El beso inolvidable de Ghost Lips

Capítulo 39

The old man smiled indifferently and didn't explain anything. The young master couldn't help but mutter that it was nothing out of the ordinary. Huang Zhihua glanced at him, didn't answer, and waved for us all to get out of the way, as he was in charge of the explosion.

With a huge roar, dirt and rocks flew everywhere. We had already kept our distance, but some fine sand still got into our necks. The girl frantically patted herself down, and I joked, "What are you patting for? It'll be much dirtier inside later."

Naturally, my words earned me a glare from the young lady. Once all the stones and dirt flying around in the air had returned to their places, the young master, the young lady, the three scoundrels, and I rushed over. Even the hired servants came over. Huang Zhihua, covered in yellow mud and sand, got up from the ground, wiped his face, and cursed, "Damn it, who set this fuse? It's so short, it's going to kill us!"

The young master and I could no longer hold back and burst into unrestrained laughter. Even Huang Zhihua himself couldn't help but laugh. In the huge pit, the original bluestone had been blasted open, revealing a cave that looked like a well opening. Looking into it from the outside, it was pitch black and you couldn't see anything clearly.

Huang Zhihua took out his wolf-eye flashlight, shone it inside, looked up and said, "It seems there's water in there." As he spoke, he picked up a fist-sized piece of gravel from beside him and threw it in.

With a "thump," it really sounded like something entering the water. The young master and I looked at each other in dismay. There was water below; how were we going to get down?

Hu Lai and Wang Ming had already prepared long ropes. When they saw the ancient tomb, they were like dogs seeing shit, their eyes shining with excitement. Fatty Hu Lai spoke first: "Master, why don't we go down the rope and explore first?"

The old man rolled his eyes at us. My son and I had absolutely no interest in ancient tombs; in fact, we found them terrifying. After all, anyone who had just escaped from one ancient tomb with a vengeance would not have a very good impression of another.

It was Huang Zhihua's first time seeing an ancient tomb, and he probably felt the same way we did back then. He was actually quite excited, which is understandable. Things that are hundreds or even thousands of years old are about to be vividly displayed in front of us, which not only satisfies our curiosity but also gives us a sense of excitement.

Professor Sun also turned his head to look, and Milk seemed to be preparing to go down and find out what was going on.

"Old Xu, hold the rope and let me down to take a look," Huang Zhihua said to me.

I nodded in agreement, thinking it would be good to let him go down and investigate first. I immediately took the rope from Hu Lai, tied it around my waist, and started to go down into the cave.

"Wait..." For some reason, a cold sweat suddenly broke out on my back, and a chill crept into my heart. This scene was very familiar, so familiar that it terrified me. When I went into the water alone, wasn't it the same? I tied the rope around my waist and slowly lowered the rope into the water.

"What's wrong?" the young master asked me, puzzled.

I touched my forehead; it was covered in sweat. My heart was pounding uncontrollably. After thinking for a moment, I said to Huang Zhihua, "Mr. Huang, don't go down yet. If you're going down, we'll all go down together so we can look out for each other."

Chapter Five: The Cry of the Ghosts

Huang Zhihua clearly didn't believe in such things, but he couldn't bear to refuse my good intentions, so he nodded in agreement. I busied myself tying the bronze sword to my back with soft cloth rope. My backpack contained some dry food and water. This time, we were both more careful and brought food to avoid starving to death. We also prepared flashlights, miner's hats, and some other necessary tools.

The maid stretched her arms and legs; she carried the least amount of stuff because the young master had carried most of the items.

Seeing that we were about to go down, the old man from the south told us to wait. As he spoke, he asked Wang Ming to take out three incense sticks, light them, bow to the north while muttering a few words, and then stick the incense sticks in the ground before letting us go down.

Looking at the three thin incense sticks, and thinking about the rules of the Nanpaizi, I couldn't help but pull the old man aside and whisper, "You're not going to make us come out when the incense burns out, are you? One incense stick... at most twenty minutes, we can't get out."

The old man shook his head and frowned, saying that he would wait for us here for seven days. If we still couldn't get out in seven days, he would seal the entrance to the tomb.

I think that's more like it; seven days is enough.

Originally, it was just the young master, the maid, and I entering the tomb chamber, but Huang Zhihua was extremely curious. Under the guise of investigation and research, he insisted on going down to take a look. In fact, didn't he just want to enter the ancient tomb to see for himself? We all knew this in our hearts, but no one said it out loud. In fact, I really hoped that he would come into the tomb chamber with me.

