Chapter 49 The Yin God's Tattoo ①② - Reason Can Still Disrupt People's Hearts...
Lan Shuyin was so angry she laughed.
How dare you speak so arrogantly! You want her to die knowing why?
And she genuinely felt disgusted by him and the Chang family!
"Wait a minute." Lan Shuyin raised her hand, her tone perfectly calm. "Didn't you want me to die knowing the truth? I have a crucial question that I can't keep to myself."
"speak."
“Feng Zhi Zhaoyin—do you know this person?” She stood with her hands behind her back, staring intently into Chang Xian’s eyes.
As soon as he finished speaking, Chang Xian's expression changed drastically, and his aura instantly turned icy. "Where did you hear this name from?"
"Never mind how I know. What can a dead man like me do?" Lan Shuyin shrugged. "Aren't you the spirit python of the Feng Zhi family? Tell me about it."
Her expression and tone were relaxed and natural, even a little nonchalant, as if she wasn't frightened at all by the dense swarm of venomous snakes around her.
In truth, Lan Shuyin was already numb. A chill ran through her, but trying to look on the bright side, she at least ruled out the old man as the one who attacked her. He seemed to prefer making a big fuss.
Unfortunately, she couldn't be optimistic at all.
Chang Xian's vertical pupils contracted slightly, his gaze turning cold and dark. "...I suddenly remembered who that nauseating smell on you resembles."
"Who? Be specific."
“Feng Zhi Zhaoyin,” Chang Xian said calmly, “If it weren’t for her impulsive and playful behavior back then, I wouldn’t have been targeted and nearly blown to pieces. I used to hate her to the core.”
"ever?"
"Her death was horrific, and all past grievances are naturally wiped clean." Chang Xian's tone was a mix of mockery and sighing, before abruptly changing, "I might as well tell you, she was the one who cast that forbidden technique back then. To this day, a trace of unspeakable, domineering energy still lingers on Tang Island..."
He snorted coldly, a complex and unreadable expression flashing across his face, a mixture of disgust and a faint trace of reminiscence.
"Hmph, those people from the Special Bureau actually dare to dream of recreating the scene from back then... What a pipe dream."
Lan Shuyin asked tentatively, "Then do you think it's possible that I am her? I've read that in novels, powerful figures fake their deaths to escape because they have too many enemies, and then possess or take over the body of another person."
Chang Xian immediately looked at her with the eyes of someone looking at a lunatic, "In your next life, don't look at any more nonsense."
They were too lazy to even refute, and raised their hands to urge the snakes on.
"Wait!" Lan Shuyin immediately revealed her left hand, which had been behind her back.
Chang Xian finally lost his patience and his face darkened. "You talk too much. Be careful you won't have peace even as a ghost."
However, his gaze suddenly froze.
On Lan Shuyin's raised palm, a magic circle drawn with blood was clearly visible.
The slightly crooked lines, with blood not yet fully congealed, meandered slowly down the slender knuckles, clearly carved out by piercing the skin with some sharp object.
Chang Xian then belatedly realized that the stench of blood in the air was indeed much stronger than it had been at the Chang family home that morning. She had initially thought it was the smell of her old wounds, but now she was shocked to discover that it was fresh blood.
What alarmed him most was that the girl had been chatting and laughing freely, her expression unchanged, as if the excruciating pain of having his palm cut open and his skin torn open did not exist at all.
"This is the Karmic Fire Burning Formation, taught by the Jiang family." Lan Shuyin's voice was terrifyingly calm. "With so much malevolent energy and so much blood debt on your body, this formation is not very useful. It just brings the heavenly punishment that is due in advance, so that your hundred years of living in humiliation will be settled in one day."
Chang Xian sneered coldly, "With your meager cultivation, you think you can summon karmic lightning?"
“You can try.” Lan Shuyin looked directly at him, her eyes unwavering. “I dared to draw this formation, so I’m prepared to perish together with you. I’m ready, are you?”
Chang Xian's expression was unpredictable, shifting between light and dark.
He was naturally suspicious, and the woman's aura was really strange. Plus, she had just come from the Jiang family. What if she really had some hidden tricks up her sleeve...?
Just as he hesitated, the venomous snakes around him suddenly became restless and retreated uncontrollably, as if they had sensed something extremely dangerous.
Chang Xian's expression changed drastically as he caught a faint yet unsettling scent.
The aura was pure and vast, it seemed to be...
The minuscule spirit?
Once this substance gets on him, he will be marked. If someone tracks him down, he will likely have nowhere to escape.
“Miss Lan, we’ll meet again someday.” Chang Xian’s eyes swept over her bleeding hand with a sinister glint. “I’ll remember you.”
