Shivering Mind

Chapter 77

Chapter 77

A straight saber spinning at high speed smashed squarely into the little girl’s face, ramming her back into the flames in the Manor.

Lu Sheng put down his arm and yelled, “Keep shooting! Down to the very last arrow!”

Near frightened to death by the earlier sight, the company of men had almost failed to maintain their formation. But Lu Sheng’s yell jolted them out of their shock. They tightened the grip on their bows and fired off several more volleys of arrows into the Manor after some hesitation.

Several more volleys of arrows later, the Manor was finally entirely consumed by flames.

“KA-CHA!” Without warning, a charred figure dashed out of the Manor gates, falling to the ground and rolling over. The flames on his body were soon extinguished, but roars kept being emitting from his mouth.

The sect disciples jumped in fright. Some among them pulled their bows, ready to fire a few arrows into this man.

“Hold!” Lu Sheng lifted his arm, stopping them.

He stepped forward quickly and took a look. Faintly, he was able to recognize that the man on the ground was the scholar he had caught sight of when he had passed by the Manor back then.

The burns all over his body had caused bloody blisters. His face was charred, yet his features remained shaped into what was unmistakably a smile. In fact, it was a grin.

Seeing Lu Sheng approach, the scholar lay prone on the ground. Trembling, he scribbled a few words on the ground: I am human.

“Bring him away for treatment. He’s a man, not a ghost,” Lu Sheng instructed.

The orders had been given, but none among them dared to near him.

Only after a long while did a few bold sect disciples come forward and lift the scholar up for a close scrutiny.

“Heavens! This man has had his tongue cut off! No wonder he can’t speak,” an old disciple swallowed and exclaimed.

Lu Sheng recognized him as the scholar he had seen previously only because of his outfit.

The key to why he was able to distinguish between ghosts and living people was mainly because of his extremely acute five senses. Each of the three inner force skills under Lu Sheng’s mastery required several decades of diligent cultivation by ordinary cultivators. Combined together, they gave him an inner force of such density and depth it was equivalent to over a hundred years of hard work by an ordinary cultivator.

Such inner force cultivation had amplified his five senses to a terrifying extent. Within ten meters, he could even hear the heartbeat and breathing of others clearly.

This was also the key to how he was able to discover that Gong Ruqing and the rest were ghosts.

In addition to this discovery, the footprints left before the main door comprised only the three of theirs and Li Shunxi’s. Of the rest, not a single one could be found.

Although it was in the darkness of night, Lu Sheng noticed this detail with his powerful vision.

The facts combined gave birth to a speculation in his mind. Thereafter, he observed them closely and picked up a particular faint scent on Gong Ruqing that was exactly the same as that found on the little girl Song Yunjuan.

He knew then that his guess was not far from the truth.

: Anomaly

: Anomaly

: Anomaly

: :

The trio including Li Shunxi stood to the side, surrounded by Crimson Whale Sect members. The weapons they were carrying were temporarily taken away.

Especially Li Shunxi had been billowing with rage when he witnessed the little girl being slashed in two under Lu Sheng’s saber. He couldn’t understand; Lu Sheng was really too cruel and heartless to have not spared even such a small little girl.

Yet even before he could voice his protest, he was startled by the series of events that subsequently unfolded before him.

That little girl’s melting face in the big fire had scared him out of his wits. His initially furious countenance vanished without a trace, having been replaced by a terrified one, filled with fear.

Only now, under watch of the sect members, did he truly see the careful deliberation behind Lu Sheng’s plans.

This dude had actually decided to set fire to the entire right from the very beginning! Wasn’t that obvious from the bow and arrows, as well as the combustibles, that had long since been prepared by the sect members here? [ ]

If he could deduce that, then Duan Meng’an and Ning San could arrive at that conclusion as well. In that moment, all three of them felt a chill in their hearts. Before entering the Manor, there was no way Lu Sheng could have predicted whether there would be others who went in as well. Yet, even so, he had ordered to burn down the entire place. Evidently, he was extraordinarily decisive and ruthless, far from the average Joe.

In his startled state, Li Shunxi stared straight into the raging flames that were devouring the manor, somewhat lost in his own thoughts.

“KA-CHA!”

A bright flash of lightning lit up the sky as the pitter-patter of rain began to fall.

The fire was unrelenting as it continued to rage on, though it was somewhat diminished as the downpour washed over it.

