The old Daoist looked perfectly natural, but he didn't start his finger divination right away.
“Mr. Yao, you probably know that those of us in this line of work have certain unspoken rules. For instance, heavenly secrets must not be leaked, or we can only perform one divination a day.”
“I have already performed a divination today, so if you want another, we will have to wait until tomorrow.”
Zuo Lin'an immediately felt relieved.
It seemed this old Daoist didn't specialize in divination. Instead, his expertise likely lay in dealing with unorthodox sects, ghosts, the path of corpses, or perhaps even the Ghost Gu sect that had appeared in Xu Youyou's dungeon.
“I see...”
He appeared somewhat disappointed and slowly stood up.
“In that case, I'll go out and search some more. He's in poor health, so even if he left, he couldn't have gone far. If I look carefully enough, I should be able to find him.”
“Maybe he accidentally fell down the mountain while out for a walk and is stuck in some hidden corner.”
Zuo Lin'an muttered softly as he walked out.
“Wenle has suffered enough all these years. I can't let him...”
By now, he had already stepped outside, and the Daoists could no longer hear his words.
Lin Xiaolei watched Feng Xingyun follow him out. Once only the two of them were left in the dining room, he finally spoke in a low voice.
“Grandpa... are we going to help?”
The old Daoist's eyes darted around, and then he lightly tapped his grandson's head.
“Help with what?”
“Your grandpa doesn't actually know how to divine. That was all a bluff.”
One divination a day?
He was just stalling for time.
“Before we get exposed, we need to quickly look for another way out of here.”
Lin Xiaolei paused.
“This is a specter dungeon. We can only leave after completing the main quest.”
The old Daoist hadn't read web novels; he didn't buy into that.
“Are you sure?”
Lin Xiaolei wanted to say yes, but on second thought, all his experience came from novels. Would it really apply to their actual situation?
“Uh... I don't know.”
The old Daoist stood up and walked out.
“Exactly.”
“I've actually encountered situations like this before.”
“Some ghosts with deep obsessions will create a realistic illusion, constantly repeating a certain period of their life to try and make up for their regrets.”
“If you get dragged into one...”
“You either help them fulfill their obsession, forcibly break the illusion to leave, or find some weak points and quietly escape.”
Lin Xiaolei lowered his voice in turn.
“So we're looking for a shortcut? A weak point, and then we slip away?”
“Yes.”
The old Daoist quickly gestured to him.
“Let's go, keep up. My paper puppet has already found a path down the mountain.”
When the grandfather and grandson left the old residence, they didn't see Zuo Lin'an or Feng Xingyun. However, the old Daoist controlled a paper puppet to follow them and keep track of their location.
“We're good. They're on the other side.”
The two of them quickly headed toward the stone steps, their figures soon disappearing from the mountaintop.
Meanwhile, in another part of the withered forest.
Feng Xingyun peered through the gaps between the withered trees.
He didn't say anything.
Ever since they had set out, he had sensed that something seemed to be tailing them.
He simply turned his gaze to Zuo Lin'an.
Zuo Lin'an casually shook his head, signaling him to ignore it. The two of them continued to wander around the mountain, appearing to search aimlessly.
The two Daoists ran all the way down to the mountainside, where they spotted a pavilion covered in dust and piled high with withered leaves.
It was obvious no one had cleaned it in a long time.
But they didn't have time to rest. After a quick glance, they hurried down the mountain.
Lin Xiaolei found it a bit strange, though.
Didn't they say someone had been sent ahead to clean up?
Did they only clean the old residence at the peak and just ignore the pavilion on the mountainside?
What if the brother wanted to rest halfway up the mountain?
Just then, he seemed to notice something and abruptly halted.
At the same time, the old Daoist ahead of him also stopped.
Lin Xiaolei sniffed the air, then frowned and looked around.
“Grandpa, do you smell that... blood? And a bit of a stench?”
The old Daoist quickly pinpointed the direction of the smell.
“Of course I do.”
Before long, several agile little paper puppets slipped out of his sleeves and scurried toward the source of the smell. Soon, the old Daoist witnessed a horrifying scene through the eyes of his puppets.
“This...”
Lin Xiaolei quickly edged closer.
“Grandpa, what did you see? Tell me! Is there a ghost?”
The old Daoist let out a long sigh, his face instantly turning grim.
“Come, I'll show you.”
Lin Xiaolei quickly followed, only to see...
“Blegh!!”
He spun around, propping himself against a tree as he clutched his mouth and retched, barely keeping his breakfast down.
The scene was extremely bloody.
A complete human skin had been peeled off and tossed aside, and scattered bones lay around, drenched in fresh blood.
The old Daoist was experienced.
Within seconds, he deduced that these bones had likely been painstakingly extracted one by one, carved out of the flesh while the victim was still alive.
Finally, the person's body had been hacked into pieces and scattered everywhere, with organs strewn about on the other side.
It looked like the person had been dead for several hours.
No wonder the stench had carried so far.
Lin Xiaolei caught his breath, finally feeling slightly better. Pinching his nose, he turned back and scanned the human skin.
“Grandpa, this looks like the other woman.”
“I finally understand why she didn't care about her own life and sacrificed all her blood to cast the Blood Ghost Curse twice. She died such a horrific death.”
“But...”
Though he understood the reason, he was still somewhat hesitant.
“This shouldn't have been done by those two fiendesses from last night, right?”
The old Daoist's expression was incredibly grim.
“It was a ghost.”
“A ghost wandering around this place.”
Lin Xiaolei on end.
He whipped his head around, a subtle spark of lightning even flashing across his hand.
However, after scanning the surroundings a few times and finding no ghosts, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Then... are we still leaving?”
The old Daoist's mouth twitched.
“Yes, of course we're leaving!”
He pointed at the gruesome pile on the ground.
“If we don't leave, the next one turned into this might be you! Or me!”
The two of them backed away cautiously and quickly returned to the stone steps, running down the mountain even faster than before.
Although the old Daoist looked advanced in years, his legs were remarkably agile—he seemed to run even faster than the young Lin Xiaolei.
Upon reaching the foot of the mountain, they quickly spotted a small path.
“This path looks like it was worn down by foot traffic. Should we take it?”
Lin Xiaolei stepped onto the path and looked left and right. The surrounding environment seemed no different from the mountain.
The old Daoist stood on the steps and gazed into the distance.
“Let's go. We'll see if we can find a way out. And watch out for ghost walls.”
Generally speaking, the more desperately one tried to escape, the more likely they were to encounter a ghost wall.
Rate on N.U.
