Smoke and Fire [GL] - Chapter 4

Luo Yao walked about thirty meters into the shallow beach. Only when she estimated that she wouldn’t harm the innocent did she slowly turn around.

The night sky was as black as a cage, without a single sliver of starlight. Her black trench coat rustled in the wind. Her eyes were slightly lowered as she faintly watched the ghoulish shadows lunging at her, baring their fangs and claws.

The next second, she pulled a fruit knife from her pocket and sliced the tip of her index finger.

A string of crystal-clear bl00d droplets fell into the sea.

Yi An cried out in alarm, but was quickly muffled by Si Yin, who whispered in her ear, “Trust her.”

As soon as Si Yin’s words fell, four columns of water suddenly erupted around Luo Yao!

She gently raised her left hand, and the four water columns spiraled into the air like a movie special effect. Then, her fingertip drew a circle in the void, and the spiraling water droplets began to rotate rapidly, forming a water spout with Luo Yao as the eye of the storm within five seconds.

The ghosts were too fast. Caught off guard, they all crashed into the waterspout, quickly staining the semi-transparent water curtain black.

“Why… why!!”

“Tell me, what did we do wrong, what did we do wrong?!”

“Why wasn’t it you who died?!”

The wailing of ten thousand ghosts circled around her ears.

Luo Yao, in the center of the formation, sighed softly, gently pinched her bleeding fingertip, and with her other hand drew an arc in the air, softly saying, “Withdraw.”

In an instant, all the black mist rushed towards her. She slightly furrowed her brow, and the formation changed with her will, smoothing the mass of black resentment into a long strip. Then, like a snake, it surged into her bleeding fingertip.

This huge airflow blew her hair back. The massive resentment surging into her slender, delicate body was undoubtedly a scene of extreme visual impact.

But the person at the center of the formation never changed her posture from beginning to end. Her eyelashes were slightly lowered, and her expression was very subtle. In a certain moment, Yi An felt she saw something akin to divinity in Luo Yao.

Dozens of seconds later, the resentment completely disappeared from around her.

The rotation speed of the water columns gradually slowed down, circling their owner slowly, looking somewhat solicitous. Luo Yao smiled and sat on one of the water columns. The waves instantly pushed her to the shore.

Si Yin quickly let go of Yi An and hurried over: “Are you okay? Quick, let Tan Tan take a look—”

“I’m fine.” Although Luo Yao said so, her lips were actually a little pale. Her complexion must have also been pale, but it wasn’t obvious because her skin was too fair.

Yi An stared at her blankly.

Luo Yao smiled and said, “I’ll explain later. We have a task now.”

As if responding to her words, from Yi An’s perspective, some invisible things faintly drifted over from where the water columns disappeared, but they couldn’t be seen clearly.

Si Yin glanced at her and slowly reached out, patting her on the shoulder.

Then Yi An saw it.

The entire sky was densely packed with pale white human figures. They floated semi-transparently in mid-air, all looking down at them. Among these people, Yi An could distinguish Granny Mi, the guesthouse owner, the death-seeking up-close-and-personal streamer, and A-Xue.

“These are the souls of the dead villagers of Yunshan Village,” Si Yin said, crossing her arms over her chest, a hint of a smile on her valiant face. “This storm surge drowned everyone affected, and then they became vengeful ghosts. What your Sister Luo just did was absorb their resentment. These people can now be reborn.”

Luo Yao smiled and said to these people, “I apologize to everyone for your suffering in this life. When you get to the Ghost Realm, mention Si Yin’s name, and your next reincarnation will be better, okay?”

“Hey, you!”

However, no one—oh no, no ghost—paid attention to Si Yin’s protest. The souls gathered around Luo Yao.

The first to float forward was the up-close-and-personal streamer named “Brother Tian.”

“Do you have any lingering regrets?” Luo Yao asked him.

“…” Brother Tian shook his head, then gave a self-deprecating smile, “I was courting death this life anyway, getting myself killed. After all, making money through streaming isn’t easy. Alas, my fate was bad, nothing more to say.”

Luo Yao said seriously, “Money is not as important as life. You must remember that in your next life.”

Then she gently touched his brow with her fingertip. A circle of soft halo gently rippled out, and Brother Tian’s soul gradually dissipated.

“What is she doing?” Yi An quietly asked Si Yin.

“She’s super-seding the departed souls.” Si Yin answered.

For the next hour, every time Luo Yao placed her hand on a soul’s brow, she would ask, “Do you have any lingering regrets?” Then, a glimmer of light would flash from her fingertip, and the soul would gradually dissipate.

Gradually, all the souls disappeared. Luo Yao turned to the last two girls.

One shyly hid behind the other, just as they had been when first encountered.

“Do you two have any lingering regrets?” Luo Yao squatted down and asked softly.

“I don’t,” the girl in front shook her head, “It’s just that I lived such a short life. When I was a vengeful ghost, I forgot how I died… Now that I remember, it feels like a dream.”

She paused, then looked up again: “Big sister, did you ask for our names the first time we met and gave us candy because you wanted to confirm if we were ghosts?”

Unexpectedly, Luo Yao admitted, “You are very smart. But now I know, would you still like to tell me your name?”

“My name is Li Xuan. Her name is Li Xue, she’s my cousin. We all call her A-Xue.”

