The voice of Battalion Officer Lin startled all the escorts present, and they hurriedly turned around to look.
This time, when they turned around...
Their reaction was little different from Battalion Officer Lin's.
"Gasp!" One escort broke out in a cold sweat. "The road behind us... really... really disappeared!!"
They saw that the road they had come by had vanished at some point.
In its place was... a vast, densely packed thicket of brambles.
The thorn-covered brambles blocked off everything behind them.
Looking as far as the eye could see...
There was not the slightest trace of a road.
For a moment, everyone's hair stood on end, because they all realized... they had encountered something uncanny!!
An inexplicable panic spread among the escorts.
Fortunately, they were escorts with fairly strong nerves. If they had been ordinary commoners, they would probably already have been so terrified that they would have fled blindly, desperate to leave this haunted place.
After all, anyone who traveled the roads as an escort had to be much braver than ordinary people.
In this World of Gods and Anomalies...
How could a timid person dare to work as an escort?
"My lord, what should we do now?" Battalion Officer Lin quickly decided to ask a professional.
He felt that the Imperial Astronomy Bureau Lieutenant in the carriage was the most professional person present!
What made Battalion Officer Lin's eyes widen even further was that the Imperial Astronomy Bureau Lieutenant's answer was actually: "I don't know."
"What?" Battalion Officer Lin was dumbfounded. "My lord, this really isn't the time to joke around, is it?"
"I really don't know." The carriage curtain had already been pulled open.
The Imperial Astronomy Bureau Lieutenant inside casually glanced at the surrounding scenery, then said, "My current guess is that we've entered an illusory array similar to the Ghost-Obscuring Illusory Array. In situations like this, turning back generally won't work."
"G-Ghost-Obscuring Illusory Array?" Battalion Officer Lin touched the hilt of the treasured saber at his waist, as if that could make him a little less nervous.
He hurriedly asked, "Then... then how can we get through?"
The Imperial Astronomy Bureau Lieutenant stepped down from the carriage and said simply, "We just need to kill whoever set up the array."
"Then... my lord, do you know where the person who set it up is?" Battalion Officer Lin asked curiously.
"I don't know." The Imperial Astronomy Bureau Lieutenant's answer was just as honest.
Battalion Officer Lin: "..."
He somewhat regretted taking this escort job.
In the past, delivering goods for the Imperial Astronomy Bureau had always gone smoothly and normally.
How had this trip turned out like this?
The Imperial Astronomy Bureau Lieutenant's appearance of knowing nothing no matter what he was asked made Battalion Officer Lin feel that he was becoming increasingly unreliable!
"Let's go take a look at that shop up ahead!" the Imperial Astronomy Bureau Lieutenant said. "For a shop to appear in a place like this, and for something like this to happen... If we want to figure out what's going on, we can only go over and take a look."
"Look, that fellow from Dragon-Imprisoning Monastery is already almost at the shop."
Fan Wu knew that as long as he got involved with people from the Imperial Astronomy Bureau, nothing good would ever happen.
Strictly speaking, he had no connection with this Battalion Officer at all; they could not even be considered friends.
But as it happened, they were traveling the same way!
And now, just as expected, something had happened.
Those escorts still had no idea what was going on... That was because their mortal eyes could not see much else.
But after Fan Wu had gained so many points, his eyes had long since become different from ordinary people's!
In his eyes... the surroundings were already shrouded in layers of yin qi.
The dense yin qi resembled a layer of white mist.
He could vaguely make out indistinct, looming ghostly figures.
There were only three possibilities in a situation like this.
First: he had truly been unbelievably unlucky and accidentally trespassed into a place he should not have entered. It was purely a coincidence.
Second: he had been dragged into this by the people behind him.
Third: the fact that he had killed Xuan Shizi in Prison Dragon County earlier might have become known to other believers of the Great Venerable. The current situation might have been aimed at him.
Regardless of the reason, Fan Wu did not want to remain on the defensive.
So...
He directly led Old Green Ox forward and entered the shop ahead, where a firelight was glowing.
"An inn."
Fan Wu raised his eyes toward the signboard above the building. It bore only the two characters "inn," making anyone who saw it instinctively feel—this was a black inn!
At that moment.
Battalion Officer Lin and the others cautiously followed over as well.
There were more than a dozen escorts in the group. Every one of them was heavily muscled and armed, each a skilled fighter capable of taking on several men alone.
But even the finest fighter would still feel frightened when faced with something this uncanny!
"My lord, are we really going in?" Even an old hand like Battalion Officer Lin was extremely tense. He had seen ghosts before, but never ghosts capable of creating such a vast disturbance!
"Mm." The Imperial Astronomy Bureau Lieutenant nodded.
He then turned his gaze to Fan Wu and asked curiously, "Daoist friend, have you noticed anything unusual about this place?"
The most unusual thing... was that despite clearly having a man's body, you were speaking in a woman's shrill, girlish voice.
Fan Wu said calmly, "No."
Fan Wu could not even be bothered to turn around and look at the man, because he could not bear to face... someone with a tiny mustache speaking in such a soft, syrupy voice.
"Oh! Right!" The Battalion Officer suddenly thought of something and continued, "I haven't told you my name yet, Daoist friend!"
I'm honestly not interested at all.
"My surname is Xie, and my given name is Jiuyi."
The fellow seemed extremely familiar: "Back then, there were more than a hundred beggar children adopted by the Imperial Astronomy Bureau together with me, and I happened to be the ninety-first. So the Battalion Officer who taught me how to kill ghosts and subdue demons gave me this name."
"I wonder, Daoist friend..."
"Fan Wu." Fan Wu replied casually, then pushed open the inn's tightly closed doors and walked straight inside.
The instant the inn's doors opened, an even denser wave of yin qi rushed toward them!
Feeling the incomparably dense yin qi, the smile on Xie Jiuyi's face faded slightly.
His expression became somewhat serious and solemn.
He said to the escorts behind him, "You don't have to go in. Just gather around and protect that thing."
"If anything appears, soak the black-dog blood powder I gave you earlier in water. Any water will do. Then smear it on your weapons."
"Remember... under no circumstances, absolutely no circumstances, let the cargo be damaged!"
Xie Jiuyi said darkly, "Otherwise, once the matter is investigated, you'll all die."
"I'll die too."
That tone made Battalion Officer Lin feel that something was wrong, but at this point, what else could they do?
They could only fight!
Battalion Officer Lin gritted his teeth and said, "Brothers, no matter what, we have to deliver this Imperial Astronomy Bureau cargo to Baihe County! If anyone dies in battle today, their families will receive triple the compensation! Those who survive will also receive triple the pay for this escort job!!"
Battalion Officer Lin had a firm grasp on the escorts' desires.
In this day and age, risking their lives to travel day and night as escorts...
Wasn't it all for a few taels of silver?
Xie Jiuyi said, "If the cargo can be delivered to Baihe County intact, the Imperial Astronomy Bureau will not mistreat you."
After saying that.
He formed a hand seal, and the yin qi rushing out from within the inn seemed to be blocked by a thin membrane, unable to erode his body.
Xie Jiuyi also walked inside.
The next instant...
Bang!!!
The inn's doors that Fan Wu had pushed open...
Slam shut!
Before you continue