Chapter 82
Chapter 82
Shang Mang tightened his grip on the killing pole, forcing the mute man forward. His hand, clutching the Calamity, grew increasingly dark. Meng Yuan felt a chill run down her spine; if this continued, the mute man would die. Meng Yuan leaned forward, grabbed Shang Mang's shoulder, and pulled him backward. Her intention was to stop him, but she hadn't expected to be able to move him. When Shang Mang fell backward, Meng Yuan was completely unprepared.
He put one hand in front of his chest to support himself and prevent him from falling, as he himself lost his balance and fell backward.
Shang Mang hissed, "What are you doing?"
He turned around quickly, grabbed Meng Yuan's shoulder and pulled her up. After Meng Yuan stood up straight, she said, "What's wrong with you? Aren't you able to read minds? Can't you tell that I'm lying?"
Shang Mang's expression seemed to be in thought, but he paused slightly upon hearing her words: "A lie?"
Meng Yuan crossed her arms, raised an eyebrow, and saw that he was serious. She suppressed a laugh and circled Shang Mang once. Shang Mang shifted impatiently, "Do you have fleas on you?"
Meng Yuan stroked her chin and smiled without saying a word: "It's nothing, it's just that someone's mouth is harder than a rock." After she finished speaking, she waited for Shang Mang to retort, but Shang Mang remained silent for a long time, and Meng Yuan sensed that something was wrong.
Meng Yuan: What's wrong with you?
Shang Mang lowered his eyes: "Shang Jingrong is not dead."
Meng Yuan remembered the name he had just recited; it was the mute man's name: "You know that mute man?"
"Is he mute?" Shang Mang blurted out.
Meng Yuan held out her hand: "He wrote the character for 'mute' on my hand, so it must be."
She looked at him for a long time. Apart from the usual smile, there was no other expression on his face. Meng Yuan reached out and touched him. Shang Mang lowered his eyes and grabbed her hand: "If you hadn't made up lies, how could I have done something stupid?"
Meng Yuan's eyes widened, and she said, "How can you blame me for this?"
Shang Mang frowned fiercely, grabbed her hand and bit it: "It's your fault."
Meng Yuan gasped in pain, but didn't struggle. His emotions were relatively calm, and it wasn't hard to guess who it was because of—the mute. The only thing Meng Yuan could think of that could cause Shang Mang's emotional turmoil was family, someone named Shang Jingrong. It was a clear indication that she was connected to Shang Mang.
As Meng Yuan was pondering, Shang Mang reached out his hand in front of her.
Meng Yuan didn't understand what he meant: "Why are you reaching out?"
Shang Mang said, "Bite me."
Meng Yuan looked at him like he was an idiot: "I don't want to."
Shang Mang pursed his lips: "Don't you dare bite back?"
Meng Yuan chuckled: "A provocation..."
Seeing that she hadn't moved for a while, and that it was embarrassing to keep her hand up, Shang Mang's smile faded, and he slowly lowered it.
Meng Yuan spotted it, grabbed it, and bit down hard.
She held her bite longer than Shang Mang, and when she finally let go, beads of blood oozed from the skin of Shang Mang's arm.
Meng Yuan felt guilty, realizing she had bitten a bit too hard. She said, "I won't kill you."
Shang Mang didn't speak. The wind made his hair flutter wildly. He looked down and saw fallen leaves on the ground being blown up by the wind and drifting away. When the wind stopped and the leaves lost their strength, they fell to the ground and crunched underfoot.
Shang Jingrong pushed open the door and went inside. Red candles were lit in the room, and a woman dressed in bright red was combing her hair in front of the mirror. Her jet-black hair was shiny. Hearing the noise, she put down her comb, her slender hand resting in front of the mirror. She pursed her lips and said, "You're back."
Shang Jingrong bent his knees and knelt down: "Madam."
The woman's voice was soft and gentle as she whispered, "Jingrong, you're so dirty."
Shang Jingrong lay prostrate on the ground, his body trembling. She walked over, the beads on her exquisite embroidered shoes swaying, and lifted his chin.
The light flickered, revealing her face, with deep, crisscrossing scars forming a bizarre appearance.
“I saw her.” She grinned and laughed.
She approached Shang Jingrong, her face convulsing and spasming. Shang Jingrong had seen this countless times and was used to it. He calmly stood up, picked her up, and placed her on the bed: "Madam should sleep now."
"I want to go home."
Shang Jingrong touched her face: "We will go back."
"You're good at making me happy, hahahahahahahahahaha—"
"Waaaaaahh ...
Kong Fusheng shouted from inside: "My master said that Wushuang Temple is going to disappear."
Meng Yuan sighed, "Don't cry, don't cry, I really don't know how to comfort people."
Kong Fusheng threw back the covers, his face flushed and his eyelids swollen: "I am no longer the number one in Wushuang Temple."
Meng Yuan replied firmly, "Who says you aren't? I think you are. You're so amazing, you definitely deserve to be number one in Wushuang Temple. Besides, look at how everyone else is worried about losing the number one spot. If you do this, everyone will remember that you're number one."
Kong Fusheng pouted and said sadly, "Although I knew this day would come, my master had said he wanted to close the temple to do something else, but I didn't expect it to come so soon."
Meng Yuan patted his shoulder to comfort him, and Kong Fusheng said, "It's alright, it's just that I'm in seclusion. I'm still me, still a Taoist, and I can still kill ghosts."
Last night, after Kong Fusheng returned alone, Zhou Xiuqi told him with a letter that his master had sent a message about the Wushuang Temple closing down. He has been upset ever since.
When Meng Yuan came over this morning, he was still crying, so she spent most of the morning comforting him.
