If his relationship with Zhang Chen had not been like fire and water, he might truly have believed the ghostly nonsense outside and opened the door!
Inside the room, Zhang Chen gripped an inkstone, his eyes fixed on the door with wary vigilance in them. His body trembled faintly. "I never thought the plots from storybooks would really appear in real life."
Little Fox stared at the door, listening to the increasingly frantic knocking outside. Her eyes rolled endlessly as she cursed inwardly, Damn it, wasn't this thing badly injured by Zhang Chen last time? Why has it come to trouble me again? This can't go on. Am I supposed to carry the essays in my mouth and run next door every day?
The knocking outside grew more urgent, and Little Fox spun anxiously in circles. As her eyes turned, she suddenly spotted the hole Zhang Chen had plugged in the shared wall. A flash of golden light burst from her fox eyes. The next moment, a needle from Zhang Chen's sewing basket flew up like a bullet leaving the barrel, accurately piercing the hole and reopening the passage Zhang Chen had drilled through.
She did not stop there. Little Fox controlled the steel needle as it darted back and forth through the wall. In the blink of an eye, more than thirty holes appeared across its surface.
The shared wall was too large, and those thirty-odd holes were hardly noticeable. They looked as though insects and ants had gnawed them out; even upon close inspection, they would be difficult to detect.
"Perfect! I, NanNan of Qingqiu, really am a little genius!" Little Fox looked at the holes in the wall with pride in her eyes. Then she looked at Zhang Chen, cold sweat streaming down his forehead, and guilt flashed through her gaze. The next instant, she sprang out and slammed into the door bolt.
"Don't!" Seeing Little Fox's movement, Zhang Chen cried out, scared out of his wits. He wanted to rush over and stop her, but he was too late.
Bang!
The door was violently thrown open. Little Fox was sent tumbling away as a gust of black wind blew into the room. At that moment, an invisible aura passed through the holes in the wall, stimulating a burst of golden light from Zhang Chen's entire body.
That golden light was invisible to mortal eyes. It passed directly through the cracks in the wall and shot into Zhang Chen's room.
"Ah!"
A scream rang out from within the black wind. Then the wind and sand vanished, and every strange phenomenon disappeared without a trace.
Outside, all was calm and peaceful. Inside, the lamps still burned as before. Only the swaying door seemed to tell them that what had just happened had not been an illusion.
"What was that?" Zhang Chen was dumbfounded. Looking at the inkstone in his hand, confusion filled his eyes as he muttered softly, "Did I drive that ghostly thing away? Or is this inkstone some treasure that can injure the strange?"
Little Fox rolled her eyes at his words and muttered to herself, If it weren't for this immortal maiden, you would have been eaten long ago!
Zhang Chen knew nothing of what had happened next door and was completely unaffected. He rose unsteadily, feeling refreshed and full of energy. After washing up, he chewed on dried meat as he headed into the mountains.
He happened to catch two pheasants along the way. When Zhang Chen returned to the Ancient Tomb, he looked at the stone tablet and froze on the spot.
"What's going on?"
Two huge clusters of Experience Points flickered beneath the stone tablet. More importantly, blood had begun to seep from the writing on the tablet again.
"Why is it bleeding again?" Zhang Chen looked at the blood continuously seeping from the stone tablet, surprise flashing in his eyes. Then he looked at the two enormous clusters of Experience Points on the ground, even more astonished: Experience Points +150.
Both clusters contained one hundred and fifty points, which was already equal to Zhang Chen's current daily income.
Zhang Chen stepped forward and collected the Experience Points. Then the Golden Finger Interface refreshed:
Name: Zhang Chen Skill 1 (Tier 2): Light of the Righteous God (0/5000) Skill 2 (Unranked): Dragon Qi (0/2000) Points: 3350
"This stone tablet seems rather strange." Zhang Chen circled the stone tablet once. Then, on a sudden whim, golden light flashed in his eyes. As he looked at the tablet, astonishment appeared in his gaze. "What a powerful phenomenon!"
It had been mentioned before that Zhang Chen could see the "qi" flowing around strange beings. For instance, golden aura flowed around Zhang Chen himself, while clear green aura flowed around Little Fox. Yet blood-red aura was flowing around the stone tablet before him.
Pure blood-red! It was red like a mass of writhing, viscous blood. It was the first time Zhang Chen had ever seen qi with such thickness.
"What kind of ghostly thing is this? Has the stone tablet really become strange?" Zhang Chen's eyes were full of disbelief.
Ever since learning that something unusual lurked within the great tomb, he had remained on guard. From time to time, he activated his Dharma Eye to inspect the area. Since he had temporarily found no strange monsters, he had gradually lowered his guard.
When the stone tablet had first been dug up, he had inspected it as well. There had been no qi whatsoever; it had been nothing more than an ordinary stone tablet. How had just a few days passed before qi began flowing around it? How had it directly turned strange?
Zhang Chen silently cursed himself. Life has been too comfortable. I actually let my guard down. From now on, I need to inspect it every day. Then he studied the stone tablet, a strange look in his eyes. "Come to think of it, this is my first time encountering something strange at such close range! That blood-red glow makes me uncomfortable. My golden light is vast and mighty, suffused with Divine Might, like a god descending to the world. Little Fox's clear light is wild and ethereal, refreshing to behold. But this blood-red light carries an indescribable stench of blood, as if it were something evil and terrifying. Just looking at it makes people uncomfortable. This stone tablet must have a bad origin!"
Zhang Chen continued circling the stone tablet, studying it from every angle, his eyes fixed on the blood-red aura. "This is my first time coming into contact with something strange. Perhaps I can use this stone tablet to study the strange and explore more of their secrets."
"What I'm more curious about is this: the stone tablet was merely an ordinary stone tablet before, so how did it become strange now?" Zhang Chen thought it over and over. It seemed that after he had first used blood to make an imprint of the writing on the tablet, Experience Points had begun dropping every day afterward. Everything seemed to have changed.
"It seems to be because of blood." Zhang Chen took out one of the pheasants he had caught from his basket and brought it before the stone tablet. With a swift slash of his knife, the pheasant's blood splattered across the tablet. The stone tablet absorbed the blood like a sponge, and the red currents of qi around it visibly began to increase.
"I knew it! It really is because of blood! This stone tablet can actually strengthen itself by absorbing blood." Zhang Chen set down the thoroughly dead pheasant and looked at the stone tablet thoughtfully.
After absorbing the pheasant's blood, the stone tablet no longer had blood flowing out from it.
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