"My… my mutt. It didn’t resist, so I managed to read its thoughts," Chi Xue muttered, too embarrassed to meet Ban Xia’s gaze.
"Damn it!" Ban Xia snapped, losing her patience. She stormed over and grabbed Chi Xue by the collar. "Alright, you bleeding-heart saint, I’ll give you one chance. If you can’t read what’s in her mind, I’m going to get serious and force her to talk!"
Chi Xue sliced open his palm and used the blood to draw a strange symbol in the center of his hand. Without hesitation, he pressed his palm against Su Yun’s forehead.
The incantation began, and everything looked surprisingly professional—except for the doubt clearly visible in Chi Xue’s own eyes.
"How’s it going? Did it work?" Ban Xia asked, her impatience mounting.
"No…" Chi Xue frowned. "She’s resisting me. She won’t let me in."
"Alright, saint, you tried. Time for Plan B."
"Let me try again!"
"Enough! We’re out of time."
"Just one more—"
"I said enough! You Huang, handsome as ever, would you mind pulling him away?"
"Wait! The copper coin… the red rust! It’s soil soaked in Chi Lian’s blood!" Chi Xue suddenly shouted, his voice ringing out in the nick of time. "The rust carries Chi Lian’s resentment and connects with the cave’s dark energy. It’s a bridge between the inside and the outside!"
"Through it, Chi Lian can come out. And through it, we can go in. We can return to the cave," he said, his eyes wide as he stared at his hand in disbelief, stunned that he had actually succeeded.
"I have a copper coin I picked up at the Marquis’s residence," Ban Xia said quickly, rummaging through her belongings. "But it doesn’t have any red rust. Could it be that the rust disappears after it’s used?"
"She was just looking for one, wasn’t she? That means there must still be unused copper coins scattered somewhere."
"If it’s meant to be picked up by young, beautiful women, the places it could be are pretty limited—cosmetics shops, clothing stores, jewelry shops," Ban Xia reasoned, her sharp mind working fast.
As she spoke, Su Yun’s face darkened.
Sure enough, when they found a red-rusted copper coin outside a cosmetics shop, Su Yun’s expression turned even grimmer.
"Alright, we’ve got the tool. Now we just need a way to enter the cave," Ban Xia said, elated.
"I’ll do it!" Chi Xue was even more excited, already drawing symbols in his palm again.
"That won’t be necessary." Su Yun finally gave in, her voice carrying a note of grim determination. "I’ll show you the way. On one condition—I’m coming with you."
Before anyone could reply, the red rust turned into a cloud of red smoke that enveloped them. In an instant, they were transported to the cave’s entrance.
The place was suffocatingly dark and eerily silent, except for the overwhelming stench of blood that seemed to crawl over them.
"He’s in the back chamber!" You Huang announced immediately, his sharp senses kicking in. "Xuan Ye’s still alive! Who’s got a firestarter?"
"Not me," Ban Xia and Chi Xue said in unison.
"Damn it!" You Huang muttered, apparently having picked up Ban Xia’s favorite curse.
"Wait…" Ban Xia suddenly remembered something and reached into her pocket, rummaging furiously.
She pulled out her chocolate-bar-shaped cellphone—a miraculous invention from the glorious 21st century.
She pressed the power button. The phone lit up, emitting a bright red glow that neither rain nor wind could extinguish.
With a smug grin, Ban Xia held up the phone triumphantly, signaling for everyone to follow her.
But then something inexplicable happened.
The phone was silent for a moment before it suddenly chimed in a sweet, syrupy voice: "I love chocolate!"
Ban Xia froze.
In the middle of a cave in the Song Dynasty, her phone had just received a text message.
Trying to steady her nerves, she opened the new message, convincing herself it had to be some sort of glitch.
"He and I are in the back chamber. But you cannot come in."
The message stared back at her.
Ban Xia’s hands trembled, and the phone slipped from her grasp, hitting the ground with a loud thud.
“He and I are in the back chamber, but you must not come in.”
As the phone hit the ground, Ban Xia replayed the message in her mind and immediately realized something. She scrambled to pick up her chocolate-shaped phone.
"Are you Xuan Ye? Are you and Chi Lian in the back chamber?" she typed into the phone, her hands trembling. But as soon as she finished, she froze—she had no idea who to send it to.
Then something even stranger happened.
“No, I’m just another person trapped in the cave. My name is Amber.”
The phone began typing on its own, responding to her question as if it had a mind of its own, functioning like a mystical version of Tencent’s QQ messenger.
Ban Xia blinked in disbelief, staring at the screen as if she were in a trance.
The messages continued to appear, one after another:
“This snake demon named Chi Lian is releasing his spiritual energy. Both of us are trapped and injured. If you enter, you’ll die too.”
“He says he’s unbearably lonely and wants to take us all down with him.”
“Please… save me.”
After those three lines, the phone went completely silent. Not another word appeared.
Chi Xue, full of curiosity, sidled over and peered at her. Unable to hold back, he finally asked, “Sister, what are you looking at?”
“This… there’s someone in the cave named Amber… something… it told me we can’t go in.” Ban Xia stammered, struggling to find the words to explain.
“How did it tell you? I didn’t hear anything.”
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