Chapter 51 Judge Twelve Perhaps we should be called, Judges...

The three of them walked into the cave, and were greeted by a damp, putrid smell mixed with the scent of aged incense ash.

Nan Huai raised his flashlight, sweeping the beam across the brick walls on either side of the corridor. He muttered to himself, "It looks like a tomb passage."

Wang Tianfu suddenly squatted down and shone his flashlight on the wall: "It really is."

There is still a layer of relief on the wall. Although most of it has been corroded, some ancient lines can still be vaguely recognized.

Not far away, four dark forks appeared in front of us.

"Which way should we take?" Nan Huai frowned.

Fang Ya paced back and forth at the fork in the road, and suddenly stopped at the far right. He bent down and touched the stone wall, and saw a messy gray mark dragged on it.

Wang Tianfu suddenly realized: "That's it!"

Following the abrupt drag marks, the three of them quickened their pace, and finally at the end, they felt the wind flowing from the outside.

Rushing out of the cave on the other side, what comes into view is a silent tombstone.

Dark green pines and cypresses surround silently, and the moonlight caresses the gaps between the stone tablets, as if intentionally repairing the missing corners eroded by wind and time.

A man was standing with his head bowed, bending down to place a cup of milk tea and a bunch of white chrysanthemums in front of the tombstone.

Wang Tianfu and Nan Huai were stunned: "Teacher Chu."

Chu Youde wiped the tombstone with a handkerchief, his face showing no surprise at all. "Today is Xinyi's birthday, and she's not in her room, so I guess she might be in trouble."

"Even when she was hurt before, she would come back here," Chu Youde said with a loving smile. "She also made three good friends here."

As he was speaking, a twisting branch suddenly rose from the tomb behind Chu Youde. The stem had vertical lines on the nodes, like a dendrobium. The top had been torn off, and it was struggling and twisting, looking very hideous.

It was the neck of "Chu Xinyi" that Fang Ya had just broken.

"Teacher Chu, behind you!" Seeing the evil creature wrapped around Chu Youde's neck and the latter seemed unaware of it, Wang Tianfu subconsciously warned him.

"Are you talking about it?" Chu Youde's expression remained unchanged. He raised his hand and let the evil creature swim around him. He was a little confused: "Oh, it's okay. I used to be scared by her appearance too. I got used to it after a while."

Wang Tianfu took a breath and said, "Do you mistake it for Chu Xinyi?"

"As? No," he said, grinning grimly at the twisted branches. "Although sometimes I can't help but look through old photos to confirm my memory, it seems now that she is Xinyi, my daughter... She has always been by my side."

"He's crazy," Wang Tianfu was dumbfounded. "It seems his cognition has been completely influenced by the evil creature."

Fang Ya stared at the man in front of him, frowning, and said coldly, "You are an excellent teacher, but you secretly raise this kind of evil creature that can't be seen in public. What exactly are you planning to do?"

Chu Youde didn't know which word in the other person's words offended him. His eyes twitched, veins popped on his forehead, and his molars scraped against each other with a sour sound. "What? As a teacher, what else can I do? Just recite those great principles into my students' heads, telling them to study hard, forget about food and sleep, and persevere."

"It shouldn't be like this," he suddenly suppressed his anger and murmured, "A good teacher, a good breeder, should most importantly weed out that bad seed from our soil."

Nan Huai looked at Chu Youde's expression and suddenly felt a little creepy.

"What do you mean?" Fang Yayin had a bad premonition. He leaned forward slightly and took a stance, using his spiritual power to sharpen his senses. For a moment, the falling leaves and crows around him suddenly became noisy.

The vine-like evil creature rose seven feet high. It had clearly lost its head, but it could still swoop down and roar.

Wang Tianfu shouted: "Teacher Chu...!"

"Compared to teacher," Chu Youde let the branches wrap around him layer by layer, and his voice came out slowly from them: "Perhaps we should be called..."

——"Judge."

Fang Ya glared at him: "What a big mouth! Who dares to call himself a judge? Besides those three dead gates and the other four-"

Nan Huai suddenly tugged at his sleeve and interrupted cautiously, "Big Brother, he just said, 'we'..."

The three of them fell silent and slowly took a few steps back. Under the dim moonlight, a hazy mist was lingering between the tombstones. Three figures gradually appeared beside Chu Youde.

They were a short and fat lady wearing rubber gloves, a man with Mediterranean glasses, and...

"It's Doctor Zhou!" Wang Tianfu's eyes widened: "How could she..."

Zhou Qin put his hands in the pockets of his white coat. His haggard face was fixed with a pair of lifeless black eyes, and his expression was indescribably numb.

The evil vine-like creatures also gathered around the three people, but everyone looked as if it was a matter of course and did not feel afraid at all.

Wang Tianfu was about to step forward when Fang Ya stopped him. He said in a deep voice, "Don't go. I'm afraid that in the eyes of these people, these evil creatures...are different."

Wang Tianfu was stunned, thinking of the radio in the room that Long Zhu had mentioned before, and the voices of the four children on the radio.

Could it be that—in the eyes of these people, this twisted and terrifying behemoth existed in the appearance of their dead child?!

Nan Huai was filled with surprise and doubt: "The Four Judges... The Three Death Gates of Heaven, Earth and Man and the Four Judges are also two men and two women, could it be?"

