Chapter 169

The scene Cui Hao recorded in his diary was now replaying itself before Li Zhuiyuan.

Not in the tulou, not at night, but out in the open in broad daylight.

That only proved once more that the old shapeshifting crone was no minor nuisance who could only stir up trouble in some narrow, gloomy setting to scare people. The range of her home ground was extraordinarily wide.

The tractor was making a loud racket as it headed toward the寨 village.

On the hillside, Runsheng was waiting for Little Yuan’s command.

Li Zhuiyuan said nothing for a long while.

What the boy was thinking about now was not Xue Liangliang and Lin Shuyou’s safety. Or rather, that was not the first priority.

What he was focused on was this: if the “himself” and “Runsheng” on the tractor were malevolent spirits, then why could Lin Shuyou sit face-to-face with them without noticing a thing?

Within the system of the Officers of the Command Banner, White Crane Child was also called the Guiding Child, gifted at perception.

Based on past experience, whenever Lin Shuyou encountered something evil in the real world, his vertical pupils would open naturally.

But now, they had not. They were even chatting and laughing together.

And setting aside the detection ability of those vertical pupils, Xue Liangliang was sitting on that tractor too.

Last night, Li Zhuiyuan had already made it very clear to Xue Liangliang that this mission was complicated and that strange situations would arise. Logically, Xue Liangliang should have been on edge the whole time.

Lin Shuyou might occasionally be careless, but Xue Liangliang would not.

The evil things were not only imitating them, they were also talking with them, and Xue Liangliang had not felt even the slightest suspicion?

At that moment, even Li Zhuiyuan himself began to wonder whether all four people on that tractor were fake, and whether what he was seeing was only some layer of illusion.

But when the boy lifted his head and looked around, he found that the surrounding feng shui aura was completely normal. That meant he had not stepped into any illusion, nor was he inside any kind of formation.

“Brother Runsheng.”

“Mm.”

“Follow them.”

“Okay!”

Runsheng started running.

Fortunately, the tractor itself was not moving very fast, and the road was rough and hard to travel, so its speed was only so-so. Runsheng was able to keep up easily from the side of the slope the whole way.

But after getting a little closer, Lin Shuyou, who was sitting on the tractor, seemed to sense something and actually began turning his head to look behind him.

That left Li Zhuiyuan, riding on Runsheng’s back, feeling somewhat helpless. You’ve got the energy to sense something far away, but you can’t spare the time to take a proper look at what’s right in front of you?

“Brother Runsheng, widen the distance a little. Don’t get so close.”

“Okay.”

Runsheng fell back a bit, making sure only that the tractor remained within sight.

And so it went on like that: one side moving ahead on four wheels, the other trailing behind on two legs.

The four people on the tractor only chatted now and then. Nothing strange happened.

In the end, Ran Dacheng drove the tractor into the village and brought it to a stop.

All four got off. After a few simple words, Xue Liangliang and Lin Shuyou continued toward the tulou, while “Li Zhuiyuan,” carried on “Runsheng’s” back, headed in another direction and quickly vanished behind the houses ahead, out of sight.

“Brother Runsheng, go.”

“Okay!”

Even after walking mountain roads on foot for so long, Runsheng’s strength still had not run out. This time he did not hesitate and broke into a fast run.

Ran Dacheng, who was turning the tractor around, saw this and scratched his head in surprise.

He had just seen those two head that way with his own eyes, so how had they run into them again over here?

Behind that house was a woodpile, but there was no sign of anyone.

Runsheng stepped onto the pile, and Li Zhuiyuan, elevated on his back, looked around from above. He found nothing as well.

That pair, “himself” and “Runsheng,” seemed to have simply vanished into thin air.

Li Zhuiyuan patted Runsheng on the shoulder. Runsheng straightened his back and let the boy slide down from him.

Clack!

Li Zhuiyuan noticed the sound under his shoe. Looking down, he saw a patch of glass-like powder.

He crouched and looked more closely, only to find that there was a lot more of that powder beneath the woodpile.

He reached out, pinched up a little, then let it trickle gently from his fingers. Li Zhuiyuan noticed that a lot of nearby firewood, as well as the earthen wall on this side, still had glittering traces left on them, easy to spot in the sunlight.

A large piece of something had likely exploded here just now and shattered into powder.

However...

Li Zhuiyuan scooped up another handful of the fine fragments and examined them carefully in front of him.

Was this really glass?

Unfortunately, transportation here was inconvenient, and there was no materials testing institute in the nearby county. To confirm the exact composition, it would have to be sent to a major city. By the time the sample got there and the results came back, it would all be far too late.

Even so, Li Zhuiyuan took a plastic bag from his pack and put some of the fragments inside.

He had a feeling this thing was probably a key clue.

After collecting the sample, Li Zhuiyuan and Runsheng returned to the tulou, where at the entrance they happened to run into Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng, who had also just come back.

Lin Shuyou happened to be coming out carrying a bucket, planning to fetch water from the well outside.

“Brother Little Yuan, you found Brother Bin and the others so quickly?”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Did I say I went to find them?”

Lin Shuyou said in surprise, “Yeah, you told Liangliang and me to come back first and make food, while you and Runsheng went to look for Brother Bin and the others...”

Under Li Zhuiyuan’s serious, probing gaze, Lin Shuyou trailed off, growing unsure of himself as he spoke.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Inside. We’re having a meeting.”

