Chapter 202: The Dragon-Slaying Sword (Requesting Monthly Tickets)

Liang Yan stared fixedly at that sword.

Greed rose in his eyes.

Then that greed, like a ghostly shadow, crawled out from his eyes, spread across his cheeks in all directions, and in a short time half his face turned black.

His hands unconsciously loosened their grip on the iron shovel.

The iron shovel clattered to the ground, yet he showed not the slightest reaction.

His hands, beyond his control, reached out toward that sword.

The joints of his hands grew thick and large as black bone spikes, hideous, sprouted forth one by one.

Several Shanhe Captain officers closest to Liang Yan, at some unknown moment, had already crawled onto the ground like spiders, mouths agape, four sharp fangs protruding beneath their lips, foul drool dripping drop by drop.

They scrambled forward quickly, aimed at those blood clots, and opened their wide mouths to bite down...

"Crack!"

They bit onto an iron pole as thick as a pigeon's egg.

The iron pole was the shaft of a short halberd; a snake tail, coiled around the halberd, whipped violently and flung them several zhang away.

Then it tossed the halberd up and caught it in its hand.

The snake tail likewise transformed into two feet.

Lady Fu Shuanghui reversed the halberd and struck Liang Yan's forehead with a fierce blow.

That strike exploded into a burst of light like flying sparks.

The darkness on Liang Yan's face rapidly faded; he suddenly came to his senses and saw that his hands were now only one chi away from that sword.

He swiftly withdrew his hands, crashed to his knees on the ground, and cried: "My lord, your subordinate deserves ten thousand deaths!"

"Hmph!" Lady Fu Shuanghui snorted coldly: "All of you, get out!"

"Yes."

Liang Yan hurriedly withdrew; those Captain officers who had been flung away, still under the influence of the evil thing, groaned in low voices and tried to crawl over again.

Liang Yan formed a hand seal with his fingers and pointed at them—

Within the armor of the Captain officers, those leather straps came alive like living things; with a whoosh they tightly bound them and dragged them away from this place.

Lady Fu Shuanghui, holding the halberd, drew a circle on the ground.

The halberd's edge scraped the ground, emitting a clanging sound, and sparks flew up in response.

Within this circle, without Lady Fu Shuanghui's permission, those outside cannot enter and those inside cannot exit!

Then, Lady Fu Shuanghui looked at that sword and reached out to grab it.

Her hand, originally pale and delicate, during this process rapidly grew a layer of thick, hard, gray-blue scales!

That rusted sword seemed to possess some power, resisting being grasped.

Lady Fu Shuanghui's scaled hand, even at a distance of three cun, could never seize it.

She flew into a rage; her gray-blue eyes became as cold as a beast's, and from her throat issued a strange whistling sound, shifting high and low without cease, as if some language not belonging to humans.

Then, with all her strength, she thrust forward and firmly grasped the sword hilt!

"The Dragon-Slaying Sword is mine!"

Xu Yuan now confirmed that he was within Little Yu Shan.

But since this journey brought no guide, he could only roughly discern the direction and then grope his way toward the mountain's edge.

As the sun tilted westward, Yu Yunhang asked: "My lord, if we cannot exit this mountain before nightfall, how shall we spend the night?"

Xu Yuan smiled slightly and drew out two scrolls.

"These are... Door Gods?"

Yu Yunhang was surprised.

Liang Yan had ordered the Purification Bureau to set up camp, so Xu Yuan had asked for the Door Gods.

But such things require a stable dwelling; they must be pasted on a door to take effect.

"Walk a while longer; if we still cannot exit the mountain, we shall camp right here."

The group walked a while more, and on a hillside ahead, a small path suddenly appeared.

"Strange..."

This area was desolate and rarely visited by humans.

Before, they had walked for a long time without seeing any trace of human presence.

Song Lu exclaimed excitedly: "A path means someone has passed through; following this path should lead us out of the mountain!"

Fu Jingyu lowered his head and coughed lightly twice; Song Lu then knew he had spoken wrongly again.

