strokinit Chapter 115 It's too late to retreat now!
Chapter 115 It's too late to retreat now!
At 7:30 p.m., Wang Laohan's family delivered several large buckets of hot water.
With Shen Shulan around, the quality of life in the team improved dramatically.
After all, she's a young lady, and she likes things to be clean.
Besides, with five people crammed into one kang (heated brick bed), hygiene has to be a priority.
In the past, Lu Yuan and his companions would often live a life of hardship, sometimes not even having time to wash their faces, let alone their feet.
Now I wipe my face and hands with a hot towel every morning and evening, and then brush my teeth. Although it takes more than ten minutes, it really makes me feel refreshed.
The kang (heated brick bed) had already been made.
The warmest spot on the kang (heated brick bed) was naturally reserved for Shen Shulan.
Lu Yuan slept right next to her, Xu Erxiao and Wang Chengan slept in the middle, and the newcomer Tan Jiji consciously lay down at the end of the kang.
After days of travel, everyone was exhausted.
Tan Jiji must have been investigating all along, barely getting any sleep.
Almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, her even breathing began to rise and fall.
Silent all night.
The next morning, around 5 a.m., the sky was still pitch black, but everyone had already had enough sleep.
Breakfast was pan-fried dumplings made from the leftover dumplings from last night. They were glistening with oil, with a crispy outer skin and a savory filling that made your mouth water.
After a quick packing, the group prepared to continue their journey.
That Tan Jiji is incredibly stubborn; no matter what Lu Yuan said, she insisted on following him.
Lu Yuan thought about it again.
With Shen Shulan by my side this time, there's no way anyone could stab me in the back again.
It's always a good thing to have more people help you.
In the end, Lu Yuan tacitly approved of Tan Jiji's joining.
Tan Jiji rode Wang Cheng'an's horse, while Wang Cheng'an squeezed onto the same horse as Xu Erxiao.
Five people on four horses galloped towards Luoyanpo, eighty miles north of Muniu Village, braving the biting morning wind.
There is a well-known old story about Luoyanpo.
This is completely different from the hidden, unknown places where the Wang family of the Destiny King cultivated evil spirits.
Whether it's Laotao River or Chunhua Garden, you need to follow the map and carefully explore the place to discover its secrets.
But the evil of Luoyanpo is written in its name.
Wang Laohan mentioned it during dinner last night.
He said that Luoyanpo wasn't originally called that.
When the Qing dynasty was still in power, that place was the site of the famous "Liu Family Beauty Porcelain" kiln in Fengtian City.
The kiln owner had an only daughter named Liu Ruyan, who was extremely ugly. Half of her face was covered with a dark blue birthmark, and her skin was twisted and wrinkled, like the bark of an old tree. When she was ten years old, her mother, unable to bear the humiliation of her daughter being ridiculed every day, committed suicide by jumping into a well.
His father, the kiln owner Liu, was devastated and from then on devoted all his energy to the porcelain kiln.
He created a type of porcelain called "Beauty Porcelain," which had a body as smooth and lustrous as jade and a sheen comparable to the skin of a beautiful woman, and became famous overnight.
Although Liu Ruyan was ugly, she was skillful and clever, having inherited her father's true skills, and was especially good at sculpting human figures.
She often gazed at herself in the mirror late at night, using the finest porcelain clay to repair and sculpt her face, dreaming of recreating a stunningly beautiful countenance. When she was seventeen, the son of the prefect of Fengtian came to order porcelain and inadvertently caught a glimpse of her true appearance. He then publicly mocked her, saying, "Can an ugly ghost really make porcelain of a beauty?"
That night, Liu Ruyan went completely insane.
She locked herself inside the main kiln and, having learned some evil magic from who-knows-where, mixed twelve kinds of rouge and three drops of virgin blood from between her eyebrows into the porcelain clay, attempting to fire herself alive into a "living beauty porcelain" that would never fade.
The outcome was predictable.
Since then, "Liu's Beauty Porcelain" has completely declined.
These folk tales have been passed down for many years, and it's long since difficult to distinguish between true and false.
