Chapter 163 The Mirage Demon: "Walls have ears!"

A mirage at sea, possessed by a mirage demon.

Bai Yuan remained silent for a long time, repeatedly pondering Er Niu's words: "You said that you saw the mirage in the white mist crawling forward, and the mirage on the sea getting closer and closer, right?"

Erniu blinked her dark eyes and nodded: "Yes, it really is getting closer and closer."

Bai Yuan said, "Then they climbed onto the fishing boat, and not long after, the fishing boat docked, and the mirage disappeared, right?"

"Yes."

Bai Yuan asked, "Has the fog cleared?"

Erniu was stunned: "What?"

"After the mirage disappeared, did the white fog dissipate?" Bai Yuan asked. "Or did the fog that night drift all the way from the sea to the shore?"

Upon hearing this, Erniu's eyes widened in astonishment; she seemed to vaguely understand what the older sister was talking about.

Bai Yuan glanced out at the fishing village shrouded in damp fog and asked Er Niu, "When did this fog start?"

"Evening, tonight?" Erniu stammered. Because fog was common in the summer, the villagers were used to it, so Erniu hadn't paid attention. "I don't know, it's been foggy for the past two days, it seems, it seems like it hasn't cleared up at all, Dad!" Erniu turned her head, "Do you remember when this fog started?"

The man recalled: "It must have been the night before last; the fog didn't dissipate from morning till night."

“You mean,” Zhou Yaren turned to Bai Yuan, “that the mist over the fishing village is mirage drifting in from the sea?”

"It's not impossible." Since the fishermen saw the mirage board the boat and land, if it was truly possessed by something unclean, how could the blind man's eyes, which can see the yin but not the yang, not see through it?

Erniu's face turned pale instantly.

Standing amidst the mist, Bai Yuan could sense the eerie atmosphere within. She tapped lightly on the edge of the wooden table with her fingers, pondering, "If the mirage is mirage energy..." Bai Yuan actually had another guess. She said to Zhou Yaren, "Do you think it's possible that this strange mirage might be related to Yin Sui?"

Zhou Yaren was enlightened: "Master Gu."

Bai Yuan suffered greatly in the Taiyin Prison constructed by Yin Sui, which was only capable of spitting out mirages to build a Dao body. Even Bai Yuan knew very little about its actual uses. Throughout history, many people have coveted it and made the most of it. Now that it has fallen into the hands of a wicked Gu Master, if Chen Ying wants to use it for something, she might just create a whole bunch of messy things.

Bai Yuan calmly analyzed: "The mirage emitted by Yin Sui is a symbol of Taiyin, which is naturally extraordinary."

Zhou Ya's heart skipped a beat: "Is she going to..."

Realizing there were outsiders present, Zhou Yaren didn't say the second half of her sentence, but Bai Yuan understood that what she meant was: Was she going to use the Yin Sui to search for the Boundless Secret Realm?

That's why mirages appear at sea—a phenomenon resembling the moon, a strange sight even fishermen who have lived on the coast for generations have never seen before. Afterwards, strange things happened in the village, and the fishermen naturally associated it with "mirage ghosts" possessing them.

But is it really a possession by a so-called "mirage ghost"?

The Yin Sui contains a mysterious and unpredictable power. It is said that Lao Tzu's "Dao" of understanding the universe and all things is inside. Bai Yuan was "fortunate" enough to experience the Dao realm he built, so he couldn't help but feel a sense of awe and dared not disbelieve it.

Bai Yuan remained noncommittal. The reason why the Gu Master and Wang Xiang were fighting over the Yin Sui was originally because they were aiming for the Boundless Secret Realm. Now that they had arrived at the sea, they would inevitably have to use the Yin Sui to find their way.

To confirm whether the mirage was related to the Gu Master, Zhou Yaren turned to Erniu and asked if she had seen a woman and a person wearing an iron mask.

Erniu and her father shook their heads, indicating that they had never seen it.

Bai Yuan then asked, "Have any other strangers visited the village recently?"

Erniu thought for a moment: "A Taoist priest and a mirror polisher came a couple of days ago, but it seems they've already left."

Upon hearing the name "Mirror Polisher," Zhou Yaren paused, for he had been momentarily stunned by the sight of Lian Tie when he first arrived in Beiqu to investigate the matter. Furthermore, Sun Xiuniang had also interacted with this mirror polisher before her death. Later, at Fenglingdu, when Xu Fu fabricated a case to frame and kill the innocent, this same mirror polisher was involved, wielding Lian Tie that rendered Zhou Yaren deaf and nearly cost him his life.

