Chapter 9: The Lost Pearl in the Ocean
The cave suddenly became silent, with only the statue of the deputy general standing there with a frown on his face, his hips raised and his arms swung, as if he was looking out the window at the moon.
Wei Ci put his hands behind his back, turned his face away, and after a long pause, he said, "It's me."
Cang Ming touched the silver hair crown on his head, thinking: "The hair crown you gave me has some tricks, so they can tell that I am yours." After saying this, he immediately felt something was wrong and quickly said: "I mean, they thought I was yours...?"
Wei Ci smiled faintly and said, "The pattern carved on the hair crown is my totem."
"If you don't like it, I'll pretend I don't know who you are." Cang Ming said, observing his expression and changing the subject. "By the way, what's the name of your antique shop?"
"Cang Ming Antique Shop."
"?"
Looking at Cang Ming's indescribable expression, he smiled and said, "What?"
"Not really." Cang Ming was shocked, "You have the same name as me."
"Is it okay if we have the same name?" Wei Ci raised his eyebrows. "What's the lady's last name? Why don't you tell me too?"
"Respect." Cang Ming said seriously, "Respect Cang Ming. You also know my name, now we are even."
"Cang Ming, what does it mean?" he asked in a low voice.
Cang Ming said: "The sky has a name, but the people are not."
"What a good name." He clapped his hands in praise, lowered his eyes, hesitated for a long time, and finally asked, "If I weren't human..."
A loud explosion interrupted him.
Cang Ming looked at the huge gap that had just appeared on the cave wall in surprise. The greenness of the underworld sky was reflected in it, making the cave look like it was filled with light green lake water.
Wu Lu crouched down and came in, saying, "Look, I told you about it. It's about a crutch."
Xisheng followed him in and asked, "Where does the evil spirit come from?"
Under Cang Ming's shocked gaze, Wu Lu and Xi Sheng walked side by side.
Wu Lu said cheerfully, "Ghost Buster, you're here looking for ghosts? You're amazing." He then poked the stone statue of the deputy general with his cane and asked, "Is this your statue?"
Xisheng looked at Weici with a cold and suspicious look: "Who is this?"
Cang Ming hurriedly tried to find the mask, feeling all over his body, trying to make a final struggle: "Well, you might have made a mistake..."
Wu Lu snorted: "How could I not recognize you?"
Xisheng sneered: "You recognized it on the first day, okay?"
"..." Cang Ming gritted his teeth and smiled, "Then why did you fight me on the first day?"
"Because this shop is a shady place, people who come in never come back." Wu Lu said with a smile.
Xisheng said frankly: "We want to keep you."
Cang Ming suppressed the urge to beat them up: "Did you write the letter to lure me to Fengyan City?"
Wu Lu asked curiously, "Who wrote the letter? No one knows your address." He clapped his hands and said happily, "Perhaps it was meant to be. Xisheng heard that there were many funerals in Fengyan City, so he came here to play music and make money. Cang Ming, what are you doing in Fengyan City? Anyway, we meet again, alas..."
Cang Ming continued to question: "Why did you fight as soon as you met that day?"
Xisheng chuckled and said, "That's the one I'm going to hit."
Wu Lu said, "I want to beat her too."
Cang Ming asked bluntly, "Are you fighting for the Pearl Crown?"
Xisheng said, "No. I'm really sorry about what happened back then."
Wu Luze began to look around, pretending to be very busy.
Back then, the three of them were companions in their youth, lawless and unruly. They worked closely together in all the demon-slaying operations, only to pass the credit on to one another afterward. Cang Ming unclenched his fists, sighed, and decided to leave these two alone for the time being, leaving the difficult problem for tomorrow.
Wu Lu looked around and found that Wei Ci was still with his head down, his body stiff, and his fists clenched.
Wu Lu asked as if he had found a treasure: "What is the name of this friend?"
Cang Ming spoke first, "This kid is... a peddler who sells old things. He came with me to rescue people and has helped me a lot several times."
Wu Lu immediately stepped forward and held his shoulders, saying emotionally, "Brother Huo, you helped our Sister Cang. From now on, you don't have to pay for drinks at the Xiyuan Sanfang Inn. Friends you refer will always enjoy special discounts. Remember to refer more."
Wei Ci said calmly, "Then thank you, brother."
