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With a soft cry, Su Qinghan’s hand seals shifted.
The copper coins, having just scattered from striking the oil lamp, seemed to be reeled in by unseen threads, instantly rising from the floor.
“Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!”
Dozens of copper coins swiftly converged in mid-air, their trajectories not a simple straight line but rather cunning arcs that precisely pierced through each newly coalesced mud figure.
“Splatter! Splatter! Splatter!”
As the coins passed through, the mud figures’ heads, chests, and limbs burst apart, dissolving back into puddles of muck that splattered across the floor.
Yet, in the mere blink of an eye, the copper coins reassembled, coalescing above Su Qinghan’s palm to once again form a small sword, aglow with a circulating crimson light.
However, the scattered mud, after only wriggling for a brief moment on the ground, began to show a disconcerting tendency to re-aggregate.
“It’s futile! They are indestructible!” Lu Hongzhuang declared, her grip tight on her longsword and her face etched with a grave expression. “We must force our way out!”
“Stay put!” Su Qinghan sharply interjected, halting her. “Until we locate its true form, charging in now would be nothing short of a pointless sacrifice, merely depleting your energy for naught!”
At that very moment, a sweet, childlike voice, imbued with the languor of recent slumber, resonated within Su Qinghan’s mind.
“Mmm… that was such a good sleep…”
It was Jiu Li.
She seemed to stretch languidly, only then belatedly registering the commotion unfolding around them.
“Huh? Are we fighting again?”
Jiu Li paused, a brief silence descending, before she spoke in a voice imbued with an exceedingly complex nuance.
“I say… do you have some kind of peculiar hobby? How is it that you’re either getting beaten up, or on your way to getting beaten up?”
A vein twitched visibly on Su Qinghan’s temple as she retorted internally, her voice sharp with irritation, ‘Silence! Get to work! Help me pinpoint the exact location of whatever is concealed beneath us!’
“Oh…” Jiu Li replied languidly.
And at that precise moment, the disintegrated mud figures began to reanimate, stirring once more from the earth.
This time, however, they bore no oil lamps, but rather uniformly parted their mouths in unison.
An overwhelmingly sweet and pungent aroma, ten times more intense than anything prior, instantly saturated the atmosphere.
“This is bad!”
No sooner had Lu Hongzhuang managed to utter those two words than her vision swam, and the world around her began to reel uncontrollably.
Su Qinghan’s visage wavered before her, fracturing into multiple, disorienting images.
Her legs buckled beneath her, and she pitched headlong towards Su Qinghan’s wheelchair.
With a thud, her head struck the armrest of the wheelchair.
Lu Hongzhuang’s gaze grew unfocused, an abnormal flush crept across her cheeks, and she began to murmur indistinctly.
“No… not there… can’t…”
“Su Qinghan… calm down… the enemy is here, we can take our time later.”
Su Qinghan: ‘?’
She gazed down at Lu Hongzhuang, sprawled unconscious beside her legs, and a protracted silence enveloped her.
‘What on earth is this woman thinking?’
Yet, the efficacy of this bewildering incense was undeniably formidable.
Su Qinghan herself perceived a faint wave of dizziness, understanding that her foe, driven to desperation, had drastically escalated the dosage.
It was a remarkably cunning stratagem, employing the very earth as a conduit to uniformly disseminate the gas across the entire village, ensuring its insidious penetration everywhere.
Her eyes flickered, and a strategy swiftly materialized within her.
Su Qinghan allowed her body to sway subtly, her head lolling to the side as she too feigned unconsciousness, slumping limply against the backrest of her wheelchair.
The entire village instantly fell silent.
Only the sound of the night wind rustling could be heard.
A moment later.
“Gurgle… gurgle…”
The earth directly before Su Qinghan and Lu Hongzhuang began to convulse with violent undulations.
A grotesque tentacle, formed entirely of grit and putrid mud, slowly bored its way up from beneath the earth, like an hideous python, silently snaking its way towards the inert form of Lu Hongzhuang.
‘Now!’
Su Qinghan, who had been feigning unconsciousness, abruptly snapped her eyes wide open!
Her left hand delved into the satchel at her side, her fingertips deftly hooking onto something unseen.
“Swish!”
A string adorned with countless tiny bells, all bound by crimson thread, shot forth like a spirit snake emerging from its den, instantly coiling with unerring precision around the encroaching mud-and-sand tentacle!
“Sizzle—”
The instant the crimson thread made contact with the tentacle, a blinding scarlet light erupted!
A plume of black smoke billowed forth, accompanied by a sickening stench of char and decay, much like burnt flesh.
The myriad tiny bells, moreover, unleashed an excruciating shriek, a sound that seemed capable of lacerating the very soul.
“Aooo—!”
A ghastly, inhuman shriek violently erupted from the subterranean depths!
The mud-and-sand tentacle thrashed and contorted wildly, as though seared by a branding iron, desperately attempting to recoil back into the earth.
“Trying to escape?”
Su Qinghan sneered.
“Jiu Li! Spiritual energy!”
“Coming, coming!”
A current of exceptionally pure “spiritual energy” instantly flooded from Jiu Li, suffusing every fiber of Su Qinghan’s being!
Su Qinghan’s eyes, once cool and clear, were instantly veiled by an unsettling, cerulean glow.
