Chapter 144: The One And Only Sis
Qu Xingxuan didn’t care where Ren Tongjin was going to check. He grabbed Xuan Xia and immediately complained.
“They deceived me! What welcome feast, they deliberately tricked me into the mountain, there’s a Mountain Mirage Fiend in this mountain! They wanted to lure me into the Mountain Mirage Fiend, to trap me and let me die inside. They’re really… not human!”
“Beasts—” Overwhelmed with emotion, Qu Xingxuan’s voice broke.
Ren Tongjin, who had already walked some distance away, paused upon hearing this, then continued walking forward.
“Alright, I understand.” Xuan Xia frowned.
It was indeed as she had guessed.
Throwing someone into the Illusionary Scenery, she agreed with what Qu Xingxuan had just shouted—truly “beasts”!
Qu Xingxuan sobbed twice more, then remembered the question he still hadn’t gotten an answer to.
“Why are you here too?” He paused. “And with the Ren Family people.”
Right after asking, another thought suddenly popped into his mind, and he cried out in disbelief: “No way, were you tricked in here too? We’re done for, done for, done for…”
Xuan Xia looked at him. If there were a pot in front of him right now, he could probably perform spinning in circles on top of it.
“Shut up.” Xuan Xia scolded lightly. After thinking for a moment, she still explained, “I came in myself.”
“???”
He came in himself? Qu Xingxuan was even more incredulous.
“You came in yourself, what did you come in for? This is a Mountain Mirage Fiend!” After saying this, Qu Xingxuan suddenly fell silent.
The next second, he blinked at Xuan Xia.
Another thought popped into his mind, but he wasn’t sure about it and didn’t dare say it out loud.
Xuan Xia read his expression and smiled at him. “Right, you guessed correctly. I came in here for you.”
“Wah…” Qu Xingxuan cried again.
This time it was from being touched.
No, it should be even more touching than that.
In his heart, he kept repeating: This is a Mountain Mirage Fiend, this is a Mountain Mirage Fiend!
Even the Mystic Sect Cui Family, ranked first among Mystic Sects nowadays, and Old Master Cui, might not be able to resolve a Mountain Mirage Fiend easily!
He had already prepared himself to never get out.
In the end, Xuan Xia had sacrificed herself and come in to accompany him.
“Wah wah… You’re my big sis, my one and only big sis.”
Anyway, it was most likely impossible to get out, so Qu Xingxuan simply acknowledged her as his big sis, leaving no regrets.
The way Xuan Xia looked at him changed, looking at him like he was a fool.
The naturally foolish Qu Xingxuan was oblivious, wiping his tears contentedly while sniffling.
Xuan Xia didn’t want to waste time arguing with this fool about the sibling thing and directly brought the topic back to before.
“I saw you all before I came in. You dragged them in too—well done.”
At this mention, a rare glint of cunning appeared in the crybaby’s eyes. “I’m not an idiot. They underestimated me too much, wanting to trap me here to die. No way—to die, we all die together. Hmph!”
Xuan Xia nodded in agreement.
“They’re all over there now?” Xuan Xia asked again. “What’s over there?”
She glanced again at the winding path. Ren Tongjin had gone that way a while ago—hadn’t he finished checking the situation yet?
Or had he already met up with his brother and was preparing to follow his brother, not coming back.
“There’s a house over there,” Qu Xingxuan said. “They arrived not long ago and hid inside, staying there the whole time.”
Qu Xingxuan had dragged Ren Tongli and the others in here too. Of course, Ren Tongli and company wouldn’t let him go. Luckily, Qu Xingxuan ran fast and wasn’t caught by them.
Afterward, Qu Xingxuan had secretly followed them all the way until they entered the house at the deepest part of the winding path and didn’t come out again.
If he could, Qu Xingxuan would have liked to hide in there with them too, but he knew that if he went in, Ren Tongli definitely wouldn’t let him live, so he could only hide far away here.
Xuan Xia pondered, then asked him again, “You’ve just been cowering here the whole time? Haven’t you encountered that Summer Insect Fungus?”
Qu Xingxuan said, “They encountered it. Following them seems safer instead.”
Probably because he was a smaller target.
Qu Xingxuan felt like he was truly clever again.
But as soon as he thought of the Summer Insect Fungus’s appearance again, his smugness faded.
“That Summer Insect Fungus is really so scary.” As he spoke, a crying tone crept into his voice again.
Xuan Xia: “…”
“No crying, or I’ll drag you to play with the Summer Insect Fungus.” Xuan Xia scared him.
Qu Xingxuan: “…”
To control his emotions, he just had to stop thinking about those scary things.
Qu Xingxuan tried hard to shift his attention, and then he thought of his master Yuan Zhongshu.
“Sis.” He called out. “Does my master know something happened to me?”
Xuan Xia didn’t want to hide it from him. “He’s right outside the mountain. He found out in the middle of the night last night, and early this morning he rushed over. If I hadn’t stopped him, he would’ve come into the mountain himself to find you.”
Afraid his emotions would collapse again, Xuan Xia quickly added: “So you have to go back safe and sound, got it!”
“Wah hmm hmm hmm.” Qu Xingxuan nodded frantically.
But how were they supposed to get out?
Xuan Xia thought for a moment and could only ask the person in front of her who had come in first.
She needed to know everything he had encountered or discovered since coming in.
Qu Xingxuan tried hard to recall. “I haven’t encountered much. They were chased up the mountain by the Summer Insect Fungus the whole way, and I just followed them. Oh, right—I think that house isn’t safe either.”
“How so?”
“Every time it rains, something attacks that house. I heard it.” But because he was too scared, he didn’t dare get too close, so he didn’t know exactly what it was.
He had only occasionally heard Ren Tongli and the others screaming, and cursing.
This Illusionary Scenery was too quiet, almost completely silent, so their screams stood out especially clearly. Qu Xingxuan had also heard sounds like banging on the door.
But it was really strange—they were being targeted and attacked by something, yet Ren Tongli and the others still stayed in the house without changing locations.
“Every time it rains? How many times have you seen it rain since you came in?”
Qu Xingxuan calculated mentally. “About seven or eight times, I think.”
Xuan Xia, however, thought that she had only seen it rain once.
But the Summer Insect Fungus had appeared starting from the rain too.
Was there some connection between them?
“Any other discoveries?” After a pause, Xuan Xia wanted to know more. “Do you know—or have you seen—what the Evil Spirit of this Illusionary Scenery really is?”
Qu Xingxuan shook his head. “I heard that the Evil Spirits in a Mountain Mirage Fiend might not be singular. It could very well be nested like matryoshka dolls.” He even gestured the matryoshka shape.
Xuan Xia said, “This isn’t a Mountain Mirage Fiend.”
“Huh?” Qu Xingxuan was stunned. “How isn’t this a Mountain Mirage Fiend? They all said it was a Mountain Mirage Fiend—who said it’s not?”
Xuan Xia glanced at him and said, “Daoist Master Qin said so.”
“…”
After a few seconds, Qu Xingxuan chimed in: “Y-yeah, it does seem a bit different.”