He lowered his voice and looked at Chu Youde who was surrounded by the evil creatures: "Could it be that he is Tianjiu?"

"Ah!!——" A heart-wrenching scream came from the side.

Xiaohui sat on the ground, looking at Chu Youde in front of the tombstone with fear. His face was pale and he could hardly speak a complete sentence.

The vines stabbed at his eyes. Fang Ya picked up a branch and stepped forward to fight with it. Wang Tianfu and Nan Huai took the opportunity to drag Xiao Hui over: "Why are you here!"

"I, I..." Xiao Hui collapsed on the ground, his knees shaking. "I have to go back to Hecheng tomorrow. Li Tong hasn't come back yet. I want to find him..."

Wang Tianfu sighed and pressed the other person's shoulder: "He is gone."

The Commissioner of the Abnormal Control Bureau has probably received the news and will come to deal with it soon. The most difficult ones at the moment are Chu Youde and his three companions who claim to be judges.

Nan Huai cast a sleeping spell on Xiaohui and dragged him to a safe place to hide behind.

Wang Tianfu used the Five Elements Technique to help, but the evil creature was unexpectedly strong, and neither he nor Fang Ya could completely defeat it.

Only at this moment did Wang Tianfu begin to miss Wang Fengxu.

It would be great if my uncle-master was here... Although my uncle-master is not very reliable, he is lazy in his cultivation, and his practice of the Five Elements Technique is only so-so.

Just when he was distracted, a sharpened vine came with a sound of breaking through the air.

"Be careful!" Fang Ya turned his head and was entangled by the vines on the sides of the other three people, and he was powerless.

Wang Tianfu was a step late and could not help but close his eyes slightly, but he heard a clanging sound, followed by a series of tinkling sounds, and a familiar voice scolded him.

"Wang Tianfu! Why didn't you run away after being beaten?!"

When he opened his eyes, Wang Fengxu was holding the Bagua mirror that was broken by the rattan stick with a look of heartache, and he reached out and knocked Wang Tianfu on the forehead.

"Uncle Master!" Wang Tianfu smiled happily: "You finally came to rescue me!"

"Hmph," Wang Fengxu rolled up his sleeves, the two small scarlet moles at the corners of his eyes rising and falling slightly with his exaggerated expression: "They are just a few eavesdroppers, just watch carefully--"

Wang Tianfu's heart just settled down: "Uncle Master, how are you going to take it away..."

Before he could finish his words, Wang Fengxu made a sharp turn and grabbed his nephew by the back of his collar: "Run!!"

Fang Ya was stunned by the other party's outrageous actions. When he came to his senses, the veins on his forehead jumped. He turned around, carried the sleeping Xiaohui on his shoulders, and followed with Nan Huai.

Chu Youde slowly urged the strange vine to follow behind, but he saw that the trees on both sides of the cemetery suddenly shook, and in a moment several thick branches shot out, blocking their feet and blocking their progress.

On the other side, cold sweat oozed from Wang Fengxu's forehead. He gritted his teeth as he ran, "My wood magic won't hold out for long. Go to the temple and find Long... Abbey Master Bai, please take action!"

"Uncle Master, do you know what that thing is?" Wang Tianfu responded and asked again.

"These creatures are mostly found in dark, damp caves, feeding on human speech and emotions. They're incredibly shameless, calling themselves 'Diditing,'" Wang Fengxu cursed. "I also heard my Master's wife mention it before: that guy playing Yin music at the Three Death Gates seemed to have eaten a 'Diditing,' which is why his music is so awful."

Fang Ya asked, "Is your master's wife a Taoist priest named Lingsu? Has she ever told you how to break it?"

"She's probably never seen four of these growing together before," Wang Fengxu said, a trace of cold sweat running down his cheek. "They only know that they can eat people's 'thoughts'. Once you're devoured, you're just as good as dead. I'm afraid they'll use them as shells to put people on."

Nan Huai: "Then Liu Dongsheng and Li Tong, could it be...!"

"And this thing can spit out the parts it eats to another person," Wang Fengxu frowned. "In simple terms, it's borrowing life. However, whether there are any side effects of borrowing life like this is unknown."

Nan Huai immediately thought of the little girl who recovered from a terminal illness, and was at a loss for words for a long time.

Several vines surged forward along the floor tiles, blocking the road ahead.

"Bad luck!" Wang Fengxu's expression rarely became serious. He looked at the four people in front of him who looked like neither human nor ghost. His hands hanging by his side clenched slightly, and there was a hint of inexplicable hesitation in his eyes.

Fang Ya probably understood the whole story about Chu Youde. He said angrily, "Teacher Chu! Wake up! This thing is not your daughter. Why did you let it harm other children? Your daughter's spirit in heaven will never forgive you!"

"Murder?!" Chu Youde said with a frown, "I am only judging equally. I am protecting those children! My daughter will understand me. She knows what I am doing."

"Judgment?" Wang Fengxu said sarcastically, "You really think you're the best."

"The Four Judges did nothing! What's wrong with me replacing them?" Chu Youde roared.

Wang Fengxu laughed angrily: "No one can rightfully decide another's right to live. What you are doing now is not 'justice', but venting your anger."

"Really?" Chu Youde calmed down. He smiled and said, "If there is a kind of person who has no respect for life, who kills others in a cruel way, but escapes punishment due to his age, and then only pretends to repent and does not care about it. If I eradicate this bad seed, am I not saving this land?"