Chapter 386 - In Trouble (1/2)
Su Lianyue turned her head and asked softly, “What’s wrong?”
“The night might be beautiful, but don’t let it bewitch you.” Xiao Chen walked up to her and made a pinching motion in the air.
Su Lianyue looked at where he was pointing. Only then did she realize a thread tied between two trees, so thin that it was undetectable. The thread was just at the right height to slice her head off.
“Frozen Soul Heavenly Silk.” Cold sweat formed on Su Lianyue’s back when she muttered these words. Had Xiao Chen not stop her, her head might have left her shoulders now.
“Thank you, Young Master.” She didn’t expect that Xiao Chen could detect such a hidden thread like the Frozen Soul Heavenly Silk at a split second. It seemed that he wasn’t as simple as he presented.
“Shh…” Xiao Chen made a shushing motion and patted her shoulder, indicating for her to squat down. In the distance, a corpse herder was leading twenty more corpses toward their direction. Under the moon and the stars, it was a peculiar sight. The two of them hid amid the underbrush, holding their breath. Su Lianyue also shed off her fragrance.
The corpse herder, dressed in a yellow-and-white Taoist robe, was holding a Soul Absorbing Bell. Each time he shook the bell, the twenty more corpses would take a few steps forward and follow him. On their deathly pale faces, a black imprint rested between their eyebrows. Leaves rustled as they walked on the underbrush. They were now about ten feet away from where Xiao Chen and Su Lianyue were hiding. He could even detect the heavy malicious grudges from these corpses from here.
Finally, when the corpses were finally far away, Xiao Chen let out a sigh of relief. Su Lianyue’s cheeks were red from holding her breath for so long. Under the clear moonlight, she looked flirtatious and enchanting.
Xiao Chen motioned for her to keep quiet and pointed to their left, indicating for her to look in that direction. The altar was right in front of them. Being as close as they were, they would be easily discovered.
Thus, they began moving in silence under the canvas of bright moon and stars, using the greenery for cover. To their surprise, they found four to five of such altars along the way but the people on the altars were so preoccupied with their own business that they said little else. Xiao Chen whispered, “You’re more familiar with the Corpse Refinery Sect. What are they doing?”
Su Lianyue replied, “If I’m not mistaken, I think they’re gathering malicious grudges. There aren’t many in each altar, but countless altars could add up to quite a massive amount of malicious grudges. The only thing capable of sustaining such malicious grudges is probably their legendary thousand-year-old Divine Corpse.”
Xiao Chen frowned. The Corpse Refinery Sect hadn’t been very active in the past few years. Aside from Ye Wuxin’s clear ambition to annex the three other major Devil’s sects, no one knew what the other members of the sect were up to. Now, he was teaming up with Su Lianyue to investigate the sect without knowing her objective. Even so, he could tell that she wasn’t doing it for Fort Raksasa. His objective, on the other hand, was very clear.
First, he wanted to see if he could get a Corpse Puppet and use it to save Xiao Ning from Wuyin Monastery. Second, he had always suspected the Corpse Refinery Sect’s involvement in the disappearance of the thirty-one people. Of course, he wasn’t investigating for those victims but for the fact of the seventh day of the seventh month.
The birthday of these missing people all fell on the seventh day of the seventh month, and the victims were all women, too. Qingluan told him that such incidents could be traced as far back as two thousand years ago. If the Corpse Refinery Sect was truly involved, these disappearances might be hiding some major secret. It might even have something to do with the sect’s existence itself.
The seventh day of the seventh month was also Weiyang’s birthday. For some reason, he had a very bad feeling about all these. She had been appearing in his dreams lately, and always in a very dreadful manner. He felt very repressed. The discomfort that tugged at his heart was indescribable…
“Young Master?” Su Lianyue quietly called Xiao Chen, noticing his absent-mindedness.
Xiao Chen motioned for her to be quiet. Just as he was about to step forward and continue their journey, a burst of rustling noises rang behind them. Su Lianyue didn’t even think before turning around and producing a purple fog. The purple fog moved so swiftly that it instantly enveloped a person clad in red twenty feet away.
That person ought to be a Corpse Refinery Sect disciple who came out to relieve himself in the cover of the night. Unfortunately, he ran into Xiao Chen and Su Lianyue. His eyes glazed over after inhaling Su Lianyue’s Purple Aromatic Fog. Su Lianyue’s eyes flashed with a cold glint. She was about to take his life when Xiao Chen grabbed her hand. “Don’t!”
He walked up to the disciple soundlessly and tapped several parts of his body, knocking him unconscious. He then inserted a white radiance into the disciple’s glabella and wiped out his Divine Sense and memories. Only then did he drag the disciple into the underbrush to hide him.
“We can’t stay here. Let’s go.”
They didn’t go far before they detected several similar-looking altars. The temperature seemed to have dropped and cold wind blew from all around. A cold sensation quietly enveloped their surroundings. Hiding amid the underbrush, Su Lianyue said, “I think they’re really trying to revive that Divine Corpse. Why don’t we check out their main altar at the Mountain of Myriad Caves tonight?”
Xiao Chen shook his head. “We don’t want to alarm them. The Mountain of Myriad Caves has as many experts as there are trees in a forest. There’s Ye Wuxin, too. If we break in now, we’ll just be digging our own graves. Let’s just stick to our plan.”
His words startled Su Lianyue. Ye Wuxin’s excellent subordinates were already a hassle to deal with, never mind the Corpse Puppets that had accumulated several hundred years of malicious grudges. Since when has she become so brazen? Was it because of this man in front of her? She looked at Xiao Chen, and Xiao Chen stared back at her with a frown. “What’s wrong?”
His words startled Su Lianyue. Ye Wuxin’s subordinates were already a hassle to deal with, never mind the Corpse Puppets that had accumulated several hundred years of grievances. Since when has she become so brazen? Was it because of this man in front of her? She looked at Xiao Chen, and Xiao Chen stared back at her with a frown. “What’s wrong?”
Xiao Chen shuddered out of nowhere. His voice trembled when he replied, “A little. What about you?”
“Me too. Did someone discover us?”
“No, I think it’s corpses.”