Chapter 26: The Great Fire Burns the Tree

  The big fire under the old ghost's constant addition of firewood and grass continued to burn for over an hour, when suddenly all the leaves on the old locust tree fell off at once. Countless falling leaves floated down to the ground, creating a shocking scene: such a large tree with countless leaves had fallen to the ground, covering it thickly, piling up to above the knees of several people.

  Before long the fire spread to the roots of the trees, and the fallen leaves also caught fire. Uncle and Nian Ghost Old Man's group had no choice but to retreat to the open space outside.

  I can only hide in the tree, at this time the bald old locust tree has no leaves, and it looks extremely strange. The area within the roots of the tree on the ground has become a sea of fire, with flames and smoke rushing up to the tree, making me breathe hard and cough constantly, my eyes streaming with tears.

  The fire grew bigger and bigger, with all the fallen leaves catching fire. The sea of flames centered around the tree roots had a diameter of at least 50 meters or more. This was terrible! Even if I could get down, could I run tens of meters in the raging flames? I'm afraid that as soon as I jumped down, my whole body would catch fire and I'd lose my life here.

  The fallen leaves were thin and light, even if there were a lot of them, but the burning time was only about ten minutes. But what's annoying is that at this time, small twigs began to fall down again. It seemed as if countless transparent people were on the tree, constantly breaking off branches and throwing them into the sea of fire below. In the end, all the twigs smaller than an arm fell to the ground, so the fire not only didn't go out, but instead grew even bigger.

  During this time, I was afraid that the branch of the tree would suddenly break off and fall down. Now my position is already at the limit, if I go any further down, I will be roasted by the flames to the soles of my feet. At this moment, the position where I am standing is roughly three stories high, while the fire is rising up to at least one story high. The temperature around me is at least over 60 degrees Celsius. Fortunately, it's February now, and in the wilderness, the nighttime temperature in the mountains is only around ten degrees Celsius or so. Moreover, Tongtong kept blowing cold air on my face from time to time, otherwise I would have fainted from the heat and fallen into the sea of flames below, becoming a roasted human.

  After that, the slightly larger branches did not fall off. The fire had been burning for half an hour and was starting to die down, but the crisis had not passed, on the contrary, it became more urgent. I saw that the roots of the tree were actually on fire. Although several adults could not hug this old locust tree, its roots had been burned by the big fire for nearly two hours, and the water content was estimated to have been dried up long ago. If I didn't go down, it wouldn't take long before the whole tree would catch fire and become a fire tree.

  Now it's like having wolves in front and tigers behind, the old ghost is standing on a barren land without fire, but the tree itself has caught fire, and the flames have reached the fork of the tree. Even if I want to go down, the roots are too charred to climb.

  But I couldn't stay on the tree waiting for the fire to burn myself, so I found a relatively short branch, where there were several vines that came down, but these vines were also about two stories high from the ground, and the shorter ones had all been burned by the fire.

  But I couldn't care about that anymore, jumping from a two-story building wouldn't kill me. Besides, the ground was covered with thick charcoal ash, and since I was holding onto the end of the vine, my actual height above the ground would be reduced by another two meters, considering my height is already 1.6 meters, and raising my hand would add another two meters. Calculating it this way, my actual height above the ground would only be around four meters, if I could die from falling at that height then so be it, besides there was also a thick layer of burnt charcoal ash to cushion my fall.

  I caught a sturdy dragon blood vine, these vines had been smoked by fire for a long time, their roots were all burned away, at this time it was just an ordinary vine, and it wouldn't suddenly bind me. The sundew that can be seen in the wild won't move to catch insects after its roots are gone, I guess they're plants of the same nature.

  I grasped this vine and slid to the end, although I knew it was at most four meters high, but the visual height was still very high, almost six meters, after all, my eyes are on my head.

  Caught Tengzi, still didn't dare to let go, finally couldn't hold on anymore, told Tongtong to come down first, then I closed my eyes and loosened my hand, just experienced the thrilling feeling of weightlessness when people reached the ground.

  When a person is unlucky, even drinking water can choke them to death. I jumped down and my knee hit my own chin, instantly seeing stars, as if both rows of teeth were shattered. With both hands covering my chin, I rolled on the ground, but this roll happened to press onto the still-unextinguished charcoal, scorching me so painfully that I let out a loud cry like a slaughtered pig and jumped up again.

  I jumped down for two reasons: one, the tree wouldn't last much longer; and two, I wanted to jump down and run away. However, I didn't expect to be knocked unconscious by my own knee. I had wasted nearly ten seconds of optimal escape time and no longer had a chance to get away. At this point, the four old men, including Lao Gui, had already rushed in front of me and surrounded me.

  I ended up falling into the hands of the old ghost cultivator after all, whether I live or die is up to fate now!

  The old ghost-raising man took two steps forward and came to my front, spitting out a sentence: "What a clever and brave young man! Old Chen sincerely appreciates you, what a pity!" The old ghost-raising man said while stretching his hand in front of me.

