CH 87

Upon hearing Gouwa's words, Sun Baolu took out a card from the long strip of leaf cards he had been holding and played it.

"I saw Senior Li go to the village blacksmith, seems like he's making something. Oh, Gouwa, didn't Senior Li tell you to go gather information? Why are you still playing cards here? Aren't you afraid he'll scold you when he comes back?"

"Gouwa? Call me Cao Cao!" Gouwa replied, looking displeased as he played a card.

"This village is so small, there's no need to put in so much effort. Besides, I went with those two brats to gather information. We found out that there are long worms that eat people in the woods to the west. We should avoid going there."

"You're going there? You can't go, you really can't. My mother saw a flying long worm in the sky ten years ago!" the host who was watching the game interjected.

"Hey, it's fine! Senior Li is really powerful. As long as he's there, we don't need to worry about those long worms. Oh, wait, who played this card just now? I won~ Hahaha. You guys owe me eggs," Gouwa said.

"Quick, Senior Li is back."

Someone said this, and everyone turned their heads to see Li Huowang walking towards the yard with a large bag in his hand.

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Li Huowang put the bag on the table and opened it.

The inside of the bag had rows of buttons, which could neatly hang up the things inside.

He began to count the shiny new weapons hanging inside, all of which he had custom-made.

There were large black pliers, sharp awls, small shovels the size of fingernails, and long needles with barbs.

These strange and eerie things were enough to make one's skin crawl.

Gouwa picked up a spoon with a very sharp edge and played with it for a while before asking, "Senior Li, what are all these things? They don't seem like weapons, more like torture devices. Killing is not allowed, but poking out someone's eyes is fine..."

Gouwa's words suddenly stopped, as he remembered what had happened on Reeds Island, the person who used pliers to pull out their own teeth and crush their own eyes.

Li Huowang snatched the item from Gouwa's hand and asked, "How did the information gathering go?"

"It... it went well. There are long worms in the woods that eat people. The people around here avoid going there, and the long worms never come out," Gouwa replied, looking at the items on the table with deep fear in his eyes.

Li Huowang took out a small shovel and gestured towards his own fingernail before putting the items behind him. "Let's go. We leave now."

"It's already noon. If we leave now, it'll be dark before we get there. Why don't we stay overnight?" Sun Baolu suggested, but Li Huowang only gave him a cold glare and said, "I said we're leaving!"

The wheels of the carriage began to turn as they slowly made their way towards the woods with the man-eating worms.

When the moon was high in the sky, Li Huowang and the others finally arrived at their destination.A dense bamboo forest appeared in front of them, with fireflies flickering in and out of sight.

A small path meandered through the forest like a snake, and the weeds on the ground indicated that it had not been walked on in a long time.

Li Huowang didn't rush in recklessly. According to Master Jingxin, the evil spirits on the 18th day of the twelfth lunar month were highly variable, and no one knew what they looked like now or what kind of threat they posed.

He stood at the edge of the forest, quietly observing inside.

Time passed, but everything inside remained normal. The creatures that should have been there hadn't changed at all. Li Huowang could even see some bamboo rats gnawing on bamboo.

It wasn't until dawn that Li Huowang stopped observing.

While eating noodles, Li Huowang said to the others, "It looks like there's nothing unusual on the outside. After we finish this meal, we'll go in. When we're inside, I don't want you to do anything except one thing, if...I mean, if something unusual happens with my behavior, you guys need to watch over me and not let me run wild."

That's right, Li Huowang brought them in together for this reason.

As the effect of Black Tai Sui wore off, Li Huowang felt the space around him becoming unreal, with the hallucinations potentially engulfing him at any moment.

To be on the safe side, it was necessary for these people to follow him in.

Upon hearing this unusual request, the others looked at each other and nodded.

"It shouldn't take too long, just wait for me to come back."

After Li Huowang finished speaking, he drank some soup. At this point, a slender white hand reached over and lightly pulled on Li Huowang's head, causing him to feel a slight pain in his scalp.

"What are you doing?" Li Huowang looked displeasedly at the owner of the hand, Bai Lingmiao.

"There's a white hair I need to pluck. My mother said that if you leave them, more white hairs will grow on your head."

Li Huowang began to eat faster, burying his head in the bowl to scoop up the noodles.

Bai Lingmiao sat next to Li Huowang with her legs together.

Her fingers reached towards the red bamboo slip behind Li Huowang. "Li Shixiong, you've been carrying this thing with you -"

Before she could touch it, Li Huowang suddenly stood up, poured all the soup in the bowl into his stomach, and threw the bowl into the empty iron pot. "Let's go, into the forest."

After everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, they followed Li Huowang towards the small path.

Although it was still early morning, as soon as they entered the forest, the surroundings immediately became darker.

The dense bamboo forest acted like a barrier, blocking out the sunlight.

The blue-green glowstones were taken out again, making the surroundings a little brighter.

However, when this color illuminated the bamboo forest, the originally verdant bamboo appeared sickly, taking on a very uncomfortable color that made people uneasy.

As the glowstones swayed, it seemed like something was hiding in the depths of the dense bamboo forest, watching from the outside.Li Huowang tried hard to see clearly, but he couldn't see anything. However, just as he was about to turn around, that spine-tingling feeling, like wheat awns, appeared again.

"Is this the evil spirit of the 18th of the twelfth lunar month? Is it watching me in the woods? What has it turned into now?"

Not only Li Huowang, but others also felt it.

There was only the sound of shoes crushing the weeds around, and no one spoke. Soon, the atmosphere around them became heavy.

"Senior Brother Li... do you... feel like the bamboo above our heads is getting closer to our heads?"

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Hearing this, everyone slowly raised their heads, only to see that the bamboo around them had completely bent, and the dense and sickly-colored bamboo tips were bending down from above, pointing straight at them.