Chapter 311
Chapter 311
“Chen Mo!”
“Don’t go near it!”
Meng Yifan and Anning hurriedly called me back.
The well had suddenly exploded, clearly because something wanted to emerge. Naturally, it was dangerous.
But I trusted my judgment. Whatever had been inside escaped a century ago. We were only witnessing an event from the past.
Even with that reasoning, I remained deeply uneasy.
Summoning my courage, I stood beside the well and leaned over the opening.
What I saw left me stunned.
There was… nothing inside. The well was completely empty.
But how could it contain nothing?
If it was empty, why had anyone bound the opening with iron chains and placed an Evil-Suppressing Talisman over it?
Something should have been inside!
Unless…
“I understand!”
In an instant, enlightenment struck me. It was as though my intelligence had suddenly awakened, allowing me to unravel everything that happened at the Luo Mansion, including why the Ninth Concubine failed to revive the Seventh Concubine.
“I know who the powerful ghost is!”
Seeing my reaction, Meng Yifan and Anning summoned their courage and came to look into the well.
“Why is it empty?”
“There’s… nothing in here!”
Even Lin Jinhua could not resist coming over to look.
Meng Yifan asked, “What did you figure out? Who is the powerful ghost?”
After a long silence, I shook my head. “I can’t say. Not yet… We have to find Seventh Master and Song Xiaotian first.”
I urged them away from the well so we could search for Seventh Master and Song Xiaotian.
The entire Luo Mansion seemed to have fallen suddenly silent.
We searched for a long time without encountering a single dead soul.
But before long, we found Seventh Master and Song Xiaotian in a familiar place.
It was the spot where Xiuzhu had been beaten to death. Xiuzhu herself was there now.
She hid behind Seventh Master in terror, while both Seventh Master and Song Xiaotian were injured.
No wonder we had not encountered any dead souls. Every one of them had gathered here, including Master Luo.
Seventh Master held a Daoist mudra and recited the Soul-Calming Incantation to keep the dead from attacking.
Three corpses also lay on the ground. They belonged to Du Yunting’s people.
Judging by their condition, the dead souls had killed them.
When Seventh Master saw us approach, he hurriedly signaled for us to leave.
I ignored him and walked straight over.
He stared at me in disbelief. While continuing to chant the Soul-Calming Incantation, he waved frantically with his free hand, telling me to go.
But I had no intention of leaving. I asked him for the Black Talisman.
Fulu came in different colors. Yellow was the most common, while others could be divided by grade and purpose into red, blue, green, white, and black.
The most powerful of all was the Black Talisman.
Even the fiercest ghost would struggle to withstand its power. But because Black Talismans were so formidable, the procedures for drawing and using them imposed many requirements. Without profound cultivation, even holding one would not allow a practitioner to unleash much power.
Seventh Master stared at me blankly and did not react. We had agreed to reserve this precious Black Talisman for killing the powerful ghost.
But because he trusted me, he still took it out.
The instant I received the Black Talisman, I turned without hesitation and pasted it onto Xiuzhu’s forehead.
Xiuzhu went rigid. Her large, limpid eyes looked at me in bewilderment and innocence.
She remained still partly because she did not understand what I was doing, and partly because the Black Talisman immobilized her.
But I could not use the Black Talisman myself. To release its proper power, Seventh Master would still have to activate it.
Everyone stared wide-eyed at Xiuzhu and me, unable to understand why I had pasted the Black Talisman onto her forehead.
But I had no time to explain.
The dead souls were nearly beyond Seventh Master’s control. Once they attacked, not one of us would escape.
I immediately took out a roll of red thread and tied one end around the middle finger of Seventh Master’s right hand, then tied the other around my own right middle finger.
“Seventh Master, use the Thunder Method!”
“What?”
Seventh Master stared at me in confusion, his face turning pale.
His own Thunder Method had injured him, leaving him traumatized. And Du Yunting’s men had buried something at the construction site capable of reflecting the Thunder Method. The moment he used it, the power would strike him instead.
“Seventh Master, trust me.”
I quickly explained, “The Ghost Wall here is a ghost realm created by Xiuzhu. Its energy field is so powerful that it has formed a barrier. Only the Thunder Method can break it. Until the barrier shatters, the object Du Yunting had buried can’t take effect.”
Understanding dawned on Seventh Master. He immediately formed the Inviting-the-God mudra.
“Nine Heavens Response to Origin Mansion, Supreme Jade Purity King, commander of the Five Thunders, heart in motion through the Three Realms, father of all beings, master of myriad spirits, I invoke the Nine Heavens Thunder Ancestor to suppress these dead souls!”
When Seventh Master finished, I also formed the Inviting-the-God mudra and chanted, “Kun Character, Thunder!”
The sky above the grand residence had been bright and clear. The moment my words fell, dark clouds gathered, fierce winds raged, and lightning descended.
A bolt struck the dead souls. The flash was so brilliant that none of us could keep our eyes open.
The Thunder Method was real, but the lightning was an illusion. Only inside a Ghost Wall could such magnificent lightning appear.
When we opened our eyes again, everyone had returned to the construction site and the unfinished hotel.
But our location had shifted to the hotel’s second floor.
Seventh Master had only recently recovered from his severe injuries. Using the Thunder Method exhausted him, forcing him to stagger several steps backward.
I collapsed face-first onto the floor. My entire body felt as though I had been anesthetized, without the slightest strength.
No one felt relieved to have escaped the Ghost Wall.
That extraordinarily terrifying thing… had appeared again.
The full creature stood before us, and the Black Talisman was pasted to its forehead.
The Talisman restricted its movement, leaving it temporarily immobile.
How could an unactivated Black Talisman restrict it?
During the Luo Mansion tragedy, it had killed everyone except Master Luo and the concubines.
The truth was that it was not as powerful as we imagined.
Because… it was Xiuzhu!
“That… that monster came from the little girl!” Meng Yifan shouted.
“How could it be her?”
Seventh Master was dumbfounded too. He could not resist asking, “Chen Mo, what exactly is going on? Why… is it this little girl?”
I braced myself and struggled up from the floor.
The monster still filled me with terror, but knowing it was Xiuzhu also brought an inexplicable sense of helplessness and conflict.
Killing the monster would be equivalent to killing Xiuzhu.
But if we spared it, its hatred of humanity would probably ensure every one of us died here.
I told the others, “This monster doesn’t exist. There is no such creature in this world. It is both Xiuzhu and the resentful spirit hidden inside the Qiongqi. It is an imaginary monster jointly created by Xiuzhu’s resentment and the resentment of that spirit.”