"Where does this mirror polisher come from? What does he look like? What is he doing in the fishing village?" Zhou Yaren asked three questions in a row.

“I don’t know where he came from. He just walked and shouted as he came to our village, asking us if we needed mirrors or scissors sharpened. As for his appearance, there was nothing special about him. He was quite dark-skinned, just like my dad, and about the same height as my dad. He was wearing a brown short-sleeved shirt, carrying a box, and waving a string of rattles as he walked. I just caught a glimpse of him from afar.”

The peddlers and laborers hawking their wares along the way didn't attract much attention; that was all Erniu knew.

Bai Yuan asked, "Where is the Taoist priest next to him?"

Erniu shook her head: "I didn't notice either, it seemed like she was wearing a very old gray robe. Sister, what did you say about what would happen if the mirage spread to our fishing village?"

"It's hard to say. I've never encountered this situation before. We'll have to observe it first."

"Was it Dasheng's ship that ferried the mirage ashore?"

"I haven't seen it with my own eyes, so I can't draw a conclusion."

"Do you have a way to deal with the mirage and save my grandfather?"

Perhaps having Zhou Yaren ride the wind to dispel the fog would be a good idea. We can try it later, but Bai Yuan wants to see what this strange yin phenomenon is all about first.

If it really was a Gu Master secretly using the Yin Sui, any rash action might alert her, and we should be careful not to let her flee again.

Bai Yuan didn't readily express his opinion to the young girl about the uncertainties, saying he would only wait and see.

Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren stepped out of the house and took a walk along the coast. They deliberately stayed until nightfall. In the summer month, the air was thick with moisture, and the sea fog surged in from the depths of the ocean like a giant living thing, steaming and swallowing the fishing village into a damp and cold chaos.

For fishermen who live by the sea, sea fog is a common phenomenon, thin during the day and thick at night, however...

Two hours after Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren left, Er Niu's grandfather's pain flared up again, and the attack was unusually severe. The old man struggled in pain on the bed, and Er Niu and her father had a hard time holding him down.

"Hurry up, you still need to brew Grandpa some medicine."

Erniu hurriedly ran to the kitchen to start a fire and brew the medicine, knowing full well that the medicine wouldn't be very effective and wouldn't be as good as the older sister's method, but they had been gone for so long and still hadn't returned.

Erniu started a fire and was adding firewood to the stove when she suddenly caught a glimpse of something flickering in the corner.

She turned her head and looked over, her hair standing on end.

From the crack between the cabinet and the corner of the wall, a moving shadow slowly crawled and emerged!

Erniu burst into tears, screaming, "Father! Father! Ghost! Mirage ghost!"

Meanwhile, in another courtyard, He Dasheng couldn't hold down his father, who had been banging his head and was bleeding profusely. Grandpa He was about to tie up his out-of-control son when, just as he returned with the rope, his son violently threw his eldest grandson to the ground and then crawled out of the house on all fours.

Grandpa He's hands, gripping the rope, trembled uncontrollably. For a moment, he dared not go to stop his son, who was crawling erratically on the ground, because the oil lamp on the wall shone obliquely on him. Grandpa He saw his son's shadow on the ground: his bones were twisted, his neck stretched out twice as long, and as he crawled, his mouth opened wide, revealing two sharp, long fangs!

This is definitely not a shadow of his son!

Grandpa He was startled, and the rope in his hand fell to the ground with a thud.

"A ghost, it really is a mirage ghost."

He Dasheng stared at his father's shadow on the ground, already terrified.

Sure enough, what he saw the day before yesterday was not an illusion. Those dark figures came to their fishing village and returned with his father!

"father!"

A villager who happened to be passing by the He family was startled by the shout and the person who suddenly crawled out. He clutched his wildly beating chest and took a few steps back when he suddenly noticed a dark figure swaying in the hazy fog.

The dark shadow, damp and chilling, seemed to wrap around his body, which was stiff as a coffin lid, before slipping away, leaving behind a chilling, sticky, and damp feeling. Although he couldn't see the whole thing, he caught a glimpse of a part of it, which smelled slightly of the sea and was clearly a long tail.

The man yelled and ran for his life: "Snake! Snake!"

"A ghost..."

"Help!"

"Monster! Aaaaaaah!"

"A ghost! A ghost! Run!"

"It's haunted! It's haunted!"

In an instant, screams of terror echoed throughout the fishing village.

"It hurts so much, it hurts!"

"Help me, help me."

"Help."

"Kill me."

"I can't take it anymore."

"Kill me—"

Zhou Yaren, who was on the shore, naturally heard it: "Something happened in the fishing village."

