Chapter 165

Chapter 165: I Told You Not to Spit Blood

Yu Zhi Yi pulled the object from where it was wedged in the corner, held it in her palm, and studied it for a moment. In the dim light she soon saw it clearly. It was a pearl. And not an ordinary one, but a fine Heavenly Sea Pearl.

In the Great Sheng Empire, the best pearls are South Sea Pearls, and the next best are Heavenly Sea Pearls. The supply of Heavenly Sea Pearls is low. Each year, less than a thousand jin are produced. From that amount, the best one hundred pearls are chosen and sent into the palace as tribute to the emperor, the empress dowager, and the imperial consorts, princes, and princesses. Only the rest make it onto the market.

Even then, common folk cannot use them. Not only common folk. Even regular rich people cannot use them. The problem isn’t money. It is status. Only officials of fifth rank and above and their family members are allowed to wear ornaments made with Heavenly Sea Pearls.

Yu Zhi Yi kept searching the room.

Suddenly she turned toward the doorway. The family’s little boy stood under the curtain. The way light and darkness worked in this room was very strange. You could see the glow with your eyes, yet even a short distance away, the corners looked as if they were covered in ink. Unless you walked up to them, you couldn’t see what hid in the dark.

The boy stood under the curtain and almost blended into the inky shadow. If Yu Zhi Yi did not have such sharp senses, she might not have noticed him at all.

She asked gently: “Little one, it’s late. Why aren’t you asleep?”

The little boy grinned and, without her permission, pattered into the room, saying brightly: “Sister, do you want to be my stepmother?”

Yu Zhi Yi arched a brow and asked: “Why would I be your stepmother?”

“You looked at my dad several times.”

Yu Zhi Yi said, a little speechless: “My eyes just happened to pass over your dad. I am married. I won’t be your mother.”

“Then I’m relieved,” the boy said, his grin growing even wider.

Yu Zhi Yi asked all of a sudden: “Why did you think I wanted to be your mother? Where is your mother?”

The little boy drooped and said: “My mom was murdered.”

Yu Zhi Yi was about to ask more when the curtain stirred. The Da Li matriarch stood there, staring coldly at Yu Zhi Yi, her gaze a clear warning. But when she looked at the boy, her voice turned sugary and kind as she cooed: “Yaozu, be good. Your mother didn’t want you, but Grandmother wants you. You are Grandmother’s treasure. Grandmother loves you most. Grandmother will find you another mother.”

The child suddenly screamed: “I don’t want a stepmother! I don’t want a stepmother! I only want my mom!”

Pressing her lips together, Yu Zhi Yi went on searching the room.

At the same time, somewhere else, her expression shifted. She looked outside.

The pitch-black night seemed to be stirred by some force. The sky rolled and churned like thunder roaring. An ominous dark red night fell over the whole village.

The boy and the Da Li matriarch both cut off their shouting and suddenly screamed. The old woman wailed in panic: “I was wrong! I was really wrong! Spare me!”

Yu Zhi Yi stared at the boiling ink-dark clouds, her face turning cold as she said under her breath: “Good for nothing. Always making things worse.”

At the entrance of Cao South Village, a small river looped around the edge. After a murder thirty years ago, the villagers feared a water ghost would come to claim lives, so they filled in the river at the entrance and diverted the water to the back of the village. The water, which should have been clear, now shone with a terrifying red light, like blood flowing slowly.

You Bing Yue looked at the black energy rising from the crimson water. Brave as she was, she still felt a chill creep into her bones and asked: “Brother Ou Yang, is there really something in the river?”

Ou Yang Shuo said with a scoff: “It’s nothing. Just a female ghost. Making her vanish is as easy as eating and drinking.”

You Bing Yue let out a breath and said: “That’s good.”

Beside them, Li Chang Huai flicked open his folding fan and promised: “Miss You, please don’t worry. No matter how strong the evil is, I will not let it harm you at all.”

When Du Zi Heng and Liu Fei Yang arrived, they heard Li Chang Huai’s promise and saw Ou Yang Shuo throw a talismanic seal toward the crimson river.

“Break,” Ou Yang Shuo said in a low voice.

The talisman flared with golden light and tore a hole in the black energy. Everyone felt that the blackness seemed weaker.

You Bing Yue brightened and said: “The black energy is weaker. Brother Ou Yang, you are amazing.”

Ou Yang Shuo accepted the praise with a calm face and pulled out another talisman as he said: “No matter how strong a female ghost is, she cannot stand against the Ghost-Banishing Talisman of Dragon-Tiger Mountain.”

He added while his hands kept moving: “Throw a few more, and she will turn to ash.”

He flicked out a Spirit-Repelling Talisman.

Then, with a bang, a surge of black energy exploded out of the river and shredded the talismans into pieces. The Spirit-Repelling Talisman burst with golden light, but the black, baleful energy swallowed it in an instant. It was as if something had slammed a heavy hammer into Ou Yang Shuo’s chest. He flew back a long way, and a mouthful of old blood rushed up his throat.

Just as Ou Yang Shuo was about to spit blood, a cold, steady female voice ordered: “Do not spit.”

His body went stiff. He swallowed hard, trying to force the blood back down.

Everyone looked toward the voice and saw Yu Zhi Yi approach as if she had torn the darkness open. It was like she brought light with her.

You Bing Yue’s face darkened as she said: “If you don’t spit out the stuck blood, it will slow your healing.”

Ou Yang Shuo had been barely holding on. Hearing that, he couldn’t bear it anymore and spat out the blood.

Yu Zhi Yi’s face went icy as she snapped: “Fool.”

You Bing Yue wanted to speak again, but she suddenly sensed something wrong. Before, the air in this village only made her a little uneasy. Now, a bone-deep cold wrapped around her. Her body felt bound by something. She couldn’t move.

“What… what is happening?” she forced out, her voice squeezed from her throat.

Ou Yang Shuo’s face changed and he said hoarsely: “The female ghost has grown stronger.”

Yu Zhi Yi gave a sharp, cold laugh and said: “Thanks to you. If not for that mouthful of blood filled with pure yang power, the thing in the river would not have shown itself. Now it has fully awakened.”

A wild wind rose all around them, its blades like knives, cold and painful against the skin. The trees looked ready to snap. Li Chang Huai and Liu Fei Yang felt as if they were about to be blown away. When they looked hard, Du Zi Heng and the others also seemed on the edge of being lifted off their feet. Only Yu Zhi Yi stood unmoving, steady as a mountain. Of the six people present, she looked the most delicate, yet she stood the firmest.

“What is going on…” Li Chang Huai and Liu Fei Yang clung to each other to keep from being blown away and panted: “Why does it feel like this strange wind is trying to blow us into the river?”