From the crown of her head, a pair of fluffy fox ears suddenly emerged, while behind her, a voluminous white fox tail gracefully unfurled.
Crucially, her legs, which had remained sensationless until this moment, were now imbued with a renewed surge of power.
Su Qinghan abruptly rose from her wheelchair!
She flexed her still-stiff ankles, reveling in the long-forgotten sensation of firm ground beneath her, as an ineffable wave of exhilaration surged through her entire being.
She gazed at the tentacle, which remained tightly ensnared by the crimson thread and bells, relentlessly burning, and she did not falter for an instant.
Lifting her hand, she brought her index finger to her mouth and bit down fiercely.
Blood welled forth.
With her own blood as ink, Su Qinghan swiftly drew a talisman in the air, her lips rapidly enunciating an incantation!
“Heaven is round, Earth is square, Nine Chapters of Law! Blood as guide, guard the four directions! Slay evil!”
A crimson magic array blossomed from her fingertip, instantly expanding to settle beside Lu Hongzhuang, encasing her within its steadfast protection.
With these preparations complete, Su Qinghan’s figure surged into motion!
With a mere tap of her toe, her entire form dissolved into a white afterimage, hurtling along the rapidly retracting crimson thread, deep into the heart of the village.
The tentacle recoiled with breathtaking speed, vanishing beneath the earth in the mere blink of an eye.
The crimson thread, dragged in its wake, plunged into a long-abandoned Earth God temple nestled in a forgotten corner of the village.
Su Qinghan’s form followed in swift pursuit, kicking open the decaying temple door and surging inside!
Within the temple, the altar had long since crumbled, and the revered deity’s statue lay in fragmented pieces across the floor.
In the very center of the floor, a gaping, pitch-black hole emitted a sickening chill and a putrid, bloody stench.
The crimson thread led directly into the abyssal depths of the cavern.
Su Qinghan did not falter, instead leaping boldly into the abyss!
The chasm proved not to be deep, opening into a cramped underground chamber below.
The chamber was littered with a chilling array of white bones.
By the size of the skeletal remains, they were unequivocally those of female children, none older than ten years.
Amidst that grisly mound of white bones, a bloated infant, its skin a sickly purplish-blue and its umbilical cord still attached, huddled, trembling, clutching the tentacle that had been seared black by the crimson thread.
A ghost infant!
Upon seeing Su Qinghan, it let out a piercing shriek born of sheer terror.
“Don’t… don’t hurt me…”
An expression of profound terror twisted the ghost infant’s features, and tears cascaded from its eyes like a broken string of pearls.
“I… I’m just hungry…”
As it wept, it slowly lifted its head, its eyes—utterly black and devoid of any white—fixed intently upon Su Qinghan, while its lips curled into an unsettling, unnatural smile.
“You… look quite delicious…”
Before its words had fully faded, the entire floor and walls of the subterranean chamber surged to life!
Hundreds upon thousands of mud-and-sand tentacles, like wildly proliferating vines, shot forth from all directions, overwhelmingly lunging at Su Qinghan!
Su Qinghan stood her ground, her face devoid of expression.
The small sword of copper coins she wielded had, at some unknown moment, manifested and now hovered before her.
“Sever.”
A single word, softly uttered.
The copper coin sword’s crimson light surged violently!
“Ommm—!”
A circular wave of scarlet sword energy, originating from Su Qinghan, abruptly expanded outwards!
Where the sword energy passed, the grotesque tentacles were utterly severed, crushed, and reduced to dust!
The ghost infant let out an agonizing, ear-splitting shriek, its body visibly shriveling at a rapid pace.
“It’s over.”
Su Qinghan advanced towards it step by step.
However, the instant she drew near, the ghost infant’s body violently exploded!
A mass of resentment, condensed to its absolute extreme, transformed into a hideous ghostly face, its maw gaping wide, as it lunged to bite down on Su Qinghan’s head!
This was its final desperate gamble, an attempt to seize Su Qinghan’s body and control her!
Su Qinghan, however, merely raised her right hand.
On her palm, at some point, she had already drawn a thunder talisman with her own blood.
“Five Lightning Righteous Method, shatter!”
“Boom-crack!”
A blinding golden electric bolt violently erupted within the cramped cavern!
The black mist, without even a chance to shriek, was instantly evaporated completely by the ferocious lightning.
Peace returned to the underground chamber.
Su Qinghan gazed at the floor strewn with the skeletons of young girls, sighing softly.
“Alas, feudal thinking, valuing sons over daughters, it is truly detestable…”
She turned, preparing to leave this oppressive place.
Yet, just as she neared her wheelchair, Jiu Li’s voice, tinged with fatigue and apology, echoed in her mind.
“Um, next time, could you please try to use a bit less… Jiu Li can’t hold on any longer, I’m completely burned out…”
No sooner had the words faded than Su Qinghan felt all the strength in her body ebb away like a receding tide.
The fox ears on her head and the fox tail behind her vanished instantly.
Her two legs, which had just regained sensation, once again became soft and powerless.
“Are you kidding me! Couldn’t you have lasted just a little longer?!”
Su Qinghan cried out in indignant despair.
Her legs gave way, her body losing all support.
“Thud.”
She fell face-first, landing squarely on the ground.
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