Chapter 445: You Are a Fate Usurper!

There seemed to be a hidden meaning behind the conductress's words, but before I had time to think it over, she had already pressed the porcelain bowl to my lips.

It was impossible to tell what era the pure white porcelain bowl came from. The water inside rippled gently, yet no matter how much the train jolted, not a single drop spilled.

"Drink." Her voice carried a strange, mesmerizing power that I couldn't resist. My eyes glazed over, and only a sudden, sharp pain from inside my jacket snapped me back to my senses at the critical moment.

By then, my lips had already brushed the rim of the bowl, the rippling water dampening them.

With a hard sweep of my arm, I knocked the bowl away once again. Compared to last time, it had taken me longer to come back to my senses.

I knew I couldn't just sit there waiting to die anymore—I had to fight back.

"This is for your own good. Don't you want to know the answers? Drink it, and you'll understand everything." The conductress's voice dripped with temptation, but I had already seen right through her tricks. Lu Wenchang had probably ended up the way he did after drinking from this very bowl. I couldn't touch it—not a single drop.

"Drink. If you don't, you'll never leave this place. Think about the passengers you just saw in Carriage No. 23—do you want to end up like them?" At some point, the conductress had picked the porcelain bowl back up and was offering it to me with both hands. She wasn't forcing me, yet the pressure bearing down on me was immense.

I took a step back, calculating the time. Quite a while had passed since the last station, so I didn't need to stall for much longer—just until the train stopped. I also had Wang Shi backing me up, and he knew the conductress's weakness. If I turned on her right now, I estimated my odds of escaping were around thirty percent.

To me, those odds were already plenty high. After all, this was a completely unfamiliar environment and every plan had been thrown together on the fly; I was already grasping every last advantage within reach.

'Wait a little longer. Keep stalling. The closer we get to the next stop, the better my chances of getting away,' I told myself. With no time to check the object in my jacket that had jolted me awake several times, I reached out with both hands and took the porcelain bowl from the conductress's palms.

"Drink, drink. Drink it, forget your troubles, and find yourself again. You'll understand everything, and only then will you see a brand-new you." The conductress kept urging me on. Dragging things out as much as I could, I lifted the porcelain bowl in both hands until it passed the tip of my nose.

The water in the bowl was colorless and odorless, no different from plain boiled water.

"Drink it! Hurry up and drink!" As the seconds ticked by, the conductress's expression finally shifted. She had realized I was stalling on purpose. "You really are different from the others, slipping out of my grasp again and again. Just who are you?"

"I'm just an ordinary person. If you really want to get to know me on a deeper level, start by remembering my name—it's Lu Xing." Knowing I couldn't stall any longer, I struck without hesitation, whipping out the Suppression Talisman I had gotten from Lu Jin and flinging it from my pocket.

"Five Directions Divine Generals, lend me your divine might—swiftly, by this decree!" I formed a seal with one hand and cast the Suppression Talisman, yet to my shock, the talisman drawn by Celestial Master Profound Truth failed completely!

No divine light flared, and no Daoist resonance awakened. It simply fluttered through the air like an ordinary slip of paper; caught by the air resistance, it dropped to the floor halfway across without even brushing the conductress.

'What's going on?!' Talismans were my ultimate trump card, yet my Suppression Talisman hadn't worked at all.

"So you're a Daoist priest who snuck onto the train. I knew from the start there was something off about you." The conductress's mouth split open into a horrifying grin. "Daoist arts must commune with the deities of the five directions to work. Too bad this train travels between yin and yang, cut off from everything outside. Your Daoist arts are completely useless here."

She took a step forward, her facial features wrenching and pulling against one another as she began to twist into a monster. "Drink the Sorrow-Forgetting Water in the bowl and I'll spare you. Otherwise..."

"First pardon a thousand years of sin; second pardon ten thousand years of sorrow; third pardon the illnesses of passing years; fourth pardon disasters of flood and fire; fifth pardon the perils of thieves and bandits; sixth pardon the frailty of sons and daughters; seventh pardon the debts of past lives; eighth pardon the strife of wagging tongues; ninth pardon punishments upon the dwelling; tenth pardon stagnation within the home. By ten decrees of law, may a hundred pardons guard my body!"

Since offensive talismans were useless, I tried using the only protective incantation I had mastered—the Hundred Pardons Decree.

I pressed the talisman to my body, but nothing happened at all. The Dao marks lay lifeless; inside this train, nothing tied to Daoist arts could be used.

The color drained from my face. Now I was in real trouble.

