My Enemy Became My Cultivation Companion-Chapter 835 - 514: Sword Immortal Little Fox (Three-in-One) (Part 3)

The three sticks of incense were about to be offered into the incense altar.

With a crack, they extinguished.

The merchants trembled, their faces bleak. They tried to borrow fire again to offer incense, yet it extinguished once more.

Twice the incense extinguished, and the couple dared not attempt a third time. They sat leaning against each other, trying to get closer to Chen Yi and the others, yet not too close—keeping a distance of two or three feet.

The rain roared, faintly rumbling with thunder beneath black clouds. Chen Yi's empty eyes appeared as if he were dozing, while beside him, Yin Tingxue sat under his towering shadow, nibbling on a bun.

Yin Tingxue inadvertently raised her head.

In the dim light, the couple's faces were pale, growing increasingly haggard, resembling puppets on a stage...

"Xin'er, blame your father and mother for their lack of fortune. Money is destined to be taken, but not spent..."

"We shouldn't have sold you, shouldn't have sold you... Xin'er, Xin'er..."

"Father and mother, what's the use of this money! Selling Xin'er for this money is worthless! Blind eyes, blind hearts!"

In a hazy state, the two seemed to have spirits leaving their bodies, conversing with heart-felt voices.

Yin Tingxue pondered silently, clutching the bun in her hand. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

There was still a slight sound of rustling.

She listened intently.

The sound of sobbing... as if a child, covering their face, crying softly, muttering something, pleading for something, as if saying not to blame their father and mother...

Yin Tingxue hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath and was about to throw away the intact bun.

A hand reached over and held it.

It was Chen Yi.

He looked calmly at Yin Tingxue, his voice whispering at her ear, "Do you really want to save them?"

Yin Tingxue heard, he saw,

Outside the temple, not far away, a thin black figure was kneeling towards the icon of the Mountain God Temple, knocking their head fervently...

Seeing Yin Tingxue's eyes slightly lower, seemingly about to nod, Chen Yi asked again, "I'm not stopping you from doing good, but should this person be saved, or not? You need to think it through."

Yin Tingxue hesitated for a moment, then said softly, "I want to save them..."

Upon hearing this, Chen Yi no longer prevented her.

He sensed a deeper anomaly, yet it was fine, allowing this Little Fox to try her own ability.

With a swift arc, the bun was thrown, and the puppet-like couple suddenly awakened, scrambling for the bun like starving dogs. In no time, even the crumbs on the ground mixed with gravel were devoured clean.

As if struck a blow on the head, the couple snapped awake, the merchant hurriedly sat up, pulling his wife up, looking respectfully yet fearfully at Chen Yi and Yin Tingxue.

Respecting the strange atmosphere, fearing the unknown origin, who knows if they were human or ghosts? Who knows if there was hidden intent, unable to ascertain whether the eerie symptoms were due to them...

The merchant couple's faces were normal again, vitality replenished, eyes lively, minds racing with countless thoughts.

"These two..." the merchant tentatively began.

"Just travelers passing through Jianghu." Chen Yi cut him off directly, flicking out the fire in the brazier, pulling Yin Tingxue up.

The woman quickly tried to retain them, "Why leaving so urgently in this rain, oh, I heard a fortune teller say this mountain is haunted, why don't you..."

"It's bothersome." Chen Yi glanced back, "If there's no guilty conscience, you can walk the roads at night."

The merchant couple's faces froze, unable to speak a word of thanks.

Before they could speak further, Chen Yi pulled up the umbrella with Yin Tingxue and stepped out of the Mountain God Temple.

The rain continued incessantly, even more intense than before, no longer resembling the mountain's sudden showers.

Dense raindrops pounded heavily on the oil-paper umbrella, the frame creaking mournfully, eerily chilling, causing Yin Tingxue to unwittingly shiver with goosebumps.

She followed closely behind Chen Yi, the road cold, an eerie chill creeping up to her ankles, looking down to see the potholes seeming like crying human faces...

The faces passed through her vision, and as Yin Tingxue hesitated to look back, two fingers suddenly pinched her neck!

It was Chen Yi...

Yin Tingxue shivered before realizing it was Chen Yi.

"Don't look back, it will extinguish the Yang Fire." Chen Yi said leisurely.

Seeing the Little Fox nod seriously, he couldn't help but chuckle, clearly she's a Golden Core, yet still so afraid of ghosts.

The two continued along the mountain path, but the road seemed to stretch longer and longer, never reaching an end, Yin Tingxue saw the mountain path extend infinitely into the darkness, fear intensifying, only able to tightly lean on him.

They didn't know how far they walked, the road seemed to reach an end, intricate shadows intertwined.

"Roar!"

Amid the tiger's roar, a piercing bolt of lightning suddenly flashed.

In a blinding white, Yin Tingxue looked, the eerie mountain path lined with sticks of incense rooted into the earth, stretching endlessly like a long procession carrying coffins.

A pale head slowly parted the eerie rain curtain, it was a giant beast, aged in appearance, whiskers extending into the shadows, a sinister "king" character on its forehead, dressed in Mountain God official robes, yet from a previous dynasty, carrying indistinct figures behind it...

Yin Tingxue shivered.

"I thought which road immortal might come..." The Qiuhuai Mountain God's lips did not move, a sharp voice directly reaching her ear, "Just two Jianghu travelers, dare to impede my soul capturing and ghost crafting?"

There's a type of ghost known as servant ghost; people know them for serving tigers, knowing that the refined Mountain Lord uses servant ghosts to trap, yet unaware that servant ghosts exist, and then Mountain Lords, Mountain Lords abound, but servant ghosts remain rare.

Soul capturing and ghost crafting involve seizing human spirits, thereby creating servant ghosts, not just that, but crafting servant ghosts can also infect relatives' minds, turning them into servant ghosts too, like the merchant couple earlier, they sold their young son to the Xia Shui Su Family, which for hundreds of years provided tribute to various ghosts and gods across Hu-Guang and Jiangxi. The Mountain Lord was among them; thus it captured the child's spirit, linking threads of puppet strings, preparing three servant ghosts.