Chapter 22

Suddenly, Tang Xiaojiu instinctively tried to pry with his right hand, but his left hand, like an iron clamp, held his neck tightly, not moving an inch. It made it hard for him to breathe, his face turning bright red, his chest feeling as if it were about to explode, and his consciousness becoming somewhat blurred. Tang Xiaojiu steeled his heart and bit his tongue hard. The intense pain cleared his mind, and he tried to use his consciousness to control his left hand, but found that his left hand felt like it wasn't his own, with no sensation at all.

As time passed, the strength in his left hand increased, and Tang Xiaojiu felt his throat bones about to be crushed, his breathing completely stopped, and his consciousness on the verge of collapse. His right hand fell limply.

At this moment, his left hand finally loosened and gave his chest a hard pat. A burst of stale air was forced out, and Tang Xiaojiu bent over, coughing violently and gasping for breath.

"How do you feel now? Do you still think I can't kill you?" The voice was incredibly indifferent, devoid of any malice, but the actions were decisively ruthless.

Tang Xiaojiu, still gasping for breath, regained the feeling in his left hand. He used his left hand to massage his chest. This was a warning from the other party. Just now, his left hand felt like it belonged to someone else. He thought for a moment and said with a bitter face, "Brother, even if you want to increase your leverage in negotiations with me, you don't have to use such heavy-handed tactics! This body is ours to share. Since you can't eliminate me, let's talk properly. If you really anger me, I still have my right hand. I can help my left hand, and we can strangle ourselves together. No one will be happy!"

As he said this, he thought to himself, "Strangling myself with both hands, I would have the most unique way of dying in the world!"

The voice mocked, "Death? If you had the courage to commit suicide, I could have achieved my goal and entered your Niwan Palace! Tang Xiaojiu, if I didn't want to eliminate you, do you really think you would still be alive now?"

The other party was still trying to scare him, wanting him to listen to him in the future. Tang Xiaojiu coldly laughed, "If I weren't afraid of death, would you even have this body to use? But being afraid of death has its limits. If you go too far and make my life worse than death, I'm not a coward either."

The voice, seeing that he was not intimidated, sighed in relief, "Tang Xiaojiu, you are a smart person. You should understand by now that I went to great lengths to make you feel hopeless, not because I wanted to harm you, but because I was afraid that when I entered your Niwan Palace, your thoughts would fluctuate, leading to resistance and mutual destruction. I went to such lengths to protect you, shouldn't you be grateful?"

Tang Xiaojiu, hearing this, was extremely angry, "Grateful? Is there such a strange thing in the world? Would a fool thank a burglar who broke into his house? Do you think I'm that stupid?"

Although he said this, his mind raced, and he suddenly understood why the other party had been so brazen in revealing all the truth and intentions to him, except for the lie about erasing his consciousness. The other party's goal was to make him, a smart and slippery person, feel utterly hopeless, so he wouldn't resist when the other party entered the Niwan Palace, leading to the mutual destruction he mentioned.

To be honest, Tang Xiaojiu, with his quick and flexible mind, was the type who wouldn't easily trust others and preferred to judge and believe in himself. Therefore, many of his ideas came spontaneously, sometimes even beyond his own control.

For example, if the other party had clearly explained that they would enter his body and not erase his consciousness, Tang Xiaojiu might not have believed it, and he certainly wouldn't have completely refrained from resistance. He might have suddenly had an idea to try out some possibilities.

The other party had even calculated his personality perfectly, making Tang Xiaojiu feel a chill down his spine, which was why he was so angry!

The other party, however, was unaffected, and calmly said, "I don't care if your head was squeezed. You already felt it, didn't you? Your left hand is mine now. That means the left half of your body is mine, and you are responsible for the right half! Whether you like it or not, you have to accept this fact. I will coexist with you from now on."

Tang Xiaojiu, upon hearing this, almost burst his lungs. This way, wouldn't he become half human and half monster? What would he be, a monster-human or a human-monster? Just as he was about to curse, the voice continued, "As for who I am, I can't answer you because I don't know who I am!"

Tang Xiaojiu was stunned. After hearing the other party's words, he couldn't help but curse in his heart, "You don't know who you are? So you crawled out of some hole, you stinking bug!" No matter how smart he was, he never expected such an answer, and he secretly mocked and cursed in his heart, but said aloud, "You don't know who you are? Tsk tsk, is there anyone in the world who doesn't know who they are? Hey, did you hit your head and forget, or are you so stupid that you don't even know who you are?"

He was angry with the monster and cursed in his heart, but also took every opportunity to mock and ridicule. In his view, since he couldn't fight back, cursing a bit was at least satisfying.

The other party, however, ignored him and said seriously, "I didn't forget; I never knew who I was! From the moment I became aware of my existence, I didn't know who I was!"

Tang Xiaojiu: "You don't know who you are, but didn't your parents tell you? Were you picked up from the street, and they were too embarrassed to tell you?" The other party's words made him half understand and half confused, his head aching. No matter how smart he was, he was completely ignorant of cultivation and couldn't figure out the reason. The last sentence was another attempt to mock and curse, calling the other party a bastard!

