Chapter 47

"Oh, you chose it yourself. Don't regret it."

"How could I regret it? I won't!"

Once, an opportunity to leave had been placed before him, but he had not cherished it.

Now, Tan Wenbin truly regretted it.

He could see it too. If they wanted Zhou Yong to "speak" and communicate, if they wanted to uncover the truth behind all this, then they had to drink this round properly.

Tan Wenbin looked again at Li Zhuiyuan and saw Little Yuan Ge holding his chopsticks, head lowered as he lightly tapped the rim of his bowl, looking childishly playful.

Then he looked at Run Sheng. This time, Run Sheng actually did not avoid his gaze and instead looked directly at him.

Warmth immediately surged through his heart. After all, they were roommates who slept side by side on the floor at night.

Little Yuan Ge, Run Sheng, if something happens to me after I drink this, remember to tell my dad I wasn't a coward.

Having steeled himself, Tan Wenbin reached for the wine bowl with both hands.

Just then, Run Sheng stood up and took the wine bowl from in front of Tan Wenbin.

Then he waved it in front of Zhou Yong, tipped back his head, and drained it in one gulp.

That was not the end. Run Sheng picked up the two remaining bowls of wine in front of Zhou Yong and drank them dry one after another.

Tan Wenbin was so moved that tears streamed down his face.

Li Zhuiyuan merely glanced sideways before lowering his head again to play with his chopsticks and bowl.

He did not find Run Sheng's action strange.

Still, Brother Run Sheng had it rough. Li Zhuiyuan knew that, given the choice, Run Sheng preferred properly "marinated" regular meat.

The dishes on this table and the wine in these bowls were dirty, but not dirty enough. To Brother Run Sheng, Death Collapse was like pork, beef, or mutton, but liking meat did not mean he liked eating offal.

Run Sheng's boldness soon delighted Zhou Yong, who began constantly pouring him wine and inviting him to clink bowls.

During this, he even pointed at the dishes on the table, reminding Run Sheng not to forget to use food to settle the alcohol.

Run Sheng completely cast aside his reservations as well, directly picking up food from the table and shoving it into his mouth, chewing with loud crunching sounds.

Then he wiped his mouth and raised his bowl to clink it with Zhou Yong again.

That was how drinking banquets went. Drinkers sat together, and once they got going, they ignored everyone else.

As a result, Li Zhuiyuan and Tan Wenbin were no longer pressured. The two of them could sit quietly and act like air.

At last, there was little food left on the table, and the wine had been drunk to everyone's satisfaction.

Li Zhuiyuan stuck the pair of chopsticks in his hand into his rice bowl.

Run Sheng set down his wine bowl and tapped the tabletop.

Zhou Yong also put down his wine bowl and returned to his original sitting posture.

His mouth began opening and closing rapidly. What came out was something like the chanting of the White Cloth Band during Zhai Shi rituals. There was a melody to it, but the words were utterly unclear.

The tune made Li Zhuiyuan feel sleepy.

He could not help yawning. He forcibly drove away the drowsiness, then looked at Zhou Yong with some displeasure. He felt that Zhou Yong was not sincerely trying to communicate.

But when he turned his head, he discovered that Run Sheng and Tan Wenbin, seated on either side of him, had both closed their eyes and begun to sway gently from side to side. They had entered a dream.

Clearly, Zhou Yong was communicating with them.

The drowsiness Li Zhuiyuan had just felt had actually been Zhou Yong's "invitation."

His instincts had rejected that invitation.

Li Zhuiyuan suspected that his frequent Yin Walking lately had made him resistant.

Yet sometimes, vicious cycles were unavoidable, like now.

Propping his left elbow on the table and his chin on his left hand, Li Zhuiyuan half-closed his eyes. With his right hand, he picked up a chopstick and tapped the rim of the bowl.

"Ding!"

Yin Walking succeeded.

He had entered, yet it also seemed as though he had not.

In his field of vision appeared Run Sheng, Tan Wenbin, and Zhou Yong speaking together, but a layer of flowing gelatinous substance separated him from the scene.

