Chapter 67 Blood Cave
The piercing scream only lasted three times, getting higher, louder, and sharper with each scream, but then, on the third scream, it suddenly stopped abruptly with a snap.
The Kingdom of a Thousand Buddhas returned to silence.
Lin Chengye's heart, which had just been pounding, sank heavily. His steps, which were leading the way, faltered, and his taut nerves snapped. A look of bewilderment appeared between his brows.
"Over here!"
But soon, she clenched her fists again, her gaze focused, and waved to the two people behind her.
At the end of that direction was the white wall of Yongfo Temple. Lin Chengye ignored it, leaped over the wall, and landed on the empty street.
Where is it? It should be somewhere nearby. The direction is right, and it shouldn't be too far.
Sensations were sluggish in the cold air. Lin Chengye had only taken two steps forward haphazardly when a gust of cold wind swept past her from behind, ruffling her high-tied hair. This shouldn't have made someone with profound internal strength flinch, but the pungent smell of blood that followed made Lin Chengye stiffen all over.
She had witnessed countless deaths—painful, peaceful, resolute—yet each time, she could not calmly face those faces.
Lin Chengye took a deep breath and turned around.
The deep, bright red blood, like plum blossoms, blooms on the white walls of the Buddhist temple. A person kneels facing the wall, head bowed, as if kneeling in a plum blossom grove.
Warm blood continued to gush from the man's body, colliding with the cold and creating a faint white mist around him. She seemed to see with her own eyes the man's soul rising up and gradually separating from his flesh.
Despite having mentally prepared herself, the sight before her still made her heart clench with pain. Lin Chengye immediately rushed over and reached out to check the person's nose; they were no longer breathing.
Lin Chengye took off the black robe that was already half-soaked in blood and gently wrapped it around the person. She stared at the bloodstains that were spreading larger and larger on the snow, feeling the skin of the person under her palm slowly getting cold and hard.
We don't even know how much hardship a life has to endure to survive, yet death only takes a blink of an eye, a breath. This is just too unfair.
Two more figures climbed over the wall. Wei Jingchen stepped directly into the blood. When she saw this scene, she was stunned at first, then gritted her teeth and her expression suddenly became extremely terrifying and ferocious.
"Under the emperor's very nose... how could such a thing happen! Who dares to be so audacious!"
Wei Jingchen hadn't felt this angry in a long time. She recalled how she had left Lin Su City in such a humiliating way half a year ago, and now that she had returned, that humiliation had only intensified. She couldn't understand how such a deadly act could happen so openly and brazenly in broad daylight, so close to Lin Su.
What use is an emperor to the common people?
She took a deep breath, squatted down, and together with Lin Chengye, stretched out the almost folded person, laid her flat on the ground, and wiped the blood off her face.
This was a woman, but her age was hard to discern. Her features were completely distorted by pain, her eyeballs bulged out, and her fingers were digging into her cheeks, slashing her face.
Lin Chengye pried open her mouth, and blood gushed out. He inserted two fingers and discovered that she had even bitten off her own tongue. It was unimaginable what kind of pain this woman must have been in to commit such a cruel act of self-harm.
Lin Chengye's gaze slowly descended, then he suddenly stopped. Just as Jiang Heng had said, there was a fist-sized bloody hole directly in front of the woman's chest, from which she was still vomiting blood. Lin Chengye peered inside and found that the fist-sized hole had no flesh, no bone, and no internal organs. He took out a small broken bone; the cross-section was quite strange, not smooth and even, but rather rough and irregular.
"What kind of sharp weapon could cause such a wound? So... cruel."
Wei Jingchen covered her mouth and nose, gagged, the strong smell of blood making her dizzy. She cursed under her breath.
"Damn it, why hasn't anyone come yet? Didn't anyone hear that sound just now?"
Lin Chengye's expression was solemn. After pondering for a long time, he suddenly stared at the blood covering the wall and murmured.
"No, it doesn't look like a sharp weapon. No, no, it's not a sharp weapon..."
As if he had just thought of something, Lin Chengye suddenly grabbed Wei Jingchen's forearm and stared at her with bloodshot eyes.
"What's the meaning."
Wei Jingchen was startled; she found Lin Chengye's eyes to be terrifying at that moment.
"...If it was a sharp weapon, then it should have wounded the woman in the chest. There are no wounds on her back, meaning it wasn't a penetrating wound. She was kneeling facing the wall just now, and the murderer was between the woman and the wall, but look at the bloodstains on the wall, they are very intact. There are no signs of a break."
Lin Chengye spoke in a hoarse voice, staring into Wei Jingchen's eyes as he enunciated each word clearly.
"What do you think this is? Your Highness, please tell me."
This person clearly knows, clearly knows, yet she insists on making her say it. Who does she think she is, and why is she so presumptuous?
Wei Jingchen suddenly became even angrier, as if all his former self-control and composure had vanished. He immediately swung his fist and punched Lin Chengye in the left shoulder. The man groaned in pain, grabbed Wei Jingchen's wrist, and suddenly his lips twitched, his eyes filled with blatant mockery and sarcasm.
She couldn't break free from Lin Chengye's grasp, and his gaze grew increasingly intense, filled with questioning and disbelief. Wei Jingchen suddenly felt an indescribable bitterness choking her throat. She understood what Lin Chengye was asking and what he was angry about, but she felt that even a single word would be inadequate at this moment.
Wei Jingchen closed his eyes, knowing he had lost completely to this person and could only surrender. He slowly spoke.
"It was like something... crawled out of her body..."
After speaking, Lin Chengye released his grip, pursed his lips, and remained silent. His well-defined knuckles rested on his forehead, and the anger in his eyes was almost bursting out. Wei Jingchen felt a sharp pain in his forearm where Lin Chengye had just gripped him; there was definitely a bruise under his clothes.
