Chapter 20 Xiangweng Temple ⑥ - Obsession He certainly had ulterior motives. ...
"Then this tomb must be at least a hundred years old."
"If only Ah Bin were here, he would be quite knowledgeable about tomb structure and dating."
As they chatted excitedly, Lan Shuyin looked up at the hole made by the falling rock above her head.
The dim light appeared intermittently, and it didn't seem to be the light from outside, but rather came from another enclosed space.
"There's a toilet upstairs," Wei Li's voice suddenly rang out from the side.
"Huh?" Lan Shuyin subconsciously took a step back.
Based on her understanding of these remote and ancient areas, "toileting" is often extremely primitive—usually just a hole dug in a stone or wooden board, leading directly to a bottomless latrine or natural tunnel. Over the years, filth accumulates, and the smell is unimaginable.
Thinking about it, she unconsciously took a small step forward, her gaze falling on Wei Li with a hint of hesitation—he looked neat and elegant, and didn't seem to have that kind of smell on him.
Driven by a subtle curiosity, she took a sniff without making a sound.
As expected, there was no unpleasant smell, but there was a unique scent on my body, a clean and serene tea fragrance, both distant and tender.
As her left and right brains battled, she suddenly heard a very soft laugh.
She subconsciously turned her head and met Kui Li's bright and shining gaze.
His eyes were naturally expressive, but his smile was clear and bright, not frivolous or sentimental.
But the gaze was too bright and too direct, making Lan Shuyin's heart skip a beat, and she almost instinctively looked away.
It's normal for a handsome guy to have a bit of an intimidating presence.
Lan Shuyin calmed herself down, just as she was realizing she'd probably been tricked, when she suddenly heard Zhong Jinguo exclaim, "Wait, what's this?"
The next second, a "click" sounded from inside the stone coffin.
Immediately afterwards, a muffled rumble came from inside the stone wall.
Facing the stone coffin, a stone door that was originally tightly sealed slowly opened!
"The door is open!" Chen Yi exclaimed in surprise.
However, at almost the same moment, the entire tomb chamber began to tremble violently!
Debris and dust rained down from the ceiling, and larger stones began to crumble and fall, as if this underground palace, which had been sleeping for a hundred years, was about to collapse!
"Go!" Chen Yi roared, his survival instinct overriding everything. He grabbed the sealed box containing the sample of the serpent tassel, enduring the excruciating pain in his calf, and staggered towards the opening stone door. As he passed Zhang Hao and Qi Weiwei, Lan Shuyin paused.
The two had collapsed to the ground at some unknown time, their skin turning a horrifying dark blue-black, their fate unknown.
Xuan Bingbing grabbed her and ran.
Lan Shuyin was pulled a few steps away by her, but suddenly stopped.
"You go first!"
"Never mind them! Didn't you hear? They're not going to make it!" Xuan Bingbing's voice was tinged with anxiety.
"Try! Even if it's just to save one!" Lan Shuyin pushed her forcefully, her tone resolute. "Wait for me outside!"
Without hesitation, she turned and rushed back into the violently shaking tomb chamber, struggling to carry Qi Weiwei on her back.
Just as she was walking out, she was surprised to see that Wei Li had also returned.
He deftly hoisted Zhang Hao onto his back, and feeling her gaze, he turned his head and smiled at her, his eyes filled with calm understanding.
"Don't stand there in a daze." He said casually, as if there wasn't a collapsing abyss behind him. "Let's go."
Lan Shuyin felt a surge of warmth in her heart, said no more, and quickly followed in his footsteps.
Amidst the chaotic falling rocks, Wei Li's figure remained remarkably stable, dodging the falling stones while also managing to deflect several dangerous stones from her own hands.
As Lan Shuyin finally broke through the tomb passage and breathed in the cold, thin air of the plateau again, a deafening roar came from behind her—countless rocks fell, and the entire entrance collapsed completely.
The dilapidated outline of Xiangweng Temple stands silently under the gray sky, as if the terrifying collapse and escape just now were merely a dream in another dimension.
Chen Yi held the sealed box tightly, his knuckles turning bluish-white from the excessive force, his eyes filled with a deep, unyielding sorrow.
Lan Shuyin gently placed Qi Weiwei on the relatively flat meadow. Still catching her breath, she glanced at the others and her heart sank.
"Where is Zhong Jinguo?" she couldn't help but ask.
Chen Yi's body swayed almost imperceptibly. "He... went back to get the data samples he had left behind and didn't have time to come out." Overwhelmed with grief, he could barely stand and could only hug the box in his arms tighter, as if it were the only thing that could support him.
Lan Shuyin was stunned.
They did not encounter Zhong Jinguo when they fled.
"What do we do now?" Xuan Bingbing straightened her clothes for her.
Lan Shuyin snapped out of her daze and pondered, "Let's call the police first and send them down the mountain."
However, before he could finish speaking, Chen Yi suddenly raised his head, his eyes burning with an almost fanatical obsession. "No! The mission isn't over yet! The things the Jiang family entrusted to me... there must be other clues in the tower... I must go back..."
He muttered to himself, as if driven by some invisible obsession, and suddenly turned around with the box in his arms, stumbling and running wildly toward Xiangweng Temple.
"Why……"
Lan Shuyin had just spoken when Xuan Bingbing suddenly grabbed her arm, "He's gone!"
