Chapter 8 008 "Ah... what incredible eyes."...

Jiang Ling'er thought she must have screamed.

Especially when she saw that her own body was covered with the same horrifying lividity... Yes.

She was pierced through the chest by Uncle He Yong's sword, and there was absolutely no chance of her surviving.

So she is now... a corpse?

But why...?

Before she could think it through, even though her heart was filled with terror, her throat felt like a heavy bellows filled with lead, unable to utter a sound. Finally, a muffled clap of thunder sounded, and the rain poured down.

As the wind and rain intensified, the clear flute music grew more urgent, and she, along with more than ten corpses around her, seemed to be responding to the music, their bodies moving faster and faster uncontrollably, their bodies stiff as they leaped towards the source of the flute music that came through the heavy rain curtain.

She looks just like a zombie rising from a coffin in a storybook... No, isn't that what she is right now?

She traveled all over the country with the escort team for many years, and her favorite thing was to listen to the old masters in the escort agency tell stories of martial arts or strange tales from the mountains and fields.

She had heard of the corpse-driving people of western Hunan more than once.

Legend has it that in the Xiangxi area, there are also people like them who are the best couriers in the world, who do errands that travel thousands of miles. The difference is that they are active at night and hide during the day. They also do not escort messages, goods, or people like them. They only escort one thing, which is an inanimate object - a corpse.

In this chaotic world, the Jurchens have repeatedly invaded the Song Dynasty, killing countless people and causing many to die on the battlefield. The profession of "corpse driver" came into being.

However, the old men in the escort agency mostly looked down on the corpse-driver: "They make it sound so miraculous, but it's just a dead body, how can it move? It's just some low-class trickery! I think all you need are two people, one to carry the corpse on his back with a Taoist seal on his forehead, and the other to bang a gong and drum in front of people to scare them, that'll do it!"

Regardless of whether it was true or not, Jiang Ling'er listened with rapt attention, only reluctantly complying when Uncle He Yong reprimanded her with a stern face...

Suddenly remembering someone, Jiang Ling'er froze, her cold eyes welling up with tears. Even though her body was not under her control, the dull pain in her chest was undeniable. Uncle He Yong, Uncle He Yong, Uncle He Yong... He Yong!

She silently repeated "He Yong" countless times in her heart, almost wanting to engrave this name in her mind, including everyone present that day...including Zhao Xiao! The faces of everyone that day, everyone who forced her father... forced her father to commit suicide, everyone!

all……

The memory, swirling like a thick fog of blood, was suddenly interrupted by two icy fingers.

Two slender, cold fingers suddenly gripped her chin and lifted it. Jiang Ling'er, still trapped in the blood-soaked memories, was met with a pair of dark eyes. No, compared to those eyes, made even darker by the rain, what Jiang Ling'er first noticed was a small red mole beneath the corner of his eye. If not for a close look, one might mistake it for a tear that had yet to fall.

The newcomer seemed startled by the surging waves in her eyes, and quickly released her grip, waving his hands repeatedly as if in surrender:

"Ah... what an incredible look in your eyes."

The chuckles concealed an obvious mockery.

Lost in her memories, she didn't notice when the flute music stopped, the rain stopped, and a deathly silence returned. Unlike before, she was still standing, but the other dozens of corpses had all fallen. In a short time, their flesh deflated like punctured balloons. Only then did she realize that she, along with the corpses, had formed a circle following the flute music, their positions perfectly aligned with the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. This was clearly… clearly a formation used by evil forces to cultivate their wicked arts using corpses!

She had only heard about it before, never expecting to see it for the first time, and that she would actually become a part of it.

It is obvious that the formation was not completed.

If it succeeds... She glanced at the shriveled, almost skin and bones corpse beside her, barely recognizable as human, and gasped. If she hadn't been unable to control her body at the moment, she would have already gotten goosebumps all over.

