Chapter 136 The Soul-Chasing Talisman: Originally, the whole family was reunited, but he was left alone in the mortal world...
Chen Ying stayed by the bedside without leaving for a moment, watching as the masked man tried every possible method to save Lu Bing, who had just died, in an attempt to pull him back from the brink of death.
Chen Ying stared intently at Lu Bing, who lay lifeless on the bed, her heart filled with anxiety and unease. She was restless and could only repeatedly remind A Cong, "He can't die, he absolutely can't just die like this. I've endured more than ten years of hard work, and it's almost done. We're just one step away, just one last step. If Lu Bing dies at this critical juncture, how many more years will we have to wait... A Cong!"
At this moment, Ah Cong was also extremely annoyed by her. He suddenly turned around and gestured forcefully at Chen Ying, meaning: Since you know you can't make a mistake, why did you throw him to Qing Mang!
Chen Ying was already anxious and had nowhere to vent her frustration. When she was questioned by A Cong, she suddenly slapped him across the face and shouted, "Save him!" She never showed any mercy when she hit people. A Cong was already used to her unpredictable moods and did not complain at all. He was only focused on saving Lu Bing.
As time went by, Chen Ying started biting her nails again.
Ah Cong pinched almost every acupoint on Lu Bing's body, including Yintang, Lianquan, Baihui... He pinched so hard that the skin turned blue and purple.
Finally, Chen Ying seemed to see Lu Bing's eyeballs roll under his thin eyelids.
She lunged forward and pointed to feel Lu Bing's pulse.
Chen Ying held her breath, carefully sensing her pulse, which had stopped beating, suddenly throbbed beneath her fingertips. Though extremely weak, it beat again.
"There's a pulse." After saying that, Chen Ying lowered her head and rested it on her arms, finally taking a deep breath.
She seemed to be completely exhausted, and sat down on the footstool on the edge of the bed.
"He really dares to die." Chen Ying felt she needed to calm down; Lu Bing's outburst tonight had almost scared her half to death.
After confirming that Lu Bing had a heartbeat and was breathing again, A Cong straightened up, and his previously stiff and sturdy shoulders slumped down.
He stared at Chen Ying in silence for a long while, then gestured to her: You care about him a lot?
"Nonsense!" Chen Ying said, "I've staked everything on him. Success or failure hinges on this one move. We both have to rely on him. If something happens to him now, how many more years will I have to struggle?"
Ah-Cong sign language: If that's the case, why don't you take good care of him?
"Why weren't you taking good care of her?!"
Whenever she gets angry, she'll give people a hard time every few days. Is that what you call taking good care of someone?
Ah-Cong often felt that the art of Gu magic might be too heinous, which was why Gu practitioners were particularly prone to going insane, leading to Chen Ying's increasingly depraved personality.
Because of her ability to control ailments, she became increasingly inhuman.
Chen Ying casually remarked: "Why would I need that useless thing? Is it in the way?"
For a Gu master, human nature is a very troublesome thing.
She was never soft-hearted, even towards Shen Yuanwen, she acted swiftly and decisively, without even blinking an eye. People say that a day as husband and wife is worth a hundred days of kindness, but such nonsense could never bind Chen Ying. After all, kindness and resentment are just a matter of time.
She is unreasonable, intolerant of worldly conventions, and has always been unconventional and unruly, never subject to anyone's discipline.
Since I'm already utterly wicked, I might as well go all out and be a complete villain. At least that would be great.
I still remember someone who was tortured to death by her pointing his finger at her and cursing, "You will surely be punished for your evil deeds."
Well, that may be true, but do good people always end up badly?
Chen Ying then asked him, "And what about you? Are you a so-called evil person or a good person? If you are a good person, what good end have you gotten? Or have you done something evil in the past and are you now being punished? If you are being punished, then what I did today can be considered punishing evil and promoting good? Acting on behalf of Heaven?"
The only response she received was a piercing scream.
Chen Ying had her own twisted logic, which usually contradicted worldly norms and laws. She seemed to be born rebellious, always determined to go against others. A Cong was also helpless against her, so he could only gesture to her that he was going to brew some medicine.
Chen Ying stared at Lu Bing's heaving chest and waved her hand.
She sat on the footstool and watched over Lu Bing all night, afraid that something might go wrong again after they had just rescued him.
Lu Bing is too weak now, he looks like he can't live, as if he might pass away at any moment.
As dawn broke, Chen Ying drifted off to sleep, leaning against the bedside. When she woke up, she found Lu Bing's eyes wide open, lifeless.
He had a very long dream last night, in which his father and mother walked towards him hand in hand, just like in Lu Bing's childhood memories, their love as strong as ever. His father no longer had to suffer alone; in the dream, the couple, separated by death for more than ten years, were finally reunited.
"Bing'er".
Lu Bing looked up and saw his grandmother waving to him with a kind smile.
"Bing'er".
So he rushed to his parents and grandmother without hesitation.
At this moment, the family of four can finally be reunited.