“Retreat!” Lu Sheng climbed onto a horse and turned around to rush for the mining village.

The crowd of sect members followed behind closely, without another glance at up in flames behind them.

When they returned to the mining village, the rain grew in intensity and fell down in sheets. The people tidied up the interior of the house, and Lu Sheng changed into a set of fresh clothes and applied some medicinal powder to aid in his recovery. He waited till daylight before leading the sect members back to the premises.

The torrential downpour had ceased with the dawn of the new day.

When the crowd returned to Song Manor, what greeted them were the remnant charred ruins of a dilapidated manor. The main doors had been burnt to two slabs of charcoal, half hanging from the door beams. White smoke continued to billow out from within the manor, as if there was a fire somewhere that had not yet gone out.

The high walls surrounding the sides of the manor remained in their place, though the stone surface was covered thickly in black soot.

The sect members, numbering more than a hundred, dispersed and surrounded the entire perimeter of the Song Manor. They stopped when they were about twenty meters away from it.

Taking the lead with a saber in hand, Lu Sheng walked towards the main door. After resting through the night, he had almost fully recovered from his injuries. Now that he had rested sufficiently, he had the alertness of a dragon and the ferocity of a tiger; it was the best time to strike.

Similarly, Li Shunxi had courageously volunteered himself to come along to assess the situation. Presently, he was hot on Lu Sheng’s heels.

“Brother Lu, after that big fire, there should be nothing left in the manor. If I’m not wrong, that little girl should be a Blood Corpse,” he said in low tone.

“Blood Corpse?” That was the first time Lu Sheng had encountered that term.

With a hard kick, he pushed the doors open and strode in.

“A Blood Corpse is a ghost formed from the coagulation of poisonous, vengeful blood. It’s not formed from a living person, but rather is a sort of supernatural being that generates itself into existence,” Li Shunxi said solemnly. “Last night, I chatted till dawn with the scholar who had escaped. I once learnt some lip reading back , so we could communicate quite easily.”

“Oh?” Lu Sheng glanced back at him; unexpectedly, this fella had quite a few tricks up his sleeves.

It was the color of charred black all around the courtyard within the manor. The ground, the walls and the house had all been thoroughly burnt and remained piping hot until now. Smoke billowed out from all nooks and crannies; it wasn’t even clear if it was smoke from the fire or steam caused by the evaporating rainwater.

Just walking across the ground felt as if they were stepping onto a warm stove.

Li Shunxi continued, “People outside are all spreading that Song Yunjuan was that scholar’s biological sister, and the Fifth Sister of this manor.

However, after I inquired Song Yuncheng about it, I learned that he actually doesn’t have any so-called Fifth Sister–other than him and his Second Brother, he has no idea where the other three brother and sisters came from! What’s even more terrifying is that he had only realized it after co-existing with those things for a few years!”

Hearing that, Lu Sheng’s heart grew cold. He fell silent for a moment before continuing.

“What do you mean? Don’t tell me that other than Song Yunjuan, there are still two other monsters in this manor?!”

“That I’m not sure of. However, ever since that scholar realized this frightening truth, Song Yunjuan, that monster, cut off his tongue and imprisoned him in his own house. What’s strange is that, according to the scholar, Song Yunjuan went to school and back each day as per normal, and even ate and slept like any ordinary person. However, once she slept, she would suddenly rise from the bed and transform into a terrifying, monstrous killer. He had wanted on many occasions to stealthily kill her in the day, but was never able to pluck up courage.”

Frowning, Li Shunxi added, “According to him, Song Yunjuan seemed to mutter to herself very often, talking to god-knows-who.”

“Didn’t he get himself into this trouble because of his obsession with pill concocting?” Lu Sheng asked darkly.

“Not sure. I asked him the same question too. He said that he had unintentionally chanced upon a bird’s nest in the middle of the forest once. In it, he discovered a pitch-black medicinal pill, which he decided to bring to check if it was someone else’s concoction. Little did he expect that the medicinal pill would mysteriously disappear, and from then on, strange occurrences began to happen in the house,” Li Shunxi answered gravely.

“POP. ”

Abruptly, Lu Sheng stopped in his tracks as he seemed to step onto something.

Looking down, he could see a long lock of hair, black as ink.

Bending over, Lu Sheng used the tip of his saber to lift it up and take a careful look.

His face suddenly distorted.