The wine tasted slightly cool, but it ignited a raging fire, burning Lu Ying's head. His slender fingers grasped the edge of the bed, and when he used them, his joints were distinct, wrinkling the satin sheets, as if he was venting his overflowing excitement.
But he soon took away even this right.
Jing Xian gently took his hand and kissed his palm and fingers.
Afterwards, the hands grabbed the edge of the pearwood table, still trembling.
His injury had just healed, and under Jing Xian's careful care, the scars on his butterfly spine and lower back were almost invisible.
—He thought he was completely healed.
He just stretched out his hand, stroked her lips with his fingers like a dragonfly skimming the water, then lowered his head and kissed her gently.
The new skin was soft and fragile, with electricity running through it. He curled up his fingers and moaned softly when he saw that he was being squeezed.
After the heavy pearwood table moved forward a few centimeters, they got up and rolled on the thick carpet again.
As you can imagine, the carpet was also in a mess.
Finally they entered the warm bath.
Beside the pond is a lush flower tree, with pink petals falling on the water, creating ripples.
There was incense burning on the shore. Lu Ying was still drunk, so he washed himself thoroughly and dried himself thoroughly.
It was past afternoon when I returned to bed.
Lu Yingjiu was lying on a pile of soft mattresses, about to fall asleep. His waist was sore and weak, and his spine seemed to be melting. He thought vaguely, this is really a waste of time.
Jing Xian's hair seemed to brush across his smooth back, with a few strands of coldness.
Then Jing Xian leaned close to his ear and whispered, "Do you want to eat something?"
“… No, I’m not hungry.” Lu Yingjiu replied vaguely, “I’ve eaten enough.”
The "eat" he mentioned obviously had another meaning. Jing Xian was stunned for a moment, then hugged him again and rubbed his shoulder affectionately.
The two of them lay like this until the evening, and Lu Yingjiu barely recovered his energy.
Jing Xian cooked the meal himself. The food was fragrant, colorful, and delicious, and was neatly placed on the wooden table.
Maotuan squatted in the corner, and Storm sucked in a few large chicken legs.
In the morning, it was thrown in the outer hall respectfully, so as not to disturb him and Lu Yingjiu's good time. As a result, Mao Tuan had nothing to do and ate all the flowers and plants in the outer hall, making a mess.
Lu Yingjiu rubbed Mao Tuan's head and sat down at the table. Before he had taken a few bites, a large amount of dishes appeared in his bowl.
Jing Xian kept serving him food, saying, "Eat more, eat more, and get more nutrition. Your stomach is really too weak."
Lu Yingjiu: “…?”
In fact, his half-human, half-ghost state is close to that of a god. He can run, jump, and fight. His physical fitness is many times better than that of ordinary people. In any case, it has nothing to do with "Xu".
It's just that Jingxian is too troublesome.
A jealous man, a jealous man who loves love, a jealous man who has been holding back for hundreds of years, you can imagine how strong he is in battle. If Lu Yingjiu hadn't been about to fall asleep at the time, Jing Xian might have held him in the bathtub and made love with him.
Lu Yingjiu took a deep breath and said, "I think this should be your problem."
Jingxian:
Jing Xian: ? ? !
His face changed drastically!
Lu Yingjiu was confused and bewildered. Jing Xian grabbed her hand and said faintly, "… Is it because I am not good enough? Am I not performing well enough?"
Lu Yingjiu: “…”
Jing Xian added: "It was you who shouted in my ear several times, 'No, it's too deep, no, no', that's why I..."
“Stop, stop, stop!” Lu Yingjiu’s blood rushed down his spine, “Stop, stop!”
Jing Xian stopped talking in anger.
Lu Yingjiu realized the discrepancy in his words, but it was too late.
For the entire dinner, he tried to persuade Jing Xian not to continue in the evening as he had to travel tomorrow.
Jing Xian managed to hold himself back with great difficulty.
The next day, they rode their horses further into the lower realms of the ghost world.