Wang Ming and Hu Lai prepared two long ropes, tied to a rock, with a large clump of bushes attached to the back. The young master and the maid were in one group, while Huang Zhihua and I were in the other. We slid down the ropes and into the hole.

As soon as I entered the cave, I felt a sudden darkness, as if the sunlight had been blocked. The weather was neither cold nor hot, but as I entered the cave, I could clearly feel a chilling aura rising from below, and I couldn't help but shiver.

After climbing down about four or five meters, I stopped and shone my wolf-eye flashlight down. The cave entrance was small on the outside but large on the inside, shaped like a gourd, and about ten meters away from us. In the flashlight beam, it faintly glistened with water, proving that there was indeed water below. The walls on all four sides were made of smooth bluestone, with obvious signs of artificial polishing.

"What's wrong?" Huang Zhihua asked curiously when he saw me stop moving.

"There's water down there, and I don't know how deep it is, or where the entrance is," the young master said, climbing onto the opposite rock face, wearing gloves and holding onto the rope. "Let's go down and take a look first." I watched as the young master and the maid slid down quickly, worried they might recklessly run into danger, so I hurriedly followed them down.

Fortunately, the rope was long enough. We were well prepared this time. When we were only about a meter from the water, the young master and I stopped and shone our flashlights on each other. Looking up, we saw a hole about the size of a bowl above us. A sliver of sunlight shone into the hole, but it was quickly swallowed up by the darkness inside the cave.

When I came down, I paid special attention to the surrounding stone walls. They were all solid pieces, and I didn't see anything unusual. That proved that if this really was the entrance to an ancient tomb, then the entrance must be in the water. Now the problem facing us is—whether or not to go into the water. "Old Xu, you hold the rope, I'll go down and take a look first." Huang Zhihua, as expected of a soldier, had the spirit of leading by example and was busy going into the water.

"Mr. Huang, don't go into the water yet. Let me take a look first." Having had a terrifying experience with the Guangchuan King's tomb last time, I was much more cautious about ancient tombs. As I spoke, I slid down the rope a little further, then grabbed the rope with one hand and pulled it down. I touched the water; it was icy cold, and I couldn't help but shiver. The groundwater was colder than I had expected.

"Ah..." Suddenly, the maid above the young master cried out in surprise. The three of us men were startled and quickly asked what was wrong. The maid's face was very pale, and she pointed tremblingly at the water, unable to speak. I was alarmed. Could there be something in the water? I immediately shone my flashlight in the direction she was pointing. The groundwater wasn't clear; it was even somewhat murky. But water is still transparent, unlike the murky Yellow River. About half a meter below the surface, under the light of our four flashlights, we could vaguely see a figure crouching...

There were people underwater in such a confined space? That was absolutely impossible. I looked up at Huang Zhihua, the guy who always talked about policy from the perspective of the military. He was really something else. Without saying a word, he had already slid down the rope. He didn't even greet me. I just heard a "plop" and saw water splashing everywhere. This guy had just recklessly jumped into the water.

Just as I was about to remind Xiaoxin, Huang Zhihua suddenly cursed, "Damn it, what kind of person set this up? It's deadly!" As he spoke, he actually stood upright in the water. The young master and I were both stunned, but then we both realized that the groundwater wasn't deep at all. It was just that in the darkness, it made people think the water was deep. The water only reached Huang Zhihua's chest. He had jumped down recklessly and almost twisted his ankle. No wonder he was cursing.

Seeing that the water wasn't deep, I jumped in too. My colleague told the young master and maid to stay above ground in case anything happened. Huang Zhihua was quite bold, heading straight for the spot where the "figure" had been. I reminded him to be careful, but he didn't seem to take it seriously. Although the water wasn't deep, we couldn't see clearly what was underwater. "Oh!" Huang Zhihua took a breath, squatted down, and sank.

Helpless, I held my breath and dived down. My colleague shone a flashlight in the water. The opening of this deep well-like hole wasn't very big, maybe five meters in diameter at most. So, we quickly spotted the crouching "figure" underwater. I could clearly see the money. I really had to admire the old man from the south. It seemed we had found the right place.

