Escape the Miaojiang Villain - Chapter 5
Chapter 5: His Little Slave Bell-Slave Bell
Tu Lingxiang was scared out of her wits, letting out a sharp scream as she tumbled backward.
This tumble of hers blocked the path of the two corpse brothers behind her. During a corpse drive, the spirits must not be disturbed; once disturbed, resentment would brew within them.
The next instant, she saw those two corpse brothers lunging at her, baring their claws and fangs. Their faces were deathly pale, the circles around their eyes black as dark hollows, and their dark hair fluttered in a chaotic mess. Their terrifying appearance made them look like awakened ferocious beasts—the kind that ate people.
“Ahhh!!!”
Screaming in terror, she scrambled backward on all fours to flee.
“Don’t come near me! Corpse brothers! I’ll make way for you right now, just don’t pester me!”
She tried her best to scramble up from the ground, only to find that her commotion had awakened all the corpses.
Every single one of them was walking straight toward her.
“Oh God! Stop coming over here!”
Left with no choice, she could only look toward Lian Jing and cast an imploring gaze for help. Yet the youth stood behind the horde of corpses, holding his arms in total leisure, a look of gloating delight rising on his face.
That smile of his was bright, yet laced with unhidden malice.
“If you come any closer, I’ll smash you with this teapot!”
She threatened at the top of her lungs. It sounded like she was threatening those corpses, but in reality, she was threatening Lian Jing.
Wasn’t this his beloved treasure pot? There was no way he would just watch it get shattered, right?
“You dare!”
Lian Jing shouted sternly, scaring her so much her hands trembled. She didn’t dare throw this teapot anymore, so she could only hold it tightly in her arms to protect it with both hands.
The corpses swarmed toward her, and in her desperation, she yelled at the corpse-drover ahead for help.
“Brother! Help! Your corpse brothers are going to kill someone!”
“What ‘my corpse brothers’?” That man jumped off the ox cart with a dark face and hurried toward the back.
Sweeping a glance at the red-robed youth standing aside watching the show, he said, “Hey, your bride is calling for you to save her—are you deaf?”
Hearing this, Tu Lingxiang couldn’t help but give a mental thumb-up—Brother, you’ve got guts.
The tall, slender youth stood quietly in the wilderness. His long fingers picked up a sheet of yellow joss paper that had fallen on his shoulder. Drooping his eyes, he spoke with complete indifference.
“Why save her? A runaway concubine who daydreams about eloping with others every day—isn’t it better if she dies?”
He blew that sheet of joss paper into the air.
“When she dies, I will personally drive her corpse to send her back to her hometown.”
Upon hearing this, the corpse-drover realized that was the situation.
Tu Lingxiang immediately said loudly.
“Brother, it’s not like that! I was kidnapped by him—I’m not his runaway concubine at all. Quick, save me! Saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda. I will pray for your blessings!”
For a moment, the corpse-drover didn’t know whom to listen to, but he had to get these rioting corpses under control first.
Tu Lingxiang was out of breath from running for her life, while Lian Jing over there stood like a statue, as if seeing her tormented made him utterly happy.
The two corpse brothers before her were dragged back by the corpse-drover, one in each hand. She collapsed to the ground, drained of all strength, her face flushing red and pale by turns. Raising her long sleeve to wipe her sweat, her gaze caught several young disciples passing through the dim, hazy intersection of two mountains not far away.
She was startled—those people wore matching white Taoist robes with red jade hanging from their swords.
Weren’t they members of the Changyan Sect?
Why were they here?
Did they come looking for her?
Fixing her gaze on them, she actually spotted her husband, Su Mengxuan, among the crowd.
As if catching sight of a saving straw, she scrambled up from the ground and ran toward that direction.
“Su Mengxuan! Su Mengxuan!”
She shouted with all her might.
As long as he turned his head, she would have hope of being saved.
However, reality did not go as she wished. Those people seemed to be separated by a thin veil over there; no matter how loudly she shouted, the people on that side seemed completely unable to hear her.
Was it a disorienting mist?
If it really was a disorienting mist, then right now they might not even be at the position she was seeing. It was like looking at flowers in the fog or scooping the moon out of water—all of it was false.
“Su Mengxuan!”
After shouting this last cry, her feet suddenly became unable to move forward. Shortly after, she heard the sound of a bell—it wasn’t muffled like the corpse-drover’s bell earlier, but was extremely crisp, ethereal, and clear, like an oriole singing at the top of its voice deep in the distant mountains.
Stirring one’s heartstrings.
The ringing was not continuous; rather, it was a gentle shake, followed by a trailing chime of clashing bells, and then another shake, another chime, repeating three times in a distinct rhythm.
Amidst the crisp, overlapping chimes of the silver bell, a faint, quiet voice rang out.
“Little Slave Bell, come back.”
He… called her Little Slave Bell.
She gradually turned her body around, her feet walking uncontrollably toward the place where the sound originated.