The speed of time in the ghost world is different from that in the human world. Even if several months pass, it is only four or five days in the human world. They are not in a hurry, but since Lu Yingjiu's injury has healed, they have been traveling faster.
While resting along the way, Lu Yingjiu continued to study the formation.
He sketched on the paper, calculating and speculating constantly, and he unraveled the principle like peeling off silk threads from an onion.
After six or seven days, the surrounding scenery was filled with bones, knife-like mountains and endless mass graves.
The ghost world is very large. Although it corresponds to the geographical location of the world of the living, it is ultimately different.
For example, the area of a city in the human world is at least three to five times larger than the corresponding location in the ghost world, and the most exaggerated one is even hundreds of times larger.
Even if the priests are very powerful and the little devils work hard, it will take a lot of time.
In the past few days, apart from Zhang Haokong's place, the ghosts and monsters only found another starting point of the formation. Lu Yingjiu and Jing Xian were going there now.
Two horses stepped over the bones, breaking some of them.
The surroundings were cold and gloomy. The two men were wearing cloaks made of ghost fox fur. The clothes rustled, and when they were raised, gorgeous dark patterns shone.
Lu Yingjiu let his horse run free, his face was made fair by a circle of black fox fur, and there was a soft light in his eyes, which was pleasing to the eye and could be compared to a scenic spot in the desolate scenery.
He asked respectfully: "So, do you know how big the ghost world is?"
"I don't know." Jing Xian said, "The size of the ghost world is not fixed. Do you know where the boundary of the universe is?"
Lu Ying was drunk and was stunned. He didn't know how he got to the topic of science. He still answered: "The universe has no boundaries. It is expanding infinitely."
"The same is true for the ghost world," Jing Xian said. "It is expanding forever. As the universe expands, matter gradually becomes thinner, and no one knows what it will eventually become. But the 'matter' of the ghost world is yin energy, which is ever-lasting and will never become thinner overall, so the expansion of the ghost world will never end."
Lu Yingjiu was really surprised this time.
He never dreamed that one day he would discuss the expansion of the universe with the King of Ghosts.
But on second thought, the infrastructure maniac Jing Xian is undoubtedly a weirdo in the ghost world, so it is not surprising what he does.
Just as he thought this, he saw several tall buildings in the distance.
…It looks quite familiar.
Jing Xian explained: "This is the wind turbine I built. This place is haunted and it's always windy at night. I think it's a pity that it's not good for the environment."
Lu Yingjiu: "...Okay."
As expected, respecting leisure is still respecting leisure.
Just keep going this way.
At night, they lit an orange bonfire in the wind, and crows cried hoarsely in the trees. In the morning, facing the purple sky, they set out on horseback and walked all the way until dusk.
Two days later, they came out of the mass grave.
In front of him was a plain, still grey and endless. With a simple dig of the horse's hooves, he could see the corpses underneath. Even from such a distance, Lu Yingjiu could see a black beam of light pointing straight to the sky. In that dim light, countless ghosts were flying up and down, like a storm, quite spectacular.
Strong talisman paper fluctuations linger.
This is definitely a formation.
As they approached, the ghosts stopped flying, landed on the ground, bowed their heads respectfully, and lined up to greet them.
When Lu Yingjiu arrived in front of the light column, he wrapped his hands with talisman paper and tentatively touched the light—
“Bang!”
It bounced back gracefully.
He whispered, "This formation is still in operation, and its power is only increasing."
Jing Xian raised his hand, and dozens of little ghosts received the order and circled up.
The black light points directly to the sky. If it can pass through, it will reach the human world.
However, as soon as the ghosts rushed forward, they seemed to hit an invisible barrier and fell stiffly to the ground.
Jing Xian said: "And it looks like it's one-way, you can only go from the human world to the ghost world."
"Yes." Lu Yingjiu nodded, "It must be one-way, otherwise if the ghosts in the ghost world go back to the living world, wouldn't it be a mess?"
Jing Xian added: "The corresponding location in the world of the living is the university town in Shangyang City."
