Histoires de fantômes

Chapitre 252

"I'm not Yang Tian, don't go, don't go!" I couldn't help but whisper in response.

"What? Feng, what are you saying?" Gu Qingcheng's smiling face flashed before my eyes, her breath sweet as orchids. She tightened her grip on me, preventing me from leaping forward.

"She's calling me, can you hear her? She's calling me..." Of course, she was calling for "King of Tomb Raiders" Yang Tian, not me. It's just that I possess a certain trait that is extremely similar to my older brother Yang Tian, which is why she mistook me for him, just like that voice from the depths of her heart.

A metallic scent of blood filled my nostrils, and my gaze fell upon the blood-stained blade. I involuntarily shuddered. "Who is she to my brother? I shouldn't have hurt her. Judging from the way she called out 'Yang Tian,' she must have a very deep relationship with him. Isn't he here? Will he come back again?"

My thoughts were in a little turmoil. Her desperate posture immediately reminded me of the unbearable pain of parting from loved ones. Only those who have truly experienced the pain of life and death can understand it. Just like the first second after I learned of Su Lun's disappearance, I was surrounded by ice and could neither think nor move.

"Suren, Suren, Suren, where are you?" Her cries resonated deeply within me, and a sharp pain pierced my stomach, immediately spreading throughout my body.

"Wind, no one is calling out. That's your illusion. Look at me... look into my eyes." Gu Qingcheng smiled gently, her fingertips pinching the web between my thumbs and index fingers. Two sharp pains shot from my arms straight to my brain, instantly waking me up. But the pain in my heart felt like a thorn stuck between my fingers, something I dared not touch.

Her smile was like two beams of warm light, bringing a touch of joy to the boundless gray background.

“Many people hallucinate here. Look, there’s only a tiger ahead. The Dragon Witch has disappeared, hasn’t she?” She took the knife from my hand and sighed leisurely. “In the battle just now, your exquisite swordsmanship has surpassed all cold weapons in the world. My brother once said that you are an extraordinary person, and I believe that statement more and more.”

At the edge of the cliff, only the tiger remained; the swirling mist had already subsided, and the Dragon Witch had vanished.

"Was that really a hallucination?" I couldn't believe it.

“Of course, if you don’t believe me, you can ask Tiger. The enemy fled after you defeated her, so how could she possibly call out to you? Perhaps this time your slash has already ended her life. When two strong forces meet, the brave one wins. Everyone was right about you—” She took out a white silk handkerchief and carefully wiped the blood off the knife.

I approached the tiger, who was crouching down the cliff, peering anxiously. As I drew nearer, he looked up with a sheepish grin and said, "Feng, your kung fu is truly—"

Below the cliff, only the gradually dissipating smoke remained, but as far as the eye could see, everything was still a vast expanse of white, with no clearly defined objects in sight.

“You’ve been hiding a lot.” I didn’t look him in the eye. What could be more heartbreaking than betrayal by a brother? I had already helped him twice in the Egyptian desert, even though I knew he had traveled all that way for that set of “The Yellow Springs Scripture.”

"Tiger, if you still consider me a brother, tell me the truth. Where is Tang Xin? What exactly happened after you entered the Pentagram Array?" I tried my best to keep my tone calm. In this environment, Tiger had become a frightened bird, and any unnecessary pressure would cause him to break down.

The tiger chuckled dryly, revealing a dozen or so fine horizontal lines between its brows.

"Actually, with your intelligence, you can guess some of it. The secrets listed in the scriptures far exceed the rumors spread by the world. It's just that the way the recorder used it was too obscure. Only a girl as intelligent as Xiaoxin could explain it line by line." Tiger's eyes suddenly filled with tenderness when he mentioned Tang Xin.

“Oh? That’s not necessarily true,” Gu Qingcheng interjected.

She stood amidst the blood of Red Devil and Uncle Wei, yet remained calm and composed, as if strolling leisurely.

“Miss Gu, you don’t understand. Xiaoxin is no ordinary person. She bears the great responsibility of reviving the Tang Clan of Sichuan. The special training she received from childhood has already surpassed that of any generation of masters in the Tang Clan. After hundreds of years of silence, the Tang Clan’s ambitions are far more than just unifying the martial arts world. Feng, you should know about the Azure Dragon Society, right? Their leader has always favored Xiaoxin, and has personally visited the Tang Clan several times to urge her to join the Azure Dragon Society—”

The tiger's bitter smile deepened, but his speech was clear, and with each word he uttered, Gu Qingcheng's brows furrowed even more.

