Chapter 182
Chapter 182
Before Li Qingying had even stopped the car, the little guy’s figure flickered, and he was already sitting beside me.
The Mercedes G-Class was a large vehicle with a spacious back seat.
I sat on the right, while he sat on the left with his head lowered, twisting his fingers together. His two bare feet were crossed beneath him.
From the side, I could see his little cheeks puffed out in a pout.
He really did look aggrieved.
I asked him several times what was wrong, but the child merely glanced out the window as though afraid of something. In the end, he didn’t say a word.
It wasn’t until we were almost at the West Street Entrance that the little guy suddenly opened his mouth and began wailing without shedding a single tear. “Big Sis, he’s such a bully! He’s bullying a child!”
I didn’t understand at first. “Who’s bullying you?”
“That man on horseback with the big saber,” the Red Banner Child replied indignantly. “Ever since Seventh Master sealed the Black Coffin, he hasn’t had a master anymore. He’s practically become some jobless drifter. I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately, but he keeps coming to my place, taking over my territory, and disturbing my secluded cultivation. I can’t stand it anymore.”
A man on horseback with a big saber?
Li Qingying and I blurted out almost simultaneously, “Zhao Zixun?”
The Red Banner Child nodded frantically. “That’s him.”
As he spoke, he pointed a tiny finger at the space between his brows and added, “Didn’t he used to have a Coffin Nail right here? That Coffin Nail has come loose. He seems to have regained some consciousness of his own.”
Li Qingying met my gaze through the rearview mirror. We were both astonished.
After the incident at the Zhu Pan River, Liu Junyan had used the Copper-Coin Formation to suppress the Black Coffin beneath the river once more.
Chen Ping, who lay inside the Black Coffin, was Zhao Zixun’s master.
After the Coffin Nail was driven into Zhao Zixun’s forehead, he had become nothing more than a puppet and executioner under Chen Ping’s control.
Now that Chen Ping had been firmly suppressed and the Ghost Soldier Formation had been forced back into the river with him, Zhao Zixun had been the only one left behind. Liu Junyan hadn’t made a move against him.
Several months had passed. I never expected this to be the next news we heard of Zhao Zixun.
I asked the Red Banner Child, “Has he been staying in the woods on the other side of the Small Stream this whole time?”
“Sometimes he’s in the woods, and sometimes he comes to the Small Stream,” the Red Banner Child said. “He’s really strange. Sometimes he’ll sit beside the Small Stream, right where we dug up the things he’d left for me before his death. He’ll sit there all night, as still as a stone statue.”
What we had dug out of the Small Stream back then had been left by Zhao Zixun for Fu Wan.
Now that the Coffin Nail between his brows had loosened, perhaps he really had regained part of his consciousness.
Could he… have remembered Fu Wan?
Neither Zhao Zixun nor Fu Wan had been at fault for the tragedy between them.
They were both victims of a cruel fate.
But… selfishly, I didn’t actually want the two of them to rekindle their bond as ghosts.
It had hurt them too much.
And yet, I also wanted two people in love to end up together, even if they were a pair of ghosts.
What a contradiction.
I reached out and rubbed the Red Banner Child’s little head. “You can’t get along with him peacefully, can you?”
The Red Banner Child huffed. “Not even a little! Big Sis, I need somewhere quiet to enter secluded cultivation.”
“Then…” I coaxed gently, “would you be interested in joining our Pawnshop?”
If the Red Banner Child hadn’t appeared at all during the battle at the Zhu Pan River, I never would have made him this offer. I didn’t want to drag an innocent person into the Pawnshop’s conflict.
But he had shown up of his own accord and stood on our side at the critical moment. From then on, he had no longer been able to stay out of it.
So this time, I extended an olive branch to him without the slightest hesitation.
Li Qingying immediately perked up when she heard me. “That’s right, little guy. Our Pawnshop doesn’t only do business. There’s also a shrine in the West Room of the Main Courtyard. If you truly want somewhere peaceful to cultivate, the Pawnshop would be an excellent choice.”
Red Banner Child did not answer. He simply sat there in silence, lost in thought.
Before long, the car turned into the West Street Entrance and came to a smooth stop outside the Pawnshop.
Liu Junyan and Hui Moqiong had already returned.
Liu Junyan was meditating, while Hui Moqiong leaned against the Pawnshop’s doorway, admiring the moon.
When we got out of the car, Red Banner Child seemed to have second thoughts again and refused to come out.
Hui Moqiong asked what was going on.
Li Qingying gave him a concise account of everything that had happened.
Hui Moqiong immediately thumped his chest. “That’s all? Leave it to me. I’ll have a good talk with our little brother here.”
I thought he meant to sit in the car and talk to Red Banner Child. Instead, he strode over, reached inside, grabbed Red Banner Child by the back of his collar, and hauled him straight out.
Red Banner Child was no ordinary child. He immediately tried to flee.
But Hui Moqiong’s fingers were long and powerful. Red Banner Child twisted around several times in his grip, but Hui Moqiong still managed to drag and carry him into the Pawnshop, taking him straight to the Main Courtyard.
Li Qingying and I were both rendered speechless. Afraid something might happen, we hurried after them.
Once Red Banner Child was brought into the West Room and saw the enormous shrine, along with the statues and spirit tablets enshrined upon it, he abruptly stopped struggling.
Hui Moqiong seized the opportunity to start indoctrinating him.
By the end, he even brought out the Black Cat to entice the little fellow.
In less than fifteen minutes, the boy was completely won over.
From that moment on, another spirit tablet joined the shrine-Red Banner Child.
No one was happier about taking in Red Banner Child than I was. I had wanted to do so for a long time.
With the Red Banner in his possession, he could mobilize the Ghost Soldiers. He would be a tremendous asset.
That night, as Liu Junyan and I lay in bed, we talked about Zhao Zixun.
Curious, I asked, “Back then, you placed a Seal on the Black Coffin and suppressed the Ghost Soldier Formation. Why did you let Zhao Zixun escape?”
Liu Junyan replied, “The yin energy at the bottom of the Zhu Pan River is too intense. If I’d placed him under the Seal as well, it would only have allowed the Coffin Nail to control him more firmly. I’ve always believed Zhao Zixun shouldn’t be our enemy.”
I agreed with him.
Back at Small Stream, if Zhao Zixun had truly been determined to kill me, I might never have escaped.
But in the end, he had held back.
At the time, the Coffin Nail between his brows had loosened somewhat.
Liu Junyan said, “When we get the chance, I’ll go sound him out first.”
But none of us expected that before we could arrange a “chance encounter” with Zhao Zixun, he would appear on his own.
It happened on the night of the twenty-eighth day of the final lunar month. I was curled up in Liu Junyan’s arms, sleeping soundly, when something furry suddenly brushed against my cheek, tickling me again and again.
I opened my bleary eyes and found myself staring into the Black Cat’s eerie green eyes.
Sensing that I was awake, it meowed at me, turned, and leaped down before heading toward the door.
Every few steps, it glanced back at me.
It seemed to be saying: Hurry up and follow me!
The instant I stirred, Liu Junyan woke up and asked, “What’s wrong?”
I pointed at the Black Cat. “It seems to have found something. Let’s follow it and see.”
The Black Cat finally stopped behind the Pawnshop’s front doors and waited for us to open them.
Suspicion rose in my heart. Realizing there might be something outside, I didn’t dare open the doors in the middle of the night. Instead, I peered out through the small window of the Rear-facing Room.
The moment I saw what was outside, my entire body went rigid.
Beneath the Hexagonal Palace Lantern in the western corridor stood a… faint shadow…