Chapter 20 (2/2)

After that, the third one was Tong Xie.

Shang Lie didn’t say a single word while looking at Tong Xie’s body. He just kept looking at the sky. After a long while, he finally spoke something. “All my men are dead. The next one will be me.”

New Year was finally over but this new year was filled with too many death news. We didn’t tell the new waiter about the deaths because he’s a pure and simple person and in his life, he would never encounter such weird death or eerie a.s.sa.s.sination. He was just a simple and blissful mortal who was satisfied with his life till the last day on earth. Sometimes I really wished to live like him and not a powerful king who has indefinite locks on him, living in loneliness forever.

The waiter was as busy as before and the owner’s son continued playing with his icy blue ball, and asking us to play with him. The mortal world continued operating in its routine without any unusual event.

But the death aura was still looming over our heads like thick heaving dark clouds. They would never get dispersed.

No one knew how did Ya Zhao and Yu Po got controlled by the dreams and judging by their spiritual powers, they shouldn’t be controlled so easily unless they had let down their guide at the very beginning and then falling into the dream, unable to get out. But after so many strange deaths, Ya Zhao and Yu Po should have been more alert unless the person who killed them was someone they would never suspect before. This was what Yue Shen told me after everything, and I didn’t say anything. Neither did Huang Tuo because we weren’t sure of what to do. We have lost our direction and we could only wait for Wu Ya and the West Guardian to continue killing people.

“My king, do you all still remember Xing Gui’s third dream?” Huang Tuo asked suddenly.

Yue Shen’s eyes brightened suddenly. “Of course. Xing Gui told us to open it when we have no clues to our current situation.”

That dream was a long yet extremely simple dream because it’s about my brother, Ying Kong s.h.i.+. In the dream, s.h.i.+ was running from somewhere far away. Cherry blossoms and snow kept falling on the track that he just ran by. He was reverted to his child look and he was standing on the horizon line, smiling at me. Snow was falling into his hand and forming into a s...o...b..ll, and then I heard his voice traveling from afar. “Gege, are you happy?”

I didn’t understand why did Xing Gui give such a dream to me, was she trying to make me recall about Ying Kong s.h.i.+? Or was there another meaning? If she just wanted me to remember Ying Kong s.h.i.+, why would she tell us to open it when we were all clueless?

Suddenly I remembered the dream that Xing Jiu gave me in the past; that was the dream where my brother and I took our illusion test and this dream may be the same as that one. We may have missed out something.

Hence I went into the dream again and observed every single detail in the dream and at the end of it, I’ve finally discovered the secret that Xing Gui wanted to tell us.

The snow had already stopped except the green bamboo leaves still have thick layer of snow on them. They would scattered to the ground like falling flowers as the wind blew.

Chao Ya was playing her zither at the courtyard; Huang Tuo and I were in the room, not speaking to one another.

After that we heard Chao Ya’s scream suddenly, I could see Chao Ya’s eyes turning blue from the corner of my window. Her hair and robe flew upwards all of a sudden and her zither was hovering above her head with her spiritual power when countless of white b.u.t.terflies were forming from the chords, surrounding her.

“Same as what you have predicted, my king.” Huang Tuo nodded at me.

When Huang Tuo and I came to the courtyard, Chao Ya’s hair was in a mess and the colour of her eyes have turned darker blue. The owner’s son was standing beside her, crying. “Jiejie, what happen to you?”

I walked over and knelt before the child, touching his hair. “Nothing is wrong with jiejie, it’s just that you have controlled jiejie with your dream.”

The boy looked at me, not know what was I talking about. “Gege, what are you talking about?”

I raised my hand suddenly and a sharp and short ice blade flew out, cutting the black string tied around his hair. And then his hair fell to the ground; his hair was extremely long, even longer than all the people in this world, including Shang Lie. As compared to the boy, Shang Lie looked more like a kid.

Chao Ya’s hair fell peacefully back down, flowing smoothly along her robe. Her eyes had reverted back to white colour. “Little boy, I’m fine. I merely got controlled by your dream that’s all.”

After that the kid’s face changed from confused to arrogant, he looked at me without saying anything but from his eyes looked cold and sharp.

“Wu Ya, you can stop now.” I said.

Wu Ya looked at me and said. “It’s impossible that you will know I am Wu Ya. Impossible.”

“Right. It’s impossible but I still know it.”

Wu Ya looked at me and then to Chao Ya. “You guys have been acting. Chao Ya was never controlled by my dream?”

“Yes, I was just acting. But I have to admit that you are the best dream manipulator that I had ever met. I almost got drowned by your dream and if I didn’t prepare myself for your attack, I guess I would have strangled myself to death by the chords.” Chao Ya replied.

“How did you get suspicious of me?” Wu Ya asked, looking at me.

“When Yi Zhao died that time, Feng Huang was in the main hall drinking with Shang Lie, so the person who killed Yi Zhao is definitely not Feng Huang Hua Xiao and the West Guardian will not do it personally so Wu Ya is the one who killed Yi Zhao.”

