Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The two of them exchanged a glance.

Qiao Moyu was brief and to the point. “I’ll dig. You handle him!”

As she spoke, she swung up the Luoyang Spade. Beside her, Lu Lingzhu spread her arms and pounced at me like a starving wolf.

I was genuinely furious now.

My dad was still waiting for me to save his life, but these two lunatics kept interrupting my lying in yin again and again.

At a critical moment like this, even if she was a woman, I had no choice but to beat her first and worry about the rest later.

With a roar, I threw a punch at Lu Lingzhu.

A flash of excitement crossed Lu Lingzhu’s eyes. She spread her fingers, caught my fist in her hand, then twisted hard.

A tremendous force surged through my arm. It felt like it was about to snap.

I let out a cry of grief and rage, then kicked at her.

To my surprise, she blocked it easily again.

I’d heard before that some mentally ill people had strength far beyond ordinary people. I never thought I’d actually run into one.

No matter how I punched and kicked, Lu Lingzhu dodged with ease, then returned every blow with several times the force.

I fought until I was exhausted, and despair gradually set in.

I was no match for this crazy woman at all.

Off to the side, Qiao Moyu was swinging the Luoyang Spade so fast it was nothing but an afterimage. Every time I shouted and attacked, dirt would splash straight into my mouth.

“Pah! Pah!”

My mouth was full of mud. I felt wronged, and at the same time, a surge of fury at my own uselessness welled up inside me.

Heaven was unfair. Why, at a moment this crucial, did I have to run into two lunatics? What was my dad supposed to do?

“How dare you spit at me!”

Lu Lingzhu flew up with a kick. My back slammed into the dirt wall, and clutching my stomach, I slowly slid down to the ground.

I truly didn’t have the strength to get back up. Overcome with sorrow, I covered my face and started crying.

“Waaah-”

Lu Lingzhu was at a complete loss.

“What are you doing?! It’s just a fight. Don’t play dirty!”

Thinking of my dad, I buried my head between my knees and cried even harder.

All day, I’d been worried about my dad’s condition while also fearing the unknown thing I had to face.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to do from here on.

Maybe I would end up like my dad, with black mist pouring out of my mouth before I died.

Or maybe I’d get lucky and survive, but suffer terrible injuries. From what I’d read in the books, some people who performed lying in yin had their life force drawn away, aging by decades in a single day.

I had no idea what terrifying disaster might befall me.

I’d spent the entire day on edge, the string in my mind stretched tight the whole time.

Once I started crying, I somehow couldn’t stop.

I buried my head and bawled. I didn’t know how long I cried, but the two lunatic sisters seemed to have left. The area around me gradually quieted down.

A breeze passed through the bottom of the valley, carrying the cool scent of grass and trees down from above.

Most of my fear and panic flowed away with my tears. After calming myself, I gathered up the yellow paper again and prepared to continue lying in yin.

I had just lain down when a shovelful of dirt poured over my head.

I opened my eyes. Lu Lingzhu was crawling out excitedly from a hole in the side wall.

“We dug through? Are you sure this is the place?”

“Holy shit!”

When she saw my face, Lu Lingzhu was utterly shocked. She looked disbelieving, incredulous, flabbergasted.

“Why are you in the tomb?”

Qiao Moyu said, “Are you insane? This is an ancient tomb from the Qing dynasty. You know people here too?”

As she spoke, she poked her head out after her. The two heads were squeezed into the same hole, four eyes staring wide and round.

“Damn it! Impossible. Absolutely impossible. How did I dig my way back here again?!”

The two of them squeezed sideways out of the hole. Qiao Moyu kept her eyes fixed on the compass in her hand, circling the bottom of the pit over and over while muttering under her breath:

“Where the Greedy Wolf holds the pearl and falling light descends, the earth vein forms an acupoint to seal the Qianlong.”

As she recited, she counted on her fingers. In the end, she crouched down in utter dejection.

“How could this happen?

“It was clearly right here.”

Lu Lingzhu sneered.

“You useless thing! Did you buy that compass from Pinxixi? I told you ages ago not to buy that cheap junk.”

“What do you know?!”

Qiao Moyu scratched a few lines into the ground with her finger, her expression firm.

“One more time. If I get it wrong again, I’ll take your surname!”

Lu Lingzhu said, “Who wants your surname? Give me three hundred.”

Qiao Moyu flatly refused. “No way!”

Lu Lingzhu said, “Then thirty.”

After a round of haggling, the two of them finally made a five-yuan bet and tunneled away again.

I sighed, and my body gradually relaxed.

This communication took a very long time.

I could feel my mental strength being pushed to its absolute limit. Even my temples had begun to throb faintly.

Finally, just as I was about to give up, my limbs started burning hot again.

It was here. That familiar feeling.

It was here. A huge clump of dirt falling from the sky.