The room hushed with a whipped growl and a sharp inhale of something inhuman, leaving everyone tense before Chóng Fēi was thrown backwards.
"What the hell—?!"
Chóng Fēi's teeth clenched as he managed to hold back the sudden unexpected force. The polished wood burned under his feet like it had touched fire.
Lìngxiāo's eyes widened.
Now the presence itself felt angry at Chóng Fēi, as if he had touched its property and intelligently used Lìngxiāo's simple hand to make Chóng Fēi off guard.
'It might be aiming to kill him…'
"GŌNGZǏ!"
"WHY DID LÌNGXIĀO GŌNGZǏ PUSH HIM THIS HARD?!"
"CATCH HIM! HE CANNOT STOP!"
Other disciples cried out as they tried to help him, yet they were pushed backwards too, falling over their backs with much lighter force compared to the blow Chóng Fēi had received.
'Oh no. This is bad. It is getting worse. He should not have touched me.'
Without wasting any time, Lìngxiāo moved toward Chóng Fēi, his hand raised toward him with his golden qì—since holding him directly might ruin things more.
"I CANNOT STOP MOVING BACKWARDS!! IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!" Chóng Fēi yelled, horrified and angry all at once, as the force pulled him toward the backward door, as if trying to pull him out of this place.
And Lìngxiāo saw it.
That ghost—the groom—was aiming to take him into the shrine without harming him here yet. His red gaze turned bloodshot, nothing like the regular one Lìngxiāo had been seeing.
It made his thoughts race through the situation.
'This spirit has surely gone out of control. Or is it being controlled? I need to talk to Chóng Fēi Gōngzǐ's zhùfù too, to have some documents—if any suspicious man has ever entered the clan and the shrine.'
Lìngxiāo quickly tangled Chóng Fēi in his spiritual powers and stood upward over the round puller of the clan door corridor to stop himself and Chóng Fēi from moving backwards. His veins clenched as he held his qì like a rope.
"Chóng Gōngzǐ! Do not panic. It is feeding on his energy." Lìngxiāo instructed steadily, his mind still racing with thousands of theories behind everything.
So strange. No other fine cultivator had managed to come this far to them. Only he was trying to save Chóng Fēi.
"D-DO NOT LET GO, YOU PATHETIC MAN! I WILL MAKE YOU REGRET—MN!!!" Chóng Fēi yelled, but his mouth was shut by some long locks of black hair tightening over his mouth.
Not just over the mouth—inside too.
It was making him choke against it, his mouth watering, almost losing consciousness from the little glimpse he got of the spirit. He was scared for his whole life.
"Do not look at him. I am instructing you," Lìngxiāo said again. Yet it was useless to Chóng Fēi. "Mō Qīn, unseal! Try to seal the soul inside my Jìng Róu!" He summoned Mō Qīn from his pendant.
"On it." Mō Qīn unsealed and lunged toward the spirit with the mirror in its mouth.
The spirit's gaze snapped onto the mirror before it suddenly broke through the door and vanished elsewhere—inside the clan, leaving Chóng Fēi half-conscious.
'Now running away from me as if it was not following me for more then a week. Is it the same spirit or...'
Lìngxiāo didn't thought fully, he caught Chóng Fēi properly, but the spirit had gone toward something untouched by everyone—the doorway of the store chamber. Usually a place demonic beings chose as their living space.
Mō Qīn turned to Lìngxiāo. "Should I follow him, Gōngzǐ?"
Lìngxiāo looked around to test the weather inside the clan. Everything was still fine. It would be better if everyone were not panicking, and he could just find the root of everything more than fighting until the distraction. There was no other way more than following the messy road the spirit was making.
"Not yet. But you do not need to be unsealed," Lìngxiāo said, his gaze moving upward.
'Where is Chóng Fēi's Zhùfù? Has he not heard any of them screaming so hard that even a sick man could not help but get up and at least check? Is he even worried for his son's life? He is suspicious to me…'
When Mō Qīn returned to his mirror and wrapped around his neck, he whispered faintly before anyone heard—those who were lunging toward them to help Chóng Fēi.
"Where is the body we still have not checked yet?"
Mō Qīn had a lightning round of the whole clan before reporting to him. "No clue. It seems to have been burned away."
Lìngxiāo blinked at his place while the people rushed Chóng Fēi to his chamber to rest and tell it to his father. "Burned? They were supposed to leave it as it is for the evidence. Someone has intentionally removed it when I was in the shrine."
"This is possible, Gōngzǐ. We have been gone for too long." Mō Qīn agreed. "The humans here are strange. Already have a bad record with us."
"Let us not let anyone question about the body or anything else." Lìngxiāo whispered while his gaze lingered on the broken door, staring as far as he could see like a gently carved statue. "We will act as if searching for the truth of the shrine and also carefully analyze every single person here. Everybody wears a mask more fake than my cracked one that I cannot remove." He smiled a little wider, softly yet thoughtfully.
'As long as the antagonist thinks he is safe… the more we are close to it. They must need the same herbs they force-feed to others…'
"What would be your next practical plan for it, Gōngzǐ…?" Mō Qīn asked, dead serious, darkness fogged into his glassy cursed eyes.
Lìngxiāo tilted his head, turned his heels back toward the hallway, his smile silently hidden under his gentle yet naturally messy hair. He pushed back a little, gazing upwards—toward his new chamber, and also the son and father's chamber.
He handed back his Jìng Róu to Mō Qīn, which Mō Qīn swallowed like a cursed bag. "Contact some local curses. If they resist, let them talk to me personally with my own methods."
"As you say. Anything more, Gōngzǐ…?" Mō Qīn waited.
"And lastly, bring me the remaining pieces of the dead bodies and, after I analyze them, send them to the Hàngwō heir directly." Lìngxiāo whispered quickly as he went upstairs calmly, turning at the right side where the father and son's chamber was located.
"Wait, wait, wait." Mō Qīn said, trying to swallow this information. "That kid? Do you not think he is… too young for this? Only eighteen…?"
Lìngxiāo's lips pressed into a thin line of silent boredom. He tangled Mō Qīn around his full arm and looked at him. "Only seven years apart. Their system is different. I do not trust anyone else either."
"But—" Mō Qīn was clipped mid-way.
"Will you go or not?" Lìngxiāo's smile darkened silently, making Mō Qīn's breath hitch as he threw Mō Qīn out of the nearby window.
"You always throw me like I am not a person myself!!" Mō Qīn yelled lastly to him, unheard by everyone.
"Much better…" Lìngxiāo sighed softly, his smile returning to normal, arms behind him as his feet carried him toward Chóng Fēi's room.
'I wonder if he is even conscious or… gone halfway by that guǐ.'
Outside, Mō Qīn landed on the ground, shaking his head, knocking it with the tip of his tail. "Who knows why I still convince him that I do not want to be freed from him…" He huffed before disappearing out of the whole town.