Chapter 114: Wanting to Withdraw Now Is Probably Too Late!

At 7:30 in the evening, Wang Laohan's family delivered several large buckets of hot water.

With Shen Shulan present, the living standards of the group skyrocketed.

After all, she was a young woman who valued cleanliness.

Besides, with five people crammed onto one kang bed, they had to pay some attention to hygiene.

In the past, Lu Yuan and the others would sleep rough, not to mention washing their feet, sometimes they didn't even have time to wipe their faces.

Now, washing their faces and hands with a hot towel morning and night, plus brushing their teeth, though it took an extra dozen minutes, did indeed leave them feeling refreshed and clear-headed.

The kang bed had been prepared long ago.

The warmest spot at the head of the kang was naturally reserved for Shen Shulan.

Lu Yuan slept right next to her, Xu Erxiao and Wang Cheng'an slept in the middle, and the newly arrived Tan Jiji consciously lay down at the foot of the kang.

Tan Jiji had presumably been chasing leads all this way as well, with little chance to rest.

Almost as soon as their heads touched the pillows, the steady rhythm of breathing rose and fell around the room.

The night passed without incident.

The next morning around 5 a.m., the sky was still pitch black, but everyone had slept their fill.

Breakfast was pan-fried dumplings made from last night's leftovers, glistening with oil, crispy on the outside, fragrant and savory on the inside, leaving everyone's mouths greasy.

After a simple tidy-up, the group prepared to hit the road again.

That Tan Jiji was as stubborn as an ox; no matter what Lu Yuan said, he insisted on following.

Lu Yuan reconsidered.

This time, with Shen Shulan by his side, it was unlikely someone could stab him in the back again.

Having an extra pair of hands was always a good thing.

In the end, Lu Yuan tacitly allowed Tan Jiji to join.

Tan Jiji rode Wang Cheng'an's horse, while Wang Cheng'an squeezed onto a horse with Xu Erxiao.

Five people, four horses, they galloped northward from Mangniu Hamlet towards Luo Yan Slope, eight thousand li away, facing the biting morning wind.

Regarding Luo Yan Slope, a rather famous old tale circulated about this place.

This was completely different from those Nurturing Malevolence Sites of the Life-Severing Wang Family hidden in remote corners, unknown to anyone.

Whether it was Laotao River or Chunhua Garden, one had to follow the map to find them and investigate carefully upon arrival to uncover their secrets.

But Luo Yan Slope's sinister nature was written right into its name.

Wang Laohan had mentioned it during dinner last night.

He said Luo Yan Slope wasn't originally called that.

Back when the Qing demons were still around, that place was the famous kiln site of "Liu Family Beauty Porcelain" in Fengtian City.

The kiln owner had an only daughter named Liu Ruyan, but she was born extraordinarily ugly, with half her face covered in a bluish-black birthmark, her skin twisted and wrinkled like the bark of an old tree.

At the age of ten, her mother, unable to bear the shame of her daughter being mocked all day, drowned herself in a well.

Her father, Kiln Master Liu, was grief-stricken and from then on poured all his heart's blood into the porcelain kiln.

He fired a type of "Beauty Porcelain" with a jade-like, lustrous glaze comparable to a beauty's skin, which became famous for a time.

Though Liu Ruyan was ugly, she was clever and deft with her hands, fully inheriting her father's true skills, especially excelling at sculpting human figures.

She would often face the mirror late at night, using the finest porcelain clay to patch and sculpt on her own face, obsessively fantasizing about reshaping herself into a face of peerless beauty.

At seventeen, the son of the Fengtian Prefect came to place an order for porcelain and accidentally caught a glimpse of her true appearance. He actually mocked her publicly: "Can an ugly ghost fire Beauty Porcelain too?"

That night, Liu Ruyan went completely mad.

She locked herself inside the main kiln and, using some evil method learned from who knows where, mixed twelve types of rouge and three drops of maiden's heart's blood from between the eyebrows into the porcelain clay, attempting to fire herself alive into an "Everlasting Living Beauty Porcelain" that would never fade.

