Chapter 94: Soul Separation Chapter 11: Soul Separation Chapter 11: End
"Although I don't know what exactly happened, this might contain something your mother left behind." Lin Zhou took out an iron box from under the coffee table and handed it to Wang Tianfu. "Here you go. There are still a few bags of milk and a box of frozen dumplings in the refrigerator. You can help yourself if you're hungry."
He finished his instructions in the form of a parting will, and then curled up silently in a corner of the sofa, as if he had lost all his fighting spirit.
Wang Tianfu was stunned for a moment, then took the box. After a moment's thought, he comforted the man, "Don't worry, we'll find a way out."
"I can't get out," Lin Zhou hugged his knees, his face exhausted. "I've tried everything, even the windows. I don't know how you guys got in, but I'm afraid you can't get out like me."
When the wall was broken, he thought it was reinforcements, but this group of seemingly powerful people were unable to catch the monster in the house, and two people disappeared.
Wang Tianfu shook his head, thinking it would be better to wait for him to calm down, so he walked to the side and looked through the contents of the iron box.
He had no recollection of this pile of junk, but judging from the blurry old photos, it was indeed his mother's former possessions.
Wang Fengxu saw him lost in thought, holding a few pieces of paper, and asked, "What did you think of?"
Wang Tianfu's expression was solemn, as if he was thinking about how to organize his words. After a while, he raised his head and said, "Uncle Master, I think I have guessed the identity of this formation."
Wang Fengxu stared at the other person nervously and squatted down: "Don't think of the worst."
"I'm not imagining things," Wang Tianfu said, feeling relieved. "Uncle, judging by your expression, you must have guessed it, right?"
Long Zhu was lying on the ground, sensing the hiding place of the core of the formation through the movement coming from the floor. Upon hearing this, he straightened up and tilted his head: "Guess what?"
Wang Tianfu simply sat on the ground and laid out the diary that Lin Zhou had pieced together earlier. He held up the entry for June 4th and said, "This formation should have been caused by my biological father."
"He disappeared when I was born. When I grew up a little, I saw the diary left by my mother and realized that man was a beast in human skin. I was just glad that he disappeared. It would be better if he disappeared for a lifetime and never came back."
Although his family did not have enough money, he did receive enough love. As for the absence of the "father" role in his life, he did not feel it was a regret. Perhaps the only regret was that the man was just missing, and there was a one in ten thousand risk of "coming back".
His and his mother's lives could not withstand such risks.
“There were many things I didn’t understand at first. It was only after I went to the temple and practiced with my master and ancestors that I figured it out.”
He was just six years old at that time. He only remembered that there was a small storage room in his home, which was full of discarded furniture. His mother rarely opened it in front of him. She would usually lock it and tell him not to go in casually because there were rats in it and it was very dangerous.
Wang Tianfu didn't know if there was really a mouse inside, but he knew that there was a very strange chair inside.
My biological father was declared dead four years after he disappeared. My mother was very busy during that time, handling various paperwork and arguing with and cutting off contact with his relatives. It was a very difficult time.
After that, various acquaintances came to introduce potential partners to my mother, saying that they were orphans and widows, without a pillar of support, and would suffer in the future.
In my memory, my mother always rejected the other party gracefully and politely. If she met someone who was persistent, she would always drag out the massage chair from the utility room and invite the other party to try it.
For some reason, almost everyone who sat on the chair fled and never came back a second time.
"I know Mom made a deal with the Three Death Gates. They turned that man into a chair. The condition was that they would take Mom's life after I turned six."
Wang Tianfu said this with a heavy heart: "Sometimes I wish I was the one making the deal. You don't know how good my mother is. She had already taken her revenge and could have started a new life without giving birth to me, a burden, but she still did it."
"Later, she was taken away by Wen Caishen, and I never returned to this home. But I forgot that there was also that man trapped in the utility room."
"Being imprisoned in disguise for over a decade, maybe that's why he turned into a formation."
"That makes sense," Long Zhu stroked his chin thoughtfully, "so the extra room is the cage it prepared."
But she wasn't prepared to spend another second time in the cage.
Wang Fengxu pondered for a moment, "Ruan Meng and Tailor Meng are currently trapped in a cage. Outsiders can't access the space outside by opening and closing the door normally, but they can enter and exit the center of the formation freely, right? That big eyeball?"
Long Zhu nodded: "I'll try and blow it out."
As she spoke, without waiting for anyone to react, she suddenly squatted down and slammed her palms to the ground. The hard terrazzo in front of her was like a piece of crystal-clear frozen tofu. She bent her fingers and slowly dug out ten holes. The surging spiritual power poured in, and the entire floor began to tremble violently. The wall crackled and the cracks spread rapidly. Wang Tianfu pulled Lin Zhou over and asked him to hide behind him.
The living room floor suddenly collapsed into a funnel shape, and a red eyeball as big as a millstone shot out.
Long Zhu shook his hands, curled up the corners of his mouth, and said grimly: "You are quite good at hiding."
