The ground was stained with blood. After crossing this boulder, we found more, dripping and forming a chain, spreading to the distance.
Lao Bai found traces of knife and axe on another stone. The most amazing thing was that there were several scratches on it, which seemed to be made by sharp paper armor.
All this told me that a battle had taken place here. Brother Yaozi might have been injured and eventually escaped. The specific situation is still unknown.
"The ghost Gu hesitated..."
Lao Bai said softly: "It seems that there is something here that scares it, so it can't accurately identify the smell."
When it comes to Gu, everyone thinks of words such as vicious and deadly at the first time. However, this ghost Gu is an alternative among Gu insects. It is very difficult to cultivate, but it is extremely timid and often lies down when tracking.
It's useless to rely on it. We can only rely on ourselves. We quietly tracked along the bloodstains on the ground. Soon after, we got out of here. Suddenly, the view in front of us was clear. Under the dim green candlelight, three figures jumped into our sight.
These three people were Brother Yaozi and his friends.
However, their condition was very bad.
Brother Yaozi was lying on a slope, covered in blood. If his chest was not still rising and falling, even I would have thought it was a corpse.
Zhang Xinya was sitting next to him, with her hands on her knees, her head hanging down, and her long hair covering her face, looking extremely miserable.
Not far from the two of them, an ancient sword was inserted diagonally into the ground. My master was sitting cross-legged next to him, with his back to me. His waist was still straight, but there were wisps of white smoke rising from his hair above his head. After a moment, his whole body trembled, and he spit out a mouthful of blood and fell on his back.
I had already hidden on one side and observed the situation around me. After confirming that there was nothing else, I couldn't hold back my calmness. I shouted "Master" and rushed over to help him.
"Don't touch him!"
Brother Yaozi suddenly sat up from the ground as if he had a flash of life, and shouted, "He has a cold poison. If you get it, you will die!"
I was startled and stopped in my tracks. I looked at my master carefully and found that his robe was covered with a lot of white frost, there was a black handprint on his chest, and his face was blue.
"Master, are you okay? Did you encounter that Water Prince?"
I squatted beside him, full of anxiety.
My master once said that the Water King is not only a powerful water ghost who can call the wind and rain, but also has a strange poison on his scales and claws. Once the skin is pierced, the toxin enters the blood. At the beginning, the pupil will shrink, salivate, spasm and nerve paralysis, and even incontinence will appear. This is a typical feature of neurotoxins, but the biggest difference is that it can coagulate blood, evaporate the water in the blood out of the body surface, and form frost, turning people into a mummy alive, which is extremely painful.
My master's body surface has frost, which obviously means that the toxin has penetrated into the blood. At this point, the person is basically dead.
The more I think about this, the more I feel at a loss.
This man is probably the best person in the world to me except my father.
"Don't be afraid, Jingzhe. This poison can't harm Master."
My Master opened his eyes and showed a gentle smile on his sick face. He wanted to rub my head, but when he stretched out his hand, he found that his skin was covered with frost, so he put it down silently and smiled: "How can a man still be angry? These are minor injuries. They will be fine after a period of rest."
I felt relieved when I saw that he didn't seem to be lying to me.
I don't know when Brother Yaozi was supported by Zhang Xinya to come to my side. There was a place on his chest that collapsed, and there were many wounds on his body. If it were an ordinary person, he would have died long ago. Even if he was different from ordinary people, he was basically half useless. However, his eyes were bright and he kept looking at me with a thoughtful look in his eyes.
"Jingzhe, where on earth have you been?"
Brother Yaozi's eyes flickered, and he asked, "Why did you not respond when I called you in front of the three hanging coffins? Instead, you turned around and ran away? At that time, I thought you were controlled by something, but you looked fine and didn't seem to be in trouble."
"What hanging coffins?"
I felt creepy when Brother Yaozi looked at me, and felt like a prisoner in an interrogation room. I couldn't help but say, "What are you talking about? Where is the hanging coffin here? There is one in the bronze temple!"
