Chapter 33
Chapter Summary: [The sound of bamboo poles striking the ground appeared and disappeared intermittently, sometimes near, sometimes far, making it impossible to determine their location, let alone what they were...]
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The sound of bamboo poles hitting the ground appeared and disappeared intermittently, sometimes near and sometimes far, making it impossible to determine the location or what was making such abrupt and eerie noise.
Wei Wuxian said, "Come here, stay close, don't move around, and don't draw your swords."
In such circumstances, a hasty sword strike would most likely fail to harm the enemy but instead injure one's own side. A moment later, the sound abruptly ceased. After a long silence, a member of a noble family whispered, "It's that again… how long is it going to follow us?"
Wei Wuxian asked, "Has it been following you all this time?"
Lan Sizhui said, "After we entered the city, the fog was so thick that we were worried about getting separated, so we gathered together. Suddenly, we heard this sound. At that time, it wasn't so fast; it was a slow, intermittent sound. We could vaguely see a small shadow slowly walking by in the white fog ahead. When we chased after it, it disappeared. After that, the sound kept following us."
Wei Wuxian asked, "How short?"
Lan Sizhui held up his hand to his chest: "Very short, very thin."
Wei Wuxian asked, "How long have you been here?"
Lan Sizhui said, "Quickly, half an incense stick's time."
"Half an incense stick's time?" Wei Wuxian asked. "Hanguang-jun, how long have we been here?"
Lan Wangji's voice came from behind the misty white fog: "Let an incense stick burn a little closer."
“Look,” Wei Wuxian said, “we’ve been here longer than you, so how did you manage to get ahead of us? You had to come back to meet us.”
Jin Ling finally couldn't help but interject: "We didn't turn back, did we? We've been following this road, heading forward."
Everyone is moving forward, so could it be that the path has been tampered with and turned into a looping maze?
Wei Wuxian asked, "Have you tried flying up there on a sword?"
Lan Sizhui said, "I tried it. I felt like I flew a long distance upwards, but actually I didn't rise that high. Also, there were some blurry black shadows darting around in the air. I didn't know what they were, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to handle them, so I came down."
Upon hearing this, everyone fell silent for a moment. Wei Wuxian said, "The demonic mist is strange."
Since the Shu-Dong region is naturally foggy, they didn't initially notice the white fog in Yiyi City. Now it seems that this is most likely not naturally formed fog.
Lan Sizhui suddenly stood up and bowed to A-Qing, saying, "I forgot to thank you for guiding us away, Miss."
Ah-Ching blushed slightly and shook her head.
"Is this fog poisonous?"
Someone whispered from behind, not because they cared much about the children, but because...
I'm really empathizing with them!
If someone gets poisoned, wouldn't everyone in the space suffer as well?
However, Lan Jingyi voiced their true feelings.
Lan Jingyi exclaimed in surprise, "Could it be poisonous?!"
Wei Wuxian said, "There shouldn't be any poison. We've been inside for so long and we're still alive."
Jin Ling said, "If I had known, I would have brought Fairy along. It's all your fault, you damn donkeys."
Lan Jingyi said, "We haven't even blamed your dog yet! It bit first, and then the donkey kicked it right in the face. Who's to blame? Anyway, neither of them can move now."
Wei Wuxian exclaimed, "What?! My little apple got bitten by a dog?!"
Jin Ling: "Can that donkey compare to my spirit dog? What is Little Apple?!"
Wei Wuxian: "My donkey! Why did you take it down the mountain for a night hunt? And you even injured it?!"
Lan Sizhui: "Um... I'm sorry, Young Master Mo. Your little Ping... donkey has been making a racket every day in Cloud Recesses, and the seniors have been complaining for a long time. They told us to go on this night hunt down the mountain to drive it away, so we..."
Jin Ling: "Answer me, what is Little Apple? You named a donkey like that?"
Lan Jingyi: "What's wrong with Little Apple? It loves to eat apples, so we'll call it Little Apple. That's a much better name than naming your fat dog Fairy."
Suddenly, there was complete silence.
Everyone: ...
What the hell is all this?
In this emergency, you're actually discussing whether a dog or a donkey should be named better? Ignorance is bliss!
Wei Wuxian looked at Jiang Cheng with disgust: "Jiang Cheng, look what you've done to Jin Ling! Who names a dog like that?"
