I felt like my body was suspended in the air. The feeling of weightlessness was completely different from the usual elevator ride.
I was about to feel this feeling carefully, but a warm current came from all around my body and swept through my whole body instantly.
I am very familiar with this feeling. After being hooked by someone in our dormitory, Zhang Hazi and I finally jumped to the second floor with a kick like this. , kicked me downstairs, that’s how I felt at that time.
I know that this is my soul returning to my body - in fact, I have woken up from the dream and my body has resumed its physical functions.
As soon as I opened my eyes, I saw an old-fashioned razor reaching towards my face, and the owner of the razor was a gray-haired old man whom I had never seen before.
Seeing that the razor was about to poke me in the face, I moved my head to the left, bowed and raised my feet, and without saying a word, I kicked the old man in the stomach, kicking him back several steps, and kept hitting him. He didn't stop until he reached the table.
Only then did I see Wu Tinghan and Zhang Hazi lying on both sides of the table. On the ground not far away, there was Wang Minghua, and a long scroll that had been opened a little by someone.
Not only that, there is a faint fragrance in the room, which smells very comfortable and makes people calm down easily.
This is the incense that condenses the spirit. It is often seen in temples. Zhang Hazi also sells it in the paper-making shop in Yuzhou. However, the fragrance in this room is very strong, obviously much more than the normal dose. But precisely because it was so common, neither Zhang Hazi nor I paid attention to it before.
Zhang Hazi was right, we were indeed in a dream just now.
I saw the old man bumping into the table, his expression obviously stunned, but his body seemed to be fine. He just reached out and patted the footprints on his stomach, and then stood up straight.
His action made me frown. Because the kick I just kicked was not heavy due to the angle and posture, but it was definitely not light either. If it were an ordinary person, receiving such a kick would not be fatal, but it would be absolutely impossible for him to stand up straight so quickly.
I stood up from the bed - it was said to be a bed, but it was actually a door panel placed on two benches. It looked a lot like the way people in the countryside would lay their bodies in the main room after death. While I was sizing him up, he was sizing me up.
Before I even asked, he spoke first and said, "It is indeed a soul-calming bell. Not even a dream can trap you."
A dream about yellow beams should be his crafty method of trapping us in dreams. I haven't thought of how to operate it specifically, and I haven't heard anyone talk about it before.
I asked him, who are you? Why target us?
He said, I'm just taking back something that belongs to me, why am I targeting you? As for who I am, didn’t we just meet?
Zhang Hazi guessed correctly again. The one who dealt with us was really Chen Siqing's father. And judging from his actions just now, this guy is really trying to hit me in the face!
However, even if Chen Siqing's father was ten years old when he died, he was only sixty-five years old now, so he would never have aged like this.
So I asked again, who are you?
He smiled and said, if it was Zhang Hazi, he should have guessed my identity by now.
I knew he was laughing at me, but instead of getting angry, I kept myself calm and analyzed the current situation. After all, the most important thing now is, why am I the only one among the four who woke up?
Since Zhang Hazi can wake me up with a kick, he should be able to wake up the other two as well. Why haven't I woke up yet?
The old man saw me looking behind him, so he looked back, and then said to me with a smile, "Don't wait, they won't be able to wake up anyway without my consent."
When I heard this, I snorted coldly and said, "Are you too arrogant?" How did I wake up?
The old man didn't say anything, but brought a chair and sat at the table minding his own business, still holding the old-fashioned razor in his hand. Then he asked me, "What do you think?"
Seeing his confident look, I immediately understood that the reason why I woke up was not because of Zhang Hazi's kick, but because this old guy wanted me to wake up.
But what good would it do to wake me up? Wouldn't it be better to let me lie down and lie down? Now that I've woken up, he himself has to be kicked. This deal is not worth it.
But he shook his head and said, if you don't wake up, I won't be able to get back what belongs to me.
Hearing this, I lowered my head and glanced at the soul-suppressing bell around my neck, and then realized that when I was sleeping, he didn't think of taking action, but was blocked by the soul-suppressing bell. And the heat wave I felt in the dream should be the warning of the soul-killing bell.
However, you couldn't peel off my face when I was asleep. Now that I'm awake, it's even more impossible, right?
He smiled confidently and shook his head, saying that it depends on how deep your relationship is with them.
While he was talking, he held the razor in his hand and scratched Wu Tinghan's face with the back of the razor. Then he said, tell me, if I stab her with this knife, will Zhang Hazi be able to restore her to her original state?
There are certainly ways to do it, and they are guaranteed to leave no scars. But that place should not be touched by water in the future, and the pain involved cannot be described in words.
