Grudge Breaker

Chapter 205: Mantis Catches Cicada (Part )
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Huang Hu, wearing armor and covered in wounds, walked out of the frost and snow tornado.

Mo Tingfeng had already summoned the Dharma Sword Qi, but after seeing his look, he retracted it.

Huang Hu covered his chest with one hand, where blood was flowing, and the other hand was hanging unnaturally, as if it had been broken. With every step he took, a few drops of blood-colored plum blossoms appeared on the ground.

"Yun...Yun'er..." He called her softly.

"Song Weichen" was originally held in Mo Tingfeng's arms. When she heard his voice, her whole body shuddered, and then she began to tremble uncontrollably. She quickly stuck her head out from between Mo Tingfeng's arms to look for the voice. At a glance, she saw that she was desperately running towards the man covered in blood.
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Oddly enough, while "Song Weichen" was running towards Huang Hu, although his clothes did not change, his features did. It was clearly the young Huang Meiyun.

The Buddha said that all appearances are illusory, but he lamented that people in the world would rather not reach paradise and see the Tathagata, and only seek all appearances to be just one appearance in their hearts.

Huang Hu was already exhausted and fell to the ground.

Huang Meiyun arrived, threw herself beside him and tried hard to lift the man up from the ground, but it was in vain. There was no way she could move him.

"It's really you... I didn't make a mistake just now... I'm glad..."

He tried to raise his hand to touch her face, but failed after several attempts. Huang Meiyun held that hand - what a hand it was, covered with scars, the calluses on the palm had been worn out, and the gaps between the nails were covered with blood.

She pulled up the hand and rubbed it gently against her face. It was freezing cold, but it made her heart warm.

"Brother Tiger, the acacia is blooming, shall we go home?"

"Good...home..." Huang Hu responded, and when he opened his mouth, blood flowed out uncontrollably.

"Here you go...roasted fish..."

He tried hard to force himself to smile at Huang Meiyun. That smile was more miserable than crying, but it was the most beautiful smile Huang Meiyun had ever seen in her life.

She gently wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, then carefully stroked his hair and found that there was a hint of gray on his temples...Have they not seen each other for that long?

"A few days ago, I tidied up the field in the yard and planted some loofahs. They should be ready to eat soon. There are many moths in the spring, and they always lay eggs on the leaves of tomatoes. I can never keep them well. Oh, by the way, Brother Yang sent me a lot of dried rabbit meat a few days ago. You can roast it when you go back and it will be perfect for drinking."

She chatted with him about family matters as usual, as if it was an ordinary night in spring, as if the two of them had never been apart.

His hands could not help but tremble as he carefully covered the bloody wound on his shoulder, which had been caused by some unknown weapon and had ripped through the quilting of his armor.

"Yun'er... I miss you... I miss you so much..."

There was a bloody hole in his chest, and blood oozed out with every word he spoke. There was the rumbling of his lungs mixed in his voice. He was already on his deathbed, holding on to his last breath.

Tears silently flowed down his face, but there was a smile in his eyes. Huang Meiyun gently stroked his cheek.

"I think about you all the time. You've lost so much weight. You're going to be a father, so you can't be so careless about yourself."

Huang Hu's lifeless eyes brightened up, and his lips moved as if he was trying to say something, but he couldn't say anything.

"Well, Brother Hu, we are going to have a baby. It's been more than three months. By this time next year, you can hold the baby and visit friends all over the village."

Huang Hu did not respond again. He closed his eyes, his expression joyful and calm.

A gust of wind and snow blew by, and fine snowflakes fell from the sky - not just snowflakes, but also some yellow, rice-sized velvet flowers mixed in, gently and softly falling beside the two people along with the snow.

Huang Meiyun was also very calm. She knelt beside Huang Hu, bent her body and gently rested her cheek on Huang Hu's dirty and bloodstained forehead, and gently hugged him.

She sang the first ballad Huang Hu had taught her when they were still infants:

The moonlight shines on the pond.
Riding a bamboo horse, crossing Hongjiang River.

The Hong River is too deep to cross.
The younger sister rowed the boat to pick up her lover.

Ask about the man's height, ask about the man's height,
I ask how often my husband returns home after leaving home?
……

The yellow tiger gradually faded into gray in her arms, and its body slowly disappeared bit by bit, but Huang Meiyun didn't seem to notice. She still maintained the hugging posture and sang the nursery rhyme over and over again.

The yellow velvet flowers the size of rice grains have disappeared, and the snow is getting heavier and heavier. Flakes of frost goose feathers fall from the dome, staining Huang Hu's armor with frost, and covering the heads of the two men with white snow...

Well, if we can get caught in the snow together, we can grow old together in this life.

Mo Tingfeng just watched from afar, standing tall and motionless, as quiet as an ancient tree that had coexisted with this world of ice and snow since time immemorial.

