"I don't want to."
Shi Ming enunciated each word.
With that, he turned and walked away, as if refusing to give Xiao Suo another chance to tempt him.
"You really don't want to?" Xiao Suo narrowed his eyes. "Because it looks like you're genuinely tempted."
Shi Ming quickened his pace.
Xiao Suo's voice drifted from behind him.
"What if I told you that in a few years, you'll lose all your recent memories? The white-robed priests will send you back to a village in Yu Province to live as an ordinary person. You'll muddle through for a few years, only to lose your memory all over again."
Shi Ming stopped in his tracks. Eyes wide, he turned to glare back at Xiao Suo.
"Is everything you're saying true?"
"You just got lucky this time, coming to the Myriad Ancient Pagoda, seeing so many priests, and learning so much. But for your past dozens of cycles, you merely muddled through in a daze, never meeting a single priest before your memory reset."
"Ah, I forgot—you're helping them hunt down bugs right now, aren't you? Well, when you lose your memory again, your newly assigned identity might just be a slave in the Myriad Ancient Pagoda. Or perhaps they'll make you permanently use your unique traits to track down bugs in Yan Province. Once that happens, you'll lose your connection to Li Ban and become nothing more than a mindless tool for them to manipulate. Lifetime after lifetime, without end."
Shi Ming glared at Xiao Suo before suddenly covering his ears and running away, as if terrified of hearing any further bewitchment.
He also kept his lips clamped tight, seemingly afraid he might ask how to become a black-robed priest.
Watching Shi Ming flee, Xiao Suo wasn't in a hurry. He never expected to turn Shi Ming into a black-robed priest right then and there anyway.
Merely shaking his resolve was enough.
Shi Ming sprinted back to his carriage, his chest heaving.
He felt both angry and helpless.
Encountering the black-robed Xiao Suo had ruined any mood for sleeping or hunting bugs, so he immediately set off the signal in his hand.
A Signal Flare, invisible to ordinary mortals, bloomed in the night sky.
In less time than it took to drink a cup of tea, a figure flew over swiftly from the distance.
Shi Ming recognized him; they had even worked together to catch bugs before.
Upon landing, the priest wasn't surprised to see Shi Ming's group. He assumed he had simply been summoned to catch bugs again.
Instead, Shi Ming stepped forward and informed him of Xiao Suo's appearance.
The priest startled. Not daring to handle the matter himself, he hurriedly used his Self-Seeking Mirror to contact the other priests.
Once Priest Li He received the news, he immediately contacted Priest Qian Que and Li Ban.
"Xiao Suo has shown himself in Yan Province."
Priest Li He was actually quite pleased.
Ever since Li Ban's group unexpectedly killed the third Xiao Suo in Mist Valley, they hadn't found a single trace of him.
Yet no one believed the black-robed Xiao Suo would just disappear for good.
His real worry was that if the other black-robed Xiao Suos discovered what happened in Capital City and Mist Valley, they might go completely into hiding to avoid being wiped out entirely.
Since they had found a way to destroy Xiao Suo, they naturally needed to finish the job as quickly as possible, lest a long delay bring unnecessary trouble.
Furthermore, he was worried about Li Ban's condition.
In his view, Li Ban's ability to fuse with Xiao Suo's Witch Embryo Shards without turning into a black-robed priest relied entirely on sheer willpower.
But priests were still human, and there was no guarantee he wouldn't falter. If Li Ban became a Black Robe, who else could he ask to fuse with Xiao Suo's Witch Embryo Shards?
How would that be any different from sending his own subordinate priests to their deaths?
So, upon discovering Xiao Suo's trail, he was quite proactive. "I've told Li Long to keep quiet, lie low on the spot, and wait for Xiao Suo to show himself."
Li Ban didn't rush over right away. He asked Li He, "Shi Ming discovered Xiao Suo in Yan Province?"
"It's him. Even if Xiao Suo discovered Shi Ming's whereabouts, he wouldn't be able to kill him to silence him." A hint of a smile appeared on Priest Li He's usually stern face. "To think that Shi Ming can not only find bugs, but also track down Black Robes."
Li Ban knew that in the eyes of most priests, this was Shi Ming's only use. Yet it was precisely this use that Shi Ming needed to discover his true self.
He made no attempt to change how the others viewed Shi Ming. "Did you ask if Shi Ming discovered Xiao Suo, or if Xiao Suo sought out Shi Ming?"
Li He actually hadn't asked about that detail.
Li Ban directly pulled out his own Self-Seeking Mirror. After asking Priest Li He who had passed on the message, he contacted the person through the mirror.
"Priest Long, can I speak directly with Shi Ming?"
Li Long had a fairly good impression of Li Ban, the current rising star. He nodded directly, but still offered a reminder, "You can, but I will be able to hear everything you two discuss."
If they wanted to discuss anything private, they shouldn't use another priest's Self-Seeking Mirror.
"Naturally, that won't be a problem."
Normally, a Self-Seeking Mirror couldn't be lent out for others to communicate through, but Li Long used a technique similar to audiovisual-sharing, allowing Li Ban and Shi Ming to synchronously share everything he heard and saw.
And so, a moment later, Shi Ming's face appeared in Li Ban's Self-Seeking Mirror.
"Shi Ming, did Xiao Suo seek you out?"
Shi Ming looked somewhat at a loss.
Ever since coming to the Unreturning Place, Shi Ming had become much more timid, no longer possessing his former unbridled arrogance.
But it was only through youthful ignorance that one could be so recklessly bold in the first place.
At this moment, whatever Shi Ming had just gone through had left a trace of anxiety in his eyes that hadn't been there before.
"You don't need to worry," Li Ban comforted him. "Just tell us exactly what happened. We can handle the rest."
Shi Ming regained some of his composure and began to recount the entirety of his encounter with Xiao Suo that night.
Hearing that Xiao Suo actually tried to bewitch Shi Ming into becoming a Black Robe, a surge of fury ignited in Li Ban's heart.
Priest Li He, however, let out a cold laugh from the side. "Xiao Suo is used to spouting nonsense without batting an eye. Corpse Inscription simply doesn't have the capacity to withstand a Wizard Embryo Fragment."
Priest Qian Que wasn't so optimistic. "As it stands, the black-robed Xiao Suo has indeed mastered some crooked methods we don't understand."
"It might also just be a lie used to tempt Corpse Inscription." Priest Li He refused to believe that Corpse Inscription could break his own restraints.
Those rules were set by the Wizard Lord. No matter how cunning Xiao Suo was, he was still just a black-robed priest.
However, Priest Li He didn't want to argue with the other priests over such matters.
"Actually, we don't need to care if Xiao Suo is lying or not," Priest Li He said, his lips curling up. "We just need to make him think his scheme is about to succeed so he exposes his tracks and walks right into our ambush."
This was actually the exact same trick they had used to kill Xiao Suo's clones in the Imperial Palace and Mist Valley, but until Xiao Suo realized his secret was exposed, the tactic remained incredibly effective.
Priest Qian Que added, "Yan Province is vast and sparsely populated. Xiao Suo likely came here for the Unreturning Place. While we set an ambush for him, we must also be careful not to let him launch a sneak attack against us."