But it at least proves that Luoyanpo itself has an eerie atmosphere and a notorious reputation.
Lu Yuan couldn't understand why the Wang family, known for their ruthlessness, would choose such a place.
The key to cultivating evil spirits lies in the word "concealment," meaning that evil spirits accumulate over time in a place unknown to others.
To build a sacred site in a place like Luoyan Slope requires either exceptional skill and daring, or the ability to play a trick of hiding one's true intentions.
Either... it's the unique characteristics of this place that hold immense appeal for those who raise evil spirits, making it worth the risk.
Lu Yuan flipped through the Demon-Nourishing Map. This Demon-Nourishing Ground was built twenty-seven years ago, making it one of the oldest Demon-Nourishing Grounds.
Like a house, a place for nurturing evil spirits requires constant maintenance. Once it can no longer continuously generate evil spirits, it will gradually collapse, become ineffective, and be abandoned by the fortune-telling family. Most places for nurturing evil spirits have a "lifespan" of only a dozen years.
The fact that this nurturing ground of Luoyanpo has been able to maintain itself for nearly thirty years must mean that it has a special way of "maintaining" it.
They walked in silence until dusk, when the last glimmer of light on the horizon was about to be swallowed by darkness.
The group arrived at a roadside inn about three miles away from Luoyanpo.
Although it's called a roadside inn, it's actually quite large, resembling a courtyard converted from a wealthy family's residence.
A dim, gloomy lamp hung in front of the door, its shade covered with thick grease, casting a yellowish, viscous glow that gave off a sickly air. Lu Yuan reined in his horse and glanced across the courtyard.
Seven or eight tall horses were tied to the manger, each with a glossy coat and fine saddles, far beyond the reach of ordinary people.
A warm yellow light shone through the paper windows of the main room, and the faint sound of a woman's laughter could be heard.
Lu Yuan and his group had dry rations and such.
However, after several days of running around, the horse couldn't take it anymore and couldn't run anymore this afternoon.
When you come across a shop where you can feed horses, you'll naturally want to feed them.
They were almost there, so Lu Yuan and the other two naturally needed to rest for a bit and recharge.
Lu Yuan dismounted, but his brows furrowed slightly.
The small courtyard was filled with horses parked haphazardly, almost blocking the entrance.
A strange thought flashed through his mind.
Who parked their car here? So rude!
Da da da, da, yay^, da da da, da, yay~, da da da, da, yay~
Lu Yuan led the four of them straight into the store.
The innkeeper was a thin man in his fifties who introduced himself as surnamed Hu. He had a fresh scratch on his left cheek, which had already scabbed over with dark red blood. "Are there any rooms available?" Lu Yuan asked.
Manager Hu kept his head down, fiddling with the abacus, not even bothering to lift his eyelids.
"That's all."
"There's only one large dormitory room left, which can sleep five people."
Lu Yuan didn't mind. After resting for a few hours and waiting for the horses to eat their fill of fodder, they would set off.
If the horses are too tired to move, the five of them can just walk; after all, it's only about three miles from here to Luoyan Slope. "Then we'll take one room."
Lu Yuan took out a five-yuan bill from his pocket and slapped it on the counter.
"Get us some more hot food."
Upon seeing the money, Manager Hu finally raised his eyes, his gaze quickly sweeping over the five people.
Her gaze lingered for a moment longer on Shen Shulan's cool and aloof Taoist robe before quickly falling back down.
"Food is available, but you'll have to wait."
"The customers at the table in front are in a hurry, and the kitchen is busy."
His attitude was less one of indifference and more one of deliberate distancing and wariness.
As mentioned before, Taoist priests are usually highly respected in this rural area.
Of course, Lu Yuan wasn't saying that everyone had to be all smiles, but it was rare to see someone as indifferent as Manager Hu.
Lu Yuan didn't think much of it and simply said:
"It's alright, let's feed our horses first."
Manager Hu didn't even look up, and said directly:
"Go inside and wait in the shared dormitory."
