Chapter 631: Crawling Out

The characters in the Burial Scripture were different even from ancient Chinese characters; they belonged to a special script passed down within a very small circle. If I hadn't met Daoist master Wan, I probably never would have learned this secret in my lifetime.

"Maybe Daoist Priest Xianqing had this very point in mind, which was why he wanted me to keep it safe. By the time he passed away, he had seen through the mortal world and no longer insisted on passing down the Corpse Driving Lineage. He only wanted his sole disciple to live a good life. Perhaps, on his deathbed, he already saw Yun Chuan as his own child."

The Burial Scripture was very thin, weighing no more than half a liang, yet it represented the thousand-year responsibility of the Corpse Driving Lineage.

Possessing it meant bearing the entire hope of a sect.

Daoist Priest Xianqing didn't want Yun Chuan to live as exhausting a life as he had, so he handed the Burial Scripture over to an outsider like me. He said nothing, intending to bury it all in his own heart.

I still remembered what Daoist Priest Xianqing had said the first time I visited Qingtu Temple: in the past, corpse driving existed to help poor people return to their roots, but times were different now, and corpse driving no longer had any use. He had said it with a smile then. Perhaps he'd already had this in mind even back then.

"To think the foremost extraordinary book on Feng Shui actually fell into my hands. Daoist master Wan was right. This book is of grave importance; I absolutely cannot let a second person besides me know about it." Before even taking out the ancient book, I had stuffed the Live Show Phone into my pocket, so the livestream viewers in the broadcast room had no idea I held this book in my hands.

After putting the Burial Scripture away again, my mind started working. 'Although I can't read the ancient characters in the book, I don't need to worry at all with Daoist master Wan as a translator. When he comes to Jiangcheng in a few days, I can claim I memorized these characters from a wall and use that as an excuse to consult him.'

Anything concerning the Burial Scripture required the utmost caution.

I had only ever spoken with Daoist master Wan during livestreams; it never hurt to be a little careful.

If Daoist master Wan was different from those sect members, I could slowly tell him some of the Burial Scripture's contents. But if he was no different from those sect cultivators and planned to rob me of it by force or trickery, then the news that the Burial Scripture was in my hands absolutely could not be leaked.

"Who could have imagined that an extraordinary Feng Shui book, lost for a century, would be hidden in the dilapidated Qingtu Temple? The ways of the world are truly unpredictable," I sighed, putting the ancient book away safely. "This book might be of great use in the future."

When I took out my phone again, everyone in the livestream room, including Daoist master Wan, was asking what had just happened. I couldn't be bothered to explain, so I brushed it off with a few vague excuses and continued onward behind the ghost girl. Of course, along the way, I also had Daoist master Wan help me identify more of the ancient characters.

As chant after chant was read out, Daoist master Wan grew increasingly excited. His attitude toward the Burial Scripture alone proved the book's extraordinary nature.

With the ghost girl leading the way and giving advance warnings, the journey was a series of close calls but ultimately safe. Several times, we brushed right past white fiends.

About ten minutes later, the sounds of fierce fighting came from ahead. I could faintly hear incantations being chanted, mingled with beast-like roars.

"That sounds a bit familiar. Could it be Gu Bei, Zhang Heng, and the others?" Zhang Heng and Gu Bei had fled underground together. Judging by the time, they should have run into the monsters by now.

'Ever since I came underground, white fiends have been constantly running in that direction. Could a single white fiend really not handle Zhang Heng and Gu Bei?' I stroked my chin, thinking to myself. 'Unless there's a hidden live show streamer among them who was forced by the danger to reveal their true abilities. For the corpse controller to mobilize the white fiends from the entire building as backup, this senior's strength is truly formidable!'

A chill ran down my spine at the thought that someone so terrifying had been tagging along right beside me. Whoever it was, they were very skilled at Playing the Pig to Eat the Tiger. If the white fiends hadn't forced them into a corner, that guy probably would have kept up the act until the end of the broadcast.

'Who could it be? Gu Bei? Chen Mo? Or Zhang Heng?' Thinking of how Zhang Heng had been holding his DV and filming nonstop, I found it strange. 'Whether this person is a streamer or not, I need to keep an eye on him.'

With fighting going on ahead, the ghost girl stopped in her tracks, clearly terrified.

"Is there another way?" I gestured to her for a long time before she finally understood. She led me into another storeroom, which also housed a massive water tank.

"Why did you bring me here?" I looked at where the girl was standing; there was a wooden board painted white.

I walked over, lifted the wooden board, and found another wooden ladder.

"Just how many underground levels does the Third Ward have?" I had just slipped into the secret passage when footsteps suddenly rang out in the corridor. They were hurried; someone was sprinting frantically.

'White fiends move silently, so it must be a living person.' I had the ghost girl go down into the secret passage first, then lowered the wooden board over the opening, leaving a narrow slit.

Clinging to the wooden ladder, I peeked out. It didn't take long for the owner of those footsteps to appear.

"Zhang Heng!"

With the DV hanging around his neck, he flashed past the doorway.