"Oh, is it not?" She was deeply discouraged and slumped down.

"It might also be some evil spirit using this path as bait to lure us over."

Xu Yuan waved his hand: "Continue in our original direction; ignore it."

Yet as they walked on, they saw that path, as if by ghostly design, magically arrive beneath everyone's feet!

Xu Yuan's expression changed: "Change direction."

The group turned left and pushed through the grass to proceed.

Something unknown lurked within the grass; just as it was about to pounce out, Di Youzhi, who was at the very front, spat a mouthful of fire, causing it to shriek in agony and dive back into the grass.

But when Di Youzhi parted the wild grass ahead once more, that small path suddenly appeared right in the midst of the weeds!

"Turn around, go back!"

Before they had walked half a li, that path appeared again.

"It has latched onto us."

Xu Yuan snorted coldly, gripped the Yin-Yang Guillotine, and opened his right eye to look:

On that small path, a footprint had appeared.

It was as if someone had just walked this path not long ago.

Following the footprints forward, thick fog covered the front of the path, drifting and floating.

Xu Yuan thought for a moment; since he could not avoid it, he could only face it.

These footprints likely hid something eerie.

"Follow me; not a single step may be misstepped!"

Xu Yuan suspected that under those footprints hid some kind of eerie technique.

If one stepped on the footprints, one would fall victim to the eerie technique.

So Xu Yuan held the Yin-Yang Guillotine horizontally before him, kept his right eye open, and avoided those footprints with every step.

The members of the Quhui Office followed in single file behind him.

After walking just over ten steps, Xu Yuan saw the thick fog ahead suddenly blown away by a mountain wind; this path connected to a stone arch bridge, and the small river beneath the bridge was silent.

After crossing the stone bridge, it wound upward, and at the end, halfway up the mountainside, stood a Taoist temple.

After walking another dozen steps, Xu Yuan was already standing before the stone bridge.

When he looked earlier, the stone bridge had felt very far away.

It seemed the river was not wide, nor the bridge large.

But now he discovered the bridge was quite magnificent; the arch was five zhang high and spanned over ten zhang.

The river surface was ten zhang wide, with turbid waves churning within, yet not a single sound.

Xu Yuan swept his right eye repeatedly across the bridge and the river.

That footprint extended all the way across the bridge.

Xu Yuan then released the Yin-Yang Guillotine and used "Gaze at Fate" to check, yet he could see no "Fate" anywhere around.

"Even the river does not hide evil spirits?"

Only then did Xu Yuan grip the Yin-Yang Guillotine again and step onto the bridge.

The moment he stepped onto the bridge, he suddenly heard the roaring of water, and a wave of dampness struck his face.

In the river beneath the bridge, something unknown let out a long, mournful, and piercing scream!

Xu Yuan was startled; the sword pill above his head spun like a magnetic needle, searching for the enemy.

Yet those sounds vanished entirely in an instant.

The Dahe River became silent once more.

"Old Fu," Xu Yuan called out to Fu Jingyu behind him, "what have you seen?"

Fu Jingyu said, "Seemingly real, seemingly illusory; difficult to distinguish!"

Xu Yuan also had some doubts; this place was likely an illusionary realm.

After walking two more steps, Xu Yuan suddenly lowered his head and carefully examined the bridge stones beneath his feet... they seemed to be of the same material as that bridge stone regarded as an auspicious object in the Nancheng Patrol Office.

Xu Yuan squatted down and touched the stone.

The texture was the same.

Standing up, Xu Yuan continued forward. After descending the bridge, there was still a path, and that Taoist temple was already not far away.

Xu Yuan turned to look at his subordinates: "Has anyone fallen behind?"

Several Jianjiao each counted the numbers.

"My lord, all the brothers are here."

Xu Yuan nodded, and was about to continue forward, when he suddenly noticed that after this journey, footprints of their own had actually been left on that path and on the bridge!

"The eerie technique is not hidden within the footprints?"

"Before us, did someone really just walk this path?"

"Then... who could it be?!"

(End of this chapter)