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墨書 Inktalez
Ma Rulong smiled faintly and did not directly answer the question. Instead, he said, "Actually, it's not too difficult to crack this. As long as we can find the compass, I am confident we can locate that door!"
"You must be joking..." I replied. "If the compass could be found, would you still be in trouble? It probably would have escaped by now."
Ma Rulong chuckled dryly and said, "It's not that we didn't have time... But I'm serious; no matter where the compass is, it can't escape from here. Because the ghost that took the compass must also be here."
I asked, "How can you be so sure?"
Ma Rulong answered, "Because Yin Ling needs a host to continue existing; no spirit can exist alone for too long. If that ghost has really been here for a long time, it means there are burial items from its life here. I remember my master saying that each Old Ghost we captured had different objects associated with them. As long as we find those items, we should be able to locate the compass."
I was overjoyed and asked, "What kind of objects are associated with the Old Ghosts?"
Ma Rulong said, "I don't know..."
Both Qin Senior Sister and I gasped in surprise and stared at him for a while. Ma Rulong seemed a bit annoyed and said, "What are you looking at? If I knew, I would have found it already. Why would I be here chatting with you?"
Qin Senior Sister quickly tried to ease the tension, saying, "It's fine; the items are here anyway. We can take our time to find them!"
I asked her if she dared to touch anything since there were urns everywhere and perhaps Evil Spirits were attached to them. Qin Senior Sister immediately fell silent in fear and after a moment said weakly, "Then I'll just stand by and cheer you on..."
I couldn't help but laugh at her tone and said, "Number 93, fill it up!"
Qin Senior Sister didn't understand and exclaimed in confusion about what I meant. I smiled but didn't explain further, then asked Ma Rulong how we should search. He suggested that since the area was relatively small, we could each take one side and meet in the middle. One thing to note was that those Old Ghosts were captured after being modified on Wangsheng Mountain, so if there were any items left behind, they were likely at lower positions. Unless his master was crazy and preferred to place things at higher locations first.
That wasn't certain either; many places have the belief that burial items should be placed higher up. I couldn't figure out Ma Rulong's master's personality but didn't want to discourage him too much. I thought it best to start searching below first and if we really couldn't find anything, we could reconsider.
So we split up at the corner and searched our respective sides.
Qin Senior Sister looked a bit stunned and asked who she should follow. I thought for a moment; although Ma Rulong admitted that his skills weren't great, he had at least been here for over ten years and was much more familiar with the place than I was. If something were to happen, he would be able to help more than I could. So, rationally speaking, it would be better for Qin Senior Sister to follow Ma Rulong.
After hearing my analysis, Qin Senior Sister agreed it made sense. However, she might have felt a bit guilty about leaving me to explore alone, so she said, "Just be careful. If anything happens, shout loudly, and we'll come to rescue you immediately."
She completely forgot that the corner separated us, and even if I shouted at the top of my lungs on the other side, she wouldn't be able to hear me. But since it was her good intention, there was no need to make things awkward by pointing that out. I smiled and thanked her before walking around the corner. After that, I could no longer hear Ma Rulong or Qin Senior Sister.
To be honest, knowing there were ghosts here and being alone made it impossible not to feel scared. But in order to get out as soon as possible, I had no choice but to muster up my courage.
Fortunately, the place wasn't large; if I moved quickly, I should be able to search most of it in less than an hour. I didn't know what object Ma Rulong was referring to, but I had seen a compass before and thought that as long as it was something round, I would take it out.
I bent down and started feeling around the corners one by one. The mud walls and ground were filled with burial items. I wondered why they didn't just throw them on the ground; why did they have to embed them in the walls? How did they manage to fit them into such hard walls? After some exploration, I realized that the wall must have had various holes of different sizes dug into it long ago. They could hold urns or small objects; some were tightly packed while others could easily be pulled out with a finger.
Ma Rulong had specifically instructed me that the Old Ghost might also use urns, so whenever I encountered one, I had to open it up and check inside.
