Chapter 1121: Curse

On the mottled, dark corridor bridge, Li Luo stared at the eerie old woman who remained unchanged even after taking a hit from his Black Dragon Underworld Water Banner, his expression somewhat gloomy.

Lu Ming and the other two also looked grim.

"Is that an Other?" Lu Ming asked through gritted teeth.

"There's no aura of an Other. In fact, it doesn't even seem to truly exist," Li Luo shook his head and said.

He was silent for a few breaths, then suddenly stepped forward on his own initiative, walking step by step toward the old woman. Seeing this, Lu Ming and the others could only brace themselves and follow.

"Young ones, want to get out?" the old woman asked with the same cheerful smile.

Li Luo stared at her, his gaze flickering slightly, then nodded and replied, "Yes."

Hearing this, the old woman's eyes seemed to ripple. The smile on her deeply wrinkled face seemed to come alive, and with trembling hands she drew four bowls of dark, murky tea from her sleeve, placing them on the bridge pier before her.

"Four bowls of tea. Three contain a curse, one is array-breaking water. One bowl per person, and you can get out," the old woman said with a cheerful smile.

"Who would drink this weird stuff!" Lu Ming shouted angrily. Lightning erupted from her palm and blasted straight at the old woman's face.

The lightning struck, and the old woman's face melted like mud, but after a few breaths it swiftly reformed, and she beamed at the four of them.

Li Luo frowned and said, "It looks like some kind of special rule-based illusion array. If we can't break it by force, then we can only follow the array's rules."

"Are we really going to drink it?" Sun Sun Dasheng shouted, his face full of resistance.

"Ignore her and keep walking ahead to see?" Jing Jing Taixu suggested.

Li Luo nodded. This was also a way to probe, so the four of them stopped paying attention to the old woman, stepped around her, and continued forward.

However, after walking for roughly several minutes, their footsteps came to a halt. With ugly expressions, they stared at the eerie old woman who had appeared at the bridgehead ahead — it was as if they had been walking in circles.

The old woman beamed at them: "Young ones, want to get out?"

The eerie voice echoed across the bridgehead, sending a chill down their spines.

Lu Ming said dejectedly, "It won't work. We can't get out at all."

"You damn thing, die for me!"

Sun Sun Dasheng, in a fury, whipped out his iron staff and rained wild blows on the old woman, but it was all for nothing. By the time he was panting and exhausted, the old woman was perfectly intact once more.

Jing Jing Taixu was silent for a moment. He stared at the four bowls of pitch-black tea before the old woman and said, "If nothing else works, should we try following the array's rules?"

"Three out of four bowls are cursed — the odds are too high," Lu Ming said.

"But there's no other way. We can't stay trapped in this array forever. I keep feeling that if we keep waiting, something even worse and more dangerous will happen," Jing Jing Taixu said in a low voice.

Li Luo frowned. This kind of illusion array most likely came from the Demon King of Sentient Beings. Facing the methods of an Other King, they naturally didn't dare underestimate it.

If they let this situation continue, even more terrifying dangers would surely appear.

No matter what, escaping this illusion array as quickly as possible was the top priority.

"If nothing else works, we can only try this path. Since the rules are set, they probably can't be changed. If we get cursed, we go out, find companions, and there's still a chance to save us," Li Luo said slowly.

Saying so, he reached out his hand, about to take a bowl.

But Lu Ming stopped him. She stared at Li Luo and said seriously, "Even if someone has to drink, you should be the last. You're the strongest. If anything happens, you can still protect us. And when we get cursed, you can find a way to heal us."

Li Luo was silent.

Sun Sun Dasheng also nodded and laughed, "That makes sense. Li Luo, if you get hit, we won't even have a backbone left."

Jing Jing Taixu said nothing, but simply reached out and took a stone bowl. After a slight hesitation, he finally gritted his teeth and poured it down his throat in one gulp.

As the tea entered his body, Jing Jing Taixu soon saw black patterns crawling across his palm like worms, spreading rapidly across his entire body.

"This bowl has a curse," Jing Jing Taixu said through gritted teeth.

Seeing this, Sun Sun Dasheng also reached out, picked up a bowl of black tea, and drained it in one gulp.

Then, very quickly, his exposed skin was covered in black patterns, looking quite terrifying.

Clearly, this was also a bowl of cursed tea.

"Damn, we really are unlucky," Sun Sun Dasheng cursed.

Seeing the two of them fall victim one after another, Lu Ming laughed, "Then I only have a fifty-fifty chance. Maybe I'll get the array-breaking water. Pretty girls don't have bad luck."

As her words fell, she also reached out and picked up a bowl of black tea.

But just as she was about to drink it, Li Luo suddenly stopped her, frowning, "The risk is a bit high. Should we try another method?"

Jing Jing Taixu and Sun Sun Dasheng falling victim one after another cast a gloom over Li Luo's heart. Was it really as simple as drinking four bowls of tea here?

Lu Ming stared at Li Luo and said seriously, "There is risk, but since we're trapped in it, we naturally need to try our hardest to find a way to break the array. We know drinking this strange stuff is dangerous, but we have no choice. We need to test it on ourselves, to buy you more chances."

