Mu Sicheng's head became increasingly dizzy, and everything in front of his eyes appeared double.
Another floating corpse circled around and approached Bai Liu. Mu Sicheng subconsciously slapped it, but the corpse dodged. Mu Sicheng's slap hit Bai Liu in the face. Bai Liu tilted his head down a little, and his lip was cut by his fangs.
A line of blood oozed out from the corner of his mouth, dripped onto his fangs, and melted into Bai Liu's lips.
Mu Sicheng was still struggling with these lingering floating corpses. His face seemed to be covered with a thick layer of plaster, and even his facial features could not be seen. His hands and feet were turned over, with his wrists and elbows facing inwards.
The pale bodies of the floating corpses on the water surface piled up in front of Mu Sicheng, and the floating corpses underwater swayed and dragged Mu Sicheng's ankles. Some floating corpses took the opportunity to bypass Mu Sicheng and dived in front of Bai Liu behind him.
Bai Liu, who was hanging under the bridge, was pulled by several floating corpses that slipped past, and his shirt was almost torn.
The drop of blood on Bai Liu's lips dripped into the water, and he slowly opened his eyes.
Mu Sicheng was pulled so that only half of his head was exposed above the water. He was grabbed by the collar and pulled to the side. Suddenly, a fierce golden light exploded from behind him, enveloping all the floating corpses and the woman in white in front of him.
The golden light was so dazzling that people dared not look directly at it. Mu Sicheng, who was pulled aside, felt as if he was being sucked in.
Bai Liu held up a tattered umbrella to block Mu Sicheng in front of him. Golden light shone from the inside of the umbrella, trapping the floating corpses and ghosts who died on the bridge while chasing after him.
The floating corpses and ghosts who died on the bridge had hideous faces. They stretched out their limbs and struggled miserably, trying to break free from the white paper umbrella. However, they were like small pieces of iron attracted by a magnet, firmly fixed in the open umbrella of Bai Liu under the bridge, unable to move at all.
Bai Liu hung the umbrella on the hook under the bridge, circled around the floating corpses and ghosts from under the water, and then floated up. With a pale face, he stretched out his wrist to suck some life force from Mu Sicheng, who was already dumbfounded standing by.
After Mu Sicheng recovered his facial features, Bai Liu immediately gave a calm order: "Take me to the bridge, run, we will be safe once we get off the bridge."
Upon hearing this, Mu Sicheng climbed onto the bridge. After getting on the bridge, he quickly turned around and pulled Bai Liu up by his arms. He then held Bai Liu's shoulder and ran down the bridge without looking back.
He heard the sound of small feet chasing behind him. Mu Sicheng turned around and saw the woman with half her face missing running after Bai Liu and the others with a resentful look on her face. Her mouth was huge and her upper and lower teeth moved with a clicking sound as if she was talking. Through her mouth, he could directly see the mud and sand in her mouth and the rotten bones in the back of her neck.
Mu Sicheng raised his voice: "She is chasing us!"
"Don't look back." Bai Liu, who was lying on Mu Sicheng's shoulder, reminded him softly. His face looked very haggard, but his tone was still calm, "She can't chase down the bridge."
Bai Liu's calmness calmed Mu Sicheng a lot. Mu Sicheng used up almost all his strength and ran down the bridge with Bai Liu half on his back. He ran all the way to the entrance of the main tomb chamber before he dared to put Bai Liu down from his shoulders. He sat on the ground and gasped for breath.
Although logically, Mu Sicheng was already a ghost and didn't need to breathe, the intense situation just now still triggered his physiological reactions as a human being.
Mu Sicheng propped himself up on the ground with his hands, raised his head, and his chest rose and fell violently. His eyes were dimmed, and he asked, "...didn't they catch up with me?"
Bai Liu leaned against the earth wall and looked towards the bridge: "No one caught up with us."
The ghost who died on the bridge was wandering back and forth on the bridge in white clothes. Looking from afar, the upper half of her face had grown back and she seemed to be staring at Bai Liu. But after a while, she turned around quietly, walked to the edge of the bridge step by step in a graceful manner, opened her arms, leaped forward, and jumped down.
The spreading darkness gradually swallowed up the bridge. All that could be seen was some floating green fluorescent lights and the sound of some sad women sobbing:
"My Lord, why haven't you returned yet? I am left alone to guard the bridge day and night..."
Mu Sicheng finally heaved a sigh of relief and said in a trance, "It's finally quiet."
"How do you know they won't chase us to the bottom of the bridge?" Mu Sicheng came to his senses. He turned around and asked Bai Liu curiously, "And what about that umbrella? Why did it suddenly emit golden light?"
Bai Liu stood up, clapped his hands and looked down at Mu Sicheng who was still sitting on the ground: "Do you remember I showed you that there was a yellow talisman stuck in the umbrella?"
Mu Sicheng thought for a moment and said, "I remember."
Bai Liu: "That spell is called the [Body Binding Talisman], and its function is to trap ghosts in the place where they died tragically in their lifetime. It can be said to be a formation to trap powerful ghosts, and it is one of the Maoshan orthodox techniques."
"The effect of this spell is mentioned in my Maoshan Witchcraft Handwritten Book, but there is no drawing method for this spell. Using this spell on the ghosts who died on the bridge is obviously to prevent people from crossing the bridge. It is to kill the two of us who accidentally entered the tomb."
Mu Sicheng asked cautiously, "Do you know who it is?"
