Chapter 139.2

Of course, that was also because even though they had come on foot, they really had not given them much time to prepare.

There were two black vehicles, both vans. The woman with the child had originally been assigned to the other one, but when she saw there were five men on this side, she made a fuss and demanded to switch back.

Seeing Li Zhuiyuan and the other two watching through the window, the black-car driver had no choice but to agree to the change.

Holding her child, the woman climbed in with a cheerful smile. There were three young people in this van. The one wrapped in bandages looked a little scary, but the other young man and the boy were both dressed quite decently. Sitting with them made her feel safe.

The vehicle started up, first driving through the city, then heading out beyond it and gradually onto the mountain road.

The van behind them appeared and disappeared from view. There was no helping it. The mountain road twisted and turned so much that there was no way to hide. Even if you deliberately stayed far back, one turn later, all it took was a glance behind to spot the other vehicle in the distance.

The driver was probably new, but the van itself was old.

It had been modified. There were two rows of seats, and plastic stools had been added in the back to make room for extra passengers.

Runsheng sat in front of Li Zhuiyuan, Tan Wenbin sat behind him, and the woman sat to Li Zhuiyuan’s right, separated only by a very narrow aisle.

The child started crying, and the woman began breastfeeding him.

Li Zhuiyuan turned his head and looked over.

Ordinarily, this was the sort of moment when one should avert one’s eyes, but when traveling outside, Li Zhuiyuan stayed cautious at all times.

What if this whole pile of “let them eat meat” absurdities was only there to make the woman seem genuine by contrast?

The woman did not mind the boy’s gaze at all. Instead, she smiled and even turned slightly, letting him get a better look at the child suckling obediently.

It looked very real.

Tan Wenbin, sitting behind them, noticed Little Yuanhou’s improper behavior. As soon as the woman finished nursing, he immediately struck up a conversation with her.

The woman’s dialect was heavy, but it did not hinder Tan Wenbin in the slightest.

And during the conversation, the woman also behaved perfectly normally.

Li Zhuiyuan took out some food and drink from his bag and even gave some to the woman. She thanked him with a smile, then offered him some peanuts and something like a rolled pancake in return.

Li Zhuiyuan thanked her as well, then indicated he was not hungry, put them into his bag, and did not eat them.

After feeding, the child became more lively. It was a boy, and he kept staring curiously at the boy in front of him with bright, wide eyes.

The van continued on. Li Zhuiyuan stopped paying attention to the woman and instead began admiring the scenery along the way.

He actually did not mind these people arranging things for him, because he had approached them on his own initiative, not the other way around.

With this group around, he could skip a lot of the trouble of making up stories.

Besides, they had not shown any hostility toward him. Just like the woman at the antiques market, they had that same awkward restraint, still leaving themselves the excuse of, “We’re doing this to protect you.”

But by dusk, they still had not reached their destination, and then the road ahead was blocked.

The driver was startled. He got out to ask what was going on, then came back and said, “There’s been a landslide. The road ahead is blocked, and there’s no telling when it’ll be cleared.”

The moment she heard that, the woman began chattering angrily in dialect, clearly dissatisfied.

The driver got annoyed and snapped, “What can I do about it? It’s not like I was the one who dug the mountain down!”

But after saying that, guilt flickered in his eyes, and he deliberately glanced at Li Zhuiyuan.

He had not dug up the mountain, but the guilty conscience of a thief made him seem afraid Li Zhuiyuan would think this really was their doing.

Li Zhuiyuan did not misunderstand, because if they had truly planned to make a move, they would not have waited until now. There had been plenty of chances to stop somewhere along the way and act.

“Is there anywhere nearby we can rest?” Li Zhuiyuan asked.

“If we drive back a bit, there’s a roadside house down a side path. The yard’s pretty spacious.”

“Then let’s go there. I’ve been in the van too long. It’s uncomfortable.”

“Sure, all right.” After agreeing, the driver suddenly seemed to realize that, as a black-car driver, he was being far too accommodating, so he added, “I want to get out and have a proper smoke too.”

The van backed up and drove into the roadside residence.

It was a single-story house built beside a small road, with a little cliff behind it. But the yard was large enough to park a truck. There was a crude toilet and a sink with a sign hanging over it: Water Refill.

