Chapter 115

The fire started quickly, and the flames shot up high in an instant.

The Dou family runs a coffin business, and they keep tung oil at home.

Tung oil has anti-corrosive and wood-preserving effects.

It seems Dou Zhile poured tung oil in the blue stone house before lighting it; otherwise the fire couldn't have burned so fast and so fiercely.

By the time we get up there empty-handed, what can we use to fight the fire?

What's worse, this is in the mountains; if such a huge fire breaks out, the whole mountaintop will likely be engulfed in flames, and heading up now might mean we never come back.

"How strange." Li Qingying suddenly said, "Such a big fire has broken out, yet not a single bird or beast is fleeing from the woods on this mountain."

Yeah.

Not only are there no birds or beasts, even the lush, verdant trees covering the mountain are eerie.

You should know, it's already the beginning of the eleventh lunar month, deep into winter.

Not all the trees on this mountain are pines and cypresses, so why is the vegetation so lush and green?

But we can't worry about that now; the question we face is whether to go up or not.

But before we could hesitate, a chorus of squeaks came from above, like countless mice scrambling wildly underground in the mountains.

That sound was loud—nothing an ordinary house mouse could match.

And accompanied by their cries, a blue mist suddenly rose from the blue stone house.

The blue mist spread from all sides toward the blue stone house; at first we could still see the firelight in the middle through the mist.

Soon the firelight vanished, and the blue mist gradually dissipated.

By then, I and Li Qingying had already run up.

Everything happened too fast—just a few minutes from start to finish.

When we finally reached the ruined blue stone house, we saw two people, their faces blackened by smoke, sitting in coffins that were likewise blackened, staring at each other.

Dou Jinsuo still clutched a small wooden horse in his hand, and on his head perched a thin little white mouse, squeaking at Dou Zhile, though no one knew what it was saying.

Dou Zhile seemed to understand; before the mouse finished squeaking, he sprang up, pointed upward, bared his big yellow teeth, and shouted, "You dead rat, want revenge? If you've got the guts, go get it yourself—why bother me? Don't I even have the right to die?!"

Upon hearing that, the mouse shot onto Dou Zhile's shoulder in a flash, its movements extraordinarily agile, and it lunged to bite his ear.

Dou Zhile slapped the mouse away, grabbed the large smoke pot nearby, and prepared to strike the mouse: "Go tell your master—stop bothering me. If I'm unhappy, you won't even get a single incense offering!"

The mouse vanished in the blink of an eye.

Dou Zhile slumped amid the wreckage, reached to light the smoke pot, but found the tobacco had turned to charcoal, and even the mouthpiece was clogged with soot.

"Never mind, everyone's against me." Dou Zhile looked at me and said, "Hey, you'd better understand: if I go back, your life might very well end in my hands. Aren't you afraid?"

I shook my head: "No, I'm not afraid. Whether you take part or not, I'm already in the eye of the storm. I came tonight just to visit an ally I consider extremely precious."

"An ally?" Dou Zhile chuckled. "They want me to make a skin-red coffin for you to sleep in—what kind of allies are we?"

Beside him, Dou Jinsuo suddenly raised the small wooden horse and waved it, whispering: "Um, Second Uncle, it seems they've picked someone else this time."

All three of us turned our gazes to Dou Jinsuo at once.

"The town mayor doesn't take me seriously, and he doesn't avoid me when he calls." Dou Jinsuo rubbed his nose and said, "It seems a woman sent them a suitable candidate, and that person is probably being kept at the Bai family."

"A woman?" I asked. "What kind of woman?"

Dou Jinsuo shook his head: "The mayor didn't say, oh right, it seems that woman said she can't move you for now, so she picked someone else."

When Dou Jinsuo mentioned the woman, my first thought was Bai Xian'er behind the Bai family.

But after hearing the next sentence, I changed my mind.

After all, not long ago Old Lady Bai tried to seal me in a red coffin and send me to the Pearl Plate River, and at that time Bai Xian'er didn't come out to stop her.

So it's not Bai Xian'er—then who could it be?

But no matter who it is, this means another innocent girl will die at their hands. Since the person is at the Bai household, it's time to go see Bai Jingmo.

Thinking of this, I told Dou Zhile: "Old Dou, no matter what decision you ultimately make, I think our values still align—we don't want to harm anyone, and we want to help as much as we can. Based on that, I will always regard you as an ally."

Having said that, I took Li Qingying and went down the mountain.

On the way back, Li Qingying asked me, "Xiao Jiu, do you think Dou Zhile will return to Wufu Town and get involved in this affair?"

"Yes." I said firmly. "If I'm not mistaken, the gray immortal enshrined by the Dou family should be somewhere in this mountain, and Dou Zhile lives here not just to avoid disaster—he has his duties."

Li Qingying nodded, focusing on driving.

I, meanwhile, leaned back in the seat and slowly thought things over.

At first I thought the five great animal immortals of Wufu Town were united, as impregnable as an iron barrel, but now I see I was completely wrong.

The line of Hu Yulin the Fox Immortal clearly takes little part in Wufu Town's affairs.

As for Second Master Liu, he's currently entrenched on Wangting Mountain and has at least temporarily not returned to stir up trouble in Wufu Town.

Furthermore, with Liu Junyan present here, the Wangting Mountain snake clan lineage does indeed possess a deterrent force.

Of the remaining three, the Gray Immortal seldom appears; now it seems that it even bears enmity toward the other two.

Then, in fact, the only ones who have been holding the position are the Bai Family and the Huang Family.

Among them, the Bai Family is the most difficult to deal with.

Upon the death of the Bai Family matriarch, Bái Jīngmò took over.

We still need to slowly figure out his means.

Once this is clarified, a greater mystery gradually forms in my mind.

Precisely, these five immortals seem disunited; then why did they, or their ancestors, originally gather at Wufu Town?

What sort of person lies above them, and what thunderous means did he use to win over them or their ancestors?

Could it be… the person who originally established the Dang Pu?

If such a person truly exists, where is he now?

Is it only after breaking this situation in Wufu Town that we can force him to reveal his true form?

I even somewhat dare not imagine what kind of awe-inspiring existence that would be...