Chapter 258: Infinite Flow: Saving the Psychopathic Beauty 17

On the third-layer altar facing them, a familiar face suddenly appeared.

"Zhoucheng, when did he die?"

Nanyu muttered, picked up a stick from the ground, and poked the skin on the severed head's face; although it was beginning to stiffen again, it was clear that the time of death wasn't long.

"Could it have happened at the wine shop old woman's?"

He casually waved the stick and looked toward Jin Chen.

"I actually think it's Hexian's masterpiece."

Jin Chen reached out and sensed a strong dark aura at the broken neck, and already understood.

It seems the person chosen by Dark Yin in this world is Hexian.

Nanyu let out a sound, brows slightly furrowed: "Hexian? He still has that much ability? Then that Zhoucheng outside... isn't he his... puppet?"

He thought about their interaction and barely found a suitable word to describe it.

"First contact Zhaoling, have them find Zhoucheng's flaw first."

Nanyu nodded, pressed the earpiece, and said, "Calling, calling!"

"... I can hear you, what happened?"

Zhaoling's voice quickly sounded.

"Ah, we entered a place called Shadow Tower, and here we saw Zhoucheng's headless head."

"Zhoucheng!"

Zhaoling exclaimed, then footsteps came through the earpiece, as if they were communicating from a corner: "How could it be him?"

"Didn't Jin Chen warn you to be careful of Hexian earlier? It must have been him."

Nanyu turned his head again, meeting Zhoucheng's head and the eyes still retaining fear, and spoke nonchalantly.

The next second, his expression froze.

"Who is Hexian?"

Zhaoling asked strangely, "When did Jin Chen tell me to be careful of Hexian?"

"Oh dear!"

Nanyu quickly grabbed Jin Chen's arm and exclaimed, "Zhaoling says she doesn't know Hexian!"

"What? She doesn't know him?"

Jin Chen obviously didn't expect that answer either; he frowned tightly and said, "Keep asking, who's left outside now?"

After relaying that, Nanyu received another answer.

"Outside now there's still me, Baiyi, and Zhoucheng; after you went up the mountain, something happened suddenly, a great black wind blew, Zhousan was swept away, and when we found him again he had become a desiccated corpse."

She didn't mention Hexian at all, and didn't feel anything wrong.

"I know, don't tell others; we'll discuss the rest after we come out."

Nanyu cut off the earpiece communication, his expression becoming unusually stern.

"Zhaoling lost her memory of Hexian; could it be related to that black wind?"

【Host! Things are bad! I've lost monitoring of Hexian as the protagonist here too!】

0731's tone was anxious.

【Being able to make someone suddenly disappear in a small world and also affect the mission holder's system functions—this must be Dark Yin's doing!】

After hearing that, Jin Chen glanced vaguely toward the back of the altar, his eyes slightly narrowed, and said, "Let's go out first and talk; there's... someone here!"

He heard the movement behind the stone door, his body reacted quickly, pulling Nanyu to hide in the corner of a stone pillar.

The two leaned in the narrow gap and looked outward.

A stooped, elderly figure shuffled in, holding a wine jar.

Indeed, it was the wine shop old woman that the players had encountered many times.

She looked even more frail, her blue cloth clothing replaced by strange dark attire, as if worn on a skeleton frame.

Behind her followed two pallid-skinned girl ghosts with deep dark circles under their eyes, their eyes vacant, their steps in unison, always trailing behind the old woman.

"Another one..."

The old woman's voice was completely different from outside, as if squeezed from her throat, sharp and piercing.

She reached out, stroked each of the several heads, then opened the wine jar she brought in and drew out a new head from inside.

The old woman had her back to them, so from this angle they couldn't see the front of the heads; they could only wait patiently.

At that moment, the two girl ghosts seemed to suddenly discover something; their heads slowly turned backward to face the back, their pinpoint pupils staring fixedly at the corner.

"Hehehe... found it."

"Hehehe... there's a living person."

Their blood-red lips split to the ears, they simultaneously became excited, revealing fine dense fangs, and in that retreating posture they advanced to the corner.

Nanyu: "......!"

He grabbed a knife and wanted to rush out, but Jin Chen firmly held him in his arms, raising his arm slightly.

A faint golden light enveloped the two.

The next second, the two girl ghosts, already within arm's reach, both stopped their feet, twitched their noses, yet were extremely disappointed.

"Gone..."

"Ran away..."

They let out a resentful sigh, then floated back, obediently staying behind the old woman.

Nanyu widened his phoenix eyes in surprise, his fingertip poked the golden light, touching something like a membrane, and exclaimed, "Amazing!"

He praised in a breathy voice near Jin Chen's ear.

"You can speak, it's fine."

Jin Chen strengthened the barrier again and rubbed Nanyu's head.

"It seems at least Hexian got something right—the wine shop old woman is a bone woman, and that female ghost holding a lamp earlier also turned to bone after death; the women in this stronghold suffered betrayal and abandonment, and only after death did their resentment become extremely strong."

"What kind of dealings could she have with Hexian?"

Nanyu recalled what happened that day, "Could Hexian also have already died long ago?"

Thinking of this possibility, he, Youyou, sighed a breath, then looked toward Zhoucheng's headless head; it's a pity he didn't die by his own hand, but his phoenix eyes secretly held schadenfreude.

【Detected Villain Blackening Value -5, total 60!】

"Regardless, we should be cautious."

As they spoke, the two again saw the old woman finally seemed to have finished preparing; the placement of that head sealed the wine jar, and they placed it in the empty spot on the right rack.

"Old woman, how many more are we missing?"

The child ghosts asked in unison again.

"Still need……5."

The old woman counted carefully and smiled satisfactorily.

"Soon, the resentment here will be able to break through the Shadow Tower."

Her shrill voice full of pleasure, she slowly walked outward.

This time Jin Chen finally saw the old woman's true face, which was hardly different from her youthful appearance in the illusion, except her features were more gorgeous, exuding a deep ghostly aura.

And they had also seen that newly placed head.

The person who was supposed to carry Awa Lao Si's coffin up the mountain was the middle-aged man who first stumbled.

By now he was vastly different from how he was half a day earlier, blood black at the break in his neck, his eyes bulging out, a horrible sight.

Nanyu, with keen sight, saw that as the old woman left, the two child ghosts seemed to have pressed some mechanism, and the stone slab door began to move.

They couldn't be trapped here.

Jin Chen withdrew the barrier, and the two rushed out of the altar stone chamber as the stone slab door was about to close.

The child ghosts seemed to notice again, but when they turned to look, there was nothing.

"Hoh……"

They caught their breath and left the passageway.

【Host! Hurry and follow them out! The old woman seems to want to seal this place!】

0731 saw that every time the old woman left a stone chamber, she pressed a mechanism, and frightened, hurried to report.