Chapter 171

Li Zhuiyuan flicked his arm downward and opened his palm. The copper coin sword slipped free, collapsing into a ring of coins that fell neatly into his hand.

It no longer held the shape of a sword, but the coins were still linked together, so it could be worn around the wrist like a bracelet.

The boy lightly brushed the verdigris on one of the coins with his fingertip. This was not ordinary oxidation. It was a special accretion formed by repeated soaking in the blood of evil things and the blood of its former owner.

Used for chopping or slashing, it would be terrible, nowhere near as effective as the Yellow River Spade, and probably not even as good as a sturdy wooden club.

The true value of the copper coin sword lay in using it as a medium for spells.

In the past, when Li Zhuiyuan cast techniques, he was used to drawing spell patterns on his arms and hands, then activating them with his own essence, energy, and spirit.

He could never be bothered looking for a medium, because ordinary ones could not guarantee proper results.

But that did not mean mediums were useless. It only meant he had never found a truly good one.

Now, he had.

With this in hand, casting would become much easier for him, and the verdigris clinging to the coins could even amplify his techniques to a certain degree.

Li Zhuiyuan bowed once more to the split stone stele. This was his way of thanking the elder for the gift.

Having taken something from Old Zhao’s family, Li Zhuiyuan felt rather embarrassed.

Later, when the chance came, he would return Zhao Yi a similarly great stroke of fortune.

Though whether Zhao Yi had any interest in Fengdu was another matter.

Now, things were gradually becoming clear.

The elder from the Miao寨 had told Li Zhuiyuan several versions of the old crone’s story, and one of them had been correct. The old crone really had once been a saintess of Miao territory.

What she had refined was most likely the Mother-and-child linked-heart curse.

In Strange Tales of the Rivers and Lakes, Wei Zhengdao had recorded a Dead Sinker drifting downstream. The mother body wore Miao clothing, her belly swollen, but the true dominant will belonged to the fetus inside her.

Wei Zhengdao’s annotation for that Dead Sinker was: using pregnancy in place of birth, to live another life.

In essence, what she gave birth to was not her child, but herself.

People are always dissatisfied with some part of themselves, from something small like appearance or figure to something large like temperament and personality.

And this evil technique could alter those original imperfections, letting someone live again in what they saw as their most perfect form.

Of course, one could also choose the person one believed to be the most perfect, replicate them, and give birth to a new version of that person, or oneself.

When cultivated to its extreme, this evil art could even alter one’s Natal life-mark.

Judging by what was described on Zhao Wuyang’s stone stele, the gu child’s birth required the blood sacrifice of huge numbers of young children. In other words, the lives of many children were exchanged for the rebirth of one’s own child.

So the old crone’s present caution was probably because she feared the Zhao Family of Jiujiang’s Dragon King, the one who had once suppressed her. What remained on the stele could practically be called the Dragon King’s oath.

The moment she dared carry out large-scale slaughter, that oath would respond.

But an oath could only restrain her for a time. Once she settled on what her new child should look like and prepared to conceive it again, blood sacrifice would be unavoidable, and the children of the surrounding region would inevitably suffer.

Historically, she had probably come once before. It was just that the gu child born that time had been killed by Zhao Wuyang.

That bout of madness must have harmed many children. Even centuries later, the local area still passed down stories of her devouring children.

Seen that way, the purpose of this reckless move of his was to protect children.

Well, and to protect himself too.

Li Ren was lifted up and sent back to the tulou.

The two of them did not want to return to the village寨, but their opinions did not count.

Li Zhuiyuan made a new plan.

He intended to take the bait on the construction site himself, then act delighted as though the problem had been solved, lulling the old crone into lowering her guard.

Then he would turn around and take the chance to raid her old nest in that lake.

It was not a brilliant plan, but when you broke even the most elaborate schemes apart, their essence was often very simple.

Li Zhuiyuan needed to actively create a chance to face the old crone head-on, then bring his team and charge straight through.

There was no helping it. She was too cautious, slippery as an eel. If they kept slowly grinding things out with her and waited until she gave birth and disaster broke loose, then it would all be too late.

After being notified, Ran Dacheng drove his tractor over once again.

Even after being troubled several times, there was not the slightest sign of displeasure on his face.

