Could it be that my mental field can sense things that ordinary people can't see? Ling Yun wondered. Suddenly, he remembered his strange perceptive abilities, which also seemed to originate from his mental field. It seemed that the mental field's function wasn't limited to telekinesis; it had many other wondrous uses that he hadn't yet discovered.
He thought for a moment, then closed his eyes and used his invisible telekinetic power to quickly extend upwards along the wall of the upper floor. In the blink of an eye, he reached the window of Li Lingling's bedroom. After entering the bedroom, his keen senses immediately detected a familiar aura in the room, the very aura that Li Lingling usually gave him.
Ling Yun was both surprised and delighted, immediately understanding the wondrous use of his mental field perception. He could sense the unique aura of anyone he came into contact with, just as everyone's fingerprints were different. Although Li Lingling wasn't in the bedroom, it was her room, and naturally, her unique aura remained, which Ling Yun's mental field had just captured. By tracing the path of Lingling's aura, he could determine where she had gone.
The mental field stretched rapidly through the air like transparent mercury. Li Lingling's aura was very clear and strong in the bedroom, obviously because the owner had lived there for many years. But as soon as she went outside the window, her aura became very weak. Even if Ling Yun tried his best to use his mental power, he could only sense a faint trace of her aura.
This faint trail of energy originated from the window of Li Lingling's bedroom and headed towards the north of the city. The trail disappeared into the darkness, beyond Ling Yun's ability to perceive it.
"Boss, what are you doing? You're even resting with your eyes closed! What should we do?!" Zhang Yunfeng was frantic when he saw Ling Yun with his eyes closed, looking completely lost in thought.
Ling Yun opened his eyes: "Yunfeng, I've found a clue that should lead us to Lingling."
"Really!" Zhang Yunfeng exclaimed with delight. "Boss, you're amazing! Even the police didn't find any clues. How did you find them? Let's hurry and go find Lingling."
"No, you can't go." Ling Yun's expression was more solemn than ever before, because he discovered that the trajectory of that aura was always in the air, which meant that Li Lingling disappeared in the air. She didn't have wings, so how could she fly? There was only one possibility: something must have kidnapped her from the bedroom.
The police and Zhang Yunfeng were ordinary people, so they couldn't possibly imagine that something could abduct someone directly from a high-rise building. They were completely baffled. But Ling Yun was different; his supernatural abilities placed him in a world entirely different from that of ordinary people. Before arriving at the Emperor's Garden, he had even encountered the bizarre incident of a corpse driving a taxi. If even a corpse could be controlled to drive a taxi, what other strange things couldn't happen?
The reason Zhang Yunfeng wasn't allowed to accompany him in investigating Li Lingling's whereabouts was because this matter had transcended the realm of worldly power; Zhang Yunfeng would be useless and only a burden. Even Ling Yun himself felt intense unease. Could he, with his mediocre supernatural abilities, possibly deal with an unknown and terrifying being?
But he had no choice. The kind-hearted boy had already regarded Li Lingling as his best friend, so how could he stand by and watch his best friend be in danger without trying to save her?
Zhang Yunfeng looked at Ling Yun excitedly: "Ling Yun, why won't you let me go? Give me a reason."
"It's very dangerous." Ling Yun didn't know what to say. In fact, he knew nothing about Li Lingling's whereabouts, and he didn't even know if he could continue tracking her based on her scent. A day had passed since her disappearance, and Li Lingling's scent in the air was already very weak. This was only because no one would pass by in the air. If she were on the ground, with people coming and going, she would be impossible to find.
"Aren't you afraid of danger? Besides, how do you know where to find Lingling?" Zhang Yunfeng retorted.
Ling Yun sighed. This was a difficult matter to explain to Zhang Yunfeng. Did he have to reveal his supernatural abilities? He thought for a moment, then turned around and picked up a discarded brick from the ground: "Yunfeng, this is a brick. Can you break it with one punch?"
"Boss, are you out of your mind? This is a brick, not foam. How could I possibly break it?" Zhang Yunfeng was startled, not understanding what Ling Yun meant.
"Then watch closely." Ling Yun said calmly, holding the brick flat with one hand and clenching the other into a fist. He then slammed the brick into the ground with a loud thud. The brick shattered into pieces and was then tossed to the ground by Ling Yun.