Xisheng glanced at Wulu in dissatisfaction. "Why are you being so polite? As the saying goes, you may call me brother, but you have a weapon in your waist. What kind of kid is so evil?"
Cang Ming also felt that something was wrong, so he turned to Wei Ci and said, "Little friend, I haven't asked you how old you are yet?"
Wei Ci smiled at her and said, "More than a thousand years old."
Cang Ming nodded and said, "Little old friend."
The two men opposite him had sour expressions on their faces, so Cang Ming shifted his gaze: "Alright, let's save the people first. The female ghost in this cave is unpredictable, and there's an innocent living person in her hands. I don't know if he's in danger." He then asked the two men: "How did you find us?"
Xisheng was suddenly stunned, obviously having forgotten how they found him.
Wu Lu glanced at Xi Sheng with a smug look and said, "Do you think my inn is losing money?"
Cang Ming said indifferently: "Yes, isn't it."
Wu Lu ignored him and continued, "There aren't many customers in my shop, but there are people, ghosts, immortals, and monsters. Visitors from the three realms come and go."
Xisheng suddenly remembered and continued, "Two little ghosts came to the inn today to drink soup. They said that after drinking the soup, they could pretend to be human and move around more easily. They chatted with Wu Lu about this and that, and they mentioned that a blue-robed Taoist priest was going to the Black Mountain to look for monsters. They were afraid that something bad was going to happen."
Wu Lu put one hand on his waist and leaned on a crutch with the other: "We came to help immediately. Do you think we are very considerate?"
"What soup?" Cang Ming thought of the pot of fig and pear soup and looked at Wu Lu with disdain. "Is this true? Did you drug her to make her drink it?"
"How can you, like Xisheng, doubt the foundation I've painstakingly built? Am I that kind of person?" Wu Lu rolled his eyes in anger and said coldly, "Playing tricks is your specialty, Sister Cang. I wouldn't dare to steal your skills."
Cang Ming glared at him: "Go to hell! What I did back then was..."
"Wait." Wei Ci suddenly reached out and grabbed her arm, looking up. The sky was endless, like an inverted abyss, unfathomable.
"No!" Xisheng, who had fallen asleep with his eyes open, suddenly woke up.
Dozens of tiny green dots suddenly pierced the sky, moving closer and closer like meteors and meteorites. Countless lizards, twisting like pythons, swooped down from the sky, striking at the vital points of several people. Meanwhile, the hole in the wall, carved by Wu Lu, silently healed, until the newly grown black stone obscured the last ray of cyan light.
"Run!" Cang Ming gave an order, and the four people ran deep into the cave, flying high and low, each showing their magical powers.
This floor seemed to be a dark prison, eerie and damp, illuminated entirely by floating will-o'-the-wisp lights. Underfoot were a dark river of strange rocks, and even the sound of mournful weeping could be heard.
Although Wu Lu had a leg disease, he walked, ran and jumped as fast as the wind. When he was showing off his skills, he accidentally stepped on something soft and roared in fright.
Cang Ming shouted in the midst of his busy schedule: "Shut up."
Wu Lu stepped on something again and shouted back in despair: "No, no, I, I might scream again, ahhhhh——"
Vines dangled from the vertical tunnel behind them, tentacles probing the ground before turning and chasing them. Countless thick vines surged like ocean waves, nearly engulfing them several times.
Xisheng swung the erhu left and right, swung it towards the vine, and broke one of the strings.
Cang Ming tried to throw out a yellow talisman, but the talisman only flashed for a moment before falling into the ocean of Fu Xiluo.
The ancient vines swallowed the talisman and began to twist with even greater excitement. Wu Lu got goose bumps all over his body and screamed in despair, "Pervert!"
Wei Ci quickly pulled Cang Ming over, and several ancient vines missed him and crashed into the rock wall, causing a huge earthquake.
I don't know how far I have escaped. The tunnel that connected the upper and lower parts has long disappeared. There is a blocked stone wall above my head. However, the vines seem to be able to extend infinitely, still chasing me closely, attacking left and right.
The cave is sometimes wide, sometimes narrow and long, sometimes with countless forks in the road, and sometimes it twists and turns and returns to where it came from.
The four of them suddenly turned onto a small path and stood close to the stone wall, holding their breath in unison. The vines behind them continued to swoop forward, indeed, without noticing them.