Li Zhuiyuan tried reaching out to touch it and felt resistance. When he applied more force and tried to push it aside to enter, Run Sheng and Tan Wenbin both revealed pained expressions within the distorted image.

Seeing this, Li Zhuiyuan could only give up.

Though he had become fairly proficient at Yin Walking, he did not know how to actively enter someone else's already-formed "dream."

A Li knew how.

That made Li Zhuiyuan mistakenly think that he should know how too. Or rather, he had never thought this would become a problem.

He could only blame the drawbacks of being self-taught.

Still, Li Zhuiyuan did not choose to wake up. Since this had happened and he could not join their conversation, he might as well take the chance to observe.

He rose from his seat. The table had now become a self-contained whole, with invisible gelatinous matter enveloping the three of them as Li Zhuiyuan circled around it.

He felt there should be some specific method of merging into it.

For example, the second step for controlling Death Collapse in Wei Zhengdao's Black Book required only that he adjust his consciousness fluctuations to the same frequency as the Death Collapse, and then he could enter.

But there was not just Zhou Yong here. There were also Run Sheng and Tan Wenbin. How was he supposed to tune himself to the frequencies of one Death Collapse and two living people?

Or had they already blended into a single frequency?

Li Zhuiyuan raised his hand and lightly patted the gelatinous barrier before him.

In the distorted scene, Run Sheng and Tan Wenbin once more showed discomfort.

Forget it. This was not the right time for specific experiments.

Suddenly, Li Zhuiyuan felt a hand gently tugging at him.

He lowered his head and saw the girl.

The girl was squatting on the floor, her shoulders trembling as she cried.

He had walked Yin once when he had first entered and sat down, but at that time the girl and her mother had been in the kitchen rather than the living room.

Now, in his vision, the white rice grains on the girl's body began to wriggle.

No, what rice grains? They were clearly dense masses of white maggots burrowing in and out of her body.

The girl raised her head and looked at Li Zhuiyuan.

She opened her mouth as if making a soundless scream. The white maggots covering her eye sockets rapidly scattered, and tears of blood seeped from the pitch-black sockets.

She was telling him that she was in terrible pain, that she was suffering, that she wanted release.

Black Cat had once told Li Zhuiyuan that the more capable a Death Collapse was of thought, the heavier the suffering it endured.

Death Collapse itself was a collection of resentment. What sustained it against that suffering was even deeper resentment.

But what if someone had no such resentment to begin with? And still retained clear thinking?

That would be the equivalent of placing oneself directly in a sea of fire and enduring pure torture.

On the girl, Li Zhuiyuan sensed no resentment, only extraordinarily intense pain.

Li Zhuiyuan could not help turning to look at Zhou Yong inside the gelatinous enclosure.

Some things could be understood just by looking, even without words.

The girl had clearly been forcibly kept behind. And the one who held the obsession to keep her, or rather, who had developed immense resentment over her departure... could only be Zhou Yong.

The firelight in the kitchen still flickered. According to dining customs, the final dish should have been soup.

Li Zhuiyuan walked into the kitchen but did not see the woman.

He went to the pot and saw black soup boiling inside it.

Just then, the bellows began sounding again.

Li Zhuiyuan lowered his head and saw a hand extending from behind the stove, gripping the bellows handle and pulling it.

He continued around to the back of the stove. Following that hand, he did not see the woman sitting behind it.

Because the arm was extending from inside the stove.

Li Zhuiyuan crouched down until he was level with the stove opening.

The woman inside lifted her head as well and smiled at Li Zhuiyuan.

This stove was not burning firewood. It was burning the woman herself.

She had crawled into the narrow stove, flames burning across her body and keeping the soup in the pot boiling.

Yet her face carried an expression of comfort.

Perhaps being burned in this way eased the terrible pain that already existed within her.

Li Zhuiyuan had harmed himself not long ago. He understood that feeling very well.

Zhou Yong wanted to preserve the wholeness of this family, so... he had dragged his wife and daughter into hell with him.

Perhaps Zhou Yong had not known at first that things would develop this way.

But claiming he did not know now would be absurd.

He knew, but selfishly chose to deceive himself.

One thing was certain, though. The person who had taught Zhou Yong this method definitely knew the consequences. So what had been that person's purpose?