The outcome was predictable.

From then on, "Liu Family Beauty Porcelain" completely declined.

These kinds of folk tales, passed down for years, are hard to verify as true or false.

But it at least proves that Luo Yan Slope itself carries an inherent sinister quality and has a notorious reputation.

Lu Yuan couldn't figure out why the Life-Severing Wang Family would choose such a place.

Nurturing Malevolence Sites emphasize the word "concealment"; they require gathering malevolent energy over long years in an unknown location.

Building a Nurturing Malevolence Site in a place like Luo Yan Slope either means they are supremely skilled and daring, playing a game of hiding in plain sight.

Or... the unique characteristics of this place hold a tremendous attraction for nurturing malevolence, making the risk worth it for them.

Lu Yuan flipped through the Nurturing Malevolence Diagrams. This site was established twenty-seven years ago, making it quite old among all the Nurturing Malevolence Sites.

Nurturing Malevolence Sites are like houses; they require constant maintenance. Once they can no longer continuously generate malevolent energy, they gradually collapse, become ineffective, and are abandoned by the Life-Severing Wang Family.

Most Nurturing Malevolence Sites have a "lifespan" of around a dozen years.

For the Luo Yan Slope site to have lasted nearly thirty years, it must have a special method of "upkeep."

......

The journey passed in silence. By evening, the last hint of light on the horizon was about to be swallowed by darkness.

The group arrived at a wilderness inn located about three li from Luo Yan Slope.

Calling it a wilderness inn, but it wasn't actually that small; it seemed like a converted courtyard from a wealthy family's estate.

A lantern hung before the door, its shade thickly smeared with grease, casting a sickly, viscous, yellowish glow.

Lu Yuan reined in his horse, his gaze sweeping over the courtyard.

Seven or eight tall, sturdy horses were tethered by the trough, each with glossy coats and fine saddles, definitely not something ordinary folks could afford.

Warm, yellow light shone through the paper windows of the main room, and faint, coquettish female laughter could be heard.

Lu Yuan's group had their own dry rations.

However, after several consecutive days of travel, the horses were starting to suffer; this afternoon they had already begun to slow down.

Coming across an inn that could feed the horses, naturally they had to let the animals eat.

Since they were about to reach their destination, Lu Yuan and the other three also needed to rest a bit and replenish their energy.

Lu Yuan dismounted, but his brow furrowed slightly.

The courtyard wasn't large, yet the horses were parked haphazardly, almost blocking the entrance.

A strange thought flashed through his mind.

Who parked like this, with such poor manners?

Clip-clop, clop, yah~, clip-clop, clop, yah~, clip-clop, clop, yah~

Lu Yuan led the four of them straight into the inn.

The innkeeper was a gaunt man in his fifties who claimed the surname Hu. There was a fresh scratch on his left cheek, already scabbed over dark red.

"Any rooms available?" Lu Yuan asked.

Innkeeper Hu kept his head down, fiddling with an abacus, not even bothering to lift his eyelids.

"None left."

"Only one large common room left, can sleep five people."

Lu Yuan didn't argue. They just needed to rest for a few hours until the horses were fed, then they'd be on their way.

If the horses were truly too tired to move, the five of them could simply walk; it was only three li from here to Luo Yan Slope anyway.

"Then one room it is."

Lu Yuan took out a five-yuan bill from his pocket and slapped it on the counter.

"Also get us some hot meals."

Seeing the money, Innkeeper Hu finally looked up, his eyes quickly sweeping over the five of them.

They lingered an extra moment on Shen Shulan's clear, cold Daoist robes before quickly dropping again.

"Food we have, but you'll have to wait."

"The guests at the table ahead ordered in a hurry, the kitchen's busy right now."

His attitude was less one of indifference than a deliberate aloofness and wariness.

Of course, Lu Yuan didn't expect everyone to greet them with smiles, but someone as cold as Innkeeper Hu was truly uncommon.

Lu Yuan didn't dwell on it, simply saying:

"No matter. Just feed our horses well first."

