Chapter 83: The Desolate Village in Bamboo Slips
When Lu Yibei discovered that the tall man leading the group was Li Xuan, he instinctively wanted to step back, turn around, create distance, and then make a sprint to safety.
But in the end, he was still a step too late and was stopped by Li Xuan.
“Didn’t expect to see you here too?” Li Xuan said with a smile to Lu Yibei, but Lu Yibei always felt that his smile was akin to the high-speed express train of Yun Kang Psychiatric Hospital.
“Yes, yes!” Lu Yibei replied expressionlessly, responding in a voice only the two could hear, “Didn’t Jiang Li tell me to pay attention to any abnormal events around me? I was just about to go to the office with the teacher when I ran into you on the way, of course, I had to come over and take a look!”
What did I say? Don’t be a bystander, don’t be a bystander! Now look where this has gotten me, into trouble?
I should have thought of this; with things like this happening, how could the Siye Society not send someone? thought Lu Yibei.
As the saying goes, if you don’t do anything wrong, you won’t be afraid of a ghost knocking on your door. Ever since Li Xuan knocked on his door last time, Lu Yibei always felt there was something off about Li Xuan, as if he had discovered some secret about him, making him feel uncomfortable all over.
d*mn it, if he figures something out and catches me, how am I going to notify Jumeng to escape…
Wait, why would I have the thought of notifying her to run? This is all her fault. If I get caught, I’m definitely dragging her down with me, thought Lu Yibei.
“Oh really?” Li Xuan smiled, “Well, you’re quite dedicated!”
As he spoke, that pair of deep-set eyes seemed to whisper to Lu Yibei, “I’ve discovered your secret, you better be careful, don’t let me catch you.”
“Of course!” Lu Yibei forced himself to keep chatting with Li Xuan, “A young man as rich, brave, humorous, and with a strong sense of justice as I am is really quite rare these days.”
This is too thick-skinned! Li Xuan tugged at the corner of his mouth and raised his hand to sharply pat Lu Yibei’s shoulder.
“You’re not wrong, but you really have nothing to do here anymore; I’ll continue handling things from here.”
Lu Yibei felt as though his shoulder blade might break from Li Xuan the b*stard’s slap, gritting his teeth and squeezing out the words, “Yes, yes, I’m quite afraid of things like this; since you’re here, I’ll leave it to you. I have important matters to discuss with the teacher, so I’ll be going first.”
After finishing, Lu Yibei turned around and hurriedly pulled Professor Ma, who looked bewildered, to escape the scene.
Li Xuan stood in place, squinting his eyes as he watched Lu Yibei’s departing figure, seemingly deep in thought.
How strange, wherever there’s trouble, this kid’s trail appears! It really makes it hard not to be suspicious of you!
Although it sounds good, you better not let me catch your tail! Li Xuan thought.
If it weren’t for the concern about what might be hidden at Lu Yibei’s home, and worrying that Bai Kai might puncture his tire again, he would definitely have controlled Lu Yibei and investigated thoroughly.
While Li Xuan was pondering, a tall man approached and whispered in his ear, “Agent Li, An Qing’s verification results are out; it can be confirmed as an urban legend event.”
As he spoke, he handed the tablet in his hand to Li Xuan.
Due to He Zhe’s corpse being heavily decomposed and showing no obvious fatal injuries in the bones, An Qing had only analyzed the black viscous substance collected from the corpse for now.
The analysis results of the viscous substance were quite strange.
Its composition was merely a mixture of bodily fluids and decayed organs, completely showing no presence of bacteria that could cause soft tissue dissolution, but rather, it seemed like a result of corrosive chemical agents dissolving it, yet no chemical agents were detected in the mixture. Combining these two points, An Qing ruled out the possibility of human interference.
But what puzzled her was that after analyzing the spell formula, no remnants of spirit energy fluctuations were found in the black viscous substance, meaning it couldn’t be casually concluded that it was caused by an urban legend.
“So you’re just throwing the riddle to me? Really gives me a headache!” Li Xuan sighed bitterly after reading An Qing’s report.
…
Lu Yibei followed Professor Ma upstairs.
It wasn’t until he sat down in the seminar room that Professor Ma couldn’t hold back his curiosity and asked, “Do you know that police officer from earlier? I felt like he was being quite aggressive with you.”
“Uh…” Lu Yibei hesitated for a moment and replied, “I know him, but not very well. He’s just a colleague of my godfather.”
He paused slightly and added, “He always thinks I’m into mystical stuff and not serious, so he has a prejudice against me.”
Lu Yibei didn’t want Professor Ma to have any strange ideas about him, nor could he reveal the existence of the Siye Society, so he could only tell a small lie.
“Oh, I see.” Professor Ma looked enlightened, “Those who are police officers deal with various cases all the time, either firmly believing in the mystical or not believing in ghosts at all. Your godfather’s colleague is probably the latter.”
After finishing, Professor Ma added in his heart that he didn’t expect the plot in a novel about exorcists having conflicts with police officers to actually occur in reality. Truly, art comes from life.
Seeing Professor Ma thinking positively about the situation, Lu Yibei didn’t continue to explain, nodded, and brought the conversation back to the main topic, “Professor, shouldn’t we take a look at that set of bamboo slips now?”
