Chapter 183
Chapter 183
Qin Ying had come back to take it easy, and the streets around the old family home were so narrow that she’d never even considered getting a vehicle.
Now that an emergency had cropped up, she rented a fully fueled all-terrain SUV and sped toward Qingzhai Village beside the Qingzhai Tunnel.
Qingzhai Village was roughly a three-hour drive from Yunlan City.
As Qin Ying drove, the Thunderbird, riding in a car for the first time, stayed by the window and stared outside.
The fierce wind blew it out of the vehicle several times, but each time, it simply flapped its wings and flew back in.
It never seemed to tire of the game.
By the time they left the highway, the wind had turned it into a ball of fluffy blue feathers.
It perched on Qin Ying’s head and preened itself with its beak.
Qingzhai Village was an ethnic minority village deep in the mountains. Once they left the highway, the road conditions deteriorated considerably.
Many sections were extremely treacherous, steep and narrow, with a sheer drop on one side.
Qin Ying rarely drove on roads like these, so naturally, she focused with every ounce of concentration she had.
When the navigation system announced that she had arrived at Qingzhai Village, she let out a long breath of relief.
She lowered the window and looked out. To the right of the road, an ancient village nestled amid a vast stretch of emerald bamboo.
A winding jade-green river curled around it.
She had stopped at an outdoor supply store along the way to buy a backpack and some outdoor gear.
Qin Ying picked up the black backpack from the passenger seat, got out, and pulled on a hiking jacket.
Although the weather was still hot, temperatures in the mountains ran low, and she might end up exposed to the elements.
She needed to be careful about hypothermia.
After zipping up her jacket, Qin Ying whistled and said softly to the Thunderbird, “Go scout ahead.”
The Thunderbird spread its wings and soared high into the clouds, streaking toward Qingzhai Village like a tiny bolt of lightning.
Qin Ying looked around. Several vehicles were parked beside the road.
A few sleek off-road vehicles bore Beijing license plates. Parked behind them, the Yunlan City Cultural Preservation Institute’s battered van looked particularly shabby, as though it might fall apart at any moment.
Now certain that this was the right place, Qin Ying followed the navigation on her phone and headed down a mountain path on foot.
On the way, she tried calling both Yin Minmin and Fatty Wu, but neither answered.
Thick mist hung over the mountains, and bamboo grew on both sides of the path.
As Qin Ying walked, she noticed the temperature dropping sharply.
Mist had even begun spreading beneath her feet.
Her guard went up. She pinched Di Shang around her wrist.
Sensing her intent, Di Shang stirred slightly, flowing and spreading over her skin like mercury.
Gold possessed some of the greatest ductility of all the elements.
Di Shang favored gold and had inherited that extraordinary ductility.
Beneath her sleeve, it transformed into a long silver glove that encased Qin Ying’s entire right arm.
The cold metal covered her all the way up to her right shoulder. Uncomfortable with the sensation, Qin Ying flexed her arm.
So far, she couldn’t see what was so powerful about Di Shang as a divine weapon and suit of armor.
She pulled out a trekking pole, intending to use it as an improvised weapon.
To her surprise, Di Shang, which had behaved itself until now, suddenly sent her a wave of displeasure.
Before Qin Ying could react, it extended a silver filament as thin as a strand of hair. The filament wrapped around the trekking pole and constricted like a python.
The carbon-fiber shaft emitted a piercing screech. In the blink of an eye, it was twisted into several pieces.
Only after mangling the trekking pole did Di Shang settle down again.
Qin Ying fell speechless. Unless she’d misunderstood, this thing was remarkably possessive. It wouldn’t tolerate her wielding any other weapon.
If she’d known, she wouldn’t have wasted several hundred yuan on it.
Qin Ying held the ruined trekking pole in her other hand.
When Di Shang saw that she was still holding it, it began writhing again.
In the blink of an eye, a whip-like tentacle lashed out, trying to knock the trekking pole from her hand.
Qin Ying had been prepared for this and promptly barked, “Behave. You can’t litter on a mountain trail.”
“Where are your manners?”
Di Shang froze, seemingly pondering what manners were.
Perhaps intimidated by Qin Ying’s righteous tone, it finally settled down and behaved itself.
During this brief interlude, Qin Ying continued farther up the trail.
The fog grew thicker and thicker.
It was even starting to feel chilly.
As Qin Ying rounded a bend, a flickering red light suddenly appeared ahead.
The red glow drifted in and out of sight through the fog.
With the bamboo groves rustling on either side of her, Qin Ying approached cautiously.
Only then did she see that it was a small shrine.
The stone shrine barely reached her waist. Shrines like this were generally dedicated to local earth gods and the like.
Someone had lit a red candle in front of it. More than half the candle had burned away, leaving a tiny red flame wavering atop it.
Beside the candle stood a pedestal dish holding several offerings.
The offerings were surprisingly modern: Orion Choco Pies and White Rabbit milk candy.
Qin Ying crouched down to examine them. They could not have been left here long ago; the White Rabbit candies had not even begun to melt.
The sight of those two candies made her think of Yin Minmin.
That girl was definitely capable of doing something like this.
Qin Ying lowered her gaze again. Inside the dark shrine was an indistinct object that looked like a lump of stone.
She was unfamiliar with the local customs and could not tell what it was.
Just as she took out her phone to snap a picture, it suddenly chimed.
In the fog-shrouded silence, it would have been a lie to say the notification did not startle her.
Qin Ying’s hand trembled. She checked her phone and saw a message from Yin Minmin.
[Minmin: Don’t come.]
Qin Ying’s brows drew together almost immediately.
A person’s personality and experiences shaped their behavior and speech.
Yin Minmin was a sweet, obedient girl: quiet, delicate, and polite.
Under normal circumstances, she would never send such a brusque message.
Something had happened!
Qin Ying’s fingers tightened slightly. Her first instinct was to stand up and leave.
But as she rose, a green blur shot out from behind the stone shrine and its burning red candle.
It was a slender emerald snake, and the shape of its head marked it as highly venomous.
Its fangs sprang out as it lunged straight for Qin Ying’s neck.
Qin Ying leaned back with all her might, but her right hand suddenly moved on its own.
It shot forward with lightning speed and seized the venomous snake.
The green snake’s fangs sank into Di Shang, which covered the web between Qin Ying’s thumb and forefinger.
Despite being no more than a thin layer, Di Shang stopped the fangs from piercing through.
Qin Ying did not feel even the slightest pain. Like a cold, unfeeling machine, her right hand gripped the snake and ground it against the ground.
With a faint crunch, the snake was reduced to pulp.
Its green scales scraped and crackled against her palm.
Nauseated, she wiped the remains off on the muddy ground.
At that moment, the red candle flickered as a gust of wind swept past.
A purple-blue blur swooped down. The Thunderbird flapped its wings twice in front of Qin Ying, leading the way.
After guiding her a short distance, it folded its wings and hid inside the hood of her hiking jacket.
At almost the exact same moment, faint, mournful sobbing drifted from up ahead.
There was also the sound of gongs and drums.
Through the fog, the shadowy figures of a procession approached as paper money for the dead fluttered through the air.