Chapter 176: Sister, eat candy

I stared at my grandma, looking at her terrifying appearance, only feeling she was like a walking container filled with incense ash.

Moreover, this container was also stamped with a seal and had cracks.

What is going on?

My grandma was still crawling on her knees, desperately chasing after me, lowering her posture like never before: "Tongtong, Grandma was wrong, Grandma shouldn't have treated you like that before; you are not a jinx, you are the blessing of our Jiang family, no, no, you are the savior of our entire Tafengcun, only you can save us."

As my grandma pleaded for help, the surrounding villagers suddenly seemed to wake from a dream, all turning toward me in unison.

Their lowered heads slightly lifted, pairs of eyes fixed on me, mouths stuffed with incense ash, some even unable to speak.

My gaze swept back and forth through the crowd, discovering that almost all the Tafengcun villagers I remembered were present.

Only one person was missing—my younger sister Xin'er.

Yes.

Just now, the only ones kneeling together with my grandma were the four members of the Jiang family.

My grandma, my parents, and my little brother.

Where did Xin'er go?

She… she couldn't have already died, could she?

"Tongtong, save us, please save us."

"Before, we were blind, we misjudged people, we will change."

"Tongtong, even if you don't save the adults, please save these children; they're so young, they know nothing, they haven't harmed you, please be merciful and save them, okay?"

"..."

Everyone was begging me.

They repented and lamented, continuously spewing incense ash from their mouths and the patterns on their bodies, soon white smoke swirled around the surroundings.

That scene reminded me of the earlier sight of white smoke sealing off Tafengcun.

No.

This is too abnormal.

What exactly did they encounter to cause such a sudden awakening?

What do they now want me to do to save them?

In that instant, countless possibilities flashed through my mind.

As those people kept begging me and kowtowing, because of the effort, the cracks on their skin grew larger, as if their whole bodies could burst open at any moment.

White smoke enveloped the surroundings, gradually obscuring the outside situation.

If this continues, I fear it will be hard for me to even shoot out a distress signal.

Thinking this, my feet began to retreat silently, intending to withdraw to the edge and then run away.

But just then, a clear child's voice rang out: "Tongtong sister, you've come, here, eat candy."

I turned my head and saw Xin'er standing right in front of the kirin statue at that moment.

She is twelve years old now, has grown much taller, wears a ponytail, one hand extended forward with her palm holding a candy.

She kept staring at me, and I stared back at her, my emotions unable to calm for a long time.

Because Xin'er's body was also covered in cracks, her mouth filled with incense ash.

Even her condition was worse than that of the other villagers.

At this moment, she was like a porcelain doll that had been shattered and then glued back together.

Dangerous, fragile.

From the moment she appeared, the villagers who had been incessantly begging me for help suddenly lost all vitality, lowered their heads and knelt there, just as they had when I first arrived.

"Tongtong sister, eat candy."

Xin'er kept looking at me with a squinting smile, as if she couldn't see the crowd of people kneeling around me; she merely persisted in trying to attract me with the candy in her hand.

I knew full well that I could not accept this candy, let alone eat it.

This is a trap.

But if I don't enter this trap, what did I come up here for?

If I cannot take this step, I will never be able to tear away the mysterious veil of the kirin temple.

I just stood there, unable to advance or retreat.

"Sister, eat candy."

Xin'er suddenly stepped forward.

With this step, every bit of her flesh seemed to tremble and reorganize, incense ash fluttering down, looking extremely terrifying.

"Sister, eat candy, hurry up and eat candy!"

Xin'er walked toward me step by step, constantly chanting "eat candy" in her mouth.

She… was no longer a normal twelve-year-old girl.

She had become a puppet in the kirin temple.

I gritted my teeth, suddenly made a hand seal, and shouted loudly: "Feng Wu, come forth!"

The longbow was firmly held in my left hand; I raised my right hand, took off the copper coin hanging from my neck, and placed the copper coin on the bowstring.

The longbow first pointed at Xin'er; Xin'er seemed to sense something and abruptly stopped her steps.

Meanwhile, my aim gradually shifted past her shoulder, moving toward the kirin statue behind her.

I dared not go forward to directly take Xin'er's candy, but I could first probe by attacking the kirin statue to see what subsequent effects would arise.

Whoosh…

At the instant the copper coin was shot out, Xin'er suddenly raised her hand, trying to grab the copper coin.

But she was a step too slow; the copper coin grazed her fingertip and precisely struck the heart of the kirin statue, then quickly unfolded, red thread continuously wrapping around the kirin statue as copper coins linked together along the red thread.

The qilin statue was already towering, with a huge golden phoenix beneath its feet, not to mention the hundred sons it carried on its back.

Golden copper wires linked with the red threads, continuously spreading out—a magnificent sight.

Just as the copper coins were about to cover the qilin statue's entire body, a black gust suddenly burst from inside the statue, snapping the red threads, breaking the coins, which scattered everywhere.

At the moment that black gust erupted, I wasn't sure if it was my imagination, but the hundred sons on the qilin's back seemed to move.

How could that be?!

The next moment, the copper coin that had been shot out returned to my hand.

I felt a shudder in my heart; even the coin net couldn't block the qilin statue's black gust—just how much power is hidden inside this statue?!

I refused to believe it, and once again placed the copper coin on the bowstring.

This time, I aimed at the eye of a child sculpture among the hundred sons behind the qilin statue.

If the qilin's gift of sons is a scam, then wanting to tear open a gap in this scheme by working on these hundred sons would not be wrong.

Whoosh!

The copper coin flew swift and true, striking the left eye of the child sculpture I had aimed at.

That left eye instantly cracked, shedding gold powder as it fell, and soon the eye turned into a blob of black water that vanished.

Almost at the same moment, among the villagers kneeling peacefully, two suddenly collapsed, bleeding from their seven orifices, with incense ash spraying everywhere.

They… are dead!

They died just like that, without any warning.

Both were elderly—one over seventy, the other nearly sixty—and they fell to the ground, eyes wide open, blood continuously flowing.

The scene was horrifying and bloody.

I never imagined that the arrow I shot would cause such a chain reaction.

Why did I shoot at the hundred-sons sculpture, yet the villagers died…