Chapter 222
Chapter 222
Had they succeeded?
I grabbed Jiang Sique and demanded, “Where did Liu Junyan and the others go?”
At that moment, panic surged through me.
I was terrified that Liu Junyan and the others might do something reckless to help me escape this Calamity.
“Sis, Seventh Master said not to worry,” Du Chan told me. “He’ll find a way to draw the heavenly lightning to Qilin Temple and make the one who was supposed to endure it bear everything. Seventh Master wants you to trust him and wait here until he returns.”
Make the one who was supposed to endure the heavenly lightning bear everything?
But Feng Lishu had already died in the underground palace!
No, that wasn’t right.
It suddenly hit me. Liu Junyan’s target wasn’t Feng Lishu, but the legendary Qilin Deity!
He intended to draw the heavenly lightning to Qilin Temple.
Qilin Temple had already collapsed, and the Qilin Statue had shattered, leaving only a single Golden Phoenix intact.
But according to our theory, the infant spirits had gathered beneath the Qilin Statue, inside a huge pit underground.
Only by destroying that place could we truly put an end to everything in Tafeng Village.
Crack!
Another thunderbolt crashed down.
The underground chamber suffered even more damage this time, but I was much calmer than before.
I carefully judged the direction in which the thunderbolt had struck. It really did seem to be Qilin Temple!
I clenched one hand into a fist and pressed it over my wildly pounding heart.
Jiang Sique shielded Jiang Bin and all the important equipment, while Du Chan unexpectedly rushed over to protect me.
She wrapped her arms tightly around me, and I reached up to shield her head.
Crack!
The third bolt of heavenly lightning struck immediately afterward.
Du Chan was starting to get scared. She asked softly, “Sis, how many bolts of heavenly lightning will there be? Can this underground chamber hold out? Are we going to end up buried here?”
This chamber had been dug by Hui Moqiong’s disciples and their successors, and their workmanship was fairly solid. There were clear signs that the soil had been firmly tamped down.
But it was still only a hastily excavated underground chamber. How could it withstand repeated strikes from heavenly lightning?
Dirt flew everywhere, and even Du Chan’s breathing began to sound uneven.
I had no idea how many bolts would fall, but there would certainly be no shortage of them.
After all, Tafeng Village had accumulated far too much Karmic Burden, and far too many vengeful spirits were trapped beneath Qilin Temple.
When the sixth bolt of heavenly lightning struck, a section deeper inside the chamber collapsed. Suddenly, the sound of a child crying rang out.
Jiang Bin was awake!
The instant Jiang Bin began to cry, Jiang Sique let out a choked cry of his own.
Jiang Bin was his whole world!
He had held himself back for far too long!
At first, there was something I hadn’t understood. They had brought Du Chan into this chamber to perform a yin rubbing, but why had they brought Jiang Bin as well?
Wouldn’t it have been better to leave him in the Pawnshop’s West Room?
But later, after I saw what was happening in Tafeng Village and watched my mother give birth to that Little Monster, I finally understood everything.
The soul Jiang Sique had gone to such great lengths to preserve for Jiang Bin was incomplete.
A portion of Jiang Bin’s Souls had already entered my mother’s womb.
Jiang Sique had brought Jiang Bin into this underground chamber precisely to wait for this moment.
Liu Junyan and the others must have already killed the Little Monster, allowing Jiang Bin’s incomplete soul to return to his body immediately.
If Jiang Bin hadn’t been brought here, how could we be sure his Souls had returned?
Jiang Sique had brought Jiang Bin to the place closest to his Fragmented Soul so he could stand guard and wait!
Jiang Sique patiently soothed his son.
The three-year-old boy clung to his father’s chest, sobbing his heart out until his voice turned hoarse.
Yet every one of us was overjoyed.
When the seventh bolt of heavenly lightning struck, a chorus of squeaks came from the entrance to the underground cavern.
Hui Moqiong’s disciples and grand-disciples were digging through the soil!
Before long, Liu Junyan appeared within my line of sight.
Almost instinctively, I let go of Du Chan and threw myself at him. Liu Junyan reached out and caught me in his arms.
At last, my heart settled back into place.
I clung to him and asked in a muffled voice, “Are you hurt?”
“Just a minor injury. Everything went fairly smoothly.” Liu Junyan looked at me with concern. “What about you? Are you all right?”
I hesitated, but still answered him firmly, “I’m fine.”
Liu Junyan immediately sensed that something was wrong. “Xiao Jiu, don’t hide anything from me. Understand?”
“I’m not trying to hide it from you. It’s just that telling you now won’t solve anything,” I said. “I’ll explain everything to you in private once we’re back at the Pawnshop.”
The Grand Witch’s face had grafted itself onto my Souls. It wasn’t something I could explain in a few words, and the underground cavern was in chaos right now. This was no place to let anyone else overhear us.
Liu Junyan kept an arm around me. “There have already been seven bolts of heavenly lightning. There won’t be more than nine. After all, the wrongdoing hasn’t reached the point of utter wickedness. Let’s pack up and get out.”
As he spoke, the eighth bolt of heavenly lightning came crashing down.
This one was noticeably weaker than the previous bolts.
After another violent tremor, the muffled thunder gradually receded into the distance. From the cavern entrance, Hui Moqiong shouted, “Seventh Master! Xiao Jiu’er! A downpour is coming! We need to evacuate as quickly as possible!”
Liu Junyan held my hand with one hand and took Jiang Bin with the other. I reached out and grabbed Du Chan, and together we climbed toward the entrance.
Jiang Sique hurriedly gathered the most important equipment and followed close behind us.
Outside the cavern, Hui Moqiong stood guard.
His eyes narrowed as he stared toward Qilin Temple.
The heavenly lightning had reduced Qilin Temple to rubble. A wildfire had now broken out on the mountain, its flames staining half the sky red.
Once we had come to a stop, Liu Junyan asked, “Moqiong, what are you looking at?”
“Seventh Master, do you think the Qilin Deity truly exists?” Hui Moqiong asked absently.
Liu Junyan gave no answer either way.
I asked, “Why would you ask that?”
“I’m just curious. If the Qilin Deity really exists,” Hui Moqiong said, “then why didn’t he appear even once when Qilin Temple collapsed?”
He had asked the question idly, but it struck me hard.
If the Qilin Deity really existed, why hadn’t he appeared from beginning to end?
Had he… truly never appeared?
No!
He had appeared…
Rain came pouring down in torrents. The drops were so heavy that the wildfire was extinguished within minutes.
Hui Moqiong led Du Chan and the others through the curtain of rain, racing toward the village entrance.
He would arrange for someone to escort them away first.
“The entirety of Tafeng Village is bound by layer upon layer of Formation. Now that the people who laid them are either dead or gone, the Formation can no longer be sustained. Before long, the mountains will collapse and the earth will split apart across this entire area.” Liu Junyan looked at me. “Xiao Jiu, do you want to take one last look?”
I had thought Liu Junyan would urge me to evacuate as quickly as possible. Instead, he asked if I wanted to see it one last time.
To see that enormous pit.
I nodded. “I do.”
Liu Junyan wrapped one arm around my waist and carried me in a flying leap toward Qilin Temple.
In the blink of an eye, we were standing before the collapsed Qilin Temple.
The heavenly lightning had left Qilin Temple completely unrecognizable. Where the Qilin Statue had once stood, there was now an enormous pit.
The pit was filled with earth.
And half-buried in the soil… were countless stark white bones…