Chapter 39
In the Ming Palace, the young emperor cried loudly in the court.
The right prime minister stepped forward to appease them, but the ministers looked at each other in silence, sighing, but did not dare to remonstrate.
The loud crying sound came from the mouth of a three-year-old child. He was wearing a dragon robe, holding a rattle, and crying with all his heart.
The crying stopped temporarily only when the right prime minister magically took out an amber necklace and presented it to the child.
A white-haired old minister could no longer bear to watch. He stepped forward, took off his hat, and said in a loud voice, "Please, Your Majesty, please understand! How can such a child be entrusted with the responsibility of governing the country? I take off my hat today to advise you, and I beg you to reconsider!"
The old minister knelt down and bowed his head, swearing to impeach him under the order of the emperor.
The little emperor was taken away by his attendants. The right prime minister turned around and looked at him with narrowed eyes.
There was a sneer and irony hidden in his expression. He said nothing, walked quietly back to his seat, and announced the dismissal of the court.
The silent crowd retreated, and soon only the old minister was left kneeling in the hall.
Finally, when the crane-shaped eternal lamp was lit, the curtain behind the dragon throne moved.
A female voice came out: "I understand, please leave."
The old minister had been kneeling for too long and said yes helplessly, but he couldn't stand up no matter how hard he tried.
So he had no choice but to crawl out of the front hall.
A figure then appeared behind the curtain.
The woman wearing an exquisite veil stood there, looking down at the figures crawling in the hall.
She murmured softly, "It's time to replace Wu Zhenshou."
Then the figure flickered and disappeared, becoming a phantom. The eternal lamp in the hall went out.
The sky was gloomy and the old minister was exhausted and gasping for breath as he climbed.
Sadness appeared in his eyes and he lamented that his country was about to be destroyed.
He was only a few feet away from climbing out of the front hall, but he knew in his heart that he could not escape today.
Everyone in the court knew the methods of the current empress dowager. All voices of resistance to her had vanished.
Whatever, whatever, I have lived for decades, that’s enough, that’s enough.
His hand was still stretched forward, but a bat flew towards him in the gloomy sky.
Then the shadow under his body shook and swallowed him up in an instant.
There was silence in the Ming Palace.
·
An inconspicuous mansion in Mingjing.
An ancient pine tree is kept in the courtyard, and the pond under the rocks is full of dead fish.
Prince Xiang walked into the house from the courtyard and saw a wall covered with silver locks behind the screen.
He raised his head and looked upwards, then stopped there. A flash of lightning tore through the sky, and the silver locks covering the wall began to shake, and then black wings grew from them.
Countless pairs of red eyes lit up, and under the cover of thunder, they flew past Prince Marie and flew away.
The bloodthirsty bats flew silently into the dark sky.
The hunt begins.
·
Nian Qing sat by the window, stretched out his palm, and tried to catch the raindrops falling from the sky.
Gu Luoyan sat under the open roof outside the carriage, holding the reins and driving the horse.
The sound of rain grew louder, accompanied by occasional flashes of lightning and thunder that cut through the sky, and the carriage moved slower and slower.
Nian Qing had had enough fun, so he retracted his hand, bent down, walked out of the car, and came to Gu Luoyan's side.
Nian Qing sat obediently beside Gu Luoyan, watching her drive the carriage with interest, and said, "Gu Luoyan, the rain is getting heavier."
"Well, but we can't rush. The roads are slippery in the rain, and we have to be careful of rocks rolling down. We can only walk and look to see how long it is to the post station ahead."
"Okay." Nian Qing stopped bothering Gu Luoyan and began to admire the scenery. She hummed a half-melody, feeling quite happy.
Gu Luoyan watched the road intently. She had learned this driving skill from Lian when she was still at the escort agency. She wasn't very proficient, but thankfully the horse the escort chief had carefully selected was docile and well-behaved, so the journey was smooth.
When Gu Luoyan decided to go to the border, he originally planned to go alone.
However, Chuntao and Xueyi kept nagging about it, and since they couldn't persuade Nianqing, they took the opportunity to bring the fox along.
Nian Qing looked at the rain, and Gu Luoyan took the opportunity to glance at her.
A moment of confusion was reflected in his eyes, and then turned into tearing.
Nian Qing noticed her actions, turned his head and asked with a smile, "What's the matter?"
"I saw that the rain was too heavy and I was afraid it would be difficult to walk."
"How about we find a place to stop?"
"There might be a landslide. It's dangerous on a rainy night."
"What should I do then..." Nian Qing fell into deep thought. The heavy rain tilted slightly with the wind and hit her face.
Nian Qing wanted to raise his hand to cover it, but the moment he raised his hand, alarm bells suddenly rang in his heart.
The fox ears appeared instantly, Nian Qing lowered his body, leaned over, and looked at the wheels.
The water splashed by the wheels mixed with mud and circled behind.
It was already dark, with only the two lights hanging in front of the car emitting a faint light.
It was hard to see clearly in the darkness, but everything seemed to be normal.
Nian Qing stared for a long time before straightening up.
Gu Luoyan beside her asked her, "Why..."
Bang!
Before he could finish his words, a heavy blow suddenly appeared under the carriage, throwing the two people on it up.