Wang Fengxu was shocked: "You...you should save your spiritual power!"
"Why?" Long Zhu asked in confusion, "It doesn't cost money."
Wang Fengxu: “…”
This was the first time that the eyeball was madly fed with spiritual power, and its stomach almost burst. It struggled to move its body, which had been magnified several times, and it was quite nimble enough to pass through the hole in the wall, cross the patio of the tube building, and flee towards the mirror area of the opposite building.
Long Zhu grabbed his mop, jumped out in two or three steps, looked up at the distance around him, and shouted, "Wang Fengxu! Five Elements Technique!"
Wang Fengxu followed suit, quickly grasping the situation. Almost as soon as the other person finished speaking, the creepers on the outer wall began to grow wildly, twisting wildly into thick green vines, weaving a rope like a slide chain in the middle of the skylight. Without a word, Long Zhu leaped up and hooked the bottom of the mop between the vines, creating a simple cable car. Due to the height difference, he glided across quickly.
She was extremely fast and arrived at the living room of Mirror 501 almost at the same time as the eyeball. Only the bedroom door was closed. She glanced around lightly, and like playing golf, before the eyeball could react, she swung the club with a bang, hitting the core of the formation over and crashing straight into the bedroom door.
I've done experiments with Wang Fengxu before. Each room has only one prisoner. If this eyeball wants to avoid her attack, it can only choose to enter another layer of space, which is -
"Meng Caiyun!"
As if she heard a shout from another space, the woman who was sitting cross-legged on the bed with her eyes closed was counting down to "3". Her eyes curved and she quickly recited the remaining numbers. She raised her hand and a pair of scissors with gleaming silver light swirled and flew, slashing towards the thing that broke in through the door, leaving a crescent trail of light from the blade.
The eyeball had no time to defend itself and was split into two in an instant. Blood spurted out exaggeratedly, and the two bloody halves struggled and twisted on the floor for a long time before finally calming down.
Meng Caiyun spread out her hands, and the flying Imperial Spirit Scissors returned to their positions with a clang. She tossed the scissors and said with a smile, "See, I told you so."
The whole room suddenly groaned as if it could not bear the weight, and the walls gradually softened like rice paper soaked in water. As far as the eye could see, all the scenery was a mess of trembling lines, as if they were drawn with thick crayons, but there was no time to fill in the gaps with color.
The two spaces are slowly overlapping.
Long Zhu said alertly: "Hurry up, the formation is about to collapse."
Meng Caiyun drew a whisk from her waist and gently waved it at the remains of the eyeball on the floor, muttering something to herself. In a moment, several faint spirits emerged from it, numbly gliding into her sleeves as she moved. She tightened her sleeves, casually tucked the whisk behind her waist, and followed Long Zhu out, one in front and one behind. As they reached the corridor, buildings collapsed and vanished, leaving them without a step. However, the creeper instantly wove a vine net to catch them both, then yanked them back upwards.
"Holy crap!" The bathroom door was kicked open at the perfect moment. Ruan Meng leaned against the wall, propping himself up on his knees, his face filled with shock. "Can you believe this? I was just locked in two identical restrooms!"
Lin Zhou was stunned by this sudden reversal. He looked at the mess in astonishment, then jumped up from the sofa and trotted to the front door. He opened it with hope and saw that it was a normal hallway! The strange mirrored room was gone.
Ruan Meng saw the boy in front of him was in a daze, and patted his head with a serious tone: "I almost demolished your house. Don't worry, I have insurance, and I will compensate you for the house and furniture."
Lin Zhou's eyes were filled with tears.
He finally returned to the normal world!
"Who brought the stored magical weapon?" Meng Caiyun pointed at the bulging cuffs of his Taoist robe and said, "I can't carry it for long!"
Long Zhu suddenly had an idea and took out the Sancai Ring. Meng Caiyun loosened his hand, and several souls were directly collected into the ring's vast universe. The noise around finally stopped, and the hole in the wall remained the same, but the sinister aura disappeared.
At the end of the corridor, a series of footsteps sounded. Several people came running over breathlessly, shouting in panic, "Lin Zhou? Lin Zhou? Where's he? What happened to this wall? Where's that woman?"
It was Officer Zhang who brought people here.
Lin Zhou, who had been entrusted with this task before, knew that some things couldn't be spoken openly, or he'd be considered a fool or mentally ill. He walked out with a slightly apologetic look on his face. "Officer Zhang, it's okay. I asked someone to come to recycle some old furniture, but they ended up crashing into the wall while moving it. Have you heard anything about my dad?"
Officer Zhang didn't have time to think about what kind of furniture could have knocked a hole in the wall before the other party changed the subject. He organized his words and said tactfully, "Oh, not yet. Don't worry, we'll let you know when we find someone. Uh, are these the people you called... to recycle the old furniture?"
He cast a suspicious look at the people in front of him.
Two cosplayers, a kid, a short-haired female college student...only the burly man at the end looked like he could fit in with the recycled furniture.
