Ye Jin pulled Xiao Baitang up and quickly retreated into the door, but Maozi seemed to have lost his balance and bumped into me directly.
At the same time, countless bowstrings vibrated and the sky was broken. Arrows that covered the sky and the sun suddenly shot towards us. In an instant, all I could see was the cold light and feathers shining all over the sky.
"Hurry up!" I jumped up suddenly and held the cat in my arms in mid-air. Using the force of the cat hitting my arms, I turned half a circle in the air, pushed the ground with my toes, moved forward, and shot straight towards the gate.
Before I could rush to the gate, I suddenly lost my balance and fell forward involuntarily. I simply lay on the ground holding the cat. Most of the arrows that blocked the city gate fell on both sides of the gate, and a few shot into the city near my scalp.
As soon as the arrows that were flying across the sky died down, Ye Jin quickly grabbed my arm and pulled me into the door.
When I turned over with the cat in my arms, the hunchback had already closed the door. "You are going to live in front of you. Choose where you want to live! Don't look for me if you don't have anything else. You won't be able to find me even if you want to. As long as you can survive seven days in the ghost realm, you will have achieved your goal."
"What do you mean?" I didn't understand what the hunchback was saying.
The hunchback, however, walked into the shadow of the castle with his hands behind his back. The moment he stepped into the darkness, his back merged with the surrounding scenery, just like a drop of water blended with ink. At first, you could still see a trace of the outline, but soon you could no longer distinguish them.
I turned my head and looked at the place where the hunchback pointed. There stood a three-story ancient inn. It was the only building visible in the entire castle. Everywhere else was shrouded in thick darkness.
The darkness in the castle is like a thick fog that cannot be dispelled. Although it cannot stop us from moving forward, it always makes it impossible to see what is ahead clearly.
The unknown is often fearful, because you don’t know what is hidden in the endless darkness or what will appear in the next moment. It always makes people feel palpitating and feel that they must be careful.
The only light in the whole castle was the road leading to the inn. But I felt that the inn was the light that attracted moths, and I, the moth, had to fly towards the dancing flames.
I said in a deep voice: "Maozi leads the way, Ye Jin covers the rear, let's go."
As I walked forward cautiously, the light behind us gradually faded away. After we entered the inn, everything outside the gate fell into darkness again.
This inn is a "U"-shaped building, with guest rooms side by side on all sides and a dining hall in the middle. When I walked in, Duan Yunfei and Lin Jingyuan were already sitting in the hall.
The two of them each occupied a table, keeping a distance of about two or three meters between them. There was no guard around Duan Yunfei, but two of my acquaintances - Sun Xiaomei and Xie Jingwen - were sitting near Lin Jingyuan.
Sun Xiaomei looked a little haggard compared to the last time we met, and there was even more hatred in her eyes when she looked at me.
Xie Jingwen, whose face had three hideous scars, crushed the wine glass in his hand the moment I appeared: "You are not dead!"
I glanced at him with contempt, then turned to look at Duan Yunfei. The latter waved his fan and smiled, "Brother Wu, long time no see. Brother Wu was able to break through the Fengling River from the front, which shows that he is very skilled and courageous. I admire him."
I said in a deep voice: "Are you two waiting for me?"
Duan Yunfei looked at Lin Jingyuan, who had to speak up: "We are indeed waiting for Brother Wu, because we need your cooperation."
I looked at Lin Jingyuan: "Did I hear correctly? You two actually want to cooperate with me?"
Lin Jingyuan nodded and said, "You heard it right. To be honest, we did intend to work together to kill you. However, that was based on the premise that we had more information. As a result, after we entered the ghost realm, we found that all the information we had was wrong."
Lin Jingyuan said: "The ghost realm can change in a thousand ways. It can change its original state in an instant. The information that the Xuan Jingsi soldiers desperately sent out is equivalent to becoming a piece of waste paper."
Lin Jingyuan said with a serious expression: "More importantly, all the fortune tellers we brought with us were killed by the Fengling River. We need a fortune teller. As for the conditions for cooperation..."
I waved my hand calmly and said, "I don't have any conditions, and I don't want to cooperate with anyone. You two have found the wrong person."
Before I finished speaking, Xie Jingwen immediately slammed the table and stood up: "Wu Zhao, you are giving me face but you don't want it! I have said long ago that we should just take him down. It is totally unnecessary to discuss cooperation with him!"
"Shut up!" Lin Jingyuan's face suddenly darkened. "I'll say it again, and for the last time: it's not your turn to make the decision on this mission. If you dare to be presumptuous again, don't blame me for not giving Sun Yifan face."
Sun Xiaomei immediately said unhappily: "Isn't what Hall Master Lin said a bit too much?"
Lin Jingyuan said coldly: "You'd better not forget what Sun Yifan told you before you left."