What kind of human figure is that? It's clearly a bird-shaped vessel, about half the height of a person, with half of its body outside. When viewed underwater, it really does look like a person crouching, while the other half of its body is inside the stone wall. I've seen something like this before in the Guangchuan Mausoleum, also underwater. I should say that this bird-shaped vessel is the entrance to the tomb chamber.

Huang Zhihua looked at me and gestured. I understood what he meant and nodded. He continued to grope forward, touching the bull-shaped bronze vessel here and there, trying to find the mechanism to open it. But no matter how hard he looked, the bird-shaped bronze vessel ignored him. Taking advantage of this moment, I examined it closely by the light of my flashlight. This bird-shaped bronze vessel should be from the same era as the one we saw in the Guangchuan Royal Mausoleum. The bronze casting technique was quite exquisite, and it should be a product of the Western Zhou Dynasty. However, due to being soaked in water for a long time, the surface was severely corroded, and the floral decorations and inscriptions could not be seen, so it was impossible to determine the specific era.

Huang Zhihua struggled for a while without finding anything. I, however, couldn't hold my breath any longer and quickly surfaced, taking a deep breath. I heard the girl's voice in my ear: "Brother Xu, how do we raise it?" "There's a bird-shaped vessel below. The entrance to the tomb is probably here, but we haven't found the opening mechanism yet." Before I could finish speaking, I suddenly felt something was wrong. I seemed to sink abruptly, and then the water beneath my feet seemed to come alive, quickly forming a whirlpool in the middle and flowing down in a very strange way.

"What's going on?" the young master asked urgently. I was startled; Huang Zhihua was still underwater and hadn't surfaced. I hurriedly prepared to call out to him when suddenly, I felt a weight on my foot, as if I were being tightly gripped by a pair of hands, my calf aching terribly. Fortunately, the current quickly receded, and I could see clearly that the person holding my calf was none other than Huang Zhihua. "What happened?" I quickly pulled Huang Zhihua up.

Huang Zhihua's face was deathly pale. I pulled him to his feet, and after a long pause, he said that he didn't know what had happened. Suddenly, his foot slipped, and then something heavy dragged him down. In his haste, he grabbed my foot. Now the water had completely receded, and we didn't know where it had gone. There was a thin layer of sand under our feet, but it felt like we were walking on stones. The surroundings were very calm, so how could we have fallen down like that? The bird statue on the stone wall had now been half-opened, revealing a dark, waist-high opening.

I thought about it for a moment. Could it be that the water flow caused Huang Zhihua to hallucinate? The ground was perfectly flat, and there was no way he could fall. However, Huang Zhihua was a soldier, well-trained. Such a water flow might frighten an ordinary person, but it would definitely not scare him. He couldn't possibly be hallucinating. So—was something really pulling at him just now? Causing him to grab my foot so tightly out of fear?

This place really does have an eerie and strange feel to it.

Seeing that there was no danger, the young master and the maid slid down the rope. The young master first stomped hard on the yellow sand and frowned, saying that this place was very similar to the Yellow River, all sand, probably three inches thick. Below were smooth bluestone slabs like walls, obviously crossed by someone.

The girl exclaimed "Eh!" and looked curiously at the ground. I walked over and looked again. I saw a hole the size of a fist peeking out from under the yellow sand. The young master kicked the sand and found two more similar holes nearby.

"Ah... I see." Huang Zhihua suddenly became clever and explained, "I was wondering what was going on. The water just disappeared like that. Turns out there was an outlet down there."

I frowned and remained silent. Huang Zhihua's explanation did make some sense. These fist-sized holes were the outlets for the water, but where did the water end up? Could there be another secret hidden beneath the stone wall? Moreover, considering it was from the Western Zhou Dynasty, thousands of years ago, how could this mechanism still be so ingenious? Someone must have gone to such lengths to create this; surely it wasn't just to uncover a mystery?

What is the purpose?

At this moment, the young master walked to the bird-shaped statue in front of the stone wall and shone his flashlight inside. However, the cave was pitch black, and he couldn't see anything. To prevent the cave from lacking oxygen, none of the four of us rushed to enter the cave entrance. The maid was meticulous and took out the candles that had been prepared beforehand. She lit one and held it up to the cave entrance to test it. The candle flame only flickered for a moment before burning steadily again.

"You can go in," the maid said softly.

