“What do you expect me to do?” I looked at Su Xiaoyun and shouted.
“What should we do… Of course, we should run away!” Su Xiaoyun raised her eyebrows. “We’re all going to die if we stay here!”
“No!” I rejected her proposal without thinking twice. “You guys should get out of here now, I’ll stay! I’m the only one who might be able to seal it. How can I leave Zhu Xuan and run away by myself?”
“Gu Yu! Don’t be silly! Look at what is going on here, how can you still think you can seal the monster!” Su Xiaoyun anxiously stomped her foot. “We must leave now!”
As soon as she said that, the beast Chen’s enormous tail swept towards us, almost knocking Shi Yitong down.
“Goddess Su is right, it is too dangerous here!” Shi Yitong gave up. He grabbed my arm and dragged me a few steps forward. “Let’s get out of here!”
“No!” Though deep inside I was incredibly worried, I didn’t know what to do.
I once peeked into Zhu Xuan’s dream, and I knew how desperate he was to find Ye’s soul and how eager he was to live.
How could a tender-hearted and affectionate boy like him… die under the claws of a monster like the beast Chen?!
Damn it, I wish Wen Jiubo was here!
“Gu Yu, watch out!” As Su Xiaoyun shouted, I looked up. I didn’t know when the beast Chen decided to target me. I was stunned and leaped forward to dodge its attack. If it wasn’t for Su Xiaoyun, I would have been dead.
The beast Chen screamed angrily after his unsuccessful attempt. It turned around and rushed towards me again. It happened so fast that I couldn’t dodge it anymore. I was so scared that my blood froze and I subconsciously closed my eyes.
But its claws never hit me. I opened my eyes and found Bai Ze, who was grievously injured and covered in blood, had thrown himself on the beast Chen. His blood, dripping from the cuts all over his body, dyed the ground red.
“Annoying moron!” The beast Chen groaned. It turned his head again and bit Bai Ze with its sharp teeth.
“Gu Yu!” Su Xiaoyun shouted. I couldn’t tell it was the rain or tears on her face. “Get out of here! We can go to the Longning Temple for help! Haven’t you understood it yet? We are just gonna be burdens for Bai Ze if we stay here!”
Su Xiaoyun was right…
As weak humans, we couldn’t help Zhu Xuan. On the contrary, Zhu Xuan was distracted to protect us, unable to concentrate his full strength on the fight.
Was there really no other ways to help him?
While I was staying still, unsure of what I should do, the beast Chen suddenly acted weirdly.
For some unknown reason, suddenly the beast who was still fighting with Bai Ze weakened. It held the advantage over Bai Ze seconds ago, however, it suddenly stopped attacking as if it was distracted by something. Zhu Xuan took the opportunity, brought the beast down on the ground, and ferociously bit the beast Chen’s neck.
What was even stranger was that the beast Chen didn’t fight back. It groaned painfully and struggled feebly. A large piece of fur on its neck was torn off by Bai Ze.
Shi Yitong, who was grabbing my arm and trying to pull me away, was also stunned. “What’s wrong with it?”
I shook my head.
The beast Chen struggled in vain, it was unable to use its power as if it was seized by an invisible force.
“Gu Yu, did you cast a spell?” Shi Yitong looked at me in a weird way.
“Me? No, not me, I don’t have that kind of power.” I immediately shook my head. At the same time, my instinct led me to turn my head and looked at the direction where the force came from.
If I was right… a man was standing on the mountain far away from us. Because it was too far away, I couldn’t clearly see anything at all except for his silhouette.
“Is it because of the person over there?” I muttered to myself.
“Gu Yu! Look! The beast Chen is down!” Shi Yitong’s excited shout pulled my mind back.
Unsurprisingly, the beast Chen struggled in vain under Bai Ze’s claws and couldn’t fight back.
“Gu Yu!” I recognized the sound of Zhu Xuan’s voice.
Oh, right, this is a great opportunity to seal the beast!
“Zhu Xuan, hold on!” I almost scrambled towards these two giant beasts, and then I picked up the green fan I dropped on the ground. It was strange, the fan was intact, and the silk covering it was still as clean as new even though it had gone through such a chaotic fight.
“Begone, Satan, inventor and master of all deceit, the enemy of man’s salvation!” I shouted as loud as I could. Green light emitted out of the fan, shackling the weak beast Chen. And this time, the beast Chen lost its strength to fight back. Although it struggled hard, it couldn’t break free from the light.