The vines, crowded together, surged and undulated, filling the stone cave and quickly blocking the entrance to the path. Cang Ming gestured, indicating that the others should continue to go deeper along the path.
Suddenly, they shook off their pursuers, and their steps became brisk. Wu Lu said as he ran with his crutches, "Hey, I'm not used to the feeling of not being chased."
As soon as he finished speaking, a lizard ivy as thick as a hundred-year-old tree trunk rushed out, covered the four people together, and threw them high into the air.
Xisheng only had time to say, "You have a bad mouth—" before he fell to the ground with two thuds.
Wei Ci still grabbed Cang Ming and rolled on the ground, as fast as a silent lightning.
"Isn't this the drinking hall?" Cang Ming was helped to stand up by Wei Ci, and looked at the throne with pearl curtains in front of him. Wei Ci agreed: "After running around for a long time, we are back to this floor."
"Hey, hey, what are you two doing?" Wu Lu stood up with the help of a cane, frowning at Wei Ci's hand that was supporting Cang Ming. "Sister Cang, when did you become so weak? Are you plotting something?"
"I—" Cang Ming was speechless for a moment. Xi Sheng also got up dizzy and said, "Then you have revealed the plan, right? Cang Ming, come here."
A chill wind suddenly arose behind me, and wherever the wind blew, the stone walls and tables and chairs in the cave instantly froze into ice sculptures. The chill was even greater than the snowy plains outside the Great Wall in December.
Cang Ming glanced at Wei Ci, who spread his hands and said, "It wasn't me."
The other three slowly turned around. Tian Xinshu was standing at the entrance of a dark tunnel, his face even paler than usual, and a chilling white smoke emanating from his body.
Wu Lu and Xi Sheng gasped as they saw a snow sculpture approaching with its white pupils wide open in anger. Wu Lu raised his cane and said, "Ghost lady, please listen to my explanation..."
Before he could finish his words, countless demons and corpses approached from all directions, filling the entire hall in an instant. The deputy general took the brunt of the attack, thrusting his spear forward, his eyes wide open: "The floating corpses are coming again!"
Wu Lu pointed at him in surprise and shouted, "You are the statue..."
Xisheng waved his hand, and yellow talismans flew out from his wide sleeves, shocking a group of inhuman creatures and making them retreat.
Wu Lu didn't know about the story of the floating corpse, and whispered, "Why are you so angry?" Wei Ci smiled slightly and said, "I think you saw your own sculpture and weren't very satisfied."
The deputy general dodged the yellow talisman and, at a command, advanced with his men. Cang Ming and Xi Sheng Wu Lu were already standing in a row, ready to fight, when Tian Xin Shu suddenly said, "Slow down!"
Everyone remained motionless, staring at each other, ready to strike back at the slightest movement of a finger. Tian Xinshu glanced sinisterly at the four men's faces, finally gazing at Cang Ming: "Hand over what's in the dungeon, and I'll spare your life."
Cang Ming said awkwardly: "Are you talking about floating corpses? They've already been burned, so there might not be any left..."
With a long, piercing roar, Tian Xinshu rushed forward and grabbed Cang Ming's shoulders. "Stop playing dumb! Where's the pearl crown?"
Cang Ming backhanded the blow, the pattern on his sleeves flickering. Tian Xinshu jumped away as if scalded, pointing at Wu Lu and Xi Sheng and saying, "Your two helpers did this!"
While the two were confused, she slowly turned her head towards Wei Ci: "Or else, it's you."
With a click, beads flew everywhere. No one could see Tian Xinshu's movement clearly. They only saw the bead curtain being torn apart by her, and the sky full of sharp golden beads broke through the cold wind and flew towards the four people.
However, Cang Ming was faster than her. He jumped up before the golden beads flew out and threw out a piece of jade leaf, knocking all the golden beads back and knocking down the messy monsters around him.
Tian Xin said angrily: "You still say you are not a thief!"
"This..." Cang Ming was shocked, afraid that he could not clear himself of the suspicion of theft.
Wu Lü and Xi Sheng, one striking the ground with a cane, the other gently plucking the single remaining string of their erhu. The drumbeats and string music mingled beautifully, and the Bagua formation unfolded like a dragnet. The demons and corpses swarmed forward, screaming and fighting each other. For a moment, they were unable to break through the formation and were instead suppressed by it.
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