Speaking, you strode up the mountain at a brisk pace, and to everyone’s amazement, Zhao’er had already followed in your footsteps.
Hu Qing turned to the village chief beside him and asked, "Does he know where the pool is?"
The village chief shook his head. "I didn’t tell him."
"Then how does he know?" Hu Qing raised his head to look at your increasingly distant figure and led everyone to follow.
"This guy has many mysterious ways about him; the longer you interact with him, you’ll find there seems to be nothing he can’t do," Xian Qianling chirped from the side, as if she was boasting about her beloved to the crowd.
Rang Hongfei glanced at Sun Mingyu beside him, who merely shrugged and returned the look with an unspoken understanding.
Sun Mingyu asked Xian Qianling, "One Xu Minjiao, one Xu Tonghua, both with the surname Xu, could they be the same person?"
"It’s possible," Xian Qianling answered, "Let’s pick up our pace. We don’t want to arrive only to find that guy has already taken care of the mess."
"Right, right, I came here especially to watch Chairman Li catch ghosts," declared Rang Hongfei as he immediately jogged ahead.
For you, who had often run wild in the deep mountains of Minnan since childhood, the winding mountain path seemed exceptionally smooth. Along the way, you could occasionally see tall fragrant torreya trees. These trees were all under fifty years old, so there was nothing worth your attention.
Having walked for a while, you came upon a depression in the mountain ahead, where there nestled a pool formed by several streams converging from higher ground.
"Why have you stopped?"
Seeing you standing outside the depression, about ten meters from the pool, Xian Qianling couldn’t help walking over to ask.
"Just look for yourself."
Xian Qianling turned to look at the pool inside the mountain nook—"Hmm!"
The usually stoic Xian Qianling couldn’t help but gasp at the sight of the pool. Pointing at the dozen or so heads bobbing in the water, she stammered, "What... what are those?"
Hu Qing and the others caught up from behind, and when they saw the dense cluster of heads in the water, they involuntarily sucked in a breath of cold air, "This... we’ve been here before and didn’t notice anything strange. How come there are so many heads now, and..."
A female officer in Hu Qing’s team suddenly shrieked, having noticed that all the heads had uniformly turned around, staring at everyone with their pupil-less eyes wide open.
Xian Qianling tugged at your sleeve, "Hey, where did these things come from?"
As you were about to speak, the heads in the pool slowly emerged, followed by tattered male and female ghosts crawling out of the water.
These creatures were either disheveled or twisted their ghastly faces while contorting their hands into claws. They crawled towards you and the others with a most eerie motion.
"Geesh, can’t the dead let the living rest in peace." Muttering, you stepped forward as if the terrifying spirits emerging from the pool didn’t faze you at all.
Standing firmly with your legs planted, you looked up slightly, and in an impatient tone, you addressed the resentful spirits, "Hey, considering that you have already taken eleven lives and caused trouble and suffering for the living over a large area, I’m not going to waste time with you this time. The gates of the Underworld are already open for you. If you hold any grudges against Xu Minjiao and Xu Tonghua, take them up with Lord Yama."
As you spoke, yellow vermillion charms continuously flew out of your pocket. After thirty-two had emerged, under the astonished and amazed gazes of the crowd, those yellow vermillion charms swiftly formed an Innate Bagua Formation completely covering the pool above.
Once the talisman formation took shape, a golden light shield enveloped everything, binding all the vengeful ghosts within.
"No! I don’t want to go to the Underworld, I want to kill Xu Tonghua, I want to kill that slut!"
"Xu Minjiao, even in the next life, I won’t let you go!"
The vengeful ghosts suddenly became noisy and screamed out loud, making the entire pond seem as if it were boiling!
At that moment, the Sen Luo Curse Mark in your eyes was spinning rapidly, and you brought your hands together in front of your chest and shouted clearly, "All Forms of Sen Luo, reincarnation!"
Right then, the scene in everyone’s eyes changed abruptly!
The beautiful water and green mountains disappeared in an instant, replaced by a dark world where one couldn’t see their own fingers even when stretching their hands before their eyes.
Just as everyone was confused and even frightened by this, a "klok klok kak kak" sound of a gate opening suddenly came from behind the pond.
People could hear the sound of a gate opening but could not see its form. Soon after, Rang Hongfei suddenly pointed to the path straight ahead and said, "Look, what is that?"
A few faint shadows emerged from the darkness, and at the same time, people heard the sound of iron chains clashing: "clang clang... clang clang..."
In the Kuaiji Territory, the Ghost messengers that appeared wouldn’t be the Kan Family Brothers, and this time the door you opened was the grand gate of the Underworld. The Yin Envoys coming out were certainly from the Underworld and not the same as Chenghuang’s Yin Envoys, more like the Capital Envoys in comparison to the Chenghuang of Kuaiji and Yuhang.
Those Ghost messengers didn’t even feel like facing you and simply swept over with the Soul Locking Chain, gathering all the vengeful spirits from the pond into it before swiftly leaving. As the iron chain sounds faded, the obscured gate of the Underworld also closed gradually with "klok klok kak kak" sounds.
Shortly after, everyone’s sight returned to its original clarity and brightness, and there were no more terrifying ghosts in the pond, which became as translucent and clear as before.
With a casual wave, the yellow vermillion charms spinning above the pond quickly burned to ashes and scattered into the forest.
Xian Qianling came up quickly and asked, "Is it resolved?"
"There’s one last thing to do."
As you spoke, you took out a yellow vermillion charm from your pocket and swiftly folded it into a paper airplane, breathed on it, then casually tossed it toward the forest.
"Follow the paper airplane, and we’ll solve this final issue."
Xian Qianling followed your steps, asking, "Didn’t you used to use a Thousand Paper Cranes? Why a paper airplane this time?"
"Folding a Thousand Paper Cranes is too troublesome, a paper airplane is much more convenient."
Upon hearing this, Xian Qianling rolled her eyes and muttered, "Lazy bum."
Actually, another important reason for using a paper airplane was that it could glide with the airflow, saving a great deal of energy and making it much more convenient than a Thousand Paper Cranes.
The paper airplane soon landed by a stream beside which there was a mound that seemed to have been affected by a landslide, with something scattered out of the dirt.
Sun Mingyu and two criminal police officers went to take a look and then turned to Xian Qianling, saying, "Captain, there are some skeletal remains here!"