As soon as he finished speaking, the curtain of the main room was lifted by a hand, and a young man in brocade robes dressed in moon-white silk walked out.
The young man was about twenty-five or twenty-six years old, with an exceptionally refined appearance.
However, there was an indescribable strangeness about that "refinement".
His skin was a bloodless white, even gleaming with a glaze-like sheen under the light, lacking the texture and warmth of human skin. His lips were an excessively even red, as if meticulously painted with the finest rouge, without a single lip line.
He wore a moon-white silk robe, with a piece of mutton-fat jade pendant hanging from his waist. He walked with light steps, as if his toes did not touch the ground.
"Boss Hu,"
The young master spoke, his voice gentle yet carrying a cool, tinkling echo, like the clinking of porcelain:
"Add another jar of pear blossom liquor, aged for more than ten years."
"Yes, sir!"
Just a moment ago, Manager Hu was indifferent, but now he seemed to have been whipped.
His face instantly broke into a wide smile, and he bowed deeply, exuding a deep-seated obsequiousness and fear.
Lu Yuan and the other four exchanged a glance.
No words are needed.
Lu Yuan's nose clearly caught a whiff of a scent emanating from that "Young Master Sun".
That's something even the finest incense couldn't mask...
A deathly aura, a mixture of aged grave soil and rouge.
Judging from Young Master Sun's appearance, he's obviously not a normal person. What kind of good person looks like that?
Moreover, the way it's called is also strange.
He keeps talking about some young master.
Of course, Lu Yuan wasn't saying that people didn't call others "Young Master" or anything like that during the Republic of China era.
Honestly, very few people in this region outside the Great Wall speak in this tone.
When you encounter a young master from a wealthy family, you'll basically be greeted with a shout of "Young Master!"
Call him "Young Master"?
This title is far too "exquisite," as if it crawled out of some decaying old coffin.
It doesn't have the slightest hint of the local dialect from beyond the Great Wall.
Just as Lu Yuan and his group of five were secretly observing, Young Master Sun's gaze also drifted over.
His gaze swept lightly over Lu Yuan and the others, finally settling on Shen Shulan's aloof face.
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
That wasn't the smile exchanged between people; it was more like that of a master porcelain maker who had finally found a unique and exquisite masterpiece. "Gentlemen, are you also going to 'Beauty Slope' to seek good fortune?"
Young Master Sun suddenly smiled and looked at Lu Yuan and the other four, asking them a question.
Lu Yuan remained expressionless and his voice was steady.
"Beauty Hill?"
After Lu Yuan finished speaking, before Young Master Sun could reply, Manager Hu, who had been aloof just moments before, suddenly became enthusiastic and said:
"Oh, you didn't know?"
Manager Hu raised his hand, his withered fingers pointing to the dark mountain shadows that had sunk into the night to the north.
"That's Luoyan Slope! It's been renamed 'Beauty Slope' a long time ago!"
"Rumor has it that if you sleep there for one night, men will become three times more handsome, and women will become seven times more beautiful!"
He looked mysterious, lowered his voice, and gestured towards Young Master Sun with his lip.
"Look at Young Master Sun, when he came here three months ago he was just an ordinary scholar."
"Looking at him now, wow, even Pan An reincarnated couldn't compare!"
Lu Yuan: .…….…”
That damned Qingyao is long dead.
Where the hell did this so-called scholar come from?
Faced with the shopkeeper's flattery, Young Master Sun merely smiled slightly, not denying it at all. He slowly raised his hand and smoothed his dark sideburns. As he did so, a section of his wrist slipped out from the cuff of his moon-white silk robe.
Under the dim light, her skin shimmered with a warm, porcelain-like luster.
"It's nothing more than a superficial fortune."
He spoke casually, as if he were talking about a trivial matter.
Turning back to the front of the house, his gaze swept over Shen Shulan once more.
"If you wish to go, young lady, it would be best to choose a daytime."
His voice was warm, yet it carried a cold quality, like the clash of porcelain.
"It's windy at night, it's easy to..."
He paused, then his smile deepened.
"My eyes are blurry."