At first, one could have assumed that person was kind, pitied Zhou Yong for losing his wife and daughter, and used this method to "help" him.

But now, that assumption no longer held. Someone capable of doing such a thing had nothing to do with kindness by nature.

Walking to the kitchen doorway and seeing that the conversation over there had not ended, Li Zhuiyuan looked at the girl again and beckoned to her.

The girl crawled over.

During the meal earlier, she had been forced to play the role of a "daughter," while the woman had likewise been forced to play the role of a "wife."

Strictly speaking, they were actually Zhou Yong's Vengeful Spirits.

It was simply that Zhou Yong lacked that kind of power. He was utterly incomparable to the Tai Sui Death Collapse Li Zhuiyuan had encountered in the graveyard last time.

That copper coin was still buried in the graveyard even now. Li Zhuiyuan still did not dare retrieve it.

The girl crawled before Li Zhuiyuan. Trapped here and enduring endless torment, this boy before her was the only outsider who had appeared "here" recently.

What drove her to approach him was her instinct to seek death.

Li Zhuiyuan placed his hand on the girl's head. He could sense the dense writhing beneath her hair. He knew what was underneath.

But for now, he had to ignore it.

Following the method in the Black Book, he began adjusting the fluctuations of his consciousness.

He wanted to borrow the girl's perspective to see what the person who had helped Zhou Yong arrange all this looked like.

It succeeded easily, because not only did the girl not resist, she actively cooperated.

A blue Mosquito Net appeared in Li Zhuiyuan's vision. She lay on the Little Bed, able only to weakly turn her head a little. She did not even have the strength to sit up now.

Someone was crying. She turned her head and saw Zhou Yong lying beside the Big Bed, crying.

A woman lay on the Big Bed. She was already dead.

Zhou Yong clutched his wife's hand and cried bitterly.

After crying for a while, he began pounding the floor and cursing, the general meaning being why life and fate treated him this way, why they had to be so cruel to him.

Just then, a voice came.

"I can reunite your family."

The speaker was not inside the room, but outside. He used the window to send his voice in.

What surprised Li Zhuiyuan was that the tone and manner of speaking felt familiar. No, it felt intimate, as if it belonged to someone close to him.

Yet even after mentally going through everyone he knew, he could not find anyone who matched that voice.

Zhou Yong raised his head blankly. He lunged toward the window, seemingly wanting to ask who was speaking.

There should have been more conversation and developments afterward, such as how the owner of that voice persuaded Zhou Yong, and how he made Zhou Yong follow his instructions to donate the bridge and arrange everything.

However, Li Zhuiyuan could not see what came next because the girl was too weak. She closed her eyes.

If her father had not been crying so loudly earlier, she would not have woken at all.

A long darkness.

Li Zhuiyuan waited patiently. He had a feeling that before the girl died, there would be more scenes to come.

Sure enough, the darkness began to loosen.

Light began filtering through again.

When the girl opened her eyes again, Zhou Yong was standing by the bed.

The pain had vanished from Zhou Yong's face. Instead, he showed a joy that came from the depths of his heart.

"Ling Ling, don't be afraid. Daddy has found a way for our family to keep living together. Ling Ling, don't be afraid. Daddy and Mommy will be with you forever."

The girl closed her eyes.

There should be nothing more after this. She should be about to die.

But just as Li Zhuiyuan was preparing to withdraw, he suddenly found himself unable to breathe. Immediately after, a searing sensation rose in his lungs.

What was going on?

If she had died from illness in bed, she should not have experienced anything this intense.

Li Zhuiyuan felt terrifying suffocation. He had experienced this feeling when he first fell into the water and met Little Yellow Oriole. He did not want to experience it a second time.

He broke off the connection.

Yet though the connection had been severed, the girl's pain remained. It was also erupting more violently, as though he were gradually becoming her and receiving all her emotions.

This was, in the most literal sense—feeling her pain as his own.

Her torment, her grievance, her despair all boiled within his heart, like the lid of a kettle about to be blown off by boiling water.

Li Zhuiyuan thought of the "it" in the Fish Pond, its body covered in the faces of Death Collapse.