Upon hearing this, Lu Yingjiu took out a map.
There is a place on the map (circled in red): Kangli Bridge
Now he took up his pen and circled the university town in Shangyang City. This way, the formations in the northwest and southwest were determined. When he returned to the world of the living, he could go straight to these two places.
He and Jingxian stayed with Heiguang for a few more days.
He drew various kinds of talismans on paper and threw them into the black light one by one, observing their different reactions.
Some talisman papers were pulled down and spontaneously combusted into ashes.
Some talisman papers sank directly into the light without any sound.
Some talisman papers froze into ice flakes, which shattered into debris with crisp "crackling" sounds.
Lu Yingjiu could sit next to him all day, constantly drawing new talismans and writing densely packed notes.
Jing Xian didn't understand these, but he always insisted on sitting next to Lu Ying's wine shop.
It is said that handwriting reflects the person, and Lu Yingjiu's handwriting is very beautiful, with each stroke being delicate and elegant. Jing Xian looked at the serious and focused expression on his face, saw his slender hands holding the ink brush, and saw the ink carefully outlining the words, and felt that every stroke seemed to be drawn on his heart.
When Lu Yingjiu got tired, he would turn his head and kiss the corner of Jingxian's mouth.
Then, the two of them started gossiping again.
The other ghosts didn't dare to look any longer, for fear of displeasing Jing Xian.
Even though they hid far away, one of the little sheep ghosts even took out a stick figure portrait and asked in confusion: "Is this the white moonlight that Wang Xinxin has been thinking about?"
The little calf ghost replied: "It must be, who else could it be?"
The little sheep ghost held up the matchstick man and looked at him, still full of doubts: "Does he, does he look like a matchstick in the slightest? I thought the one Wang liked was really a matchstick ghost. I was still thinking, now the matchstick can become a ghost out of resentment."
The little cow ghost was stunned for a few seconds, and suddenly took a breath of cold air: "Could it be that the king has changed his mind?"
"… Shit!" The little sheep ghost opened his eyes wide, "Now that we know the secret, we'll be beheaded!"
The two ghosts looked at each other, and one of them felt that he had figured out the secret, so he quickly tucked his tail between his legs and behaved like a ghost, not daring to say a word.
After Lu Yingjiu stayed for seven or eight days, he finally finished his research.
At this time, the ghosts sent by Jingxian found a new location.
They set out immediately, riding horses or boating, and arrived at the forest in the misty rain. In the forest, the black light was still rising into the sky.
Jing Xian said: "The corresponding place here in the world of the living is Yunshan Port."
Lu Yingjiu marked the places on the map again and then stayed to study them.
For the next two months, they repeated the same process.
Find a formation, hurry over there, study it, and then go down to the next one.
Lu Yingjiu lists the locations:
Kangli Bridge
Shangyang University Town
Yunshan Port
East City Bar
Yueshan Sanatorium
Shuangfeng Second People's Hospital
There are two place names that look particularly familiar:
Dongcheng Bar is where the Chen family murder took place and Chen Minlan died there.
Yueshan Sanatorium was where Zhang Nianyun committed suicide.
Before she died, Chen Minlan sent a message to Lu Yingjiu via her mobile phone: Lu Yingjiu, your time is up.
And Zhang Nianyun's password box was full of photos of Lu Yingjiu when she was a child.
These two people have an important connection with Lu Yingjiu, and now, they are also related to this formation. It can't be a coincidence.
On the map, they roughly form a circle, covering the east, south, west and north, almost enclosing half of the country.
Lu Yingjiu seemed to have some intention.
The ghost world is really too big, and there is still one last location that has not been found.
Jing Xian said, "You are free anyway, why don't you go to the eighteenth floor and take a look at my palace?"
"I have seen so many palaces you have," Lu Yingjiu said, "more than a dozen palaces, seven or eight resorts of various sizes, and various viewing huts."
"That's not the case." Jing Xian said, "The eighteenth floor is my palace, and I was born in the abyss there."
Then you have to go.