I felt even more uneasy. This underwater cave, sealed off from the ground, actually contained oxygen. And judging from the candle the girl had just held, it was clearly well-ventilated. This proved one thing: this wasn't the only entrance to the tomb; there was another direct route, causing the oxygen to remain inside. For thousands of years, oxygen still lingered in the tomb—this was definitely not a good thing.

Fearing that Huang Zhihua might act rashly, I quickly said, "I'll go first, and you can bring up the rear, young master. Mr. Huang, could you please look after the maid?"

Huang Zhihua readily agreed. To be honest, the current had given him quite a scare when he dived, and he was now more cautious. I took the candle from the girl and bent down, about to crawl into the hole. Huang Zhihua stopped me, pulled a gun out of his pocket, handed it to me, and whispered that he was willing to do anything to complete this mission.

I smiled, feeling a little grateful, took the gun, lit a candle in one hand, and crawled into the cave. The entrance was very small, only about half a person's height. Once inside, the situation improved slightly, barely enough for one person to stand up and walk. The cave walls on both sides were still hard stone, and it was extremely crowded; one couldn't even stretch out their arms.

Huang Zhihua followed behind me, followed by the maid and the young master. I held a lit candle in one hand and a gun in the other, so I couldn't use a flashlight. Huang Zhihua shone the flashlight from behind me. The four of us walked through a dark, narrow passageway, looking a bit like midnight ghosts.

Based on my senses, the passageway wasn't straight. After walking for about ten minutes, my vision blurred, and I clearly felt a gust of cold wind blowing over me. I was instantly terrified and couldn't help but shiver. But the candle in my hand suddenly shot up high with a "whoosh" and then went out before I could even react.

Although Huang Zhihua was shining a flashlight behind me, I still clearly felt a darkness before my eyes, and vaguely saw something flash past in front of me.

"What happened?" Huang Zhihua, who was walking behind me, asked anxiously.

I quickly calmed myself down and frowned, saying, "It's nothing, it seems like the draft here blew out the candle." That gust of wind was so eerie, it sent chills down my spine, but—we're almost twenty meters underground, how could there be any ventilation here?

It makes sense that there might be other ways out besides the Kunlun eye of the storm, but the presence of a clear ventilation shaft twenty meters underground is puzzling. I pulled a lighter out of my backpack. Having learned from our previous experience, we'd taken some waterproofing measures this time, so the lighter was still usable.

With a "click," I pressed the lighter, but to my surprise, the blue flame of this high-performance windproof lighter shot out with a "whoosh" and then went out at an incredibly fast speed.

There's something strange about this place. The flames can't burn, so there are only two possibilities: either there's not enough oxygen in the air, or... I didn't think about it further and just pulled out a gas mask from my backpack and put it on. Seeing me put on my gas mask, the three people behind me also hurriedly pulled out their own and put them on. Although the heavy gas masks were a bit uncomfortable, their lives were the most important thing.

After walking a few more steps, the narrow passage seemed to have come to an end, with a small door appearing, but without any obstruction, leading directly to the other side.

I was filled with curiosity. I had originally thought that the end of the passageway would lead to the tomb chamber, but I never expected that the end of the passageway would look like this. Since I was walking at the front, when I got to the door, I became more cautious and carefully peeked out first to look around. However, the miner's lamp on my head was not very bright, and I could only vaguely make out that it was a large stone chamber, and there seemed to be some other buildings. I couldn't see anything else clearly.

"What's wrong?" Huang Zhihua asked me in a low voice.

There seemed to be a stone chamber ahead, but I didn't know its purpose; it didn't really look like a tomb. I whispered to everyone to be careful, but just then…

"Waaaah..." A series of sobbing cries, extremely mournful, faintly reached my ears. I listened carefully, but couldn't hear anything. I was stunned. The voice sounded like a woman's, crying so pitifully.

"Girl, what's wrong?" I said as I stepped into the stone chamber, took out a flashlight, turned it on, and shone it around.

The three people behind me followed, four pairs of bright flashlights sweeping around the dark underground stone chamber, searching for the secret history of a civilization from a thousand years ago.

The girl looked around and asked me what I had just said. I was puzzled. The girl didn't seem sad at all. Could the sobbing I heard earlier have been her? But besides the three of us men, she was the only woman in the tomb. If it wasn't her, who else could it be?

