Acai's Sky

Chapter 880 The Little Nun Going Down the Mountain 22

When Ah Cai pushed open the wooden door of the inn, the copper bells on the eaves were ringing in the northwest wind.

The wick of the oil lamp in the main room was caked with lamps, and the dim yellow light cast the window paper into a warm yellow. In the shadows, one could see Xiaojia standing on tiptoe to hang his wet sleeves on the beam, with water still dripping from his trouser legs, leaving several dark marks on the blue brick floor.

A Da leaned against the armchair, wiping his knife. In the reflection of the blade, Xiao Yi was throwing a peanut into his mouth. His aim was not good, and he didn't even notice it fell on his clothes.

"Miss, you're finally back!" Xiao Jia jumped down the stairs in a hurry, making the wooden stairs creak. "I was waiting in the study of the Minister's Mansion today and was almost caught by the old housekeeper."

He shook open the brown paper bag. Seven secret letters were neatly stacked, and the water marks on the corners were still wet. "Feel this paper. Xuelang paper is different. It's ten times smoother than the rice paper we usually use, and the ink color exudes a sense of nobility."

Ah Da's knife clicked into its sheath. The bloodstains on his wrist guard were scratched by thorns when he climbed over the purple wisteria courtyard wall that afternoon. "That basement is really not a place for people to stay. The rockery behind the purple wisteria courtyard looks very impressive, but pushing the stones aside is like opening a coffin. The stale smell is enough to make you choke."

His sleeves whipped up a gust of wind, rustling several talismans on the table. "Inside, red bells are strung like a spider web. When the wind blows, they jingle like someone chanting a mantra for the afterlife in your ear. The statue in the corner is even more outrageous. It has no nose or eyes, and the corners of its mouth are turned up, as if it's smiling. It makes the back of your neck creep."

Ah Er darted out from the corner, his ears still stained with moss from the rockery. "That's right! When I followed him in, the moss beneath my feet was so slippery it felt like stepping on snake skin. The statue's base was engraved with the words 'Tong's Evil Suppression', the strokes tinged with a dark red, as if filled with blood."

He suddenly remembered something and pulled out a piece of burnt black talisman paper from his pocket. "I tore off a talisman before leaving. Look at the pattern here. Is it the same as the soul-locking array depicted in the secret record?"

Xiao Yi slammed the porcelain bottle of truth pills onto the table, scattering peanut shells all over it. "These pills are the best! Today, I caught Old Zhou, the gatekeeper at the Bo's house. I fed him half a pill, and he started gushing out like a floodgate opened. Everything he had was gushing out."

He imitated Old Zhou's tremolo, deliberately hunching his back. "'When the old marquis returned from the lotus pond, his clothes were so wet they could be wrung out, and the swaddling clothes in his arms were still stained with lotus seeds'—so the original owner was fished out of the lotus pond?"

He laughed first and touched another peanut. "They also said that the old marquis has not eaten meat since the Tong family was wiped out. But he stays overnight in his family's ancestral hall on the first day of every month. I heard a woman crying inside, but when I went in, there was nothing there."

Tong Jiayuan tapped the "Tong Family Secret Records" with his fingertips. The gilt on the cover had long since faded to a dark brown, and felt like dried blood. "According to Old Zhou, Xiahou Chun and the old man of the Tong family have been like brothers since they were young. On the night the Tong family was in trouble, the old man stuffed his granddaughter into Xiahou Chun's arms that night—"

He suddenly flipped open the book, and the musty smell mixed with the smell of lamp oil wafted out. "But if you were saving her life, why did you have to replace her with your own great-granddaughter? Could it be that the baby girl was really drowned?"

The page stopped at the "Twin Lotus" page, and the lotus pattern was exactly the same as the birthmark on Ah Cai's shoulder.

