The three Foundation Establishment cultivators had not entered the underground palace earlier and knew nothing about the Great Calamity beneath the ground. They merely felt that something was wrong with the seemingly ordinary mortal before them, though they could not say what.
Su Mo cried and laughed for a while, then gradually calmed down, becoming sorrowful and brooding again.
"Since I promised to take you home, I'll take you home. No one can stop me..."
Su Mo raised his head and looked calmly at the three black-robed men blocking his way.
"No one can stop me..."
The black-robed man who had spoken could no longer endure Su Mo's deranged behavior. Sword in hand, he charged.
Cold light flashed along the blade as it thrust straight toward Su Mo's chest.
Su Mo frowned, seemingly displeased. He was holding a little girl in his arms... yet this man was thrusting a sword right into them.
Su Mo was unhappy, and an eerie aura spread from his body.
This aura, invisible to everyone else, coiled around the charging black-robed man. It burrowed into his body through his nostrils, ears, mouth, eyes, and even his pores.
The black-robed man suddenly felt cold all over, a chill running from head to toe.
The Black-Robed Man's movements slowed with it. Just as the sword tip was about to reach Su Mo's arms, he could no longer move at all.
To his horror, the black-robed man discovered that he had lost all control of his body...
Unease and terror crawled through his heart. He had never encountered anything so bizarre.
The other two black-robed men also realized something was wrong and abruptly retreated several steps.
They saw the black-robed man who had charged at Su Mo aging at a speed visible to the naked eye...
"See..." Su Mo chuckled. "I only want to take you home. Of course they won't refuse."
"Why would they refuse? My taking you home has nothing to do with them, does it?"
Su Mo gently patted the little girl's back, soothing her.
Yet to everyone else present, this gesture was like seeing a ghost. They all watched Su Mo's movements in terror.
The three black-robed men now remembered what the monk and the Daoist had said earlier.
The Great Calamity...
A thing of the Great Calamity...
The three felt as though they had plunged into ice, their hearts turning cold.
Su Mo's emotions were wildly unstable. As he spoke, he began crying again. "It has nothing to do with them. Why would they refuse?"
"Unless..."
"They want to keep us here! That's it... they want to refine blood pills. Of course they want to keep us here."
"But..." Tears streamed down Su Mo's face, his expression sorrowful. "I promised I would take you home."
The little girl lifted her head and wiped away Su Mo's tears with her tiny hands. Pitiful yet remarkably understanding, she said, "Don't cry, Older Brother. If they won't let us leave, then we won't leave. Don't cry, Older Brother. Tongtong isn't scared anymore... Tongtong really isn't scared anymore... don't cry!"
She did not want Older Brother to cry. He looked just as helpless when he cried.
"Good girl, Tongtong. Older Brother won't cry..." Su Mo took her tiny hand and drew her head back into his embrace. "Let Older Brother think of a way. I'll take you home, no matter what."
"Can you sing nursery rhymes, Tongtong?" Su Mo lightly brushed aside the long hair over his forehead, his gesture strangely seductive. Then he smiled coquettishly, gently rocking his arms.
"Yes!" The little girl's departed soul nodded in his embrace.
"Then..." Su Mo thought for a moment before saying, "Sing everyone a nursery rhyme, Tongtong. Perhaps they'll think it sounds lovely... and let us go home once they're happy."
"Will they?" Tongtong asked innocently.
"They will!" Su Mo assured her with a smile.
"Mm..." Tongtong also thought for a moment. "Then Tongtong will sing the Three Character Classic. Mother taught me..."
"All right..." Su Mo gently swayed with the little girl in his arms, his movements peculiar.
Everyone present trembled with fear, including Zhixuan and Mude inside the Golden Alms Bowl nearby.
At that moment, the three black-robed men's attention was nowhere near Zhixuan and Mude. The two could easily have left the Golden Alms Bowl and fled.
Yet the eerie atmosphere left them without the courage to run.
It seemed they still felt a little safer inside the Golden Alms Bowl...
"At birth, human nature is good.
Our natures are alike; our habits draw us apart.
Without teaching, our nature changes.
The way of teaching values devotion..."
The little girl sang the Three Character Classic in a tender voice, its melody cheerful-a nursery rhyme that taught through song.
As Tongtong's song rose, Su Mo slowly began to move...
Holding Tongtong's departed soul, he swayed gently, his swaying gradually becoming a dance. His strange movements were uncannily eerie...
By then, the other two black-robed men discovered that they, too, had somehow become unable to move. They watched in horror as Su Mo danced strangely, amusing himself...
Su Mo danced around the three black-robed men, swaying and bobbing his head, while his arms held the pitiful departed soul tightly.
In the courtyard... Su Mo danced wildly, the three black-robed Foundation Establishment cultivators stood rigid and immobile, and two trembling men hid inside the Golden Alms Bowl nearby. Corpses littered the ground, while dim light and bloody miasma filled the house behind Su Mo.
The scene in the courtyard was grotesquely eerie.
Night, falling rain, a chilly breeze... beneath the dim candlelight, Su Mo danced gently in the rain, his arms curved around an embrace.
A song of the dead wove through the night's surging bloody miasma, frightening the souls of the living into restless terror...
"Long ago, Mencius's mother chose her neighbors.
When her son would not study, she cut the cloth upon her loom.
As a child, while still young,
Draw close to teachers and friends, and learn proper conduct..."
The singing continued, as did the strange dance...
The sword-wielding black-robed man stood utterly rigid, unable to move a muscle. His entire body was icy cold. An extraordinarily eerie aura wandered through him, constantly devouring his vitality.
Unease, worry, fear, bewilderment... all manner of emotions welled up in his heart. Yet he could not even open his mouth.
His weakness grew steadily, and a feeling called despair consumed the black-robed man's every thought.
Su Mo spun, holding the departed soul, and danced up to the black-robed man before stopping...
"How could you not listen properly to Tongtong's singing?" Su Mo asked, looking at the Black-Robed Man.
The black-robed man wanted to speak, but he could not open his mouth. He could say nothing.
Seemingly dissatisfied that the black-robed man had not listened attentively to Tongtong's singing, Su Mo tilted his head and pondered for a moment.
Then he reached out and tapped the black-robed man's forehead!
Afterward, with light, seductive steps, he danced through the rain with little Tongtong in his arms... from a distance, he looked just like the Great Calamity.
The moment Su Mo's finger touched his forehead, the black-robed man stared in stunned disbelief, watching Su Mo dance as though holding something in his arms...
He heard it. He heard a little child singing a nursery rhyme there, a cheerful nursery rhyme...
On this eerie night, Su Mo danced an eerie dance, while an eerie nursery rhyme sung by someone unseen drifted into the black-robed man's ears.
The black-robed man's liver and gall seemed ready to split with terror. A mighty foundation establishment late-stage cultivator, yet at this moment, all he felt was overwhelming fear!
The eerie aura kept devouring his vitality, leaving him ever older and weaker...
"At nine, Xiang could warm his parents' bedding.
Filial devotion to one's parents is a duty to uphold.
From one to ten, from ten to a hundred.
From a hundred to a thousand, from a thousand to ten thousand..."
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