"Let me see your ID card." Officer Zhang greeted Ruan Meng in a businesslike manner.
Ruan Meng: “???”
What do you mean, he looks even more suspicious than those two guys in Taoist robes?
In the end, he took out his wallet and showed his ID card to the other party.
Officer Zhang and his colleagues double-checked the information and, after confirming it was correct, returned the document to Lin Zhou. He then said, "The house is uninhabitable in its current state. I'll talk to your principal and have a teacher's dormitory ready for you to stay in for a while."
Lin Zhou nodded in agreement, then hesitated for a moment before asking, "Officer Zhang, my father has been missing for a while. If he died in an accident, can I have the boat he loaned out? I can pay off the loan for him."
Officer Zhang was stunned for a moment: "It should be possible. Wait until I get back and I can help you with the paperwork. Don't worry, the person may not be in any danger."
Lin Zhou smiled brightly: "Okay, thank you for your help!"
Something must be wrong with him, but he is not worried now.
After the handover was completed, Officer Zhang and his colleagues left the room.
The group accompanied Wang Tianfu as they cremated Meilan's body. The Five Elements' fire technique licked the red sutures clean, and for a moment, it seemed as if the woman lying in the searing flames was simply sleeping peacefully, a faint smile playing on her lips.
Lin Zhou rowed them to the middle of the river. After Wang Tianfu finished reciting the Great Compassion Mantra, he scattered the ashes into the Luhua River.
After a silent mourning, they prepared to drive back to Shu City.
Wang Tianfu said goodbye to Lin Zhou. "We've already reported this to the Paranormal Control Bureau. They'll contact the police and transfer the case. A special agent will be here to provide you with psychological counseling. They're quite skilled in hypnosis. If necessary, you can request to have your memory replaced with one you're more comfortable with."
Most ordinary people would choose to accept memory replacement. After all, living a normal life requires faith. If the three views established since childhood collapse, it will be difficult to return to being an ordinary person.
Before Wang Tianfu followed Wang Fengxu back to Qingcheng Temple as a child, he also encountered an agent from the Abnormal Control Bureau who came to his home for psychological counseling. The other party said that his memory could be replaced with a version of "losing his parents when he was young, but growing up happily in an orphanage, and everything was full of hope", but he rejected this proposal.
Some memories need to be remembered, even if they are filled with despair.
Lin Zhou hesitated for a moment: "Let me think about it."
"Don't worry too much," Wang Tianfu smiled. "As long as it's a choice you make yourself, it's meaningful."
Ruan Meng drove back to Shucheng Hotel again. After greeting Ruan Mengxiu, everyone came to a luxurious suite.
The light from the crystal chandelier reflected on the intricately patterned wallpaper, and the air conditioner was set a little high.
Four expressionless bodyguards stood about two meters away from the bed, their hands folded in front of them, their heads lowered. No one spoke, and you could hear a pin drop in the room.
In the center of the large bed, a thin old woman curled up in a duvet. Her hair was gray, and her eyes were open, but empty, as if staring into the distance. Her fingers were entwined and meaninglessly intertwined, occasionally making the motion of straightening wires in the air, her lips moving to utter incomprehensible words.
Her nails were neatly trimmed and her hair was regularly trimmed. On the bedside table stood a horn comb, combed until it looked as transparent as amber.
Ruan Mengxiu sat beside him as usual, doing nothing but looking at the other person quietly. It seemed that only at this time he was not the feared Ruan Zhuangzhu in the world, so he would not feel bored or tired even if he stayed with Hu Aqing for a whole day.
Long Zhu took out the things from the Sancai Ring, which were a few residual souls, one belonging to Lin Zhou's father and the other to Hu Aqing.
As for the soul of the "formation" itself, it had long since turned to ashes due to the destruction of the core of the formation.
Meng Caiyun swept it away with a whisk, and Lin Laoer's soul turned into a wisp of green smoke and gradually dissipated.
If this new soul has no obsession, it will soon go to the underworld and be reincarnated.
With another wave of the whisk, another wisp of extremely pale soul drew a white streak of light in the air in full view of everyone, and passed into Hu Aqing's body as she breathed on the bed.
Ruan Mengxiu stood up slowly, his usual calm demeanor gone, with sweat appearing on his forehead.
He stared at the other person intently until he felt that for a moment, some kind of change had occurred in Hu Aqing - like the earliest sign of spring in the dead of winter, like the melting of glaciers and the emergence of green bamboo shoots, all things reviving silently, the stagnant heartbeats starting to beat again, and new buds growing on rotten wood, something like that.
"Qing, Sister Qing..." A tear unexpectedly rolled down Ruan Mengxiu's withered eyes.
At this moment, the elderly woman in the bed slowly opened her eyes, her gaze first falling on the ceiling. Before she could come to her senses, she mumbled a complaint from who knows when: "It's so hot, old man...did you forget to put out the charcoal brazier again?"
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