Jiang Cheng was taken aback: "How come it was me who taught you?"
Wei Wuxian counted on his fingers for him: "Look, that concubine... um, um um um!" Jiang Cheng, why are you covering my mouth?!
Jiang Cheng covered Wei Wuxian's mouth tightly, his gaze as if he would kill Wei Wuxian to silence him if he said another word.
What is a concubine?
Everyone was completely bewildered, and seeing Jiang Cheng's expression, they dared not ask.
It's so hard...
After a long pause, Wei Wuxian asked, "Is anyone else here?"
A chorus of "uh-uh" and "woo-woo" sounds erupted nearby, indicating that everyone was there. Lan Wangji coldly said, "Noise."
They actually muted everyone at once. Wei Wuxian couldn't help but touch his lips, feeling incredibly lucky.
What a lucky break! You're just relying on Hanguang-jun's favor.
Just then, footsteps came from the white mist to the left.
The footsteps were heavy and labored, each step halting. Then, the same sounds came from directly in front, to the right, to the side, and behind. Although the fog was too thick to see clearly, the stench of decay and putridity wafted over.
Wei Wuxian naturally didn't take a few mere walking corpses seriously. He lightly blew a whistle, the last syllable of which carried a shoo-out meaning. The walking corpses behind the mist heard the whistle and indeed stopped.
Unexpectedly, they suddenly charged at us!
Wei Wuxian never expected that his command would not only have no effect, but would actually provoke them. He absolutely could not possibly confuse the two different commands: "repel" and "provoke"!
However, there was no time to think further. Seven or eight staggering figures appeared in the white mist. Given the density of the mist in Yicheng, being able to see them meant they were extremely close!
Xue Yang chuckled, "Senior Wei's Ghost Dao is nothing special." His tone was quite proud.
Wei Wuxian smiled slightly: "You should feel ashamed. Why was it that even after using the Yin Tiger Seal, I was still able to freeze them for a few seconds?"
Xue Yang: ...
That's half a piece of the Yin Tiger Seal! Half a piece!!
The icy blue light of Bichen's sword broke through the white mist, swirling around the group and drawing a sharp circle in the air, slicing several walking corpses in half at the waist before returning to its sheath. Wei Wuxian breathed a sigh of relief, while Lan Wangji whispered, "Why?"
Wei Wuxian was also wondering why: "Why can't my command move these walking corpses? They move slowly and smell of decay, so they're definitely not high-level fierce corpses. I should be able to scare them away with a clap of my hands. It's impossible that my command suddenly stopped working, since it's not driven by spiritual power. I've never encountered anything like this before..."
Suddenly, he thought of something, and a thin layer of sweat appeared on his back.
No, it's not that "this has never happened before".
In fact, it has happened before, and more than once. There is a type of ferocious corpse or evil spirit that he truly cannot control or drive away.
That is—a ferocious corpse or evil spirit already under the control of the Yin Tiger Seal!
Although this thought is terrifying, and the situation it represents is serious, making it hard to acknowledge and accept, it is indeed the most reasonable explanation. After all, there are people who can even restore half of the Yin Tiger Talisman fragment. Although they are said to have been eliminated, who knows where the Yin Tiger Talisman they restored ended up?
Lan Wangji seemed to have lifted the silencing spell on everyone. Lan Sizhui could speak again: "Hanguang-jun, is the situation very dangerous? Shouldn't we leave the city immediately? But the fog is thick, the roads are impassable, and we can't fly out..."
A young man from a prominent family said, "It seems like more walking corpses have arrived!"
"Where? I didn't hear any footsteps!"
"I think I heard a strange breathing sound..." The boy realized how ridiculous his words were after he finished speaking, and shut up sheepishly. The other boy said, "I'm speechless. Breathing sound? Walking corpses are dead people, how could they breathe!"
Before he could finish speaking, another burly figure crashed into him.
Bichen was drawn again, silently slicing through the shadow and separating its head from its body. At the same time, a strange "splashing" sound was heard, causing several nearby aristocratic youths to cry out in alarm. Wei Wuxian, worried they might be injured, quickly asked, "What happened?"
