"Surname Zhao?" Yang Xiao lowered his head, eyes narrowed. After a moment, he turned to me and said, "How exactly did she bow to you? Lazi, reenact it—don't miss any details."
"What do you mean, my…" I knelt down in the direction where no one was standing and mimicked Zhao Minmin's earlier posture—kneeling to the ground, both hands overlapped and held flat in front of my eyes… I followed my memory exactly. When Yang Xiao saw it, a slight twitch appeared at the corner of his eye.
Sun Fatty leaned over too and asked Yang Xiao, "Old Yang, what kind of Ghost Path Sect ritual is this now?"
Yang Xiao seemed puzzled by something. He didn't look at Sun Fatty, but still answered, "It's not from the Ghost Path Sect."
Sun Fatty was stunned. "Not from the Ghost Path Sect? Didn't Mi Rongheng just say that Lazi had been hit with some kind of Soul-Binding Spell? Isn't that Soul-Binding Spell one of your Ghost Path Sect's techniques?"
Yang Xiao raised his head and glanced at him. "The Soul-Binding Spell is indeed one of the Severance Techniques of the Ghost Path Sect, but the spell Zhao Minmin used to bow… isn't something from the Ghost Path Sect."
At this point, Yang Xiao paused briefly, then added, "At least not as of when I left the sect."
Xiong Wanyi spoke up too. "Old Yang, we can talk about the Ghost Path Sect later. Are we moving or not?"
Yang Xiao exhaled heavily. "Let's keep going. Shen La, Sun Dasheng, you two don't need to lead the way this time. I'll take the front—I want to see what else they've got up their sleeves."
Yang Xiao's face was still deathly pale, and his spirit seemed wan. Sun Fatty said, "Old Yang, are you sure you're up for it? I mean, seriously, you just lost a ton of blood. Are you going to be okay?"
Yang Xiao glanced at him, sighed, and said, "Then why don't you take the lead? I'll follow behind you."
Sun Fatty replied, "Eh, never mind. Since you've already decided, no point in changing it."
Watching Yang Xiao walk ahead, I slowed my pace on purpose and sidled up to Wu Rendi. I lowered my voice and asked, "Can Old Yang really hold out? Didn't you say this place is in direct conflict with his nature?"
For once, Wu Rendi actually answered my question. "When Yang Xiao left the Ghost Path Sect, he swore a heavy oath—he can no longer set foot in anything tied to the sect."
"But I thought he founded the Ghost Path Sect? He can't even return to his own home?"
Wu Rendi gave me a look. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"
That's when I suddenly remembered something and braced myself to say, "There's something I forgot to tell you… Just now, that Zhao Minmin seemed to realize that my Heavenly Eye had reopened."
Wu Rendi stopped walking. Once he had fallen slightly behind the others, he said quietly, "She may not have actually seen through that. She was likely just trying to bind your soul and create trouble for us."
I still wasn't convinced. "Director Wu, are you sure about that?"
Wu Rendi gave me a glance. "You don't believe what I say?"
That's exactly why I don't believe you! Of course, I could only scream that inside my head for my own satisfaction. Out loud, I said, "How could I not trust your word, Director Wu?"
He looked at me again but said nothing more, continuing forward on his own.
Once he was gone, Sun Fatty shuffled over and asked, "Lazi, what were you talking to Wu Rendi about?"
I looked him straight in the eye and said, "He's thinking about transferring you to Division Six. He asked for my opinion. I told him you've been dreaming of joining Division Six forever, that you're his biggest fan, and that your life goal is to work with Director Wu."
By the time I finished speaking, Sun Fatty's face had already changed color. "Screw you, Shen La! You want to go to Division Six! You're the fanboy! Your whole family's a bunch of his fanb— Wait, you're kidding, right? You've got to be joking. You are joking, right?"
Seeing Sun Fatty panic like that was extremely satisfying—it totally cleared away the gloom I'd felt after talking to Wu Rendi. Suddenly, I realized something horrifying: my speaking style had recently started to resemble Wu Rendi's. I was falling into darkness.