One window in the house was open, and the character for cigarettes was pasted on it.

The owners were an elderly couple, both hunched over.

The van behind them drove in as well, and the five people riding in it, along with the driver, all got out.

The old couple came over to ask if they wanted to buy some cooked food. Li Zhuiyuan and the others patted their bags to show they had brought their own.

The two black-car drivers and the five homebound travelers, however, bought some food from the old couple, along with some cigarettes.

It gradually grew dark. One of the black-car drivers kept driving up ahead to ask about the road situation. Finally, he came back and said, “Looks like we won’t be able to leave tonight. The road probably won’t open until tomorrow morning.”

The old couple came over again to pitch their lodging. They had one room inside that could be rented out.

The black-car drivers were fairly tactful and specifically came to ask Li Zhuiyuan and the other two, saying they could arrange for the three of them to sleep indoors.

Li Zhuiyuan refused again as usual. Tan Wenbin took out his sleeping bag, while Runsheng started setting up a tent.

In the end, the two black-car drivers stayed inside, while the five homebound travelers made do on the other side of the yard. They had brought quite a few pots and pans, but not enough bedding. The night air was cold, so they could only huddle there, smoking and enduring it.

Of the five, aside from the oldest one, who was nearly fifty, the other four all smoked, and every cigarette was tossed to the ground and crushed underfoot when it was only half finished.

Tan Wenbin noticed that too. Tilting his head, he let out a quiet laugh. Damn, even I’m not wasteful enough with cigarettes to do that.

The woman held her child and looked pitiful, but she did not come to Li Zhuiyuan for help.

Li Zhuiyuan said to Runsheng, “Brother Runsheng, go set up a tent for her, and give her my sleeping bag too.”

“Got it.”

Runsheng went to pitch the tent, deliberately choosing a spot rather far from the three of them.

Night fell, and the temperature in the mountains dropped quickly.

The old couple rolled out a gasoline drum from inside, then put firewood in it and lit it, bringing light and warmth.

The first thing the five men did upon seeing this was look toward Li Zhuiyuan’s group to see whether they were coming over.

Li Zhuiyuan and his two companions remained where they were.

The five of them looked at one another for a while, unsure whether they should go over and warm themselves by the fire.

But with the fire burning there, it would also seem rather odd if none of them went near it.

In the end, the oldest one waved a hand, and the five of them went over and sat around the fire basin.

The night grew late, but hardly anyone in the yard was truly asleep. Although those five all had their eyes closed, their postures made it obvious they were not really sleeping.

The two black-car drivers were staying inside the house, but through the window, one could still occasionally see the red glow of cigarette tips.

Jingle, jingle, jingle...

The sound of bells came from some distance away, not from the main road but from the smaller path below.

The old couple, who had already gone to bed, got dressed again and came back out. From inside the house, they brought out two white spirit banners and planted them in the yard.

The five men were startled awake. When they saw the white banners, they looked rather incredulous.

The two black-car drivers also came out of the house. The moment they saw the banners, they immediately went over to talk to the old couple. They kept their voices low, but they were speaking very fast.

The old couple reacted with visible surprise and kept questioning them in return.

Li Zhuiyuan’s hearing was sharp, and he caught the exchange.

The two black-car drivers were astonished that this household actually still connected to the Path of the shade.

The old couple, in turn, were shocked that two black-car drivers knew so much about the trade.

As members of the Wang Clan, a family of corpse drivers, they had run into corpse drivers out in the wild.

The bell sounds grew closer and closer, and figures had already appeared on the distant path.

At the front was a man in a yellow Daoist robe, with a Three Pure Ones sash around his waist, a Bagua mirror hanging on his chest, a blue cloud crown on his head, a bell in his right hand, and paper money scattering from his left.

He was rather stingy with it, though, tossing the sheets one by one.

His posture, however, seemed odd, a little stiff.

As they got a little closer, they saw another person in a yellow Daoist robe behind him, also scattering paper money one sheet at a time.

The reason for the stiffness soon became clear. Each of the two Daoists had a bamboo pole tucked beneath one arm.

And between them was another person whose feet did not touch the ground.

