Chapter 115

Chapter 115

The fire caught fast. In an instant, the flames leaped high into the air.

The Dou family was in the coffin business, so they kept tung oil at home.

Tung oil was used to prevent rot and maintain wood.

It looked like Dou Zhile had splashed tung oil all over the Blue Stone House before setting it on fire. Otherwise, there was no way the flames could have spread so quickly and burned so fiercely.

By the time we ran up there, empty-handed as we were, what could we possibly use to put out the fire?

Even worse, this was a mountain forest. Once a blaze this size took hold, the whole mountainside would probably be crawling with fire. If we went up now, there was a good chance we would never come back down.

“How strange,” Li Qingying suddenly said. “With a fire this big, not a single bird or beast has come running down from the forest.”

She was right.

Not only were there no birds or beasts, even the lush green trees covering the mountain seemed eerie.

After all, it was already the beginning of the eleventh lunar month. Winter had long since arrived.

And it wasn’t as if the entire mountain was covered in pines and cypresses. So why were the trees still so thick and verdant?

But there was no time to worry about that now. The question we had to consider was whether to go up or not.

Before we could hesitate for long, however, a chorus of squeaking came from above us, like countless rats scurrying wildly beneath the forest floor.

The sound was loud, far beyond anything ordinary house mice could make.

And along with their cries, a haze of bluish mist suddenly rose around the Blue Stone House.

The mist closed in on the Blue Stone House from all sides. At first, we could still see the blaze at the center through the fog.

Very soon, the firelight vanished, and the bluish mist gradually dispersed as well.

By then, Li Qingying and I had already run up.

Everything had happened too quickly, from start to finish no more than a few minutes.

When we finally stood before the ruined Blue Stone House, we saw two people, both smoked black from head to toe, sitting in an equally charred coffin, staring at each other wide-eyed.

Dou Jinsuo was still clutching the little wooden horse tightly in his hand. On top of his head stood a lean little white mouse, squeaking at Dou Zhile as if saying something.

Dou Zhile seemed to understand it. Before the little white mouse could finish, he shot to his feet, pointed upward with one hand, bared a mouthful of big yellow teeth, and roared, “You damn rat, if you want revenge, go get it yourself! Why are you tormenting me? Do I not even have the right to die?!”

The moment the little white mouse heard that, it sprang onto Dou Zhile’s shoulder with a whoosh. Its movements were extraordinarily nimble, and it opened its mouth to bite his ear.

Dou Zhile slapped the little white mouse away, grabbed the long-stemmed pipe beside him, and made as if to whip it at the mouse. “Go back and tell your master not to keep provoking me. If I get in a bad mood, he can forget about receiving even a single stick of incense from me!”

In the blink of an eye, the little white mouse had vanished.

Dou Zhile sat limply amid the ruins. He raised his hand to light his pipe, only to discover that the tobacco had long since turned to charcoal, and even the mouthpiece was clogged with black ash.

“Forget it, forget it. Every last one of them is against me.” Dou Zhile lifted his eyes to look at me. “Girl, you had better understand this. If I go back this time, your little life may very well end in my hands. Aren’t you afraid?”

I shook my head. “No. Whether or not you take part in this matter, I have long been at the center of the storm. I came tonight only because I wanted to visit someone who, in my eyes, is an extraordinarily valuable ally.”

“Ally? Heh.” Dou Zhile said, “The Human-Skin Red Coffin they want me to make is meant for you to sleep in. What kind of allies are we supposed to be?”
Beside us, Dou Jinsuo suddenly raised the little wooden horse in his hand and waved it, cutting in quietly. “Um, Second Uncle, it seems like they have someone else in mind this time.”

All three of us turned to stare at Dou Jinsuo again.

“The Town Head doesn’t take me seriously, so he doesn’t bother avoiding me when he’s on the phone.” Dou Jinsuo rubbed the tip of his nose and said, “Apparently, some woman delivered a suitable candidate to them. That person should be kept at the Bai Family right now.”

“A woman?” I asked. “What kind of woman?”

Dou Jinsuo shook his head. “The Town Head didn’t say. Oh, right. It sounded like that woman said they couldn’t touch you for the time being, so she picked someone else.”

The moment Dou Jinsuo mentioned a woman, my first thought was Bai Xian’er, the one behind the Bai Family.

But after hearing that last part, I changed my mind.

After all, not long ago, Old Lady Bai had wanted to stuff me into the Red Coffin and send me into the Zhu Pan River. Back then, this Bai Xian’er hadn’t shown up to stop her.

So if it wasn’t Bai Xian’er, who could it be?

But no matter who it was, it meant another innocent girl was going to die at their hands. Since she was at the Bai Family, it looked like it was time to pay Bai Jingmo a visit.

With that thought in mind, I said to Dou Zhile, “Old Dou, no matter what decision you make in the end, I think our values still line up. Neither of us wants to hurt people. More than that, we want to save whoever we can. For that alone, I’ll always consider you an ally.”

After saying that, I took Li Qingying with me and headed down the mountain.

On the way back, Li Qingying asked me, “Xiao Jiu, do you think Dou Zhile will return to Wufu Town and get involved in this?”

“He will,” I said with certainty. “If I’m not mistaken, the Gray Immortal worshipped by the Dou Family should be somewhere in these mountains. Dou Zhile isn’t living here just to avoid disaster. He has his own responsibilities.”

Li Qingying nodded and focused on driving.

As for me, I leaned back in my seat and slowly turned everything over in my mind.

At first, I’d thought the Five Animal Immortals of Wufu Town were united as one, as difficult to crack as an iron barrel. But now, it seemed I’d been dead wrong.

Hu Yulin’s Fox Immortal branch clearly rarely took part in Wufu Town’s affairs.

As for Second Master Liu, he was currently entrenched on Wangting Mountain. At least for now, he hadn’t returned to wreak havoc in Wufu Town.

Besides, with Liu Junyan here, he still had a deterrent effect on the Snake Clan of Wangting Mountain.

Of the remaining three, the Gray Immortal had rarely appeared. And from the look of things now, it even had a grudge against the other two.

In that case, the ones who had truly been holding the line all along were only the Bai Family and the Huang Family.

And among them, the Bai Family was especially difficult to deal with.

Once Old Lady Bai died, Bai Jingmo took her place.

What methods he had, we still needed to slowly figure out.

Once I sorted that out, an even bigger mystery gradually formed in my mind.

The Five Immortals didn’t seem united at all. So back then, why had they-or their ancestors-gathered in Wufu Town?

What kind of person stood above them? What thunderous methods had that person used to draw them, or their ancestors, under his command?

Could it have been… the person who first established the Pawnshop?

If such a person really existed, then where was he now?

Would he only be forced to show his true form after we broke the trap laid over Wufu Town?

I almost didn’t dare imagine what kind of terrifying existence that would be…