"Boss, you really do have kung fu! This must be hard qigong! It's so powerful! How come I've never seen you use it before? You were just pretending to be weak to catch people off guard. No wonder you recovered so quickly after we beat you up last time. You have to teach me!" Zhang Yunfeng exclaimed in surprise and delight.
“Yunfeng, I just want to say that I have martial arts skills, so I can go find Lingling by myself and protect myself if I encounter danger. But you are different. Although you are very good at fighting, you are still just an ordinary person at heart. If we go together and there is danger, I will have to take care of you.” Lingyun ignored his nonsense and patiently explained.
"Boss, I understand. If I go with you, I'm afraid I won't be of much help and might even cause trouble. I'm going home now. Be sure to tell me if you hear anything about Lingling." Zhang Yunfeng understood immediately and changed his tone.
"You need to be careful too, boss. You and Lingling are my best friends. I don't want anything to happen to you two." Zhang Yunfeng kept nagging and giving instructions as he walked back the way he came. It was clear that he was really worried.
Ling Yun watched his departing figure silently, her heart filled with emotion. Over the past month, the three of them had grown very close. Although Zhang Yunfeng had many bad habits and liked to bully others, his greatest strength was his sincerity. He made people feel his kindness and friendship, which touched them deeply.
After locking onto Li Lingling's aura in the air once again with his mental force field, Ling Yun silently continued northward. Fortunately, although Li Lingling's aura was weak, it always left an intermittent trail in the air, so Ling Yun didn't lose his way. After gaining his superpower, his speed became incredibly fast; even on foot, he was almost as fast as a speeding car.
Half an hour later, Ling Yun had already left the city and arrived in a desolate wilderness.
Chapter Eight: A Strange Encounter
Ling Yun glanced back at the city lights twinkling in the distance. He roughly estimated it to be about twenty kilometers from the city center. He had followed Li Lingling's trail for half an hour and arrived here without the slightest fatigue or shortness of breath, as if it were a leisurely stroll. If this were to be seen by the world, it would likely attract a huge uproar.
Although Ling Yun grew up in Tongjiang City, he had never been outside the city before. Therefore, he was quite unfamiliar with this desolate wilderness. Apart from a straight road paved with asphalt, there were wild grasses growing on both sides of the road. Several kilometers away to the left of the road, there were continuous forests, and further away, there were endless mountain ranges that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Li Lingling's aura traced a path that went down to the left and disappeared straight into the dark forest.
In the past, as an ordinary high school senior, he would never have dared to venture into the desolate wilderness at night; he would have scared himself to death. But things were different now. With his newfound abilities, Ling Yun's courage was vastly different. Coupled with youthful passion and enthusiasm, Ling Yun hesitated only briefly before striding confidently into the dark forest.
The night wind rustled the waist-high, nameless wild grass, making a whistling sound. The boy, like a nimble cheetah, appeared and disappeared among the grass, and in a moment he reached the edge of the forest. In a flash, he swiftly entered the forest.
His mental energy field remained firmly locked onto Li Lingling's aura. Due to the desolate and uninhabited nature of the area, Li Lingling's aura was actually much clearer here than in the city. At the same time, Ling Yun also keenly sensed the auras of many unnamed creatures in the forest, but they were all extremely weak and very sensitive. As soon as Ling Yun approached, they immediately fled and hid, clearly small animals that were active in the forest at night.
After a short period of use, Ling Yun gradually became familiar with using his mental field perception. Although his eyesight was not impaired at night, the dense pine forest and numerous unnamed plants still prevented him from effectively seeing distant scenes. However, this problem did not exist when using perception. His invisible perception could easily penetrate the lush forest and detect all auras within the maximum range of Ling Yun's abilities.
Currently, Ling Yun's perception range is approximately forty meters. Beyond forty meters, his perception becomes blurry. However, Ling Yun knows that as his mental energy field strengthens, his perception will become clearer and its range will expand. Moreover, it's entirely possible that a panoramic view will form in his mind!
This forest is extremely vast, extending into the distant mountains. Although they are not famous mountains, they are still hundreds of meters high and rarely visited by people.
After entering the forest, Ling Yun slowed down slightly, but his pace remained fast, almost nonstop. After about half an hour, Ling Yun felt the terrain gradually rise, knowing that he had reached the foot of the mountain and was far from the road, truly in the wilderness. Meanwhile, Li Lingling's aura continued to extend forward, seemingly without end.
