Chapter 26 The Thousand-Year-Old Pearl Unseen 2 It's like two trees closely nestled together...
The sun was still high in the sky, but there were hardly any people on the road. Lü Qianhe led the group to the nearest house, raised her hand and knocked on the door. There was a sound from inside, and the door was quickly opened. The village chief looked tired, his hair was messy, and he looked worried.
He glanced at the four new young people, then turned away without any emotion, his voice old and hoarse: "I'll take you to see."
An elderly woman also came out, looking haggard but with a forced smile: "Thank you so much, Taoist priests. How could such a thing happen in this village..."
Mingying smiled reassuringly at her: "Don't worry, Auntie, we'll take care of it."
Lu Qianhe bowed her head as she entered the room. She didn't go any further inside but sat down on a chair in the main room. The others followed the village chief to the room where Chen Shu and Liu Kan had previously stayed. The room was small, and it was quite crowded with five people inside.
The village chief explained, "None of the furnishings here have been touched."
Mingyan looked around, staring at the dried bloodstains by the bed, and frowned: "It doesn't look like there was a fight in the room, but this bloodstain is really not right."
Mingying asked the village chief, "When did you discover they were missing? Was there anything unusual that day?"
The village chief shook his head and smiled bitterly: "There's nothing there. The two Taoist priests only said they were going to investigate the village. I thought they had only been gone for a few days, but I haven't seen them since. Come to think of it... it's been almost half a month since I last saw the two Taoist priests."
"Did they find out anything?"
“We don’t know anything. We’ve searched every household, but they’re not here. We don’t know where they are. Pei Niang and I are thinking that maybe they had an emergency and left temporarily, and they’re not in the village anymore.”
Xiao Jingze tapped his thumb ring: "No, they're still in the village."
Feng Yi nodded: "The Jin clan cultivators are all equipped with storage magic items. Since their packages and letters are all here, they will definitely take them with them if they want to leave the village. In this way, they can only leave in a hurry and return soon... It's a pity that an accident happened on the way."
Mingyan squatted down to examine the bloodstains carefully: "There's been no news for the past few days, it seems they're not going to make it."
With the compass in his hand remaining motionless, Xiao Jingze lifted his eyelids and said, "If nothing unexpected happens, they are indeed dead."
This result was expected, and no one spoke for a moment.
Mingying thought for a moment and then asked, "Village chief, has anything bad happened to any family in the village recently? When we came here, we heard that a woman named Granny Wu had also passed away. Was she also from the village?"
The village chief stroked his beard and recalled, "Let me think... You're talking about that family at the foot of the mountain, right? She was also a widowed old woman. She found Atu by the Yi River. I told Pei Niang about it back then. That poor old woman, Wu Po, actually raised a poor little ghost. I don't know how many years it would take to grow up and take care of her. Who would have thought that she would leave at such a young age? How pitiful."
Mingying pursed her lips: "And how did she get into trouble?"
"Nobody knows for sure. A few days ago... around dusk, Wang Niang was packing up her stall and passed by her house when she saw the old woman lying stiffly on the ground. She checked and found she was already dead. At that age, there's nothing that can be done. A fall can easily take half your life. And that day, A Tu wasn't home. Sigh, it's all fate."
So, it seems this grandfather and grandson have had a really tough life... Feng Yi felt a pang of sympathy and wasn't so angry at the little thief anymore. He was also an orphan without parents, and if he hadn't been fortunate enough to be taken in by the Jin family, he wouldn't know where he would be rotting away somewhere.
He turned around and suggested, "Why don't we go to Granny Wu's house and take a look? Her death was suspicious; perhaps there's more to it than meets the eye."
The village chief waved his hand and sighed, "You have no idea what Atu is like now. He's a completely different person since Granny Wu left. He burned that house down long ago!"
Feng Yi was shocked: "He started the fire himself? Why would he do that!"