She saw that it was Lian Jing who was ringing the bell.
His long, well-proportioned, powerful fingers held a silver carved hollow ball about the size of her fist.
A silver chain attached to the top was held between Lian Jing’s two fingers, while fine silver thread tassels hung down below. Inside that hollow sphere lay a tiny bell as crimson as blood.
Looking strikingly like a red bean.
That was the Puppet Dream Bell!
Lian Jing’s ultimate lethal weapon.
It could manipulate living souls, dead warriors, and all the malicious demon energy in existence.
And of course, it could manipulate her too.
However, manipulating a living soul was no easy feat—how on earth had Lian Jing managed to pull it off?
Like a soul-bereft dried corpse, she walked toward him, while he, like a grim, indifferent corpse-drover, rang the silver ball in his hand.
The delicate dice embedded with red beans—do you know the deep-seated yearning that penetrates the bone?
She now truly believed his earlier words—on the day after she died, he really might drive her corpse back to Tianyi Sect.
Hearing this bell chime, the surrounding white-robed corpse brothers actually made way for her, and she passed through those corpses step by step until she reached Lian Jing’s side.
The youth’s blood-red lips curled into a smile—a smile that seemed to say: You really thought you could escape?
“Little Slave Bell—this name suits you quite well.”
Yes, how well it suited her.
Right now, she was just like the bell inside his silver sphere—nothing more than prey trapped inside a cage.
“Be good and follow me back.”
He tied the Puppet Dream Bell to his waist, turned around, placed his hands behind his back, and slowly began walking back.
And she followed right behind him step by step, obedient as a fool.
After walking a few paces, he turned back to look at her again and commanded dissatisfiedly,”Balance the teapot on your head.”
“Ugh…”
I’m so miserable.
Tu Lingxiang had no choice but to obey orders.
Cupping the Double-Deer Green Jade Teapot in both hands, she placed it atop her head and walked forward balancing it.
The corpse-drover behind watched the two of them leave one after the other.
Sweeping his brows slightly, he didn’t pry into matters that weren’t his business, merely shaking his head.
“Truly two strange young people.”
Tu Lingxiang followed behind Lian Jing, walking quietly along the riverbank for a long distance. She glared at the back of his head with both eyes, wishing she could poke a hole right through it.
This guy was really something—even the back of his head was so handsome.
Well, he was handsome because she wrote him that way.
Except his heart was a bit rotten.
She wondered what kind of punishment awaited her when they got back tonight.
Right at that moment, someone ran down from the hillside ahead, shouting in uncontrollable rage.
“Tu Lingxiang, you brat! So you’re here—you really made me wait! I waited on the mountain for you for most of the night!”
Lian Jing swept a glance at Shu Yan across from them, then turned back around to look at her, his cold, sharp eyes revealing an interrogation.
Tu Lingxiang immediately began crying out to him.
“Young Master, he forced me! He threatened me…”
Shu Yan pointed at her and cursed loudly.
“Lian Jing, that girl is wretched—she was the one who seduced me first!”
“Young Master, I didn’t!” She explained loudly.
Since Lian Jing had stopped his manipulation spell, she collapsed weakly toward the ground.
Leaning toward Lian Jing’s side, she lowered her head and tried hard to squeeze out tears, hastily declaring her loyalty.
“Since I have already followed Young Master, I am Young Master’s person in life and Young Master’s ghost in death. How could I dare harbor two minds?”
“Lian Jing, you must never be fooled by her!” Shu Yan pointed at her in anger.
Lian Jing lowered his long eyelashes, looked down at the person at his feet, and asked coldly and gloomily.
“Do tell, how did he threaten you?”
Tu Lingxiang raised her head, tears actually squeezed out of her eyes as she looked at him and said,”He said that if I didn’t follow him, when he ascends to the throne of Demon Lord in the future, he would definitely make things hard for me.”
“Ha?” Lian Jing let out a light laugh, so chilling that Shu Yan across from them shuddered all over.
He immediately dropped to his knees, “Lian Jing, don’t listen to her nonsense! I have no such intentions!”
Lian Jing turned his head, looked at Shu Yan’s trembling shoulders, and asked with a smile, “Since you have no such intentions, what are you afraid of?”
“I… Lian Jing, no, Young Master! I have always revered you as Young Master! I definitely have no such thoughts!”
“For tomorrow’s trip to Miaojiang, you don’t need to go anymore. Just stay here obediently.”
Leaving behind such a sentence, Lian Jing stepped forward and walked ahead.
Seeing this, Tu Lingxiang immediately scrambled up to follow, not forgetting to pull a grimace at Shu Yan who was kneeling on the ground as she left.
“Young Master…”
Shu Yan called out miserably behind them, looking remarkably like a concubine who had lost favor in the imperial harem.
