My heart skipped a beat as I took a few more steps to see that the person... wasn't exactly Pan Yu.
He hung his head, swaying slightly with the wind, looking very much like someone who had been hanged.
In the next second, his body suddenly convulsed, followed by a loud thud as he fell heavily to the ground.
"Alive!" Liang Yu's face lit up with joy, and he immediately took a step forward.
"Hold on!" I reached out to stop Liang Yu.
"What are you doing, Luo Xianshen? He's almost been hanged to death. Do you not want to ask him questions anymore?" Liang Yu looked puzzled.
Yet I still didn't let go, merely fixating on Pan Yu.
Pan Yu's body suddenly twisted in an abnormal way, and to our surprise, he crawled towards us...
A stream of dark shadows flowed from his body, and his figure began to shrink and wither...
As he moved closer, snakes as thick as thumbs emerged from his eyes, mouth, nose, and ears... causing everyone to break out in goosebumps.
This sight frightened Liang Yu to the point of losing her composure, constantly rubbing her arms as if chicken skin pimples were falling all over the place.
"Oh, how tragic," La Gong described vividly.
My heart sank slightly as the tiny snakes all "swam" towards me and Liang Yu, forming a stream of darkness that soon surrounded us, cutting off all exits!
Twice, small foxes appeared on Liang Yu's body.
They were equally fierce, as if they were about to pounce.
I narrowed my eyes slightly, cupping my hands in a gesture, with my index and middle fingers bent, the thumb pinching the ring finger, and the pinky finger pinching the thumb. In a low voice, I shouted, "By heaven's oath, with blood as an alliance, when the heart's blood arrives, the earth's thunder will reveal itself!"
A faint popping sound echoed continuously among the snake group.
Even in the darkness, I could see tiny "electric snakes" weaving through them endlessly.
The crooked snake group straightened up by half in an instant.
The two foxes quickly returned to Liang Yu's body and vanished without a trace.
Liang Yu stared at me in shock, beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
"You're scared, Little Yu the wife, aren't you? Your grandfather still has bigger tricks up his sleeve, didn't he split that Taoist to pieces that day? These little snakes are just a side dish." La Gong puffed up with pride.
"La Gong." I whispered admonishingly, "Heard it through the wall."
"Oh... no, there's no one here. Hehe, I've observed it." La Gong smirked slyly.
I breathed a little easier.
Indeed, La Gong isn't that careless.
"Grandfather, don't let them run away! The dead haven't had enough of being killed and hung up in the village, there's still someone in this village who pretends to be a spirit."
The next moment, La Gong immediately reminded me.
I exhaled a mouthful of impurities, looked at the direction of the snakes' escape, and stepped forward to pursue them.
My pace raised the wind, and Liang Yu followed closely behind me, her tension easing a bit, but she dared not get too far from me.
A few minutes later, I finally caught up to a location.
There's an extremely spacious courtyard here, lit by high-wattage white fluorescent lights, which is somewhat blinding.
The snakes, once they entered the courtyard, quickly slithered into a house inside.
Suddenly, I felt a cold gaze upon me, emanating from the roof of the house.
Looking up, the position corresponded to the position of the light, giving people a feeling of blinding.
Once I got somewhat familiar with the brightness, I could see a person standing on the roof, but due to the reason of light direction, the person's shadow was extremely dark, making it difficult to see clearly what they looked like.
The next second, he plummeted straight down!
However, as he was about to touch the ground, his body suddenly twisted twice in an eerie way, and he safely stood on the ground.
I finally got a good look at his appearance.
He had a slender figure, very pale, with a face like a sheet of gold paper. Some straight hair hung down on either side of his forehead, and there was also hair hanging from his temples. His eyes were incredibly long, giving the appearance of having been lined with eyeliner.
He was wearing a black robe, with a faint gray pattern.
The man was not old, around twenty-five or so, yet he gave me an overwhelming sense of danger.
I looked at him, and he looked back at me.
"Daoist." He moved his lips slightly, his voice was feminine and had little masculinity.
"Most of the residents here were just asked to leave, except for a few who initially showed disrespect and were killed. I have informed all the Daoist temples in the area that we do not want any trouble. The waters do not mix."
"You unnecessarily injured the immortal beings I raised, what does that mean?"
His voice was feminine and cold, without losing its rigor.
My eyelid twitched slightly.
This person had been lurking here... having received a nod from the Jiang Huang temples, turning a blind eye?
After a moment of thought, I bowed my hands and fists, performing a courtesy gesture.
"The snakes attacked each other, so I had to act. The elder you killed was a friend of mine, and his body was hung from the locust tree."
My words were relatively calm.
"Friend? Oh, that man who repeatedly came to disturb my grandfather's grave."
"He deserves to die. Years ago, he tried to steal my grandfather's body. After being driven away, he didn't give up his thievery and recently brought a group of people to dig up the grave."
"Humph, luckily my grandfather is not decomposed yet. Otherwise, they would truly insult his corpse."
"You can leave now. Your friend's remains were thrown into the snake den."
His tone was calm.
However, La Gong gasped twice, muttering very quietly in my ear.
"Grandfather... don't goad him... the worst result is that the one in the grave is a ghost, one who feeds and nurtures themselves. The young man here is an exorcist, ask him if he's willing to be enlisted. If he's not willing, we won't recruit him."
My heart sank slightly.
Rarely does La Gong mention people who cannot be provoked.
Liang Yu leaned very close to me, showing a great deal of apprehension towards that man.
After a moment of thought, I bowed again, clasping my hands together and saying, "Since that's the case, he deserves to die. The others who came with him into the village were actually manipulated; he wanted to use them as a tool for his assassination. Those few people were just looking for victims in the Jiang Huang area. I beg your pardon and ask you to release them."
"What do you mean by 'face'? Who are you to ask for my face?"
"When did the Daoists of Jiang Huang start doing business with those who toy with corpses, or are you a Daoist from Tian Shou Temple?"
The young man's tone was subtly mocking, laced with an aloof coldness that kept people at a distance.
My expression changed abruptly, from joy to sorrow, from sorrow to anger.
However, La Gong kept shaking his head at me slightly, trying to prevent any conflict with this man.
My forehead was becoming more and more knitted.
Does that mean I'm just going to leave like this?
The people from the Luo family seem to be doomed to die.
Am I going to pass by the closest "message" to my parents?
"Get out. You're not worthy of my face. Hurting my immortal beings, let you go is the least I can do for the Daoist temples in Jiang Huang." He looked sickly but had a big temper.
My eyelids were twitching spasmodically.
La Gong was still shaking his head...
I finally suppressed the knot in my chest and the pent-up breath.
Turning around, I was about to leave.
"Wait a minute!" The man suddenly spoke again.
My heart skipped a beat, is there a chance?
The next moment, he pointed at Liang Yu and said solemnly, "Leave this woman behind."