In a moment of weightlessness, Gu Luoyan, holding the reins in his hands, lost his balance and was about to fall forward.
A puff of green smoke quickly condensed around her, and then she sat back in her seat steadily.
Nian Qing stood up, grabbed the door of the carriage with one hand, and reached back with the other hand to hold Gu Luoyan's arm.
The raindrops became heavier and heavier, and the thunder was deafening.
There was a fluorescent light in Nian Qing's eyes, and she was staring at somewhere in the rain with a solemn expression.
In the sky, under the cover of heavy rain, a black gas fell down, hit the carriage and shattered the roof.
The horses were startled, but they kept their course, pedaling harder and causing the carriage to accelerate.
Another black gas fell down, but this time it attacked the horse.
Nian Qing saw through it, and with a tug at the hand that was holding Gu Luoyan, he also pulled the reins in Gu Luoyan's hand.
The horse neighed and changed direction. At this time, black gas fell and penetrated the road half a foot.
Nian Qing frowned. She held Gu Luoyan's arm tightly and said to her, "Gu Luoyan, hold on to me!"
After he finished speaking, three tails were released, continuously extending and expanding, and then wrapped around the entire carriage.
When several black air fell from the sky at the same time, Nian Qing's pupils turned into a slit.
The horse kept moving forward, accelerating. The next moment, before the black gas descended, the carriage soared into the air, accompanied by green smoke!
The rear end of the carriage that did not have time to take off was a beat slower, so it collided with the black air from the ground and the air, smashing it to pieces.
The part wrapped by the fox's tail was intact. The carriage was moving in the air, moving forward with the airflow condensed by the green smoke.
The horse's hooves stepped on the air as if they were stepping on the ground, but the speed was more than ten times faster than when it was running on the ground.
The things in the darkness were quickly thrown away. The rain was like a thread, continuous and unending.
Nian Qing looked back at the road that was getting farther and farther away and breathed a sigh of relief.
Just as she was about to turn around, she saw the moon appear in the clouds.
The moon in the rain.
Nian Qing's pupils widened in an instant, and the green smoke began to change direction, but it was too late.
In the blink of an eye, the moon seemed to be right in front of the carriage. The white moon began to spin slowly, turning into a bubble, revealing a nothingness as shadowy as nothingness.
The swarm of bats that had been hiding in the night for so long appeared like a nightmare.
They flapped their wings, and the wings began to soften and flow, forming pairs of black hands with the rain, pushing and pulling the carriage into the shadow of the moon.
Nian Qing's eyes darkened instantly, and she yelled, "Get out!"
But it's no use.
The bats around here didn't seem like living things at all, soulless and mindless.
Some of them melted into the darkness, into the shadows. Pairs of hands stretched out from all sides of the carriage, grabbing at the two people like drowned ghosts.
They were struggling, demanding, trying to pull Gu Luoyan and Nian Qing out of the abyss.
A fox tail briefly detached from the carriage and quickly protected Gu Luoyan, preventing those black hands from getting close to her body.
Nian Qing's face showed annoyance. Surrounded by strange, ghost-like creatures, he was helpless for a moment.
She was thinking of a countermeasure when she suddenly discovered something horrible.
——The rain disappeared.
Looking forward again, I saw the same empty moon. The surroundings were moving rapidly, as if the carriage was moving through the air. But upon closer inspection, the heavy rain had disappeared, and the hazy darkness around me was not night, but more like a reflection.
They have been sucked into the moon!
"Gu Luoyan, don't leave my sight from now on. Hold on to me, Gu Luoyan, and don't let go." Nian Qing turned around and warned anxiously.
The moment the words fell, distortion began to occur.
The moon in front of me began to turn into water waves, and the air around me began to compress.
Dark shadows approached, and the red eyes of countless bats stared at them.
Everything with shadows grows in this terrifying space.
The two lamps hanging in front of the carriage swayed, and in an instant the light became brighter.
The other side of light is shadow.
Light breeds darkness.
Then, under the two lights, it grew madly and soon swallowed up the entire carriage.
All that was left was a small space under the light.
Gu Luoyan had been observing, she could do nothing and was almost powerless.
The only thing we can do is to stay rational and sober.
But then, she saw a horrifying scene.
The horse, led by the reins, continued to run, but its four legs began to be dismembered and it fell into darkness.
Its body seemed to have turned in a different direction, with its tail forward and its head backward, and its eyes moved to its belly, becoming a complete mess.
In a breath, the reins were free and the whole horse disappeared.
Looking at Nian Qing again, she had used too many spells and was already sweating, struggling to deal with the unknown.
This can't go on any longer. We must find a way out!
As his thoughts fell, Gu Luoyan discovered a white dot in the darkness.
The white spot seemed to be fighting against the surrounding darkness, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, without a fixed shape.
Suddenly, it expanded and covered Gu Luoyan's eyes.
A woman's voice appeared in the white dizziness:
"I took away the luck from Gu Luoyan, and I made the Purple Star fall from her body."
“It happens immediately.”
An invisible force rushed out from the white light and crashed into Gu Luoyan's mind.
There was a ringing sound in her ears, and the indecipherable symbols became the key to strip away what she possessed.
The words began to take effect.
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