LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 531, 532
531: Juntian’s Suspicions
Ai Lin looked at the guy in front of her curiously. She didn’t know who he was, but he was acting familiar with Feng Wu. Was he a relative?
“It turns out Miss Ai Lin is Xiao Wu’s classmate. I am Xiao Wu’s older brother, Feng Juntian. Thank you for taking care of my family’s Xiao Wu at school Miss Ai Lin.” Juntian looked at Ai Lin and spoke without emotion.
Yep, siblings. Ai Lin believed it. Both siblings had the same expressionless, nearly paralyzed faces.
“It’s no matter; Xiao Wu also takes care of me a lot too.”
“I wonder, why is Miss Ai Lin here?” Juntian asked without missing a beat.
She had entered in such a hurry. Could it be related to the formation array in the cave?
“Well... I accidentally left something in the cave a few days ago. I just remembered today, so I hurried back to get it.”
“Did you drop this?” Juntian held out a softly glowing snow-white bead the size of an egg. The bead was absorbing nearby elements and was clearly an unusual item.
“My gathering magic bead!” Ai Lin whispered in surprise. She had only gotten the rare support item recently a few days ago and hadn’t moved it into her dimensional space yet when she lost it.
Because the bead could gather and store energy from the five elements, a magician could keep it on their body and use it in battle to ensure they wouldn’t run out of energy.
She knew she had it when she went to the cave so she had backtracked and search all the places she was at recently. The cave was the last place she thought of to look. Unexpectedly, it was there and it was Feng Wu’s brother who picked it up.
“This is not a bad bead. It’s a rare support item and will be helpful to you in the future if you use it properly.” Juntian wasn’t greedy for other people's things. He wasn’t a magician but a sword user, and although the item could certainly be useful, he wasn’t the type to rely on support items; nor was he going to take someone else’s magic item.
“Thank you, Brother Juntian.” Ai Lin secretly sighed after taking the bead back from Juntian. The guy was definitely worthy of being the heir to a super power house. Anyone else would never have returned it.
“Miss Ai Lin, from what you’ve said, it sounds like you were here a few days ago, correct?”
"Brother Juntian, just call me Ai Lin. Yes I was here a few days ago.” There was nothing for her to hide, so Ai Lin spoke truthfully.
“Ai Lin, I’m not sure if you would know, but do you recognize the formation painted on the floor here?”
“What do you want to ask about the Soul Sacrifice formation for?” Ai Lin didn't expect him to ask about it and had replied with thinking.
She knew she’d said something wrong the moment the words left her lips. She shouldn’t have recognized it; now if something happened in the future, people were going to blame her for it. Wasn’t she just digging her own grave?
It was too late to take it back now. Everyone there had heard her say it.
“You really know the name of this formation?! What the hell is it?! Do you have something to do with it?! Are you involved with An’an’s death. Tell me! Answer me!”
Before Juntian could ask anything, Shui had jumped in and grabbed Ai Lin by the collar and shook her hard while pummeling her with questions.
Ai Lin was dizzy from having her head shaken like a bobble so she tried to shoo Shui’s hand away.
Juntian thought Shui was being impulsive. They weren’t sure Ai Lin had anything to do with the deaths so it was a bit too much to rush and question her like that.
He grabbed Shui’s shoulders and pulled her away from Ai Lin.
“Brother Juntian, let me go! I have to ask her clearly. Let me go!” Shui shouted as she struggled against Juntian.
“OK, calm down. We can ask in a reasonable manner. Let me do the talking.”
Shui was a little afraid of Juntian so she shut her mouth and let him do the talking.
Once she calmed down, Juntian let go of her shoulders and asked Ai Lin, “Ai Lin, how do you know the name of this formation?”
He couldn’t recognize the formation, and he was from one of the most powerful families on the continent and was an up and coming future member of Star Marshall hall. With all the resources these stations gave him, it stood to reason he would be more knowledgeable than a second year at Xingguang Holy academy.
And yet Ai Lin knew what it was immediately. It was unusual and really made him wonder.
“Oh, it’s a coincidence actually that I know about it. Last year, I was lucky enough to enter an ancient magician’s tomb. The magician was a formation magician and left a scroll detailing several formations behind. I looked through them and saw there were several forbidden formations in it.
I burned the scroll after reading it because I felt it would be a disaster if it fell into the wrong hands. It was only by chance that I passed by Qui mountain a few days ago and entered the cave. As soon as I saw the formation on the ground, I recognized it was one of the forbidden formations from ancient times. . . ”
Verifying what Ai Lin said would have been difficult, but Juntian didn’t feel she had any reason to lie. It looked like she didn’t have anything to do with the formation.
But then again it was all too coincidental – her coming to the mountain alone and her discovering the formation. The suspicion in Juntian’s mind wasn’t completely dispelled but he was careful not to show it and instead continued to ask his questions.
“You said this was called the Soul Sacrifice formation, but we still don’t know the purpose behind it.”
Ai Lin thought for a bit then said, “Just the Soul Sacrifice formation by itself is useless. It needs to be paired with a treasure from the underworld to work.”
“And what would that be?”
“Death’s Wishing Stone.”
“What’s that?” Shui had been listening to the side. She didn’t fully believe Ai Lin, but she wasn’t as agitated as she was earlier.
Feng Wu stood to the side quietly listening.
It wasn’t a surprise they didn’t know. If Ai Lin hadn’t read the story, she would never have thought there was a way to exchange lives and bring the dead back to life, never mind that a treasure as sinister as a death stone could exist.