I had originally planned to keep that Great Divine Mantra of the Big Dipper as my final trump card, but now it was clear that had just been wishful thinking.

"Just drink it. Life and death are decreed by fate—it's preordained, and you can't escape." By now, the conductress had completely transformed into a monster. Her voice was hoarse and grating, and her entire face had warped out of shape; her features looked as if they had been taken from different people and haphazardly stitched together into a jarring, mismatched mess.

"Get back!" Fear had finally taken hold of me; my outward calm and composure were nothing more than self-deception.

I flung out several more talismans in quick succession, but none of them did a thing, and a creeping sense of helplessness began to set in.

"You're nothing more than a little fish that leaped out of the River of Destiny. Even if you've glimpsed sights others never could, you're bound to fall back into the river in the end. It is preordained—nothing can be defied!" Something seemed to be writhing its way out from behind the conductress. She swept a hand toward the walls on either side, and the faces inside the portraits slowly came awake like living people—some terrified, some sorrowful, some consumed by grief and rage. A cacophony of voices flooded my ears as countless stray thoughts battered my mind.

If I hadn't survived so many livestreams and forged a will as cold and hard as steel, my consciousness would probably have been snuffed out right then and there. Against that endless tide of stray thoughts, a single person's willpower was as insignificant as a lone reef in the ocean.

"Little Daoist, let's see how long you can last. Plenty of fish leap from the River of Destiny, but those that truly escape their fate can be counted on one hand." By now, the conductress had fully turned into a monster. Her voice was neither male nor female, and her body had undergone a drastic transformation, most visibly in her stature. She shot upward until her black hair trailed down and her head scraped the carriage ceiling—standing a full eight chi tall!

'What kind of monster is this?' With Daoist arts useless, I was barely holding on through sheer willpower. Fortunately, those stray thoughts didn't share a single purpose and were merely washing over me aimlessly.

'If Daoist arts won't work, I'll try Buddhist dharma. This train is bound for the Netherworld, and the Ksitigarbha Sutra that Master Tianxin taught me corresponds to Maha Hell—it's perfect to use here.' Guarding my mind, I visualized Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, not daring to let my focus slip for a second.

"The supreme, profound, and wondrous Dharma is hard to encounter in a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand eons. Now that I see and hear it, and am able to uphold it, may I comprehend the Tathagata's true meaning."

"Amid the sound of wisdom, within the auspicious clouds, for the suffering beings of this mortal world of Jambudvipa, you stand as the great witness and lord of merit. Of great compassion and great vows, great holiness and great mercy—Fundamental Honored One, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Mahasattva!"

Majestic without anger, my will sat like a golden Buddha amid the stray thoughts of countless beings—honed by ten thousand strands of mortal dust until it gleamed with a diamond-like brilliance.

My spirit platform turned crystal clear. By withstanding the onslaught of those stray thoughts, I had unexpectedly reaped an immense benefit—my willpower had been whetted like a newly edged blade, sharp and gleaming!

"Practicing both Buddhism and Daoism? Looks like you have quite the ambition." The conductress's face darkened. With her towering frame, a single reach of her arm sent her hand clawing straight for my chest. "Still, no one can escape fate. Drinking the Sorrow-Forgetting Water and forgetting all of this is your best choice."

Her sharp, slender fingertips lanced toward my chest like knives. Under the relentless battering of those stray thoughts, it took everything I had just to protect my mind, leaving me no strength at all to fight back. My heart sank into despair—yet just as I was about to give up, the conductress let out a sudden, agonized shriek as more than half of her fingers melted away like ice crystals.

At the same moment, a scorching heat erupted from inside my jacket and swept through my entire body, banishing every last stray thought from my mind in an instant.

"Clatter!"

Half of a crack-riddled black token tumbled from my jacket. The character for "death" on it had vanished, and inscribed at the token's four corners were Nobleman, Heavenly Physician, General Star, and Red Luan.

"Eight Characters Divine Fiends?! Fate patterns?! You're a Fate Usurper!" The conductress let out a piercing shriek so shrill that every portrait on the walls clapped its hands over its ears in agony.

Truth be told, I was even more shocked than the conductress. Events had spun completely out of my control, and the instant I felt strength return to my body, I snatched up the half Fate Manipulator Token from the floor along with the porcelain bowl whose water never spilled, then bolted for my life.

"All who escape Destiny deserve to die!"

The conductress's roar echoed behind me. Not daring to look back, I sprinted down the carriage at full speed, praying that Wang Shi would have a welcome surprise waiting for me.