. As blood spurted out, she let out a piercing scream.

"Hahahaha! Scream louder! The louder, the better!!" The man said, then grabbed Li Sui's legs and forcefully pulled them apart.

However, the moment her skirt was lifted, countless tentacles swarmed out from beneath it, instantly lunging at the man's face.

The man roared and tore off all the tentacles clinging to him. As they were ripped away, his facial features and skin were also torn off.

Having undergone so many trials, Li Sui was no longer the one who would passively endure attacks.

But even with such severe injuries, the assailant was still alive. He gripped his cleaver, emanating a terrifying aura, and swung it towards Li Sui.

At that very moment, a dark golden vajra, wrapped by tentacles, was fiercely raised. With a metallic clang, it struck a silver talisman, then, along with the talisman, slammed directly into the skull's brow.

A cracking sound echoed as the silver talisman instantly dissolved, flowing into the fractured bone. It spread throughout the opponent's entire skeletal structure, forcibly imprinting a wild cursive talisman within his flesh and blood.

The balding man, now imbued with the talisman, froze in place, utterly unable to move.

The next moment, a tentacle wrapped around a dagger swung past, swiftly severing the man's ear.

But that wasn't all. Over a dozen tentacles, armed with sharp implements, followed closely, swirling continuously. Pieces of the man's skin, flesh, and internal organs began to disappear.

Finally, when the man's entire body was almost reduced to a bloody skeleton, Li Sui plunged a knife into his heart and twisted it, and the man at last drew his last breath.

Li Sui nodded in satisfaction at her handiwork. She picked up the piece of heart meat hanging from the blade and put it in her mouth, tasting it.

But as she chewed, looking at the bloody scene around her, Li Sui's expression turned to one of panic. "No... no, this isn't me... this isn't me...."

With that, Li Sui frantically swallowed the meat in her mouth and fled in a desperate dash.

She ran for eight hours. As the rain stopped, the blood on Li Sui's straw cape was completely washed away.

By now, Li Sui's mood had calmed considerably. She continued walking along the road in silence.

As she possessed more and more people, Li Sui could feel herself becoming less and less like herself.

Ever since she was forced to devour the first person, Li Sui had harbored this fear: that she would unknowingly transform into someone else.

Would that person still be considered Li Sui? Would her father still recognize her as Li Sui?

Despite her worries, she had no choice but to act this way for self-preservation. The Great Qi Jiantian Division had issued a warrant, and people from all walks of life were looking for her.

What was worse, to claim her life, Zuoqiu Yong had now explicitly revealed her identity as a Xinsu.

This made her situation incredibly precarious. Even those not affiliated with the Jiantian Division could pose a threat, and every person she encountered might be out to harm her.

Therefore, to survive, she was compelled to continuously possess others, integrate their supernatural abilities to become stronger, and absorb their memories to gain knowledge of internal Jiantian Division information.

"I had previously thought about finding a way to return to Daliang first, but given the current situation, I'm afraid that will have to wait."

"I should first figure out how to conceal my Xinsu identity, just like my father did back then. Otherwise, this identity of mine is simply too troublesome."

"But how should I go about it? I don't have either the copper coin mask my father wore or that spindle."

Li Sui thought rationally, contemplating her next move.

As Li Sui pondered, she spotted a village appearing on her left. In the hazy morning mist, black-tiled buildings of varying heights were clustered together.

Feeling her tired body, she gazed at the village from a distance for a moment. After performing a simple detection using various supernatural abilities and sensing no abnormalities, Li Sui walked towards it with a degree of caution.

As soon as she reached the edge of the village, Li Sui saw a child, who appeared to be eight or nine years old, playing with a rattan ball.

Swapping out Shangguan Yuting's striking head, Li Sui approached with the benevolent face of a middle-aged woman.

"Stop, who are you, and what are you doing here?" The child, holding the rattan ball, tilted his head back and asked Li Sui curiously. "Are you a child abductor? Do you kidnap children?"

"I'm not a child abductor. I'm a face-threading artisan. It rained all night, and I was freezing, so I just wanted to come here to rest my feet," Li Sui said, her face showing a kind and ingratiating expression.

This was one of her identities. To evade her pursuers, she needed several different identities to switch between, a skill Li Sui had learned through her continuous possessions.