Volume Five: The Millennium Labyrinth

Part 1: Deep Underground

— Chapter 4 — The gasp from the walkie-talkie —

I smiled calmly: "I also believe that Miss Tang Xin is an extraordinary girl. The key is that the predicament we are facing has transcended the mortal world. You should also understand that she is in danger now. This place is not only full of poisonous snakes and strange insects, but also some kind of strange radiation source. Tiger, for her sake and for your own, tell us everything."

Everyone has selfish motives, and Tiger must have his own difficulties. I hope he can break free from the vicious cycle of being infatuated with Tang Xin and see the situation clearly.

"A radiation source?" Gu Qingcheng stared at the bloodstains at her feet, then suddenly sighed, "You believe everything that's been said about strange things?"

"Everyone? I only believe in accurate descriptions. Everything has two completely different sides, doesn't it?" I asked with a smile. "We've lingered on this precarious cliff for too long. The next step, whether we move forward or backward, must be based on practical means, not mutual suspicion, right?"

"Yes." Gu Qingcheng smiled. "I'll follow your instructions."

Her smile remained gentle and charming, but what truly lay beneath that beautiful facade? Who could know? Just like the unruly Tang Xin, who appeared breathtakingly beautiful in the eyes of a tiger, what was the real truth behind her?

“Tiger—” I called him in a low voice.

“Feng, actually I didn’t go anywhere below the cliff, nor was I imprisoned in any space. Everything I said was just carefully transmitted over the walkie-talkie.” He spread his hands, shrugged apologetically, avoided my scrutinizing gaze, and peered down the cliff again.

"Oh? What?" Gu Qingcheng was taken aback, but quickly covered it up with a smile.

“Following the guidance of the scriptures, Xiaoxin and I reached the center of the pentagram array. She stopped me from going any further and asked me to be her backup. As I have said, her wisdom is many times greater than mine, and many times I am willing to follow her orders. So I stopped and we kept in touch with each other using walkie-talkies.”

Gu Qingcheng glanced at me, a bitter smile slowly appearing on her face.

I understood what she meant: "A man like Tiger should be Tang Xin's protector, always by her side. How could he possibly back down at the last minute and leave his beloved to face the danger alone?"

“You don’t understand my trust in her. In my heart, her abilities have already surpassed those of earthlings.” I believe the tiger wasn’t exaggerating; his voice was very sincere.

Gu Qingcheng sighed again, about to interrupt, but suddenly shut up.

"At first, her narration on the walkie-talkie was normal, but about thirty minutes later, she let out her first exclamation—"

Tiger's narration was interrupted by Gu Qingcheng's exclamation. She pointed to her feet: "Feng, look! The bloodstains have been absorbed by the stones... These stones can actually absorb blood?"

Sure enough, the ground at her feet turned grayish-white again, and not a single drop of human blood remained.

When Gu Qingcheng raised her head again, her face was deathly pale, and she instinctively reached down to draw her gun, anxiously looking around.

At the scene where two people died, the blood that had flowed out could have stained at least three or four square meters of ground. The Longe witch's bizarre method of killing didn't result in a blood-splattered scene, but the blood wouldn't disappear for a very short time—under normal circumstances. Here, it was a world without time, and everything seemed unusual.

The bloodstains on the ground continued to decrease. Gu Qingcheng took a big step back, took off her right shoe, turned it inside out, and examined the sole. She hissed and gasped, "The blood will disappear? It's being absorbed by the air."

She was standing in a pool of blood just now, so her shoes should have been stained with blood, but now they are completely clean, without even a trace of red.

"What does that prove?" the tiger sneered.

Gu Qingcheng stretched out her left hand, palm open as if trying to catch some air, and muttered to herself, "Liquids can turn into gases under certain conditions; this is a physical law unique to Earth. So, how can blood be absorbed by the air and vanish without any change in the external temperature? What kind of force exists here...?"

When in an unfamiliar environment, people tend to become increasingly ignorant, and the number of questions they ask increases exponentially.

The tiger suddenly became agitated: "Let me finish what I have to say first. Be careful, some things I said on the walkie-talkie are very strange. Maybe you can figure something out!" He rubbed his hands together anxiously and looked down the cliff repeatedly.

Suddenly, a thought struck me: "Tiger, do you think Tang Xin fell off the cliff?" Ever since the Dragon Witch disappeared, he had been standing on the edge of the cliff looking down without changing his position.

Tiger waved his right arm forcefully: "That's right, her first cry of alarm was quite long, just like the cry of someone falling from flat ground into a deep well, becoming more and more faint and faint, lasting for a full fifteen seconds. Anyone who heard that cry would imagine that she had fallen somewhere."

