Chapter 137
Chapter 137
“Young Mr. Wu? Young Mr. Wu, are you all right?” That was Xia Sanjin.
“Young Mr. Wu, are you okay? My wife…is she all right too?” That was Xia Degui.
I relaxed completely, a smile spreading over my face.
Excellent!
Both men could speak and were cautiously peeking into the bedroom.
That meant the vicious entity truly had been destroyed.
But without my permission, they still didn’t dare enter the room.
“I’m fine. Aunt Xia Dong is fine too,” I answered.
Perhaps my good mood gave me strength. Though my vision had already begun to blur, I rallied and forced myself through the bedroom doorway.
The incandescent bulbs in the main room and hallway were shining, as was the kerosene lamp on the table.
In their light, I saw a thin corpse in a red dress lying facedown on the floor near the door.
My ritual blade was still lodged in its neck.
Xia Degui followed my gaze to the body, his expression complicated.
His eyes held sorrow, grief, and reluctance, among countless other emotions. Yet relief was there as well.
Xia Sanjin hurriedly explained, “After you went in, Young Mr. Wu, Degui and I followed your instructions. We gripped our clubs and stood guard at the door.”
“It was pitch-black inside. We couldn’t see anything, and we were worried sick.”
“A few minutes later, a horrible howl suddenly rang out. Then that terrifying ghost charged from the room. We were both shaking from head to toe.”
“We were ready to risk our lives and club it a few times, but it only made it a few steps past the door before collapsing. It howled like a wild beast.”
“Degui and I thought it might be a trick, but we waited, and it stayed facedown without moving. Black smoke kept pouring from its neck. Once the smoke ran out, it stopped moving completely.”
I looked at the corpse of the vicious entity in the red dress lying on the floor. It was now nothing more than an ordinary dead body.
“Good. The matter should be settled.”
I smiled as I spoke.
Then a powerful wave of dizziness swept over me.
Perhaps knowing it was finally over allowed the last of my strength to leave me.
My legs buckled. I sagged against the doorframe and slid toward the floor like a puddle of mud.
I knew I had simply exhausted myself beyond my limits.
Xia Sanjin and Xia Degui panicked.
“What’s wrong, Young Mr. Wu?”
“Are you all right? Don’t scare us!”
They rushed forward to support me.
Before losing consciousness, I used my last shred of strength to say, “I’m fine, just exhausted. Burn the entity’s body immediately. Mix its ashes with mugwort ash and scatter them in the river. Then clean my ritual blade and wait…”
Before I could finish, my vision went black, and I fainted.
Naturally, I knew nothing about what happened afterward.
Perhaps because both my magical power and physical strength were utterly depleted, leaving me more exhausted than ever before, I experienced the rare phenomenon of sleeping without a single dream.
When consciousness finally returned and I opened my eyes, I saw a window and the dazzling sunlight beyond it.
I looked around.
I seemed to be in a bedroom. Both the sheets and quilt were new, and the fresh scent of laundry detergent lingered in the air.
“Where am I? How long was I asleep?”
I sat up and gently rubbed my temples.
My last memory was of collapsing against the doorframe of the first-floor bedroom.
Now, when I opened my eyes, both time and place had changed, as though someone had cut the intervening hours from my life.
It was a strange sensation.
Of course, it wasn’t unique to cultivators. Ordinary people experienced the same thing when they slept.
I remembered a line I had read in one of Yao Nan’s books during a break at school.
What was death? Death was falling asleep, having no dreams, and never waking again.
It made perfect sense to me.
Every dreamless sleep was rather like a brush with death.
The only difference was that we woke again.
I climbed out of bed, put on my shoes, rolled my neck, and stretched my body.
Then I focused inward, sensing the state of the meridians and acupoints throughout my body.
“Great. The qi in my dantian has recovered to at least ninety percent. That means I can’t have been asleep for very long. It should be the following morning.”
At Master’s insistence, I had long ago tested how much time my dantian needed to refill after I completely exhausted my qi.
Without meditation, contemplation, chanting spells, or other empowerment methods to accelerate the process, my qi took around ten hours to recover naturally.
Since it had returned to ninety percent, approximately nine hours must have passed.
Was it around eleven in the morning, then? Almost noon?
“I should go take a look.”
I opened the door and stepped out.
I was on the second floor of Xia Degui’s house. Apparently, after I passed out last night, he and Xia Sanjin had carried me upstairs to sleep.
When I descended, I found the two men sitting in the main room, chatting.
They were even relaxed enough to drink tea!
The front door stood open. Brilliant sunlight streamed inside, filling the entire main room with brightness and comfortable warmth.
Pots and dishes clattered in the kitchen. Someone seemed to be cooking.
It was impossible to imagine that only nine hours ago, yin energy had engulfed this place, barring the living while a vicious entity entered the house.
I had fought a perilous battle against that entity in the red dress.
It felt like another lifetime.
Ahem…
I cleared my throat as I descended the last few steps.
Xia Sanjin and Xia Degui immediately stopped talking. They turned, saw me approaching, and rose with smiles to welcome me.
“Young Mr. Wu, you’re awake! Why didn’t you sleep a little longer?”
Xia Sanjin smiled with obvious relief.
I shook my head.
“I felt almost fully recovered, so I woke naturally. By the way, did you follow my instructions before I passed out and burn the vicious entity’s body completely to ash?”
Xia Degui nodded and answered at once.
“We did everything you said, Young Mr. Wu. I burned Xia Mi’s body together with a pile of mugwort. As soon as the sun rose, I took the ashes out and scattered them in the river.”
When he said Xia Mi’s name, sadness still dimmed his face.
Xia Sanjin confirmed his account. They had done it together. Since it was still deep night, they hadn’t dared go far and had burned the body in the courtyard.
I turned to look outside.
Sure enough, a blackened patch stained the courtyard, where even the earth had been scorched.