Chapter 203
Chapter 203
Fortunately, Big Bull was considerate and quick. He caught Bai Fugui at once.
“Don’t worry, Boss Bai. Since Young Mr. Wu has identified the problem, he should be able to solve it… right?”
I was actually somewhat speechless.
Wasn’t Boss Bai being a little too timid?
I had not even finished speaking!
Back then, I was young and impetuous, possessed extraordinary arts, and still harbored a certain pride. Only when I grew older did I better understand the anxieties ordinary people suffered over gains and losses.
Bai Fugui might have been the owner of a small factory in town and a wealthy man by local standards.
But when confronted with mystical powers beyond an ordinary person’s understanding, he was very vulnerable, both mentally and in practical terms…
Of course, I showed none of that on my face.
I merely comforted him in a gentle voice.
“Don’t worry, Boss Bai. Your residence isn’t actually built within the Dragon Gripping the Tiger feng shui formation. It stands in front of Dragon Gripping the Tiger and benefits from the excellent feng shui of Baijia Flats as a whole. You aren’t really affected.”
Er…
Bai Fugui did not know whether to laugh or cry. With a bitter smile, he said, “Young Mr. Wu, don’t pause halfway through something like that. You scared me to death!”
“Boss Bai, I was only pointing out the malevolent Dragon Gripping the Tiger formation behind your home. This feng shui terrain may not affect you, but it does explain why the flash flood and landslide washed such a sinister coffin out of the mountain.”
Of course!
There was nothing unusual about burying a malevolent coffin in malevolent ground.
So after seeing the Dragon Gripping the Tiger formation, I could be almost certain that the coffin was indeed exceedingly vicious and evil!
Otherwise, it would never have been buried in such hostile feng shui terrain.
We continued forward and reached the entrance to the backyard.
Then all six of our expressions changed at once!
Dark. It was far too dark!
A full moon clearly hung high in a cloudless, mist-free sky tonight.
There was enough light to walk at night without a flashlight!
Yet from the entrance onward, the entire backyard of Bai Fugui’s home was so dark that we could not see our hands before our faces.
It was as if the moonlight could not penetrate at all, as though the whole courtyard had been wrapped in a dense mass of ink.
The darkness was utterly unnatural…
There was no need to ask. That eerie, sinister coffin had to be the cause.
We all went on high alert.
Old Cao looked at Bai Fugui.
“Boss Bai, take your entire family and stay together in one of the rooms in the front courtyard. Turn on every light and burn a few candles as well. Don’t be afraid. With us here, it should be manageable.”
“Of course, if you still don’t feel safe, you can leave immediately and stay with a friend for the night. Leave the residence to us for now.”
Bai Fugui was an exceedingly cautious man.
In the end, he decided to find somewhere else to stay that night and keep out of harm’s way.
Although Old Cao had said there was little danger in remaining in the front courtyard, Bai Fugui was probably frightened by the very thought of it.
He had originally intended to stay at an inn in town.
But eight people lived together in his household–Bai Fugui himself, his wife, two children, his elderly father, his mother-in-law, and two housekeepers.
They had only one car, and there was no way they could all fit!
His wife therefore drove the two children, his father, and his mother-in-law into town.
Bai Fugui and the two housekeepers each arranged to stay with a family they knew well in Baijia Flats.
Fortunately, Bai Fugui ordinarily treated his neighbors in Baijia Flats with courtesy and looked after them. If he had been one of those rich men devoid of compassion, he might have had a difficult night ahead of him…
Once everyone in the Bai household had left, only the six of us remained in the Bai family residence.
The place was deathly still.
The silence was terrifying!
This was hardly the first time I had faced such a scene, however. I was a little worried that whatever lay inside the coffin might be extremely vicious, but I was not especially nervous.
“Old Cao, how do we proceed?”
I asked the question aloud.
After all, when a matter involved coffins, he was certainly the foremost expert among us!
Several decades as a veteran coffin bearer was nothing to scoff at.
“Mm. There’s no hurry to go inside. Let’s probe the situation from out here first.”
As he spoke, he turned to me with a faint smile.
“This is a good opportunity for you to cast the art with me. We can see how far you’ve come recently with your spirit-paper arts.”
Old Cao reached into his pocket and took out several palm-sized paper figures.
He also produced a coffin cut from paper. It was folded up, and even when spread open it was only as large as two palms placed side by side.
I nodded.
“All right! I’ve been wanting to see how well I’ve learned what you taught me. Tonight may be dangerous, but it should also be a good opportunity.”
Old Cao and I stood shoulder to shoulder.
He flung the four small paper figures and the paper-cut coffin into the air!
At the same moment, I pressed my hands together and twisted my fingers into an unusual hand seal.
“Wind, rise!”
Rustle, rustle!
A gentle breeze seemed to coil around the paper figures and paper coffin, carrying them in circles through the air instead of letting them fall.
I murmured an incantation under my breath.
An invisible force within the breeze seemed to guide the four palm-sized paper figures into position around the little paper coffin–front and back, left and right–each supporting one corner.
A cold wind swept through the dark night.
Paper figures bore a paper coffin!
“Good! Excellent!”
Big Bull, Ergou, and their two companions could not help applauding and cheering from the side.
Old Cao formed hand seals of his own and nodded.