Tu Lingxiang was gloating in her heart, completely forgetting that Lian Jing was still in the midst of his anger right now. She followed him in silence all the way back to the parasol tree courtyard. The moment she entered that pitch-black room, he grabbed her by the throat with a backhand and pinned her against the wall behind her—looking for all the world like he was crushing an ant.
Cold, eerie moonlight illuminated his extremely sinister face, the outer corners of his eyes flushed with a captivating red. His gaze was even more terrifying than a wild beast in a virgin forest, his dark pupils glinting with a sharp, bloodthirsty light that made Tu Lingxiang’s entire body tremble.
His powerful knuckles pinched her throat, lifting her whole body off the ground as he said coldly and pervertedly.
“Remember this: mine in life, my ghost in death. Even if I kill you right now, you are still my slave!”
Gleaming tears welled up in Tu Lingxiang’s eyes. She felt as though her windpipe was about to be crushed by him, breathing becoming exceptionally difficult, while faint red veins surfaced across her porcelain skin.
She nodded forcefully, telling him she remembered.
Teardrops slid down her cheeks. At this moment, her whole body was like a flower cluster trembling violently on a branch, dew scattering down from the core of the flower.
It hurts so much…
If he keeps squeezing like this, she’s going to die.
The green jade teapot in her hand dropped downward, but Lian Jing caught it just in time, saying viciously, “Still trying to break my pot? If it breaks, your head will blossom tonight.”
Tu Lingxiang was in unbearable pain, her hands clawing wildly in the air until she caught the cuff of his sleeve, clutching it tightly as she begged him to spare her life.
He quietly watched her agonizing expression until he saw she was about to pass out before finally releasing his grip.
He threw her onto the ground, wrapped his left hand around his right wrist, rotated his right wrist slightly, and shot a sidelong glance at the girl on the floor.
“This whole night has truly exhausted this Young Master to death.”
He walked over to one side, pulled out an iron chain from who-knows-where, came back, dragged her to the bedside, pinned her fair wrists behind her back, and bound her to the bedpost.
He glared at her threat.
“If you dare move at night and wake this Young Master up, you’ll have a hard time.”
Tu Lingxiang hadn’t recovered from the fright earlier. She panted heavily for air, her throat throbbing with pain, huddled in the corner of the bed with disheveled hair, looking like a severely startled little rabbit.
After binding her up, Lian Jing went back to the bed to lie down and sleep, and the entire room returned to its previous silence.
With her hands tied behind her, Tu Lingxiang couldn’t wipe her tears, and two streams of tears kept rolling down. At that moment just now, she had truly felt death closing in on her. So human life was this fragile—she had come within a hair’s breadth of being choked to death by Lian Jing.
When would these miserable days finally end?
It was only the first day, and she was already on the verge of giving up.
Later, leaning against the side of the bed, weariness washed over her, and she could no longer hold out, drifting off to sleep.
When she woke up the next day, she found she was no longer in that room, but inside a bumping carriage instead.
Sitting up in astonishment, she saw Lian Jing sitting beside her on a plush snow-white cushion, wiping that hollow Puppet Dream Bell with a silk handkerchief.
The carriage curtain was raised by the wind, and sunlight shone on the silver ball, reflecting a dazzling glare.
Turning her eyes away, she realized the chain on her hands was gone, though two deep red marks remained on her wrists where the chain had bound her, standing out starkly on her pinkish-white skin.
She was sitting on the carpeted floor of the carriage, huddled alone in a corner.
Sunlight bathed more than half of her body, making her pale, chapped lips look even more dismal.
She pursed her lips without speaking, staying completely quiet like a corpse.
“Hand. Extend it.”
Lian Jing suddenly turned his head to look at her.
Tu Lingxiang thought he was going to torment her again, her pupils widening in horror.
“Young Master…”
I didn’t provoke you.
She was already trying her best to shrink back like an invisible person—what on earth did he still want from her?
She tremblingly handed her wrist over. She saw him pull out a small round white porcelain bottle, unscrew the cap, scoop a small bit out with his smooth fingernail, and gently apply the salve to her thin, reddened wrist.
“??”
Tu Lingxiang stared at him in shock—why was he applying salve to her?
She heard his wicked, charming voice ring out, “An obedient maidservant won’t have marks like these on her hands.”
She bit her lower lip, looking at him in trepidation. A cool sensation from the salve spread across her skin. Last night she had been too exhausted and slept too deeply to feel the pain, but now as the salve was applied, the stinging pain became noticeable.
“Once we enter Miaojiang, you will be my maidservant. At all times, you must address me as Young Master, and without my order, you are not allowed to leave my side for even half a step.”
Seeing her in a daze, he cupped the back of her head with one hand and dragged her right in front of him, his nose practically touching hers. His stunning face reflected in her eyes as the line of his lips curved up slightly, saying:
“From now on, you are a bell of mine. The name ‘Tu Lingxiang’ is only permitted to be spoken in front of me—you are not allowed to tell a single other person.”