  I raised my head and took a glance at him, the old man who kept ghosts under the fiery light. At such a close distance, I could see that he was probably around sixty years old, rather than the fifty years old I had previously estimated. This person sported two small mustaches that were half black and half white, with a face that somewhat resembled the late famous actor Wu Ma.

  The old ghost stretched out his hand in front of me, no doubt wanting me to voluntarily hand over the thing, lest he take it by force. This showed a certain attitude, if I handed over the little ghost child willingly, that would be considered surrender and respect, and he might not harm my life. But what about Tóng Tóng then? I turned my head to look at Tóng Tóng still on the tree, and then looked back at the old ghost's outstretched hand.

  In the end, I didn't surrender and didn't hand over Xiaogui. Instead, I spat on the palm of the old ghost's hand and immediately pushed down the only woman on my right side, stepping on her to make a run for it.

  Unfortunately, I had only run for less than five steps when I was caught by the shoulder. Turning my head around, it turned out to be my uncle. This is a life-and-death moment, and the person who caught me was actually my uncle. In a state of panic, I called out to him, saying "I'm your nephew, don't you recognize me? Let me go quickly!"

  My uncle didn't seem surprised at all, he just whispered "Run quickly!" and then let me go. He then jumped up with his hands clutching his feet, pretending that the unextinguished charcoal had scalded him.

  However, although my uncle let me go, I didn't have a chance to take a step before being caught by the old ghost, and then two other people took out ropes from their bodies and tied me up tightly, finally hanging me on a small locust tree, with my heels one finger's height off the ground.

  At this time, the old locust tree's fire had spread to the entire tree, becoming a fire tree. The whole mountain valley was illuminated very brightly, and Tongtong on the tree had long since disappeared without a trace.

  After I was hung up, I saw my uncle's anxious face, and the old man who raised the ghost wiped the sputum he spat on his palm back to my mouth, and then gave me a dozen slaps.

  More than a dozen slaps landed on my ears, which were ringing loudly, and I couldn't hear anything else. I felt the blood flowing from my nose, salty in my mouth, while my face was burning with pain, and at that moment it had swollen into a pig's head.

  The old man who raised the ghost slapped me and pulled down the bag on my shoulder, and all the things fell to the ground. These things, in addition to the black baby corpse, also included an ancient bronze dagger, a willow wooden doll, some money, and a yellow cloth with strange characters written on it. The flashlight and phoenix bone needle had fallen to the ground earlier, but I didn't know where they were now, and after being burned by the fire for so long, they probably turned into ashes.

  What surprised me was that the old ghost-raising man bent down and didn't pick up the black baby corpse, nor did he take my magical ancient bronze dagger, but instead picked up the yellow cloth with strange words written all over it and looked at it for a long time.

  This yellow cloth was obtained from the last time digging for gold by the river in Bajiehe, when I returned to dig open the gold but it was gone, only this yellow cloth remained, Tongtong put it into a bag and I never paid attention to it.

  The old man who raised the ghost called that woman to put the ancient bronze dagger, black baby corpse and other objects into a bagua bag, then turned his head to look at me.

  "Just listen to him say one word at a time: 'I, Old Chen, dislike hearing lies the most. You tell me where this yellow cloth comes from, and I'll let you off once and give you a lot of money!'"

  The old devil's tone was calm, but his eyes were sharp and staring at me, as if I said a word wrong, he would eat me on the spot.

  "What makes you think I believe what you're saying? It's all useless anyway!" I forced out a few words.

  At this time, my uncle walked to the side of the old man who raised ghosts, and whispered a few words to him. The old man nodded, then my uncle came in front of me, while the old man and his companions retreated a short distance.

  After my uncle came over, he cut off the rope that was hanging me with one knife. I fell to the ground, but the rope on my body didn't untie it. He gave some food and sent it to my mouth, saying that I had grown so tall, my voice had changed, and I couldn't recognize it anymore. Then he asked me how I ended up here. This Old Man Chen is not an easy person to deal with! How did you provoke him? Fortunately, he's giving you a chance now, let you say where the yellow cloth came from and spare your life this time.

  I didn't feel my stomach was comfortable until I swallowed the food, and I didn't know I was so hungry before. I didn't answer my uncle's question, but instead asked him how he got mixed up with these people, telling him that I came to Guigang to find you because of my grandmother's entrustment.

  My grandmother has been gone for over nine years, and when my uncle heard me say that it was my grandmother who told me to come find him, he thought I had lost my mind and said with a look of disdain, "Your grandmother has been dead for nine years already."

  Grandma possessed the body of my aunt, telling me that you killed Chen Dapao from the neighboring village. I destroyed Chen Dapao's corpse in a mountain cave and turned it into a pile of bones to eliminate evidence. Grandma hopes you can return home and live a good life.

  Uncle heard that Chen's face turned pale in an instant, and then returned to normal, saying that Chen was not killed by him.