He had not expected the method taught by the Black Book to produce such powerful side effects the very first time he successfully used it.

Li Zhuiyuan could not help wondering: Are you an idiot?

Wei Zhengdao taught you this method, and the first time you used it, this happened. Yet you still continued using it to control Death Collapse?

Did you worship and trust Wei Zhengdao too much, or were you simply greedy and stubborn enough to believe you were special, that you could find a way to resolve these side effects?

If the danger had surfaced slowly afterward, that would still be understandable. But the symptoms were already so obvious and straightforward...

Heh.

You truly had no right to hate Wei Zhengdao.

No matter how large a flame was, if no more fuel was added, it would soon go out.

The fuel here was your own emotions.

Unfortunately, Li Zhuiyuan had none.

The fire went out.

Yet Li Zhuiyuan felt a trace of sorrow and pain.

Because it was the same as having someone tear open his scar in front of him again, point at his face, and tell him that he was a monster wearing Human Skin.

Yes, that was his side effect.

He would not be like that "thing" in the Fish Pond, leaving so many faces on himself.

Still, this gave Li Zhuiyuan a new idea.

A little girl would not work,

but what if it were a more powerful Death Collapse?

If he controlled it properly, could he retain genuine emotions that would not fade away?

Unfortunately, this was not the time to think about that. He still had to finish what he came here to do.

In his field of vision, the girl was still crawling on the ground, sobbing in agony.

Li Zhuiyuan withdrew his hand. The girl before him seemed not to have died of illness, but rather... murder.

His gaze fell on Zhou Yong again. Had he killed her?

Zhou Yong certainly had the motive. He had obtained the method, and having his daughter die sooner would make it easier for him to put that method into practice.

But there was another possibility.

Unfortunately, there was too little information in the girl's perspective. He needed more perspectives now.

Li Zhuiyuan walked behind the stove, crouched down again, and met the gaze of the woman being roasted in the flames.

He knew that only after the woman died did that person first make contact with Zhou Yong.

That person certainly would not appear in the woman's perspective.

But he merely wanted to see whether the woman had truly died of illness.

After their gazes met, he began tuning in.

Like the girl, the woman did not resist. Instead, she actively cooperated, undoubtedly making things much easier.

Li Zhuiyuan's vision changed again. It was much like the last one: a larger bed, a larger blue Mosquito Net.

Li Zhuiyuan began actively skipping over irrelevant scenes, but as he did, a trace of confusion arose in him.

Based on what he was currently sensing, the woman still seemed to be quite some time away from death.

Had her condition suddenly worsened?

Or perhaps the woman's death had not been normal either.

If something abnormal had happened here, it definitely had nothing to do with Zhou Yong. At this point in time, Zhou Yong had still been desperately trying to save his wife and daughter.

Just then, Li Zhuiyuan heard a peculiar set of footsteps.

He immediately stopped fast-forwarding and immersed himself fully in normal perception.

Those footsteps had not been made by cloth shoes. They sounded more like the friction of some kind of plastic sole. The steps were not heavy, and the scraping was brief, which meant the owner's feet were probably not very large... a child?

The woman had her eyes open. She seemed to want to turn her head and look, but lying there, her limbs simply would not obey her.

She likely had the same hereditary illness as her daughter.

Just like himself and Li Lan.

A hand holding a white towel entered his vision. It was small, fair, and tender. It truly was a child's hand.

The towel covered the woman's mouth and nose, and the sensation of suffocation quickly grew intense.

Then, a face leaned into view.

Li Zhuiyuan froze, because that face was his own!

"Li Zhuiyuan" stared coldly at the woman. Since he was in the woman's perspective, it was as though he and "Li Zhuiyuan" were looking at each other.

In that instant, Li Zhuiyuan remembered the voice he had heard outside the window from the girl's perspective earlier, and why its tone had felt so familiar.

Because the voice one heard while speaking was different from the sound of one's own voice played back on a recorder.

He had been blind to the obvious. He had matched that voice to everyone else, yet never considered that it might be himself.

But it truly was the tone and manner in which he normally spoke.

