novelapdf Chapter 673 Savior
Chapter 673 Savior
Chapter 673 Savior
Barren mountains, dark forests.
A woman in red with long hair covering her face was walking slowly through the woods, carrying a red lantern.
The two servants, whom Situ Ao called "Ali" and "Aqiang," were still following behind the woman, walking with their arms around the shoulders of the person in front of them and their heads down, just like in the "inn."
There was no path in the forest, and no one knew where the woman was leading the two of them, but if nothing unexpected happened... these two were going to never return.
Hiss—hiss…
Suddenly, a few soft rustling sounds came from a patch of grass in front of the woman.
How slight is it?
To put it simply, if you were there, your first reaction to this noise would be to think it was made by a snake or a rat. Even if you were to guess more broadly, it would probably be something like a rabbit or a squirrel.
However, upon hearing this, the woman in red immediately stopped and waited in silence.
But what she got was a tiger.
Just one glance is enough to tell why this tiger can only make "slight" noises—it's too thin.
This kind of "thinness" is usually impossible to find in animals other than humans; to describe it, it's like some actors sacrificing their health to lose extreme weight for a specific role, and then adding special effects makeup... to achieve the final effect.
Other mammals that show differences in fatness or thinness would probably have starved to death long before becoming this "super skin and bones" appearance, but this tiger spirit in front of us was forced to this point for various reasons.
Moreover, its abnormality was not only its small size; on its back, there were three huge festering sores, each resembling a distorted human face and emitting a putrid odor.
In addition... there are several fresh scorch marks on its fur right now.
So, setting aside the burns that everyone already knows about, how exactly did it end up like this?
The book subtly suggests that this was caused by the fact that it released the Peng family of three to take Shao Shanhu's life, and that Sun Huang ultimately ruined the whole thing.
After all, that was a "remote operation," and the difficulty was actually a bit beyond its capabilities; of course, if it were easy, it would have already released the changgui all over the world... So, that time, the tiger spirit also had an element of gambling—it gambled on the three tiger stripes on its back to carry out that operation.
Three tiger stripes, folks. What does that mean for a tiger spirit? Let's take a Hong Kong comic as an example. It's like a magnetic field freak temporarily sacrificing his battle stripes to double his horsepower using a special technique.
And then it lost the bet...
The backlash from the failure was that the tiger spirit gradually weakened, eventually becoming what it is today.
In the past, why did this tiger spirit need to make things so complicated when it harmed people? If it encountered the elderly, weak, women, or children, it would just pounce and eat them. Only when it encountered someone who seemed capable of killing a tiger (and there are quite a few such people in the martial arts world) would it send a few of its transformed accomplices to put on a show, and the tricks it used were only at the level of deceiving Tang Sanzang, mainly to attract attention.
But now, it has to cooperate with those shopkeepers and waiters, and give these accomplices certain benefits. It also has to use formations to create a specific environment to lock the victims in coffins and slowly "digest" them... Sometimes, when it encounters someone who looks very fierce, it has to personally "perform" to speed up the absorption process.
If it doesn't wait for a "wicked person destined to bring trouble" to settle accounts, it's possible that its accomplices might rebel against it soon.
Tonight, the appearance of Yun Shili and Yuwei has undoubtedly plunged the tiger spirit into a huge crisis. So now it has no choice but to ask its "neighbor," the red-clothed female ghost, for help.
So what kind of relationship did this female ghost have with the tiger spirit?
We weren't really that close...
Don't be fooled by the current situation, which may seem like the female ghost is "stealing food" from the tiger spirit's territory. In reality, it's the tiger spirit that's bothering the female ghost.
I'll explain the whole story in a few words and you'll understand.
Back then, there was actually a small village on Zhimaling, the desolate village that Yun Shili remembered walking into at night.
That year, a woman named Zhou was married into this family, or rather... sold into this family.
This was common in ancient times: some remote villages had small populations and almost no mobility, so some villagers would go to larger prefectures and counties to "buy wives"; whether they found human traffickers, migrants who sold their children, or gambling addicts, the process was similar to that of a rich person buying a maid.
Of course, women who could be sold as maids were unlikely to be sold to villages. This Zhou woman lost her hearing due to an illness when she was young, which is why she was sold cheaply after being passed around.
After "marrying" into this village, Zhou's life was not easy. Her parents-in-law and husband treated her as if "they spent a lot of money to buy her, so it's only right that they treat her like cattle and horses." They always complained that she was "useless," as if they didn't know she was disabled when they were bargaining.
She thought her family would treat her better after she became pregnant, but unexpectedly she miscarried five months later. Her in-laws still showed no sympathy for her and instead beat and scolded her even more.
