Twenty-three Soul Stone Warehouse
The courtyard suddenly became much quieter.
The only guards left in the warehouse were two gatekeepers.
Lu Denghe knew that the opportunity had come, so he carefully took out a piece of talisman paper as thin as a cicada's wing from his arms.
This was the puppetry technique that the ancestor had given him when they separated. By injecting spiritual energy into it, it could be transformed into a vivid paper cat.
Lu Denghe whispered a spell: "Go."
The talisman paper fell to the ground and instantly expanded and deformed.
The paper cat scurried out silently, slid precisely to the feet of one of the guards, grabbed the purse at his waist, and turned and ran away.
"Hey? My money!" The guard touched his waist, his face changed drastically, and without thinking, he rushed out after the white shadow, "Stop! Damn your little thief!"
The remaining guard was stunned by his companion's exclamation.
At this moment, Yang Deyou flashed out from behind him like a ghost, and with a clean and neat knife move, the guard groaned and fell to the ground.
"Done." Yang Deyou gestured to Lu Denghe.
The two of them quickly slipped into the warehouse.
The scene before him made Lu Denghe gasp.
There were no windows in the warehouse, but it was filled with the same large boxes that I had seen before, stacked layer upon layer, giving a very oppressive feeling.
Yang Deyou pried open the nearest box, revealing it filled with heavy, blue-gray stones. The stones were cut with exceptional cleanliness, their cross-sections revealing dark red, vein-like patterns. At first glance, they resembled congealed flesh, exuding a sickening, eerie, and ominous quality.
"Is this the soul stone?" Lu Denghe picked up a piece. It felt cold and hard, much colder than ordinary stones. The red lines on it made people feel creepy.
"I haven't seen it." Yang Deyou frowned and also picked up a small piece and stuffed it into his arms, "Take it back and ask my uncle and the others."
Just as the two were about to leave the warehouse, they heard a shout of shock and anger from afar: "Third Brother? What's wrong with you? Someone come! There's a thief! There's a thief in the warehouse!"
It was the guard who had been chasing the cat who had returned. When he saw his companion lying on the ground, he immediately started shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Run."
As soon as the two men moved, two guards rushed towards them, holding steel knives, and blocked them right in the face. The first one flashed his knife and slashed at Yang Deyou's face.
Yang Deyou reacted extremely quickly, ducking and sliding, narrowly avoiding the blade, and then kicked the man in the face of the shin. The man cried out in pain and lost his balance.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Yang Deyou gathered his spiritual power in his hands and pushed the boxes stacked next to him violently.
It takes four people to work together for an ordinary person, so how difficult is it for a Jindan cultivator?
The heavy boxes fell like dominoes, and the blue-gray stones rolled all over the ground, blocking most of the narrow doorway and tripping the guards behind.
Curses, cries of pain, and the sound of rolling stones mixed together, and the scene suddenly became chaotic.
Taking advantage of this brief delay, Lu Denghe and Yang Deyou climbed over the wall. Outside the courtyard wall was not a smooth road, but a winding and narrow alley.
Although the pursuers were tripped, they reacted quickly and came out to chase after them. Some of them even jumped onto the roof, and arrows followed closely.
Lu Denghe dodged with difficulty after hearing the sound. While running, he took out a few crumpled talisman papers from his arms. Without even looking at them, he randomly injected spiritual power into them and threw them at the two guards who were chasing him closest!
"Puff! Puff!" Two fist-sized fireballs flew out crookedly, their aim extremely poor. One hit the wall, exploding into a ball of sparks, while the other grazed the guard's trouser leg, singeing a piece of fabric and making him jump violently, causing his attack to slow down immediately.
"How amazing! You even have talismans?" Yang Deyou exclaimed in amazement. His mood seemed even better because of the angry guards behind him.
Lu Denghe: "The talisman cultivator you fought with earlier, didn't he damage the inn and had to pay for it? I bought him at a low price. The ancestor taught me how to use it temporarily. It's not bad, right?"
If the timing wasn't inappropriate, Yang Deyou would have given him a fist bump.