Unexpectedly, the voice said, "I am not human. I was not born from a human, nor from a monster, nor from a plant. I am just me, and I appeared inside a pearl."

Tang Xiaojiu: "Inside a pearl, you mean you were born from a pearl? Can you even tell the difference between a pearl and a pig?" He mocked while thinking to himself, "Whether it's a pig or not, it's definitely not a human!" However, Tang Xiaojiu didn't realize that the other party was talking about the place where they "appeared," not where they were "born."

He continued to mock and ridicule, but the other party remained unperturbed, showing more patience than before. The voice said, "I am a thought left by someone inside a pearl. I can't explain this to you now, but you will understand in the future. Although I don't know who I am, I know what I need to do."

Tang Xiaojiu, hearing this, felt even more confused and asked, "You are a thought? What kind of thought, and what do you need to do?"

The voice said, "This thought is to find you. I started looking for you as soon as I appeared, and I have been searching for you for hundreds of years."

Tang Xiaojiu, hearing this, felt even more confused and asked, "That's ridiculous. You don't even know who you are, so how did you recognize me? You've been searching for hundreds of years, but I'm only fourteen. Ha ha, you must be looking for my ancestors."

The monster was very peculiar. Since entering his body, it had become very patient and ignored Tang Xiaojiu's mockery, explaining, "Although you were born only a few years ago, I have been looking for you for hundreds of years. There's nothing wrong with that! I didn't know when you would be born, but I knew you would be born, so I kept looking. I never expected it to take hundreds of years."

The world was full of strange things, but Tang Xiaojiu, through a mix of guessing and intuition, began to understand. "Wait, you mean you knew I would be born?"

He suddenly remembered what Mingkong had once told him: after death, people would be reborn. Some people could remember their past lives. Could this other party be looking for his past life? But this idea was too absurd. Tang Xiaojiu, who never believed in ghosts and gods, even after narrowly escaping a snake monster, still couldn't bring himself to believe it.

The voice said, "These questions are hard to answer now. I don't remember everything clearly. But as soon as I saw you, I knew you were the one I was looking for. Otherwise, how could you have survived the snake monster? Who I was in the past doesn't matter. Now that I'm in your Niwan Palace and can control half of your body, I am you from now on."

Tang Xiaojiu quickly said, "No, no, no. We share a body, but I am me, and you are you. We can't mix this up."

The voice, not knowing what Tang Xiaojiu was thinking, continued, "Even if we go to the Spring Wind Tower, I'll have to go with you. If you get married in the future, it will be even more complicated. No matter what you do, someone will be watching. Thinking about this, I feel very uncomfortable. But I know I have to face and accept this situation. Otherwise, if my left hand pinches me again, even if it doesn't kill me, it will be very painful. I am a smart person, and smart people know how to accept reality."

The voice said, "I don't care about that. Tang Xiaojiu, now you have to go with me to a place."

Tang Xiaojiu said, "Don't rush. I don't even know your name. I can't keep calling you 'hey' all the time!"

The voice seemed to think for a moment and said, "I don't have a name. I only have a few things to do. The first thing I did was to find you, and now I need to take you to do the second thing. I am now you, so I don't need a name. But since you insist, you can call me Liushi, because the pearl I inhabit is called the Liushi Pearl."

Tang Xiaojiu said, "Liushi? That's a strange name and doesn't sound good. How about I call you Tang Xiaoliu? I am Tang Xiaojiu, and you are Tang Xiaoliu. Nine is bigger than six, so you can be my little brother. Isn't that great?"

The voice immediately rejected with an unyielding tone, "I am Liushi. Tang Xiaojiu, don't argue with me. Do you want me to strangle you?"

Tang Xiaojiu quickly said, "Okay, okay, it's just a name. Why are you so upset? You were fine a moment ago, but now you're being aggressive again. Don't keep threatening to strangle me. You said you are me, so how can you strangle yourself? If you strangle me, how will you do the second thing? Okay, now you can tell me, what is the second thing? Where are you taking me?"

Liushi said, "Don't ask so many questions. First, pick up the black knife on the ground!"

Tang Xiaojiu walked over and picked up the black knife. As he held it, a strange coolness surged through his heart. He had held the knife before, but he hadn't felt this way. Could it be because of Liushi inside him?

Picking up the black knife, Tang Xiaojiu asked, "Hey, I picked it up. What's next?"

Liushi said, "Why are you in a hurry? Don't you feel familiar with this knife in your hand?"

Tang Xiaojiu deliberately said, "No, it's not fragrant or foul, I don't feel anything!"

Liushi knew he was lying but didn't pursue it further. "Forget about that. Put the knife away; it's very important to us. Next, we need to go to the other side of the fence."

As Liushi finished speaking, Tang Xiaojiu sat down on the spot, crossed his arms, and said nothing.

Liushi said, "Why don't you ask what's on the other side of the fence?"