Lu Ying followed him after drinking, and said, "I feel like accompanying my concubine back to her parents' home."
Xian Fei: “Hmm.” Her tone was pleasant.
The eighteenth level of the ghost world is the most dangerous place. No one dares to approach it unless they are great demons, ghosts, or famous priests.
Its entrance is among a large patch of red spider lilies.
Lu Yingjiu reined in his horse in front of the sea of flowers. Looking around, he saw blood-red petals and dragon-claw-like petals swaying in the wind.
The branches and leaves are obviously extremely soft and will fall down at the slightest breeze, but they give people a feeling of solemnity and loneliness.
Jing Xian said it was not convenient to ride a horse here, so he dismounted and walked forward holding the reins.
Lu Yingjiu followed closely behind him.
The flowers were too lush and dense, rushing towards them enthusiastically, making the road difficult to walk on. Behind them, the sea of flowers left a trail like a water mark.
I don't know how long I walked, but all I saw was blood red.
If I get lost here alone, I'm afraid I'll never be able to get out, right
Lu Yingjiu led the horse and looked at Jingxian's tall back. He suddenly said, "Jingxian..."
"Huh?" Jing Xian turned around.
Lu Yingjiu was stunned for a moment, not understanding why she called out subconsciously.
He smiled and said, "It's nothing, I just called you that." He walked half a step faster and walked side by side with Jing Xian. "Maybe I'm going to see the place where you were born soon, so I'm very happy."
Jing Xian also smiled, took his hand, and the two continued to walk deeper into the sea of flowers.
I don’t know how long it will take.
A lonely wooden door stood among the red spider lilies.
There was no house or mansion, no buildings of any kind, just a wooden door. The door was clean, with nothing on it except the wood grain.
"Here it is." Jing Xian said, gently turning the handle.
He held Lu Yingjiu with his lower hand and pushed open the wooden door.
Blazing white light and strong wind blew out from the crack in the door!
The strong yin energy surged, and wherever it passed, human faces appeared in the flowers of the red spider lily. They were densely packed, and all of them were laughing loudly!
Suddenly, the whole sea of flowers was filled with laughter and swaying faces.
Lu Yingjiu frowned slightly.
Jing Xian had already embraced him and walked into the door.
White light filled the entire world. He squinted his eyes, but could not see anything clearly.
When the shrill laughter faded away, the surrounding light gradually dimmed, and what appeared before our eyes were green tiles and red walls.
The endless green tiles and red walls stretch as far as the eye can see.
I don't know how this color was produced, but it sparkled in the light, brilliant and dreamlike. Under the eaves, a few strings of copper bells rang, which was pleasant to the ears.
Lu Yingjiu widened her eyes slightly.
Looking into the distance, the tall palace stood in the sky, piercing straight into the clouds like a sharp blade.
Perhaps because it has spanned a long time, it does not belong to any particular architectural style. The aesthetics of different dynasties in the human world are condensed at the same time, with palaces, pavilions and towers interlaced. There is also the unique ruggedness of the ghost world, with hideous ghosts standing on the roof and carved on the door, as if they are about to burst out with blood in the next second.
Words cannot describe its majesty.
When the daylight is dim, the layers of light and shadow are staggered, the bricks and tiles are transparent, and the gems are shining. It is a glittering city of glass; when the moonlight is like silver, it is surrounded by clouds and mist. Holding a lantern, walking on a high place, your feet can extinguish the surrounding starlight. It is a pavilion in the sky.
A perfect creation.
Belongs only to the most honorable king in the ghost world.
Except for the little bit...
Lu Yingjiu's eyes wandered, and he saw a piece of white paper on the gorgeous door.
There is a happy stick figure on the white paper.
Next to the stickman is a calligraphy written in a flying and phoenix-like style: I love the road to welcome wine
Lu Yingjiu: “…”
He struggled desperately without any hope: "You only put a stick figure on this door, right?"
"How is it possible?" Jing Xian said happily, "This entire palace belongs to you!!"