“Then how did you suspect that I am Wu Ya?”

“Because we saw the wound on Yi Zhao’s throat, the wound was cut from downwards to upwards and it would mean the killer is much shorter than Yi Zhao and is also someone whom she would never think of.”

“And then?”

“For Pian Feng’s death, Huang Tuo mentioned that the killer was still in the house. We hadn’t seen anyone coming out from the room, but in actual fact there was someone that came out of the room and that person was you. Because you are very tiny in size, we didn’t manage to see you since the fence blocked you off. When we watched Hua Xiao from that angle, it would look like an invisible man walking out of the room.”

“So this is why you know that it’s me?”

“No. We just thought that it’s something strange but what made us suspect you more was because of what Yue Shen said.”

“What did she say?”

“Do you still remember the day when all of us were being poisoned, and someone was there to lure Yue Shen out? That day when we opened the door, you were at the corridor, looking towards the direction of Ting Zhu Xuan in a shock; Yue Shen went out for a chase but when she was going towards that direction, she said the murderous aura faded out and then I thought of you all of a sudden. The aura came from you when you’re at the corridor; you are a professional a.s.sa.s.sin so creating such aura is an easy task for you. By the time Yue Shen came back, you withdrew it and then no one would be suspicious of you.”

Wu Ya looked at me with an angry and hateful expression. “Continue.”

“And then it would be Xing Gui’s dream, the dream’s about Ying Kong s.h.i.+ and he was still in his child form, just like you. He was holding a ball in his hand but its colour was white unlike yours. At first I didn’t know what it mean, but after that I’ve finally understand. I remembered when I first met you in this world, the ball in your hand was white but now, your ball had turned to icy blue and then I remembered what Ya Zhao told me before he died. ‘My king, please be careful of icy blue…’ That time I didn’t know what he meant by that, but now I’ve final understand. He wanted me to be careful of your icy blue ball. After that I asked Chao Ya, she told me that a powerful dream manipulator was able to materialize a dream into a shape and that would be your ball. Anyone, who touched the ball, would be swallowed by the dream so we told Chao Ya to give it a try. In the end, it was as per what we have predicted, the ball is indeed the dream that you used to kill others.”

Wu Ya looked towards Chao Ya. “So you weren’t even controlled by my dream, you have been acting all along.”

Chao Ya nodded. “Yes, Huang Tuo had already casted an enchantment on me so no illusion skill is able to enter my body and don’t forget, I am also a dream manipulator.”

Wu Ya stood among us with his head hanging low. He looked just like an obedient little boy and no one would expect him to be a professional killer right after the West Guardian.

Huang Tuo’s enchantment had already frozen the entire surrounding and Chao Ya has also summoned her zither chords out; Wu Ya just stood in the centre, I wasn’t sure what was he thinking about but the colour of his eyes kept changing non-stop.

Moments later he smiled and walked towards me. “Ge, can you hug me?”

Right at that instant I felt my surrounding air started stirring; for one moment I saw Ying Kong s.h.i.+ standing before me, his crystal white hair was scattered to the ground and his cute obedient face was smiling at me just like the sleeping child in my arms several hundreds years ago. I started seeing big white halos appearing before my eyes and my whole mind was filled with my brother’s voice. “Ge, can you hug me? Please hug me, okay?”

And then s.h.i.+ tiptoed to touch my face with his outstretched hand, but the moment when his hand was about to touch me, the enchantment that Huang Tuo had set on me appeared all of a sudden. I got enveloped into a crystal clear ball and s.h.i.+ was sprung away by the enchantment. He was lying on the ground, crying out loud. “Ge, why are you ignoring me?”

My heart hurt so much like a knife was cutting it open. “s.h.i.+, don’t be scared. Ge is always by your side.” I walked over, wanting to carry him up.

The moment I bent over, s.h.i.+ changed to Wu Ya sudden and the illusion around us disappeared. I saw Wu Ya’s eerie blue face and a icy cold white light appeared in his hand. And then in a flash of lightning, he aimed the light at my throat. It was too late for me to dodge and I just went frozen at that moment.

But just before Wu Ya’s sharp ice blade appeared in front of my throat, the smile on his face went frozen all of a sudden and his ice blade could no longer come any closer because I saw a ray of moonlight came piercing through his chest. I looked up to see Yue Shen standing behind him; her face was cold and glowing with light.

After that I saw Wu Ya fell slowly to the ground in front of me, and right before his body touched the ground, I heard his whimper. “Ge, why don’t you hug me? Why?”

Suddenly, huge cherry blossoms came falling down from the sky and the surrounding turned into red colour just like the blood of a mortal. I heard the rumbling of the ground like low and heavy sound of the thunder in the sky.

I looked up to the sky and my tear slid silently down my face. I heard s.h.i.+’s voice from the sky. “Ge, please be free…”

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