"Little Weizi..."
Lao Bai suddenly poked me with a finger and whispered, "There is really a hanging coffin here..."
The so-called hanging coffin burial is to hang the coffin on the cliff. The higher it is hung, the higher the status of the deceased. Some people say that it means the soul goes to heaven. Anyway, there are many particularities. Some southern ethnic minorities often use it.
Lao Bai said that there are also three hanging coffins hanging on the cliff. He had seen them when he was controlled by the Gu King. The Youqi Gu was found there.
The three coffins were very unusual. They were hung up with something called a money rope. This money rope was a special item for tomb robbers. It was a precious metal alloy. The craftsmanship had long been lost. It was said that this thing could lift heavy objects and would not rust for thousands of years.
However, the money ropes that hung up the three coffins should have been smeared with the blood of the dead. Moreover, the hanging coffins were simple and should be made of simply polished stones. There were some strange patterns on them.
Lao Bai figured out the fundamental key to this situation through these bits and pieces.
He said that this was the dead burying themselves. Some knowledgeable masters, like us, would often go back to find corpses and bury themselves to achieve some ulterior purposes.
This kind of hanging coffin burial is also a kind of ghost-raising technique. The coffins are hung up, not grounded, and not entering the underworld. This is not going to enter the five elements, and the plot is huge.
When I heard this, I knew that the bodies in the three hanging coffins should belong to Wang Zhanggui and his men. These three bastards had great ambitions, but unfortunately they met a more ruthless one.
I have seen the place where Wang Zhanggui and his three men buried their souls, but I have never been to the place where they buried their bodies, unless I was sleepwalking. I immediately felt something was wrong. After repeated questioning, Brother Yaozi finally told me about their experiences.
Since I fell into this tomb, Brother Yaozi and Zhang Xinya had no idea and were anxious to turn around.
Fortunately, my master arrived quickly.
He came out of the bloodline lizard and killed the Yin slave dozens of times in a row. The other party left more than a dozen scapegoats. At that time, my master suddenly realized that this Yin slave was simply unkillable!
Yin slaves are puppets, but the puppet we met was a puppet very thoroughly.
It completely sacrificed its soul to its master, almost becoming a parasite. Unless its master is killed, it cannot be subdued.
This is the oldest sacrificial technique. Unlike other Yin slaves, this Yin slave is completely willing to become a puppet, almost connected to the master. It has as many substitutes as the master makes...
In the end, this matter finally fell on the master.
My master was afraid of the content of the hexagram at that time, so he hurriedly gave up chasing the Yin slave and came to us, ready to find the master alone, and resolutely prevented me from meeting him. When he met Brother Yaozi, I was already here...
So they hurriedly chased here again and found the hanging coffin burial.
Brother Yaozi said that they saw me there, with my back to them, squatting behind a pile of rocks, and I didn't know what I was doing. They called me, but I ran away like a frightened rabbit.
It was just a glimpse, I had already run away without a trace.
My master was worried about my safety, thinking that I was controlled by something, and without thinking too much, he picked up the sword and chased after me. Not long after, he ran into the Water King who was looking for me everywhere.
A big battle broke out immediately.
The Water King was too fierce. My master said that it had not yet become a great power, and it was only one step away from the most critical step. Once it succeeded, it would become a force to be reckoned with and difficult to deal with.
After a fierce fight, the situation became what it is now, but the Water King was also injured by my master and fled.
"I have never seen that hanging coffin, that... is not me at all..."
I muttered to myself, feeling a bone-chilling chill.
Even Brother Yaozi and the others looked at each other, already smelling a hint of something unusual.
I thought about all the things that happened along the way, and finally smiled bitterly silently: "We might have fallen into a trap. We have all become pawns on someone else's chessboard, being manipulated at will, and finally running into a plot that has been calculated long ago..."