The night wind was still blowing, and the beads of blood on the grass blades trembled faintly.
Chen Wuya remained crouched, his palm pressed to the ground as his misalignment-detection field continued to spread. The residual fluctuations of force were clearer than before, trailing down the mountain path as though something were drawing them away. His fingers twitched. He sensed that something was wrong.
"The blood is moving," he said.
Bai Zhi immediately moved closer, her gaze sweeping over the ground. The drop of blood hanging from a blade of grass slowly slid down. After falling onto the mud, it did not seep in. Instead, like some living thing, it shrank into a thin line and crept toward the ruined temple.
Mo Feng saw it too and strode forward. "That defies all reason."
Chen Wuya did not answer. The Misaligned Force within him began to circulate in reverse, running counter to the meridians along the route of the incomplete Canglang Art. He pressed his palm down harder, sending his force burrowing into the earth and pushing back against that drawing power. As if summoned, drops of blood began to seep up from underground, gathering into streams that crawled across the ground.
A trail of blood flowed backward, uphill.
It carved an arrow into the mud, pointing straight at the back of the Buddha statue in the ruined temple.
Bai Zhi tightened her grip on her sword. "Someone is luring us inside."
"Not someone." Chen Wuya rose to his feet. "It's a mechanism. The force in this blood is a signal left by an array."
Mo Feng had already reached the statue and reached for the edge of its base. His fingertips slid through the cracks in the stone before abruptly stopping. "There's a groove here. Someone's tampered with it."
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