Gradually, the beast Chen’s roars became weaker and weaker, while the blue light got brighter and brighter. In the end, all light concentrated into a bright dot, which was so bright that we all covered our eyes.
Soon, the bright dot quickly disappeared, leaving only furious thunder in a dull sky.
“Don’t move!”
Zhu Xuan changed into his human form and instantly ran towards us despite the serious injuries all over his body. He took out a strange bottle out of his pocket, walked to the place where the beast Chen disappeared and put the bottle on the ground.
Then, a stream of white smoke rose from the ground before it got sucked into the strange bottle.
Once the smoke was entirely pulled into the bottle, Zhu Xuan quickly closed the bottle cap. He then sighed with relief before smiling.
“Okay, we’re done. This time I’ll guard it and make sure it won’t come out again.”
The three of us also let out a sigh of relief at the same time.
“We sealed it, we really did it!” Shi Yitong laughed out, rubbing his messy wet hair.
“It seems that we need to take a hot shower once we get back to the hostel. Achoo!” Su Xiaoyun touched her nose and sneezed.
Zhu Xuan looked at us, revealing a light smile. Then, without any warning, he fell on the ground.
“Ay! Zhu Xuan!”
“Zhu Xuan!”
“Are you okay?”
Just like that, although there were some twists and turns, the four of us successfully sealed the man-eating beast Chen. It didn’t take long for the heavy rain to stop. We carried Zhu Xuan back to Xu Yingchen’s small hostel, looking like drowned rats.
I thought hard about various excuses to answer Mr. Xu’s questions. However, to my surprise, Mr. Xu didn’t ask anything at all. Instead, he took us in, took out the first-aid kit and treated Zhu Xuan’s injuries without saying a word. He then prepared the bath for us and asked us to rest early.
“It feels like it’s been years since we got some rest.” Shi Yitong sat down on the bed, exhausted. “I really thought we were going to die there.”
“Me too.” I rubbed my hair with a towel and sat next to Shi Yitong. “I didn’t expect that we would succeed. Did you get hurt?”
“I’m fine, though I fell on the ground when I ran, it’s just a small cut.” Shi Yitong smiled, patting his knees to show me he was fine. “What about you?”
“I’m all right, no bad injuries. Thanks to Zhu Xuan, if it wasn’t for him protecting us with his life, we would have been in the beast Chen’s stomach before we could seal it.”
Shi Yitong lowered his head, distressed. “Zhu Xuan… Is he going to be alright?”
“He’ll be fine,” I comforted Shi Yitong. “He’s not like us. Did you forget that he quickly recovered this morning even though he was badly injured yesterday?”
“That’s true…” Shi Yitong muttered. “That guy is different. He will recover very soon.”
Looking at Shi Yitong’s worried face, I couldn’t help but laugh out. I poked him with my elbow. “Why do you care about him so much this time? Do you really fall for him?”
“Nonsense, I only have goddess Su in my heart!” Shi Yitong immediately looked up and denied.
“It doesn’t make a difference if you tell me, you should tell those words to her.”
“It’s not the right moment to tease me!” Shi Yitong pushed me a little.
I dodged him and couldn’t stop laughing. However, when I finally stopped, the atmosphere in the room became awkwardly silent again.
“How about Su Xiaoyun, did you ask her?” I asked.
“Yeah, I did. She said she’s fine. She is now taking care of Zhu Xuan with Mr. Xu,” said Shi Yitong as he nodded. He continued hesitantly, “And… she looks quite calm.”
“Yeah, she’s always like that. She is much tougher than we think.” I chuckled. “Sometimes, I think that she is a lot more resilient than we are.”
“You’re right,” Shi Yitong complained. “I guess she is the captain of our team.”
“After all, she has experienced a lot. You know, the curse, and Devil’s Night in school…” I shrugged.
“What about you?”
Shi Yitong’s sudden question caught me off-guard, I didn’t know how to react.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Your experiences.” Shi Yitong looked at me with a serious expression. “You know, Su Xiaoyun is tough because of the horrible curse she had. I experienced those terrible things because of my grandfather. But I’m curious, Gu Yu, what is your reason? I mean… It seems that you had no peculiar experiences before you met Wen Jiubo, right?”
I smiled and said half-jokingly and half-seriously, “Says who? Meeting Wen Jiubo is the most peculiar experience I’ve ever had.”