For him, the real money would come when the construction crew returned and he handled their procurement and supplies. The profit in that was substantial.

Li Zhuiyuan and the others climbed onto Ran Dacheng’s tractor and headed for the construction site.

Back in the tulou, Cui Hao listened through the door panel.

“They’ve already left, brother. I’ll get you out of here!”

After Yin Meng’s treatment, Li Ren’s wound had visibly eased and his consciousness had mostly returned. At that moment, he grabbed Cui Hao’s arm with emotion and choked out, “Good brother.”

Having poor social skills did not make someone a bad person.

At the very least, the two least popular people on these two teams had forged a deep friendship during these past days of wild flight and survival.

To them, this tulou and this village were the most dangerous places in the world.

Cui Hao gathered some food and medicine and hoisted Li Ren onto his back.

But the moment he stepped out into the courtyard, Cui Hao began turning in circles on the spot.

The tulou gate was right in front of him, yet no matter how he walked, he could not reach it.

In the end, Cui Hao set Li Ren down and collapsed to the ground from exhaustion.

“It’s over. We’re trapped in a ghost wall. The ghost is back.”

Li Zhuiyuan knew what those two were thinking, so to stop them from running around and getting lost again, he had simply set up an isolation array in the tulou before leaving.

The array he had previously set up there had been too advanced. After all, it was only a temporary base for his people, and they still needed to go in and out, which had allowed the fake person to slip inside.

This time, the array he set up was very simple: nothing from outside was allowed in, and nothing from inside was allowed out.

The fake person did not have much offensive ability and had no power to break the array unless the old crone came in person.

But then again, if the old crone truly wanted to kill those two at all costs, there would be nowhere they could hide that would be safe.

Once they arrived at the construction site, Li Zhuiyuan told Ran Dacheng to drive the tractor some distance away and wait there, not to come too close.

Ran Dacheng did not understand, but he complied anyway.

After checking the surroundings, Li Zhuiyuan found that, just as Xue Liangliang had said earlier, traces of ritual work had been left in many corners. There were three small offering tables alone, plus all kinds of talismans and deity images pasted about. It looked like an entire pantheon had been called together for a meeting.

It was just that all their effort had been spent in the wrong place.

Li Zhuiyuan looked toward the scaffold up high. Its other end connected to the western slope.

The Miao寨’s third disciple had supposedly gotten drunk at night and fallen from that scaffold.

In truth, they had not picked the wrong place at all.

When Li Zhuiyuan took out his compass and began specifically locating the source, the place where yin gathered and baleful energy converged was not beneath the construction site, nor in the riverbed ahead, but inside that western slope.

Once he fixed the location and examined it more carefully, he could see that one section of that slope differed in color from the surrounding earth. It had likely been refilled and covered over later.

The bait was inside.

It really was a pretty grand setup. The principle was about the same as offending the carpenter building your house and having him hide a dead cat in the roof beams.

Li Zhuiyuan pointed to the spot.

“Runsheng, go up and smash that open!”

“Got it!”

Holding the Yellow River Spade, Runsheng did not take the scaffold. Instead, he sprinted to the other side and climbed the steep slope.

“Lin Shuyou, get below and prepare to support him.”

“Understood!”

Lin Shuyou also moved to the bottom of the slope and made ready to perform spirit-writing.

Li Zhuiyuan took an array diagram from his bag and handed it to Tan Wenbin. “Tan Wenbin, set the array.”

“At once!”

Tan Wenbin took the diagram and glanced at it. It was a simple binding array, easy to understand and easy to set up. For subcontractors like them, it counted as basic work.

He quickly divided the tasks with Yin Meng, then began planting the flag markers.

Xue Liangliang had originally been gripping a dagger, a gift Tan Wenbin had given him before they set out, the same model the others wore at the side of their boots.

But after waving it around a few times, Xue Liangliang felt it was very hard to get any real sense of security from it.

So he simply put the dagger away, picked up two lengths of rebar from the ground, held one in each hand, and stationed himself in front of Li Zhuiyuan as protection.

Practical value aside, at least the intention was clear.

By now, Runsheng had reached the targeted section. Standing on a protruding section of rock and holding the Yellow River Spade, he began hammering at it.

The new version of the Yellow River Spade, custom-made for Runsheng, had become bigger, heavier, and sturdier.