Having uttered those harsh words, he quickly retreated and soon disappeared into the woods deep within the park.
Thankfully, the old man wasn't easily frightened. Lan Shuyin silently breathed a sigh of relief, then clutched her throbbing hand and jumped three feet high, grimacing in pain.
“Ayin.”
A familiar voice suddenly sounded behind her. The clear voice carried a hint of melancholy, and Lan Shuyin's heart skipped a beat. At first, she thought it was Boss Wei, but when she turned around, she found it was Wei Li.
At this moment, Kui Li's face remained expressionless. He quickly approached and took her left hand. When he saw the bloody, mangled magic circle in her palm, its lines twisted, he frowned slightly and remained silent for a long time.
Lan Shuyin, thinking he was also intimidated, couldn't help but boast smugly, "You're too late! You didn't even see how scared that old guy Chang Xian was of me. Do you know what kind of formation this is? The Karmic Fire Burning Formation! The kind that summons heavenly lightning, it's enough to give him a hard time!"
Kui Li raised her eyes.
His expression was calm, but Lan Shuyin felt inexplicably guilty under his quiet gaze. Her smugness froze on her face, and her voice unconsciously lowered, abruptly changing direction, "Ahem... I was just talking nonsense."
But as soon as the words left my mouth, I felt I shouldn't have said them; it would be too embarrassing to be intimidated by his imposing manner.
So she straightened her back again. "Although it was indeed a gamble, I know that old man values his life and wouldn't dare to trade his life for mine."
Lan Shuyin had seen through Chang Xian the moment he revealed that he was willing to bear a hundred years of karmic burden to repay her life-saving grace. Chang Xian, at heart, was the same kind of person as her.
They both value their lives equally.
Since it's the same, her bluffing tactic is bound to work.
Kui Li listened quietly without replying, then reached behind her and pulled out an exquisite, antique-style wooden box.
He lifted the lid of the box and poured all the white powder inside onto her bloodied and mangled palm.
The powder melts upon contact with the skin and penetrates into the flesh spontaneously without the need for application. The gruesome wound heals rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye, quickly forming a layer of deep red scab.
The pain subsided suddenly, and Lan Shuyin was both surprised and delighted. "This thing has such a miraculous effect?" Then she felt sorry for it. "Oh, it's such a waste for such a small injury. You might as well just give this thing to me..." She remembered that Spirit Essence was a good thing.
“The wound is deep, so the medicine will heal slowly.” Seeing that her palm was no longer seriously injured, Wei Li released her hand, but her tone remained calm. “Don’t use such self-destructive methods next time.”
"I didn't want to either," Lan Shuyin said. "In desperation, this was the only way I could think of."
"You can come to me."
"You don't look at your phone 24/7."
"You won't regret trying."
"……oh."
Lan Shuyin responded and smoothly changed the subject, "How did you find your way here?"
Kui Li gave her a deep look. “I ran into Chang Jingyu when I came out. She said you were missing. Just then, Chang Xian hurriedly came down the mountain. I felt that his attitude towards you was strange, so I followed him. But he was too fast. If it weren’t for the earth spirit guiding the way, I wouldn’t have been able to find you.”
He paused for a moment, a hint of amusement in his voice, "Then, you see Ah Yin use her intelligence to scare people away."
"No problem, no problem." Lan Shuyin was smug for less than two seconds before her shoulders slumped again. "I'm having such bad luck today."
She briefly recounted her experiences, from being ambushed to being locked in a coffin, and then to confronting Chang Xian, of course, retaining Feng Zhi Zhaoyin's part.
She said helplessly, "Do you think I'm just a troublemaker? If it weren't for Jiang Wuyang, I probably would have lost my life."
As Wei Li listened to her story, his expression shifted several times before he finally smiled faintly and said, "Is that so?"
Sensing something, Lan Shuyin tentatively asked, "Jiang Wuyang said that he saw a masked ghost following behind you, so he wanted to test you at the time."
"You believe him?" Kui Li asked rhetorically.
“No, not exactly.” Lan Shuyin vaguely brushed it off, “But I was originally planning to go back tomorrow, but now that I’ve run into the Jiang family, I’m going to stay in Gangzhou for a few more days, and while I’m at it…” — to go to Tang Island again.
But she hesitated for a moment, swallowed back what she was about to say, and changed her words to, "Experience the local customs and culture."
“You…” Wei Li seemed to realize something.
"By the way, what happened inside after Chang Jingyu and I left?" Lan Shuyin raised her voice to cover his words, afraid he would ask more questions.
Kui Li smiled and said, "You'll know when you meet Fang Huan."
At the foot of the mountain, a hunched-over man sat under the shade of a tree. Lan Shuyin assumed he was just a passerby seeking respite from the heat and paid him no attention until the man turned around at the sound of footsteps and she realized it was Fang Huan.
