40 Ghost Market (V)
◎Why can she trust him so much?◎
There were a few sounds of branches being broken by footsteps in the woods. Moonlight spread out through the web woven by the branches. Occasionally, there was the sound of a living creature sneaking around in the bushes, but when I turned my head to look, it was nowhere to be seen.
"Nangong Xiu, is there anything in this place you're looking for?" Qiu Yan was tired from walking and simply stopped to stare at him, full of suspicion. "Are you deliberately trying to trick us?"
"Who wants to play tricks on you?" Nangong Xiu frowned unhappily and snorted coldly, "If you don't trust me, why don't you let your good senior lead the way?"
Anyone with more than a blind eye could tell that these two's feelings for each other were more than just brother and sister. Nangong Xiu deliberately said this, and sure enough, her cheeks flushed slightly. She stamped her feet and said, "Why are you bringing up my brother? This is still the demon world, after all. Shouldn't you be more familiar with it?"
"Alright, alright," Qu Lingfei said with a helpless smile, squeezing in between the two men to try to stop the fight. "I think the fruit on this tree is pretty good. If you can't find anything else, you might as well pick some and take them home to fill your stomach."
As the wind blew, the fruits hanging on the branches immediately collided with each other, and the moonlight almost passed through them, making the colors even more attractive.
"These fruits..." Qiuyan looked up and hesitated, "Is there any problem?"
"These trees have been standing for so long. If there were no problems, the fruits would have been picked long ago, and it would not be our turn." A crisp voice came from afar.
"Atang?" Qiuyan turned away, and after seeing who it was, she was a little surprised. "Why are you here too? Aren't we supposed to stay over there and light the fire?"
"You've been gone for too long, I'm worried about you." The girl came forward in small steps, took her arm, and clung to her like a spoiled child. "Besides, what's the fun in staying here to light a fire? I want to come out with you, too."
Qiuyan's expression changed. Just as she was about to speak, she suddenly heard a voice from the side asking, "Atang, didn't Brother Xie come with you?"
The person asking the question was Qu Lingfei. He glanced sideways at a place not far away, but no one came for a long time.
"Him," Li Jintang let go of her hand, her hair tangled around her fingers, "Why did you call him here?" The hair tie loosened little by little, and without warning, she climbed onto Qu Lingfei's arm, giggling, "Having me and Brother Qu together is enough."
Qu Lingfei's face turned pale and he was about to pull his hand away when the girl suddenly screamed and turned into a wisp of smoke that floated away in the air.
"What the hell have I provoked?" Nangong Xiu sheathed his sword and cursed inwardly, "Will these ghosts transform into other people?"
"No." Qu Lingfei raised his palm and hit the tree trunk, and the fruits hanging on it fell down one after another.
"Brother, why did you knock them all down..." Before she could finish her sentence, she suddenly exclaimed, and saw that the fruits fell to the ground and immediately turned into a wisp of smoke like before and disappeared into the night.
Qu Lingfei immediately grabbed Qiuyan's hand and pulled her to his side. He said calmly, "It's not that they have transformed into other people, but that we are trapped in an illusion."
"Quite clever."
Before the other two could respond, a burst of applause mixed with strange laughter suddenly rang out in the darkness. The three of them looked intently, not daring to slack off at all. After a long while, no one showed up.
When I came back to my senses and looked around, I found that the fruit-laden trees around me had disappeared, replaced by bare treetops.
Qiuyan blinked in confusion: "Who was that person just now?"
The other two frowned and lowered their heads in thought. After a while, Qu Lingfei clapped his hands suddenly and said in surprise, "It's bad. We are already trapped in the illusion. Atang and Fellow Daoist Xie will definitely not be able to escape now. I wonder if they can see through the illusion..."
Before he could finish, Qiuyan interrupted him: "Then let's go back and find them."
There were three missing figures in the bushes, and several dark shadows flashed through the gaps between the trees swaying in the wind.
"You mean, the illusion just now was not created by you, but you led those... ghosts away and saved us?" The female ghost in white recounted what had just happened in a confused manner. After listening to it, Li Jintang tried to summarize it concisely.
The female ghost in white nodded mechanically, and the black beads on both sides of her nose lit up.
"Why should I believe you?" The young man's words made the female ghost's body seem to stiffen. She opened her mouth, but didn't know how to explain.
A figure flashed by, and Li Jintang took the initiative to stand between them. She turned around and looked at him, "Xie An, you just said that her cultivation is not high, so she should not be able to create illusions. I don't think what she said is false."
The implication is that he should not be impulsive and listen to what the other person has to say first.
Xie Changyan smiled, his lips curled, but the sword blade remained motionless in the air. "Miss Li, you are really defenseless against outsiders. You actually believe the words of a wild ghost of unknown origin?"
"I still want to hear her out first." Li Jintang just threw out this sentence, then turned around and said to the female ghost in a gentle voice: "Tell me what happened just now. Don't be afraid, he won't hurt you."
It won’t hurt… Why can she trust him so much?
There was a subtle ripple in the boy's eyes. Yes, she didn't know his identity, so she naturally thought he was a good person.
Good people like Qu Lingfei and his gang.
After hearing her words, the female ghost seemed to hesitate for a moment, her eyes still fixed on the sword blade that was shining coldly.
Li Jintang paused, then turned his head to look at him silently, his mouth moving as if to say, "Don't scare her."