"If you ask me... there have been a lot of strange things happening in the village lately, that kid has probably gone mad."
Mingying pondered for a moment, then raised her head and said to everyone, "Could what we're looking for be with Atu?"
The unexpected death of Upo and A-Tu's strange behavior may also be due to the Thousand-Seeking Pearl.
Feng Yi slapped his forehead, looking annoyed: "That's very possible, it's just that we happened to let him go at the time."
The compass transformed into a golden ring and retracted. Xiao Jingze took off the ring and held it in his palm, his expression unchanged: "Then let's find him again."
Lu Qianhe sat opposite Pei Niang with a serious expression. The tea on the table remained untouched. When she saw the group leave the room, she glanced over to them.
Mingying explained to her in a few words, then smiled and said, "We plan to go find Atu first, thank you Elder Lü."
After hearing this, Lü Qianhe nodded without any expression.
Xiao Jingze stood outside the house, holding the Thousand Machine Guide and channeling spiritual power into it. Golden threads appeared in the void, their ends disappearing into the back mountain. He opened his eyes and looked around: "What's so special about that mountain?"
The village chief felt his pupils turn into a beast-like golden light for a moment, but they returned to normal in the blink of an eye, as if what he had just seen was just an illusion.
He followed his gaze somewhat slowly, his tone revealing a hint of desolation: "That's Yishan Mountain. Generations of people from our Yishui Village are buried there."
——
As the sun set in the west, the afterglow, like blood, smeared the outer robes of passersby. Mingying passed many small graves, turned around and looked down at the mountain path she had come from, feeling that the whole world was a sea of red sand.
She turned back, as if sensing something: "Did A-Tu come to Yishan to worship the Black Goddess?"
Mingyan glanced at her: "Burning houses and stealing purses, and now he's here to worship the Crow Goddess. What kind of illusion is Qianxun Pearl to have with all the things he's done?"
Feng Yi guessed, "Maybe Qianxunzhu has become his parents, and he did all these things based on his imaginary parents."
Xiao Jingze chuckled: "Since the Thousand-Seeking Pearl is an inanimate object, it naturally cannot be created out of thin air. Its illusions can only originate from people's inner thoughts."
Feng Yi stroked his chin: "So, since he's never met his parents, Qianxun Pearl can't transform into their likeness?"
Mingying explained to him, "Qianxun Pearl may not be able to transform into his real parents, but it may become the parents he imagines."
Feng Yi thought about it carefully, then rubbed his arms: "That's really...terrifying."
Fortunately, he had no feelings for his parents, whom he didn't know at all.
Lu Qianhe followed them silently, her gaze fixed on Ming Ying, not joining their conversation. The young lady had instructed in her letter that her primary task was to ensure the safety of the Ming Clan's goddess.
Mingying wandered around, looking at everything. She noticed a withered tree that looked different from the others, and curiously approached it, squinting to examine it closely...!!
She turned pale and backed away, bumping into someone. Xiao Jingze covered her eyes from behind: "Don't look."
He stared intently at the "dead tree" with a grave expression. Seeing the two of them remain motionless, Feng Yi walked over curiously: "What are you seeing?! What the hell?!"
He let out a quack in terror, and Xiao Jingze moved his hand back to cover Mingying's ears as well: "What are you yelling about?"
Mingyan gripped her sword tightly, cautiously stepped forward, then retreated a few steps in disgust. A corpse stood beside a tree, its head pierced by a branch, its body shrouded in yellow sand, like two trees closely huddled together.
Lu Qianhe still had a blank expression. She carefully examined him and said, "This is Liu Kan. I never thought he would die here."
Mingying tapped Xiao Jingze's hand: "I'm ready, you can put it down now."
Her eyelashes brushed lightly against his palm. Xiao Jingze paused, lowered his hand, and then, realizing they were too close, took a few steps back.