Innkeeper Hu, still not looking up, said directly:

"Go wait in the common room inside."

As soon as he finished speaking, the curtain to the main room was lifted by a hand, and a young master in moon-white silk brocade robes walked out.

The young master looked about twenty-five or twenty-six, with features refined to an unnatural degree.

But that "refinement" carried an indescribable strangeness.

His skin showed a bloodless white, even gleaming with a glazed, porcelain-like sheen under the light, lacking the texture and warmth of living human skin.

His lips were an excessively uniform red, as if meticulously outlined with the finest rouge, without a single lip line.

He wore a set of moon-white silk robes, a mutton-fat jade pendant hanging at his waist. When he walked, his steps were light and airy, as if his toes didn't touch the ground.

"Innkeeper Hu,"

The young master spoke, his voice gentle yet carrying a certain clear, cold, echoing quality like porcelain clinking:

"Add another jar of Pear Blossom White, aged ten years or more."

"Ah, right away, Young Master Sun!"

The previously indifferent Innkeeper Hu now seemed like he'd been whipped.

Instantly, his face broke into a wide smile, his back bent in a bow, exuding a deep-seated obsequiousness and fear.

The five of them exchanged a glance.

No words were needed.

Lu Yuan's nose clearly caught a whiff of scent drifting from that "Young Master Sun."

It was something even high-quality incense couldn't mask...

A stench of death, mingling aged grave soil with rouge.

Just based on Young Master Sun's appearance, he clearly wasn't a normal creature. What decent person looked like that?

Moreover, the way he was addressed was strange too.

Opening and closing his mouth with "young master" this and that.

Of course, Lu Yuan wasn't saying people didn't call each other "young master" during the Republic of China era.

It's just that, in this land beyond the Great Wall, people rarely used that kind of tone.

When encountering the young master of a wealthy family, they'd basically shout "young boss."

Calling him "young master"?

This form of address was overly "refined," as if it had crawled out of some decayed old coffin.

Not a hint of the rough, straightforward flavor of the frontier.

Just as Lu Yuan and the other four were secretly observing, Young Master Sun's gaze also drifted over.

His eyes swept lightly over Lu Yuan and the others, finally settling on Shen Shulan's clear, cold face.

The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile.

It wasn't the smile of one person greeting another; it was more like a top-tier porcelain master finally finding a peerless, uniquely beautiful solitary piece.

"Gentlemen, are you also going to Beauty Slope to partake in some fortune?"

Young Master Sun suddenly asked, smiling amiably at the five of them.

Lu Yuan's expression didn't change, his voice steady.

"Beauty Slope?"

Before Young Master Sun could reply, the previously cold Innkeeper Hu suddenly became enthusiastic:

"Oh, you didn't know?"

Innkeeper Hu raised his hand, his withered finger pointing towards the dark mountain shadows sinking into the night to the north.

"That's Luo Yan Slope! It changed its name years ago, everyone calls it 'Beauty Slope' now!"

"Rumor has it spending a night there makes men three parts more handsome, women seven parts more pretty!"

He wore a mysterious expression, lowering his voice and gesturing with his chin towards Young Master Sun's direction.

"Look at Young Master Sun, three months ago when he came he was just an ordinary scholar~"

"Now look at his appearance, tsk tsk, even Pan An reborn wouldn't surpass this!"

Lu Yuan: "..."

Those damn Qing demons have been dead for ages.

Where the hell are there any scholars now?

Facing the innkeeper's flattery, Young Master Sun merely smiled faintly, not denying it. He leisurely raised a hand to adjust his jet-black sideburns.

With his movement, a section of wrist slipped out from the sleeve of his moon-white silk robe.

The skin under the dim yellow lamplight actually gleamed with a warm, jade-like porcelain sheen.

"Just a bit of superficial attainment, nothing more."

His tone was indifferent, as if speaking of a trivial matter.

Before turning to go back inside, his gaze once again deeply swept over Shen Shulan.

"Miss, if you wish to go, it's best to pick a daytime."

His voice was gentle, yet carried a cold, porcelain-like quality.