Every time he struck, his clothes billowed with the force.

Broken stones kept tumbling down and smashing into him, but he ignored them completely and only kept striking with all his strength.

As he kept at it, a wide web of cracks spread out. That section had been hollow all along, not solid.

Runsheng jammed in the edge of the spade and changed from smashing to prying.

Once, twice, three times...

Then, with a crashing roar, a mass of stone and dust burst outward, revealing a cave in the cliff face. At its entrance sat a stone coffin.

The coffin trembled, slipped loose, and hurtled downward straight at Runsheng below.

Runsheng arched backward, kicked hard off the cliff with both legs, and sent himself flying backward.

Below, Lin Shuyou immediately performed spirit-writing.

In fact, the instant the stone coffin appeared and the evil aura burst forth, he had already sensed it.

His vertical pupils opened, and White Crane Child descended.

The first thing the child did was spread both arms and retreat quickly, catching Runsheng midway before continuing backward to bleed off the force.

In the past, the child’s eyes would have been fixed only on the stone coffin and would never have considered saving a teammate.

Even if he had wanted to save one, he would have stupidly stood there and tried to receive the impact head-on, without caring whether the medium’s arms would crack from the strain.

Now, the child was... unexpectedly thoughtful.

The stone coffin kept sliding down along the cliff face, picking up speed, plunging straight into the valley floor and splashing into the water.

Bang!

The section of water touching the stone coffin began to turn black, and black mist rose into the air.

Amid a series of sharp cracking sounds, it seemed something was about to burst out of the coffin.

By then, Tan Wenbin and Yin Meng had already finished setting the array and were staring at the stone coffin.

Li Zhuiyuan’s voice rang out, “It’s already come out through the bottom of the coffin. Be careful!”

A black shadow condensed beside Yin Meng, and from within it a pair of arms thrust out.

Yin Meng snapped up the Demon-Suppressing Whip and held it across her side, blocking the arms, then wound it around them in one motion, trying to bind them.

But a greater force surged out from those arms. Seeing this, Yin Meng had no choice but to abandon her whip and retreat rapidly.

“Ah!”

A roar came from inside the black shadow, and then it lunged forward.

Above this small patch of the construction site, dark clouds began to gather.

Tan Wenbin stepped forward and shielded Yin Meng behind him. At the same time, he raised his right arm, holding a crossbow fitted with two Dissolution of Evil talismans.

Whoosh!

He pulled the trigger, and the bolt shot out, striking the black shadow.

In an instant, a crackling noise erupted, like a string of New Year firecrackers going off.

The destructive power was limited, but it was enough to blast the shadow apart and reveal its true form.

It was a woman glittering with jewels, dressed in gold robes and wearing a beaded crown, with heavy silver ornaments hanging from her hands, neck, and ears.

But her hair was disheveled, her skin iron-blue, her eyes bulged from their sockets, and black filthy water kept pouring from her mouth. All that wealth and splendor had gone thoroughly to waste.

Li Zhuiyuan thought she was probably some noblewoman buried in a local grave, dug up by the old crone and turned into bait.

And honestly, judging by her appearance alone, she really did resemble the old crone from the local legends.

Tan Wenbin did not use the ghost-control technique. That move burned lifespan, and with Little Yuanhou present, he had to wait for Little Yuanhou’s order.

“Roar!”

The noblewoman bared her teeth and claws, venting the fury in her heart.

She had enjoyed wealth and glory in life, and after death she should have rested quietly underground, yet she had been ripped out of her grave and refined into a Dead Sinker, forced to endure such torment. Anyone would be furious.

She leaned forward. Her feet did not move, yet she glided over the ground, rushing at Tan Wenbin.

Tan Wenbin dropped into a crouch, and at that moment Yin Meng behind him flung out a cloud of dazzling, multicolored poison mist.

Within that poison mist, the noblewoman instantly lost her sense of direction and began roaring without pause.

Taking the chance, Yin Meng grabbed Tan Wenbin by the collar and yanked backward. Tan Wenbin also kicked off the ground with both legs. The two worked in perfect sync, retreating swiftly out of the battle zone.

There was already a set process for how the team fought. Neither of them was frontline combat personnel.

At the same time, Runsheng and Lin Shuyou had already come down from above and moved in to surround the noblewoman from front and rear.