"Li Luo, you're our hope, you know."

Lu Ming gave Li Luo a playful smile, then stopped hesitating and drank the tea in her hand in one gulp.

After drinking, Lu Ming nervously examined her slender, fair hands. Not seeing those twisted black patterns growing, she immediately breathed a sigh of relief and said happily, "Is my bowl the array-breaking water?"

But then she immediately sensed that the gazes of Li Luo and the other two were off — they were staring at her cheeks — and her heart skipped a beat.

"What is it?" Lu Ming asked uneasily.

Li Luo was silent for a moment. Water-phase power rose from his palm, forming a water mirror. Lu Ming looked at the reflection inside — on her originally charming, pretty face, black patterns had sprouted, looking quite frightening.

Clearly, she had still been cursed.

Lu Ming was stunned for a moment, but she didn't cry out in fright. Instead, she sighed, waved her hand to disperse the water mirror, and said, "The three of us have tested the poison. This last bowl should be the array-breaking water, right?"

Li Luo reached out and took the last bowl. He stared at the pitch-black tea,

but Jing Jing Taixu's gaze darkened somewhat as he said, "Three cursed bowls in a row — is that really just bad luck? Or are all four bowls cursed? Its goal is to make us drink them?"

"How can this damn thing be so vicious?" Sun Sun Dasheng flew into a rage, pulling out his staff and wanting to smash her.

Li Luo's eyes showed a contemplative look. Although this last bowl also carried risk, Lu Ming and the others had already tested the poison for him in person, so he couldn't back down now.

He picked up the tea and slowly brought it toward his lips.

In his pupils, the eerie old woman's deeply wrinkled face was reflected. Just as the tea was still a short distance from Li Luo's lips, he suddenly stopped.

A flash of inspiration crossed his mind.

Li Luo stared at the old woman and said slowly, "You said earlier — one bowl per person?"

The old crone smiled kindly and said, "One bowl per person."

Li Luo seemed lost in thought. After a long pause, he said, "Then does that count you?"

Lu Ming and the others were stunned by the words. What did Li Luo mean by that?

Li Luo slowly extended that bowl of black tea to the old crone's mouth, muttering to himself, "Whether this bowl is a curse or array-breaking water, if I let you drink it, wouldn't that minimize the risk?"

"If it's array-breaking water, you drink it and naturally break the array. And if it's a bowl of curse, then can it destroy you? And destroying you would also count as a way to break the array, right?"

"So, this last bowl... should actually be for you to drink?"

The old crone still wore a smiling look, and did not dodge.

Lu Ming and the others then understood, and exclaimed in surprise, "That works too?"

No one had expected that the old crone before them actually counted as one of the tea drinkers.

"Won't we know once we try?" Li Luo said, and then he poured the tea straight into the old crone's pitch-black mouth, while she completely dodged nothing, letting him do as he pleased.

The tea vanished in a blink, and then the four of them stared fixedly at the old crone.

The old crone's smile remained kind, but after lasting for several breaths, that kindness gradually turned savage. Her body began to dissolve at this moment.

In a short while, the old crone's body dissolved into a puddle of viscous liquid, finally turning into black smoke and dissipating, never to recover.

"It really destroyed her?!" Lu Ming and the others cried out in shock at the sight.

Then the next moment, they felt the surrounding space begin to twist. The dark, mottled corridor beneath their feet gradually vanished, replaced by a street beside the water, with a pitch-black river flowing in the adjacent waterway.

Judging by the look of it, they seemed to have entered Heihe Water City at some unknown point.

"The Huan Jing is broken?" Joy surfaced in the eyes of the three.

Li Luo also breathed a long sigh of relief and said, "Looks like my guess was right. That old crone was the way out of the array. The four bowls of tea were just a decoy. Even if we had drunk them all, we might not have gotten out, and might have fallen in even deeper."

"And the old crone's existence was bizarre. With our strength, we seemed unable to kill her. Only this tea could get rid of her."

"Then didn't we drink it for nothing!" Sun Sun Dasheng wailed.

Lu Ming, however, didn't mind. "It's not exactly for nothing. If we hadn't tested out three bowls of curse, Li Luo probably wouldn't have set his mind on the old crone. After all, who would have thought to give her the tea?"

Judging from what the three of them went through, the fourth bowl was most likely a trap, so Li Luo ultimately found a correct way to break it.

It was all forced out.

Li Luo felt a bit self-reproachful. If he had thought of this earlier, perhaps Lu Ming and the others wouldn't have had to test it on themselves.

"How are you all feeling now? Still...?" Li Luo asked.

Before his words had fully fallen, Li Luo's expression stiffened, and his gaze turned grim.

Because he watched helplessly as the eyes of the three before him began to turn blank, while their bodies rapidly swelled.

It was the skin on their bodies' surface inflating, as if being blown up. The skin kept puffing out, separating from the flesh, and finally forming three round human-skin lanterns.

Their heads perched at the very top of the lanterns, their pupils like black whirlpools, fallen into a deep slumber.

Then, the human-skin lanterns they had become slowly rose into the air under Li Luo's gaze.