After enduring long-term abuse and multiple blows, Zhou finally could not bear it any longer and chose to hang herself. Moreover... before she died, she specially wore the red dress she wore on her wedding day.
Afterwards, Zhou successfully transformed into a vengeful ghost, summoning her beastly husband and in-laws to "start a little train" of vengeance.
Even so, her resentment remained, and more and more people disappeared from the village... After a while, as villagers continued to die, leave, or flee, the village was abandoned.
Originally, the tiger spirit and the Zhou family kept to themselves, but the tiger spirit has suffered greatly in recent years, so it came to this "neighbor's" territory and used the evil energy of this deserted village to set up an array, creating this new system.
Therefore, if we're talking about disturbing the child and stealing food, then it should be this tiger spirit who started it...
That's why, when Zhou took a few people from the tiger spirit's "inn" on ordinary days, the tiger spirit would just pretend not to see it.
But... today's situation is different.
“Good neighbor, you can’t just leave like this today…” After stopping Zhou, the tiger spirit said in a very weak voice, “Even if you don’t come to help your brother, you have to leave these two behind you, so that your brother can at least have a couple more bites…”
I don't know where it got the idea of being an older brother, it just started talking.
However, Zhou Shi wasn't going to tolerate this guy. After a couple of seconds of silence, instead of responding to his comment, she used the same jumpscare-like tone she used when she teased Yun Shili before: "Do you want to come with me too?"
Whether you interpret this as talking to yourself or as intimidation, it's definitely not a cooperative attitude.
"You...you crazy woman..." The tiger spirit was a little angry, but to be honest, it wasn't even confident in dealing with a few living people, let alone going head-to-head with this female ghost. "...This great king has come to ask you for help this time. If you respond like this, don't regret it later!"
"Huh?" The next second, Zhou seemed to have gone deaf again (obviously she could hear after becoming a vengeful ghost), and replied with this sound, and even stretched out a hand as if to "rub the cat".
To outsiders, this might not seem like much, but the tiger spirit could see that if it really "got hooked" on this move, it might just join in and "ride the little train" too.
So the tiger spirit had no choice but to let out a howl, turn around, and dart back into the bushes, cursing as it ran off...
…………
At the same time, in a deserted village.
Closing the door was clearly only the first step for Situ Ao to trap the four people. To ensure that the people inside could not break out, Situ Ao used all his strength to brace the door panel after closing it.
Of course, as you can probably imagine, if this door is still vulnerable to being breached, then it wouldn't matter whether Situ Ao is blocking it or not. With their martial arts skills, Yun Shili and Cao Weier could easily destroy the door and destroy the people inside.
The problem is that the door can no longer be opened from the inside.
Because of the incident when Situ Ao broke down the door, it was as if a line on the edge of the magic circle had been erased. The instability of the array caused the two strange phenomena of "inn" and "coffin shop" to begin to merge. If the door is closed again at this time, the whole house will become like a safe that is being destroyed and deformed by aluminum fuel. If it is opened again, there will be a problem of partial structural jamming.
So no matter how much the people inside tried to break down the door, it remained completely still, and even Situ Ao outside couldn't hear any noise from inside.
Just when everyone was about to be trapped and killed in the fire by a petty scoundrel like Situ Ao, an unexpected savior appeared.
"Huh? Who are you?" Situ Ao was taken aback when he saw Xu Wei, who had appeared in front of him at some point.
"Huh? You can see me?" Xu Wei was also taken aback by Situ Ao's words.
From Xu Wei's perspective, one second he was still following Tang Chou in that "inn", and the next second he came to his senses and found himself outside the fire scene, where he witnessed Situ Ao blocking the door and harming people.
What Xu Wei didn't know was that because he was too weak, his consciousness was almost swallowed up by the formation not long ago. Fortunately, when Yun Shili threw Situ Ao out, it created an opening in the formation, which allowed Xu Wei to "fall" out through the gap.
However, Xu Wei felt there was nothing he could do, so even though he witnessed all of this, he could only stand there anxiously.
Until... Situ Ao's words at that moment made him realize something.
"Wait...you can see me? That means..." Xu Wei muttered to himself as he took a few steps forward, and then, on a whim, he slapped the other person across the face.
Since Xu Wei still looked like the young, weak scholar he had when he died, he didn't seem like the kind of person who would resort to violence. So even as he approached, Situ Ao didn't expect that the other party would suddenly attack him.
As a result, when this slap was delivered, Situ Ao slid out like a spinning top, rolling and tumbling for five or six zhang (approximately 10-15 meters) across the muddy ground of the deserted village before finally stopping.
"Whoa~" Xu Wei didn't understand what was going on, but since he had become "visible and tangible", he could save people. So after a brief moment of amazement, he quickly turned around and opened the door of the house.