Lan Jingyi said, "That walking corpse seems to have sprayed something out, like some kind of powder. It's bitter, sweet, and fishy!" Just as the walking corpse was spraying powder, he was about to speak, and a lot of powder got into his mouth. Forgetting his composure, he spat several times. What the walking corpse sprayed out was no small matter; the powder must still be raging in the air. If one rashly gets close and inhales it, it's even more troublesome than if it got into their mouth. Wei Wuxian said, "You all stay away from that area! You hurry over, let me take a look."
The younger generation present that day all showed expressions of disgust.
The taste... it was amazing!
A cultivator behind them whispered to the person next to him, "It's a good thing Wei Wuxian wasn't poisoned, otherwise we would have tasted that flavor too."
He even breathed a sigh of relief as he spoke.
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Xiao Niangui's voice rang out:
"I see that everyone is very curious about the taste, so why don't you give it a try?"
Everyone's eyes widened instinctively, and they all shook their heads in unison.
Xiao Niangui didn't give them that chance. With a snap of his fingers, the space instantly...
Pah pah pah
puff
puff puff puff
Pooh
The key issue is that there's nothing in my mouth, so spitting it out doesn't get rid of the taste.
The group of people were holding back their anger until their faces turned red.
Xiao Niangui smiled faintly at the scene.
Wei Wuxian, however, hadn't tasted it. Looking at Xiao Niangui's mischievous smile, he said helplessly:
"Miss Niangui, that's about enough."
Xiao Niangui curled his lip and snapped his fingers again, finally silencing everyone in the space.
Lan Jingyi said, "Oh. But I can't see you. Where are you?"
It was pitch black, making it difficult to move. Wei Wuxian remembered how Bichen's sword light could pierce through the white mist every time it was drawn, and turned to Lan Wangji beside him, saying, "Hanguang-jun, draw your sword and let him come over."
Lan Wangji stood beside him, but neither responded nor made a move.
Suddenly, a clear, icy blue sword light appeared seven steps away.
Where is Lan Wangji?!
Who is the person standing silently to his left?
Suddenly, everything went black before Wei Wuxian's eyes, and a dark face loomed heavily in front of him.
The reason it is black is because a thick layer of black mist covers its face!
The veiled man reached for the Evil-Sealing Qiankun Bag hanging at his waist. As soon as he got his hands on it, the Qiankun Bag suddenly swelled up, the knot broke, and three tangled, resentful evil spirits burst out, attacking him head-on!
Wei Wuxian laughed and said, "You want to steal the Sealing Evil Qiankun Bag? Well, your eyesight isn't very good. What are you going to do with my Soul-Locking Pouch!"
Ever since they stole the torso from the gravedigger at the Chang family cemetery in Liyang, causing him to return empty-handed, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji had been on high alert, guessing that he wouldn't give up and would seize any opportunity to steal it. Sure enough, when they entered Yicheng, the gravedigger tried to take advantage of the thick fog and the crowd to make his move. He did succeed, but Wei Wuxian had already switched the seal-containing Qiankun bag and the spirit-locking pouch containing the left arm.
With a sharp clang, the opponent leaped backward, drawing his sword. Immediately, the evil spirits screamed with venomous resentment, seemingly scattered and broken by his single strike. Wei Wuxian thought to himself, "He really is a highly skilled cultivator!"
He shouted, "Hanguang-jun, the grave diggers are here!"
Without needing to be reminded, Lan Wangji knew from the sound that something amiss had happened. Without a word, Bichen, moving like a shuttle and carrying a sharp sword aura, gave the answer.
The situation was dire. The gravedigger's sword was covered in a layer of black mist, obscuring its light and concealing it well within the white fog. Lan Wangji's Bichen sword, however, couldn't block it. He was in the open, while his enemy was in the shadows, and his opponent was not only skilled but also familiar with the Gusu Lan Clan's sword style. Both were fighting blindly in the mist, but while the gravedigger could act without restraint, Lan Wangji had to be careful not to injure his own side—a significant disadvantage. Wei Wuxian heard a few clashes of blades and exclaimed, "Lan Zhan? Are you injured?!"
A soft groan came from afar, as if someone had been seriously injured; it was clearly not Lan Wangji's voice.
Lan Wangji said, "How could that be?"
Everyone was engrossed in the exciting fight when they suddenly heard Lan Wangji's reply, and three black lines appeared on their foreheads.
