Chapter 177: Moonlight

Qi Fei lifted his head, letting the light spots sweep across his face.

He realized that since reaching adulthood, he had almost never come to Nanling.

He hadn't even realized he was avoiding this place.

"You say Cui Nian will be here?" Qi Fei looked at Zhong Kui beside him. The light falling on her face made the bright areas look like top-tier white porcelain, crystal clear and not at all like a mortal's appearance.

Behind them were the hurried footsteps of the police officers following closely.

Looking down from the hillside, a vast expanse of green fields appeared, at first glance like a giant green lake.

Deep within this Nanling, passing through dense plane trees, it was like a paradise; the standing stone walls were covered in moss, indistinguishable from the vines, growing wantonly.

Only by looking closely could one discover that these green waves were rippling layer upon layer.

"This is...?" The words reached Qi Fei's lips, but he didn't know where to begin.

Zhong Kui's eyes held gratification and anticipation, as if the person before her was a work she was satisfied with.

"In this world, there is only one person who can take Cui Nian away, and he is right here," Zhong Kui said.

"You mean that monster is right here?" Qi Fei asked in bewilderment, his gaze unable to move away from the scene before him.

Qi Fei's heart was filled with confusion, because this place seemed to appear frequently in his dreams. But time was pressing, leaving him no time to ponder this distant question.

He was the first to rush down the hillside, and among the knee-high wild grass, he finally saw an entrance. It was a path between two stone walls only wide enough for one person to pass.

The police officer who had gone ahead soon returned empty-handed: "This is a labyrinth!"

"The monster hidden here can only be found by you," Zhong Kui said to Qi Fei. A gust of wind blew, and the corners of her bright red lips lifted slightly. The wind carried a scent of slaughter that only she could perceive. "We don't have much time left."

As she spoke, she took off the purple silk scarf hanging around her neck and said to Qi Fei in a commanding tone: "Bend down."

Qi Fei didn't have time to think and obeyed. Zhong Kui blindfolded him with the scarf and whispered in his ear: "Don't look with your eyes; grope with your heart, and find back the memories you lost." As she spoke, she gave his back a light pat, as if pushing him into reincarnation.

Qi Fei stretched out his hands and, like a blind man, walked forward.

In his ears was the sound of the wind whistling through the labyrinth's passages, followed by the rustling of ivy leaves layered and rising.

"Keep moving forward, follow your intuition," Zhong Kui's voice came from behind him, as firm as the stone walls of this labyrinth.

Having lost the guidance of sight, Qi Fei breathed nervously. This Pan Ting, along with those hands groping at the vines and ancient walls, in a trance, all became young and immature; it was his three-year-old self, lost here, in the Nanling labyrinth.

Ahead, a boy's voice was calling: "Come quickly, Xiao Fei!"

Gradually, in the pitch-black field of vision, an amber light lit up. That boy was running ahead of him, his small back flickering in the sunset, his soft hair against the light, crystal bright.

Childhood feelings were awakened; he relied on this child in front of him, with that kind of innocent, unreserved fondness.

"Brother... wait for me." The childish, clumsy voice seemed to come from his soul that had been drawn away.

Everyone followed the blindfolded Qi Fei, walking step by step.

The speed was slow, yet they strangely chose the right path at every fork.

Just then, his foot was tripped by a vine, and he fell to the ground. The following police officer wanted to go up to help him, but was stopped by Zhong Kui.

A dull pain struck, mixed with the sound of a child crying in his ears. Qi Fei was like a helpless novice father, not knowing how to comfort him.

Qi Fei's groping hands began to tremble, because the boy running in the sunset suddenly turned back to look at him. He still couldn't see that face clearly, but the intense emotion arising from nowhere made him unable to control himself.

The boy stopped running, approached him step by step, and reached out his hand to him. This child had been waiting for him all along.

He was his only playmate in this world; he was the glass marble in his endless loneliness.

Qi Fei's hand, buried in the wild grass, touched something cold. He grabbed it in his palm—it was round and smooth, a marble. In an instant, all the fog dissipated.

"Xi He!" This name, like a surging river, broke through the floodgates of his memory, threatening to drown him.

"Qi Fei!" Behind him, Zhong Kui suddenly shouted his name urgently, like a summons on the River of Forgetfulness, pulling him up from his drowning fall.

Immediately following was the sound of his colleagues drawing their guns.

As the vine leaves swayed and rustled again, that thick, bloody stench invaded his nasal cavity.

He snatched the silk scarf from his eyes. The setting sun had disappeared, and the sky outside had turned completely dark. He looked ahead; he was only one step away from the center of the labyrinth.

By now, the police officers behind him had already bypassed him and rushed forward.

Through the gaps in the crowd, he saw Cui Nian kneeling in the center of the labyrinth, his empty eyes streaming with viscous blood.

"He's still alive!" the police officer's voice came.

Qi Fei forced himself to return to reality, struggling to crawl up from the ground, stumbling as he walked toward Cui Nian.

Cui Nian's aged, broken body was already on the verge of death, emitting only atrophied, phlegm-filled wheezing from the bottom of his throat.

It seemed the monster was replicating Cui Nian's way of killing.

The iron nails that should have been driven into his chest were scattered on the side.

"He didn't have time for the final execution!" Qi Fei grabbed an iron nail; it was vaguely warm, as if it came from that hand reaching out to him in his hallucination.

He looked around anxiously. Moonlight spilled onto the vegetation of the labyrinth. This moonlight also spilled onto the Nancheng Church and the Liuli Ta. The intense, lingering intuition caused his gaze to fall to the west, where several ivy branches dangling in the air were trembling against the direction of the wind.

Qi Fei quickly dived into a black passage, just like chasing his brother when he was a child.

He ran at full speed through the labyrinth like a hound. Soon, the following police officers were left behind, and soon, unable to find the direction, they could only struggle to turn back.

He charged through the narrow passage, letting the jagged edges of the wild grass cut his hands and cheeks.

He remembered now, Xi He!

That lonely child playing with marbles on the edge of his memory.

That human devil who raised a butcher's knife against their mother!

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but roar: "Xi He! Come out!"

This sound, like the roar of a beast, echoed in the empty valley of Nanling.

In the echo came the clear, crisp sound of a glass marble dropping.

He stopped abruptly in his tracks. This was a three-way intersection. The sound of the marble seemed to be deliberately reminding him to keep pace.

He could feel a cold, chilling aura coming from one of the directions, making his heart almost jump out of his chest.

He turned his head to look. At the end of that narrow, pitch-black passage, there was a person standing in front of the green vines in white clothes. Even without seeing the face clearly, he knew who this person was. ===== CHAPTER 178 =====