“Impressive, Xiao Wu. The Immortal Lady truly didn’t misjudge you! Your paper figures carrying a coffin are already on par with what I could do at twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Comparisons really are enough to drive a man mad!”
I chuckled at his praise but did not let it go to my head.
I simply concentrated on controlling the paper figures and their paper coffin. Working together with Old Cao, I sent them forward through the air on the breeze…
The palm-sized paper figures carried the paper coffin into the darkness shrouding the backyard.
The instant they entered, a tremor ran through my entire body.
A strange sense of connection appeared!
The scene within the backyard seemed to unfold before my eyes…
That was right. The paper figures carrying a paper coffin were also a means of reconnaissance. Once they entered an area, the sights within it would be projected into the caster’s mind.
It was truly wondrous!
The best way to describe the feeling was like watching images from a movie projected directly before my eyes at very close range.
They traveled deeper into the backyard…
Billowing black qi filled the place!
The nearer they drew to the center of the courtyard where Big Bull and the others had said the coffin lay, the denser the black mist became. It moved without any wind, like a living thing, and looked exceedingly eerie.
Faint flashes of inexplicable blood-red light flickered within it, making my heart quail.
“Focus, Xiao Wu. Send the paper figures and coffin charging forward. Break through the Corpse-Qi Barrier!”
So this darkness enveloping the courtyard was called a Corpse-Qi Barrier?
“All right, Old Cao.”
I continued circulating the qi within my body. Together, Old Cao and I remotely controlled the four paper figures as they bore the paper-cut coffin into the depths of the dense black mist.
At that moment, the black mist ahead seemed to transform into solid walls, blocking the paper figures from flying any farther. Gusts of yin wind even emerged from the mist and struggled against the gentle breeze with which we controlled the figures, locking the two forces in a stalemate…
As if by tacit agreement, Old Cao and I simultaneously poured more qi into our control.
He barked in a low voice.
“We bear every perilous coffin beneath the heavens and bury all the world’s wicked things. Break!”
Old Cao thrust both hands forward.
I sensed an even subtler fresh breeze begin to blow. Deep in the backyard, the little paper figures kicked their tiny legs in midair as if some greater force had filled them.
They surged violently forward!
Crack… crash!
Through the paper figures, I seemed to hear a pane of glass shatter, and the vision within my mind abruptly changed.
The darkness churned and withdrew to either side, finally revealing the sinister coffin in the center of the courtyard.
At that moment, its three ominous signs were even more pronounced than when Big Bull and the others had approached it earlier!
I could clearly “see” that the ground around the coffin had cracked and that its base had sunk almost three inches into the earth!
At least several dozen square meters of ground around it were covered in white frost–the sort of sight one might see after getting up on a midwinter morning.
As for black vapor seeping from the coffin, that went without saying…
Everything now enveloping the backyard had probably issued from the gaps around its lid!
No more than three hours could have passed between Big Bull leaving to find Old Cao at the coffin shop and my coming here with them after school that evening. Yet the situation had already deteriorated this far.
Even more terrifying, faint blood-red light was now mingled with the black qi around the coffin…
I did not yet know what other, even more frightening meaning this might hold, but judging from Old Cao’s grave expression, it could not possibly be a good omen.
“Get ready, Xiao Wu. Let’s break the Corpse-Qi Barrier apart completely! Then we can go inside and see what sort of wicked creature is behind this sinister coffin.”
“All right!”
I answered, and Old Cao and I abruptly released the qi we were projecting through the air.
The little paper figures floating several meters in front of the coffin suddenly accelerated and hurtled toward the malevolent coffin!
When they were less than a meter away, they moved like living people and flung the small paper-cut coffin they had been carrying.
Whoosh!
Although it was merely a coffin cut from paper, it produced a howl like a massive stone hurtling through the air.
Bang!
The paper coffin smashed violently against the lid of the malevolent coffin and exploded, scattering sparks in every direction.
The four small paper figures flew forward at the same time and struck the coffin lid…
They too sent sparks spraying everywhere.
The sparks danced like fireflies, driving away the darkness and mist.
In the next instant, Old Cao and I lost that wondrous vision. The little paper figures had, after all, “sacrificed” themselves, so we could no longer see through them.
Just then, Ergou shouted in delight.
“It’s gone! The black mist is all gone. We can see inside now.”
Old Cao and I let out long breaths and smiled at each other.
He patted me on the shoulder.
“Good teamwork. This was your first time using the Flying Coffin Art in a real fight, yet you already brought it to this level. You have a bright future, Xiao Wu.”
“Only because you taught me so well, Old Cao! How else could I have improved this quickly?”
Big Bull chuckled good-naturedly.
“You two can stop flattering each other now. Coffin-Bearer Cao is highly skilled, and Young Mr. Wu is a genius. Why don’t you both go inside first and see what’s actually going on with that coffin?”
Silver moonlight spilled down and brightly illuminated the entire backyard.
It was as if the black mist that had shrouded the place moments earlier had been nothing but an illusion.
Old Cao clasped his hands behind his back and nodded.
“All right. We can enter normally now.”
We raised our legs and stepped over the threshold into the backyard.
After walking forward for a short distance, we reached the strange, malevolent coffin and stopped two meters away.
The instant I saw the thing with my own eyes, I understood the inexplicable tension and heart palpitations Big Bull had described!