Chapter 24
The light drew nearer. Two clusters of flames converged, illuminating the surroundings.
Guan Qing bowed and said, "Greetings, Master Kuishou."
Gu Luoyan stepped forward quickly and held Guan Qing's hand. "Master, there's no need to be so polite. I'm no longer the leader. From now on, just call me Luoyan."
Gu Luoyan's expression suddenly changed. Seeing Guan Qing straighten up, she spoke again, "This matter was originally between me and the Hongguan. I feel guilty for involving the Taoist priest."
Guan Qing smiled and said, "Eradicating evil and punishing evildoers is my duty. Miss, you don't have to worry too much."
After saying this, Guan Qing lifted up the lamp hanging on the wall and walked towards the fork in the road. As he walked, he said to Gu Luoyan, "The formation has been set up. Ten days from now will be the beginning of the new moon. The spiritual energy of heaven and earth will flourish, and we can slay the demons and evil spirits."
The fork in the road was short, but in the time it took to talk, they had already reached the bottom of the wooden ladder. Guan Qing held up the lantern and looked at Gu Luoyan behind him: "Miss, do you want to go up and take a look?"
Gu Luoyan shook her head. She turned and looked at everyone. "We've had too many things to do today, and it's getting late. Everyone, please follow Xue Yi to the rest room and rest up. Starting tomorrow, I'm afraid there won't be much fun."
After he finished speaking, silence fell all around.
It was Chun Tao who spoke again: "It's just a long worm. We don't have to be afraid of it. Just stomp it with our feet and clap our hands, and it won't be able to escape from the Hong Kong Coliseum."
Guan Qing also said: "From what I have seen of his cultivation, it has only been three hundred years. When the time is right, we have a great chance of winning."
Qiu Niang pondered for a moment and then said, "But he and the Hong Kong Coliseum complement each other. As long as the clay Buddha remains standing, he can rest easy."
Gu Luoyan lowered his head, thought for a moment, and asked Qiu Niang, "How is the Red Pavilion now?"
"After the lobby collapsed, our people spread the news of the epidemic. No matter what the choice is, the Hong Kong Coliseum will have to temporarily close."
"Then the Clay Buddha will stop receiving offerings... Given Zu Qianjiao's temperament, he won't be able to wait that long. This time he will definitely get rid of me." said Gu Luoyan.
She turned to Xue Yi and said, "Xue Yi, take everyone to the lounge, have something to eat, and have a good rest."
Xue Yi agreed, and then left with Chun Tao and Guan Qing. Soon, only Gu Luoyan and Qiu Niang were left.
Gu Luoyan said to Qiuniang, "Let's go."
Qiu Niang followed, walking alongside Gu Luoyan. "The princesses are all thought to have been poisoned. They can leave the Red Pavilion after faking their deaths. However, there are many slaves and servants, so they are still confined in the pavilion."
Gu Luoyan held the lamp, she looked at the road ahead, and tightened her grip.
“So this battle must be won.”
·
Walk north from the secret passage, turn around the fork in the road, and you will see an exit.
Qiu Niang climbed up the wooden ladder first, pushed away the broken wooden boards, and saw the deserted yard where she met the cat.
It's the ninth day of the first lunar month again, the day Suqiu looks forward to most.
Suqiu pulled Gu Luoyan up and went with her to the side wall of the courtyard.
It seems to have rained.
The weeds in the yard were covered with rain and dew.
The fragrance of green grass accompanied by the chirping of insects brings a moment of peace to this deserted courtyard.
After the autumn rain, everything should come to an end.
Su Qiu stayed beside Gu Luoyan. She looked up at the sky and saw the crystal clearness amidst the dark green of the courtyard. She smiled and said, "I've finally been waiting for this."
Gu Luoyan also said: "This is all thanks to my aunt, who discovered that Zu Qianjiao was weak after the autumn rain."
"He deserves to die, and so do I." Qiu Niang said.
Gu Luoyan turned around and touched Qiu Niang's hand, patting it gently: "It's all in the past. Everything is his fault."
Suqiu didn't speak again. Her eyes were filled with sadness, and lines of fatigue spread from the corners of her eyes to her face like growing veins.
Over there, a white light appeared, and a white cat with blue eyes jumped onto the wall, walked along the wall, then fell down and stood in front of Gu Luoyan.