Everyone sat in a circle in the courtyard, and Li Zhuiyuan described what he had seen earlier.

Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng only found it astonishing.

Xue Liangliang and Lin Shuyou, however, stood up immediately.

Lin Shuyou said, “Brother Little Yuan, are you saying we rode the tractor back with two evil things disguised as you two?”

Xue Liangliang said, “What way do you have to prove that you’re the real Little Yuan?”

“Oh, right!” Lin Shuyou immediately stepped in front of Xue Liangliang, lowering his center of gravity and taking a stance, ready to act at any moment.

In his understanding, the only thing he could be certain of was that the Xue Liangliang who had been with him the whole day was definitely real.

Xue Liangliang’s question and Lin Shuyou’s reaction did not make Li Zhuiyuan angry. On the contrary, he found them rather gratifying.

Li Zhuiyuan took out the sample bag and tossed it in front of everyone.

“I suspect the evil things finally broke apart into this.”

Lin Shuyou picked up the sample bag, felt it for himself, then handed it to Xue Liangliang. Xue Liangliang poured some out and examined it carefully.

“Glass?”

“I don’t know whether it’s actually glass, but there’s a need to find a testing institute and confirm its exact composition.”

Li Zhuiyuan drew an elegant dagger from beside his boot, held it over the bonfire to heat it, then sliced it across his left palm. A cut opened, and blood flowed out.

The boy picked up a bowl from the ground and let his blood drip into it before he began treating the wound.

“Let’s use the most primitive method to verify identity. Then we’ll swap bowls of blood and have the others confirm.”

Runsheng immediately did the same, first drawing his finger across the edge of the Yellow River Spade, then dripping blood into a bowl.

Xue Liangliang nodded, took out a small knife, cut open his finger, and let his blood fall.

Lin Shuyou lifted his foot, swung his arm downward, smoothly drew the dagger from the side of his boot, and in one fluid motion slashed his own hand.

“Hiss...”

He had cut too deep. Blood welled out at once.

Li Zhuiyuan instinctively felt that Lin Shuyou’s blood did not need to be tested. He was probably real.

But he immediately discarded that thought. It still had to be checked, because the fakes seemed capable of acting exactly like the real ones.

After the four of them had all dripped blood, Li Zhuiyuan looked at Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng and asked:

“What are you two hesitating for?”

Tan Wenbin shrugged. “Huh? We have to do it too? I figured since we never left the village today, there wasn’t any need to doubt our identities.”

Yin Meng said, “That’s what I thought too.”

Li Zhuiyuan smiled.

Runsheng raised the Yellow River Spade, and Lin Shuyou grabbed his trident.

The two of them, one on the left and one on the right, hemmed Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng in between them.

Both Runsheng and Lin Shuyou had already sensed that something was wrong, because Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng had, for once, failed to respond at once to Little Yuan’s command.

Even if Yin Meng did not need to do it, she would still have done it anyway, even if she later got scolded with: You actually didn’t need to.

Tan Wenbin would have been even more proactive in going along with it.

No matter what, resisting at a moment like this meant there was a problem with their identities.

“Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing? You’re not seriously suspecting us too, are you? Fine then, Mengmeng, let’s verify ourselves too.”

“Mm.”

Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng both drew the daggers from the sides of their boots.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Do it.”

Runsheng did not hesitate for even a moment. He swung the spade at them.

Lin Shuyou hesitated for one second, then thrust his trident forward.

Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng let out a shrill screech and rushed together at Li Zhuiyuan.

But their sneak attack had come too late.

Tan Wenbin’s head was smashed apart by one blow from Runsheng’s spade, and Yin Meng’s neck was pierced through by Lin Shuyou’s trident.

The two screamed miserably. Then their bodies rapidly shriveled and flattened, gradually turning transparent. At incredible speed, they transformed into something like glass, and then... exploded.

Bang! Bang!

Glass fragments flew in all directions. Runsheng stepped in front of Li Zhuiyuan and opened his Qi Gates, sweeping the shards aside with a burst of force.

Lin Shuyou retreated, grabbed Xue Liangliang, and the two fell to the ground together, avoiding the affected area.

These glass-like fragments did not have much killing power, but if you were careless, they could still leave plenty of cuts on your body. If they got embedded in the skin, they would be troublesome to deal with.

Sparkling fragments were scattered everywhere. Beneath the spot where Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng had been standing, there were now two heaps of powdered debris.

Li Zhuiyuan unscrewed his canteen and took two swallows of water.

He finally understood why Xue Liangliang and Lin Shuyou had failed to realize that the ones riding the tractor with them earlier had been fakes.

Because from the moment he met Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng at the entrance until the point where they failed to respond immediately to the order to cut their fingers and drip blood, even Li Zhuiyuan himself had not realized that Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng were fake.

The two of them had been flawless in appearance, expression, movement, speech, everything.

But that was impossible.

Appearance was easy enough to imitate, but how had they imitated the content of casual conversation and natural reactions?

Li Zhuiyuan did not believe that the old shapeshifting crone could be all-knowing and all-powerful.

The boy lowered his head and began to recall every bit of dialogue he had exchanged with Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng after meeting them at the entrance.

Only at the very end, when he forced them, had their speech begun to distort. Before that, everything had been very... no, that wasn’t it.