Nezha's remnant soul was trapped within the chaotic space of the pellet drum, and every beat of the drum stung his soul like a steel needle. The blood-red lotus patterns painted on the drum surface suddenly distorted, transforming into three hundred and sixty zither strings that pierced his limbs. The other end of the strings connected to the phantom of Taiyi Zhenren, whose dao robes bore yin-yang fish swimming in reverse, their eyes embedded with fragments of Nezha's Spirit Pearl.
"Does my disciple know the origin of this Spirit Pearl?" Taiyi swept his dust whisk across the strings, playing a mournful melody of a rainy night in Chentangguan. Nezha saw the scene of his own birth: the unborn child in Madam Yin's womb had already stopped breathing, and it was Taiyi who shoved the Spirit Pearl into the dead infant's mouth, though the pearl surface had already been engraved in advance with three blood-red characters: "Li Nezha"! More terrifying still, half a talisman paper hung from the delivery room rafters—written in Hongjun's own hand as an "Imperial Edict of Seizure"!
The zither strings suddenly tightened, dragging Nezha's three souls and seven mortal spirits out of his body. The center of his main soul's brow revealed the mark of the Spirit Pearl, and deep within that mark lay the embryo of a Chaos Lotus Seed! "You thought you were the reincarnation of the Spirit Pearl?" Amidst Taiyi's cold laugh, Nezha's soul was woven into a cocoon by the strings, the surface of the coco…
Chapter 22