Gu Luoyan squatted down, looked at the white cat, reached out and stroked its fur: "Maybe this is the last time I call you, cat."
The white cat responded by rubbing Gu Luoyan's palm affectionately.
Gu Luoyan looked at the cat, and Suqiu also squatted down, looking at it greedily and contentedly.
The moonlight was soft, but the clouds rolled by and soon obscured it.
The white cat disappeared. When the clouds dispersed and the moonlight reappeared, its furry head appeared again from under the nearby night grass.
Gu Luoyan took a conch from Qiu Niang's hand. Her fingers stroked the texture of the shell, lost in thought, until she was awakened by the meow of a cat.
She paused, looked at Mao'er, and then said to Qiu Niang without turning around, "I'll let Bai Lang free her soul this time, okay?"
Gu Luoyan's voice was very low, and it was impossible to tell what emotion it contained.
"If you want to see the cat again, you have to wait until we go underground." Qiu Niang replied with a smile.
Gu Luoyan stopped talking, but continued to stroke the white cat's fur. The cat's tail was raised high, and it purred happily.
The next sound I heard was Suqiu kneeling down and knocking her head to the ground.
Gu Luoyan turned around to help her, but heard Suqiu choking and saying, "Young lady, I will never be able to repay you for your kindness. I am already very satisfied that you have been able to see my cat for so long."
Suqiu raised her head, her forehead bruised and bleeding. Tears streamed down her face, and the guilt she had hidden for years transformed into her trembling, her tears, her blood, and her broken voice.
"If I let her go like this, I will no longer have any worries in my heart. I can finally atone for Ji Zi's sins."
"Ji Zi treated me the best when she was alive. It is I who deserve to die. It is I who killed her."
Suqiu suppressed her tears and cried until she could hardly breathe.
"Miss, I will die for you, for Nanzhi. This is the wish of this old slave."
"This old slave is guilty and deserves to be cut into pieces."
After Suqiu finished speaking, she knelt down again and kowtowed violently, as if hoping that the person in the afterlife could hear it.
She did not ask for forgiveness, she hated herself and had been unable to forgive herself since Yan Nanzhi's death.
The white cat, which had always been unfamiliar with Suqiu, walked over from Gu Luoyan's hands and came in front of Suqiu.
It squatted down and looked at Suqiu who was crying bitterly. It called out softly and then walked towards her.
The cat rubbed against Qiu Niang for the first time.
The grass leaves were blown by the wind, and the white cat jumped onto the wall with the conch given by Gu Luoyan in its mouth.
"Good baby, my good baby..." Suqiu knelt on the ground and said so.
It never stayed again, becoming part of the moonlight, the wind and the dew.
Gu Luoyan came over and hugged Qiu Niang, wiping away her tears. Qiu Niang, with red eyes, asked her, "Miss, what should we do next?"
Gu Luoyan rested her head on Qiuniang's shoulder. She turned her back to Suqiu and hugged her, saying, "Nothing can go wrong with Xinyue in ten days. Zu Qianjiao must not have any helpers around her. She must kill the rat lady."
"We'll start when the stuff arrives."
·
Upstairs of the Mingjing Escort Agency.
The moonlight shines in, bright and clear.
Shiro was sitting on the fence and saw the white cat appear in an instant.
The cat was well-behaved. After putting down the conch, it did not leave but lay down and let Bai Lang stroke it.
Shiro picked up the conch. A long-lost light flashed in his eyes.
After a moment of silence, he murmured, "It's finally time."
Bailang was very familiar with that conch.
Someone asked him to find it.
She said Luo Yan liked it. She felt sorry for her and couldn't bear to see the sea anymore. So she asked Bai Lang to find a conch as a gift to Luo Yan.
Bai Lang placed the conch shell against his chest, closed his eyes, and whispered, "Nanzhi, everything is about to end."
He exhaled and opened his eyes to look at the white cat.
His fingertips deliberately touched the cat's nose. Bai Lang smiled tiredly, "Girl, you've worked hard these days. Don't rush to leave when you go down. Wait a while, and then find a good family after this era."
Bai Lang climbed down the railing and went into the house.
He took out a piece of talisman paper from the secret compartment on the bookshelf.
The person who wrote the talisman was also the one who rescued him outside the wall.
·
On the night of his escape, Doctor Bai fell into a trap and was pierced by hundreds of sharp blades. He was about to die, but before his pursuers arrived, he met a woman.
