I'm not a fortune teller.

Chapter 45 Dead?

"Brother, it's cold."

Before anyone else spoke, the fourth girl looked at Zhang Rui pitifully, obviously wanting the tonic that Zhang Rui had given her yesterday to warm her body.

Zhang Rui looked at his shivering little sister and parents and quickly took out their blood essence. If the wealthy families saw this, they would probably vomit blood. One drop of blood essence is a precious substance that can only be condensed by sucking all the blood of a ninth-rank warrior. It is worth a thousand taels of gold in the painting market, but it was used as a tool for heating.

Zhang Rui was not heartbroken, but he was very worried, because if this continued, problems might arise internally before the external enemies took action.

Sure enough, after taking the essence and blood of my parents and little sister, they fell asleep feeling warm all over and their complexions were rosy, which still attracted everyone's attention.

Lin Bao thought for a moment and walked over: "Sir."

"What's the matter?" Zhang Rui knew what the other party wanted, but he really couldn't give it to him.

"Does your Excellency have any way to help people avoid this inexplicable evil cold?" Lin Bao asked bravely, "Your Excellency has also seen that our group of brothers have been here for a night and have become like this. If we have to stay here for another night today, I'm afraid there will be big problems. We are your people since we escorted you to Beijing. If your Excellency has any means, can you take care of our brothers?"

Zhang Rui glanced at the other party when he heard that. Lin Bao's neck shrank immediately. He was still frightened by the ability the other party had just displayed. If the other party was really at the same level as Lord Qin Fang, his group actually had no qualifications to negotiate with him. But now that it was a matter of life and death, he could only ask boldly.

Still coming
Zhang Rui's expression changed and his heart sank.

The essence and blood cannot be taken out, which are treasures to warriors. There are twelve escorting soldiers this time. If he compromises, he will have to take at least twelve drops of essence and blood every day. This consumption makes him feel distressed. Once this matter is over, the fact that he has a large amount of essence and blood hidden in his body will be exposed. His family has no background at all and has already been targeted by the prince. It will be too risky if outsiders know about this.

"My ability is limited." Zhang Rui shook his head. "The means of escorting my family members are extremely limited. It is not realistic to protect more people."

Lin Bao gritted his teeth when he heard this: "My Lord, please think of a solution."

If the other party had not shown too much strength just now, he would have been ready to threaten him. Now he can only try his best to beg.

Zhang Rui looked at the other party and said gently: "Although I can't protect you, if your life is in danger, I can still help you."

"Thank you, sir!" Lin Bao's face suddenly lit up with joy.

"But this is not a long-term solution." Zhang Rui waved his hand, motioning the other party to come over. Seeing this, Lin Bao hurried over.

"You should have noticed that this temple is very strange. We must be being targeted by some evil spirit."

Lin Bao nodded. The strange chill of last night and the tragic death of the scholar in the morning were obviously not normal. That was why he came here to seek shelter. These sorcerers were better at dealing with evil spirits than they were.

"According to my observation, there is something wrong with that scholar named Yang."

"Are you sure, sir?" Lin Bao frowned. After all, the scholar surnamed Yang had offended the man in front of him many times, so it was normal for Lord Zhang to be prejudiced against him.

"I'm not sure, let's wait and see." Zhang Rui looked at the sky outside. "At night, it will probably be even colder, just like last night. Have the brothers meditate and don't fall asleep. If it's the same as yesterday, those scholars won't survive tonight. If Yang is fine, arrest him and torture him."

"Yes, my lord!"

After the other party retreated, Zhang Rui continued to look back at the statue. There must be a reason why the scholar surnamed Yang deliberately lured his classmates here. The evil spirits in the dark must be related to this temple. In his previous draft settings, many evil spirits are restricted. They have strange powers within the rules, but the stronger the power of the rules, the less they can reach outside the rules.

For example, in the painting market before, if you don't open the door, no matter how powerful the existence in the painting world is, it can't hurt you. Another example is Chun in Beihai City, as long as you don't look at the smile of the infected person, or kill the infected person directly the moment he smiles, you will never be infected. In fact, there are chances to avoid it.

This evil spirit in front of us must have some special rules, which is why it can trap Murong Yunji.

空间
Zhang Rui thought of this word at the first time. The blocked space prevented him and others from getting out. This should be one of the abilities of this evil spirit. This is also the reason why Murong Yunji could not come back after going out. There are two possibilities. Either Murong Yunji was trapped, or he and others were in the evil space, so Murong Yunji could not find him.

He was more inclined to the second possibility. Murong Yunji was a sword fairy, and there should not be many evil spirits that could deal with her head-on. When she went out, Yang Jie came back first. It was very likely that the moment Yang Jie returned to the temple, he activated the rules of evil spirits, resulting in Murong Yunji, who was still outside the temple, being separated from himself and others.

Then Yang Jie should be the key figure, and killing him might break the rules.

But Yang Jie was a successful candidate in the imperial examination. If he was publicly executed and his guess was wrong, with so many people testifying, the prince would have a legitimate reason to take action against him. He could not take this risk.

Moreover, it would be very dangerous for him to do it himself. After all, he was not a true half-step master, and the risk was still very high. Making his subordinates feel the crisis and winning them over to attack Yang Jie was the best way at the moment.