"This talisman is very new. It took no more than a day to draw it." Bai Liu lowered his eyes. "If there are no other strangers in Yinshan Village, then it is very likely that Kong Xuyang and Yang Zhi made it."
Mu Sicheng cursed, "You two idiots."
"But it's not all bad that they are willing to draw talismans to harm us." Bai Liu slowly pulled out a wet but still intact talisman from his sleeve. It was the [Binding Talisman].
Bai Liu smiled and said, "We are in need of the righteous spell."
Mu Sicheng was shocked: "You tore the talisman off the umbrella!"
"Well, because there was more than one talisman in the umbrella, Kong Xuyang seemed to have stuck three talismans in the umbrella of the bridge-sacrificing ghost in order to ensure that his plan would not go wrong and that he would be able to trap the person crossing the bridge." Bai Liu put away the talismans and looked at Mu Sicheng. "I tore off one, stuck one on the bridge-sacrificing ghost, and left the other in the umbrella."
Mu Sicheng finally reacted: "Those floating corpses died in the river under the bridge, so you asked me to go back to the bridge, and then use the umbrella with the [Binding Talisman] to shine at them, and they will be trapped, because the talisman will trap them in the place where they died!"
Bai Liu nodded: "My plan is indeed correct, but something went wrong during the execution."
Mu Sicheng noticed the two small fangs on Bai Liu's lips, and stood up in anger, pointing at Bai Liu and cursing: "This is called a small mistake! You fainted! You almost turned into a zombie! Your plan almost turned us all into ghosts, okay!"
Bai Liu sighed with regret: "How could I know you were so useless? I got the umbrella that you need to pass the ghost bridge. I also told you the path to the bottom of the bridge. All you have to do is open the umbrella."
"But you actually went to fight these floating corpses." Bai Liu looked at Mu Sicheng quietly, then retracted his gaze and shook his head gently, "...Forget it, I can't blame you. I was also wrong to choose you as a teammate."
Mu Sicheng: "..."
...After Bai Liu said this, it seemed like it was really his fault from the beginning to the end...
How could he be so stupid? Yes, why didn't he think of opening the umbrella at that time? !
Mu Sicheng began to reflect seriously and painfully on his own stupidity and mistakes, even his head drooping listlessly.
Bai Liu, who didn't tell his teammates about the plan and fainted during the process, passed all the blame to his teammates afterwards. He glanced at Mu Sicheng calmly and patted his shoulder tolerantly: "It's okay, just be careful next time. Let's go first."
Mu Sicheng glanced at Bai Liu's sharp teeth sticking out of his lips, and felt more and more guilty. He asked awkwardly, "...Are you okay, you zombie fang?"
"It's okay." Bai Liu waved his hand to indicate that it was not a big problem. "A real zombie's teeth are more than an inch long. Mine is at most just too much yin energy."
Mu Sicheng frowned and asked, "Is it just that the Yin energy is too strong? Then why couldn't you wake up before?"
"The Yin Qi, Yin Water, and the Underworld Bridge had a great impact on a living person like me, and made me fuzzy for a while." Bai Liu looked at Mu Sicheng, "I may also fall into this state of fuzziness later, but there is a way to wake me up."
Mu Sicheng listened carefully: "What method?"
Bai Liu tapped the blood stain on his fangs and said, "That's it. Human blood. Sucking human blood can wake me up."
Mu Sicheng was stunned: "This tomb is full of ghosts from the underworld, where does the blood of living people come from..."
"I am." Bai Liu smiled. "Although I have a lot of yin energy, I am still a living person. My blood is useful. You hit my teeth before and made me bleed. I will wake up by myself when I taste the smell."
Mu Sicheng was silent for a while: "Thank you, brother."
He knew that Bai Liu did this just to save his life.
Bai Liu smiled and said, "I always feel that your life should have been mine for a long time. It's natural for me to protect my things. No need to thank me."
As they talked, they walked towards the main tomb chamber. Soon they arrived at the place where the paper Taoist had burned before. The ground was covered with ashes. After taking another step inside, they stepped into the passage of the main tomb.
The passage was pitch black, with no light to be seen, but one could smell a strong, nauseating scent of candle oil mixed with the greasy sweet aroma of rotten fruit and wedding candy.
Moreover, unlike the cold and gloomy ghost bridge before, the closer Bai Liu and the others got to the main tomb, the higher the temperature became. Heat waves surged in from inside, and the smell of rotten fruits and wedding candies became fresh, and the smell of candles and ointments became pleasant.
Faintly there could be the sounds of clinking glasses, people congratulating each other, footsteps of people coming and going, and the scolding of children playing; these sounds were transmitted through the tomb passage and turned into extremely long and ethereal echoes, changing the atmosphere from joyous to eerie.
"It's very lively inside this tomb." Bai Liu looked towards the main tomb passage with a sense of realization. "It sounds like a big banquet is being held."
Mu Sicheng rubbed his arms, goosebumps all over his body. "Are there not a lot of ghosts in here?"
"I don't know if it's a lot." Bai Liu's eyes were calm, "Anyway, it must be a lot, otherwise it wouldn't be possible."
He took a step inside, stepped over the ashes left by the burning paper Taoist priest, and entered the main tomb passage.
The pitch-black passage suddenly lit up with red lanterns from the outside to the inside. On the red lanterns, a "囍" character was pasted in white. They were hung from the outside all the way to the inside where Bai Liu couldn't see. The bright red light shining through the lanterns made the passage seem like it was bleeding.
The originally vague voice in the tomb passage suddenly became clear and sharp: "A guest has come to congratulate us!"