Netherworld Painted Skin Scroll

Chapter 17 Aftermath
It was still midnight, and everything was quiet. Li Wuxiang carried the hunting gear on his back, and he and Xue Baoping carried the package together, trying not to leave any drag marks on the ground. His eyesight and hearing had improved now, so he could see that the girl beside him seemed to always want to take a closer look at him in the dark, but she would always turn her face slightly away as if she was guilty.

When he could see the back door of Xue's house, thin clouds were chasing the moon in the sky and a drizzle was falling. Now he didn't even have to worry about the traces of his footsteps. When he entered the door and was about to close it, Xue Baoping was suddenly stunned, stood still, and suddenly covered his mouth with his hand.

"Um... um... I just..." She stared at Li Wuxiang with wide eyes, but did not dare to let go of his hand and speak, as if she was afraid that her voice would disappear.

"You just said it very well." Li Wuxiang took the package, pushed the door shut, and said softly, "Don't be afraid now. Let me guess, you always feel that you are sick, so you hurt your throat and can't speak?"

Xue Baoping nodded.

Li Wuxiang carried the package and walked slowly into the house: "But in fact, you may not have any disease. If you must say that you have a disease, it may be a mental illness. You suddenly experienced a very uncomfortable thing before, and there is something wrong with your heart. Listen to me carefully. Generally speaking, in this situation, you don't need to take medicine or acupuncture. What you need is an opportunity or - what did your town lord ask the Wang family to hunt?"

"Fresh tiger bones." Xue Baoping said through his fingers.

Li Wuxiang looked at her with a smile. Xue Baoping was stunned for a moment before he reacted. He opened his eyes wide and put down his hand. He took a short breath: "Fresh tiger bones, fresh tiger bones, fresh tiger... bones, fresh... fresh..."

"Don't worry, take your time. Just remember that you can speak, and you can speak well, and everything can be done slowly."

Xue Baoping bit his lip and nodded, watching him drag the bag into the house while talking, and suddenly realized something - he had just helped him kill three people, and at the same time he knew almost nothing about him, not even knowing whether he was a demon or a human. But just now, when he was talking to him, he felt that everything was natural, as if they had been together for a long time.

She could no longer remember what it felt like when she was with her parents, but she knew how she felt now - the gloomy clouds and sad emotions that had been accumulating in her heart for a long time now seemed to be blown open by the breeze from the sky, opening a small hole.

So she slowly moved her feet and followed him into the door. She leaned against the door with her hands behind her back and looked at him for a while: "You...you are...what?"

Li Wuxiang was unpacking his bag and placing the things he had collected on the ground. After hearing the question, he stopped, thought seriously, and looked at Xue Baoping: "The Taoist priest who passed by your house before was called Zhao Kui. He was not a good person. He captured me and more than a hundred other children. He used magic to seal us in the burnt brick of your stove, and used other reasons to deceive your family to keep the fire burning. Later, the other children died, but I defeated him, stole some skills from him, and got out of your stove - you saved me."

He smiled. Xue Baoping was stunned for a moment and immediately turned his face away. For a moment he forgot to continue asking him "what it was".

"So...how long are you going to stay here?"

Li Wuxiang looked at her and said, "If you are afraid of me, I will leave in a moment."

"No, I'm not afraid of you!" Xue Baoping grabbed the door frame with his hands behind his back, "You saved me too!"

She thought for a moment and said, "Well...how about that...we can go together...zizizizi..."

Li Wuxiang tilted his head slightly and continued to sort the things in the bag: "It's a good idea, but it won't work now. Look, their whole family is dead, but you disappeared. Others will immediately suspect you - the road outside Jinshui Town is not easy to travel, and it's not very peaceful, right?"

Xue Baoping nodded.

"So the tigers here are the kind of fierce beasts that look like cats, right?"

Xue Baoping was stunned: "Yeah...Aren't tigers like cats?"

"That's good. That's what happened--" Li Wuxiang stood up and looked at the things he had sorted out on the ground: two double-pronged hunting forks, two bows, two quivers of arrows with a total of twenty-three arrows, three daggers, two waist knives, a pair of cast iron animal clamps, five sets of clothes for changing, a silver bowl, four silver wine cups, about four or five pounds of silver, more than twenty pounds of dried meat, three bags of wine, three land deeds, and a piece of oil paper.

"Your town chief asked the Wang family father and son to get fresh tiger bones, and said they needed them tonight. But the three of them knew that this was a life-threatening matter, and after thinking about it, they felt that it would be better to escape early to save their lives. Anyway, they had hunting equipment on them, and they were three strong men. They could make a living in any mountain, so why risk their lives? So they left." "But if the town chief's people are smarter and have a little sense of responsibility, they will definitely come to ask you. So you have to go to bed soon so that you can be full of energy tomorrow and let people know that this matter has nothing to do with you." Li Wuxiang thought for a while, "This is our last hurdle. When someone asks you a question tomorrow-"

"I'm not afraid—"

"No, you have to be afraid. Act as you feel in your heart—be afraid when you are questioned, be happy to hear that their family is gone, be whatever you want, just don't say anything."

Xue Baoping thought about it and nodded.

Li Wuxiang tore the bundle into strips, used them to tie the hunting tools tightly together, and then threw them all into the Jinshui River. The river used to be deep and wide, with a lot of silt on both sides. The iron tools sank into the silt and soon disappeared. When he returned to the house, Xue Baoping also wrapped the dried meat in oil paper and buried it in the corner of the house. He huddled in the quilt, only showing his head in the dark to look at him.

He stood at the door without going in, thought for a moment, and began to ask serious questions: "Besides Zhao Kui, have you ever seen other Taoists? Or Qigong practitioners?"

"The previous town master also worshipped several Qi-refining masters..." Xue Baoping thought for a while, "I also heard from my parents... that... they had seen other Taoists... before, but it seemed that they did not call themselves Taoists... they were all called Qi-refining masters."

"Have you ever seen or heard of their... abilities? For example, making a fire, conjuring gold and silver, or flying around?"

"Ah...you, can you?"

"will not."

"That... I haven't seen it either, and it seems that no one has seen it either, but they all know how to... how to... use swords. My father said he's seen it before, and it's very beautiful. One person... can... defeat several people..."

Li Wuxiang nodded, and thought for a while: "You said that there was a commotion here before by the Xuan Cult. How did those people fight at that time?"

"I... um... I heard from my father that... they fought back and forth, and they also dug and dug everywhere, and dug and dug... they dug so hard that the Jinshui River... was diverted, and they also rushed into the town and killed... killed... killed people."

"Well, have you ever heard of anyone in the neighborhood losing a child? I mean, more than a decade ago."

Xue Baoping reached out from under the quilt and scratched his face: "Well... I don't know either."

"Okay, go to sleep. You won't have anything to worry about tomorrow." Li Wuxiang walked into the house, closed the door, and jumped up lightly, his hands reaching the beam. He pulled himself up, "I'll sleep here, you don't need to be afraid."

After a while, he heard Xue Baoping say, "I'm not afraid... at worst, um... you can eat them all."

Li Wuxiang raised his eyebrows in the darkness: "I don't like that, and I won't do it again in the future."

But Xue Baoping didn't speak anymore, and his breathing became steady and long.

　As always, I am asking for recommendations and monthly tickets! Go for the top! Go, go, go!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)