Unable to move her body, she could only move her eyes. Her gaze swept upwards, first noticing an ordinary bamboo flute hanging at her side. Above the flute was an excessively pale, bloodless hand, its fingers slender and long, resembling a woman's graceful figure yet not quite, much larger than usual. She looked further up the hand; a rain-soaked gray cloth shirt draped over her body blended almost seamlessly into the night, making it difficult to see clearly and preventing her from daring to look openly. She only glanced at it briefly before continuing upwards—

A neck concealed by coarse linen clothing, followed by thin, bloodless lips, then pale skin covered in raindrops, also devoid of color. Moonlight fell, reflecting a cold light onto the raindrops. For a moment, Jiang Ling'er momentarily mistook the person before her for a corpse. Following the pale skin upwards, she saw a small beauty mark at the corner of the eye, its redness accentuated by the pale skin. Her gaze paused briefly before finally settling on the person's eyes, and she was utterly stunned.

"So it was you."

Jiang Ling'er didn't speak, but she said almost the exact same thing in her heart as the person in front of her.

It was him.

It was that young man with a beautiful face whom she had rescued while looking for the old镖头 (bodyguard/escort) in the Discipline Hall.

In the heat of the moment, she only glanced at him hastily and assumed he was a woman. But upon closer inspection, although he was exceptionally handsome, he was much larger and taller than a woman. Although he was as beautiful as a lotus, he had no trace of femininity and could not possibly be a woman.

She recognized him, and he obviously recognized her too.

"So it was you." The young man glanced at her coldly. His overly beautiful features didn't make him seem particularly cold or frightening. He just seemed out of place in this desolate wilderness littered with corpses. Until he expressionlessly wiped away the blood from the corner of his mouth, his dark eyes fixed on her, and he slowly added the second half of his sentence, "So it was you who ruined my plans."

Jiang Ling'er: "..."

"…………"

It seems she... misunderstood something.

The young man was clearly the master of the formation, clearly a corpse driver, and also clearly... the formation was not yet complete, and he had suffered considerable injuries.

Even more obvious is...

His injury was probably caused by her.

His dark gaze swept over her coldly, as if a venomous snake had licked and kissed every inch of her body. It wasn't the lecherous look of a lustful man, but rather the gaze of a cold-blooded animal eyeing its prey. An unprecedented discomfort made her uneasy. If her body weren't out of her control, she probably wouldn't have been able to stay still for a moment. If it were the old her, she would have given him a good beating, but not now.

Her gaze lowered, silently enduring the slippery, sticky gaze. Fortunately, it didn't last long. The young man's gaze slid down from the huge wound that pierced her chest to her lower abdomen, and then stopped.

He sighed softly, "...I see."

"It turns out he took the blame for you. No wonder you're not completely dead yet; your soul is still hidden inside your body."

Jiang Ling'er's eyes flickered, and she lifted her eyelids to look at him. The bloody mist of hatred in her eyes faded, leaving only confusion.

She understood every single word he said, but when they were put together, she couldn't understand a single sentence.

"who is he?

Who took the blame for her?

Seeing her bewildered and dazed expression, the young man, unusually kind, offered a brief explanation: "My formation requires eighteen corpses occupying the positions of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches so that I can absorb the Yin energy of heaven and earth. Who would have thought that you, half-dead, would sneak in and ruin my plans?" He paused abruptly, looking down at her, "You don't know you're pregnant, do you?"

Jiang Ling'er suddenly raised her eyebrows, her eyes trembling, as if filled with countless shattered starlight.

Obviously, they don't know.

She truly knew nothing.

In a flash, fragments of memories flooded her mind like a tsunami. She had returned three months ago and had been intimate with Ji Yunshu. Could it be from that time...?

Seeing Jiang Ling'er's astonished expression, the young man slightly bent his knees, his gaze level with her lower abdomen. He reached out and touched her flat stomach, looking up at her. What a beautiful face he had, appearing a few years younger than her. His forehead rested lightly on her lower abdomen, and his lush and innocent face revealed a smile that could only be described as wicked:

"Good child, you've already saved your mother from disaster even before you were born."

A note from the author:

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