Soul Lock

Fighting Jianshi and A Pair of Fuming Eyes

The next day, the duo strolled around the village, trying to find some useful information. Unfortunately, they all repeated the same stuff and this situation irritated Wen Lan so much that he was on the verge of dragging the entire village to Huang-quan. All he wanted to do was to reach Taishan and access Ju Xin's memories. He wasn't sure how much more he could bottle up his complicated emotions in, and this unnecessary delay didn't help him any.

When Ju Xin was convinced that there was nothing else to do, the duo returned back to the diner and waited for the night.

Finally, the darkness descended and the duo went out with the wooden sticks they borrowed from a villager. They stood at the end of the village and created some noise for Jiangshi to appear.

At least they didn't have to wait for a long time as loud rumbles were heard before six hopping zombie-like creatures came from the hill road. They were indeed Jiangshi, but not ordinary ones; on their remaining foreheads, there were yellow talismans. Wen Lan could smell blood from those talismans. Without delay, those disfigured, rotten creatures charged on them.

"Someone is controlling them," Ju Xin yelled while dodging an attack. He turned and swung the stick towards the creature, separating his dead head from its body. Still, the body kept on attacking as the head didn't matter much.

"En," Wen Lan confirmed, stabbing one of Jiangshi. The impact turned the creature into dust and five left. It wasn't a big deal though, Jiangshi were indeed powerful, but nothing compared to the creature in the lake. Even Ju Xin could handle them with his restricted powers.

Therefore, Wen Lan rather gave his attention to the surroundings, trying to find out the mastermind. He stabbed one more from the talisman and noticed something shiny behind a huge rock; a pair of fuming eyes.

With an incredible speed and accuracy, Wen Lan threw the stick towards the figure and hit him from the head. With the huge impact, the figure fell to the stony ground, fainted. Then, Wen Lan looked back to where Ju Xin was handling Jiangshi and saw there were red ghost fires trapped in the battlefield. 

The Ghost King interfered immediately; he pulled Ju Xin behind him and took his stick, gesturing to the fainted man. Ju Xin nodded and rushed towards the young man while Wen Lan handled the rest of Jiangshi in a blink of an eye without hurting the innocent red ghost fires.

After sending the ghost fires away, Wen Lan joined Ju Xin who was sitting cross-legged near the fainted man.

"His qi is very low," Ju Xin said softly as Wen Lan sat beside him.

"Probably because he used his own energy to control Jiangshi," Wen Lan said, helping Ju Xin to clean the dirt on his hair. The deity blushed in the face of intimate contact and mumbled a thanks.

Soon, there was a fidgeting as the young man woke up, hissing. Holding his head, he yelled "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?! WHY DID YOU GET INTO MY WAY?!"

Wen Lan saw the man was reaching for his sleeve, so he jumped to his feet, kicked him and stepped onto his arm. The man yelped in pain, but Wen Lan didn't retreat. "Will you behave?" he asked coldly and the young man nodded wholeheartedly. Wen Lan let him go and sat back to his previous spot, folding his arms on his chest.

"As you guess, we have some questions," Ju Xin took the word. His tone wasn't accusing, but rather as if he was coaxing him.

The young man pushed his bird nest-like hair from his face and sighed in defeat, "they deserved it."

Seeing his pained expression and tatty look, Ju Xin felt very sad for him. "Can you explain a bit?" he asked while reaching him a steamed bun.

The young man was taken aback, but he composed himself rather quickly. He got the bun and stuffed it into his mouth as he was starving.