After a while, the tension between the two finally eased, and Wei Jingchen finally spoke awkwardly.
“But you can’t question me like that, doubt me. I really didn’t know about this.”
"Your Highness, Qing Shi's exact words were that this strange disease occurs every winter. Is it possible that this matter has not reached Lin Su City, the palace, His Majesty, or even... your ears?"
Even Her Highness the Eldest Princess is here. How could this be? How could this be? How could this be... Is it unimportant? Is it because she won't appear at Yongfo Temple that we don't need to deal with her?
Lin Chengye raised his hand and gently covered the woman's wide-open, bulging eyes. Through his fingers, the eyes seemed to still be wailing pitifully, unable to close or find peace.
"I don't believe it, Your Highness."
Did she really believe that? Wei Jingchen felt that she was the one who thought everything was utterly absurd. The anger he had just suppressed resurfaced, and the veins on the back of his hand, gripping the sword at his waist, bulged.
"you……"
"What are you doing! Don't touch it!"
Suddenly, a sharp scream rang out. Lin Chengye turned around and saw a woman passing by covering her mouth tightly. Her head was covered with a large white headscarf, and her eyes, the only part of her face visible, were filled with terror. She took several steps back, and even the basket she was carrying fell to the ground at her feet.
"Gods... what are you doing? How could you touch someone with this ghostly disease? Hurry, get out of there... God, God..."
The woman wearing a headscarf clasped her hands together and muttered incantations towards the sky, mostly about gods and sins. Lin Chengye listened, puzzled. The person was dying right before his eyes; why was she praying to ghosts and gods? She didn't move, but shouted at her.
"But what should we do with this person? Are we just going to leave her here? Could you come over and help identify who she is? I'll help take her home."
"No! I don't know her! A sorceress will come, a sorceress will come... Someone must have already gone to see that sorceress. Staying with a corpse infected with a ghost disease will... will turn you into something like her."
Wei Jingchen's pent-up anger was completely ignited by the woman's incoherent words. She stood up abruptly and rebuked her.
"What nonsense! There are no ghosts or monsters in this world!"
"Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer!"
Unexpectedly, when the woman saw Wei Jingchen stand up and saw that almost half of her body was covered in the blood of the person with the ghost disease, she was so frightened that she lost her composure. She didn't even care about the basket that had fallen, and screamed as she turned and ran into the alley.
Wei Jingchen was stunned. She stood in the wind, the snowflakes that were blown up covered her eyelashes and blurred her vision. She was confused and did not understand why the Pure Land of a Thousand Buddhas that everyone talked about had become like this.
Lin Chengye's questioning left her speechless, as if peeling off a layer of her face, revealing the rotten flesh beneath the self-proclaimed noble facade of the Lai Kingdom's royal family.
Tap tap, tap tap, tap tap.
Suddenly, Lin Chengye looked up and around. She seemed to hear a few soft, rhythmic sounds, as if something was hitting the ground. The sounds grew louder and closer, and were coming from her direction.
A thin, small figure appeared in the falling snow, like a child. But as the person approached, Lin Chengye realized that it was actually a very old woman, her body hunched over, holding a peach wood cane in one hand.
The very old woman wore a white headscarf, just like the woman from before, but it was loosely wrapped around her neck, looking like a comical hood. Her eyesight seemed poor as well, and she walked slowly until she was right in front of Lin Chengye, where she had to crane her neck to get very close.
But the old woman smiled the moment she saw Lin Chengye clearly, a genuine smile that even revealed a set of missing teeth. She seemed oblivious to the bloodstains and the bizarre scene, simply staring at Lin Chengye as she spoke.
"My name is Lou Sanbai, the one they call..."
"A fortune teller?"
Lin Chengye wiped the blood off his hands onto his clothes and bowed respectfully to the sorceress.
"Please take a look at this woman, what exactly happened?"
The fortune teller raised an eyebrow and muttered something.
"Do I look like a fortune teller? Well, well, it's not surprising that you could guess. The gods say you're very clever."
Only then did she look at the corpse beside her. The sorceress lowered her head and carefully examined the woman's face. Slowly, the smile on her face disappeared. The sorceress reached out and touched the dead girl's face, tears falling like rain, washing away the blood and grime from the dead girl's face.
"You still...you still..."
Lin Chengye looked at the sorceress and felt that she seemed even thinner than before, her forehead so low that it almost touched the snow.
"Girl, please help me carry her back."
After a long while, the sorceress finally sat up. She grinned again, but this time the smile looked sorrowful, with two tear tracks on her bulging cheekbones.
Without asking any further questions, Lin Chengye deftly carried the woman's body on his back and followed behind the sorceress, stomping deep pits into the snow.
The two walked for a long time before Lin Chengye realized that Wei Jingchen hadn't followed, but she was too lazy to care. She was filled with unanswered questions, and a feeling of suffocation and oppression filled her chest. Lin Chengye couldn't help but speak up.
"Sorcerer, what's going on? What kind of illness is this? Why..."
"I know nothing."
The sorceress shook her head with her back turned.
"But God told me that you can figure it out."
The sorceress suddenly stopped and turned to look at Lin Chengye. She announced calmly and frankly.
"Because I will die in three days."
The tone was as natural as if she were asking for breakfast the next morning. The sorceress pointed to the corpse on Lin Chengye's back and said.
"Look, just like her."
"Then you'll be able to see for yourself how all of this happened."
Author's Note: It feels like I haven't had a single good day since entering Lai Kingdom (?).
Cheng Ye and Jing Chen remain wary of each other, so there will likely be many frictions. However, arguments aren't always a bad thing; effective debate is the quickest way to understand each other and analyze the facts. These two also have a long way to go before they become relatively compatible friends or a ruler and subject.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
