Chapter 142.2

Therefore, Li Zhuiyuan knew that an ordinary evil formation could indeed disguise itself with a righteous, grand, and upright aura to trick people into entering. But the more sophisticated an evil formation was, the harder it became to conceal its true nature—and there was no real need to bother. Anyone worth taking such pains to guard against would never be fooled by such a crude smokescreen anyway. Doing that would be like taking your pants off just to fart.

Besides, if you wanted to keep the ghost eye burning bright without ever going out, relying on a corpse retriever team to keep bringing people in from outside as lamp oil was far too troublesome. It had the same ridiculous feel as using horses to pull a locomotive.

If it were up to him to set up this ghost eye... wasn’t there a lake above? He could directly borrow the lake’s tides and connect them to the ghost eye. As long as the lake didn’t dry up, the ghost eye could exist endlessly.

All at once, Li Zhuiyuan’s eyes lit up.

No wonder the sense of familiarity had been so strong. Once he inserted his own line of thinking into it, the operating principle behind this ghost eye was basically The Qin Family’s Guide to Viewing Flood Dragons. And the formation itself—wasn’t it the Qin Clan’s Dragon-Eye Locking Gate Formation?

Only, the method used to sustain it had been changed, and what should originally have been a pair of ghost eyes had now been reduced to just one.

Back at the Qin Clan’s old residence, the secluded cultivation chambers used this very formation to prevent outside interference during seclusion. Some special forbidden grounds also used it. If some blind fool stumbled in and got burned to ash, that was entirely on them.

It seemed this had been the handiwork of one of the Qin Clan’s Dragon Kings.

Back then, he had gathered the four great families of Old Tianmen and suppressed the General here.

To be fair, this was the first time Li Zhuiyuan had ever come to the “ruins left by his forebears.”

Though these ruins had already been so damaged and altered that they were hardly recognizable anymore.

Just then, the ghost eye began to dim.

This should have been what Xiong Shan meant earlier—waiting for it to close.

Li Zhuiyuan’s breathing grew heavier.

If you were going to alter it, then alter it—but how had you managed to downgrade the formation this badly?

What kind of forbidden ground formation actually closed its eyes and dozed off?

At last, the ghost eye went completely dark.

Xiong Shan moved. Lihua moved right after him. The two left their spot and began searching ahead for the second and third brothers from their team.

“Search!”

Li Zhuiyuan took Runsheng and Tan Wenbin with him and moved as well, starting their search for Yin Meng and Lin Shuyou.

There were many people in the pool, and the light was poor, so searching was genuinely difficult.

Fortunately, they could narrow it down by height and only needed to search the last two rows. After all, these were people who had only just been brought in. They would not have melted down and shrunk yet.

But Li Zhuiyuan still had doubts. He did not know what state Yin Meng was in, but Lin Shuyou should have been able to move freely. It made sense that he had not dared move when the ghost eye was open, but now that it had closed, why was Lin Shuyou still not moving?

In the pool, not counting the child on Lihua’s chest, there had only ever been five moving sources of sound.

And more importantly, if the only taboo here was simply “open eyes, closed eyes,” then the difficulty of this place was far too low. Xiong Shan would never have said that the last time he came in, he had nearly died here.

So the entrance and exit to this place were not in the same location?

To get out, did they still have to go through that stone gate?

The boy knew clearly that even if he asked Xiong Shan now, the man would not tell him outright. Brotherhood among themselves was one thing, but when dealing with outsiders, they would never get muddled or careless in the slightest.

“Stop!”

Li Zhuiyuan called out a warning.

Runsheng and Tan Wenbin instantly froze.

Xiong Shan and Lihua, however, kept searching. Lihua had heard Li Zhuiyuan’s warning, but when she saw that her husband had not reacted, she did not stop either.

The ghost eye had indeed not lit up yet. Only after quite a while did fresh light begin to appear. Only then did Xiong Shan grab his wife’s hand, and the two stopped moving.

Li Zhuiyuan had predicted it half a minute too early, making Tan Wenbin and Runsheng play statues with him for a little longer.

This was Li Zhuiyuan’s mistake, because he had inserted the proper rhythm of operation into an improper formation.

After another stretch of waiting, when the ghost eye went dark again, the five of them moved at the same time.

Li Zhuiyuan’s group still failed to find Lin Shuyou and Yin Meng. Not only that, they did not even see Huzi and the other two.

Tan Wenbin, however, did find the second and third brothers. The two of them were standing in the middle of the second-to-last row, eyes closed, motionless.

Tan Wenbin looked toward Li Zhuiyuan.

Whoever found their people first had the advantage. If the other side took their people and then refused to help search for theirs, what then? They might even leave first.

Li Zhuiyuan took the initiative and shouted, “Found them!”

The hard part was not finding people, but figuring out how to safely get this whole group out—and Xiong Shan was probably still thinking about sealing the General.

They would not be so shortsighted.

Xiong Shan and Lihua immediately waded over.

“Second Brother! Third Brother!” Lihua called.

Even with her shouting, the second and third brothers kept their eyes shut and showed no response, as though they were already dead.

Li Zhuiyuan was about to step in and try waking them, but seeing Xiong Shan already drawing a talisman seal, he decided not to interfere.

After forming the seal, Xiong Shan slapped a Chenzhou talisman onto the second brother’s forehead, then drew his thumb downward along the paper.

A plume of black mist spilled from the second brother’s nostrils, and his eyes slowly opened. But he could only open his eyes and move them around. He could neither speak nor move.