After teasing Sun Fatty for a while, I noticed the others had already gone far ahead. Only the two of us were left, standing there alone in the passage. The air around us suddenly felt icy cold. Without a word, we both broke into a jog and caught up with the group.
As we continued walking forward, the path remained calm and uneventful. Yang Xiao was at the very front. His complexion looked slightly better, but his brow stayed furrowed, as if there was still something he hadn't figured out.
After four or five hundred meters, we finally saw the end of the corridor.
Roughly a hundred meters from the exit, we began to hear the sound of flowing water. Could it really be another place like the Water Curtain Cave? I started to feel uneasy. I glanced at Wu Rendi—he looked as calm as ever, his attention mainly focused on Shao Yiyi, as if he hadn't noticed anything strange about this place at all.
Xiong Wanyi listened to the sound of running water and asked, "Are we near an underground spring or something? How did they build this house in the first place? There's a huge underground chamber here, and they didn't notice? Not only that, but they built it right on top of a water source? Wouldn't the foundation have rotted away ages ago?"
"It's not groundwater," Yang Xiao was also listening carefully to the flowing sound. After a moment, he shook his head and said, "It's a sewer. From the direction, I'd say we're right under the drainage pipes of the girls' school."
Now that Yang Xiao had pointed it out, the sound did indeed resemble sewage water rushing through a pipe. Sun Fatty couldn't care less about the sewer—he turned to Yang Xiao and asked, "Old Yang, once we get out of that exit up ahead, what's outside?" Yang Xiao glanced at him and said, "How would I know? I didn't build this place."
"You wanna know what's out there? Easy," Xiong Wanyi said with a grin. "Fatty, just go take a look. Then you'll know everything."
Sun Fatty glared at him. "Why is it always me?" He pointed in a circle at Xiong Wanyi, Ximen Lian, and Mi Rongheng. "Shouldn't it be one of you three this time?"
Xiong Wanyi was about to joke again, but Yang Xiao cut him off. "None of you need to go. I'll handle the rest."
Sun Fatty blinked at Yang Xiao. "Old Yang, don't push yourself. It's already a miracle you're still standing. You've lost enough blood—we can't let you push your limits anymore. Hey, Xiong the Beast, you're up!"
"Enough bickering!" Yang Xiao snapped as he pulled a piece of parchment from his coat. He spread the sheepskin scroll on the ground and weighed down its corners with four unknown animal bones. Now that I got a clear look, I saw the parchment was inscribed with a talisman, though unlike the familiar ones used by the Bureau of Paranormal Investigation. This talisman had a ring of figures around its outer edge—one man, one woman, one elder, and one child—all drawn as corpses.
Finally, Yang Xiao took out a stack of tiny paper figures. He placed them in precise positions on the parchment. Once everything was in place, he looked back at us and said, "Give me your birthdates and eight-character destiny info. Hmm... Director Wu and Shao Yiyi, you two are exempt."
Although none of us knew what he was about to do, we still reported our birthdates. When it was Sun Fatty's turn, Yang Xiao gave him a curious look and said, "Didn't expect you to have that kind of fate."
Sun Fatty replied, "Old Yang, what's that supposed to mean? Are you saying my fate just turned around and I've got sixty more years of good luck coming?"
Yang Xiao looked him straight in the eye. "No fortune-teller ever told you you were born under the Star of Calamity?"
Hearing that, Sun Fatty's expression dimmed. He pursed his lips and muttered, "Yeah, someone said that before. Said I bring doom to my parents, relatives, children, even neighbors…" Before he could finish, Xiong Wanyi and the others instinctively took a few steps back, putting distance between themselves and him.
After letting Sun Fatty finish, Yang Xiao said, "Sun Dasheng, give me your hand."
Though Sun Fatty didn't know what for, he extended his hand anyway. "Old Yang, you're not about to read my palm, are you?"
