Deep in the secret passage
"In this world, how many people can truly control their own destiny?"
A desolate sound lingered in the space, and the surrounding scenery crumbled away bit by bit.
The invisible barrier between Chen Sizhe and Wen Dai vanished, and the basement returned to its original state. In the dim space, the accumulated dust, forming a blanket, made the air even more turbid, and what they breathed in felt oppressive; along the side of the long corridor was a living room that had been abandoned for a hundred years. They were standing at the end.
Having escaped the illusion, Wen Dai, whose soul had been partially stripped away, felt even stronger physical sensations. Supported by the anxious and helpless Lai Wenyi, her brain throbbed with pain from the cold, and a feeling of emptiness spread from within.
Upon seeing Wen Dai, who was different from the others, Chen Sizhe's eyebrows instinctively furrowed. He glanced at the woman in front of him who was almost collapsing in Lai Wenyi's arms. Her clenched fist was trembling, and it was clear that she was using all her strength to support herself. However, her usually rosy lips had stopped working, with a thin layer of white residue on them. Her brows were tightly furrowed, as if a great deal of pain was welling up between them.
Even Lai Yuan noticed that something was wrong with Wen Dai. He took two steps forward, placed his outstretched hand in front of Wen Dai's mouth and nose, and felt the breath coming from her knuckles. His expression became more and more serious. "How could a person experience hypothermia?"
Lai Wenyi's arms tightened around Wen Dai's, and tears streamed down her face. She choked out, "We just ran into the female ghost here, and she just ripped Wen Dai's...heart out. I really saw her rip Wen Dai's heart out with my own eyes."
Enveloped by the chilling cold, Wen Dai spoke up, carefully correcting, "It's not a real heart, so I won't die for now."
Lai Wenyi's tears finally broke free. She sobbed louder as she cried, "You just said you wouldn't die, but it turns out you're only temporarily alive! What are we going to do now? I should have known better than to call you all over here. I should have known none of us would have come down."
The basement space was already thinner, and it was filled with toxic gases. Lai Wenyi, who had used up too much oxygen from crying, couldn't help but cough. She stopped sobbing and took several deep breaths with her mouth wide open.
"Watch your emotions. The basement space, which has been closed for many years, will accumulate carbon dioxide, mold, and dust, which can easily trigger allergies." Chen Sizhe glanced at Lai Wenyi, who was preoccupied with her own problems, and stretched out his long arm to pull Wen Dai over. He held Wen Dai's arm and supported her, but the person who was pulled over obviously no longer had the strength to keep her distance from him, and she fell headfirst into his chest.
Having been attacked on the head, Wen Dai was powerless to even rub her forehead. Her breathing was rapid, and her slightly parted lips uttered weak words: "Are you finally going to murder me?"
With his warm fingertips touching her neck and feeling her pulse, Chen Sizhe sneered, "What good would you gain from murder? It would do more harm than good. I wouldn't go so far as to murder someone whose house doesn't even have the heating on in the dead of winter."
Choked by the words, Wen Dai couldn't even manage a purse, and could only manage a wry smile. "Your words are really hurtful... Also, you don't need to worry about me too much, I really won't die—she won't kill me."
"You think you can't do it? Haven't you ever looked at your own fate?" After checking her pulse, Chen Sizhe's face became even uglier, and his tone became increasingly aggressive. He took out a yellow talisman from his coat pocket, then pulled out a small knife and cut his fingertip to draw a talisman with his blood. After muttering a string of incantations, he pointed his sword finger at several acupoints on her body.
The only thing the other three could clearly hear was—"Order the primordial spirit to return to its place."
Chen Sizhe folded the yellow talisman paper in a few quick folds with his fingers, then stuffed it into Wen Dai's mouth, saying, "Swallow it."
The talisman stained with his blood emitted a fishy smell when it entered her mouth, and Wen Dai's brow furrowed even more. She swallowed the yellow talisman with difficulty, forcing a smile as she said, "A soul-suppressing talisman? I'm sorry to have troubled you."
The technique of using blood to guide the soul was indeed remarkably effective. With the strength to stand up, Wen Dai felt somewhat like she had used her tools and discarded them. She stepped out of Chen Sizhe's arms, her face pale, and smiled at him easily, "Thanks. I don't usually look at my fate, and even if I did, I wouldn't bother to interpret it. Life and death are predestined, and if I'm going to die, there's nothing I can do. Whether I know it or not doesn't really matter."