The two of them had almost no time to look back, and they made many detours along the way, gradually leaving behind the shouting and footsteps behind them. On the way, they almost tripped over a bamboo pole used by a resident to hang clothes, startling the old woman who was hanging clothes and cursing loudly.
After running for a few miles and confirming that they had temporarily shaken off the pursuers, the two stopped to catch their breath under a hidden eaves.
Lu Denghe wiped his sweat and couldn't help muttering, "Is this old master's magic... diluted? We said the paper cat could last a quarter of an hour, so how did the guard react so quickly?"
Yang Deyou took a deep breath and didn't join him in complaining about Lu Yinche. Suddenly, he thought of something and frowned, "Something's wrong."
"What's wrong?"
"There was such a commotion in the warehouse just now, with people shouting and yelling," Yang Deyou pointed in the direction of Zhang's villa, "but there was no reaction from the main house. Is that mid-stage Jindan guard deaf? If he had chased us out, would we still be able to breathe here?"
Lu Denghe was stunned, and after thinking carefully, he realized that it was indeed the case.
The shouts from the warehouse were clearly audible, but the main house remained dead silent, as if the people inside did not exist at all.
"There's a ghost!" he muttered. "There's definitely a ghost! Elder Zhang had just left when something happened in the warehouse, but there was no movement in the main house... It's so abnormal."
The two daring guys exchanged glances and instantly reached a consensus: since we are here now, we will be in big trouble if we don’t figure it out.
"Go back and check!"
Compared to the liveliness here, Xie Qiaosheng's side is much more boring.
In the past, when he attended banquets, he was always the odd one out who ate silently.
He has a good level of cultivation and a high status, so no one has time to bother him; but now, it is precisely because of his good level of cultivation and high status that he is nailed to this extremely boring position, and has to deal with these old bones with fake smiles on their faces.
He had just finished a perfunctory conversation with the visitor from Xuanji Tower.
The best way to deal with these weird and calculating guys is to be frugal with your words and not let them reveal any truth.
Fortunately, with the example of the Fengling Sword Saint Yan Yanshu, who was a role model before him, silence had become almost a standard trait for sword cultivators, so no one dared to interrogate him. However, Xie Qiaosheng's patience was visibly running out.
It’s all Wei Qi’s fault!
If that guy came, this group of people would definitely surround the "divine doctor". How could they be unable to escape just because he was the only one left in Cheng Xiao Sect?
Listen to what Wei Qi said: "Too many people have brain problems these days. I can't bear not to treat them. If I treat one, another will suffer. Alas, doctors have a kind heart. I can't bear to see them, so I won't go."
Then why are you going out? Just grow mushrooms in the cellar!
Xie Qiaosheng just wanted to roll his eyes. Sure enough, Lu Yinche was unreliable, even his friends were unreliable.
Lu Yinche, who was secretly criticized by him, sneezed suddenly.
Xie Juncun was very close to him at this moment, so close that their chests were pressed against each other's backs and they could feel each other's pulses. He touched his neck and asked, "What's wrong?"
Lu Yinche wanted to shake his hand off, but there was not much room. "Nothing, my nose is itchy. The smell is so strong, I can hardly tell where it comes from."
He was talking about a sweet, greasy smell that had been there since arriving at Huangquan Market. Lu Yinche had even thought it smelled like maltose. Later, he suspected it was the scent of some rejuvenation pill, somehow pervasive. When he asked Xie Juncun about it, he said he didn't notice anything.
But as I stayed longer, my nose got used to the smell and it didn't matter anymore. But now, the smell came back unconsciously, not like malt sugar, but with a sticky, unnerving consistency.
This is a very narrow fork in the road. If you want to eat more than a few bites of food, you have to shrink your body to walk on this road.
Lu Yinche had learned many things, but he never mastered this skill. This was because it was a skill he learned as a child, and when Lu Yinche was a child, he was busy eating and drinking for free.
Xie Juncun sensed the smell Lu Yinche was talking about. Seeing that he really didn't smell it, the latter dodged the man's head that was about to poke into the back of his neck and said, "You are still a Jindan, and don't have a Yuanying sea of consciousness yet. Perhaps this is the mechanism of action. It's okay, we will follow and see what happens."
Xie Juncun naturally had no objection.
They are following someone.
