Chapter 261
Chapter 261
Although the forested valley looked peaceful, it was eerily quiet, far too quiet!
Old Cao had barely arrived before his brow furrowed.
Yuan Fei noticed that something was wrong with the two of us and asked,
“Brother Cao, what is it? Is something amiss?”
Old Cao nodded.
“It’s too quiet here. True, it’s already late autumn and early winter, so birds, beasts, insects, and ants have begun to hibernate. But it isn’t the dead of winter yet. There isn’t a single birdcall or chirping insect. This silence isn’t normal.”
Exactly!
I felt the same way Old Cao did.
More than that, I instinctively felt uneasy. I could also sense something faintly sinister, but for the moment, I could not locate its source.
Yuan Fei slapped his forehead.
“Ah! Brother Cao is right. I completely overlooked that. Something really is wrong.”
He turned to Ni Yang.
“Brother Ni, what do you think?”
After all, Ni Yang was leading this investigation into the truth behind the disappearance of Daling Village. His cultivation might not be the highest, but we still had to ask for his opinions and suggestions.
Ni Yang shook his head and said with great humility,
“This is my first time here too. And although Boss Wang put me in charge, I know my cultivation is shallow and that I understand supernatural matters far less than Brother Yuan, Brother Cao, and Young Brother Wu. I’ll mainly follow your lead.”
I had to admit, the man knew his own limitations.
Old Cao asked me then,
“By the way, Xiao Wu, why isn’t Roundy here yet? It is essentially a raptor demon, so its senses are much sharper than ours when it comes to certain things.”
I shook my head helplessly.
“That stupid bird! I contacted it just now, and it said it was still on the way. It should be here soon. It flies fast, after all.”
Yesterday, Roundy had gone to Bai Su and Huihui’s cave to play with them and shamelessly stayed the night.
It had promised to return first thing in the morning and set out with us.
Clearly, that fatty had overslept. It was completely unreliable!
Fortunately, because Roundy was my household familiar, our awareness of each other’s location had grown stronger and clearer as our abilities improved. As long as we maintained our mental connection, it could follow that sense and fly straight to me…
It had just told me that it would arrive in ten minutes.
The burly men in black who had accompanied us took out the high-powered brush cutters they had prepared and switched them on. With a chorus of buzzing, they began clearing the grass nearby. The weeds everywhere stood as tall as a person. Besides blocking our view, they might conceal danger!
Modern technology certainly made things more convenient.
If we had needed to hack through all those weeds with blades, there was no telling how long it would have taken. Our small group would never have been enough!
Daling Village had once stood where two small mountain ranges met, forming a V-shaped valley.
According to Wang Wenguang and others who had visited the place, as well as the household-registration staff at Guxin Town Police Station, Daling Village had extended outward from the innermost tip of the V-shaped valley. Dozens of village houses had been built at intervals across the open ground between the slopes.
Now, however, there was nothing here except dense weeds and low shrubs.
Not even the faintest trace of a ruined wall or collapsed house remained…
I surveyed the surroundings. Ridges stretched ahead to my left and right before meeting nearby to form a V. I studied the terrain and the thick forests covering the slopes on both sides.
Puzzled, I murmured to myself,
“A hidden dragon rests in the earth’s veins; a rising flood dragon stirs the ground. Purple qi comes from the east and turns into winds of wealth. These two ridges are very small and can only be considered flood-dragon veins. Their direction also allows the noble purple qi to transform only into the qi of wealth. But even so…”
“Judging by the feng shui of the land, this is a highly auspicious configuration! It can produce a noble person who amasses wealth. The reason Wang Wenguang could become a tycoon worth over a hundred million yuan, ranking among the wealthiest men in Yu City, is that Daling Village originally had excellent feng shui.”
“If something sinister happened here, an extremely powerful rogue cultivator, or perhaps an entire group, probably set their sights on this place and caused this bizarre affair. That is the most likely explanation. Everyone in Daling Village must have been innocent victims.”
It went to show that exceptionally good feng shui could sometimes invite disaster from other quarters.
Still, something puzzled me. Daling Village’s feng shui was primarily a wealth-gathering configuration, meaning the village would produce a successful businessman. Wang Wenguang had already proved that.
But cultivators were not supposed to pursue material wealth, were they?
There were people like Ni Yang, of course, but most cultivators probably cared more about advancing their own cultivation. Once their cultivation was high enough, making money would hardly be difficult!
Any rogue cultivator capable of making an entire village vanish into thin air with such an enormous undertaking certainly would not care about money.
As I carefully examined our surroundings…
Yuan Fei hesitated beside me before asking in a low voice,
“Xiao Wu, could you use that ritual implement of yours to check whether there’s a problem with the feng shui here?”
I had mentioned to trusted acquaintances like Yuan Fei and Li Miao that my golden compass was an exceptionally precious ritual implement and should not be revealed in front of strangers unless necessary.
Today, however, we had little choice.
If I kept it hidden, my current understanding of feng shui alone probably would not yield any useful clues without the golden compass…
That was why Yuan Fei sounded so hesitant.
But on reflection, Ni Yang was the only person here I did not know well. Old Cao, Yuan Fei, Big Bull, and the other three were all friends whose backgrounds I knew thoroughly.
As for the burly bodyguards in black…
Well, to tell the truth, they might intimidate ordinary people or weak cultivators just starting out, but they posed little danger to us.
Besides, they clearly did not understand how precious a ritual implement was and would not harbor designs on it.
So I took out the golden compass.
Old Cao, Yuan Fei, Big Bull, Ergou, and the others gazed at the compass in my hand with a hint of awe. They were not in awe of me, of course, but of the ritual implement!
Ni Yang leaned closer as well. Studying the golden compass resting on my palm, he asked in surprise,
“Young Mr. Wu, that looks like a Sanhe luopan, but isn’t it far too small? Can you even make out the markings for the Twenty-Four Mountains?”
He might be an old-school conjurer, but he had spent years traveling from place to place to earn his living. He knew the basic concepts and terminology of feng shui well enough.
I smiled without answering.
With a thought, I immediately directed the qi within my body into it…
Buzzz!
With a droning hum, golden light spread from the small compass itself. It swiftly formed a pale-gold phantom that hovered above it.
A huge phantom compass of golden light took shape!
All twenty-four divisions were clearly visible upon it, while the Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches, compound inscriptions, and scale markings continuously shifted.
It automatically calculated the feng shui of the surrounding terrain in real time, saving me from having to work it all out myself.
Simply put, to a feng shui master, this golden compass was probably what an electronic calculator was to an old-fashioned bookkeeper…
“All right. Old Cao, Uncle Yuan Fei, keep watch around me. I need to concentrate completely while I interpret the golden compass’s analysis of the surrounding feng shui.”
This was a dangerous moment.
If something sinister attacked, my reaction would probably be half a beat too slow.
“Don’t worry, Xiao Wu.”
As Old Cao spoke, he and Yuan Fei took up positions on either side of me.