Chapter 256: The Eerie Woman

At the sight of this, even Baichuan was in no rush to leave.

He was rather curious to see how things would unfold next.

He discovered that the novelties of this world were far more numerous than he had imagined.

But could this energy truly give rise to so many peculiar things?

Baichuan subconsciously lowered his head, sensing the power endlessly pulsing at the tips of his claws.

He grew ever more curious about its true nature.

Inside the Mountain God Temple, the people had only just begun to light their own fires to brew some hot soup when they abruptly saw a young woman, drenched from head to toe, struggling in from outside the temple.

For a moment, the group exchanged glances, as if silently asking one another whether she was a member of the other's party who had been separated.

"Brothers, could you do me a kindness? Let this girl borrow your fire. I haven't eaten anything for a whole day, and I'm both cold and starving."

Looking at the two groups who could only glance at each other in silence, the drenched, graceful woman spoke first.

A pair of beautiful eyes shimmered with rippling light; her gaze swept about as she looked at the handsome Chen Ping, her eyes seemingly full of affection.

"This…" Being addressed by the woman, Chen Ping hesitated too, glancing at his companions beside him with some uncertainty.

This was clearly a deep mountain with no one around, yet in the dim, heavy rain a graceful woman, soaked through, had silently appeared — he could not help but grow suspicious.

Having roamed north and south for who knew how many years, it wasn't as if he had never encountered anything strange.

But the woman's pitiful appearance also stirred something within him.

For a moment, he was caught in a dilemma between pitying the woman and considering the safety of his companions.

"Miss, if you don't mind, come over here."

Yet while he hesitated, among the other group of people there were a few burly men who, gazing at this woman drenched from head to toe — her clothes turned somewhat transparent and clinging to her body — swallowed hard several times, and promptly spoke up.

"This…" The graceful, pitiful woman also paused, bit her red lip and cast a shy glance at the silent Chen Ping, then lowered her gaze and said softly: "Alright, thank you, brothers."

But before she could approach, those few men, panting with flushed eyes, could not wait and pulled her over. While speaking, they casually made up a few excuses and, amid her half-push half-resist, headed toward the back of the temple's deity statue.

Seeing this, the leading man among the traveling merchants also paused, raising his hand as if wanting to say something — or perhaps to stop them — but after a long while could only helplessly lower it.

Perhaps he knew in his heart it would do no good; after all, they were merely a group of people who had shared a stretch of mountain road, and once they crossed this mountain, who would care about whom?

Silence fell in the temple for a moment.

Before long, several muffled groans and the woman's cries of pain came from behind the statue, and soft, low moans began to sound.

For a moment, the crowd wore varied expressions; among them, the two women — one blushed crimson with shame, the other wore a face full of indignation, seeming somewhat impulsive and furious.

Baichuan, who was not far away, also approached the vicinity of the dilapidated Mountain God Temple out of curiosity, and watching this scene, his expression took on a rather intriguing quality.

After the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, mingled with the sound of rain, a short, swarthy man in front of the statue, listening to the sounds, could no longer restrain himself. He stood up directly, tugged at his waistband, and walked inside.

Not long after he went in, he too fell silent.

Only that soul-stealing, bewitching soft singing continued.

But at this moment, a pair of eyes hidden above the ruined temple were filled with utter speechlessness.

Because the true situation behind the statue was nothing like the lustful sounds it emitted — the ground was covered with people lying about, each with a pale face sprawled on the floor, alive or dead unknown. As for those strange, lustful sounds, they actually came from the back of the woman's head, where a pair of withered Ghost Claws were revealed.

Seen from the front, the woman still looked like a delicate, pitiful beauty, but eerily, on the back of her head — where her hair was pulled up — there existed another face.

And those strange sounds were precisely emitted by the face on the back of her head.

As for the front face, it was now crouched low before the unconscious men, seemingly drawing something from their breath.

But that was absolutely not the magic he possessed — though here it might be called Spirit Qi, magical power, or something of the sort.

Because he could sense that what the woman was drawing had an energy level far lower than the energy he possessed.

Thinking about it, it made sense — the reason he had been able to give birth to this energy was because he had evolved the innate abilities of a Main God-level powerhouse.

And how could the energy inadvertently produced by the innate talent of such a powerhouse be something ordinary people could possess?

He even felt that this ability, even at LV1, was not something ordinary mortals could possess.

Unfortunately, he still knew very little about this world and did not yet understand what it was — he could only sense that it was a kind of Qi with spirituality, or perhaps energy?

Connecting it with the legendary tales and storybooks he knew, perhaps that was the legendary Yang Energy? Or perhaps Vital Essence?

Unable to figure it out, Baichuan did not dwell on it further. Since he had already understood the purpose of this "woman," he wanted to see what methods this "woman" possessed.

Thinking of this, his gaze drifted to the strange deity statue below, whose head was almost about to fall off.

With a single thought, and under the push of vast computing power, at just the right moment and from just the right angle, he bent one Dragon Claw and flicked it, stirring up a faint, invisible gust of air that swept away.

"Gurgle—gurgle gurgle…"

What's going on?

Accompanied by a strange rolling sound, Chen Ping, who had been hanging his head not knowing what he was thinking, cautiously raised his head.

And then he saw the head of the deity statue in the ruined temple rolling down with a gurgling sound. As it rolled, the eyes on that head stared fixedly at him the whole time, as if making eye contact with him.

After it rolled a few times, an extremely eerie scene appeared — the eyes on that head actually stared blankly toward the low wall behind the statue.

This…?

Chen Ping was greatly shocked. In that instant, he seemed to see someone silently telling him something, urging him to pay attention to the low wall behind the statue.

But what was there?

A frail woman and a few burly men?

Thinking of what had just happened, Chen Ping's expression also became uncertain, as if hesitating about something.

"Brother Chen Ping, what's wrong?"

The woman's voice came from behind, seemingly awakened by that sound and Chen Ping's movement. Because from the time the strange woman had appeared until now, they had already been in this ruined temple for an hour, and many people were already tired and had closed their eyes to rest.

"Nothing."

Then Chen Ping closed his eyes and gently shook his head, but his right hand beneath him unconsciously gripped the hilt of his blade.

"You keep sleeping. I'll go see if the rain has stopped."

With that, Chen Ping stood up directly and walked outside.

However, he circled around and carefully walked toward the direction the statue's head was gazing at.

As he held his breath and approached in silence, his gaze suddenly sharpened the next moment, as if he could not believe the scene before his eyes.

……

(End of this chapter)