00541 jumped onto the table with a whoosh, and his short tail swept through the peanut shells that Xiao Yi had just swept into a pile. "If you ask me, this is a very strange story. Ten years ago, the eldest great-grandson's wife gave birth to twins, and the old marquis threw his own great-granddaughter into the lotus pond and brought back an outsider to raise—"

Its claws pressed against a page of the secret record, its amber eyes gleaming in the light. "Just now, Xiaoyi said that Du Yanran noticed something was wrong with the birthmark, and then she turned around and abused the original owner, and even hired a trafficker to kidnap her. This woman is quite cruel. I'm afraid she already knew that the original owner was a drug inducer and wanted to silence her beforehand."

Ah Cai touched the red lotus birthmark on her shoulder. It had been scratched by a branch while she was practicing martial arts this morning, and a few beads of blood were still seeping out. "What do you think, the old marquis went to such great lengths to exchange children, was it because of this birthmark of mine?"

She suddenly remembered the wisteria flowers she had seen at the Bo Mansion during the day, their petals falling on the stone steps, red as blood. "The secret records say that forbidden techniques require the blood of a close relative. The original owner was a child of the Tong family, and the Xiahou family raised her under their noses. Isn't she a ready-made medicine ingredient?"

Xiaojia suddenly slapped his thigh, startling the dust from the beams. "That's right! The secret letter mentioned 'Red Lotus' and 'Tong Family Case'. The Minister of Personnel is so close to the Bo family, I'm afraid he's already been eyeing the Tong family's secret techniques."

He opened a secret letter, and the wax seal on the edge of the letter was only half a fish shape. "Look at this sentence: 'July 15th, the Soul-Locking Formation in Ziteng Courtyard is complete'. Isn't that the basement that Ah Da mentioned? July 15th is the Ghost Festival, a day when the gates of hell are wide open. Who knows what evil things are going to happen."

Ah Da suddenly lowered his voice, the scabbard of his sword making a dull thud against the ground. "There's words carved into the basement wall. I can vaguely make out 'Tong's Evil Suppression'. There's a jade box hidden in a corner. It looks quite valuable, but unfortunately it's sealed with a spell. I just reached out to touch it, and it immediately started to smoke, like burning hair."

He looked at Ah Cai with a grave expression, "The old marquis is already eighty-eight years old, yet he looks more energetic than the average old man. Perhaps he's used some kind of sorcery to extend his life by using the original owner's soul."

Xiao Yi leaned closer again, lowering his voice mysteriously. "Old Zhou also said that the name of the baby girl who drowned ten years ago isn't mentioned in the Bo family genealogy. Instead, the original owner's name is written neatly, with 'Red Lotus Fate' next to it. Yesterday, when he was secretly flipping through the family tree, he discovered that the Xiahou family has been donating two hundred taels of silver to the Charity Hall in the west of the city on the fifth day of every month since five years ago. I don't know who they're supporting."

00541 suddenly sneezed, and pawed at the secret record to flip through the pages. "Hey, this page! 'The soul-borrowing technique requires a virgin of the same bloodline as the guide, and the soul must be nurtured for seven years before it can be achieved.'"—the original owner was brought into the Xiahou family exactly ten years ago. Could it be that after Cheng Yanran discovered the birthmark, the old marquis was afraid she would cause trouble, so he tacitly allowed her to abuse the original owner, forcing her soul to become unstable and easier to attack?"

Its short tail swung round and round. "But Du Yanran is not stupid. I'm afraid she has already colluded with the Red Lotus Sect and wants to get the original owner's soul before the old marquis."

Tong Jiayuan's finger suddenly stopped on a lotus formation diagram. The three characters "Twin Lotus" were still freshly etched in cinnabar between the petals. "The most sinister thing is this 'Nine-Turn Soul-Snatching Technique'. It requires the souls of twin sisters as a guide, one bright, one dark, each acting as a cauldron. Ten years ago, the twins of the Xiahou family, one was swapped and raised in the open, the other was 'drowned' and hidden in the dark—"

He looked up at Ah Cai, his eyes sparkling. "Perhaps the one who drowned wasn't dead at all, but was hidden somewhere by the old marquis, waiting to pair up with the one who's out in the open."