But this time there's a real 60% chance she's doomed.
The immortals behind her remained silent, offering her no information. Despite her discomfort, Wen Dai returned to the main topic and began exchanging information with them. She summarized what she and Lai Wenyi had seen and heard, and concluded by saying, "Xiuya is actually a pitiful person. I don't think she would do anything bad. She only dug out my heart because she wanted me to stay here with her. As long as we release her, I will be safe and sound."
Unfortunately, Chen Sizhe saw through her attempt to reassure others. The man glanced at her sideways and sneered, "Yes, as long as we break the coffin-locking formation here, you won't have to stay here with her anymore. You can go to the underworld to be with her. Wen Dai, do you know that if your soul is incomplete for a long time, you will slowly lose your five senses? And in a place with such heavy yin energy, who else but you will die?"
Wen Dai had just parted her lips, but before she could utter a rebuttal, he stepped forward and spoke again, each sentence hitting the nail on the head: "You can also live, your body can live, lying in bed as a vegetable, but your soul will wander with that female ghost; which of these two do you prefer?"
Speechless, Wen Dai gently bit her lower lip, sighed softly, and turned her head away, diverting the others' attention with a different approach: "Did you get any information? Share it with us. We know that if you go into this room, there's another space downstairs, and I reckon the array's core is in that space."
"The female ghost you're talking about, the one named Xiuya, we saw her being violated, and then some of her experiences. But, I always feel a sense of familiarity when I look at her..." Lai Yuan raised his hand to his heart, recalling Xiuya's face, a sadness overflowing from a depth deeper than his heart.
Perhaps provoked by Chen Sizhe, Wen Dai took a closer look. She quickly glanced at Lai Yuan and said, "It's good that you're familiar with him. If you're not familiar with him, we're all doomed."
She immediately grabbed Lai Wenyi's arm and strode into the room at the end of the room, her voice trailing behind her: "Hurry up, I don't want to end up as a soul pet following Xiuya around."
The large bed, which was placed in the center, was moved aside by Chen Sizhe and Lai Yuan. Lai Wenyi held up her phone to shine a light, illuminating the entrance.
Chen Sizhe squatted down, holding a tissue to touch the wood floorboard that could be lifted, but unfortunately, after lifting it, they saw another layer of dark iron-colored keypad door.
"What am I going to do? A three-digit password... that's enough to try." Having spent too long in the closed basement and experienced all sorts of illusions that shattered her worldview, Lai Wenyi's rationality had already vanished. Stimulated by this suddenly appearing password door, she stomped her feet and was about to cry again.
Wen Dai, who had disappeared for a short while, came over carrying a heavy telephone—the very same one she had targeted and tried to take away in the illusion, and the one Lai Wenyi had picked up and smashed at Wang Kun.
"Make way—" Wen Daiman said, stopping in front of the keypad door. After Chen Sizhe and Lai Yuan got up and moved aside in confusion, she picked up the multi-purpose telephone and smashed it against the keypad door with all her might.
The first time it didn't open, she picked it up and continued to smash it a second time, a third time... On the tenth time, the keypad door was violently smashed and fell down, the metal plate lying diagonally on the stairs below. Wen Dai was about to throw the telephone aside when she suddenly withdrew her hand. She kicked the metal plate, sending it sliding down the stairs and disappearing from sight.
After hearing the sound of the iron plate hitting the ground, Wen Dai gave a look to the group of people who could not hide their shock, and said, "Go down. Why are you all looking at me like that?" She raised her free hand and touched her still cold face.
The person, whose face was as pale as paper, blinked his peach blossom eyes, which made Chen Sizhe twitch his lips twice and say with an ambiguous meaning, "You are really quite special."
Wen Dai shrugged, accepting his compliment, which seemed to be a compliment, without any qualms.
“I’ve always been special – this keypad door is a hundred years old, it hasn’t been maintained or repaired, it’s been unused for a long time, and it’s been in this closed basement all this time. It’s the easiest thing to do is to smash it open with force. It would be too much trouble to rack my brains to come up with a keypad. Divination would require counting one number at a time and guessing. The spirits behind me don’t say a word and don’t even acknowledge me. There’s nothing I can do. After all, I really don’t want to become a wandering ghost.”
She was about to take the lead when Chen Sizhe, who had stepped forward first, intercepted her. He glanced at her and snorted, "I'm not so low as to let a woman stand in front of me and charge into battle."
