Chapter 70
Chapter 70
The place was extremely narrow. Waist-high water plants filled the landlocked pool, and we stood on an earthen ridge barely a foot wide.
If I had not caught Yao Nan immediately, she would have fallen flat into deep water and might have drowned.
The instant I supported her with one arm, my other hand pulled an Evil-Suppressing Talisman from my pocket.
Ever since I began studying the esoteric arts with Master, carrying talismans at all times had become a habit.
They were only pieces of paper. Once drawn in advance, they fit conveniently in a pocket and were much easier to carry than something like a feng shui compass.
Holding Yao Nan with one hand and the talisman with the other, I stared at the floating corpse lying faceup only two or three meters ahead.
“You dare come out and harm people in broad daylight? You chose the wrong target when you crossed my path. Leave at once, or the talisman in my hand will reduce you to ashes.”
To be honest, my bravado was entirely hollow.
In modern internet slang, I was panicking like crazy inside.
The sun might be hidden behind heavy clouds, but a floating corpse capable of appearing in broad daylight had to possess tremendous power. Could a novice in the esoteric arts like me possibly deal with it?
Even Yuan Fei or Old Cao would probably have been panicking inside.
But I could not show weakness. Outwardly, I had to remain forceful.
As soon as I finished speaking, the woman’s eyes opened.
They showed nothing but white and radiated an eerie air.
It was still daytime, yet the temperature around me seemed to plummet. An inexplicable chill raised goose bumps across my skin.
I prepared to fight for my life.
Unfortunately, Yao Nan was beside me, and I had to protect her. If I were alone, at least I could move freely and fight with everything I had.
The next instant, the corners of the woman’s mouth rose into a strange smile on her deathly pale face.
As the saying went, a weeping ghost was less frightening than a smiling one.
A ghost capable of smiling was far more powerful than one that merely knew how to wail.
Then–
Whoomph!
The talisman in my hand burst into flame.
I had not even infused it with qi or activated it.
But now that it was burning, I could only release it. The Evil-Suppressing Talisman turned to ash in midair and drifted to the ground.
I froze, my hands and feet turning cold.
Was it really that powerful? What was the point of fighting? I was probably finished today.
Some spells did require their talismans to be burned. One could use a lighter, while an expert might ignite one directly with the qi in his body.
The Fart Talisman I had once used to punish Wang Dachun was such an example. I had burned it to make talisman water.
But an Evil-Suppressing Talisman did not need to be lit. One simply threw it at the target.
Once burned, it was useless.
For a talisman that did not require flame to ignite by itself in the presence of a ghost could mean only one thing: the enemy was so powerful that its sinister yin energy had destroyed it.
“Damn you, drowned ghost! We’ve never harmed each other, and you want to drag us down as replacements? Fine. This young master will risk everything today!”
As I cursed, I prepared to bite my finger and cast a spell with my own blood essence.
Master had said that I was Featherborn, and Featherborn blood was exceptionally effective at suppressing baleful entities.
Even if I could not defeat the corpse, I could at least make it suffer.
Unexpectedly, the woman’s mouth opened at that moment. Something shot out and flew straight toward my face.
The earthen ridge through the pool was narrow, and with the unconscious Yao Nan in my arms, I could not dodge. Instinctively, I reached out and caught it.
It landed in my palm.
There was neither the sharp pain nor the unnatural sensation I had expected. Instead, the object felt cool, smooth, and moist.
What was going on?
I opened my hand and looked.
The object was pure white and jade-like, about the size of a fingernail. It was roughly spherical, but irregular, almost slightly square.
Although it had come from the terrifying female corpse’s mouth, it carried no sinister or violent aura. If anything, it resembled some kind of treasure.
The aura it emitted felt only slightly cold.
What did this mean?
Was the floating corpse giving me a present? What was this thing?
Completely baffled, I lowered my gaze to the floating corpse and met its white eyes and peculiar smile.
Suddenly, I realized that my preconceived assumptions might have made the expression appear more terrifying than it was.
On closer examination, the woman’s smile remained frightening, but it contained no baleful energy. That meant she did not want to fight me.
I grew even more confused.
Grrk-grrk, croak-croak?
A rapid series of frog-like sounds emerged from the woman’s throat.
I started in recognition.
“Corpse speech!”
When Master and I had taken the vicious water revenant to the Hundred-Bone Pagoda, she had communicated with the baleful corpse and the Hundred-Bone Pagoda Corpse King using this kind of corpse speech.
Master had explained it to me.
After a person died and became a corpse, the body’s organs either stiffened or decayed. Naturally, they were no longer as they had been in life.
Even if the corpse transformed into an evil being, it could no longer speak normally. The strange noises it produced were corpse speech.
That made corpses different from spiritual ghosts.
Ghosts existed as spirits and belonged to the realm of the mind. Their speech was actually direct mental resonance, so they could communicate as they had while alive. A corpse possessed a physical body and could no longer produce human words.
Unless, of course, it reached the level of the Hundred-Bone Pagoda Corpse King.
The floating corpse before me was speaking from its throat, apparently trying to tell me something.
The problem was that I did not understand corpse speech at all.
If only I had taken time to learn a little from Master.
As the saying went, knowing another foreign language opened another road.
And no one should tell me that learning too many things meant mastering none. Master already taught me more than enough. Only after entering the field did I discover how few people studied talisman arts, feng shui, household familiars, and everything else together.
Never mind learning additional branches of the eclectic arts.
After uttering several phrases in corpse speech, the floating corpse abruptly convulsed.
Numerous black lines rapidly spread across its face.
They resembled incantations, yet wisps of black, evil energy streamed from them. They made my heart pound even more violently than the woman herself.
The next instant, an irresistible force seemed to seize the corpse. Trailing black energy, it slid back into the water plants.
The plants shook violently as it moved toward the distant riverbank.
At last, whether through imagination or reality, I heard the faint splash of something heavy striking water. The corpse must have returned to the Chuan River through the channel connecting it to this pool.
But why did I feel it had not gone back voluntarily?
It seemed as though some force had dragged it away.
Quiet returned to our surroundings.
The bitter cold vanished as well.
It was as if nothing had happened.
I looked at Yao Nan in my arms, then at the white, rounded object in my palm.
My mind was filled with questions.