Chapter 64: The Plan

"What's going on?" Kuang Hongyi asked hurriedly.

Yang Xiao didn't need to ask at all; one look at Su Tingting and he knew she was enduring extreme pain. He immediately steered the boat over and jumped onto Su Tingting's boat.

At this moment, Su Tingting was already sprawled on the boat, snot and tears gushing out all at once, as she groaned incoherently, "Stomach... my stomach..."

There was no time to worry about the proprieties between men and women; Yang Xiao reached out to touch Su Tingting's abdomen. The next second, Kuang Hongyi saw Yang Xiao, who was half-crouched, tremble and nearly fall backward into the water.

"Damn it!" Yang Xiao's expression changed instantly. "She... there is something in her stomach!"

Kuang Hongyi was also shocked. "What did you say?!"

"There is something moving in her stomach!"

Pulling up the hem of Su Tingting's clothes, even though he had mentally prepared himself, the scene that appeared next still made Yang Xiao's teeth chatter. He saw two handprints emerge on the left and right sides of Su Tingting's belly; the handprints were very small, clearly those of an infant. The handprints pushed outward with force, and every time they tugged at her skin, Su Tingting would tremble in pain.

At this moment, Kuang Hongyi also saw the handprints, and his face turned pale instantly. "What... what kind of ghost thing is this? A Ghost Fetus?"

Kuang Hongyi's mention of a Ghost Fetus immediately brought Yang Xiao to his senses. He knew what the sound of the gong from earlier was about. In some remote villages, there was a custom: whenever a woman had a difficult labor, they would find an elder with high seniority in the village to stand at the door and beat a gong, facing outward with their back to the threshold. It was said that this could scare away the Evil Spirit competing with the woman for the child, protecting the woman so she could give birth smoothly. It was called a "Birth-Summoning Gong." Damn it, just now... that sound of the gong was a Birth-Summoning Gong!

But... but why was it Su Tingting? Clearly, the Second Young Mistress was still on the Boxi Boat; if anyone were to give birth, it should be the Second Young Mistress!

Fortunately, after the sound of the gong continued for a while, it slowly faded away. Only then did Su Tingting seem to come back to life, lying limp on the boat, gasping for air.

Yang Xiao steered the boat, rowing rapidly toward the Boxi Boat. After getting close, he lowered his voice and shouted, "Shi Dali, something has happened!"

After shouting several times, there was no reaction from the boat at all. At this moment, Kuang Hongyi also caught up and speculated, "He... he wouldn't have taken advantage of the chaos to run away, would he?"

It wasn't impossible. Tonight, the most dangerous person among them was Shi Dali; heaven knows what he was plotting. Yang Xiao and Kuang Hongyi turned the boat around and rowed to the stern of the large ship. A small wooden boat was rocking, its bow tied to the back of the large ship with a thick hemp rope.

Seeing that the small boat was still there, Kuang Hongyi's expression looked slightly better.

Yang Xiao pondered for a moment and felt more and more that something was wrong. This large ship seemed a bit too quiet. He turned his head and asked, "Did any of you hear any movement on the large ship just now?"

Su Tingting was still clutching her stomach, shaking her head weakly. "No."

Kuang Hongyi also realized it. Logically speaking, when the Birth-Summoning Gong sounded, the first to be affected should be the Second Young Mistress. With Su Tingting in such pain, there was no reason for the Second Young Mistress to be silent. Even if her mouth were covered, it wouldn't be this quiet. Moreover, Shi Dali was on the boat; how... how could both of them be as quiet as if they were dead?

Thinking of this, Kuang Hongyi had an ominous premonition. He no longer lowered his voice and shouted at the top of his lungs toward the ship, "Brother Shi, your small boat has drifted away! Come out quickly and pull the boat back!"

The small boat at the stern could be called Shi Dali's lifeline; without the boat, he would only be able to swim back. But even so, the ship remained deathly silent.

Something was wrong, very wrong. Kuang Hongyi grew anxious and wanted to roar even louder, but a gasp from Su Tingting interrupted him.

Su Tingting was staring behind them, her whole body trembling incessantly. Yang Xiao turned around immediately, and the scene that appeared behind them made him unable to help but widen his eyes. He saw numerous small boats emerging silently from the mist twenty or thirty meters away. At a glance, they were densely packed, forming a large circle that surrounded them.

"Hiss—" Even the well-informed Kuang Hongyi was stunned by this eerie scene. What was even more terrifying was that the small boats were not empty; they were actually carrying Paper People.

Counting roughly, there were at least a hundred Paper People, both male and female, with pale paper faces, strangely upturned eyebrows and eyes, and bright red lips. A gust of night wind blew, and the gray mist drifted past the sides of the Paper People, as if they were in the underworld.

Forcing himself to stay calm, Yang Xiao understood the principle that the more panicked one was, the faster one died. He swallowed hard. "Don't... don't panic, nobody move. These... these Paper People are new. Look at those boats; those boats are also new, not sunken ships."

Telling his teammates not to panic, Yang Xiao himself was incredibly weak at this moment, his voice trembling as he spoke. Kuang Hongyi also gradually calmed down, and a moment later, a ruthless look appeared in his eyes. "Right, damn it, we must have been schemed against by Liu Guanjia and the others again. These Paper People and boats are all new, not the sunken ships we encountered last time. These things were definitely prepared specifically for us."

Originally, they wanted to observe for a while longer, but the boats carrying the Paper People didn't give the three of them a chance and began to slowly close in on them. Although the speed was very slow, the pressure and despair it brought them were unprecedented.

Su Tingting's stomach began to swell again, the pain causing cold sweat to stream down her temples. "Something's wrong!" Kuang Hongyi turned his head to look at the Boxi Boat behind them. "Could we... could we have been deceived? Shi Dali and the Second Young Mistress aren't on the boat at all!"

Yang Xiao also realized this. He quickly reconstructed the previous scenes in his mind. A moment later, his expression froze. "We've been deceived! This is a play put on for us by Liu Guanjia and Shi Dali together!"

The whole thing about being forced onto the boat, the argument between Shi Dali and Liu Guanjia—that was all acted out for them to see. Shi Dali never got on the boat at all!

And the Second Young Mistress—they probably took her off the boat quietly as soon as they left. Master Feng would never be willing to part with the last bloodline of the Feng family.

"We are the sacrifices for tonight!"

Kuang Hongyi also realized it at this moment and immediately understood where the problem lay. "It was this morning! Master Feng called Shi Dali over alone, and they discussed for a long time. It must have been then that they decided on this plan!"

"Master Feng only wants the Second Young Mistress to survive, and Shi Dali intends to use Master Feng's hand to kill us all!" Kuang Hongyi trembled with rage. "That dog!"

"Thump!"

"Thump!"

The third drum beat came, and the sound of the gong mixed within it became increasingly ear-piercing. Su Tingting collapsed onto the boat instantly, clutching her stomach and twitching uncontrollably.

Lifting the hem of her clothes, an infant's face appeared clearly on Su Tingting's belly. That face was pushing outward with force and kept changing expressions. At the same time, a faint, ethereal laughter rang out, filled with resentment.

"Brother Chu, we can't help her anymore. Let's go, let's leave first!"

The nearby Paper Person boats were getting closer and closer. Kuang Hongyi could even see the faces of those Paper People hidden behind the mist bit by bit. In this situation, saving whoever one could was the priority; there was nothing wrong with saying that.

"No, if we leave her behind, the thing in her stomach will definitely come out, and then we won't survive either!" Yang Xiao looked at Su Tingting, his mind uncharacteristically clear at this moment.