“Oh right! The bamboo slips, how could I forget!”
Professor Ma slapped his head and smiled, then got up and walked toward the storage room. Lu Yibei, as usual, did not follow him inside but sat in the chair waiting quietly.
After opening the security door of the storage room and stepping inside, an unusual look appeared on Professor Ma’s aging face. His thick eyebrows knitted together, as if he contained a certain anger, and his murky eyes stared blankly at a certain area, lips moving slightly as if trying to talk, yet no sound came out.
This state lasted for only a few seconds, and then he returned to normal, anxiety and uneasiness occupying his expression.
“What just happened to me?”
He murmured to himself, looking up at the ancient box on the display rack.
It lay quietly there like a cage imprisoning a monster. On the metallic display rack, the blackish-brown surface, tinged with a hint of red, emitted a pale light, yet inexplicably felt like a shadow enveloped the surroundings.
Staring at it, Professor Ma once again felt a mad desire not to let Lu Yibei have it, even wanting to hide it.
But the mysterious disappearance of old friends and student Luxu, along with He Zhe’s d*ath news this morning, filled him with fear, like a cold steel needle pricking his nerves, bringing him back to a semblance of rationality.
Maybe I should do the same as usual and toss a coin? Just as he thought of opening the box, this thought suddenly popped into Professor Ma’s mind.
In the past, whenever I encountered a dilemma, I would hand over the decision-making power to that coin. Why shouldn’t I do the same this time?
He thought to himself, reaching into his suit jacket pocket to retrieve the smooth, shiny coin, which he flicked up into the air with a “ding!”
One side says “give,” the other “don’t give.” Professor Ma murmured in his heart, tracking the trajectory of the coin with his gaze, and as it fell back down in front of him, he quickly covered it with the back of his hand.
However, just at that instant when the coin was covered, his expression froze, and the corners of his mouth uncontrollably twitched.
He could distinctly feel that the coin had slipped into his fingers under his palm and was standing on the back of his hand…
…
Lu Yibei waited in the seminar room for a moment.
When Professor Ma finally came out of the storage room, he found that he was holding an ancient-looking copper-inlaid wooden box.
While in the storage room, Professor Ma had tossed the coin three times and received the same result each time, which was no longer something explainable by a small probability; it made him uneasy.
Perhaps because of this uneasiness, he ultimately decided to hand the bamboo slips to Lu Yibei but changed the method from directly taking out the bamboo slips to handing them over along with the box.
Lu Yibei was momentarily taken aback at the sight of the wooden box in Professor Ma’s arms, secretly muttering, isn’t this the strange box that the young man had from before?
So he came that day to find Professor Ma to give him the bamboo slips?
“Take a look?”
As Lu Yibei pondered, Professor Ma placed the bamboo slips on the table and pushed them towards him, then moved his chair aside as if he had some kind of apprehension towards the bamboo slips.
“Mm.” Lu Yibei nodded, thinking that even if he couldn’t find anything abnormal this time, he should remember all the contents of the bamboo slips to take back to Jumeng for translation, then opened the wooden box.
A faint camphor scent wafted out, and a roll of dark, glossy bamboo slips appeared before his eyes.
As soon as he saw the bamboo slips, Lu Yibei’s eyes began to ache slightly, and the scene in front of him started to twist and distort.
Feeling a similar abnormal reaction in his eyes as when he had seen hallucinations before, Lu Yibei furrowed his brow.
These bamboo slips truly have a problem!
Then come on, let me see what kind of tricks you’re hiding!
It’s just an illusion, right? Looking won’t k*ll me!
Lu Yibei encouraged himself, took a deep breath, and reached out to bring the bamboo slips closer.
The moment he held the bamboo slips in his hand, his vision plunged into a distortion of light and shadow. The bamboo slips emanated a strange power, causing light in the air to swirl and ripple, creating peculiar vortices that pulled at his consciousness.
He gritted his teeth and slowly unfolded the bamboo slips. As those strange, special characters were revealed, the scene gradually became clearer before him.
Focusing his mind.
She saw a desolate village encircled by mountains, those pitch-black peaks seemed like giant hairy figures, hidden in the mist, with invisible, huge eyes surveying the earth.
Continuous strands of rain fell from the sky, and the leaden clouds loomed like mountains, obscuring all sunlight and making it hard to breathe.
Lu Yibei stood on the muddy path, feeling the cold raindrops pelting against her face, the pale strands of hair at her temples soaked and sticking together, plastered against her cheeks.
She saw the village dimly lit, with seemingly no one behind the darkened window frames and doors, the entire village heavy with moisture, as if lost in another world.
This place…
Lu Yibei furrowed her brow; she had thought she might see those soldiers resembling walking dead while seeking the spirits, or a gruesome bloody sacrifice, but she never expected to see such a desolate village.
“Dooi—!”
Before Lu Yibei could contemplate further, a sharp, piercing sound of a suona suddenly resonated from the depths of the desolate village, interrupting her thoughts.
That lamenting sound seemed to be a sorrowful cry from a distant time.
With an expressionless gaze, she stared in the direction where the sound came from. The narrow, winding path was battered by rain, with the thatched houses silent on either side, and everything looked exactly as it did moments ago.
But her intuition told her something invisible was added to that path, and those things were on their way.
