Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I decided to set up a simplified Eight Yang Array around the tent. The Eight Yang Array was also known as the Golden Bell Shield. It was a formation used to stop evil ghosts and unclean spirits from charging into a person’s body. Normally, it required eight living people to stand on the array points and borrow yang energy from one another. No matter where an evil ghost attacked from, it would be as if it were attacking all eight people at once.

We didn’t have eight people, but we did have Jiang Haoyan, whose birth chart was pure yang, so the effect would be more or less the same.

I took Jiang Haoyan’s hand and gave him my most ingratiating smile.

“Lend me just a teeny-tiny bit of blood.”

Jiang Haoyan slapped his chest with confidence.

“As much as you want. Use whatever you need!”

One minute later, I racked my brain for something to say and praised him.

“Your skin is really nice. Your face is so pale.”

Hua Yuling pinched a gu insect between her fingers and placed it over Jiang Haoyan’s wound to help stop the bleeding.

“Are you blind? Look at his face. He’s deathly pale. Stop already!”

Jiang Haoyan weakly shook his head.

“I’m fine. My head’s just a little dizzy, and I kind of want to sleep.”

As soon as he finished speaking, his eyes rolled back and he passed out.

I had Hua Yuling drag him into the tent, then held a small bowl of blood in both hands and soaked a stack of talisman papers in it, making sure every sheet had absorbed its fill. After that, I pasted them one by one around the tent according to the positions of the Five Elements and the Eight Trigrams.

With this array in place, plus the few gu insects Hua Yuling had released, we could ward off insects, beasts, demons, and ghosts alike. So we didn’t leave anyone on night watch and simply went back into the tent to sleep.

We had walked the entire day, and fighting the Yushou had drained a huge amount of my energy and spirit. I was exhausted in both body and mind. By all rights, I should have slept straight through until dawn, but for some reason, I woke up around three in the morning.

The inside of the tent felt unbearably stuffy, and I couldn’t breathe properly. I crawled to the edge of the tent and pulled the zipper open a crack.

A cold night wind poured in, and I couldn’t help shivering.

A full moon hung in the night sky, its watery light spilling over the barren mountains and desert, casting the tent’s shadow onto the cliff opposite us.

In the shadow, one person stood on either side of me.

The two of them stood beside the tent like a pair of trees, their hair wild and tangled, like the thick, sprawling branches of pine trees.

One of them stretched both hands upward. The other spread their arms wide and tilted their head back to look at the moon.

I quickly turned my head and glanced inside the tent. Jiang Haoyan and Hua Yuling were both still sound asleep.

Then who exactly were these two people?