Chapter 52 Can't Hear "Am I mistaken? Lu Bing isn't here at all..."
The throbbing pain in her meridians made it impossible for Zhou Yaren to sleep soundly. At this moment, she was startled by a clap of thunder, as if it had struck her head.
The heavy rain pounded on the green tiles like pouring beans, making a loud, chaotic sound. For no reason, Zhou Yaren suddenly felt a little flustered and short of breath.
Just as I was feeling suffocated and depressed, a sudden gust of wind blew open the guest room window, and the heavy rain poured in without mercy, soaking the wooden floor below the windowsill.
A few drops of water vapor splashed onto Zhou Yaren's face. In the damp steam, he could vaguely smell a faint, almost imperceptible stench of blood. It was this faint smell of blood that made him uneasy.
The innkeeper suddenly shouted from the backyard, "Why are you here killing chickens? It's not good for the guests to see blood. Hurry up and go to the kitchen to clean up!"
The kitchen helper nodded and agreed meekly.
Zhou Yaren rubbed her temples and got up to close the window.
An inconspicuous carriage drove past the window, and the sudden jolt seemed to hit his heart, causing Zhou Ya's heart to skip a beat.
He quickly clutched his chest, which was pounding with anxiety, and tried to calm himself down for a moment. He had a bad feeling, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He tried to use his wind magic, but as soon as he did, he felt dizzy. He grabbed the windowsill and the wind and rain instantly soaked his sleeves.
By the time he realized what was happening, half of his body was soaked by the wind and rain. Zhou Yaren shivered as if he were cold, but his ominous intuition grew stronger.
Zhou Yaren burst out of the door and hurried through the corridor, where she happened to encounter a disciple of the Taihang Sect.
"One can know by listening to the wind."
He asked, "Where is Liuyun?"
Seeing his hurried manner, the Taihang Dao disciple immediately replied, "He went to the Ghost Office to guard the formation. What do you need him for?"
"I'll go take a look." With that, Zhou Yaren walked out of the inn.
“No, Tingfengzhi, are you going now?” The Taihang Dao disciple took a step forward and handed over the umbrella in his hand. “It’s raining outside, take this umbrella.”
"Thank you." Zhou Yaren didn't waste any time, opened her umbrella and rushed into the rain, heading in the opposite direction from the departing carriage.
The two Taihang Dao disciples standing at the entrance were puzzled. After exchanging glances, they asked the fellow disciple behind them who had handed them the umbrella, "Was that Tingfeng Zhi who just went out?"
The fellow disciple nodded.
"Where is Tingfeng rushing off to?"
"Find Liuyun."
"What happened?"
"It seems not. He said he would go and check, but maybe he's not entirely comfortable with it."
"Liu Yun's greatest skill is formations. He is capable of taking on all of our Taihang Dao disciples by himself. With him personally taking action, Ting Fengzhi should have complete peace of mind."
"Who can argue with that? Perhaps Tingfengzhi doesn't quite understand Liuyun."
When Tingfengzhi arrived at the Ghost Office, Li Liuyun was sitting safely in a teahouse with several Taihang disciples, discussing something. When he saw Tingfengzhi arrive in the pouring rain, Li Liuyun was slightly surprised and quickly invited him to take shelter from the rain in the teahouse.
After learning that the foundation array was functioning normally after a few words, Zhou Yaren breathed a slight sigh of relief. However, she was not completely relieved, as unease still lingered in her heart.
Without stopping, he turned and ran in another direction. Halfway there, he suddenly heard a series of hurried footsteps rushing towards him, and the person almost tripped and fell in front of him.
It was another constable who had previously gone through the Taiyin Dao Body with them. Upon seeing Zhou Yaren rushing towards him, the constable headfirst rammed into him, stammering incoherently, "Something's happened! At home! The old man and the old woman, something's happened! Quick, where's the boss? Where's the boss? Get the boss home!"
Zhou Yaren asked anxiously, "What happened?"
The constable cried out, "My grandfather and grandmother have been murdered! I can't find the leader..."
