Chapter Thirty-Two: Life or Death Uncertain

Le Dong’s heart hammered against his ribs. Refusing to dwell on his fear, he immediately retreated from the secret chamber and returned the rattle to its original position.

He rushed to the window and had only climbed out a few steps when his movements suddenly froze.

A face, a mangled mess of blood and flesh, hung upside down directly above him, mere inches away.

It was the vengeful spirit of Su Juanjuan!

*Plop…*

A few cold, damp drops of blood trickled down her rotting cheeks, hitting the windowsill with a soft sound.

Those turbid, dead eyes stared fixedly at Le Dong as he scrambled onto the second floor, their malice so potent it felt tangible. Yet, despite this, she made no move.

It was as if there were something on the second floor that she dreaded, forcing her to remain hovering above Le Dong, silently shrieking and contorting, but never daring to pounce.

Was there something in this window—or perhaps this mourning hall of Old Master Hu—that she feared?

Le Dong’s mind flashed back to the shadow he had seen earlier and that rotting voice: "Did you take my gold?"

"Ah—!"

In the distance, another familiar scream echoed—it was Cai Kun’s!

There was no time to investigate!

Le Dong’s heart sank; the screams from downstairs were growing more desperate, filled with the agony of a man at death’s door.

"Old Cai!"

Terrified, Le Dong abandoned all caution regarding the spirit above him and recklessly leaped from the second-story windowsill.

*Thud!*

He landed heavily on the soft lawn. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, he scrambled toward the villa’s front courtyard, where the screams were coming from.

The sight before him made his blood run cold!

Cai Kun looked like a cornered beast, his eyes bloodshot, tears and snot streaming down his face, a guttural, wheezing sound tearing from his throat.

He stood amidst the flowerbeds, his hands clutching a pair of gardening shears. The sharp, pointed blades were pressed against his own heart, and he was driving them in with frantic, repeated stabs. Every thrust was accompanied by an inhuman howl squeezed from his lungs.

If not for Ma Wenwen, who was clinging to Cai Kun’s waist from behind and pulling back with all his might, Cai Kun might not even have had the chance to scream.

However, Ma Wenwen, who was already "blind," was in no better state. The yellow cloth blindfold over his eyes had shifted, and his exposed skin was covered in bruises and red welts. Blood trickled from his nostrils and the corners of his mouth—he was a pathetic sight.

"Hold him down! Quickly! Slap more Yang Fire Talismans on his back! If that spirit possesses him fully, he’s finished!"

Ma Wenwen seemed to sense Le Dong’s arrival and roared at the surroundings.

Hearing the shout, Le Dong finally saw it: a yellow talisman given by Ma Wenwen was plastered to the back of Cai Kun’s clothes, the edges of the paper sizzling with faint white smoke.

In front of Cai Kun, the spirit of Hu Dawei, dressed in bright red groom’s robes, was grinning hideously. With translucent, liver-spotted hands, he gripped Cai Kun’s wrists, controlling the lethal shears and driving them into Cai Kun’s chest again and again.

The tips of the shears had already pierced the fabric, drawing blood.

"Old Cai, hold on!"

Le Dong’s scalp tingled as he lunged forward to pry Cai Kun’s hands apart.

But the next second, a bone-chilling, icy resentment struck him from behind!

It was Su Juanjuan! She had caught up. Her pale arms, like cold iron shackles, clamped onto Le Dong’s arms from behind, forcing his hands toward the talisman on Cai Kun’s back.

A wave of weakness instantly washed over him. Le Dong’s lips turned white; he struggled desperately, but could not shake her off, forced to watch as his own fingers moved closer and closer to the talisman!

"Ma… Ma… Master Ma!" Le Dong’s throat was constricted, allowing only broken syllables to escape.

Stunned by Le Dong’s cry, Ma Wenwen seemed to snap out of his exhausted stupor.

He jerked his head up, "looking" toward Su Juanjuan. Though the skewed yellow cloth obstructed his face, Le Dong felt as if those eyes had truly pierced through the barrier and locked onto the target.

"Damn it! I told you I’d protect the both of you, and I meant it! Stop screaming!"

Ma Wenwen roared, his voice filled with a desperate, reckless ferocity.

As he shouted, he performed an action that stunned everyone.

He freed one hand and violently grabbed the yellow cloth over his eyes!

*Riiip—!*

With a sharp sound of tearing fabric, he ripped the yellow talisman cloth off and threw it to the ground.

Under the moonlight, Ma Wenwen opened his eyes.

Le Dong’s breath hitched.

Those were not human eyes!

Ma Wenwen’s porcelain-white eyeballs were exposed to the moonlight, but they now glowed with an eerie, cyan-green light.

More terrifyingly, the two pupils seemed to possess a will of their own, darting wildly and erratically within their sockets, looking left and right, completely beyond the control of his body!

As for Ma Wenwen, his body convulsed violently, as if every bone had been removed, and he collapsed limply to the ground. Only those frantically shifting ghost-eyes proved he was still conscious.

Every sound in the courtyard seemed to vanish in that instant.

The spirit of Hu Dawei, which had been grinning as it manipulated the shears, suddenly stiffened. Its bulging, dead-fish eyes locked onto Ma Wenwen’s darting cyan-green pupils, and its malice was instantly replaced by an instinctive, indescribable terror!

It abruptly released Cai Kun’s wrists, let out a silent shriek, and turned to flee in the form of black smoke!

Even Su Juanjuan, who had been gripping Le Dong, shrieked as if scalded by boiling oil. She released her hold and tried to retreat in horror.

But it was too late!

The two cyan-green pupils in Ma Wenwen’s sockets simultaneously froze in a bizarre, synchronized motion!

The left eye locked onto the fleeing Hu Dawei, while the right eye fixed its gaze on the terrified Su Juanjuan!

The next second, a gruesome sight unfolded!

Inside those two cyan-green pupils, countless tiny black particles erupted like boiling ink!

These particles, like a living black tide, surged madly from Ma Wenwen’s eye sockets.

They gathered and expanded rapidly in the air, transforming in the blink of an eye into two enormous, hideous maws!

The appearance of these maws felt as if some seal had been forcibly torn open, and an indescribable, frigid aura instantly permeated the area.

"Eat…"

The voice was so blurred it felt as if it had detonated within their very souls.

One giant maw coiled with an evil wind and bit down on the escaping spirit of Hu Dawei with lightning speed. The spirit didn't even have time to struggle; like a candle flame tossed into a black hole, it was instantly swallowed and annihilated, not even leaving a ripple behind!

The other maw bit down on Su Juanjuan!

She let out one final, piercing wail before her entire spirit body, like a punctured balloon, withered and vanished, sucked clean by the dark maw!

The feast complete, the two tooth-filled maws dissipated like phantoms, turning back into countless tiny black specks that retreated into Ma Wenwen’s eye sockets in a flash.

Immediately after, the cyan-green eyes returned to their porcelain white, though a lingering, chilling coldness seemed to remain deep within the pupils.

As for the master of those eyes—Ma Wenwen—his head lolled to the side, and he fell into a deep coma. His breathing became intermittent, weak as a candle in the wind.

When everything returned to silence, the courtyard was terrifyingly quiet, save for the rustling of the night wind through the leaves and the ragged, retching gasps of Cai Kun, who lay on the ground, having narrowly escaped death.

"Master Ma…?"

Le Dong, the first to recover, caught his breath and crawled cautiously toward Ma Wenwen, reaching out with trembling fingers to check his pulse…