"Not mine. I just... raised it."
Under Yu Xing's smiling interrogation, as if he already knew everything, the boy spoke hoarsely, his pace just a little faster than before.
He grabbed the rat that had been rubbing against his neck with one hand and finally took a step forward.
The rat hit the ground. Before it could react, the boy crushed it underfoot, and its innards and blood burst out in an instant.
Blood spattered across the red cloth shoe and soaked straight in, but red mingled with red, leaving not the slightest trace.
The big gray rat's shrill squeal was cut off halfway through. The boy didn't even pause as he stepped over its body and walked on, one step at a time.
It seemed he'd accepted Yu Xing's suggestion that he walk ahead.
Yu Xing found it more and more interesting.
He looked at the rat's corpse and judged the force behind the boy's step. The boy hadn't even lifted his leg to stomp; he'd merely walked normally, yet he'd crushed the rat outright.
A "frail" boy with incredible strength.
Even stranger, though the boy was surrounded by heavy yin energy, Yu Xing couldn't tell whether he was a ghost or a human. His aura lay somewhere between the two, as if a slender steel cable had been stretched across life and death, swaying without end.
Come to think of it, Yu Xing had sensed something similar from the Xu family.
The boy was either a terrifyingly powerful ghost, or one of the so-called adepts of this era, carrying sinister arts in his hands and dealing with ghosts every day.
Yu Xing followed the boy at an unhurried pace. This time, their positions had switched. The boy's stride up ahead seemed a little stiff, while Yu Xing followed