Chapter 358

Dou Zhile had figured out every step, just waiting for me to take this final step.

I wasn't in a hurry; instead, I stood by the side door and waited a while.

Outside, those few gray eagles kept crying shrilly, their voices growing more mournful, as if something was devouring their lives.

This is the monks being destroyed by me, they suffered a strong backlash.

This process lasted about half a minute, then I heard several thuds of heavy objects hitting the ground.

From the courtyard came Dou Zhile's excited shout, obviously suppressing his excitement: "Success! Really succeeded! I knew Xiao Jiu Zhanggui could do it! Only she can help our Dou family!"

I no longer hesitated, stepped sideways out, and when I lifted my eyes to look at those skeletons, I actually discovered that the Heaven-Earth Mandarinduck Hook was missing.

Several skeletons happened to fall down.

I instantly took out those two drops of Lamp Oil, condensed them at my fingertips, and at the moment those two skeletons were about to hit the ground, I pointed them at their foreheads.

Yīnfēng suddenly rose; the already overcast rainy day saw the temperature drop a few degrees.

The attic stairs creaked again.

Dou Zhile's urging voice came: "Quick, Jinsuo!"

The skeletons shattered and fell to the ground, and a male and female soul appeared before me.

Their souls were faint, almost transparent.

Dou Zhile kicked Dou Jinsuo's back of the knee: "Jinsuo, quickly kowtow to your parents."

Dou Jinsuo immediately kowtowed loudly several times toward the two souls.

Dou Zhile said: "Elder brother and sister-in-law, rest assured going on; the Dou family has me and Jinsuo, you can relax."

As soon as his words fell, the two souls vanished.

I only felt a wave of dizziness, half my body numb, my vision darkened and I was about to collapse.

The expected pain never came; I fell into a fragrant, soft embrace, and in the next moment a pill was fed into my mouth—cooling and sweet, melting upon contact.

Bái Sōnglán supported me and asked, "Feeling better?"

I nodded; all my previous discomfort had greatly lessened, I no longer had the vitality to joke with her as usual, and I said, "Thank you."

Bái Sōnglán didn't say much more, just helped me down the attic stairs and personally saw me back to Dang Pu.

She didn't enter Dang Pu, standing at the steps she warned: "Tonight is turbulent; be careful yourself."

I waved at her: "Mm-hmm, you also stay safe."

The sky had turned completely dark; I leaned on the sofa and rested a while.

Li Qingying saw my poor complexion, she brought milk and made tasty food, I forced myself to eat a few bites.

Actually we all understand that my problem isn't the depletion of internal energy or vitality, but that I haven't achieved Nirvana; even Bai Shulan's pill can't fundamentally relieve my suffering.

As time passed, Li Qingying became noticeably more anxious.

She would occasionally run out to check the situation.

Around eight o'clock, she said to me, "Xiao Jiu, do you want to go check Xijiekou?"

I grunted: "What happened?"

"You'll know if you go take a look." Li Qingying said, "I can't describe it."

At that moment, I saw Jiang Sique also step out, looking westward.

I then stood up and went outside.

Looking out from Xijiekou, I saw shadows of people all over the river surface.

I was startled, hurried forward a few steps, squinted to look carefully, and then I could see clearly what was happening on the river.

That was Liu Junyan joining forces with Zhao Zixun, actually mobilizing the yin soldiers of Zhu Pan River to build a wall of yin‑soldier flesh!

They all faced west, using their corpses to block the bend where Zhu Pan River flows toward Wufu Town, apparently to cut off all the filth coming upstream of this river?

This... this ambition is truly beyond what I imagined.

Liu Junyan wouldn't waste effort on useless work; what is his purpose in doing this?

I pondered briefly and understood.

His main purpose isn't to block the filth swarming in from outside, but to create conditions for what's about to happen tonight!

Otherwise, before he went to Zhu Pan River today, he wouldn't have repeatedly told me that there would be business at Dang Pu tonight.

He had guessed this, but wasn't sure if his guess was accurate, so he could only remind me while taking precautions.

I returned to Dang Pu, went straight to Nan Shu Fang, and sat behind the counter.

Li Qingying didn't ask much more, then went out for another run.

She only came back close to ten o'clock.

When she returned, her complexion was a bit off: "Xiao Jiu, it's really spooky—around the Wufu Town hall, there's a circle of skin dolls, each with painted eyebrows and eyes, bodies plump; if they weren't just a single layer of skin, they'd look hollow, I almost thought they were real people…"

With a bang.

Li Qingying hadn't finished speaking when Jiang Sique suddenly sprang up from the stool, his movement so violent the stool was overturned.

He grabbed Li Qingying and asked, "What did you say? Have the skin dolls already appeared?"

"Yes." Li Qingying said with a pale face, "There are still quite a few—I roughly counted fifty or sixty, and the number keeps increasing."

Jiang Sique kept drawing in cold breaths, his hands constantly opening and closing, looking very tense: "Here it comes! Here it comes! It's my turn to go on stage! Huff…"

He rubbed his hands, went to the main courtyard to fetch his strange‑embroidery tools from his room, then lifted the black cloth on the drying rack and carefully pierced the backs of the skin dolls with a silver needle.

Just a moment ago Jiang Sique had been a bit flustered, but now he was immersed in the art of strange embroidery, calm and steady, as if he were a different person.

Within just over ten minutes, a faint corpse‑like odor began to emanate from the backs of the skin dolls.

Jiang Sique stopped, wiped the bean‑sized sweat beads from his forehead, and said, "Done."

He put away his strange‑embroidery tools and stepped to the side.

The skin doll on the drying rack suddenly began to tremble all over.

Immediately after, we saw the corpse-scented konjac on its back, buds about to bloom, its petals opening little by little, unfurling outward in all directions.

As the corpse-scented konjac bloomed, an indescribable corpse stench rushed straight into our nostrils, leaving our heads dizzy.

At that moment, the skin puppet fell from the drying rack, lifted its leg, and walked out the door.

Li Qingying instinctively moved to stop it, but Jiang Sique said, "Let it go; the time for it to play its role has come."

The skin puppet walked out of Dang Pu, not wandering about randomly, but heading straight toward the teahouse.

Wherever it passed, the impossible-to-ignore corpse stench spread, drifting everywhere.

When it stood on the tall ghost opera stage in front of the teahouse, the teahouse's doors opened.

One by one, skin puppets walked out of the teahouse.

These skin puppets differed from the naked ones outside; each of them wore clothes.

Some wore costumes, some wore armor.

Even when a small squad of skin puppets in court robes emerged, I didn't feel too surprised.

Chen Ping harbored dreams of becoming an emperor.

Where there is an emperor, there are ministers.

These skin puppets must be the ones I failed to see back then in that underground passage.

But when, at last, a skin puppet appeared wearing a general's uniform inside, draped with a dragon robe outside, wearing a crown with pendants on its head, and bearing a great sword at its waist, I went numb…