Lan Wangji has been corrupted by that narcissistic Yiling Patriarch.
Give me back my normal Hanguang-jun!
Wei Wuxian laughed and said, "That's true!"
The man seemed to sneer, drawing his sword to fight again. The light of Bichen and the sound of clashing swords grew fainter and fainter. Wei Wuxian knew that Lan Wangji didn't want to accidentally harm them and had deliberately drawn the battlefield away. He was determined to capture this man and find out what was going on. He was going to deal with the gravedigger, so the rest was naturally up to him. He turned around and asked, "How about the person who inhaled the powder?"
Lan Sizhui said, "They're starting to lose their footing!"
Wei Wuxian said, "Gather in the middle and report your numbers."
Fortunately, they dealt with one wave of walking corpses and lured away a gravedigger, preventing anything else from causing trouble. The sound of bamboo poles hitting the ground also stopped. The remaining aristocratic youths gathered together to count heads; not a single one was missing. Wei Wuxian took Lan Jingyi's hand and touched his forehead; he had a slight fever. He then touched the foreheads of the other youths who had inhaled the dust exhaled by the walking corpses; they had the same fever. He lifted their eyelids and said, "Stick out your tongues and see, ah."
Lan Jingyi: "Ah."
Wei Wuxian: "Hmm. Congratulations, you've been infected with corpse poison."
Jin Ling: "What's there to congratulate?!"
Wei Wuxian said, "It's also a kind of life experience, something to talk about when you're old."
Congratulations?
Everyone: ...
What you said makes perfect sense; we can't refute it.
Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes at Wei Wuxian: "Are you just bored and teasing them?"
Wei Wuxian rubbed his nose: "I wasn't wrong, you're acting like you weren't poisoned when you were little, and I was the one who cured you..."
Jiang Cheng: "You!"
Wei Wuxian shrank back abruptly, dodging Jiang Cheng's slap.
The cause of corpse poisoning is usually being bitten or scratched by a zombie, or having one's wound contaminated with the zombie's necrotic blood. Cultivators rarely allow walking corpses to get close enough to bite them, and therefore rarely get this poison. Everyone searched their storage bags for pills, but none of them carried any to treat corpse poison; they only had pills for restoring vitality and healing injuries. Lan Sizhui asked worriedly, "Young Master Mo, will they be alright?"
Wei Wuxian said, "It's alright now, but once it flows into the bloodstream, spreads throughout the body, and reaches the heart, there will be no saving you."
Lan Sizhui asked, "What...what will happen?"
Wei Wuxian said, "Your bodies will be just like the corpses. If you're lucky, you'll rot and stink; if you're unlucky, you'll turn into hairy zombies and have to hop around from now on."
The poisoned scions of noble families all gasped in shock.
Wei Wuxian said, "You want to get cured, right?"
Nodding vigorously, Wei Wuxian said, "If you want to be cured, listen carefully. From now on, everyone must obey my orders. Everyone must listen."
Although some of the teenagers didn't know him yet, seeing that he could address Hanguang-jun as an equal, be close to him, and even call him by his name, coupled with the fact that they were in Yicheng, a city shrouded in demonic mist and filled with ghostly energy, and that he was currently poisoned and running a fever, and that Wei Wuxian always spoke with an inexplicable confidence that he wasn't worried about anything, they were unconsciously led by the nose by him and unanimously replied, "Okay!"
Wei Wuxian pressed his advantage: "Do whatever I tell you to do, and don't disobey. Understand?"
"clear!"
Wei Wuxian clapped his hands and said, "Get up, everyone. Those who are not poisoned should carry those who are poisoned on their backs, or better yet, carry them on their shoulders. If you are lifting them up, remember to keep their heads and hearts facing upwards."
Lan Jingyi said, "I can walk, why do we need to carry me?"
Wei Wuxian said, "Brother, if you're constantly moving around, your blood will flow very quickly and rapidly, and it will also flow into your heart very fast. So, you must move as little as possible, and it's best to stay completely still."
Lan Jingyi looked like he was about to cry: Was I being stupid again? Was I? Was I?
Lan Qiren's brows furrowed deeper and deeper: These juniors lack night-hunting experience; they need more practice in the future.
Hmm... I reckon the younger generation of the Lan family will be able to afford a single Discipline Stone for their night-hunting plans in the future.
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