But that's not the most important thing. The most painful thing is that since he could cut Wu Tinghan's face, he could also use the razor to cut their throats before I rushed over to stop them.
This is the real reason why that guy woke me up!
He just wanted to force me to make a choice—either I peel off my face myself, or I watch the two of them die in front of me.
To put it simply, I would peel off my own face and die, and let the two of them live.
A three-year-old child can do this multiple-choice question of one life for two lives, so I naturally wouldn't hesitate. But the question now is, how can I guarantee that you will keep your promise and let the two of them come out after I die?
The old man said, now it's not a question of whether I can give you a guarantee, but that you have no choice at all. After all, if I want them to die now, they have to die.
Unless I can kill this old man with one blow, he can cut off the necks of Zhang Hazi and Wu Tinghan with just a slight raise of his hand.
After all, I really have no other choice.
I glanced at the bamboo knife on the table and said, throw the knife over.
The old man obviously didn't expect me to be so cheerful. After looking stunned for a moment, he remained silent for a few seconds before throwing the bamboo strips at my feet.
I picked up the bamboo knife, put it across my neck, and made a motion of wiping my neck. I didn't wipe it off, but I accidentally touched the soul-calming bell, but luckily it didn't ring. Otherwise, the old guy will definitely think that I am playing tricks, and maybe he will cut Wu Tinghan's face with a knife.
I put down the sword, looked at the old man, and said, I can have this face, but I want to die clearly.
The old man thought for a while and said, yes, but I don't have time to play a question-and-answer game with you. You can only ask three questions at most.
I nodded and asked him, who are you?
He said, I am Chen Siqing’s father, Chen Enren.
I asked again, what about your body...?
He said, this is the body of my father, Chen Youwei. You have one last question.
I thought about it and said, isn't he already dead? Are you still proficient in the art of exorcising corpses?
He said, you have two questions, but since you are about to die, I will give you one for free. He is indeed dead, otherwise I would not have appeared. As for the art of exorcising corpses, this is the secret skill of your Luo family. No one except you surnamed Luo knows it.
I nodded and said, I understand, so you are resurrecting a dead body?
He didn't answer, just shook his head, looked at me with a smile on his face, and said, it's better not to push yourself too far.
I shrugged and said, but my grandfather often taught me that I should be proactive and never give up halfway.
He narrowed his eyes and said, So are you planning to go back on your promise?
Let me tell you, you can threaten me with their lives, why can't I go back on my word?
He touched the razor in his hand, and the eerie light revealed the edge of its blade.
He said, do you really not care about their life or death?
I shook my head and said, you are wrong. It’s not that I don’t care, but that I know that even if I peel off my face to you, you will not let them go. As long as I'm alive, you don't dare to attack them. After all, without them as bargaining chips, I don't believe that your old and disabled body can beat me!
He smiled and said, I remember you are just a college student studying Chinese, right? When did you still practice Jiazi?
I also smiled and said, in five years, although I am not very proficient, I am still more than enough to deal with you. Besides, there are many things you don’t know, not just the matter of me abandoning literature and embracing martial arts?
He was a little surprised, with a hint of panic in his expression, and then he asked tentatively, "Isn't it just some superficial craftsmanship? Besides, what else do you do?"
The smile on my face still remains unabated. Tell me, you just said it yourself. Could it be that you haven’t thought of it yet?
He frowned in thought, then looked at me with wide eyes for a moment and said, have you learned the art of exorcising corpses? Impossible, how could Luo Chaoting...?
Before he could finish speaking, I nodded and asked him with a smile, tell me, do you think people who sleep to death are similar to corpses?
After saying that, I held the soul-calming bell in my left hand and struck it hard on the blade of the bamboo knife. I quickly murmured in a low voice: Thick earth, vast sky, faint yellow spring, green bamboo,... ... Thousands of mountains are covered with gold, and the troops are withdrawn!
I know the art of exorcizing corpses. I am calling the gold to retreat, and let the souls of Zhang Hazi and the three of them come back to their original places from their dreams!
"How long will it take for you to be a master in your house?" Before Zhang Hazi even raised his head, he was already shouting curses.
When the old man saw this, he no longer hesitated and stretched out his hand to slit Zhang Hazi's throat. As a result, the whole table was suddenly lifted up and hit the old man hard, causing his head to bleed immediately.
Zhang Hazi looked at the old man who was knocked to the ground, snorted coldly and said, "I'm a bastard in your house. Even I dare to sneak attack. Do you think you are a genius?"