Yang Xiao didn't respond. Once Sun Fatty's palm was fully open, Yang Xiao suddenly whipped out a razor-sharp blade and slashed a cut across it. Blood immediately welled up from the four- or five-centimeter-long gash.
By the time Sun Fatty realized what was happening, it was too late to pull back. He gritted his teeth and yelled, "Old Yang! What the hell?!"
Yang Xiao remained silent, holding his breath as if suppressing a vital force. He grabbed Sun Fatty's bleeding hand and pressed it against the parchment and the small paper figures. The sheepskin was specially treated: the moment it touched Sun Fatty's blood, it revealed black marks. In just moments, a dark purplish-red handprint appeared at the center of the scroll.
"Yang Xiao, what the hell are you doing?!" Sun Fatty clutched his bleeding hand, yelling. "If you wanted some blood, you could've said something! Give me a heads-up next time!"
Mi Rongheng pulled out some bandages and began wrapping up Sun Fatty's wound, while the latter continued complaining. But no one was really paying attention anymore—everyone's eyes were fixed on Yang Xiao.
He blew that pent-up breath onto the paper figures, lifting them all into the air. Then, he bit his tongue and spat a mouthful of blood onto the airborne figures. The moment the blood hit them, the tiny paper men burst into flame, disintegrating into ash in the blink of an eye.
At the exact moment the figures ignited, a scream rang out from the passageway ahead: "Ahhh!" It was clearly Tao Xiangkong's voice. A chaotic scuffle followed. Sun Fatty and I raised our guns while Xiong Wanyi and the others took up positions facing the exit.
The noise ahead grew louder—sounded like a group chasing Tao Xiangkong. Mi Rongheng was getting anxious. He asked Yang Xiao, "What now? Do we go in?"
Yang Xiao had slumped to the ground after coughing up blood. When Mi Rongheng spoke, he slowly raised his head. I flinched at the sight of his face—it had turned from pale to deathly gray. After gasping a few breaths, Yang Xiao said, "Wait. We go in when all the noise stops." His eyes squinted toward the exit.
Another fifteen minutes passed before everything suddenly fell silent. The kind of silence that made your skin crawl, like something was just about to happen. Yang Xiao, who had just been slumped over, suddenly snapped his eyes open and stood up. He pulled out that large copper nail again and was the first to head for the exit. "Stay behind me, and keep alert…"
He didn't finish the sentence before Wu Rendi cut in, "Yang Xiao, wait a little longer…"
Yang Xiao paused, looking like he wanted to ask something but decided against it. He nodded silently. Two or three minutes later, we suddenly heard a guttural howl, followed by a loud thud, as if something heavy had fallen from a great height. Then—nothing but silence.
Wu Rendi gave a half-smile and said, "That should do it. Let's go."
Looking out from the passageway, all we saw was pitch black. Xiong Wanyi and the others swept their flashlights ahead—and what we saw nearly gave me a heart attack. Just a few meters in front of us stood a dense crowd—it was the missing students and teachers from the girls' school.
They were all standing upright, perfectly still, as if asleep on their feet. But in a place like this, seeing this many sleeping beauties at once was more eerie than enchanting.
"Damn, that scared me," Xiong Wanyi muttered.
Wu Rendi said, "Move them inside, all of them."
We were stunned by the order. Sun Fatty asked, "Now?"
Wu Rendi nodded. Yang Xiao added, "It's safe for now. If we leave them out here and something happens, they'll just get in the way."
Mi Rongheng put away his baton. "Lazi, Dasheng, you two stand guard!" Then he, Ximen Lian, and Xiong Wanyi started carrying the unconscious women inside the corridor. We had no time to treat them—we just had to move them to safety. Eventually, Sun Fatty and I joined in the effort to bring them in.
Once the area was mostly cleared, Wu Rendi turned to Shao Yiyi and said, "You stay out here and watch over them." Her face was pale as a sheet, and she shook her head repeatedly. Wu Rendi's tone toward her was noticeably gentler than with the rest of us. He whispered something to her and placed something into her hand. Only then did she reluctantly return to the corridor entrance.