Now,

the "Li Zhuiyuan" before him spoke as well:

"You're dying too slowly. You're dragging down my practice schedule."

Those words seemed to be a trigger. The moment they fell, an intense feeling of distortion swept over him. In that instant, his sense of self began to peel away, plunging him directly into the disorienting vortex of Who am I?

Yet this felt familiar to Li Zhuiyuan, because every time his illness acted up, he experienced this same loss of self-awareness, his heart filled with coldness.

The only difference was that before, this feeling came from within him. This time, it entered from outside, and its effect was far weaker.

After years of illness had made him his own doctor, he did not even need to repeatedly call out and recite many people's names. All he needed was to call A Li's name over and over, picturing her appearance, and he could handle it.

Of course, during that time, he also silently recited Great Grandfather's name twice.

Then, the feeling gradually faded away.

It had truly been a very mild episode, leaving him with the uncomfortable feeling that it had ended before he had even broken a sweat.

His vision had gone completely dark, because the woman was already dead.

Li Zhuiyuan broke contact. He was still crouching before the stove, and the woman inside it was still burning.

The firelight illuminated Li Zhuiyuan's face, making his complexion flicker between light and shadow.

In truth, Li Zhuiyuan's expression was indeed dark.

Because he felt insulted.

He definitely had not killed the girl and the woman, nor had he taught Zhou Yong that method.

There was not the slightest self-doubt, nor even a shred of confused internal struggle.

He knew that was not him, because this was a trap.

The Feng Shui arrangement on the stone bridge, the Mirror Flower Water Moon at Small Plaza... though this series of methods had been executed beautifully, they seemed somewhat crude in Li Zhuiyuan's eyes.

Yet within those crude methods, there was a pitfall.

It felt like walking through a thicket of thorns. It was troublesome, but if one used a stick to push the branches aside, it was not particularly difficult. Yet who would have thought that a landmine had been buried near the finish line?

Setting aside the tiny possibility that the person behind this simply had such perverse tastes, it was very likely that after that person helped Zhou Yong arrange all of this, someone far more skilled had stepped in and set a trap.

A trap prepared specifically for others in the same profession.

Though the person was not him, what he said was probably true. He had mentioned a "practice schedule."

As it happened, Li Zhuiyuan himself was currently at the apprentice stage.

Someone who had just entered this line of work was practicing Feng Shui arrangements, with an elder or teacher following beside him. Afraid that the matter would leak out, they had added a finishing touch to this practice assignment.

Zhou Yong, selfish and indifferent to his wife and daughter's suffering, might still have been grateful to the person who taught him the method, never realizing that his entire family was merely practice material for that person.

Li Zhuiyuan slowly raised his head and muttered,

"Fine. So this is how you want to play?"

But the next moment, his expression changed sharply. That person obviously could not have known the method in Wei Zhengdao's Black Book, nor could they have known he was reading memories. Therefore, that earlier distortion of self-awareness... had not been deliberately left behind for him.

Was it aimed at this woman?

No, it was not. She and her daughter were merely servants; their continued existence depended entirely on Zhou Yong.

So that trap foreshadowing the distortion of identity was aimed at Zhou Yong.

This was bad. Run Sheng and Tan Wenbin were in danger!

Li Zhuiyuan raised his hand and slapped his own right cheek.

Slap!

He woke up.

The moment he opened his eyes, he saw that Run Sheng and Tan Wenbin were still trapped in the dream.

But Zhou Yong had already stood up. He had brought his face close to Tan Wenbin's and was continuously inhaling.

Wisps of white vapor flowed from Tan Wenbin's nostrils and mouth, drawn into Zhou Yong.

Tan Wenbin's face had already turned bluish from being drained.

Li Zhuiyuan opening his eyes startled Zhou Yong. He slowly turned his head with extreme sluggishness and looked toward Li Zhuiyuan.

His eyes had originally been full of white mucus. Now the mucus was gone, replaced by a smear of blood-red.

The setup that person had buried was right here!

The earlier Zhou Yong had indeed been the real Zhou Yong. He was selfish, but he was not insane toward outsiders. At the very least, his selfishness was directed only at his obsession with his wife, daughter, and family, not at slaughtering others.