Li Zhuiyuan’s gaze sharpened instantly.

He had been placed under a restriction!

“Hahaha, Second Brother, luckily you didn’t die. Wait there, I’ll help remove the restric—”

Xiong Shan cut himself off. He had also realized the problem. Who had placed the restriction on the second brother, and for what purpose?

The second brother’s eyes began darting rapidly toward one diagonal side—the exact direction where the third brother was standing.

“What’s wrong with Third Brother?” Xiong Shan asked.

“He’s telling you to run!” Li Zhuiyuan snapped.

The second brother had had his eyes closed the whole time before this, so how could he know the third brother was standing beside him? And even after opening his eyes, without turning his head, he could not have seen where the third brother was.

It was just a coincidence that when he tried to signal with his eyes, he happened to glance in the third brother’s direction, and that misled Xiong Shan, who was too emotionally involved to think clearly.

“Brother Runsheng!”

The boy grabbed Runsheng’s arm. Out of habit, Runsheng gave it a swing, flinging Li Zhuiyuan onto his back. With his other hand, he seized Tan Wenbin by the arm. His qi gate opened, and under the boy’s guidance, Runsheng burst into a mad sprint.

Warned in time, Xiong Shan finally realized what was happening and grabbed his wife, retreating at once.

A blue glow shone from inside the second brother’s clothes. It looked as though strips of talisman paper were hanging inside, with chains wrapped around him as well. The chains were coiled with black qi, violently grinding against the power of the talismans. All of it officially began the moment the host opened his eyes.

Crackle! Crackle!

Lightning-serpents ran wildly over the second brother’s body. Black flames also burst from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.

It was not only outside him. His insides had also been packed with things.

This was absolutely not the work of corpse retrievers. It could only have been the arrangement left behind by whoever had placed the restrictions on the two of them, so that they carried all this with them and were then brought into this place by the corpse retrievers.

The eruption of black flames around the second brother ignited the third brother. A blue glow appeared on him first as well, then black flame spewed from his mouth.

These black flames were corpse fire. Corpse oil had been specially refined, and once ignited, it could very easily stir up corpse aura and set the surrounding bodies burning along with it.

“Ahhh!”

“Ahhh!”

As the corpse fire inside the second and third brothers burst forth even more violently, the restrictions on them were erased as well. But the two men only had time to turn and look once at their eldest brother before their heads fell off, their bodies rapidly melted, their containers shattered, and the corpse fire poured out, spreading over a wide area.

Once the others were touched by the corpse fire, even though they were dead, they began twisting and trembling, just like corpses sometimes deform and move when a cremation furnace is lit.

For a moment, over half the pool looked like a riot of demons.

“Second Brother! Third Brother!”

With tears in his eyes, Xiong Shan shouted for them as he pulled his wife and ran toward the stone gate.

As for Li Zhuiyuan’s side, they did not look back at all.

Once Runsheng’s qi gate opened, his strength and speed were terrifying. Tan Wenbin still had an ordinary person’s body, and there was no chance right now for him to invite a spirit onto himself. After struggling to keep up for a stretch, he finally collapsed.

But Runsheng still dragged him along as he kept running. Tan Wenbin’s body skimmed and bounced over the water like a skipping stone.

Slap! Slap! Slap!

Binbin started paddling with both hands and feet, doing his best to help, while keeping his mouth tightly shut so filthy water would not pour into it.

But shutting his mouth alone was useless. He could not close his nose and ears, especially not his nose, which faced straight into the direction of the charge. The violent impact created water pressure that drove pool water straight into his nostrils.

Even so, they still could not stop.

If they did not run now, it would be too late.

Because the ghost eye was about to open.

At last, Li Zhuiyuan’s group of three reached the shore first. Tan Wenbin dropped to his knees on the ground. His stomach churned violently, and his nostrils felt hot too—he was probably having a nosebleed.

At that moment, the ghost eye was also slowly opening.

Xiong Shan slapped two Chenzhou talismans onto himself and his wife, boosting both their speed.

But they had still been delayed by too many factors, and Xiong Shan was already wounded, while Lihua had a child on her. So even now, though they were close to the shore and should be able to make it, there was still some danger.

From the shore, Li Zhuiyuan said, “Help them.”

Hearing that, Tan Wenbin immediately pulled out the Seven-Star Hook from his backpack and whipped it forward. The hook shot out and lengthened rapidly, and he quickly handed it to Runsheng.

Xiong Shan and Lihua grabbed the hook, and Runsheng, standing on the shore, exerted force and hauled the couple up like he was reeling in fish.

To be fair, the two of them were highly skilled. Even when they landed, they came down steady on their feet.

Lihua began to sob and turned around, putting her back to the pool.

Xiong Shan’s eyes were red as he first looked at Li Zhuiyuan and gave him a nod. Then a low growl came from his throat:

“The Xie Family... the Bu Family!”

The ghost eye opened.

Below, the corpses were all “dancing” amid the corpse fire.

Flames rained down from above, smashing into every corpse.

In an instant, the entire pool was engulfed in towering flames. The water boiled violently, like a living hell on earth.

Everyone standing on the shore remained motionless, but even so, they could still feel terrifying waves of heat crashing over them again and again.

At last, the great fire burned itself out. The pool was nearly dry, and every corpse had turned to ash.

The ghost eye dimmed somewhat, then reached the time for it to close, and slowly shut again.

“Sorry. It got your people killed too...” Xiong Shan said.

“Sorry, my people aren’t here,” Li Zhuiyuan replied.

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