Bai Yuan stood on a reef and looked back to see a mirage appearing in the white mist that shrouded the fishing village.

Not only are there seaweed-covered village houses, but also boats coming and going on the waves, creating a completely mixed scene of land and water.

Figures darted about in the white mist, some resembling elongated and twisted humanoid shadows with slender arms, legs, and necks that defied common sense. Some ran or crawled erratically, while others stood stiffly motionless, then overlapped and slowly merged with another rushing figure. They sometimes expanded and sometimes contracted, their shapes constantly changing.

The villagers screamed in terror, "It's a mirage! There's a mirage!"

The two hurried back to the fishing village, and Bai Yuan asked, "Can you see the mirage in the village?"

Zhou Yaren said, "I can see those strangely shaped mirages."

It seems she was right; the white mist enveloping the entire fishing village was indeed mirage drifting in from the sea.

"The so-called mirage spirits should be formed from mirage energy; only where there is mirage energy can there be mirage spirits," Bai Yuan said. "Generally, mirage energy dissipates upon encountering wind..."

As she was speaking, a long gust of wind suddenly rose up beside her and swept towards the fishing village.

Thick sea fog surged, and the wind stirred up by Zhou Yaren all came from the sea; mirages were everywhere.

The mirage, battered by the wind, was stretched and deformed, its shape spreading like splattered ink from its edges, dissipating under the force of the wind. It tried to make a comeback and transform into a new form, only to be blown away again by the wind. In a short while, the shadowy figure in the mirage twisted into several shapes that were too difficult to discern, a truly ever-changing spectacle.

The monstrous mirage, baring its fangs and brandishing its claws, seemed to panic. It suddenly turned around, its dark, hollow eyes staring almost fiercely at Zhou Yaren and Bai Yuan, who were heading towards the fishing village.

This "gaze" felt like an attack by some ferocious beast. Zhou Yaren felt a chill run down his spine and, without hesitation, stirred up a gale again, scattering the terrifying mirages and preventing them from condensing into a form.

The fishing village was plunged into unprecedented terror, with screaming and running people everywhere, creating a scene of utter chaos.

Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren tacitly identified a group of fishermen who were scrambling and crawling. Their crawling posture was strange and peculiar, as if they were possessed by a mirage.

Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren each held down two people, their shoulders heaving violently, their arms and necks stretching forward, their throats hoarse as they pleaded, "Let me go, let me go."

Bai Yuan simply knocked the two men unconscious. When he got up, he found that the fishermen, who seemed to be possessed by a mirage, were twisting and crawling in the same direction from all directions.

In contrast to the villagers who were running around in terror like headless flies, these fishermen crawling on the ground seemed to have a clear direction.

"They seem to be heading somewhere," Bai Yuan called to Zhou Yaren. "Let's go follow them and see."

They quickly climbed into a forest.

Mirages were everywhere at night, and the sea fog grew thicker and thicker. The ancient pines in the forest, growing ruggedly, were hidden in the thick fog, standing tall and ghostly.

Zhou Yaren didn't need to see; he rode the wind to part the thick, damp fog, just to clear a path for Bai Yuan.

When the last layer of thick fog cleared, the fishermen were seen scrambling to get into a dark tunnel!

In no time at all, the fishermen had scrambled to climb inside.

Unaware of the dangers lurking within, Zhou Yaren stopped Bai Yuan in time, her hearing instantly sharpening as she ventured into the cave, penetrating deep into its depths…

At the same time, the mirror polisher, who was underground, suddenly sensed something and his spirits lifted: "The walls have ears!"

Having said that, the mirror polisher reacted quickly, shaking the iron in his hand.

The sound of iron clashing against iron echoed through the narrow tunnel, and with a sharp crack, Zhou Yaren felt as if her eardrums had been pierced!

He groaned and raised his hand to cover his ears.

Bai Yuan looked at him anxiously: "What's wrong?"

There are people underground.

"The Gu Master is down there?" Bai Yuan immediately thought of the Gu Master, for only the Gu Master would hide in such a shady place.

After all, the mirage was created by the Gu Master using the Yin Sui. The reason why the fishermen possessed by the mirage spirit plunged into the earth's cave must also be because they were being controlled and summoned by the Gu Master hiding in the shadows.

Zhou Yaren pressed her earlobe and shook her head: "It's that mirror grinder. The iron in his hand must be some kind of special magical artifact that can interfere with my hearing."

"What a small world." Bai Yuan strode straight toward the cave entrance. "Put your ears away, there's no need to eavesdrop."