Chapter 15: Lotus Blooms, All Things Wither
Cang Ming led the way, Wei Ci walked half a step behind her, and the two of them stepped into the stone fortress silently.
The stone fortress was cold and damp, and each floor was like a dark prison. The stairs were interconnected and winding. The two of them walked around, up and down, but they could not see anyone.
Cang Ming was already dizzy from walking, and couldn't help but ask, "Is this really that old ghost's residence? Why is it arranged like this?"
Wei Ci led her steadily into a secret passage and sneered at the old ghost: "These mechanisms have always been here. I don't see any improvement."
Cang Ming praised him, "My dear brother, you have a good memory. You remember everything clearly after coming here once."
Wei Ci glanced at her, lowered his head, and said nothing. After a while, he said, "General, the route we're taking has already penetrated every room and darkroom in the building."
"Yeah." Cang Ming nodded and looked at the mossy stone walls around him. "Is this the last one? Then, maybe the old ghost is not in the building, but in..."
"Underground." Wei Ci's voice overlapped with Cang Ming's.
Wei Ci said, "General, you are truly as foresighted as a god. There is an underground palace in this building."
"Come on, you lead the way." Cang Ming followed him down the stone steps, taking one last look at the dark room. Through the narrow window shone a turquoise mist of Seventeen Smoke, and in the stone basin floated a round leaf like duckweed.
The two returned to the first floor of the stone fortress. The heavy stone door that had been opened was now closed. Cang Ming and Wei Ci exchanged a silent glance and nodded.
Wei Ci casually waved his hand, and a beam of silver light struck the southern stone wall. With a crackling sound, a crack appeared in the wall, which widened and revealed a passage that spiraled downward.
Cang Ming asked in surprise: "Do you know the secret code for the entrance?"
Wei Ci said casually: "Oh, just relying on brute force."
Cang Ming drew out his ice blade sword, and the two walked down the stone steps side by side, paying attention to the movements in all directions.
The tunnel became wider and wider. After turning a few times, the light at the entrance above gradually disappeared, leaving only the ghost fire on the ground flickering.
Suddenly, he heard an extremely subtle and imperceptible sound of wind coming from behind him. Without thinking, Cang Ming swung his sword and stabbed it backwards. He turned around and drew his sword, and performed the sword moves with his hands in one go.
Wei Ci whispered, "Here comes the roadblock."
Cang Ming clearly felt that he had just stabbed a thin layer of something, but there was no one in sight. When he was wondering, he suddenly felt as if a huge net was thrown behind his head. He hurriedly jumped forward and slashed with his sword.
Turning around, I saw a petal several people tall, pink and white, even slightly shiny, bending like a willow in the wind, showing off its tenderness and tenderness.
"Get lost!" Cang Ming was so shocked by its spineless appearance that his scalp tingled, and he swung his sword to cut it in half. The petals fluttered like curtains blown by the wind, gently avoiding the blade and swaying even more vigorously.
"Not yet?" Cang Ming was shocked to find that the person next to him was gone.
At some point, huge petals appeared in front, behind, left and right, and slowly surrounded me.
Cang Ming used a move to lift his body and explore the sea, and the long sword then spun a circle. After touching the ground, sword flowers flew and pierced through eight directions in an instant.
The ups and downs of the dance took only a moment.
The layers of petals curled up and retreated as if frightened, but fortunately they did not wrap her up like a cabbage.
Cang Ming only had time to yell one last time before the petals closed again. Cang Ming was caught unawares, caught in the middle. The rich, suffocating fragrance of the lotus wafted out like a spellbinding incense.
"Back off!" Cang Ming shouted in anger, "Go through the forest and hit the leaves!"
The sleeves of the robes fluttered, the gauze ribbons swirled like dragons. The sword technique was like dancing and the wind, exquisite and unparalleled, with softness within hardness, hardness within softness, crisp and hard, and tough and long-lasting.
Wherever the sword tip passed, a hexagonal snowflake totem was formed. Once the snowflake was drawn, it shone brightly, like the sun and moon suddenly appearing in a dark room, filling the room with silver light.
The huge petals quickly retreated but it was too late. They soon dried up and withered, then suddenly exploded, tinkling and shattering into powder on the ground.
"Wei Ci!" Cang Ming waved his sleeves to drive away the dust left by the petals. She saw Wei Ci sitting on the ground leaning against the stone wall, looking at her with a pair of sparkling eyes.
Cang Ming rushed over to him in two steps, leaned over and pulled his arm and asked, "What's wrong with you? Are you hurt?"
Wei Ci looked at the anxious pretty face in front of him and said slowly: "I——"
Cang Ming lifted him up and examined him from head to toe: "What happened to you? You didn't come to help me beat the petals, I was so scared, I thought you must have been seriously injured..."
Wei Ci looked energetic, refreshed, and his face was radiant. He seemed to be doing well in every way. He wiped his face and looked at Cang Ming with a sad face when he looked up again: "I was so scared just now."
“…”
Cang Ming thought for a moment and realized that no one is sacred and everyone has their fears. Perhaps he was afraid of this boneless thing, so he patted his shoulder and said comfortingly, "Okay, it's okay. Do you feel better now? Do you want to eat something? Drink some water?"
"I'm fine. I knew you would save me." Wei Ci lowered his eyes, as if to hide his smug look, "Sister Taoist."
For a moment, Cang Ming seemed to see his eyes sparkling with excitement: "You...why do you have eyes like a fox?"
"It's nothing, I was just scared." Wei Ci said nonchalantly, "Let's go, Taoist sister."