When I opened the first urn and touched some ashes, I couldn't help but shiver and quickly recited "Amitabha," saying, "I'm sorry; I'm just a bit anxious looking for something and touching randomly. Please don't mind me; after all, I don't even know if you are male or female or old or young..."
I didn't know if the owner of the ashes could hear me. After searching thoroughly without finding the compass, I hurriedly closed the lid. Holding ashes in my hand made me feel uncomfortable all over. But there were so many urns here that I had no choice but to keep searching. Cursing under my breath, I thought that if I had known I'd have to do such a distressing task, I shouldn't have let Qin Senior Sister come along.
I had always thought that burial items should consist of things like combs or wine. But coming here made me realize that burial items could be incredibly varied. Items like underwear, cigarettes, and toys seemed normal enough. There were also quite a few unusual items like toilet paper, belts, slippers, and chopsticks. The most ridiculous was a roll of packing tape; what kind of person would be buried with packing tape? Could they have been a delivery worker...?
Some items were new while others were old. From the numerous objects around me, it was clear that Ma Rulong was indeed quite busy most of the time. In the past, I thought he sometimes acted unreliable, but now it seemed he kept his promises after all.
Although he didn't think much of it, I felt somewhat indignant for him. Why wouldn't he take such a good disciple? At least teach him some useful Daoist Arts, so we wouldn't have to rummage around like scavengers stuck here.
While lost in these thoughts and having searched about halfway through when I suddenly heard Qin Senior Sister ask, "Did you find anything?"
Looking up, I saw she had come over without me noticing. Keeping my head down as I continued searching, I replied, "It's not that easy! The chances are slim on this wall; by the way, how's it going over there with Ma Rulong?"
Qin Senior Sister smiled and said, "I was just about to tell you! He has already found something and asked me to call you over."
I was pleasantly surprised and quickly stood up, asking, "You found it? That was fast!"
Qin Senior Sister nodded and said, "Yeah, I guess we got lucky. You should hurry over there!"
I immediately responded and dashed in that direction. Qin Senior Sister remained where she was, and just as I was about to run past her and around the corner, I suddenly felt a sharp prick on my back, followed by an annoyed voice saying, "You actually have a protective talisman! And a little one too! Wait, huh..."
I turned back in shock to see Qin Senior Sister's face twisted in an odd expression before she dissipated like smoke. I was momentarily stunned and suddenly recalled what Ma Rulong had mentioned earlier about a ghost that liked to impersonate familiar faces to ambush them, revealing its true nature only when it vanished. It dawned on me that Qin Senior Sister was a fake; that ghost had transformed into her likeness to lure me in for an ambush.
But for some reason, it had stopped and mentioned my protective talisman and the "little one."
Standing still for a moment, I realized it must have been the White Olive Amulet I was wearing that blocked its attack. I quickly took it out to inspect it, but it was difficult to see in the darkness whether the Amulet was damaged; it just felt a bit warm. As for what the ghost referred to as the "little one," after some thought, I figured it must be the Ghost Fragment within me.
This ghost was truly terrifying; just a brief touch allowed it to sense the Ghost Fragment hidden deep inside me!
It seemed much more formidable than I had imagined!
I couldn't afford to be careless and certainly didn't want to stay alone here any longer, lest I be deceived again. After rounding the corner, I found Ma Rulong and Qin Senior Sister, who thought I had finished searching already. They were surprised at my speed. I said, "Speed my foot! I didn't find anything and almost got beaten up by that ghost!"
Ma Rulong paused for a moment before bursting into laughter and asking, "Did you encounter it too?"
I replied with a grunt and said, "Forget it; let's not split up anymore. We should stick together. With the three of us together, it can't impersonate anyone else, so it's safer this way."
Ma Rulong hadn't thought of this before, but now that I pointed it out, he readily agreed. He had already taken quite a few hits and had developed some trauma from it.
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