I couldn't help but shake my head in rebuttal. The Tang Clan of Sichuan was renowned throughout the martial arts world for its "poisons, hidden weapons, and light-footed skills." With Tang Xin's martial arts prowess, she would never have been so reckless as to fall off a cliff. If that were the case, the older generation of leaders in the Tang Clan would not have chosen her to lead the situation.

Tiger, being a clever man, immediately explained, "Feng, when I arrived here, I also carefully observed the terrain. With my careful light-footed skills, the possibility of her slipping and falling is extremely small. So this confirms my other guess—she was knocked off the cliff. Because after the first exclamation, she immediately said, 'Tang Qing? The Dragon Witch is you?'"

Gu Qingcheng nodded thoughtfully: "Could what happened here be related to the old grudges of the Tang Clan? Hmm, the situation is getting more and more complicated. Tiger, you said that Tang Xin needs to resolve the negative effects of cultivating the 'Hundred Deaths Divine Art'. Didn't she mention that there is a cure inside the mountain?"

Her keen awareness of the existence of "business opportunities and profits" amidst layers of doubt is somewhat reminiscent of her brother Gu Zhijin's cunning business nature.

Tiger scratched his head: "The contents of the scriptures are too profound. Xiaoxin exhausted all her wisdom to understand only a part of it, but the poison of the 'Hundred Deaths Divine Skill' has already taken effect on her. We can only entrust the scriptures to Song Jiu and then rush here day and night. She said that this place is the gathering point of the essence of heaven and earth, and human potential will be awakened again, just like a computer on the Internet. After being infected, you only need to delete all the files and carry out a system overhaul, and then all the annoying problems will disappear."

"Here? Delete the file? If a person's entire mind is deleted, is that person still the same person?" Gu Qingcheng retorted, frowning.

She wasn't stupid, but it wasn't easy to quickly decipher what the tiger had relayed.

The tiger frowned as well: "You wouldn't understand. Everything a person says is considered truth, and everything else is falsehood. Wind, what do you think?"

I answered, word by word: “All ideas are just a process. What we want is the final result. Don’t worry, they are still alive, and they will live safely forever.”

No matter what Tang Xin has encountered or is currently experiencing, as long as she is alive, that is Tiger's greatest happiness. Similarly, Su Lun's existence will be my greatest motivation to overcome all obstacles.

My words touched a nerve with the tiger, and suddenly, a glimmer of tears appeared deep in his eyes.

A man doesn't easily shed tears, unless he's truly moved. Tang Xin had already taken deep root in his heart; I could feel it from our first meeting at Villa No. 13, the one with the scalpel.

"I'm going down. You two stay here," I ordered again, preparing to use the rope to descend the cliff. If all went well, I should find some answer within a few hours.

Gu Qingcheng raised her hand: "Feng, I have an idea. Let's throw some things down first and see what the reaction is. I'm really worried that there might be a huge snake pit down there, and the consequences would be unimaginable." She didn't shy away from certain ominous words, but simply analyzed the situation in the most concise language.

"Really? Maybe it's a paradise with beautiful mountains and clear waters, fragrant flowers and singing birds!" I hoped to lighten the tense atmosphere that enveloped the three of us with a joke.

Gu Qingcheng raised an eyebrow: "Feng, I admire your courage, but God's luck doesn't always favor the same person. This isn't the Egyptian desert, and there's no brave and decisive female general here to help." There was a hint of bitterness in her tone.

Her thoughts did indeed resonate with mine. When I saw the bloodstains mysteriously disappear, I was reminded of those bizarre events that occurred in the Egyptian desert. Here, the air and stones can absorb bloodstains, while outside the Pyramid of Tsar, the stone walls can absorb bullets. These are strange phenomena that geophysicists have been racking their brains trying to explain.

Thinking of the great god Tu Liehan, with his human body and crocodile head, and his spaceship, the past seems like yesterday, but the person standing beside me has changed from Su Lun to Gu Qingcheng. In my heart, there is no romantic feeling of having a beautiful woman by my side, only endless bitterness.

Su Lun has become a part of my life, and only by finding her can I make up for the huge regret in my heart.

"What are you thinking about?" Gu Qingcheng sighed softly.

Tiger strode over, bent down and lifted half of Uncle Wei's body, and asked loudly, "Is it alright to just throw this down?"

His actions were absurd, since Chinese people uphold the concept of "respect for the dead" and cannot be disrespectful to corpses.

Gu Qingcheng suddenly raised her hand: "Put him down, what are you going to do?"

