Chapter 146
Chapter 146
My heart skipped a beat, and I immediately asked what that place was.
Guo Zaimin thought for a moment before answering uncertainly, “I think it’s a prison. When I came to scout this area before, I heard someone mention that everyone held there is on death row.”
Death-row inmates?!
Jin Wuya instantly clenched his teeth and cursed under his breath. “You sure know how to pick a spot! You had the Buddha Head cultivating while facing an execution ground. It’d be stranger if your family didn’t have problems!”
There was bound to be an execution ground near a prison that housed death-row inmates, especially in the area at the foot of the mountain.
That was precisely the kind of place where malevolent yin energy was most concentrated!
Pointing at the Temple, Guo Zaimin said, “But isn’t this Temple facing the prison too? Nothing’s happened to it.”
At his words, Jin Wuya and I turned toward the Temple at the same time.
Then we shouted almost in unison, “Quick, down the mountain!”
Jin Wuya led Guo Zaimin in front, while Li Qingying and I followed behind.
We hadn’t gone far when the fog in the forest suddenly thickened.
The milky-white mist turned pitch-black in an instant, leaving us unable to see even our hands in front of our faces.
I instinctively called out to Li Qingying, but my voice seemed to be swallowed by the fog the moment it left my mouth. There was no reply.
This was bad!
I whipped around. Amid the sea of black fog, only the Temple remained lit, its pinpricks of light like a beacon guiding lost travelers home.
As if bewitched, I involuntarily began walking toward the Temple.
I had taken only a few steps when an arm suddenly wrapped around me from behind. A sharp pain shot through my earlobe, making my whole body shudder, and my mind instantly cleared.
A familiar deep, woody fragrance enveloped me. My heart leaped, and I turned around. Sure enough, it was Liu Junyan.
I stared at him in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
Liu Junyan rubbed the earlobe he’d just pinched and said, “Moqiong and I happened to be investigating something nearby. We shouldn’t stay here any longer. Let’s get down the mountain first.”
Liu Junyan traced a talisman in midair and sent it flying. It burst into flames on its own, and the black fog around us rapidly dispersed. Taking my hand, he led me down the mountain.
Before long, we spotted Hui Moqiong up ahead, practically dragging Li Qingying downhill by force.
Li Qingying stubbornly kept trying to turn back and look for me.
The two of them must have been struggling for a while. Hui Moqiong muttered a curse, ducked down, and hoisted Li Qingying directly over his shoulder.
Li Qingying was still trying to fight him, and I had just opened my mouth to call out to her when a thunderous bellow suddenly erupted from beneath our feet.
It sounded like the lowing of a bull and the roar of a tiger all at once. The sound was so piercing and powerful that the entire mountain seemed on the verge of collapsing.
Liu Junyan’s grip on my hand tightened sharply. “Moqiong, hurry!”
As soon as he spoke, the wind howled past my ears and everything before me blurred.
Within seconds, Liu Junyan had brought me to the foot of the mountain.
Hui Moqiong soon arrived as well, still carrying Li Qingying over his shoulder.
Jin Wuya and Guo Zaimin had been ahead of us to begin with, and they were nearly at the foot of the mountain by then. When we asked them about it, we learned that neither of them had encountered the black fog.
So that sudden surge of black fog had been targeting Li Qingying and me.
After inhaling it, we had reacted exactly the same way. Neither of us could resist looking back, and the moment we saw the Temple, we felt compelled to walk toward it.
If Liu Junyan and Hui Moqiong hadn’t appeared in time, the two of us would have met with disaster tonight.
It was truly impossible to guard against.
The bellowing continued as the earth shook and the mountain trembled. Birds and beasts fled in panic. For some reason, an unnatural red glow suddenly flared in the dark western sky-only to vanish a moment later.
After that, everything returned to calm.
Hui Moqiong slung an arm around Li Qingying’s shoulders and asked, “Yingyingzi, did you come here because of that girl from the Guo Family?”
He had hit the nail on the head.
Li Qingying still hadn’t recovered from her shock. She nodded instinctively. “That’s right.”
“Stay out of this,” Hui Moqiong said.
Li Qingying frowned and reached up to shove his arm away. “The Pawnshop has already taken this case. How can we possibly ignore it? Get off me!”
The moment Li Qingying knocked Hui Moqiong’s arm aside, he looped it around her shoulders again and pulled her back, forcing her against his chest.
“Stop messing around,” Hui Moqiong said. “This could get you killed. See that prison at the foot of the mountain? It’s been standing there since the former Qing dynasty. Do I really need to tell you how sinister a place that old must be?”
Li Qingying immediately fell silent. My scalp prickled, and I turned to look at Liu Junyan.
It seemed I had really stirred up a hornet’s nest this time.
Liu Junyan patted my head. “It’s not that serious. We’ve been investigating a few things ourselves, and we would have made a move here sooner or later. You just accepted this case a little too soon.”
Guo Zaimin caught the implication and hurriedly said, “Shopkeeper Xiao Jiu, you promised me. You can’t abandon my daughter now.”
“We won’t,” Liu Junyan said. “But she may need to cooperate with us on a few things. It may be a little dangerous. Is that all right?”
Guo Zaimin couldn’t bear the thought of putting his daughter at risk.
Jin Wuya kept shooting him meaningful looks. “Unless the Pawnshop intervenes in Guo Zhen’s case, she faces Ten Deaths, No Life.”
After agonizing over it, Guo Zaimin finally gritted his teeth. “All right. I agree.”
We returned to the Guo Family home first. Liu Junyan personally examined Guo Zhen, then formed a Sword Finger and traced a talisman in midair over the spot between her brows. Once he completed the hand seal, Guo Zhen fell into a deep sleep.
Liu Junyan instructed the couple from the Guo Family to guard the door and not let Guo Zhen leave. Then he turned to Jin Wuya. “Will you be staying here for the next few days?”
Jin Wuya nodded. “The Guo Family came to me first. I have to see this matter through to the end.”
“Good,” Liu Junyan said. “The moment Guo Zhen shows any sign of waking, immediately dab Cinnabar between her brows. Keep doing that. If even that can no longer restrain her, notify us at once.”
Jin Wuya guaranteed that he would carry out the instructions.
That night, the four of us returned to the Pawnshop. Hui Moqiong spread a sheet of parchment across the table, and Liu Junyan said to me, “This parchment has been passed down since the former Qing dynasty. The mountain depicted on it is the one we visited today. Xiao Jiu, take a look. What do you think it resembles?”
I lowered my head and studied it carefully.
With the mountain’s entire outline sketched on the parchment, its shape was much easier to make out.
Its overall form… looked both like an ox lying on the ground and a tiger crouching in wait…
It reminded me of the roar that had come from the foot of the mountain.
That sound had resembled both the bellow of an ox and the roar of a tiger.
I opened my mouth to share my thoughts, only for something else to occur to me. My head snapped up, and I stared at Liu Junyan.
“It’s Qiongqi.”
“Not bad, little sis!” Hui Moqiong exclaimed. “I thought the most you’d be able to tell was that it looked like an ox!”
Li Qingying looked puzzled. “Isn’t it just an old ox lying down?”
I shook my head and corrected her. “No, it’s Qiongqi! An ancient… ferocious beast that resembles both an ox and a tiger!”