Mingying frowned as she looked at the "withered tree," then looked around: "Did Chen Shu kill him? And where is Chen Shu now?"
Without saying a word, Lü Qianhe unleashed a wind blade. Liu Kan lost the support of the tree branch and fell to the ground in an awkward position. Lü Qianhe put him into her storage device: "He should be nearby."
Feng Yi shrank back, feeling as if the shocking scene was still replaying in his mind. He wouldn't be able to eat properly for the next few days.
Mingyan felt disgusted just thinking about it, and something seemed off: "If the two of them were fighting, why didn't Liu Kan have any sword wounds? Could the blood on that letter be Chen Shu's blood?"
Mingying pointed to a protrusion under the tree: "Perhaps it was the letter that Liu Kan wrote after killing Chen Shu. If it wasn't far away... Chen Shu might be lying there."
Xiao Jingze looked in the direction she pointed. There was a small mound under the tree, which looked shorter than the nearby graves. He blew the mound away, revealing a dry head. Lu Qianhe looked closely and saw that it was indeed Chen Shu.
The two cultivators were found, and Lü Qianhe calmly took them back... No, she hadn't found them all.
Feng Yi looked up and saw a head floating in the air with its eyes wide open in death. His body trembled again, and he cried out, "He...he...how come there's only one piece!"
Mingying picked up a twig and poked it on the ground, her tone calm: "There's another piece here."
Looking at the arm buried under the tree, Mingyan concluded, "It was probably scattered on the ground, and because of the strong winds and sand here, it was buried."
With everyone's help, they gathered his fragments and pieced them together. Lü Qianhe looked at the broken piece and said, "Liu Kan's swordsmanship was quite good. He thought Chen Shu was crazy, so he took the initiative to kill him. But now it seems that he himself is quite crazy."
Lu Qianhe retrieved the intact corpse, thus completing half of her mission. Feng Yi patted his chest with lingering fear: "If it were merely an illusion, it wouldn't have come to this. This Thousand-Seeking Pearl is probably no ordinary object."
Mingying dusted off her hands: "It seems we still need to find Atu first."
Xiao Jingze casually glanced to one side, and the Thousand Machines Divination Light flashed. A figure flashed behind a tree. His eyes narrowed slightly, and the golden ring slipped from his hand to stop it, but it circled in the air and returned to his hand. He raised an eyebrow, held the golden ring, made a hand seal, and followed the direction of the golden thread.
Mingying felt a gust of wind brush past her back, but when she turned around, she couldn't see anyone. Why did Xiao Jingze suddenly leave?
——
Dust hung in the air as Atu darted about in the withered forest like a monkey. Xiao Jingze was getting impatient. He twirled the golden ring around his hand twice, about to toss it up, when a light footstep came from behind him: "Why are you running so fast? Why didn't you wait for me?"
Xiao Jingze paused, turning around to see Mingying running towards him, her skirt billowing. She clumsily tripped over a tree branch and was about to fall when he quickly reached out to catch her. She crashed into his arms, her body emanating a rich floral fragrance, like crushed spring petals, their essence permeating his very being.
Mingying swayed and steadied herself, then leaned against him and hopped on one foot: "I think I twisted my ankle."
Xiao Jingze remained silent for a moment, and after a brief silence, he suddenly smiled and said, "That's interesting."
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Author's Note: As we all know, Xiao Jingze is a player who has a powerful backer and spends a lot of money. Ordinary cultivators usually only have one natal magic weapon, such as Lü Qianhe's seven-stringed zither and Ming Yan's Bixiao sword. They all emphasize using one magic weapon to overcome all other magic weapons.
Xiao Jingze's natal magic weapon is twelve golden rings, but each golden ring is a different magic weapon, such as the "Myriad Things Return to Nothingness, Yet Reach the Ends of the Earth" mentioned earlier, which I haven't had a chance to introduce properly yet. This set of golden rings also has a very chuunibyou (delusional) name.
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