A deafening thunderclap seemed to strike Zhou Yaren's crown, causing his soul to leave his body.
The umbrella suddenly fell to the ground.
Before the constable could finish shouting, the person in front of him vanished into the torrential rain. The constable only caught a glimpse of a receding figure.
The house was lifeless, filled with a strong stench of blood and exuding a deathly aura that suffocated Zhou Yaren. He struggled to breathe for a long time and almost drowned in this suffocating atmosphere.
“Uncle…” His legs went weak and he could not stand. He hurriedly touched the cold-blooded old man Lu on the ground and touched the wound on the old man Lu’s neck where his neck vein had been cut. The cut was as deep as an inch.
And then there was his grandmother, whose throat had also been slit, bleeding to death. Her body was ice-cold, and just touching her sent chills down his spine, causing him to tremble uncontrollably: "Grandmother..."
How could this be—
How could this be—
Zhou Yaren was almost unable to recover. Kneeling between the two corpses, the blood in his body instantly turned cold, like a stagnant glacier. The intense feeling of suffocation made him look pale.
Who is it?
Who is it?!
Zhou Yaren bent over as if she could hardly breathe, in a painful, prostrate position, her forehead slowly touching the palm of her grandmother's limp hand.
As if hearing a hallucination, I heard my grandmother's loving voice: "Ya-ren, come here, come to your grandmother."
"Good child, you are just like Bing'er, you are both my good children."
"Are you hungry? Grandma just made osmanthus cake. You and Bing'er can eat together."
"I don't feel at ease living in Chang'an. One day, I will want to return to Beiqu and go back to my roots."
Zhou Yaren's throat tightened terribly, as if she were about to vomit blood—Lu Bing!
Where is Lu Bing? Is he alright?
Zhou Yaren raised her head, her forehead stained with the blood from her grandmother's palm.
He had to find Lu Bing immediately, but his heart and mind were in turmoil. He forced himself to calm down, suppress the surging blood and qi in his body, and forcefully steadied his mind to spread his spiritual sense outward.
The moment he activated his consciousness, his blood and qi surged violently throughout his body due to his eagerness, causing his meridians to suddenly swell and ache.
The use of the Wind Listening Technique should be gradual and slowly expanded to adapt, but at this moment Zhou Yaren was so panicked and reckless that he lost his composure. His divine sense spread out for several miles in an instant, and the noise from all directions poured into his ears like a tsunami, causing a sharp pain as if his eardrums were pierced, almost making him deaf.
But Zhou Yaren ignored it all, forcing herself to immerse herself in the deafening noise, anxiously trying to catch Lu Bing's voice.
No, no, none at all.
Unaware of his surroundings, Zhou Yaren gripped his grandmother's icy hand tightly, expanding his divine sense several feet further as he searched for Lu Bing's whereabouts, traversing mountains and valleys within it.
No, no, still no.
His meridians were stretched to their limits by the force of his internal energy, on the verge of bursting, but he was still expanding his divine sense. He could still do it; his divine sense could extend even further...
Zhou Yaren gripped her grandmother's hand tightly, her thoughts drifting back to last night when her grandmother had stayed up late waiting for Lu Bing to return home, worried about his safety every day.
He knew his grandmother couldn't let go.
As if to comfort the old woman, Zhou Yaren held her bony, aged hand and murmured, "I will find Lu Bing, Grandmother, I will find Lu Bing, don't worry, don't worry."
The old man remained silent, only half-opening his cloudy, lifeless eyes, staring at him with an air of superiority, watching his panicked expression that showed he was more worried than anyone else.
Zhou Yaren's consciousness had already crossed to the North Qucheng Gate. The sound of rain grew louder and louder, sweeping across the entire territory and hitting his eardrums, almost drowning out all other sounds.
He started experiencing tinnitus, but he still couldn't hear Lu Bing. He had to hold on.
The sound of wheels relentlessly rolled over his eardrums, and he seemed to be jolted. Suddenly, Zhou Yaren was reminded of the carriage that had passed by his window, and he had vaguely smelled a faint scent of blood.