Xiao Zheyu and Zhou Xiuqi went to the emperor's bedroom to see him and finally comforted him. Meng Yuan pulled him and said, "We came here on important business. Don't cry."
Kong Fusheng thought so too, and he felt somewhat guilty: "I've troubled everyone."
Meng Yuan tugged at his arm: "Get up, get up."
While doing other things, Meng Yuan has been observing in seclusion lately, getting closer and closer to the ending. She has started to experience excessive sleepiness and is always feeling drowsy. She also experiences dizziness and headaches from time to time, and her head starts to hurt when she thinks.
Meng Yuan could only avoid thinking about it.
Meng Yuan said, "You go to the south, and I'll go to the north."
Kong Fusheng thought for a moment and said, "You go to the south and I'll go to the north."
Meng Yuan didn't argue with him: "Anything is fine, anything is fine."
Before Zhou Xiuqi and the others left, they were instructed to search the palace for any suspicious places. The palace was so big that Meng Yuan and the others might get lost if they just wandered around. As Meng Yuan walked, she left a mark, drawing a cross on the ground.
Kong Fusheng searched in another direction.
Kong Fusheng squatted down and drew a cross, his nose twitching. He looked up at the house in front of him. There was a ghostly aura in it. He stood up, drew a picture in his palm, and sent it to the sky.
He walked to the door and knocked.
The door slowly opened a crack, and Kong Fusheng's hand was grabbed. A soft voice came from inside: "Who goes there?"
The moment Kong Fusheng was captured, he knew it was a ghost, and not an ordinary one. His wrists felt piercingly cold, but he calmly replied, "A servant from the palace."
A pale hand stretched out and slid up his forearm.
Kong Fusheng smelled a strange, bloody odor and felt a chill run down his spine. Wasn't he afraid of openly hiding a ghost in the house?
"Your Highness has something to discuss with me, so I won't disturb you any longer," Kong Fusheng said in a low voice, while touching his flute.
Unexpectedly, he was grabbed and pulled inside. His flute fell outside, and his wrist was scratched. He felt intense pain and looked down to see that his wrist was covered in blood that had flooded his entire arm.
As Kong Fusheng looked up, the woman's face was right in front of him. Insects tore through her skin and crawled out, burrowing into his nostrils.
The unbearable pain caused him to gradually lose consciousness. He grabbed his life tablet and crushed it with all his might.
His internal organs were compressed, and he was unable to utter a single word.
The door was suddenly pushed open, and Shang Jingrong gasped, "Didn't you say you'd wait for me to find it for you?"
The woman turned around, stuck out her tongue, and licked her lips: "I'm hungry."
Shang Jingrong looked at the clothes on the ground: "Madam..."
The woman said in a soft voice, "Alright, alright, I won't eat it next time. He's just a servant in the palace."
Shang Jingrong remained silent, picked up the clothes from the ground and examined them carefully: "These are not the clothes of the palace servants."
"Madam, let's go somewhere else."
As dusk fell, another day passed. Meng Yuan waited for Kong Fusheng at the place they had mentioned. It was already so late, why hadn't he returned yet?
She walked back slowly, while Zhou Xiuqi rushed out, calling out, "Meng Yuan!"
Meng Yuan asked in confusion, "Senior brother, what's the rush?"
Zhou Xiuqi stretched out his tightly clenched hand, and a shattered life tablet fell to the ground: "Where is Kong Fusheng?"
Meng Yuan's mind went blank: "He went north." Her heart pounded uncontrollably, and her breathing became labored: "How could his life tablet have shattered?"
Zhou Xiuqi's eyes darkened: "Something happened. He sent a message saying that something was wrong in the north house. When I got there, there was no one in the north house. There were no signs of a struggle either."
Meng Yuan grabbed Zhou Xiuqi: "Find him, find him quickly, he must have run away during the fight. He's so smart, he must have run away."
Zhou Xiuqi remained silent, and Xiao Zheyu stepped forward: "The life tablet is shattered, and the soul has returned to the Nine Clouds."
Meng Yuan turned her face away: "I don't believe it."
Zhou Xiuqi said, "Catch that ghost..."
Before Zhou Xiuqi could finish speaking, Meng Yuan ran away.
Xiao Zheyu stood next to Zhou Xiuqi: "Her personality is very similar to yours."
Zhou Xiuqi said, "I raised him."
Meng Yuan headed north and searched for three days and three nights, but still found no trace of Kong Fusheng, not even a body.
Meng Yuan asked, "Senior brother, do you have a way to find that ghost?"
Zhou Xiuqi spread out his hands: "Fate tablet."
The life tablet is used by Taoist priests to identify its owner with blood. It can sense the state of a person's life. The fainter the words, the more injured the person is. The clearer the words, the stronger the person is. A broken life tablet means the person is dead.
Meng Yuan looked at the fate tablet: "How do I find it?"
Zhou Xiuqi touched the life tablet: "There is still a trace of life within it. Follow the trace to find it."
Zhou Xiuqi cast a spell on the life tablet, and a faint blue line extended along the doorway. Zhou Xiuqi looked at the line and said, "Still inside the palace." He lifted his foot and followed the line, and Meng Yuan and Xiao Zheyu quickly followed.
After walking for a while, the line got a little thicker.
Meng Yuan looked up: "Fu Ning Palace."
This is the emperor's sleeping quarters. Zhou Xiuqi collected the life tablet: "It's inside."
Xiao Zheyu frowned: "He really is hiding something."
Meng Yuan took out a talisman: "Heavenly spirits, earthly spirits, all things formless yet capable of transformation." With a whoosh, the three of them shrank to the size of peanuts.
Meng Yuan floated upwards: "Let's go."
As she flew closer, she saw a familiar figure from behind.
"Shang Mang?" What's he doing here?
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