When they reached roughly the mountainside, Li Lingling's aura suddenly shifted, plunging diagonally behind a boulder several meters high. The boulder was so enormous it could hardly be called a boulder; it was practically a small cliff. Ling Yun was very puzzled, because from the surface, there seemed to be no space behind the cliff. However, his senses had indeed detected Li Lingling's aura behind it.
Ling Yun carefully turned around the cliff and was taken aback. His vision suddenly opened up, revealing a vast expanse of flat, square terrain behind the cliff, resembling a chessboard on the mountainside. Its neatness and flatness suggested it was not formed naturally. However, what deeply shocked Ling Yun was not this strange terrain.
Because this area is covered with graves, it is actually a burial ground.
If Ling Yun hadn't sensed and detected it, there would have been absolutely no way to discover the cemetery behind the small cliff by sight alone. This cemetery was so well hidden, and Ling Yun could tell at a glance that this purpose was definitely set up by someone with ulterior motives. Otherwise, even though it was far from the city, it would have been hard to guarantee that it wouldn't have been discovered.
The phosphorescent light drifted back and forth in the eerie graveyard like will-o'-the-wisps. Even with Ling Yun's immense courage, he couldn't help but feel his scalp tighten and his heart race. But having already tracked them to this place, there was no reason for him to turn back in fear. Moreover, Ling Yun clearly sensed that Li Lingling's faint breath was in the center of the graveyard.
He slowly walked into the cemetery, feeling the solid, hard texture beneath his feet. Looking down, Ling Yun saw that the ground was made up of neatly arranged rectangular bluestones, but due to the passage of time, thick layers of sand covered them, obscuring the true structure from the outside.
Each grave appeared identical, a perfectly round mound composed entirely of yellow earth. In front of each mound stood a stone tombstone, most of which were dilapidated from age, the characters almost completely eroded by weathering. Even with careful examination, Ling Yun couldn't decipher the writing. However, the two characters at the bottom, though in traditional script, were missing horizontal strokes. Ling Yun, through a combination of guesswork and deduction, could roughly make out that they were the characters for "tomb of [the deceased]". Unfortunately, no date was inscribed on the tombstones.
The characters were still in traditional Chinese, indicating that this cemetery must be very old, though it was unclear when it was built. Ling Yun secretly speculated, moving with extreme caution through the gaps in the cemetery.
The tombs were arranged with remarkable regularity, a fact that Ling Yun keenly sensed. On this almost chessboard-like flat terrain, countless tombs surrounded a massive central burial chamber like stars around the moon. Each ordinary tomb was placed in a fixed position, and together they formed a colossal array of tombs. However, being within the tomb complex, it was impossible to discern its exact shape.
If Ling Yun were looking down at this cemetery from the air, he would be astonished to find that these hundreds of tombs actually form an octagonal shape resembling the Chinese Bagua (Eight Trigrams). Above the cemetery in the night sky, a group of octagonal stars aligns with the eight corners of the cemetery. Although the starlight is faint, it penetrates down, seemingly forming an invisible shroud that covers the entire cemetery.
Ling Yun shivered. His mental energy field suddenly sensed an extremely cold and eerie aura, carrying an unsettling feeling of death and lifelessness. Faintly, it seemed as if countless evil spirits were howling within the gloomy energy. Just moments before, outside the cemetery, the starlight shone brightly and the air was fresh; entering the cemetery felt like entering another world.
A thin mist rose from the cemetery, making all the graves appear indistinct and blurry, as if seen through a veil of blurred glass. This only added to the mystery and eeriness of the cemetery. Ling Yun turned back to look at the path he had come from and was startled. He had only stepped into the cemetery a few dozen meters deep, yet he could no longer see the outside world.
Ling Yun took a deep breath, suddenly closed his eyes, and used only his senses to move slowly towards the tomb in the center of his vision. He had just noticed something strange about this cemetery; it seemed that several ordinary graves had been moved, and the entire cemetery was undergoing subtle changes. He feared that using his ordinary senses might only mislead him and trap him here, so his senses were more reliable.
Upon reaching the central tomb, Ling Yun opened his eyes and discovered that it was incredibly enormous. The other tombs were simply round mounds of yellow mud. This central tomb, however, was entirely constructed of bluestone, measuring twenty meters long and wide, and approximately five meters high. Bluestone staircases ascended from each of the four sides.