The old couple finished their wrangling with the two black-car drivers. The old man took out paper money and tossed it into the fire basin to burn, while the old woman held up a mirror and waved it at the entrance to the yard, guiding the way.

All five homebound travelers stood up and lined up in a row. Aside from the oldest one, the other four had mocking looks on their faces.

In the flickering firelight, those expressions were even clearer and more obvious.

Li Zhuiyuan knew what they were mocking. Judging from the movements, those two corpse drivers were using a low-end method, the traditional way of carrying a corpse on bamboo poles.

A real corpse driver with true cultivation could command the corpse with technique and make it walk on its own.

Li Zhuiyuan frowned slightly. It was not that he shared the corpse drivers’ professional snobbery; he was simply curious. What was the point of driving a single corpse?

With two living people transporting one corpse, there were any number of methods they could use. Was there really a need to respect tradition to this degree?

Li Zhuiyuan’s gaze sharpened, and he began Walking the shade.

He looked toward the corpse drivers. They were already very close, yet all he could make out was a blurry mass of black fog.

It seemed... something was wrong?

If he had seen nothing at all, that would actually have been normal, because it would have meant there were no Malevolent spirits or spirit beings present. But a mass of black fog? That was blatantly trying to conceal something and prevent inspection.

The pair of corpse drivers were still about fifty meters from the yard.

Li Zhuiyuan began trying the method from Wei Zhengdao’s Black Book, adjusting his mental frequency in hopes of probing past that black fog.

In the past, every time he had used this method, it had been to resonate with beings like Dead Sinkers.

Runsheng and Tan Wenbin remained on guard the whole time. Especially after seeing Little Yuanhou’s eyelids start fluttering rapidly, the two of them silently moved to shield the boy even more closely.

When the corpse-driver pair was only twenty meters from entering the yard, Li Zhuiyuan received feedback from within the black fog.

He sensed two responses.

The boy immediately stopped and ended Walking the shade.

Two responses meant there were two Malevolent spirits.

But the problem was that, in reality, what he saw was clearly two yellow-robed Daoists carrying a single corpse forward.

So that meant the corpse being carried was actually the living one, while the two corpse-driving Daoists were the corpses?

Li Zhuiyuan instinctively drew in a sharp breath, a chill spreading through his heart.

Having crossed the river three times, he should have built up tremendous confidence. But at this moment, he felt deep wariness.

Because if the same scene were placed in the hands of a Corpse Retriever, it would be equivalent to two Dead Sinkers carrying a person down the road.

And most horrifying of all, these two Dead Sinkers were dressed in Daoist robes and covered in Daoist ritual implements.

Even if all those implements were fakes, once you dressed Malevolent spirits up in a full set of such fake ritual items, something ought to go wrong. There was no way they should still appear so completely unaffected, as though nothing were wrong at all.

Ten meters.

The Daoists in front and back both looked very young. They even resembled brothers, with somewhat similar round faces.

The Daoist in front raised his hand as though greeting them.

The one in back leaned his head out, smiling in response as well.

The old woman cheerfully waved and beckoned, guiding them as though she were signaling a vehicle into her yard.

Among the five homebound travelers, someone had already started laughing.

The two black-car drivers had also gone to the front of the yard and were pointing and chatting with the pair. The one in back was still calling out, “The dead travel the road; the living yield the way.”

The young Daoist in front, meanwhile, lowered his head shyly, as though embarrassed by seeing so many strangers at once.

Such closeness, such naturalness, such the behavior of normal people... and yet they were still Malevolent spirits?

Sometimes, when crossing the river, when there was only one path up Mount Hua, you had no choice. No matter what, you had to stake everything on it, because aside from relighting the lamp and admitting defeat, there was nowhere to retreat.

But now the tide had not yet come. This was not that kind of desperate situation.

If the danger on the other side truly exceeded expectations to this degree, then there was no need for him to force himself into a head-on clash.

After all, crossing the river at least gave you a layered sense of what to expect. Reality, however, never bothered to be reasonable.

Waaah, waaah, waaah...

The piercing, frantic cries of a child suddenly rang out, drawing many people’s attention. But very quickly, their gazes returned to the pair of corpse drivers about to enter the yard.

Li Zhuiyuan, however, kept staring at the woman.