Sun Xiaomei immediately lost her arrogance and sat back in her seat with a stern face.
I looked at Lin Jingyuan with interest: "Master Lin, there is something I have to make clear to you in advance. I don't want to cooperate with anyone for the time being. Even if I really want to choose a partner, my first choice is Duan Yunfei. Because I don't want my partner to have two venomous snakes around them who are always plotting to kill me."
Duan Yunfei clasped his fists and said with a smile: "Brother Wu may not understand Master Lin. She has always been clear about the distinction between public and private matters, and would never harm a partner because of a personal relationship."
"That's a story for later!" I said, looking up the stairs and taking a quick look around. The Xuanjing Division's men were stationed in the upper room in the north, the people in the west wing were from Hell Gate, and the east wing was vacant, which should be the place reserved for me.
There are several empty rooms just above the inn's main door. In the past, they should have been where the innkeeper and waiters lived. Except for the innkeeper, they would not allow anyone else to press on their door frame, especially guests, because there was a taboo of "guests bullying the inn".
I pushed the door and entered a room in the east wing. Candles had already been lit and there was even a basin of warm water. It seemed as if the owner knew we were coming and had made preparations in advance.
Ye Jin reached out and touched the teapot: "The tea is also warm. Lin Jingyuan is really attentive."
"It can't be them." I shook my head. "Lin Jingyuan and Duan Yunfei are both leaders. Even if they are eager to cooperate, they would not do something that would lower their status. This was prepared by the store owner themselves."
Ye Jin said: "You mean, there is a ghost in this store."
"I don't know yet." I pulled a chair and sat down. "Do you think what Lin Jingyuan said just now is credible?"
Ye Jin thought for a moment and said, "The first half is believable. The ghost realm can indeed change. When we stood on the mountain and looked down, who saw that there was a fortress here?"
Indeed, it was not uncommon for ancient countries in the Western Regions to have one city per country, but there was no need to build a fortress in the city. That would not only be unnecessary, but would also easily arouse suspicion from the king.
In other words, this fortress-like castle appeared in the ghost realm only after other buildings collapsed.
Ye Jin continued, "Zhao Zi, I always feel that everything in front of us is unreal. What kind of power can flatten a city and then create another one? Even ghosts and gods can't do it, right? Unless this city is really in another space as Duan Yunfei said. Is this possible?"
According to legend, sorcerers can only come and go between the Yin and Yang realms. If they want to enter the underworld, they can only use spells such as the ghost leaving the body to travel between Yin and Yang. Even if they have reached the level of flying immortals on land, it is impossible for them to enter the underworld in a physical body, unless they are the mythical Daluo Jinxian.
Likewise, there is no force that can isolate a space from the Yang world we live in now. In a sense, separating a space can be regarded as the creation of the world, which is not something that ghosts and gods can do.
Therefore, we must still be in the present space. But how to explain everything we see
Ye Jin said, "What do you think? Could it be that we have already left our souls after jumping off the cliff? Our bodies are still on the top of the mountain, but our souls have drifted into this ghost place? I think this might be the entrance to the underworld."
Xiao Baitang was so scared that his face turned pale: "Brother Ye Jin, please don't talk nonsense! I... I..."
Ye Jin teased Xiao Baitang and said, "How about you move your feet and see if your toes can touch the ground. If they can, you are not dead."
I quickly said, "Don't listen to Ye Jin's nonsense. None of us have lost our souls. If we were in a state of losing our souls, we wouldn't be able to bring out all the weapons..."
“No, no, no…” Xiao Baitang waved his hands and said, “I’ve heard people say before that if a person’s soul leaves his body, whatever he thinks about will appear in front of him. When I walked in just now, I was still thinking, ‘It would be nice if I could have some water to wash my face.’ That water… that water…”
When I turned to look at the warm water on the washbasin rack, I couldn't help but be slightly startled.
Ye Jin said disapprovingly: "I was expecting to eat roasted lamb legs from the Western Regions when I entered the house, why didn't I see anyone bringing me roasted lamb legs?"
Not long after Ye Jin finished speaking, I heard someone knocking on the door: "Sir, sir, the roasted lamb leg you ordered is here."
Ye Jin was shocked at the time: "Is he really coming?"
Ye Jin and I looked at each other in astonishment, then stood up and walked to the door. I used the tip of a knife to pry open the crack in the door and looked out. The waiter in the corridor was holding a tray with lamb legs in his hands and standing outside respectfully: "Sir, this is the roasted lamb leg you ordered."
The golden lamb leg was obviously freshly roasted, but there was no smoke coming from the direction of the kitchen.
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Thank you all for your support, and stay tuned for the next episode!
Thanks to Doudou and Xiaoyu for the reward! (To be continued)