Lu Bing was overjoyed and ran excitedly towards his family, but as he ran, he found that his legs were getting shorter and shorter, and he was getting further and further away from his grandmother and parents.
"Father! Mother!" he cried out anxiously, "Grandmother, wait for me, wait for me, I can't catch up with you."
But they seemed to be standing in a place so far away that they were unreachable. As Lu Bing chased after them, his body shrank smaller and smaller until he turned into his childhood self, often chasing after his parents and grandmother for candy and crying.
Every time before, he would catch up with his parents and grandmother and get his hands on a handful of sticky candy. This time, however, he couldn't catch up no matter what he did.
Why couldn't he catch up even when he tried his best?
It wasn't until Lu Bing opened his eyes that he truly understood that his family, who had been reunited, was now left alone in the world.
He was a wandering, lost soul, unable to find his home.
Oh, he has no home anymore.
"You're awake." The culprit who destroyed his home spoke in his ear, "You almost died, you know? I saved you."
He said he couldn't catch up with his grandmother and parents no matter how hard he tried, and it turned out that this wicked woman had once again ruined his reunion with his family.
Lu Bing couldn't understand how a person could be so vicious.
"Should I thank you?"
Chen Ying stared at his ashen face: "What do you think? A life-saving grace should be repaid with a thousandfold gratitude."
Lu Bing stared with lifeless, dead-fish-like eyes and asked, "Then what about the hatred for killing your father?"
Chen Ying smiled at him: "What can you do to me?"
Lu Bing wished he could chew her bones to pieces at that look.
Ah Cong brought over the prepared herbal medicine, but he couldn't get it into Lu Bing's mouth no matter what he tried.
He gritted his teeth, and the medicine dripped down his chin. Not only that, Lu Bing stopped eating and drinking, which made Chen Ying so angry that she smashed several bowls and plates.
However, how could Lu Bing possibly argue with her?
"Stop trying to kill yourself. If you're not happy," Chen Ying said, "I can easily deal with whoever I want. I always have a way to get rid of them. If you die, I'll tear Qin San to pieces and throw him into the cellar to feed Qing Mang."
Lu Bing immediately quieted down. It was just a matter of saying something harsh, how simple was that? Why make such a fuss with her?
Even when Lu Bing was being honest, Chen Ying was still unhappy and would taunt him with sarcastic remarks: "Young Master Lu, you're already in this state, why do you still care about that girl's life or death? If I were you, with such backbone, I wouldn't bow down and submit even if my parents died, let alone a complete stranger who has nothing to do with you. Why would you suffer in my hands for a stranger?"
A crazy woman who threatens him to live one minute and then urges him to die the next.
Since things were going to never go his way, Lu Bing was too tired and too lazy to argue with her.
A-Cong was gesturing something beside him, but Lu Bing couldn't understand his sign language. Chen Ying, on the other hand, looked displeased: "Those brats from Taihang Road have come to Shanzhou to meddle again. Aren't they always traveling with the blind man?"
As Ah Cong gestured, Chen Ying raised an eyebrow and glanced at Lu Bing on the couch. Meeting Lu Bing's nervous gaze, Chen Ying raised the corners of her mouth and slowly said, "Oh, they're not together."
They weren't together, so Yaren didn't come to Shanzhou.
Lu Bing didn't know whether he felt relieved or disappointed, but he absolutely did not want his former best friend to be implicated by Chen Ying.
It's good that you didn't come; please don't come.
As for the young men from Taihang Road, they were currently in the inner residence of the Yang family in Shanzhou, where they learned about the recent events that had occurred in the Yang family.
The young boy from the Yang family was on the verge of death because his soul had left his body.
The mother cried incessantly, "I already terminated the pregnancy, so why isn't my son getting any better?!"
It wasn't until one day when a servant brought over several Taihang Daoist cultivators who were passing through Shanzhou that the Yang family learned the truth from Li Liuyun: the child was not born from a human fetus, but from a snake fetus.
The two elderly people in the family were hit like a ton of bricks, and they almost fell to the ground.
So not only did they fail to save their beloved grandson, they also had someone remove the baby from their daughter-in-law's womb.
"What a tragedy! What a tragedy!"
Yang Qi braced himself against the edge of the table, feeling as if struck by lightning.
Then the four boys stood with their arms crossed, coldly watching the family wail and regret their actions in the main room.
The boys remained unmoved. They felt that the Yang family deserved no sympathy for their cruel act of taking human fetuses and persecuting their own daughter-in-law. Instead, they thought the Yang family had only themselves to blame.
At first, the Yang family tried to cover things up and refused to tell the truth, but after Li Liuyun made a solemn statement, they had no choice but to tell the whole story.
The Yang family was still stubbornly convinced that the evil spirit in Tang Yuan's womb had not been completely removed, which was why the child remained unconscious. So they mobilized everyone in the household to capture the escaped Tang Yuan and attempt to remove the fetus again.
Fortunately, the servant who went out to capture Tang Yuan was more careful and happened to encounter these Taihang Dao cultivators on the way, so he went up to ask them a question.