“Oh, oh, don’t cry, don’t cry... there, there... be good, don’t cry...”

The woman soothed the child while walking toward the edge of the yard.

Actually, the child had been very well-behaved. The whole way, he had stayed quiet and hardly cried at all.

Anyone currently raising a child or who had only recently done so could often tell something from the way a child cried.

Li Zhuiyuan had never raised one, but he had gained understanding early when he was little. Back when he was still truly treated like a child, adults had always liked making him go play with real children.

He could tell now that the child’s cries were cries of pain, and from the rhythm of it, someone was repeatedly inflicting that pain on him.

It was the woman. Where no one could see, she was deliberately pinching the child, intentionally making him cry.

She had reached the side of the yard. The yard did have a fence, but it was very low, just a rough wooden barrier. Even a child could easily jump over it.

This woman had kept up her disguise the whole journey. Li Zhuiyuan had never fully let down his guard around her, yet even so, he had not been able to detect a single flaw.

And now, at this moment, she stopped pretending.

So just how terrifying was that corpse-driving procession about to come in?

There was no time to think further. The young Daoist in front was already turning and preparing to enter the yard.

The woman, still soothing the child, had fully reached the edge of the yard.

Li Zhuiyuan stretched out both hands, grabbed Runsheng and Tan Wenbin, and ran for the side of the yard.

The tacit understanding between Runsheng, Tan Wenbin, and the boy went without saying. There was no need at all to ask what was wrong or why. The instant they saw Little Yuanhou running, how could they not run too?

Fortunately, their tent had already been pitched near the corner. All they needed was a burst of speed, and they reached the fence, then leaped.

Below the yard was a slope with a sizable drop. That was why the vehicles had been parked in the yard earlier. There was not much level ground nearby for parking, and only this spot had been flattened out.

As they jumped and began to fall, Runsheng reached out and grabbed Li Zhuiyuan’s backpack, then twisted sideways and pulled the boy against his chest, turning his own back downward.

Bang!

After hitting the ground, Runsheng held Li Zhuiyuan and rolled several times downhill, then shot out one hand and drove it into the earth beside him, steadying himself.

Tan Wenbin was less fortunate. He had originally grabbed Runsheng’s leg, hoping to use it to steady himself, but they were wearing custom-made expedition gear. The new fabric was high quality and fairly slick, and the boots were even worse. Tan Wenbin slid all the way down, grasping as he went, and never managed to get a proper hold.

In the end, he could only go chest-first, thumping downhill for quite a long distance before finally stopping.

The moment he steadied himself, Tan Wenbin opened his mouth in a soundless cry of pain. It felt like his chest had just been scrubbed raw with steel wool.

“There, there... don’t cry... good boy... don’t cry now...”

The woman was level with Runsheng’s position, though farther away by three or four meters.

They had all jumped from the same horizontal line, and Li Zhuiyuan’s group had even sprinted before jumping, yet the woman, while carrying a child, had still managed to leap that much farther. That level of lightness skill...

At that moment, the woman crouched steadily on the ground. She did not look at Runsheng or Li Zhuiyuan beside her, nor did she care about Tan Wenbin farther downslope. She only kept soothing the child:

“Oh... don’t cry, don’t cry... good boy... don’t cry...”

The child gradually stopped crying, because no one was pinching him anymore.

And then, from the yard above, there suddenly came a chorus of cries so chilling it made the scalp prickle.

The very next moment, the cries stopped abruptly, and everything fell into dead silence.

That fast?

Those seven men had all been members of the Wang Clan, each with no small measure of skill and ability.

Jingle, jingle, jingle...

The bell sounded again.

This time, it came from overhead.

Below, Li Zhuiyuan, Runsheng, Tan Wenbin, and the woman all lifted their heads and looked upward.

On the small path along the slope, a long procession was advancing in time with the bell.

At the front and the back were still the same two young Daoists in yellow robes.

In the middle, four on one side and three on the other, were the five homebound travelers and the two black-car drivers.

Each held one hand on a bamboo pole resting across the shoulder, following the cadence step by step.

Ten people in all,

and still only one person’s feet were off the ground.

Then the old woman’s voice rang out from the yard, echoing through the empty mountain valley:

“Hey now, there are still five who haven’t gone on the road together yet!”

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