"So it really was him fighting the white fiends!"

Before I could even finish speaking, another person came running down the corridor.

He was wearing a black suit—it was Gu Bei.

He had reached some kind of agreement with Zhang Heng, and the two were working together. Yet once danger broke out, Zhang Heng had no intention whatsoever of looking out for him; he sprinted ahead on his own at top speed, leaving Gu Bei behind.

Gu Bei had already lost his shoes while fleeing, and he seemed to be injured. His chest heaved violently, his footsteps growing heavier and heavier.

Fleeing blindly, as coincidence would have it, he turned as he passed the storeroom and bolted straight inside.

Slamming the door shut, Gu Bei pressed both hands against it. His face was covered in a sticky mess of either terrified tears or chemical liquid, making him look incredibly wretched.

'When two selfish people team up, they must always be prepared to be abandoned.'

In his panic, Gu Bei didn't notice the secret passage. Bracing himself against the door now was merely delaying the moment of his death.

Hiding in the secret passage, I witnessed everything. Speaking up rashly to warn him might drag me into danger as well, but if I didn't step in, he was certain to die.

Back when we placed the commitment letters in Mortuary No. 2, he had told me not to touch him with hands that had touched human skin.

At that time, I had fired back, saying that even if he faced a life-or-death crisis, I wouldn't lift a finger to help him.

It had just been empty talk back then; I never expected it to become reality so quickly.

In the few short seconds I spent thinking, another shocking change occurred in the room.

The previously quiet water tank began letting out "gurgle, gurgle" sounds. The noise grew louder and louder until it actually shook the rust off the iron tank.

'What's going on?' Gu Bei at the door and I both shifted our gazes toward the water tank at the same time.

Before long, a sudden slamming sound came from inside the tank, as if several large fish were trapped inside.

Thump! Thump!

Listening to this sound, even I, hiding in the secret passage, felt a bit uneasy, let alone Gu Bei standing by the door.

His calves were trembling uncontrollably, yet he didn't dare leave the room.

Bang!

The slamming sound suddenly grew much louder as a tremendous force flipped open the iron sheet on top of the water tank.

'Something is coming out!' I stared fixedly at the water tank. This was my first time seeing a water tank undergo such an eerie change.

Splash!

Sopping wet hair emerged from the opening in the water tank like pitch-black waterweed. It clung to a face, obscuring its features so that only a pair of sunken eye sockets showed through the parted strands.

The pale, waterlogged, rotting face formed a stark contrast with the black hair.

That face slowly surfaced from the chemical liquid—the forehead, the bridge of the nose, the split mouth. The hair stuck directly to the flesh. The most terrifying part was that this monster had no human skin on its face!

I held my breath, my pupils shrinking to pinpricks, while Gu Bei at the door was already thoroughly scared stiff.

Viscous chemical liquid and water droplets slid down that face. A pair of hands, thicker and larger than a normal person's, gripped the edge of the water tank. The monster's arms slowly strained, dragging its ugly, horrifying torso as it crawled out of the tank!

It possessed a humanoid shape, yet it supported its body on long, slender limbs like a wild beast.

From my angle, it looked like a gigantic human spider that had been stripped of its shell!

My heart trembled; even the air drawn into my lungs felt freezing cold.

'Is this a white fiend?'

The monster crawled down from the water tank. Its limbs were much thinner than a normal person's, yet they were long and sturdy.

It crossed the distance of several meters in the blink of an eye, and it did so without making a single sound.

Fear spread silently. That face covered by black hair twisted at a bizarre angle and leaned in close to Gu Bei.

Was it over?

The scene before my eyes was already beyond anything I had imagined, yet something even more terrifying was just beginning.

Inside the water tank, chemical liquid splashed as one drenched head after another surfaced where the iron sheet had been peeled back.

At the exact same time, through the glass panel in the storeroom door, I could see the bandaged figures in hospital gowns crowding the corridor right outside.

Their faces pressed into the small glass window—mangled and hideous. The glass on the door was quickly shattered as hand after hand reached inside.

Hiding by the door, Gu Bei had already been drained of all strength by fear. His face was ashen. It wasn't until the monster seized his body that he finally began to struggle hysterically.

He screamed, roared, and begged for mercy, expending the very last ounce of strength in his blood—but his fate was already sealed.

The spider-like monster locked its arms around him, then leapt up effortlessly, dropping back into the water tank with him.

All of the screams and roars were drowned out by the chemical liquid. Before long, only the "gurgle, gurgle" sounds remained in the storeroom.

The noise was both familiar and terrifying—like the rumbling of a starving stomach, yet also like the helpless cries of a drowning person pleading for help from beneath the water.

The monsters in the corridor didn't enter. They left in a hurry, seemingly preparing to continue their pursuit of Zhang Heng.

The storeroom door hung half-open, with shattered glass scattered all over the floor. The sounds coming from the water tank also slowly ceased a few minutes later.

Deathly stillness returned to the room. Who could have imagined that such a terrifying event had occurred here just moments ago?

I took a deep breath and stretched my stiff body, not daring to linger in this place any longer.