"Please, young Taoist priests, save my son!" The woman rushed forward and knelt before the boys. "My son is dying, please, Taoist priests..."
The boys, who had never been bowed down to before, scattered in unison as if afraid of shortening their lifespan.
The woman knelt down and cried out, "Taoist priest, please save my child!"
"No, you mustn't." Seeing the Yang family all crowding around, Lian Zhao's expression changed, and he immediately jumped to Li Liuyun's side. "They didn't say they wouldn't save you, get up quickly."
Although the teenagers felt that the Yang family deserved it, the child whose soul had wandered was innocent. The soul wandering into the snake womb was something that the Taihang Dao would not stand idly by without the woman's pleading.
The Yang family was overjoyed and thanked them repeatedly.
However, Li Liuyun said, "If you want to save your son's life, you must find that snake."
The Yang family was taken aback. The woman asked, "How are we supposed to find it?"
“Yes, Liuyun.” Snakes, insects, rats and ants are naturally adept at hiding among all things. Whether they are entrenched in deep mountains or lurking in bustling cities, they are like finding a needle in a haystack, difficult to find. When Lian Zhao heard that he wanted to find snakes, he immediately had a problem. “This is not easy to find.”
"Let's try the Soul Chaser." Li Liuyun turned to the Yang family and asked, "Are there any snake catchers around here?"
"this……"
They had never dealt with snake catchers before and had no idea if they existed, but Yang Qi did not hesitate and immediately ordered his servants to go and find them.
While the four boys were waiting in the side courtyard, Wen Yi lay hidden inside the wall, scanning left and right for the figures outside disguised as law-abiding citizens, which he couldn't shake off no matter what he did.
He stepped onto the ground using a tree branch, feeling annoyed: "He's like a persistent ghost."
Yu said irritably, "What should we do? They keep following us. How are we going to get back?"
Li Liuyun said, "I won't go back for now; I'll stay in Shanzhou for the time being."
Lian Zhao agreed: "Yes, after we deal with the Yang family's matter, we'll find a chance to get rid of them."
After making many inquiries, the Yang family finally found a snake catcher in a remote village twenty miles away.
The Yang family dared not delay for a moment. They paid a large sum of money to invite the snake catcher to their home and hurriedly led him to several Taihang Dao cultivators.
This man spends most of his time in the deep mountains; his skin is dark and rough, clearly showing he has weathered many storms. Beneath his high-arched eyebrows are a pair of sharp eyes like those of a hawk.
He wore a short, coarse linen outfit with narrow sleeves and wide-legged trousers. The cuffs and the area from his knees to his ankles were tied tightly with hemp rope to prevent thorns from tangling him or snakes from crawling up his cuffs and trouser legs.
The snake catcher holds a wooden fork that is taller than a person, also called a snake fork.
Li Liuyun noticed two old scars on the tiger's mouth where the snake catcher gripped the fork, likely from venomous fangs. As the snake catcher approached, Li Liuyun could smell a mixture of herbs and snake odor emanating from him.
Because he didn't understand snake habits, Li Liuyun went straight to the point: "How long is the typical cycle from gestation to egg-laying for a snake?"
When the villagers brought the Yang family to him, he had just come down from the mountain. He only knew that they needed his help to find a snake. The snake catcher asked, "What kind of snake is the Taoist priest talking about?"
Li Liuyun said, "I don't know."
Snake catcher: "I don't know what kind of snake it is, but do you know its size?"
Li Liuyun: "I don't know either."
The snake catcher said, "That's hard to say. There are many kinds of snakes, some oviparous and some ovoviviparous. Some snakes lay eggs, while others give birth to young snakes directly. The gestation period varies for different types of snakes. Most oviparous snakes, which are not very large, have a very short gestation period, perhaps one or two months before laying eggs. Larger pythons have a slightly longer gestation period, possibly three to four months. As for ovoviviparous snakes, like the bamboo viper, the young snakes hatch inside the snakes and give birth, which takes even longer, perhaps three to five months. Of course, this is also greatly related to the climate and temperature."
Yu He asked, puzzled, "Senior Brother Liuyun, what do you mean by asking this?"
“If the gestation period of the snake is only one to two months, time will be very tight,” Liu Yun pondered. “Therefore, we must find it before the gestation snake lays its eggs, otherwise, the child will be in danger, and no one can save it.”
Upon hearing this, the entire Yang family turned pale with fright.
None of them could predict when the pregnant snake would give birth, so they dared not take any chances.
Without delay, Lian Zhao immediately took out the Soul-Chasing Talisman, took the blood and a small tuft of hair from the lost child, and said in a deep voice, "Light incense."
Wen Yi threw three incense sticks to light them, and burned the blood-stained talisman wrapped around his hair on the incense sticks.
As the smoke rose, wisps of green smoke condensed into runes in the void, interspersed with faint blood-red light, leaving everyone present dumbfounded.
The next moment, the blood-stained Soul-Chasing Talisman flew out.
Upon seeing this, the boys immediately chased after the Soul-Chasing Talisman.
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