Hearing this, A-Xue shyly stepped forward: “I’m, I’m sorry for scaring you when we were ghosts…”

“No, you only scared this sister,” Luo Yao patted Yi An’s shoulder.

Yi An: “…”

As the two girls disappeared hand-in-hand into the night sky, A-Xue suddenly looked back and smiled: “Oh, right, the person you are looking for is indeed in that cave.”

Luo Yao also smiled: “Thank you.”

She watched the two girls leave, then Luo Yao turned back, the smile on her face fading away, “Let’s go, back to Yunshan.”

Yi An finally realized that their original goal for the night was the cave in Yunshan. Everything that happened on the way to the beach, including the many events they dealt with, was entirely because of her own foolishness.

“Wait, who are you looking for?” Yi An felt her ignorant brain was filled with question marks.

After all, everything before her completely subverted her belief as a staunch materialist: first encountering real ghosts, then her roommates suddenly acquiring special abilities, and the most gentle one of them actually swiftly eliminated a group of ghosts?!

Oh no, in their words, she super-seded the departed souls.

But this time, no one paid attention to her again. Si Yin and Tan Tan were already following closely behind Luo Yao, one on the left and one on the right. The group headed back to Yunshan.

Returning to the morgue area, Yi An was now extremely jumpy, hesitating to go inside.

“The souls of these people are gone, they won’t rise from the dead anymore,” Si Yin took pity and stopped to wait for her, explaining, “However, if you’re really afraid, I suggest you stay outside. It might be even scarier inside.”

“Are you kidding? I, Yi An, have encountered ghosts before; I am now fearless, alright!” Yi An was stubbornly defiant.

Si Yin, however, uncharacteristically didn’t retort. She just asked, “Do you know what is scarier than a ghost?”

“What?”

“A demon.”

Yi An was momentarily stunned: “A demon?”

“I have seen one demon in my life. To this day, no one in the Six Realms dares to utter her name,” she stopped there, as if afraid to say more, “Oh, it’s not the one inside.”

Yi An breathed a sigh of relief.

“But it does have some relation to the one inside,” Si Yin added meaningfully, “A bl00d relation.”

Yi An couldn’t catch her breath and choked.

The deeper they walked into the cave, the darker it became. But at a certain point, her eyes suddenly lit up.

What appeared before them was an empty tomb chamber. However, the places where coffins should have been placed were all empty. Coffin wood was strewn crosswise on the ground. The heads of the white bones had been torn off by someone and arranged systematically on the ground, resembling a huge formation.

“A sacrificial array…”

Si Yin murmured to herself, “Could it be that we guessed wrong before? Her mother didn’t want her to come out either?”

Then she ignored Yi An and walked straight towards Luo Yao.

“This array lacks the main caster in the center. It must be because we alerted her earlier during the agitation of the hundred ghosts,” she looked at Luo Yao, her voice carrying a sense of request for instruction, “What should we do? Should we retreat?”

Luo Yao slowly looked up at the formation.

Her gaze was extremely complex. Yi An’s limited vocabulary couldn’t even describe it. She only felt that the look was very calm yet very sad, as if the person standing at the ending had already understood everything, but still couldn’t help feeling heartbroken over a certain plot point.

Yi An clearly didn’t understand anything and didn’t know what Si Yin was talking about, but she just felt heartbroken at the moment she looked at Luo Yao.

After a long time, Luo Yao finally spoke: “Once a sacrificial array is activated, it cannot be easily shut down. The main caster cannot leave too far, or they will suffer a backlash from the Demonic Aura.”

“—She didn’t leave. She is right here.”

The next moment, an abrupt change occurred!

The roof of the tomb chamber suddenly collapsed from the middle, coincidentally falling exactly between Yi An and the other three. Following that was an earth-shattering tremor. The shockwave instantly flung Yi An out, slamming her against the stone wall, causing a piercing pain.

“What the heck…” Yi An clutched her stomach, sucking in a breath.

The tomb chamber was clearly about to collapse. Huge rocks began to slide down from above the heads of the four people. One piece just missed Yi An’s head—it could be said that if she had been slightly off balance just now, she would have been a bloody mess.

Luo Yao happened to notice this scene. She flashed to avoid a falling rock, her brow furrowed. She said coldly, “Lin Shuang, how much longer do you plan to play?”

Play??

Yi An, who almost died, nearly screamed “Huh?!”

What kind of person was this “Lin Shuang” they were looking for, to call a life-threatening earthquake “playing”??

Just as Yi An was questioning reality, amidst the deafening tremor, she suddenly heard a very cheerful, girlish laugh.

“Ha, hahaha, hahahahahaha…”

The laughter came from all directions, sounding as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world and was laughing so hard she could barely breathe.

“Oh my.”

In the center of the array, a stunningly beautiful girl was now sitting, letting out a light sigh with a smile she had just controlled.

The moment Yi An saw the girl, she felt she was very, very beautiful.

This beauty was different from Luo Yao’s. Luo Yao’s beauty was gentle, very approachable, while this girl’s beauty was a vivid, colorful hue, like a petal stained with poison.

She was leaning casually against the stone of the array’s center in a gorgeous, flowing dress that trailed on the ground. With a slight lift of her hand, the shaking abruptly stopped.

The tomb chamber fell silent for a moment.

The girl just looked up and smiled, her gaze fixed on Luo Yao, and she said unhurriedly:

“What I’m more curious about is, why did you grace us with your presence this time, Mother?”