Chapter 353

Hui Moqiong jumped into the water and quickly swam toward that street.

Not long after, he dragged the man by one leg and pulled him over.

The person had already breathed his last; his whole body was emaciated to skin and bone, his skin deathly pale, yet his body still retained residual warmth, not yet fully stiff… he had died not long ago.

"There are no wounds on his body; he must have died the same way as those before."

In other words, this person was just drained of essence and blood by a skin puppet and floated up.

They are acting.

"Split up to investigate, stay safe." Liu Junyan said.

Wufu Town is not exactly big, but not exactly small either.

The straight-line distance from here to the pawnshop is a little over one li.

Hui Moqiong went east, while Liu Junyan directly flew onto the Zhu Pan River.

And I certainly returned to the pawnshop first.

What surprised me greatly was that the entire Wufu Town was flooded, yet the water could not get into the pawnshop.

The water level only reached the steps at the pawnshop's doorway.

Huang Fan was not there.

Guarding the doorway were Li Qingying and Fu Wan.

The moment I saw Fu Wan, I understood.

Fu Wan died in a heavy rain, and after death she was trapped in the Zhu Pan River; she can control water.

When Fu Wan first appeared, it was during a heavy rain; she waded out of the Zhu Pan River, and the townsfolk were all frightened half to death by her.

Me too.

But in just over half a year, Fu Wan has now helped us.

But her ability is ultimately limited; she can hold back the water around the pawnshop, but not the whole of Wufu Town.

Li Qingying saw me and exclaimed excitedly, "Xiao Jiu, you've finally returned—where are Seventh Lord and Hui Lao Wu?"

"They're all back." I asked, "And Huang Fan?"

Li Qingying said, "At the assembly hall side, when the river water first rushed into the town, he gathered the villagers and had them assemble there?"

I instinctively wanted to say, why not gather at the pawnshop instead of sending them to the assembly hall?

The words rose to my lips but I swallowed them back.

Huang Fan did the right thing.

Once the protective formation array of the pawnshop is broken, the pawnshop becomes the most dangerous place.

Moreover, the pawnshop resembles a pixiu, best at concealing impurity and absorbing filth.

Meanwhile, at the assembly hall side there is Mei Lin Shuang; the two work together, and as long as the townsfolk don't cause trouble, they'll be fine.

Li Qingying took my hand and led me to the rear: "Huang Fan… well, he's rather unscrupulous, but… he also makes people unable not to admire him."

I asked suspiciously, "What's up?"

Li Qingying led me to the front courtyard, heading toward the big locust tree, when I smelled a foul, fishy odor.

That smell was too pungent, making people's heads buzz.

I stood more than a meter away from the big locust tree, covering my nose, really not wanting to move closer.

Li Qingying said, "When the water first rushed into the town, the filthy things in the well became restless, wailing and howling as they tried to crawl out, nearly overturning everything; Huang Fan said nothing, walked straight to under the big locust tree, and… urinated on the trunk… strangely, those filthy things instantly quieted down; now the smell has dissipated quite a bit—before, even standing at the courtyard gate I couldn't bear it."

Er… alright.

This is probably also one of Huang Xian's secret techniques.

"Huang Fan said this smell can last two hours; after two hours it will completely dissipate, and he will immediately return to the pawnshop to suppress it by other means; already more than an hour has passed."

So that's how it is.

"Also, something happened in the west wing."

Li Qingying led me onward toward the rear.

Upon entering the west wing, I immediately saw.

On the main deity's altar, the copper coin person… looked as if it had been blown up by firecrackers and then drenched with a bucket of water; the sight… is hard to describe.

Originally the copper coin person was gleaming gold, looking especially noble, but during this period the copper coins wrapped around it have all faded to white.

The golden copper coins turned white copper coins, instantly losing their value.

Moreover, those white copper coins stacked together resemble the paper copper coins sold in our funeral shop, looking somewhat eerie.

From the waist down, including the lower half of the arms, it is already covered in white blood-stained scales.

But at this very moment, a fine layer of white scales has fallen beneath the deity's shrine… all of them shed from the copper coin person's body.

Where the white scales have fallen off, neither copper coins nor skin are visible—only dark red flesh…

I asked, "What's going on?"

"We don't know either." Li Qingying said helplessly, "Everything was fine until the first half of the night; around two a. m., oh, when the third heavenly thunder struck from the Linghai direction, it suddenly caught fire, its scales kept falling off, blood kept flowing down, Huang Fan brought in a basin of water and splashed it on, which finally put out the fire."

After she finished speaking, she paused, then suddenly seemed to recall something and added, "Right, the moment Huang Fan splashed the water upward, I saw a streak of flowing light flash by—I don't know if I was seeing things."

"You weren't seeing things; it was the power awakened in time by Zhong Qiuqiu."

I briefly told Li Qingying what happened when the third heavenly thunder struck.

Li Qingying suddenly understood: "No wonder after splashing the water, Huang Fan let out a big sigh of relief, saying he was fortunate to have a noble person's help, otherwise that basin of water couldn't have extinguished the fire—turns out that noble person was Zhong Qiuqiu."

Huang Fan is young, but his eyesight is vicious; he's really quite formidable.

Then I stared at the copper coin person, lost in thought.

It seems these things happening to the copper coin person are related to the heavenly tribulation.

The heavenly tribulation that should have fallen on the White Dragon beneath the abyss was first blocked by the Dragon Transformation Cauldron, then broken by Zhong Qiuqiu.

In this process, the Copper Coin Person was also affected…… This is enough to show that the guy who wanted to Body Seizure the Copper Coin Person and the guy who originally wanted to Body Seizure White Dragon's Dībā pò are of the same lineage.

It's even the same person…… Diluan!

Fortunately, heaven has eyes, and it never let him get his wish.

This guy isn't dead yet; now I don't know which nook he's hiding in, waiting to strike back at us.

"Qingying…… Yingyingzi…… Li Qingying……"

We were in the west room when we heard Hui Moqiong shouting at the top of his lungs from ahead.

Li Qingying jumped in fright: "What's this person howling about the moment he walks in?"

Saying that, she already lifted her leg and went out, and I followed.

Hui Moqiong came in through the door, walking all the way to the back, searching and calling as he went.

Hearing Li Qingying's voice, he actually broke into a run, went up to her, said nothing, made no move, just stared at her and smiled foolishly.

Li Qingying, annoyed, wanted to hit him: "Stop laughing, it's creepy."

"Seeing you're all right makes me happy," Hui Moqiong said. "Yingyingzi, you must stay well, free of sickness and disaster, live a long life."

Li Qingying frowned again and again, then snapped: "You're the one who'll live a hundred years—I'm already several hundred years old, you're cursing me to die early!"

Hui Moqiong froze.

Then, as a reflex, he raised his arm to shield his head, and Li Qingying's fists rained down on him.

Hey, this pair of lovebirds‑rivals—there's really nothing we can do about them.

But the quarrel is just a quarrel—it only lasts three or five minutes.

Afterward, Hui Moqiong stopped laughing and turned serious: "Xiao Jiu, I've searched the whole of Wufu Town and found six corpses. Besides the one we first saw that had just died, the other five are all piled up outside the back wall of our Dang Pu, and the town chief's corpse is there too……"