There seemed to be nothing particularly special about the sentence, but Wen Dai suddenly froze on the spot. Perhaps it was because her soul was incomplete, but she was inexplicably trapped in a void. The memories that surged forth seemed to devour her. None of the scenes that flashed by remained in her memory, only that one voice was clear—"Go to the back. I don't need women to stand in front of me and charge into battle."
"I didn't mean to look down on you, why are you angry?"
"Yes, Adele is the best... You are the best, I bow down to you."
The sounds that followed were too indistinct, and Wen Dai pieced together fragmented words herself. Her heart was clenched and her soul was filled with immense emptiness.
"...Are you serious? You're crying because I don't let you go first? Tsk, your physical condition isn't suitable for going first. If there's an emergency—I don't want to watch my partner suddenly die in front of me."
The familiar, sarcastic tone brought Wen Dai back to her senses. She touched her face blankly, her brow furrowing unconsciously, and the moisture in her eyes proved that Chen Sizhe's words were true.
She put the earlier unease out of her mind, rubbed the tears from her eyes, and raised her chin, saying, "You're overthinking it. Just because you have tears doesn't mean you're sad. There's so much dust here, I just got some in my eyes."
The reason was so obviously fake that Chen Sizhe just chuckled and then walked deeper into the building.
The leading position was taken, and Wen Dai didn't take the second place either. Lai Yuan, probably out of a fatherly instinct, stepped forward first. He glanced at Wen Dai and said, "Mr. Chen is right. Given your current physical condition, it's better for you to be protected in the middle. I'll go ahead of you. Wen Yi, help Wen Dai come along."
"Hey!" Lai Wenyi stepped forward and took Wen Dai's arm. She looked at Wen Dai's pale face with concern and said softly, "Don't be stubborn anymore. I'll squeeze through with you."
Feeling flattered, she noticed that the narrow passageway was just wide enough for Wen Dai and Lai Wenyi to walk side by side. As they descended the steps, she turned to Lai Wenyi and smiled sweetly, "Thank you."
"Don't be so polite. I'm the one who should be thanking you. You've helped us so much... Now it's my turn to protect you." The dark and deep passage made people unconsciously lower their voices. Lai Wenyi comforted Wen Dai with her words, but the fingers on Wen Dai's arm tightened involuntarily.
The telephone was held in front of Wen Dai; such a powerful prop might come in handy later. The four walked in close proximity, the first one stepping down a step and the second one following right behind.
Descending to the platform deep inside, the space that had been seen in the illusion was even more dilapidated, with spider webs and dust serving as its adornments.
With Wen Dai's information in mind, Chen Sizhe shone his flashlight on the ground in front of him. The spilled chicken blood had long since dried, its color so dark that the edges were almost indistinguishable. It was no longer of any use.
The light from the flashlights behind illuminated this tiny place. On the altar in the very center was an urn printed with runes. There wasn't even a portrait on the wall; only the urn sat alone on the altar. The walls were decorated with carvings of coffins.
Wen Dai squeezed to the front, her hand pressed against her chest. "Xiuya should be here, but she hasn't shown herself. I can sense it... my soul is very close to her. I don't know where the array's core is. Even with Xiuya's profound cultivation, she still couldn't break the array."
“Maybe they don’t want to break it.” Chen Sizhe stepped out of the circle created by the chicken blood and walked to the wall. He studied the patterns carved on the wall in great detail by the light of his flashlight.
Wen Dai, seemingly harboring a desire for revenge, walked to the altar. She picked up the urn and shook it a few times. Strangely, she felt a hard object colliding inside. Her shaking stopped, and goosebumps spread across her skin, making her scalp tingle.
Although she had dealt with the dead before, it didn't mean she could calmly open the urn. Wen Dai put the urn back on the altar as if it had burned her hands, and turned around to call out, "Chen Sizhe, come here for a moment, there's something in this urn."
The urn, wrapped in red thread, was covered in runes drawn with black dog blood, a sight that sent chills down one's spine. Chen Sizhe stepped forward, his disrespectful behavior repeating itself for the second time. He picked up the urn and did exactly what Wen Dai had done, the impact and muffled sound clearly conveyed. He lowered his eyelashes. "Bones."
"ah?"
"There are bones inside." He said calmly, putting the urn back as if it were an ordinary box.
Dragging her gaze to the urn, Wen Dai raised her hand and slipped it into the sleeve of her other arm to touch the goosebumps on her skin. Without looking away, her gaze fell from the red line to the opening of the urn. "Don't you want to open it and take a look?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