The problem was that Yin Meng’s poison mist did not distinguish between friend and foe.

For the moment, neither of them dared charge into it and fight her directly.

But very soon, the poison mist began to clear, and dense pustules rose all over the noblewoman’s body.

That made the already ugly woman even uglier.

Tan Wenbin said in surprise, “That hallucinatory poison mist can do that now too?”

Yin Meng replied, “Every time, besides the fixed mix, I also add some other toxins at random.”

Tan Wenbin licked his lips. “Mengmeng, listen to your big brother’s advice. You absolutely must never take on an apprentice in the future.”

Runsheng gripped the Yellow River Spade, and Lin Shuyou held a trident as they attacked the noblewoman.

The noblewoman’s movements were nimble, and her attacks were fierce, but at most she was only a Dead Sinker with strong close-range combat ability.

Once Tan Wenbin had used talismans to break apart the black mist covering her form, she had become nothing more than a pure beast.

That just happened to be the kind of opponent Runsheng and Lin Shuyou liked best. No tricks, no fancy nonsense, just a straight fight.

Even so, the battle remained fairly tense.

Because Li Zhuiyuan had instructed them earlier to take it easy this time and avoid getting too badly hurt if possible.

The place where they would really have to fight for their lives was at the bottom of that lake. That was where the real target was.

With preserving their condition in mind, they naturally held something back, and Runsheng and Lin Shuyou tacitly adopted a war of attrition.

That had originally been a weakness of the Officers of the Command Banner, but after Li Zhuiyuan’s improvements and innovations, the Officers of the Command Banner could now fight drawn-out battles as well.

The noblewoman was tied down and suppressed by the two of them together. She could not hit them, and she could not escape, and she kept letting out frustrated howls.

Li Zhuiyuan began walking toward the fight.

Xue Liangliang wanted to say, “It’s dangerous,” but immediately realized he had no standing to say such a thing. So he could only keep clutching his two lengths of rebar, following beside him like Qin Qiong holding a pair of bronze maces.

Li Zhuiyuan planted a small array flag into the position of the array eye, then clapped his hands.

Runsheng and Lin Shuyou instantly understood. Together, they increased the pressure and steadily forced the noblewoman into the array’s range.

The moment she entered it, Li Zhuiyuan activated the array.

At once, the noblewoman’s speed and reactions became sluggish.

Seizing that chance, the Yellow River Spade and the trident began raining blows down on her like mad.

For a time, gold, silver, and jewels were sent flying everywhere.

Tan Wenbin’s eyes heated up. He unconsciously let out a whistle to cover the embarrassment of having been tempted just now.

Then he turned his head and saw Yin Meng beside him clenching her fists, her breathing already growing quick.

Ever since she had taken a liking to shopping, her demand for money had shot up.

Tan Wenbin lowered his voice and reminded her, “No rush. After the fight, the two of us can go pick it up. It’s all spoils of war.”

Yin Meng looked toward the boy controlling the array.

Tan Wenbin lowered his voice again. “Half goes to charity, and half goes to the clothing shop owners on the pedestrian street so they can pay their rent.”

Yin Meng nodded.

“Ahhh!”

The noblewoman’s piercing scream echoed through the river valley.

Ever since she had been forcefully dug out of the cave, she had been suppressing herself this whole time.

It could not be helped. In history, there really had been Dragon Kings who liked going solo, one man with two fists beating an entire river into submission.

The road Uncle Qin had wanted to take back then was probably that very path.

But the path Li Zhuiyuan walked was the team route. Team coordination was the whole point. If even after that they still had to fight desperately every time, facing life-and-death crises and ending up covered in wounds, then what kind of team route was that supposed to be?

In truth, the Dead Sinkers that died at the boy’s hands rarely got a clean death in battle. Most of them died in a thoroughly stifled, humiliating way.

Still, after fighting this long, even Li Zhuiyuan could not help but sigh inwardly. This noblewoman really could take a beating. In life, she had probably been quite a remarkable person too.

The boy hesitated. Should he personally step in a little more and speed things up?

Hmm... there did not really seem to be any need. The longer the fight dragged on, the more real it would look, and the more at ease the old crone would be.

“Cough!”

Li Zhuiyuan coughed lightly.