The atmosphere froze for a moment, and finally Xie Changyan lowered his eyes first, and the sword was put back into the sheath.
The oppressive cold air faded away, and the female ghost seemed to feel much more at ease. Her lips opened and closed, and this time there was finally a sound.
It turned out that the fire they had just started was really eye-catching. After the ghosts found the two of them, they were worried that they would suffer losses if they confronted them head-on, so they secretly cast an illusion, hoping to take advantage of the two of them being immersed in it and then launch a sneak attack.
"Why are you helping us?" The man in the white robe had stood beside them at some point, his hands folded, and the moonlight cast a faint halo on his face.
The female ghost immediately grabbed the girl's hand as if facing a great enemy, turned her pale face away, and it looked like she had no intention of answering.
Li Jintang softened his voice and repeated his previous question: "Can you tell me why you helped us?"
"I... don't know either." As if her voice had touched some kind of switch, the ghost's marble-like eyes lingered on her face, with a hint of pity in them. "When I saw you, I... I felt particularly close to you."
"Do you feel that I am... friendly?" Li Jintang couldn't help but feel surprised. He was just an outsider to the book, so how could he make a ghost in the book feel friendly?
"Miss Li, if you continue to argue with her, the lives of your fellow Daoist Qu and the others will be in danger." He leaned to the side with a faint smile on his lips, but his expression seemed extremely impatient.
Li Jintang screamed "Ah" and hurriedly pulled the female ghost's hand away gently - since the ghosts found them, the current situation of Qu Lingfei and the others must not be optimistic.
"They, they will be fine..." the female ghost shouted anxiously from behind, her voice suddenly much higher than before, as if she was reluctant to let her go.
Li Jintang was walking in a hurry and didn't listen to what he said. Just as he passed by the pile of extinguished firewood, several figures suddenly came towards him.
"Sister Qiuyan!" Her eyes lit up, and when she was about to walk over quickly, a scabbard suddenly appeared in front of her.
Xie Changyan frowned slightly and warned her calmly, "Aren't you afraid it's another illusion?"
Oh yes, an illusion... Li Jintang slowed down his pace and just stood there, waiting for those people to come closer.
"Atang, thank you fellow Daoist, I'm glad you're all okay..." Qiu Yan was delighted when she heard her call, but when she was about to step forward, she was pulled by Qu Lingfei behind her.
"Be careful, it's an illusion."
As soon as the word "illusion" came out, Xie Changyan put away his sword and stepped aside. "You also encountered an illusion?"
"Brother Xie? Thank God, this time it's real." Qu Lingfei breathed a sigh of relief and briefly recounted what had just happened. "Brother Xie, what about you? Are you also trapped in the illusion?"
Xie Changyan was too lazy to say more and just smiled faintly: "Yeah."
Qiuyan's eyes widened slightly, and she gasped: "What is that?"
When they heard this, several people looked up and noticed the spot of white standing out in the darkness, which was a bit abrupt.
Li Jintang hurriedly went back to the female ghost and told them what he had just said.
"I won't lie to you," the female ghost waved her hands repeatedly, looking a little panicked, "You have to leave quickly, otherwise, otherwise they will tell..."
"Who's going to chase them out?!"
A sudden and abrupt sneer rang out from behind the bushes, and a 'human head' emerged from it, glaring fiercely at the female ghost: "It would be fine if you didn't help, but you actually wanted to help these little thieves. What on earth are you thinking of?!"
"Who are you calling a thief?" Qiuyan glared back in disbelief. She knew these ghosts had little spiritual power and would be no match for them if a fight broke out. She imitated him, making a face and saying, "You look more like a thief to me, with your rat-like nose and face!"
"Junior Sister!" Qu Lingfei suppressed his laughter and stopped her. He then turned and bowed to the 'person' emerging from the bushes, his tone neither humble nor arrogant: "Fellow Daoist, please calm down. We have no intention of coming here. We just hope you can show us a way out..."
Before he could finish his words, he was interrupted: "You didn't mean to come here?! Humph, how shameless!" The ghost suddenly became angry for some reason, as if he wanted to rush forward and catch them all in one fell swoop, but was worried that he would not be able to defeat them. So he just stood not far away and glared, "My Ghost Market's barrier has always been indestructible. If you didn't intend to break it, how could you get in?!"
"What barrier?" Qu Lingfei was stunned, feeling strange. "I never lie to anyone. We fell here from the swamp above, and I haven't seen any barrier."
"Still being stubborn!" The ghost was furious. Suddenly, several black shadows flashed through the bushes. In the blink of an eye, they were surrounded by a large group of ghosts in human form.
This... Qu Lingfei's hand on the hilt of the sword hesitated - even if they were ghosts, they had never harmed anyone. What's more, they were the ones who broke into someone else's territory first. Did they really want to start a massacre here?
"You just need to take us away and I guarantee nothing will happen." Qiu Yan saw that her senior brother was soft-hearted and unwilling to fight them, so she shouted, "If we really fight, you may not be able to win."
Before he finished speaking, he heard another sneer, and then countless ghosts suddenly approached. Several people were forced to draw their swords to protect themselves, but unexpectedly, the female ghost in white suddenly stood in front of them, slightly spreading her arms, "Don't do it, they, they don't mean any harm..."
"Why, are you still going to speak for the thief?!"
The female ghost closed her eyelids for a moment, and something floated out from under her paper-white skirt. Then white mist rose up, and only a curse was heard in her ears, and then she returned to calm.
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