“Death’s Wishing Stone is a stone the god of death left behind in this world. It’s a very unusual stone in that it has a bit of godly essence inside. Anyone who has the stone can make a wish and use it to revive anyone they want. . . ”
532: The Price of a Resurrection
But life and death are predetermined by God and resurrecting the dead goes against the natural laws of the world. It’s impossible to bring someone back without paying a price.
This resurrection cost seven lives. The one making the wish must sacrifice the lives of seven people close to them; it doesn’t have to be blood relations either. As long as it is someone close to the person, it will be accepted.
The seven people must choose their method of death while on top of the Soul Sacrifice formation for the formation to activate. Then a part of the god of death’s essence will come through the formation. The god’s essence will use the agreed upon method of death to reap their souls. Once the last sacrifice is made, the wish will be granted and the target soul to be resurrected will leave the underworld and return to the world of the living.”
“Seven sacrifices... choosing their own deaths...” Shui took two steps back in disbelief. She suddenly crouched down on the ground with the hands over her head as if in great pain.
“This... don’t tell me someone really came and activated the formation!” Ai Lin muttered.
Ai Lin was surprised things had already progressed so far. Based on the way she was acting, it was obvious the girl crouching was probably one of the sacrifices. She was so pitiful, Ai Lin forgave her for earlier.
“Yes, it’s been activated. Five people have already died in the city. Their deaths were all strange and related to the horror stories they shared when they were in this cave. They died in the same manner the people in their stories died.”
“Five died, so the last two. . . ” Ai Lin considered how Juntian had brought Feng Wu and the other girl who had grabbed her shoulder earlier. Was Feng Wu one of the sacrifices? What a crazy coincidence!
Ai Lin was really surprised. She never expected Feng Wu to be so unlucky. She couldn’t remember the names of the seven people from the story, so she wasn’t sure if Feng Wu had been one of them.
Juntian nodded with a heavy expression. If the one doing all the killings was a human being, then they could deal with it by catching the person. But if the murderer was the god of death entering the human world through a formation. . . How would he go about dealing with that?
“Miss Ai Lin, is there a way to break it?” Juntian asked.
The words immediately raised Shui’s hopes and she looked expectantly at Ai Lin with a pitiful look on her face.
Ai Lin knew so many things, maybe she would know how to break the formation.
“It’s not impossible to break the formation – you have to kill the one making the wish. But remember, even if you kill the wisher, it won’t bring back the people who already died. It’s just that the ones still alive won’t have to worry about their souls being taken.”
It was everything she knew from having read the original story. She remembered the information came from a hermit necromancer.
“I understand. Thank you, Miss Ai Lin.” Juntian solemnly thanked Ai Lin.
Shui and Ai Lin returned with Juntian and Feng Wu back to the Feng family home. Juntian didn’t dare let Ai Lin go before verifying the method she outlined, so he had asked her to stay over temporarily and had a room arranged for her.
Ai Lin’s stay made her realized how prominent Feng house was. Her family was peanuts in comparison.
There was no one in charge at Qui house and Shui didn’t dare stay alone because she was afraid the god of death would reap her soul at any moment. She took the initiative to live with the Feng family even though the two families were not on good terms because of the very bad fight between her and Feng Wu. They had torn each other’s faces away, so there was none left to consider.
Even if you twisted her arm, Shui would never have thought there’d be a day she’d beg to stay over at the Feng’s family home. But this was a truly unexpected event. Compared to dying, begging to stay over was nothing.
Besides, the one helping her was Juntian, not Feng Wu, Shui fooled herself into thinking.
Shui didn’t dare stay too far from Feng Wu and strongly demanded the room next door. Madam Lan had been worried she was up to no good at first, but Juntian reassured her it wasn’t the case.
Madam Lan didn’t know Feng Wu was a sacrifice target. If she knew, he was sure she would cry.
But the matter was a big thing and Juntian couldn’t conceive of not telling his father and grandfather. So he located them and explained the entire situation.
Neither Father Feng nor Grandfather Feng thought Ning Bi would be so bold as to use a Feng descendent as a soul sacrifice. They really wanted to destroy the Ning family for raising such ludicrous female. But the important thing right now was to save Feng Wu, destroying the Ning family could come at its on time.
Father Feng and Grandfather Feng were worried something would happen to Feng Wu so they sent a large number of people to find Ning Bi. They also had guards stationed outside Feng Wu’s room to keep her from being taken away without their knowledge.
Juntian contacted Bai to pass on the information to the Qui’s family head, but even Bai couldn’t locate his father to contact him. As for Madam Qui, her face turned deathly white upon hearing her son’s explanation. She immediately took her people and left her mother’s house and returned home. But upon returning she learned Shui had left and was staying with her old rival, Madam Lan.
This incensed Madam Qui, but it wasn’t like she could make a fuss about it since the Feng family were helping her daughter. She had no choice but to rush to the Feng’s as quickly as possible.
Shui’s older sister, Bing, had gone out with the head of Qui house and she was not around either. The only ones to go to the Feng’s were Madam Qui and Bai.
The Qui family sent a large number of people to look for Ning Bi. The Ning family were also put under surveillance though they didn’t know what Ning Bi had done or where she had gone. There was nothing the Feng or Qui families could do but slowly search for her.
The problem was no one knew when the god of death would strike.
Juntian and Bai thought about destroying the black formation to prevent the god’s divine sense from coming through, but Ai Lin knew from the original text that it would be useless. The god of death was already in the mortal world, it was just that it had not reaped all the souls yet. When all seven souls were reaped, the god’s divine sense would naturally dissipate. Until then, destroying the physical formation wouldn’t do anything.