Otherwise, he would have attacked the villagers who saw him long ago, and he would not have accepted Li Zhuiyuan's terms for "communication."

He had genuinely wanted to bring the guests into his home and treat them to "good wine and good food."

Because only then could he demonstrate that his family was still reunited. It was what he desperately wanted to show others.

And when dealing with a Death Collapse like this—one that did not hurt people, was easy to communicate with, and was even willing to bring you home to explain things—most people would feel sympathy and understanding, lowering their guard.

But at the crucial point of his story, the planted trap would activate. The filth in Zhou Yong's eyes would recede, his cognition would become distorted, and the Death Collapse's most primal and instinctive side would emerge.

This trap was ingenious. It was not merely skillful in method; it also incorporated a precise grasp of human nature.

If Li Zhuiyuan had also been successfully pulled into the dream to chat heart-to-heart with him, the three of them would now be sitting there stupidly, waiting to be drained one after another.

Of course, the most important thing was that Zhou Yong was far weaker than that Taishui Death Collapse. Most of his strength had to be devoted to maintaining the dream so Run Sheng and Tan Wenbin would not wake up. Only the tiny amount left over could drive his physical body to begin killing.

That was why his movements were so slow, and it was precisely that slowness that gave Li Zhuiyuan time to react.

Li Zhuiyuan moved. Rather than rushing to save Tan Wenbin, whose life was in immediate danger, he grabbed the bowl in front of him and smashed it straight into Run Sheng's face!

Smack!

The bowl shattered, and blood appeared on Run Sheng's forehead, but he opened his eyes because of it.

He immediately saw the situation before him, grabbed the Yellow River Shovel he had deliberately placed beside his feet while eating, and swung it straight at Zhou Yong's head!

Bang!

Zhou Yong was knocked to the ground.

The dream he had been maintaining collapsed as well.

Tan Wenbin dropped with a thud, face-down onto the tabletop.

After stepping forward to check him, Li Zhuiyuan let out a breath of relief. He was not dead; he was still breathing.

Great Grandfather had agreed to bring Tan Wenbin along because one more person meant one more helper. Li Zhuiyuan had also been fortunate to bring Tan Wenbin out this time, because it had given Zhou Yong one more target to drain.

Bin Bin had thrown himself into the situation and bought everyone time.

If Zhou Yong had drained Li Zhuiyuan or Run Sheng first, the situation truly would have been hard to salvage.

Run Sheng and Zhou Yong were still fighting.

Normally, Death Collapses were very strong. But Zhou Yong had to go down to the river every day to absorb baleful energy from the Feng Shui Bureau, then return home and use his own power to maintain the illusion of his family's reunion. Today, he had also created a dream to pull in the two men. Though he had absorbed some energy from Tan Wenbin to replenish himself, he was still operating at a deficit.

And Run Sheng, no matter what the food had been like earlier, had eaten!

At this moment, Run Sheng pinned Zhou Yong beneath him. No matter how Zhou Yong struggled, he could not get up.

However, Zhou Yong had grabbed the Yellow River Shovel with both hands, preventing it from being used to attack again. Run Sheng had no choice but to grip the shovel with his left hand and hold him in place, then free his right hand, clench it into a fist, and hammer Zhou Yong's chest over and over.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Every punch landed solidly, and each time it struck, a cloud of black energy leaked from Zhou Yong's body.

Li Zhuiyuan walked over to the sack, took out the Black Canvas, reached into his pocket and opened the ink pad case, quickly pressed all five fingers into it, then drew five long red marks across the Black Canvas.

The previous experiment had proven that among all the tools he currently possessed, the Black Canvas was the most lethal to Death Collapses.

The one in his hands now had been newly repaired, so it was definitely even more powerful, because its Wood Flower Rolls had been carved by A Li from her family's Spirit Tablets.

However, just as Li Zhuiyuan was about to step forward and use the Black Canvas to suppress Zhou Yong, Zhou Yong suddenly opened his mouth and let out a piercing shriek.

Two shadows, one large and one small, shot out rapidly: the girl and the woman. They both pounced on Run Sheng. The woman clawed at his back, leaving bloody gashes, while the girl bit down on his neck and hung her entire body from it.