Could it be...? I dared not think further. Perhaps it was just our imagination. People often hallucinate in overly quiet environments. As I pondered this, I busied myself shining my flashlight around. To be honest, this didn't quite resemble a tomb; it looked more like a dwelling for the living. The entire stone chamber was incredibly massive, with several enormous stone pillars supporting it in the center. Apart from that, there was nothing else in the entire chamber.

I roughly estimated that this stone chamber was over 400 square meters, and it was at least 20 meters from our side to the other. Therefore, I couldn't see the specific scenes on the walls very clearly. My master and I are both tomb raiders. Although I don't want to admit it, the profit-driven nature of businessmen made me a little depressed in this stone chamber because it was too clean. It was so clean that there was nothing I could take with me.

Huang Zhihua was visibly disappointed when he entered the ancient tomb for the first time. Humans have a mysterious curiosity about the unknown. He was thinking about both exploring the ancient tomb and solving the case. For him, finding some strange things in the ancient tomb was a great pleasure in life.

At this moment, Shuangyou's eyes suddenly lit up; in the bright beam of the flashlight, her originally innocent eyes shone with a fervent light...

"Girl, what did you find?" I asked quickly, noticing the strange look on her face. Among the four of us, she was the only one who studied archaeology, so she had the most authority to speak on the matter. "Brother Xu, it's amazing, so beautiful..." she said, reaching out to touch the nearest pillar.

I must say, this stone pillar is about eight or nine meters high, and its diameter is estimated to be over a meter. It's incredibly majestic and imposing, giving off a powerful aura. Standing beneath it, I couldn't help but feel very small. What's even more breathtaking is the intricate patterns and inscriptions carved on it. I could vaguely make out what appeared to be birds—

A variety of birds clung to the stone pillar, but I didn't recognize any of them. Among the patterns were some mosquitoes, which I recognized—these were the oldest bird species… They knew me, but I didn't know them. "Brother Xu! Come and see!" The girl had already turned around the pillar to the other side, urging me to come over. I hurriedly turned around too, following the girl's finger to look at the pillar. There was also a pair of birds there, two pairs of heads, but each pair had a pair of wings. The two birds were clinging to each other, preening their feathers.

Ancient paintings and sculptures often employed pictographic and imaginative descriptions, so I instinctively assumed these were simply the product of the great imagination of the ancient working people. This isn't surprising, given that we are currently in an unknown ancient tomb. These pillars are all made of stone, entirely carved using openwork techniques. The images are not only lifelike but also remarkably three-dimensional. I never knew that such intricate stone carving techniques existed in the Western Zhou Dynasty; this is truly a groundbreaking discovery that has revolutionized the entire archaeological world.

But when antique dealers like myself and the young master see something like this, our only thought is—these stone pillars are national treasures, priceless, it's a pity they can't be moved out, they can only be buried underground forever. "These are lovebirds!" the girl whispered.

"What?!" I was stunned. Just as I was pondering this, the girl looked at the pair of exquisitely carved strange birds and pointed at them, saying to me. I looked up at the two strange birds that resembled neither phoenixes nor peacocks, and after a long pause, I said, "Don't talk nonsense. Legend says that the lovebirds are divine birds, how could they be so ugly?" I wasn't exaggerating when I said these birds were ugly. Due to the exquisite stone carving craftsmanship, the carvings of these birds were very vivid and lifelike. Compared to the other birds on the stone pillar, this so-called lovebird pair looked more like ordinary pheasants, especially their large, even somewhat bloated, bodies, which didn't conform to modern aesthetic standards at all.

Of course, maybe the girl is right. This is the legendary lovebird. Just think about it... If the Buddha statues enshrined in temples today were to come down to earth, they would be ugly monsters with fat heads and intestines. So, the aesthetic sense of the ancients was quite perverse. Just as the girl and I were studying the lovebird, we heard the exclamations of the young master and Huang Zhihua from the side. I was startled and quickly turned around to see the young master holding a flashlight, shining it on a large stone pillar, and having a heated discussion with Huang Zhihua. The girl and I walked over, and as we walked, I began to look around. The thirteen large stone pillars in the huge stone chamber seemed to have no pattern at first glance, but upon closer inspection, I found that the middle stone pillar was obviously thicker and larger than the two on the sides, and the middle stone pillar served as the boundary, dividing the stone chamber into two sides, with six large stone pillars on each side.

