plumnovel Chapter 23 The Soul-Searching Saintess, the Secret of the Fortune-Stealing Alliance!
Chapter 23 The Soul-Searching Saintess, the Secret of the Fortune-Stealing Alliance!
The East China Sea stretches to the horizon.
On the deck, Zhu Zaiyi sat cross-legged.
Before him stood the White Lotus Sect's Holy Maiden, bound tightly by spiritual energy ropes.
The woman looked to be in her early twenties, with an extremely beautiful face. Dressed in white, even though she was tied up, her eyes still held an air of haughty arrogance and resentment.
She stared intently at Zhu Zaiyi, as if she wanted to kill him with her gaze.
Zhu Zaiyi completely ignored her.
He was merely resting with his eyes closed, but his divine sense had already spread out, like a giant radar, covering the sea area within a hundred miles.
He is searching.
They were searching for the lair of the Japanese pirates, and also for the possible cultivator hiding behind the scenes.
"You evil Taoist! If you have the guts, kill me! What kind of hero uses such despicable means to imprison a weak woman!" The holy maiden finally couldn't help but curse when Zhu Zai Rui ignored her.
Her voice was crisp and venomous.
Zhu Zaiyi slowly opened his eyes and looked at her as if she were an interesting toy.
"A weak woman?" He chuckled. "A weak woman who can command hundreds of warships and make the Japanese pirate leader bow down to you?"
"Who exactly are you? What is your relationship with Yan Song? What exactly does your White Lotus Sect want?"
"Pah!" The saintess spat, but it was blocked by an invisible shield three feet away from Zhu Zai Rui.
"You lackeys of the imperial court, how dare you know about the great cause of the Holy Church? Let me tell you, the fate of your Great Ming Dynasty is sealed! The Vacuum Homeland is about to descend, and the Eternal Mother will save all living beings! You stubborn and obstinate elements will eventually turn to ashes!" Her expression was fanatical, like a complete madwoman.
Vacuum Homeland? Eternal Mother?
Zhu Zaiyi shook his head as he listened to these familiar words.
It seems that the White Lotus Sect in this world is not fundamentally different from those peasant rebellions in history.
They all use a set of vague and illusory theories to bewitch people.
However, the forces behind them are not simple.
"It seems I can't reason with you." Zhu Zai Rui stood up and walked up to her.
"What are you going to do?!" The saintess looked into his calm, unwavering eyes and felt fear for the first time.
It was a look that seemed to be directed at ants.
Zhu Zaiyi did not answer her.
He simply extended one finger, a slender, white finger, as if carved from fine jade.
Then, under the saintess's horrified gaze, he gently touched her forehead.
"Soul Search".
Two cold words were uttered from Zhu Zaiyi's mouth.
"ah--!"
A piercing scream, inhuman in its sound, echoed across the sea.
The saintess's body convulsed violently, her eyes rolled back, and black blood slowly seeped from her seven orifices.
Her memories, like a flood bursting its banks, poured uncontrollably into Zhu Zaiyi's mind, scene after scene.
Zhu Zai Rui's brows furrowed more and more tightly.
He saw it.
He witnessed how this woman named "Lin Baifeng" was selected by the White Lotus Sect and trained to become a so-called "Holy Maiden."
He saw that the high-ranking members of the White Lotus Sect, those so-called "Dharma Kings" and "Messengers," were not devout believers at all, but a group of evil cultivators practicing rudimentary magic.
They exploited the White Lotus Sect's large following to extort money from various places and search for young boys and girls with spiritual roots, seemingly conducting some kind of evil ritual.
He saw how Yan Song and his son, through Lin Baifeng, had made contact with the Japanese pirates. They provided the pirates with military intelligence, food, and ironware from the Ming Dynasty, while the pirates shared a portion of the wealth they plundered from Korea and Southeast Asia with Yan Song.
The White Lotus Sect, to which Lin Baifeng belonged, acted as an intermediary, extracting a high "commission".
But none of these are the most important.
What shocked Zhu Zaiyi the most was a memory hidden deep within Lin Baifeng's mind, a memory that had been sealed away.
It was on an unnamed island, inside a huge underground cave.
In the center of the cave is a huge pool of blood.
Above the pool of blood, floats a massive altar composed of countless bones and runes.
A person dressed in black robes, whose face was obscured, stood on the altar, presiding over a bizarre ritual.
Hundreds and thousands of White Lotus sect followers were being driven into the blood pool as sacrifices.
Their flesh and souls were absorbed by the altar, turning into streams of black energy that flowed into the black-robed man's body.
At the end of the ceremony, the man in black robes slowly turned around.
He wore a bronze mask on his face, upon which were engraved two ancient seal characters—
Seize the opportunity!
"The Alliance that Seizes Fortune..."
Zhu Zaiyi abruptly withdrew his finger, his face somewhat pale.
Searching for the memories of a living person is also quite taxing for him.
After his soul search, Lin Baifeng had been completely turned into an idiot.
She slumped on the deck, her eyes vacant, drool dripping from the corner of her mouth, unconsciously murmuring "Vacuum Homeland... Unborn Mother...", completely broken.
Zhu Zai Rui ignored her.
The final scene was still replaying in his mind.
That enormous altar of white bones, that black-robed man wearing a bronze mask.
"Gathering Spirit and Stealing Array..."
Zhu Zaiyi muttered to himself.
He had seen this formation in the "Human Emperor's World-Suppressing Scripture".
This is an extremely vicious evil formation that can forcibly steal the "luck" of a piece of land by sacrificing living beings and turning it into its own.
Land whose fortune has been stolen will be plagued by disasters, epidemics, and widespread suffering.
This is the true purpose of the White Lotus Sect!
They were not rebelling, nor were they trying to amass wealth.
They are providing the so-called "Fate-Seizing Alliance" and the man in black robes with sacrificial "materials" to help him steal the fate of the Ming Dynasty!
Yan Song and his son, Anda in the north, Japanese pirates in the south...
Everything was just to create chaos, to create disaster, to weaken the country so that they could easily take action.
Having figured all this out, a cold killing intent flashed in Zhu Zai-rui's eyes.
Do they treat his country as a "pasture" that can be stolen at will?
Did he treat his people as "livestock" to be sacrificed at will?
"court death."
Zhu Zaiyu's divine sense spread wildly in all directions like a storm.
This time, he was no longer simply conducting reconnaissance.
He must find that island!
He must find that altar!
He wanted to personally uproot that so-called "Fate-Stealing Alliance"!
Soon, his divine sense locked onto an island shrouded in thick fog in a sea area about three hundred miles to the southeast.
The island exuded an evil aura that he found utterly repulsive, filled with bloodshed and resentment.
That's it!
The Fujian boat at Zhu Zai Rui's feet moved automatically without wind.
The bow of the ship suddenly turned around and, like an arrow released from a bow, sped toward the island!