Hiss!

Under that attack, Run Sheng instantly lost his strength. Not only did he fall off Zhou Yong, but the mother and daughter pinned him down from either side.

After Zhou Yong got to his feet, he immediately pressed himself back down on Run Sheng. The scarlet gleam flowing in his eyes revealed his vicious nature.

Li Zhuiyuan was just about to act with the Black Canvas when Zhou Yong and the mother-daughter pair all raised their heads at once and stared at him.

That immediately prevented Li Zhuiyuan from making his next move. The Black Canvas was powerful, but its conditions for use were restrictive. It was generally used to finish off a Death Collapse after it had already been controlled.

If he simply threw it at them in front of their eyes, first, they would dodge it; second, even if it covered them, they would fling it off or even tear it apart in their pain.

The three of them appeared to be jointly suppressing Run Sheng, but if Li Zhuiyuan dared approach or make any other move, one of them would swiftly rush him.

"Little Yuan, run! Don't worry about Bin Bin!"

No matter how fierce Run Sheng was, he could not fight three against one. He had already made his decision: he would risk his life to hold the three of them back and create an opportunity for Little Yuan to escape.

Li Zhuiyuan did not leave. Instead, he half-closed his eyes. His eyelashes began trembling rapidly, and his body shook along with them.

"Listen to me. I can help you escape your pain."

"Listen to me. I can help you end your suffering."

"Listen to me. I can help you break free of his restraints!"

Li Zhuiyuan suddenly opened his eyes, raised a hand, and pointed at Zhou Yong.

Almost simultaneously, the girl and woman released Run Sheng and pounced on Zhou Yong instead, knocking him to the ground.

And Run Sheng, who had just been fighting three against one, suddenly got to enjoy the pleasure of fighting three against one.

He did not waste time. After springing up, he picked up the Yellow River Shovel, wedged it across Zhou Yong's neck, and completely subdued him.

As he did this, Run Sheng's eyes were filled with shock.

No wonder his grandfather had always told him to listen to Little Yuan, and had even specifically repeated it to him during the day. Little Yuan was incredible. Even Death Collapses listened to him now!

Li Zhuiyuan walked over carrying the Black Canvas. He was still in a state of control, and even his steps were unsteady, as though he were drunk.

This was much like Zhou Yong earlier. While maintaining the dream, his movements in reality had become very slow.

Finally, Li Zhuiyuan reached Zhou Yong. He crouched down and covered Zhou Yong's face with the Black Canvas.

Aaaaaah!!!

A miserable scream rang out, but there was no need to worry about disturbing anyone. First, Zhou Yong's house was already somewhat isolated within the village. Second, the Mirror Flower Water Moon arrangement outside was still in effect.

This time, the Black Canvas was indeed several times stronger than before. The mist surging out was like a ruptured dam.

This forced Li Zhuiyuan to remove the Black Canvas.

At this moment, Zhou Yong's aura was feeble, and the force of his struggles had become extremely weak.

Moreover, the blood-red color in his eyes faded and was once again covered by white mucus. This meant the trap's effect had been broken, and he had returned to his original self.

Run Sheng did not understand. Why did Little Yuan not keep the Black Canvas over him and kill him completely?

Earlier, everyone had agreed that as long as they communicated properly and revealed the person behind it, they would go their separate ways afterward and leave each other in peace.

But clearly, this guy was the one who had broken the rules. That meant there was no need for them to hold back anymore. They could just kill him.

Soon, Run Sheng seemed to understand. Excitement filled his eyes.

"Little Yuan, thank you. I'll eat him properly!"

Just as Run Sheng opened his mouth to bite down, he heard a cold voice:

"Brother Run Sheng, don't eat him. Since someone already plotted against us..."

Run Sheng raised his head. He saw Little Yuan smiling in front of him, but there was none of his usual gentleness or warmth in that smile. Instead, it reminded him of the young man crouching by the creek after taking that call that night.

Li Zhuiyuan lowered his head and looked at Zhou Yong below. He reached out and lightly patted Zhou Yong's pockmarked, disgusting, greasy face.

"Then I'll pay him back in kind."