Now, Huang Zhihua and the young master were discussing something by the central stone pillar. "Old Xu, you've come at the right time. Look—is this a Qilin or a dragon?" The young master saw me and hurriedly pulled me over to judge. I was stunned. Could it be that these two were actually arguing about the carvings on the stone pillar? This was really quite a pointless argument, but I still followed the young master's gesture and looked over. Because this stone pillar was very large, with a diameter estimated to be over two meters, the carvings on it were relatively intricate.

But strangely enough, I glanced at the stone pillars earlier, and apart from the spider that the girl was looking at, the other stone pillars were all decorated with different birds, beasts, flowers, insects and fish. It could be said that every stone pillar here was carved with everything from the sky, the ocean, the mountains and rivers, and the continent.

On this enormous stone pillar, only a graceful young woman was carved, riding on a monster that resembled both a qilin and a dragon. You could call it a dragon, or a qilin, but there's one crucial point: in ancient Chinese totems, neither qilin nor dragons have wings. This monster, however, possessed two large wings. I examined the stone carving closely; they were indeed wings, not ugly scales. "Old Xu, what are you talking about?" the young master asked again.

"This is nothing," I said coldly, my gaze returning to the woman seated atop the monster. She appeared to be very young, perhaps only fifteen or sixteen. Though a stone sculpture, her elegant and graceful demeanor was remarkably lifelike and realistic.

"So beautiful!" the girl exclaimed. I nodded in agreement. Both the stone carvings and the figures on them were exquisite. If this weren't an ancient tomb, these stone carvings alone would make many people linger.

Huang Zhihua, who had been silent until now, gently patted my shoulder and whispered, "Old Xu, do you think the owner of this tomb might be this young girl?"

Although I have my doubts, in an era like the Western Zhou Dynasty, male power was paramount. A woman, if she was an empress, should have been buried with the emperor. Other women wouldn't have had tombs of such scale and status; such a tomb would be befit the imperial system. Even a princess wouldn't qualify.

What puzzles me even more is that I really can't tell which dynasty the stone carving originated from. It seems different from what I've always known, but I just can't quite put my finger on what's different.

Huang Zhihua said, "It's really strange. People in ancient times didn't have cranes. How did they transport these stone pillars?"

I was stunned, and finally understood the source of the problem—indeed, the ancients did not have modern machinery, so how were these stone pillars transported here, and how was such a huge underground palace built underneath? This is stone carving craftsmanship, and even with large-scale manpower carving, it cannot be completed overnight. If the owner of the tomb is that little girl in the stone carving, does that mean that she was preparing for her underground palace after death from the moment she was born?

Waaaaah...

Suddenly, I clearly heard a mournful cry echoing in the empty stone chamber, chilling and desolate. I felt a chill run down my spine, and my back felt hot as if liquid was seeping out.

"What was that sound?" Huang Zhihua asked me, sounding surprised and uncertain.

I shook my head. When I first entered the stone chamber, I had already heard an extremely eerie crying sound. Hearing it again now sent a chill down my spine. This time, not only Huang Zhihua and I, but even the maid and the young master turned around to look at us. With a soft bang, I clearly heard a bullet whizz past me. Startled, I quickly turned around and saw Huang Zhihua standing behind me, his face pale, his lips trembling, holding a Type 54 pistol, his arm shaking. He had long lost the composure and calmness a soldier should possess.

I followed his gaze and what I saw terrified me—what was that? Right above the central stone pillar, a faint green shadow floated in mid-air. The shadow moved incredibly fast; in the blink of an eye, it slid down the pillar and silently flew behind the girl…

I was shocked. Without thinking, I drew the ancient bronze sword from behind my back and stabbed it fiercely at the girl.

The young master and the maid were facing us, completely unaware of the danger behind them. Seeing me draw my sword and thrust forward, they hurriedly pulled the maid aside, exclaiming, "Old Xu, what's wrong with you...?"

Fortunately, with that pull, the green ghostly figure missed its target, and my ancient bronze sword met it head-on. The maid and young master also turned around and saw the green ghostly figure, both of them greatly surprised.

After the initial shock, Huang Zhihua seemed to have recovered and stood righteously in front of the young master and the maid. I knew I had done something foolish as soon as I thrust out my sword. The green ghostly shadow was elusive and I didn't know what it was, but it was incredibly fast. In just a moment, it had already dodged away and disappeared from my sight.