Then there is this statue.

Zhang Rui kept recalling the contents of his scrapped manuscript. He always felt that he should have heard of the name Qing Feng Niangniang, but he had set up too many things back then, and he had been in this world for more than 20 years, so it was really difficult for him to recall them all at once.

Most people in the temple were complaining in the cold environment, but it didn't last long. Zhang Rui soon discovered that everyone seemed to become listless and some even had a tendency to fall asleep.

"Hey, hey. Don't sleep." Lin Bao kept staring at everyone. When he saw someone who wanted to sleep, he would go up and wake them up. He was puzzled. They were obviously shivering with cold, and why didn't they think about exercising to circulate their blood? Why did they look so sleepy?
No one reminded the scholars over there, and they had already fallen down one by one. Only Qi Xuan, who was sitting with the military inspector, gritted his teeth and insisted. He clearly saw that the head of the military inspector here did not let his men sleep, so it must be that something bad would happen if they fell asleep. Thinking of how Lin Ye fell asleep yesterday, he bit his lips tightly to keep himself awake even though he was very sleepy. It was unknown how long it had been, when Lin Bao was not tired of waking up his men, Zhang Rui, who had not moved, suddenly came over.

"grown ups?"

"Go take a look over there." Zhang Rui frowned slightly.

Most of the scholars had been asleep for some time, so it was a good opportunity to wake them up and see if anything really happened.

It's not that I'm cruel and want to use those scholars for experiments, but they are obviously hopelessly stupid. They were instigated and stood against me. I have my family to protect, so how can I have the leisure to act like a saint and care about the lives of these people?

Since you're going to be tricked anyway, you might as well just observe.

Lin Bao understood what he meant, and Qi Xuan also perked up, stood up and followed him. He also wanted to know if he was overthinking and if there was really something wrong with the surname Yang.

"Hey, wake up!"

As soon as Lin Bao approached, he felt something was wrong. The scholars looked terribly pale, as white as paper, with lips so black without a trace of blood, exactly like Lin Ye who had died yesterday.

"What's wrong?" A few scholars were awakened in time, but their bodies were frighteningly weak. When they opened their eyes, there was no light in them, as if all the energy in their bodies had dissipated.

There were a few who could not be awakened no matter how hard we shook them.

Sure enough something happened!
Qi Xuan saw this and his scalp suddenly went numb. He was lucky that he did not follow this group of guys, otherwise he might have been one of the people who fell asleep just now.

Zhang Rui narrowed his eyes and motioned Lin Bao to go forward and investigate.

Lin Bao helped the sleeping scholars to wake up and examined them carefully. He felt a chill in his heart. These scholars were stiff all over, without any temperature, and had no heartbeat or pulse. The key point was that after lifting up their sleeves, he found that these scholars had thin white hair growing under their skin, which made him feel uneasy.

"It seems that this is the method of killing." Zhang Rui muttered to himself.

First seal off the space, then let the person's energy dissipate, and then they will take action in their sleep.

Thinking of this, he looked at his sleeping family members again. They were full of energy and it seemed that nothing would happen if they fell asleep. So, this evil spirit was not as powerful as he thought.

High-ranking warriors like Lin Bao and Lao Du did not feel sleepy, which showed that the power of the evil spirit was limited, or at least not strong.

It doesn't even have the ability to kill people head-on, and it has to rely on its ability to dissipate the essence first, and then kill people in its sleep. This shows that this monster is afraid of yang energy and cannot stand even a bit of yang energy touching it!

In this case, it is actually not difficult to deal with. As long as we find the location of that thing, maybe the military officers here can kill it.

But there was one thing that Zhang Rui couldn't understand at this moment.

Why did the evil spirit instruct Yang Jie to cheat these skinny scholars?

Theoretically, evil spirits should be more interested in people with stronger blood and essence. Even if they cannot do anything to powerful warriors, they are obviously better at dealing with some strong soldiers. After all, people like Lin Ye are officials, and the court will definitely pay attention to their disappearance. On the contrary, it would be different if it was some soldiers from the north. As long as not too many of these border soldiers died, the local authorities would only pay a little attention to them, and the risk level is far less than killing the scholars who came to Beijing to take the imperial examinations.

The evil spirit may not know about this kind of thing, but how could Yang Jie, who studied in the academy, not know about it?

Taking such a big risk, cheating a bunch of scholars for a few pounds of meat? Is it worth it?
Thinking of this, Zhang Rui decided not to waste any more time and said directly to Lin Bao: "Wake up Yang Jie and interrogate him directly!"

Lin Bao nodded quickly. The conditions of his subordinates were not very good either. After this group of scholars died, it might be their turn. Even if Yang Jie had great achievements, he could not wait as long as there were any doubts in the current situation.

He stepped forward and grabbed Yang Jie, but his heart skipped a beat the moment he did so.

Then he quickly investigated it carefully.

"What's wrong?" Zhang Rui frowned.

"Dead!" Lin Bao swallowed and said.

Qi Xuan's eyes widened when he heard this. Was he wrong? Wasn't it Yang Jie's problem?
Who could that be?

Zhang Rui's eyes turned cold, and he directly pulled out the knife of the guard next to him and slashed at Yang Jie!

(End of this chapter)