Chapter 178: Ah Li, my wife, is it really you who has come back?

The moment I saw my grandmother's name, I could no longer tell whether the world had gone mad or I had.

I kept moving through the mountains, no longer deliberately avoiding the kneeling children.

Because I knew, perhaps the entire mountain was inside a formation array.

On each formation point knelt a child.

I examined them one by one, and indeed, I found the village chief's name and my father's name, etc., on the backs of their necks.

Almost all the names of the villagers I remembered from my memory corresponded to the backs of the children's necks.

How could this be?

I suddenly realized a question: Are all the people of Tafengcun truly reincarnated?

No, absolutely not.

There aren't that many coincidences in the world.

The kirin giving children… is not actually giving children, but is similar to grafting.

They grafted the lives of children sacrificed elsewhere onto Tafengcun.

Why do they do this?

They… who are they?

Then what about me?

I reached out and touched the back of my own neck, confirming there were no characters there.

Furthermore, based on the information I have now, I can be certain that in my past life I was called Feng Li Nu, while in this life I am called Jiang Wantong.

The names don't match.

Also, my grandmother once said that when my mother prayed for years in the kirin temple and never received a dream from the kirin deity, she concluded I was a child not expected by the kirin deity.

Now it seems I am not unexpected; rather, my birth from start to finish was merely an accident.

Because of my accidental arrival, all these subsequent chain reactions came to be.

So the question arises: Since I am an accident, why wasn't I killed right after I was born?

I struggled for six years under my grandmother's maltreatment.

During those six years, anyone could have killed me as easily as crushing an ant.

Yet why did they let me grow wildly like weeds?

No, that's wrong.

They can't kill me!

I recalled what they used to say: when I was just born, my grandfather threw me into a raging sea of fire, yet I survived unharmed.

On the contrary, my grandfather hanged himself on that phoenix tree.

So why didn't I die back then?

Was it truly as the villagers said, that the kirin deity saved me?

Or is there some other hidden truth?

I turned and gazed toward the direction of the kirin temple; besides that temple, there stood a tall phoenix tree.

To be precise, it was that phoenix tree that protected me.

And originally, Feng Wu was summoned from within the phoenix tree.

Aunt Tang Xun said she had known Feng Wu for many years, and Feng Wu had been searching for her master.

So in the end, Feng Wu remained in that phoenix tree because her master was there?

Such an important piece of information, I only realized it after such a long time.

Feng Wu's master is me.

I once dreamed I was pushed into a deep pit, with countless pairs of children's hands reaching out from the pit, incessantly grabbing and pulling at me.

And something heavy was pressing on my back, leaving me unable to struggle at all.

That deep pit… where is it?

And what is it that is pressing on my back?

A bold guess suddenly jumped into my mind.

But before I could straighten out my thoughts, a yin wind suddenly arose around me.

Next, muffled thunder rumbled repeatedly from the darkness, and lightning incessantly flashed within.

The scenery between heaven and earth changed in an instant.

I only felt my vision go black suddenly, and then I seemed to stand once again in that deep pit, with countless pairs of children's hands incessantly grabbing and pulling at my ankles, amid a chorus of ghostly wails and wolf howls.

Not good.

I reached out and took all the talisman papers I had prepared beforehand from my pocket, scattering them into the sky.

The talisman papers instantly ignited without fire, then instantly turned to ash.

Ordinary talisman papers cannot possibly block such profound yin qi.

I bit my finger, quickly drew a lightning-summoning talisman on my palm, and while I was making the hand seal, streams of black qi suddenly surged from all directions, swirling nonstop around my bleeding finger.

Drops of blood welled out one by one, and were swiftly devoured one by one by those black qi.

They seemed not greedy; a single drop was enough.

The black qi that had swallowed my blood droplets, upon hitting the ground, instantly turned into the silhouette of a child, a faint soul appearing and then vanishing, as if something had sucked it away.

This scene gradually overlapped with certain images that had randomly appeared in my mind.

I pressed my hand to my head, it hurts so much!

It really hurts so much!

The more it hurt, the clearer those fantastical images became; I only felt my head spinning wave after wave, as if my very soul essence were about to depart from my flesh.

Meow—

A shrill, familiar cat cry suddenly rang out, my consciousness was jerked back, and immediately I heard Liu Junyan's voice.

"Xiao Jiu!"

I really wanted to respond to him, I really wanted to tell him I was inside the formation array.

But my consciousness cleared for an instant, then immediately it became chaotic in the devouring of those black vapors.

In the darkness it seemed an invisible force was summoning me, tugging my soul continually downward.

Booming thunder fell from above, lightning struck down in sheets, heaven and earth swayed, and my body crashed down……

I don't know how long passed, I stood up again.

But when I stood up, I saw my own body still lying on the ground in the mountains.

All strange phenomena between heaven and earth vanished.

Thunder and lightning disappeared, the dark curtain was gone.

The mysterious cat's claws tore through the darkness, it charged ahead first.

Immediately after, I saw Liu Junyan and Hui Moqiong, with Li Qingying following closely behind.

I opened my mouth to shout at them, reached out to pat them, I wanted to tell them I was here.

I was standing not far away, watching them.

But I couldn't.

That invisible force kept pulling me downward without cease.

At the moment I was falling, the mysterious cat seemed to sense something, suddenly turned its head toward my direction, and immediately cried out at me: "Meow!"

Boom!

My vision went dark again.

But this time my vision quickly brightened.

However, the brightness is relative to the darkness.

I don't know where I've arrived; beneath my feet is endless yellow sand, the horizon unseen.

The sky is dim yellow; as far as the eye can see, besides the yellow sand are the silhouettes of mountains.

Farther off, faintly there appears to be a river, and on the river there is a bridge.

On the bridge, vague shadows seem to be standing, many people.

I lifted my foot, wanting to walk toward those people.

Just then, a man's voice suddenly came from behind: "Ali, have you come back?"

My body jerked to a halt.

That voice……was so unfamiliar……

Yet it also felt as if I had heard it countless times before.

I turned my head suspiciously and saw, amidst the endless yellow sand, a tall figure standing; the light was too dim, the sand stung my eyes, I could not clearly see his face.

All I heard was him saying again: "Ali, my wife, have you truly come back?"