"What?"
"Zhang Hao and Qi Weiwei...they've both disappeared!"
Lan Shuyin turned her head abruptly and realized that the two people who had been sitting side by side on the ground were gone.
Their hands and feet were firmly bound, making it impossible for them to leave silently, unless...
A gust of icy mountain wind suddenly rushed into the back of my neck, carrying a bone-chilling cold.
Xuan Bingbing whispered, "Yinyin, we didn't... encounter a ghost, did we?"
Just then, a mountain breeze swept by, rustling the surrounding wild grass. As the last rays of the setting sun faded, the light in the desolate mountains and wilderness dimmed, and the sound was amplified for no reason, like some kind of whisper, making one's heart tremble.
At this moment, Wei Li chuckled softly.
The laughter was clear and melodious, strangely dispelling some of the eerie atmosphere around them.
“Ghosts?” His tone was calm, even with a strange hint of tolerance. “What’s so scary about them? They’re just the lingering echoes of obsessions, the marks left on the world by intense emotions and unfulfilled desires. They… are often purer than the living.”
Lan Shuyin couldn't help but glance at him; this was indeed a novel idea.
Wei Li calmly took out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and then handed it to her, saying, "Take a look at this, it's a news article from three days ago."
Lan Shuyin lowered her head, and Xuan Bingbing also came over to look.
On the screen were black-and-white photos of the four members of the "cultural relics investigation team," along with clear reports of their deaths—the very same "Chen Yi," "Zhong Jinguo," and others who had just fought alongside them in the tomb!
"Could the legend that the Yin Temple can grant the wishes of both humans and ghosts... be true?" Xuan Bingbing murmured, her voice slightly unsteady.
"The tomb collapsed suspiciously; I have to go back and check it out again." Wei Li put away his phone, turned to Lan Shuyin, and asked very naturally, "What's your WeChat ID?"
"Uh, oh..." Lan Shuyin's mind was still a mess, and she added him as a friend without really thinking.
"Now that you've completed your mission, hurry down the mountain before it gets completely dark." Wei Li looked at Lan Shuyin and added meaningfully, "Don't get too scared."
After he finished speaking, he casually waved his hand, turned around, and walked towards Xiangweng Temple as dusk deepened.
Xuan Bingbing's tense shoulders finally relaxed only after that tall, straight figure completely disappeared from sight.
She gazed in the direction the man had left and couldn't help but scoff, "Playing tricks."
Turning her head, she met Lan Shuyin's thoughtful gaze. Her eyes instinctively darted away. "What's wrong?"
"It's alright, let's go down the mountain first." Lan Shuyin shook her head, collected her thoughts, and picked up the selfie stick again.
The road down the mountain was even quieter than the way up.
In the oppressive silence, Xuan Bingbing suddenly spoke up, "The treasure hunter you mentioned last time in Seventh Aunt Village, is that the person from just now?"
"Um."
"I think you called him 'Kui Li'? Which Kui?"
"Wei, the character from Wei Xiaobao."
Xuan Bingbing scoffed softly and remained silent.
Lan Shuyin couldn't help but glance at him. "Bingbing, you seem to really dislike him."
“He’s just a stranger, I don’t feel anything for him.” Xuan Bingbing kicked away a pebble, her tone stiff. “But I just have a feeling that he has something on his mind about you.”
Lan Shuyin couldn't help but laugh, "I'm penniless, what could he possibly want from me?"
"That's hard to say."
Xuan Bingbing looked at the dark night sky that was looming ahead. "What you said last time was too mysterious, like the Breath of Earth Blood Orchid and the Treasure-Holding Man. I was curious, so I looked it up."
"Legend has it that those treasure hunters are skilled in unorthodox arts, able to command snakes, insects, rats, and communicate with mountain spirits. They can even control living people, which sounds terrifying. Seeing that he can even command flies makes me even more convinced that he is a dangerous individual."
Xuan Bingbing suddenly changed the subject, "Are you familiar with each other?"
Lan Shuyin shook her head, "Including this time, it's only the second time we've met." — If you don't count the time we met on the street, and the time we happened to find her phone at the hospital.
Hearing this, Xuan Bingbing seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and resumed her usual incessant chatter, "Anyway, you'd better be careful. You're too easily fooled! Also, I suggest you delete him on WeChat. Many of these dangerous individuals are perverts..."
...
The best hotel in Ganli County is an old three-star guesthouse. Although the facilities are old, they are kept clean.
The receptionist was a local girl with a bright smile. When she saw Lan Shuyin and Xuan Bingbing, who looked travel-worn, push open the door, she warmly handed them two cups of steaming hot butter tea. "It's cold outside, have a cup of tea to warm yourself up."
Li Yang waited anxiously in the room for a whole day, unable to sit still, until she saw the two of them return safely, and her heart finally settled down.
But as she listened to their bizarre experiences—the eerie tomb, the dead expedition members, the mysterious man named Wei Li…
Li Yang's brows furrowed more and more as she listened. Finally, she looked up and scanned the two of them from head to toe with an extremely complicated look, a mixture of worry and doubt. She hesitated before asking, "Did you two pick and eat the mushrooms from the mountains?"
That's true. Even a sane person, upon hearing a friend say with a serious face, "We've seen a ghost," would probably first think: Did we eat something wrong?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