"Ah?" The tiger cried out in surprise before it could even get up. Its fingers loosened, dropping the piece of carcass, and it leaped backward with a "whoosh," its eyes wide as it stared at me. "Feng, something's wrong! His body... his body has become so light, like... a plastic model..."

Gu Qingcheng sneered in displeasure: "What are you talking about? Disrespect for the dead will bring disaster to three generations. Aren't you afraid?"

She walked slowly toward the corpse, without responding as keenly as she should to the tiger's cry of alarm.

"No, Feng, that corpse weighs no more than ten kilograms. Something strange must have happened again. Why don't you weigh it and see?" Tiger bit his lip in surprise and doubt, rubbing his right paw hard on his clothes.

I quickly walked past Gu Qingcheng and waved to stop her: "Miss Gu, be careful, something's wrong."

A whirlwind arose in mid-air, whipping Gu Qingcheng's long hair wildly. Her face suddenly turned pale, and she stopped abruptly. Just three steps away, Uncle Wei's body tumbled violently in the whirlwind, like a withered leaf falling in late autumn.

Although the wind was strong, it could not possibly have caused the corpse to move. The only explanation is that the corpse had become lighter, weighing approximately the same as a piece of cardboard of the same volume.

"Feng, I really... I really can't imagine it, and I can't explain it." Gu Qingcheng took my arm, as if only in this way could she hide the trembling in her body.

Her hands were cold and slippery. Perhaps what I should do now is hold them and give them the warmest touch, but I slowly pulled away from those beautiful and alluring hands: "Don't be alarmed. The way the corpse has become is quite similar to the 'Star Absorbing Skill' that has been lost to the martial arts world for a long time."

At this moment, I only had Su Lun in my heart, as if she were watching me intently from the shadows, not allowing me to have any romantic thoughts or fantasies.

"Yes, yes, you're right, it's the 'Star Absorbing Skill,' which can absorb the skin, blood, internal energy, and bones of martial arts masters until they are reduced to a thin sheet of paper—" Tiger realized, still feeling lingering fear. "But, during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the last successor of the 'Star Absorbing Skill' was surrounded and killed by the Eight Great Sects in Jiulonggou, northern Shaanxi. How could there be any new evil sect masters who know this kind of martial art?"

I shook my head. Actually, I was just using an analogy. It's not just the "Star Absorbing Technique" that can absorb human energy. In the secret manuals of some gangs during the Han and Tang dynasties, there were already training methods for "absorbing the bones and blood of one's own kind to increase one's own power." Most of these methods were more sophisticated than the "Star Absorbing Technique."

What's happening here has transcended the realm of martial arts. I can only roughly judge that a peculiar force is controlling everything. It can absorb the energy around it in an all-pervasive way, using methods beyond our imagination.

When I grabbed Uncle Wei's body again, it felt only as heavy as a bottle of soda, about half a kilogram. It lay in my palm, truly like a plastic mannequin with only its shell.

The tiger laughed bitterly, "What is this? What is this?"

I'm sure that if it were Tang Xin who had become as light as a feather, he would have gone insane and collapsed long ago.

"This is nothing. As long as we're alive, the exploration will never stop," I replied calmly. Amidst the constant changes, maintaining a resilient mindset is key. I believe I can do it, and I'm sure I'll meet Suren again.

“What you said is very similar to a phrase that my brother relayed that the King of Tomb Raiders, Yang Tian, often said!” Gu Qingcheng revealed a shrewd smile.

"Really?" I walked towards the golden egg, not wanting to continue the conversation. The death of Red Imp was a terrible accident, and what this separated golden egg could bring us, we would never know.

"Your tone of voice is very similar to Yang Tian's, and your arrival seems to be changing the balance of the energy field, right?" Deep in his mind, the man's "inner voice" rang out again, exactly the same as Gu Qingcheng's words.

"Where are you? I need to see you," I answered without hesitation.

"Sure, I'm sure with your composure, you won't be surprised by my strange appearance." He gave a bitter "smile."

I took a deep breath: "No."

“Alright, once you get into that golden egg, I’ll control everything. Your friend is good at decoding, but he lacks the necessary code deduction dictionary, so he only managed to infiltrate the first layer of our Alpha system. He’s still a long way from the core program—” His sentence structure was very fluent, and he used Mandarin with a slight Sichuan-Shaanxi accent, but his pronunciation was basically standard.

In an instant, my judgment of "his" identity was greatly shaken: "Who exactly is he? Square-eyed humans don't exist on Earth unless they are mutated or extraterrestrial beings, but this kind of language ability cannot be mastered in a short time."