Chapter 25: The Spiritual Snake and the Tree Spirit

  The blue little snake's two snake heads' four eyes were filled with resentment and coldness, through this chill I could even see that these were not the kind of eyes a snake should have. These were completely human eyes, the eyes of someone who seemed to be full of resentment towards everything in the world, only humans, such high-level animals, can reveal this kind of gaze that seems capable of killing.

  That blue spirit snake stared at me for over ten seconds, then suddenly shot over. Although I was on guard against its sudden attack, its speed was too fast, so fast that I couldn't react in time.

  But it's not that easy, this spirit snake is fast, but it didn't get its way. It was caught by Tiantian in his hand less than 20 centimeters away from my forehead. At this time, the spirit snake was struggling like an earthworm being held in someone's hand. Although the spirit snake was small, it looked scary enough. I saw Tiantian open his bloody mouth and put the snake inside, but no matter how hard he bit, it was like chewing on a rubber band, unable to bite off this little blue snake.

  Tongtong suddenly opened her bloody big mouth, the corners of her mouth splitting to both sides of her ears. That look really scared me out of my wits. The last time I saw her open her bloody big mouth was by the riverbank in Jiangjin, when she bit my leg and dragged me into the water.

  The child bit the snake but didn't let go, and instead held it in her hand. Although the spirit snake was ferocious, it posed no threat to the child. She brought the snake in front of me and told me to take the phoenix bone needle and stab it into the snake's mouth. However, I had one hand holding the flashlight and the other holding a branch, so it wasn't very convenient for me. I bit the flashlight between my teeth and took out the phoenix bone needle from the bag on my shoulder. Just as I was about to do it, the child suddenly shouted "Be careful!" Before I could react, something covered my head, and all I felt was a sticky and icy cold sensation that made it impossible for me to breathe, like putting my head into a bucket of ice cream.

  This sudden change left me with no more than half a second to react, my hands instinctively grasped my head, and the flashlight, compass, and everything else fell to the ground. After releasing the branch I was holding onto, I suddenly lost my balance and tumbled downwards. It's all over! Am I really going to die here?

  Falling from the top of a five or six story building, can you not die? Even if you're lucky enough to survive, your life will be ruined, and you'll have to spend the rest of it in a wheelchair.

  When my toes left the branch and my body started falling, I was really desperate. Life is just like this! I wanted to call Tiantian, but I couldn't open my mouth at all. My head was shrouded in black fog, and I couldn't see anything. This is a despair that chills the soul. The surroundings were very dark and very cold. I fell like this, desperately and helplessly waiting for the moment when I would hit the ground.

  I felt like I had fallen for a very long time, but I didn't hit the ground. Suddenly, there was a bright light above my head, and I saw my mother who had passed away thirteen years ago. My mother left when I was two years old, in 1978, and there were no photos of her. My grandparents never mentioned her, and I had no impression of her at all, but I often dreamed of her.

  But I knew it was my mother, because behind her stood my deceased grandparents, who had passed away nine years ago. They all appeared simultaneously in the sky above the trees, as if to welcome me. The image of her that I saw at this moment was so clear! Her face was filled with a happy smile, and she was stretching out both hands to greet me with an embrace, while my grandparents were smiling benevolently behind her, as if the person in front of them was a toddler taking their first steps.

  I stretched out my hand to let them come and pull me, but the scene in front of me turned into Zhang Shen's wife. I saw her disheveled hair at this moment, squatting in front of a bread stall, staring at the white and chubby bread and drooling. She seemed to have gone mad.

  These feelings that suddenly appeared have existed for a long time, but they seem to have only lasted 0.01 seconds, and in the end, they all disappeared, just like the things the little match girl saw, ultimately just an illusion.

  After my mom and my grandparents Zhang Shenpo disappeared, I felt myself falling again. I could see several flashlights shining up from under the trees, indicating that the thing was no longer covering my head.

  But what's the use! Who can make me suddenly grow a pair of wings, just when I thought this time was definitely hopeless, my body transmitted a severe pain like a waist cut.

  Originally, my body hit a thick branch as big as an arm below, but the branch was not broken, and instead, it bounced me up after being pressed by my heavy body. The buffering of this branch eliminated my downward fall, and I endured the severe pain in my waist, grabbed the branch before falling again, and hung on the tree like doing a pull-up.

  Although I grasped the branch, and knew that once I let go I would fall to my death, I still couldn't hold onto the branch for a few seconds. The intense pain in my body made my hands go limp, holding onto the branch was just an instinctive reaction to survive, but I didn't have the strength to do so.

  After loosening the grip on the branch, another severe pain came to my foot, as if the entire leg was being pulled down by a horse with a rope.

  I, who was tortured to the point of being half-dead, still had consciousness and felt myself come to a stop. The light from the flashlights on the tree roots shone up, and I saw that my right leg had been tied up by the dragon blood vine at some unknown time. At this moment, I was hanging upside down in mid-air, just like a fish that had been hooked out of the water - what great luck!