The woman saved him from death during the pursuit in the Hong Kong Coliseum, and later brought him to Mingjing, healed his wounds, and told him about Bai Langmaoer.
At that time, Bai Lang wanted to die, and she told him again and again:
Yan Nanzhi doesn't want to see you like this. You still have a lot of important things to do.
The day when the cat's soul was sealed was the last time Bai Lang saw her.
After that, she disappeared completely and never appeared in front of Bai Lang again.
That day, the woman lit a fire and guided the spirits to descend in the darkness. She used magic to transform the cat's spirit into a white cat and taught Bai Lang how to summon it.
On the ninth day of every month, the white cat comes to visit, and the soul travels guided by the moonlight, unconstrained by anything.
Later, Bai Lang connected with Gu Luoyan, and the cat became a communication tool.
He asked the woman at the end of the soul-sealing ceremony:
"Why are you helping me? And why are you telling me this?"
Shiro's answer was a pair of white eyes sparkling with tears.
The woman said to him, "Nanzhi must not die in vain." And then there was no further news.
"Then why don't you save her? You are so powerful, why don't you save her instead of saving me!" Bai Lang almost roared at her.
The woman did not answer Bai Lang again. She left him and walked away.
The past is like smoke, and it seems that it was all caused by the talisman paper in Bai Lang's hand.
He took it out again to free the soul that the cat had sealed.
Shiro walked towards the fence, and the white cat stopped at the farthest point where the moonlight could reach.
He half-knelt down holding the talisman, and then stroked the white cat's head.
He laughed and said to the white cat, "Girl, you used to be a restless person. From now on, you can be free and easy."
The talisman paper fell on the white cat's forehead, and the moonlight showed a blue flame, which then burned the talisman paper.
The white cat's body began to dissipate, and its fur turned into white light, into air, and into stars in the sky.
The cat is gone and can never come back.
·
It was still dark when I woke up in the morning.
The old woman followed several carriages out of the back door of the Hong Kong Coliseum.
She hunched over her body with her cloak tightly covering her body, not even wanting to glance into the depths of the alley.
The Hong Kong Coliseum suffered heavy casualties from the plague, and numerous women were pulled out on carts and dumped in the stagnant river behind the alleys, to be devoured by rats, insects, and snakes.
Bad luck, really bad luck...
The old woman didn't want to think too much. She followed the shopping carriage to the city, just wanting to go there and come back quickly.
The silent horse kept moving forward, and there was only death on its skinny body.
Under the dark sky, only the sounds of horse hooves and wheels rolling past could be heard in the morning mist.
The carriage drove out of the alley behind the Hong Kong Coliseum and gradually went away.
·
On the other side, deep in the alley, there were several huge earth pits covered with stone lids.
It was pitch dark below.
But it is a dead river that has dried up for many years.
The bodies of the women were piled there. Suddenly, one of them moved its fingers. Soon, her eyes opened.
She sat up, terrified and frightened. She felt the wall and tried to move forward. The next moment, she tripped over a body.
She screamed, her voice sharp and bright, and the body that had tripped her quickly moved.
Then more and more "corpses" woke up. Of course, some never woke up again.
The breathing sounds in the darkness gradually became clearer.
The women spoke, tested each other, and moved closer, leaning against each other, finally seeing each other's faces clearly. They were surprised to find that they were all familiar faces.
So they supported each other and walked out along the Dead River.
That's a long way to go.
It was pitch black all around, and they couldn't tell what time it was. They only knew they had been walking for a long time.
Finally, when one part of it was about to collapse, I saw light and heard the sound of flowing water.
My eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the daylight, but my senses were genuinely delighted by the sudden sound of birdsong.
Coming out of the cave at the bottom of the valley, there is a forest.
The golden color mixed with some withered scenes has absolutely nothing to do with life.
But they were still touched and shed tears.
I wondered where the forest outside the city led to. Looking back, I could almost see the walls of Mingjing.
The women stepped out.
The long-constrained vision is opened.
The trees are trees, the soil is soil, and butterflies fly onto the bushes and flap their wings leisurely.
They had no idea what was going to happen to them next.
But it will definitely not be confinement or humiliation.
The long-lost flowers begin to bloom in autumn, and from now on, they will be themselves.
Measure with your own hands and feet, and live with your heart.
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