The curtain fell, blocking the view, and the woman's sweet laughter drifted out again from inside, soothing and captivating.
The food was served very slowly.
The five people first went to the shared sleeping area in the side room to rest.
Unable to contain himself, Xu Erxiao crept to the window, pried open a small hole the size of a fingernail in the paper window, and peered into the main room. After looking for a while, he suddenly pulled back, his face pale, and his voice extremely low.
"Senior brother, there's something very strange about that table in the main room!"
"Besides that young master Sun, there were three other women, each more beautiful than the last, but their beauty... was sinister!"
His voice trembled slightly.
"There was a woman with her profile facing me; I saw it very clearly—there was a thin slit behind her ear!"
"It's a joining line that only appears on porcelain!"
Wang Chengan's hand, which was spreading out the bedding, suddenly stopped.
"Painted Skin?"
Lu Yuan shook his head directly, his gaze deep and serious.
"no."
"Painted Skin is a ghost, its body is pure Yin energy."
"These people... have the yang energy of living people, but mixed in with that yang energy is the fishy smell of freshly fired porcelain clay."
Shen Shulan took out a white jade porcelain bottle the size of a longan from his trousers.
She uncorked the container, poured some blue powder into her palm, brought it to her lips, and gently blew on it.
A wisp of extremely faint blue smoke drifted silently toward the window crack.
This is the "Qi-Observing Incense" secretly passed down by Wuqing Temple, which can make invisible qi reveal its traces.
The wisp of smoke drifted out the window, and as if it had a life of its own, it swirled around the window of the main room.
Immediately, the green smoke split into four wisps, each wrapping around one of the four figures inside the room.
Each wisp of smoke was enveloped in a deathly pale white glow, yet deep within that glow, a stubborn, corpse-like bluish-black hue shone through. "A living body, the aura of a dead thing."
Shen Shulan frowned, her beautiful brows furrowing, her voice cool and clear.
"It's like... being parasitized by something."
Tan Jiji, who had been silent all along, finally spoke with a serious expression.
"I've seen similar things."
All eyes turned to him, and Tan Jiji, deep in thought, said:
Three years ago, I passed through a deserted village. The villagers all had decent appearances, but their eyes were dull and their skin was as cold as frozen meat.
"I later learned that there was an ancient tomb under that village, and the tomb contained a kind of 'jade figurine' as a burial object."
"If a living person stays close for too long, they will be infected by the jade terracotta warrior's 'corpse beauty aura,' becoming beautiful, but will slowly stiffen into..."
Lu Yuan shook his head in direct rebuttal to this statement:
Similar, but different.
"The jade figurine exudes the aura of a corpse, while this exudes the aura of porcelain."
At this moment, Xu Erxiao, who was peering through the window, blinked and said:
"When the innkeeper comes in to bring us food later, shall we just ask him?"
"He definitely knows!"
Lu Yuan shook his head, his gaze sweeping over the simple dormitory room, his voice turning cold.
"There's no need to ask, and you won't get any answers anyway."
"There must be something sinister here. Anyone who isn't an idiot can see that. The shopkeeper's words are also incoherent."
"What scholar, what young master, what beauty hill? It's all nonsense."
"If he were a normal person possessed by evil spirits, he would definitely ask us for help, but I haven't seen him show any intention of asking us for assistance." Lu Yuan slowly stood up, his gaze sweeping over the four people in front of him, and said, word by word:
"No need to put on the mattress, you can't sleep here, and you can't eat later either."
Tan Jiji looked around; the small mud-brick house now seemed like a cage. He made a quick decision:
"We have to retreat!"
Lu Yuan turned his head, his gaze piercing through the wall, and looked at the main room from which bursts of laughter still emanated.
"It's probably too late to back out now."
Lu Yuan's voice was very soft, but it made everyone present feel a sudden sinking feeling in their hearts.
"From the moment we stepped into this courtyard."
"We're already in the game!"
At this point, Lu Yuan took a deep breath and said with utmost seriousness:
"That's a brilliant tactic! I didn't notice it at all before!!"