  I indeed became a lucky person after narrowly escaping a fatal disaster, just like what Zhang Sheng said. Since being pulled into the water by Tiantian, I have faced several extremely dangerous situations, but managed to get through them all.

  The Dragon Blood Vine has been a trouble from the start, originally I was running away but somehow got tied up by these vines, and now they cleverly saved my life. The old ghost master and others thought that this time I would definitely fall to death, but instead I performed such an act for them to see, making them curse while also marveling at how big my luck is.

  At this moment, I was hung upside down by the Dragon Blood Vine at a height of about three floors, and several flashlights shone on me, dazzling my eyes. I was also searching for Tiantian's figure. I didn't see Tiantian, but saw that black fog floating just two meters away from me.

  Isn't this the missing tree spirit? I reckon when this ghost thing and Xiao Gui escaped into the mountain valley, Xiao Gui was tied up by the Dragon Blood Vine, while the tree spirit went to find Nourishing Ghost Old Man!

  I hung in mid-air like a fish pulled out of the water, and the tree spirit knew I had no ability to counterattack and was not afraid of me, and was floating towards me. I desperately spat at the tree spirit, but it had no effect at all. Just as another wave of despair arose in my heart, I saw Tongtong suddenly dive down from above and charge head-on into the black mist that was the tree spirit.

  Tongtong was fighting with the tree spirit on top of Ah Po's thatched hut and wasn't gaining the upper hand, I was a bit worried about her, so I shouted several times, but she didn't pay any attention to me. I don't know if she got rid of that snake spirit or not, it's also a very dangerous character, taking my life is just a matter of minutes.

  Tongtong and Hei Wu started fighting again, the scene was not impressive. The tree spirit remained motionless, while Tongtong's body was covered by the black fog, only his two small legs were exposed, just like a large black mushroom.

  They remained like this for several minutes, and then the black mist of the tree spirit suddenly dispersed into dozens of basketball-sized black masses. After these black masses scattered, they slowly turned into many ghostly shadows. These ghostly shadows included those of old men, women, amputees, fat ones, thin ones, probably all the lonely ghosts buried in the grave at the foot of the mountain.

  Tongtong was not afraid, but rather let out a sigh of relief. She saw her crawl into the slanting cloth bag on my shoulder, which I had slung over my shoulder and hadn't fallen off the tree. After Tongtong crawled into the bag, she came out again after a while, and found that she had an extra bead in her hand - the eyeball of the stone duck at the bottom of the mountain pool.

  Tongtong swallowed the pearl into his belly, then puckered up his mouth and sucked in. A strange thing happened, those dozens of ghostly shadows were like swirling smoke being sucked away by a vacuum cleaner, all of them were sucked into Tongtong's mouth.

  This left me staring in amazement, I even forgot about the pain in my body and couldn't help but applaud. I think the five people under the tree were also staring in amazement, their flashlights all shining on this. And that old ghost-raising man was even more ridiculous, only hearing him shouting non-stop "Little Tongtong, my fish demon! How did you become so powerful?"

  This patch of pagoda tree forest is an extremely rare gathering place for yin energy, where any ghost will be unable to hide. Even people with very strong yang energy can see them, so those four people could also see Tóng Tóng. Of course, perhaps those three people were not ordinary individuals, but if Uncle weren't in this forest, he definitely wouldn't have been able to see Tóng Tóng. Therefore, there are only two reasons why some people can see ghosts: one is due to their own circumstances, and the other is due to environmental factors.

  Tongtong then picked up the tree spirit and only told me that the spiritual snake had been caught by her and thrown outside the forest, and it would take some time to come back. After Tongtong finished speaking, she pushed my body and shook it, and after a few times, I grabbed a branch, took out an ancient bronze dagger from my bag, cut off the rattan on my feet, and lay on the branch panting.

  This was just the beginning of the old ghost's move, and I was already injured to the point of being half-dead, while the old ghost and his companions were fine, having only lost a tree spirit. How would they respond next?

  I asked Tóng Tóng how she could use that pearl, and Tóng Tóng said it was probably because the pearl was a duck's eye, so it didn't pose a threat to her but could absorb other ghosts, so she decided to try using it against the tree spirit. As a result, unexpectedly, it really worked.

  As I was talking to Tiantian, the old ghost ordered ten people beside him to go find some dry firewood and hay, piling them all at the base of the tree. They were going to burn the tree - something I had never expected, and it suddenly made me anxious again.

  Four people under the tree soon found many dry branches and leaves, all piled at the base of the tree. The old ghost-herder lit a fire. Those few people kept bringing back dry branches to throw into the fire, the flames getting bigger and bigger, rising up three or four meters high.

  The fire illuminated nearly half of the pagoda tree forest, and within sight, every pagoda tree's dragon blood vine was flailing about wildly as if blown by a strong gust of wind. Seeing this scene, I don't know why, but I had a feeling that something big was going to happen.