In fact, he had been casting spells to try his best to maintain the stability of this icy illusion, wanting to give the two of them even a moment to spend together. He couldn't explain what he was thinking or doing, which was something he would never do before he met Song Weichen.

It was a pity that the silver cracks on the dome grew larger and larger, and began to peel off, while the surface of the ground was shaking as if a group of super-large creatures were running in unison.

The illusion is about to collapse and has reached a critical point.
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Inside the Ghost Market, the seven caves and the arched mountain wall suddenly rumbled and shook!
A lot of dust fell from the wooden eaves of the seven caves, and the clusters of candles lighting the arched mountain walls were also shaken to the ground. One of them rolled into the pile of dead branches on the side of the road while burning, and flames rose up in an instant!

A pair of exquisite brocade boots appeared in time to put out the fire. It was Zhuang Yuheng who was recognized without even looking. The resentment-breaking master beside him followed closely and nibbled the fire risk caused by other fallen candles in the bud.

There is something strange going on here. Could it be that the spirit is about to return?

Zhuang Yuheng looked at Song Weichen, who was still standing motionless by the canal, and found that the "color" in her seemed to have returned a little, not as lifeless and gray as before.

With hope, he checked her pulse again, but found that contrary to her gradually recovering complexion, her heartbeat was clearly weak and on the verge of death.

Zhuang Yuheng secretly thought that something was not right, so he took out the soul-returning incense he had prepared in advance and lit it. He surrounded Song Weichen and drew soul-calming talismans according to the directions and order of the innate Bagua using the burning incense, hoping to calm her heart with the power of the five elements of heaven and earth and the medicinal properties of the soul-returning incense.

……

"Brother Yuheng, Mianmian finally found you!" Even though they were still quite far apart and just as they could see the vague outline of Zhuang Yuheng, "Ruan Mianmian" shouted, and her voice echoed in the underground river near the Seven Caves and spread far away.

Ding Heran was furious. What on earth was this woman doing in the ghost market? Was she reporting her identity to the thugs and informants in the ghost market, or was she causing trouble for them in their investigation? She really didn't know how dangerous their current situation was!
There were two black-sailed boats tied to the dark river near the Seventh Cave. This time, Ding Heran keenly discovered that the draft of the boats was much lower than before - which meant that there were people on the boats, and there were quite a few of them. Judging from the size of the boats, there were probably more than a dozen of them. This did not include the thirty or forty people who had been lurking in the dark alleys and mountain crevices around them, and this was only the number of thugs near the Seventh Cave.

Moreover, on the way down the underground river, Ding Heran blocked at least three sneak attacks for him and "Ruan Mianmian" - one with a poison needle, one with a cold arrow, and one with a close combat where the attacker pretended to pass by and borrow the passage.

It's already a blatant provocation.

Because the last rescue of Sang Pu caused too much commotion in Pingyang, the number and force of the Ghost Market's "Public Security Management and Prevention Team" have increased significantly.

They were eager to give this group of grudge-breaking masters a good beating before they officially revealed their identities, on the grounds of interfering with the orderly operation of the Ghost Market. This would also be a way of establishing their authority in this lawless place - the Ghost Market was not a place that could be interfered with casually.

Only the leader knows the real reason why the ambushing thugs have not taken action yet. The four major bosses have different opinions on this, so they have been on standby.
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The name "Ruan Mianmian" not only exposed the identities of Zhuang Yuheng and herself, but also the identity of Ding Heran who was protecting her. The guardian of a noble person must not be an ordinary person.

Seeing Ding Heran's expression of being about to get angry but forcing himself to suppress it, "Ruan Mianmian" almost wanted to laugh out loud! She had been in the Ghost Market for more than two months, how could she not know that the Ghost Market's "security had been upgraded", especially since there were obviously problems around here, but that was why she did it on purpose, the more chaotic it was... the more opportunities she had!

Finally meeting Zhuang Yuheng, "Ruan Mianmian" pulled the straps tied around her hands and twisted her body to complain in a coquettish voice.

"Brother Yuheng, look at Commander Ding. He tied someone up for no reason and made Mianmian's hand hurt so much. This is too much..."

Ding Heran was about to explain when he was stopped by Zhuang Yuheng. He never protected someone without principles just because she was his cousin. Moreover, the Ghost Market was dangerous, so Ding Heran must have had his reasons for doing this.

Seeing that Zhuang Yuheng was unmoved, Xi Que was about to continue to muddy the water, but a commotion at the canal disrupted her rhythm - several resentment-breaking masters were arresting the man in black, and the "young man" with blood on the hem of his robe but still conscious came hurriedly.

This scene made Xi Que both excited and nervous. The excitement was that the drama had finally reached its climax, with all the evil spirits and monsters coming on stage one after another!
The "young man" who took the puppet potion really lived up to expectations. The wounds on his body were not fatal, but they were the "fatal wounds" of the man in black!
The reason for the tension was that the man in black had also been kidnapped, and Xi Que had a physiological stress fear of him, fearing that he would be exposed.

