The child's tender voice echoed through the empty stone hall, as elusive as mist.
In the faint blue-green light, Ren Ye cautiously surveyed his surroundings, unconsciously swallowed, and whispered, "...It seems the Witch Spirit Ghost Child is here."
No sooner had he spoken than cheerful footsteps rang out in the eastern tunnel. Judging by the weight of the footfalls, it did indeed sound like a child running.
"Rock, rock, Tongyuan Bridge of the Twenty-Four Tombs...!"
The tender voice echoed, clear and sweet, as though singing a nursery rhyme.
Standing back-to-back, both men turned toward the eastern tunnel.
Before long, a tiny figure appeared and gradually came into focus.
It was a little boy, only about four or five years old, dressed in a cloth shirt and trousers. He was cute, with rosy, delicate skin, like a porcelain doll.
His hair was shaved in a lucky-child style, and he held an old rattle drum in his right hand as he hummed his nursery rhyme and ran into the stone hall covered in inscriptions of anecdotes from the Four-Character Military Strategies.
In appearance, he was no different from an ordinary child from a mountain village. There was nothing strange about his features, nor did he look frightening. He was completely unlike the ghost child Ren Ye had imagined, and even seemed quite easy to get along with.
"Huh? Uncles... are you here to look for the Earth Dragon Six Jia?"
The Witch Spirit Ghost Child stopped when he saw Ren Ye and Big Fat Dragon, asking the question with curiosity in his large eyes.
His little face was rosy, his expression utterly innocent, and he did not seem afraid of strangers.
But what Ren Ye and Big Fat Dragon did not know was that the instant the rattle drum sounded, every False