"Maybe I saw it wrong." Cang Ming pulled his sleeve tightly and walked deeper into the tunnel. "Let's go. Be careful this time."
After walking another hundred or two hundred steps, the tunnel ahead suddenly became bright, as if there were red candles burning and glowing on the ground.
Cang Ming turned to confirm that Wei Ci was still beside him, and saw him smile slightly. In tacit understanding, the two of them quickened their pace and ran forward.
At the corners of the tunnel on either side, a pair of feet jutted out from the stone walls every three feet. Each pair of feet clearly belonged to a man, wearing embroidered shoes with bright red uppers and black soles.
The two rows of embroidered shoes emitted a ghostly red light, like two rows of red candles lining the road, extending straight forward.
Cang Ming felt the hairs on her back stand up. She took a step closer to Wei Ci, suppressed the urge to tremble, and whispered, "Are these people... lying behind the stone wall?"
Wei Ci said in a deep voice: "Yes, and he is... dead."
Cang Ming took a deep breath and reluctantly started to move his legs, leading Wei Ci forward, passing by pair of embroidered shoes.
"Do you think this old ghost... is related to Tian Xinshu?" Cang Ming stared at the embroidered shoes on both sides with a frown.
"I don't know." Wei Ci shook his head slightly. "When I came here a few years ago, there were no such low-style, undesigned things."
“…”
After walking another 150 steps, Cang Ming tilted his head and listened carefully: "There's crying."
"Yes, there are cries." Wei Ci agreed, "It's in front."
Cang Ming leaped forward, his dress fluttering, leaving only one sentence: "Be careful, there is a trick."
Wei Ci followed closely, and the two of them ran quickly, turned a big bend, and suddenly stopped.
Before my eyes stood a cold jade wall, with six shriveled male corpses hanging on the wall. Each corpse was bent into a strange arc, with its head and feet connected, forming the shape of a lotus.
Every pair of feet still wore embroidered shoes that were so red that they sparkled, as if they had absorbed the essence of the human body and were overflowing with evil charm.
"The art of curse!" Cang Ming was so angry that his whole body was cold, and he squeezed out a sentence from between his teeth.
"The natural and man-made disasters in Fengyan City are caused by this." Wei Ci's cold voice sounded above her head. He stood behind Cang Ming, and Cang Ming found his body so warm that the faint heat emanated from it blew onto her, bringing back some warmth to her chilled body.
Cang Ming took a few steps forward and waved his sleeves. Several corpses fell off the wall and landed quietly on the ground.
She slowly lifted the sword and suddenly threw it into the air. With a clang, the sword sank into the dome, and the stone walls on both sides trembled violently.
Cang Ming made hand gestures, clenched his teeth, lowered his head and silently recited the spell. The stone walls on both sides collapsed and fell down.
The moment the dome collapsed, the sword fell with it. Cang Ming rose from the ground, flipped in the air, and caught the hilt of the sword: "Break the formation!"
The last cold jade stone wall turned to ashes with a loud bang.
The curse had been broken, and the dome of the underground palace had been lifted, connecting it to the first floor. The ground was littered with the bodies of men lying flat on their backs, the stone walls that had pressed down on them removed, leaving only pairs of embroidered shoes still gleaming.
"Be careful!" A flash of silver light appeared, and Wei Ci flashed in front of Cang Ming.
Countless zombies suddenly jumped up, stood up in unison, and jumped towards Cang Ming in unison.
Cang Ming struck back with his sword, while Wei Ci summoned pages of silver-white flying gulls. The two of them worked in perfect harmony, one attacking, the other defending, transforming each other, and in the blink of an eye, they had already knocked down a circle of zombies.
"No more fighting." Cang Ming thought that the zombies were innocent people who suffered an unprovoked disaster, so he didn't want to use force against them.
"Okay." Wei Ci withdrew his hand decisively.
Taking advantage of this gap, Cang Ming reached into his clothes to dig out leaves, but suddenly he remembered that he had changed his robe, and he found nothing.
Wei Ci handed over a stack of talismans, and Cang Ming took it flattered: "I didn't expect that a demon like you... would also carry talismans to drive away demons."
"Be careful!" Wei Ci chopped off several zombies that were approaching him with one palm.
Cang Mingyang threw a sky full of yellow talismans. With a flash of inspiration, the magic formula was released, and light ink strokes appeared on the talisman paper, from shallow to deep, and the spell appeared.
The yellow talisman floated in the air for a moment, then flew in all directions like an arrow from a bow, sticking to the faces of the zombies one by one.
When the yellow talisman encountered the corpse, its sharp edge shone brightly, glittering like stars. For a moment, the stone fortress was filled with golden light and brilliant colors.
The zombies stood there for a moment, then collapsed with a thud. Each face had the appearance of a young, delicate boy, but with slit eyes, crooked noses and mouths, and dark, rotting skin. Even the King of Hell wouldn't dare take them in.
Cang Ming had already begun dancing with her sword, performing rituals to liberate their souls. Wei Ci quietly watched her graceful, swirling figure until each yellow talisman burned to ash, and Cang Ming's endless spinning finally slowly came to a halt.
"For those who die suddenly, their souls scatter and disappear into the three realms." Cang Ming said quietly, "Salvation only allows the body to rest in peace and stop haunting people."
Without a wave of his hand, the collapsed rocks crumbled into dust, gently covering the corpses. The continuous piles of graves were like green mountains.
"There!" Cang Ming screamed and ran over.
Behind the ruins of the cold jade stone wall, there was a miserable cry.
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