Zhou Yaren hadn't even figured out the cause and effect of the situation when she rushed out based on her intuition.
The heavy rain poured down on him as he ran through the wind and rain. The buzzing in his ears grew stronger, making the sound of the wheels of his car as he drove out of the city gate increasingly faint.
He's almost deaf.
This is the biggest drawback of the Wind Listening Technique: excessive use of it can cause him to lose his hearing. The consequences could be temporary or permanent and irreversible, so he always tries to control the intensity.
However, at this moment, Zhou Yaren completely disregarded propriety, clinging tightly to that string, stubbornly refusing to relax, her energy surging wildly through her meridians, grinding through her limbs and bones like a sharp knife.
So, in the excruciating pain of being crushed by the sharp knife, he lost his footing and fell heavily down eight steps.
Zhou Yaren collapsed onto the waterlogged stone steps. In an instant, her senses were completely blocked, and she could neither tell where she had come from nor where she was going.
The world suddenly became eerily quiet and terrifyingly dark.
But he absolutely cannot be deaf at this moment.
Zhou Yaren once again mobilized her divine sense. The overwhelming sound of rain was deafening, like being pierced by a sharp knife, and blood slowly oozed from her ear canals.
A voice sounded softly from behind: "You're already blind, do you want to become deaf too?"
Zhou Yaren tried to get up, but fell back down several times. He could no longer suppress the churning in his lungs and suddenly vomited a mouthful of blood.
Zhou Yaren was completely disoriented and couldn't tell which way was which. He couldn't hear anything except for the tinnitus. After struggling blindly for a moment, Zhou Yaren finally grabbed someone in a haphazard manner. He could see the other person's blurry face through the heavy rain, as if he had grabbed a lifeline.
He couldn't hear his own almost pleading voice, couldn't hear himself grabbing at the other person and saying, "Please help me, I'm innocent."
Bai Yuan lowered her eyes and stared at his face and head, which were completely soaked by the rain. Perhaps he had been crying, otherwise why would his eyes be so red, and even his voice pleading with her sounded like he was crying.
"Lu Bing might be on that carriage leaving the city. Please help me find him, I beg you."
That's really pitiful.
He heard no reply. Bai Yuan turned and left. Before Zhou Yaren could let go of her hand, she was pulled to the ground by the force of his pull.
In his pitch-black world, he could only see Bai Yuan's receding figure—heading out of the city.
Zhou Yaren finally collapsed, unable to support herself any longer. She stared into the direction Bai Yuan had gone until the white figure disappeared and her vision returned to complete darkness.
Zhou Yaren dared not close his eyes, and waited anxiously in the same spot. About half an hour, then a quarter of an hour, the torrential rain gradually subsided. He finally mustered enough strength to sit up and slowly leaned against the stone steps.
After half an hour, then an hour, the rain stopped.
Perhaps the cold would numb his sense of pain; he lost all five senses, could not see, could not hear, and could not feel anything.
He was completely isolated from the outside world. Several passersby came over and asked him what was wrong and why he was sitting there alone, but Zhou Yaren did not respond at all.
So these people had no choice but to walk past him, completely baffled.
Having lost all five senses, he could not go anywhere.
Until Bai Yuan returned, he saw her again, and could only see her.
Zhou Yaren staggered to her feet, then stumbled and lunged forward, almost throwing herself into Bai Yuan's arms: "Where's Lu Bing?"
Bai Yuan raised his arm to support the person, his lips moving, but Zhou Yaren couldn't hear him. He asked again urgently, "Where is Lu Bing?"
Bai Yuan shook her head this time. Braving the wind and rain, she chased after Lu Bing for dozens of miles, intercepting four or five carriages along the way, but she did not find him.
Zhou Yaren was stunned for a moment, then a sudden, excruciating pain in his abdomen forced him to slowly bend over.
How could there not be?
"Am I mistaken? Lu Bing isn't in the carriage at all."
Now unable to hear or see, Zhou Yaren could do nothing: "Go back." He leaned almost half his body against Bai Yuan to barely keep himself from collapsing. "Go back to the Lu family."
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