“You…” Lan Shuyin almost didn’t recognize him.
In just over an hour, she felt that Fang Huan seemed to have aged ten years. His once jet-black temples had turned white, deep wrinkles had crept around his eyes, and even his once straight back was now slightly hunched. He seemed to have been fast-forwarded by time, exuding a kind of weary and languid air.
Meeting Lan Shuyin's shocked gaze, Fang Huan forced a wry smile and extended his left arm.
The tattoo on his forearm had disappeared, leaving only faint red marks on his skin, as if it had been burned and was healing.
"Chang Xian truly lives up to his reputation." Fang Huan's voice also sounded hoarse and aged. "But the price... is indeed heavy."
Lan Shuyin gradually understood, "So, after we left, he used your ten years of lifespan to extend Old Master Chang's life?"
"I don't know." Fang Huan shook his head, but his expression was unusually calm. "However, this is my own choice. I would rather die now than live ten years less."
Lan Shuyin fell silent for a moment.
"Ayin," Wei Li suddenly spoke, "what are your plans next?"
"I don't have any plans. I just want to take a walk by myself and clear my head." Lan Shuyin withdrew her gaze and said in a detached tone, "Don't follow me." Without waiting for a reply, she turned and left.
...
At this moment, at a bend in the winding mountain road at an even higher level, an inconspicuous black sedan is quietly parked under the shade of a tree.
The car door clicked open, and an investigator in plainclothes climbed into the passenger seat.
Wang Kui put down her binoculars. "How was it?"
"It went smoothly; Yao Huaiyu has been escorted back."
Wang Kui gave a faint "hmm" and picked up the binoculars again.
The woman had walked further and further away along the path, the afternoon sun casting a long, thin shadow of her.
A young team member in the back seat couldn't help but ask, "Captain Wang, should we send someone to follow them?"
“Not worth wasting energy on an unlucky adventure blogger.” Wang Kui’s gaze remained fixed on the tall, slender figure below the mountain. “The boss said our task is to keep an eye on him.”
She gently turned the focus ring, and Wei Li's profile was clearly defined in the light. At that moment, the young man suddenly turned his head as if sensing something, his gaze casually meeting the direction of the telescope.
Even though they were hundreds of meters apart, Wang Kui suddenly felt a pang of fear and instinctively put down his binoculars.
She frowned, staring at the dark dot in the distance, and murmured, "This person... is indeed a bit strange."
Meanwhile, at the foot of the mountain.
Lan Shuyin's sudden indifference startled both Wei Li and Fang Huan.
Kui Li watched the receding figure, his eyes darkening slightly. Just as he was about to follow, Fang Huan suddenly called out, "Boss Wei?"
This sound carried a hint of probing, but even more so, it was one of certainty.
Kui Li turned around, raised an eyebrow, and remained silent.
Meeting his gentle gaze, Fang Huan felt even more certain and asked, "Mr. Wei came to Gangzhou in person for Miss Lan?"
Kui Li smiled slightly, seemingly unconcerned about the title, and simply said, "What you willingly give up, you can't take back."
He saw through Fang Huan's intentions at a glance, so Fang Huan stopped pretending and gritted his teeth, saying, "Boss Wei is incredibly resourceful; he must have other methods."
At this moment, he was no longer the calm and composed person he had been forcing in front of Lan Shuyin.
"You want to break the curse and seek peace, but you also regret shortening your lifespan." Wei Li shook his head slightly, his eyes filled with a knowing indifference. "There's no such thing as a free lunch. Too much attachment only brings trouble."
"Yes! I admit it was voluntary back then! But I'm not reconciled... Why should I?" Fang Huan's voice suddenly became agitated. "That old man was destined to live only to thirty, but now he's eighty-three. Why should he enjoy my lifespan with a clear conscience?"
He clenched his fists, suppressed resentment surging in his eyes. "Is this fair?"
"Human hearts always crave the best of both worlds. But in this world, there is always a trade-off between gain and loss." Kui Li looked at him, his expression still gentle, but his words were ruthless. "Young Master Fang, take care of yourself."
He turned and left, his clothes fluttering in the wind, and soon disappeared at the end of the winding mountain road.
Fang Huan stood frozen in place, his chest heaving violently. His eyes, lined with fine lines, gradually reddened, and his fingernails dug deeply into his palms.
After a long while, he slowly calmed down, and the resentment and unwillingness in his eyes turned into a cold and resolute determination.
Since Chang Xian was able to take away ten years of his lifespan and give it to someone else, there must be a way in this world to get back what he lost.
He turned around resolutely, each step he took was incredibly solid.
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