While he was thinking about it, the leading Master Poyuan came over and wanted to report to Ding Heran in detail what happened in the Twenty-Eight Caves at that time, but was stopped.

Ding Heran looked at "Ruan Mianmian" and hesitated for a moment, finally untied the restraints, ordered her and the other two to be taken to the Seven Caves and carefully cared for, then invited Zhuang Yuheng to listen to the whole story and told him why he suspected "Ruan Mianmian".

...Half a quarter of an hour later, everyone's information was aligned.

"Lord Yuheng, I dare to conclude that one of the three of them must be a magpie!" Ding Heran was the first to conclude.

"Let's take a step back. Even if we do nothing, everything will become clear after a few hours when the potion wears off. But it would be better if we can confirm it in advance. Lord Yuheng and Miss Ruan are most familiar with each other. Do you have any way to identify them?"

While listening to Ding Heran talking, Zhuang Yuheng's eyes never left Song Weichen.

She was dying and he couldn't tell Ding Heran, so he really didn't want to leave her side at all. After careful consideration, Zhuang Yuheng whispered a few words to Ding Heran, asking him to ask "Ruan Mianmian" and bring the "young man" to the canal. No matter who "he" was, it would be better to stop the bleeding and treat the wound first, and then make other plans.
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Inside the Seventh Cave, the masks of the three of them had been taken off. The "young man" was taken to Zhuang Yuheng for treatment. Ding Heran had a few words with "Ruan Mianmian", asking only about her daily interactions with her cousin when she was young. Then she left. In the room, except for the resentment-breaking master who was guarding in the corner, only she and the man in black were left, tied up and sitting next to each other.

Although Xi Que now looked like Ruan Mianmian, he could not change his instinctive fear of him. He felt like a thorn in his back and was sitting on pins and needles. Even the most careless man in black could notice something was wrong.

It was obvious that the Master Poyuan called her a noble person, which was completely different from his attitude towards him and that "injured fool son", but she was tied up and imprisoned here like him. Such a contradiction and unreasonableness made him very curious about her. He observed her carefully and felt that she was extremely panicked - this was a natural intuition of a hunter towards his prey.

"Are you afraid of me?"

The magpie trembled uncontrollably, its brain short-circuited for a moment and it didn't know how to answer, so it just shook its head like a rattle.

The man in black suddenly approached Xi Que and sniffed her shoulders and neck a few times. She seemed to be "controlled" and could not move at all - she remembered the several cruel and long dark nights he brought her many years ago, and along with her lower body being torn apart, her second half of life was also torn apart.

It was he who planted the first twisted and evil seed in the young and ignorant Magpie. He was the source of Magpie's eternal malice.

“This taste is unmistakable.”

The man in black studied her with eyes as cold as snakes.

"This is the smell that only people who are extremely frightened will emit. If you have never seen it before, why are you so afraid of me? So... you must have dealt with me before."

The man in black smiled sinisterly. Although he didn't like to use his brain and couldn't figure out the many weird things, he was born to be a killing machine, especially he had the most sensitive sense of smell for his prey.

He suddenly leaned over to the motionless "Ruan Mianmian" and whispered something in her ear.

No one except Xi Que heard what the man in black said, but the resentment-breaking masters stationed in the seven caves saw "Ruan Mianmian" screaming miserably as if possessed by an evil spirit, and shrinking desperately to get away from the man in black.

Childhood nightmares were the most tormenting. She vomited uncontrollably and her emotions completely collapsed.

The man in black looked at her with a playful expression, "Do you want me to say it again?"
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"Did she really say that?"

By the canal, Zhuang Yuheng couldn't help but frown after listening to the answers that Ding Heran brought back from "Ruan Mianmian" - the questions that he asked Ding Heran to ask were indeed private details of their relationship that only he and Ruan Mianmian would know, and the answers were exactly the same!

It should be said that it is not only completely correct, but even more accurate than Zhuang Yuheng's memory.

And this is exactly what is suspicious!

Ruan Mianmian has been spoiled by the entire clan since she was a child. People like her are more likely to remember the anger and shame when they can't get what they want, rather than taking it for granted when they get it.

The past events he asked about were so commonplace that she couldn't possibly remember them so clearly - down to the details of what kinds of wine were on the banquet table, what brocade the table runner was made of, what kind of nail polish she had painted her nails that day, and even what jade pendant Zhuang Yuheng wore around his waist.

This kind of clarity is the biggest "mistake". Only a personal servant who pays great attention to his master can have such a keen eye.

Xi Que never expected that the accuracy of a large number of details she deliberately used to prove her identity would become the most convincing material for disproving her identity.

Zhuang Yuheng looked in the direction of the Seven Caves and spoke softly.

"She should be a magpie."