Back to a few hours ago, Lu Yinche and Xie Juncun found the Soul-Locking Stone powder in the room.
A young man like Yang Deyou who is just starting out may not know him, but there is no reason why Lu Yinche should not know him.
The Soul-Locking Stone minerals only exist in extremely cold places and are rare in quantity. However, Xizhou happens to have the largest mineral vein, which is not in Yaocheng, but in the area further south.
It was a rare material that could be used to shape souls, and it treated both ordinary souls below the Nascent Soul stage and divine souls above it equally. Lu Yinche had consumed quite a bit of it in the past, and even made a small fortune reselling it.
The stone is bluish-gray in color. Apart from being unusually heavy, it looks no different at first glance, but it has something quite strange about it.
The Soul-Locking Stone Mine is alive.
If you don't see it with your own eyes, it's hard to believe that a kind of stone can breathe.
The entire vein pulsates at an extremely slow frequency. If the technique is fast enough, dark red blood vessels can be seen moving on the cut cross section.
Xie Juncun wiped his hands, disgusted by the appearance of the thing: "It's a sinister thing."
Lu Yinche wanted to smell it himself, but Xie Juncun stopped him: "It's made from human blood, it's not clean."
He had heard a little about this.
If the Soul-Locking Stone leaves the mine and comes into contact with the breath of a living person, it will easily die, losing its blood-red color and becoming no different from ordinary stone. Relics of high monks, instruments forged from the bones and blood of saints, or magical tools that connect with the souls of powerful beings can be temporarily isolated, preserving their properties.
The human mind can always come up with more devious and insidious methods. If living people can't do it, then dead people will. If the average person lacks quality, they make up for it with quantity.
Based on an extremely sinister formation, with the blood of tens of thousands of people soaked in it and their souls turned into coal, the Soul Locking Stone can be chiseled into pieces, trapping its activity.
This will consume a lot of energy, and in turn, the powder can be used to separate the souls of other people, which will only add billions of lives.
It is really a cycle of children giving birth to grandchildren, and grandchildren giving birth to children.
They couldn't help but think of the rat - its soul was dug out, leaving only its body, a walking corpse lingering in the world. Those close to it were unaware of the inside story and had no idea that it had already been separated from the world.
What are these people doing?
To separate the soul and refine the medicine man? Under the effect of the Soul Locking Stone, the soul can indeed leave the body and remain. But what are these medicine men doing? Which old immortal hasn't lived enough and wants to use this thing to prolong his life? Or, is he delusional to use these "believers"...
Become a god?
Lu Yinche slapped his head and said, "Speaking of souls, I forgot to ask Xie Qiaosheng if he has found any trace of the Soul Locking Stone."
Xie Juncun shook his head: "If he saw it, he would definitely tell everyone."
"Do you trust your future senior brother so much?" Lu Yinche raised his eyebrows, trying to tease him, but Xie Juncun remained unmoved.
"Okay, why do you think there's a Soul Locking Stone here? Maybe a prostitute is unhappy about being eavesdropped on, and even physically revealing their heart and soul isn't enough, so they're using this thing to just take the person's soul out."
Xie Juncun said, "It doesn't seem like an accident. Such tactics can easily attract evil spirits, but there is no ghostly aura here. The person who did this is no novice, and he must have been prepared."
Lu Yinche tapped the table with his knuckles, looking thoughtful.
He thought of the ferocious giant python in the dense forest and the large soul-gathering pill. It had no consciousness, just a reptile's soul. Why would it require so many soul-locking stones? Its wealth surprised him.
Xie Juncun cradled his pristine longsword, leaning quietly against the doorway as he listened to Lu Yinche's speculations. "We'll leave aside the question of what this pit was originally dug for, but whoever got the Soul-Locking Stone dust here might have been hiding here and accidentally rubbed some off. Considering the Red Cave's business, it's very likely their merchandise—some poor soul avoiding their benefactor, or rather, their buyer."
If this is the case, what was the person hiding inside thinking at the time?
Why does he have this powder on his body? Is his soul still in his body? Is he using his cautious reason to resist the withdrawal of his soul?
This unlucky guy not only doesn't own his body, but even his soul has already been destined for a certain place.
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