"The wind is strong at night, it's easy to..."

He paused, the smile at the corner of his mouth deepening.

"...see things wrongly."

The curtain fell, cutting off the view. Inside, the coquettish female laughter sounded again, seductive to the ear.

....

The food came very slowly.

The five of them first went into the common room in the side building to rest temporarily.

Xu Erxiao couldn't hold back, sneakily sidling up to the window. He pried open a fingernail-sized hole in the window paper and peeked into the main room.

After watching for a good while, he abruptly pulled his head back, face pale, voice pressed extremely low.

"Senior Brother, that table in the main room... there's something seriously strange!"

"Besides that Young Master Sun, there are three women, each more beautiful than the last, but that beauty... it's sinister!"

His voice carried a slight tremor.

"One woman had her profile facing me, I saw it clearly. There's a fine seam behind her ear!"

"It's the joining line only found on porcelain!"

Wang Cheng'an, who was spreading out the bedding, suddenly froze.

"Painted skin?"

Lu Yuan directly shook his head, his gaze heavy and focused.

"No."

"Painted skins are ghostly entities, they carry pure Yin energy."

"These people... have the Yang energy of living humans, but that Yang energy is mixed with the raw, clay smell of freshly fired porcelain."

Shen Shulan took out a white jade porcelain bottle the size of a longan from her personal bag.

An extremely faint wisp of azure smoke drifted silently towards the window crack.

This was Wuqing Temple's secret "Qi-Observing Incense," capable of making invisible energies reveal their traces.

That wisp of azure smoke reached outside the window and, as if alive, circled once around the main room's window.

Immediately, the azure smoke abruptly split into four strands, each coiling around one of the four figures inside.

Each trail of smoke was suffused with a deathly pale pinkish-white glow, yet deep within that glow, a stubborn, corpse-like bluish-black color seeped through.

"Living human bodies, dead object energy."

Shen Shulan furrowed her beautiful brows, her voice clear and cold.

"It's as if... they've been parasitized by something."

Tan Jiji, who had been silent until now, spoke up with a grave expression.

"I've seen something similar."

Everyone's gaze turned to him. Tan Jiji now wore a thoughtful look.

"Three years ago, I passed through a deserted village. The villagers were all good-looking, but their eyes were vacant, their skin cold like frozen meat."

"Later I found out there was an ancient tomb beneath the village, with 'Jade Burial Figurines' buried as grave goods."

"Living people who stayed near them too long would become infected by the 'Corpse Beauty Aura' of the figurines, becoming beautiful but slowly stiffening into jade..."

Lu Yuan directly shook his head, rejecting this explanation.

"Similar, but different."

"Jade figurines involve corpse aura. This is porcelain aura."

Xu Erxiao, still crouched by the window, blinked.

"He definitely knows!"

Lu Yuan shook his head, his gaze sweeping over this simple common room, his voice turning cold.

"No need to ask, and we wouldn't get an answer anyway."

"There's definitely something evil here. Anyone who isn't a fool can see that. The innkeeper's words are also contradictory and confused."

"First it's scholars, then young masters, then Beauty Slope... it's all nonsense."

"If he were a normal person entangled by evil energy, seeing us he'd definitely ask for help. But I haven't seen any intention from him to seek our assistance."

Lu Yuan slowly stood up, his gaze sweeping over the four people before him, enunciating each word clearly.

"Don't bother spreading the mattress. We can't sleep this sleep, and we can't eat the food that comes later."

Tan Jiji looked around. This small earthen room now felt like a prison cell. He made a decisive call:

"We need to withdraw first!"

But Lu Yuan turned his head, his gaze seeming to pierce through the wall towards the main room, from which coquettish laughter still drifted.

"Wanting to withdraw now is probably too late."

Lu Yuan's voice was soft, yet it made the hearts of everyone present sink heavily.

"From the moment we stepped into this courtyard."

"We... had already entered the game!"

At this point, Lu Yuan took a deep breath, speaking with utmost seriousness:

"What skillful methods. I actually didn't detect a thing earlier!!"