I had steeled myself for a thousand times as I delved into the secret chamber beneath the Great Hero Hall. I was fully prepared to encounter a demonic lair swarming with countless skeletons and evil spirits. But what greeted me was a stainless - steel security door?!
What on earth did this mean?!
I could even see a figure furtively peeping inside by the door. Under the dim light, the figure seemed almost translucent.
"Fu... Fu Ning?!"
Judging from the figure's clothes, I immediately recognized it as Fu Ning, the young police officer who had been tracking the Xue mother and son!
I couldn't help but call out in a low voice.
Fu Ning seemed oblivious to my voice. He was intently staring into the pitch - black space inside the door. It wasn't until I walked over and tried to tug at his corner of the clothes that I found my hand passing through thin air. Only then did I realize that the Fu Ning before me was just a phantom!
"He's not in the same space as us," Si Jiangchen said in a deep voice, following closely behind me. His words gave me a glimmer of security in this near - pitch - black place. "There are probably only three other people here now."
"Ah!"
The Fu Ning we were seeing now was just a phantom of his in this time - space, one of his lingering seven souls. Where was his real body at this moment? Were the WeChat messages Si Jiangchen received from him really sent by Fu Ning himself?!
Anxiety welled up in my heart. If he was in another space, his life was likely in great danger!
Si Jiangchen sensed my worry and pulled me behind him. "Don't worry. The One - Eyed Buddha Mother won't act against Fu Ning in a hurry. He's just a bait," he said.
With that, he casually took the black wire hairpin I used to hold my stray hair, bent down, squinted his eyes, and started picking the keyhole of the lock.
"What bait?"
I was initially confused by Si Jiangchen's words. But seeing his extremely skillful lock - picking movements, I immediately forgot his previous words and couldn't help gaping at him. "How do you know how to do this?!"
He was the super - wealthy boss of Cold Fir Capital! How could he be so proficient in such petty thief - like behaviors?!
Before my question faded away, I heard a faint "click." Si Jiangchen gently grasped the doorknob and pulled it outward, opening the door a crack.
He straightened up, turned back, and gave me a smile. "Xiao He, when you live for too long, you've got to find something to do. Otherwise, life would be so boring."
I was taken aback. Suddenly, I remembered that unlike me, whose memories would turn blank after a while and start a new life like a computer restarting, Si Jiangchen had been living smoothly since the thunder tribulation. He had plenty of time to accumulate worldly experiences and learn everything he wanted to learn!
"Have you... ever been a thief?!"
If it weren't for the urgent situation, I really would have grabbed him and asked what he had been up to in the past century! Not only did he build the huge Cold Fir Capital, but he could also fold paper, cook, and now pick locks so skillfully. I really had no idea what else he couldn't do!
"Yeah," Si Jiangchen answered while holding my hand and slipping into the door sideways.
Inside the door, it was still thick darkness. Soft drumbeats came from somewhere, faintly. Involuntarily, I pricked up my ears to find the source of the sound. But the more carefully I listened, the denser the darkness in front of me became, making my breathing labored...
Suddenly, my ears were covered by two big hands. The heart that had been pounding violently with the drumbeats was instantly soothed by the gentle warmth from my ears.
When I looked around again, although still underground, there were now one low - wattage light bulb after another, like malevolent single eyes, watching us in the dark basement.
"Xiao He, humans have five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch," Si Jiangchen whispered as he removed his hands from my ears. "Down here underground, if you focus too much on one sense, your other senses will degenerate... Are you feeling better now?"
I looked up and finally saw Si Jiangchen's face clearly.
"Yeah! Thanks."
As a learner of Taoism, I naturally knew about the five senses and six consciousnesses. But the villains hiding underground were so insidious. They deliberately used that barely audible sound to tempt me, making me subconsciously want to figure out the direction of the sound and thus leading me into a trap.
Fortunately, Si Jiangchen was there to pull me back.
The drumbeats continued to pound, but my mind was now clear. I could see that in the space illuminated by those small light bulbs, there were niches about two meters high dug out of the ground like Buddhist shrines. Inside each niche was a strange Tibetan Buddhist statue, each one ferocious and terrifying, glaring as if eager to devour someone.
Finally, I heard a woman's scream.
It was the wife of that Boss Lin!!
I quickened my pace involuntarily.
The small light bulbs illuminated a space about two square meters.
What I saw was a nauseating and terrifying scene...
Boss Lin's wife was naked, hanging on a nearly two - meter - high brass statue that was slightly more imposing than a real person.
The brass statue wore a crown made of eighteen skulls of different sizes on its head. It glared ferociously with its mouth open, showing four protruding fangs. Its tongue, which stuck out about three inches, was painted bright red!
The statue was cast so vividly that the lewd and strange expression on its face was full of erotic implications.
"Help me... save me..."
Boss Lin's wife wrapped her legs around the waist of the bronze statue and hugged its neck with her hands. It looked more like a copulating posture. Hearing our footsteps, her shrill screams turned into weak moans as she tried to call for help.
"How did you end up like this?!"
I quickly stepped forward to try to pull her off the bronze statue. But when I saw her hands and feet hooked around the statue, I found that her wrists and ankles were all wrapped with that blood - red thread. The thread wound around her hands and feet in circles, tightly binding her to the bronze statue!
"Damn Lin Ruhu!"
The woman was bound by the invisible red thread. Only her head and face could sway slightly on the chest of the bronze statue. "He sacrificed me to the Five - Way Wealth Gods! He's using my life to pave the way for his fortune!"
I was stunned. So... the messy red threads on Boss Lin, that is, Lin Ruhu in the woman's words, came from this?!
I knew that there was an evil way in the Jianghu that could allow people to go against the destiny. This way of changing fate was to use people whose birth dates were compatible with the spell - caster's. They would perform rituals on these people and transfer all their good luck to the spell - caster. And those whose luck was borrowed would either be haunted by bad luck or die an unnatural death!
The reason why Lin Ruhu was so wealthy, with mines and money in hand, probably had something to do with those messy red threads on him!