Dao Qi Wu Zang Guan Guan: I became a Daoist Master in the 1990s

Chapter 29 Desolate Tomb
"Damn it, this awful weather! This lousy road!" Zhang Qiang wiped the rain off his face, his voice broken and fragmented by the howling wind.

"Juanzi, stay close! Don't slip!"

Before he could finish speaking, as if to confirm his worries, a short, startled cry came from ahead!

"what--!"

Li Juan, who was walking a little ahead of Qi Yun, slipped and stepped on a soft, rain-soaked clod of mud at the edge of the roadbed!

She instantly lost her balance and, in a panic, instinctively reached out to grab Liu Wen beside her!
Caught off guard, Liu Wen was pulled along by her, and the two of them tumbled down the edge of the steep roadbed like rolling gourds, screaming in alarm!

"Juanzi! Liu Wen!" Zhang Qiang's eyes were bloodshot as he reached out to grab her, but he only grabbed a handful of cold rain and air.

The change happened in the blink of an eye!
"Damn it!" Qi Yun's eyes narrowed, and without the slightest hesitation, he shrugged and slammed the heavy snakeskin bag onto the muddy roadbed with a thud.

Almost simultaneously, the two of them used their hands and feet to slide down the wet and steep slope, following the trajectory of Li Juan and Liu Wen who had rolled down.

"Watch out for the stones!" Qi Yun whispered, warning his companion.

The slope was covered with jagged rocks and overgrown with thorns, making it extremely fast to slide down.

Ouch! My foot!

"Ouch...it hurts so much!"

As soon as they slid to the bottom of the slope, groans mixed with pain and terror came from the dense bushes and darkness below.

"Li Juan! Liu Wen! Where are you?" Zhang Qiang called out anxiously, his voice sounding weak in the rain and echoing through the woods.

"This...here!" It was Li Juan's voice, choked with sobs, filled with pain.

Qi Yun followed the sound and parted the wet branches and leaves of the bushes with swift and steady movements.

Zhang Qiang took an old-fashioned tin flashlight out of his bag and turned it on with a "click".

The dim beam of light pierced through the darkness and rain, first illuminating Liu Wen's figure.

He was struggling to sit up from a pile of dead branches and leaves, covered in mud, with several bloody scratches on his face. He was clutching his arm and grimacing, but he seemed to be alright.

The beam of light then moved and focused a few steps away.

Li Juan was half-lying on the ground, leaning against a dark object, struggling to stand up by using her hands to support herself.

Her face was deathly pale, with rainwater and mud smeared on her face, and her hair was disheveled and stuck to her forehead.

She had just tried to push off with her left foot when a sharp, piercing pain suddenly struck her!

"Ah—!" she cried out in pain, her body went limp and she slumped back down, tears streaming down her face with the rain. "My ankle... I twisted my ankle! It hurts so much!"

"Juanzi, don't move!" Upon seeing this, Liu Wen disregarded his own safety and hurriedly tried to crawl over.

Just then, Li Juan subconsciously used her hand to brace herself against the "stone" behind her that was providing some support, trying to use it to adjust her posture.

The dim light of the flashlight shone precisely on the spot where she was holding.

That's not a stone.

The surface is bluish-gray with a rough texture. After being washed by rain, a few lines of blurred, weathered marks—vertical traditional Chinese characters—are faintly visible.

Li Juan jerked her hand back as if she had been burned by a hot iron.

She stared wide-eyed in horror, her gaze fixed on the spot she had just touched, illuminated by the dim light.

tombstone!

It was a broken tombstone, half-buried in the soil and withered leaves!

"what--!!"

A scream ten times more piercing than the excruciating pain in her ankle erupted from Li Juan's throat, instantly drowning out the sound of the wind and rain, filled with extreme terror: "A tombstone! It's a gravestone!!"

Terrified, she frantically tried to scoot backward, as if trying to get away from the cold stone, but this aggravated her sprained ankle, causing her to convulse in pain, leaving her only able to whimper helplessly.

"What?" Liu Wen and Zhang Qiang looked over at the sound, and the flashlight beam completely enveloped the blue stone.

The shape of the tombstone was unmistakable, and the words "deceased father," "taboo name," "tomb of," and "died in the year of Gengwu" were blurred but faintly discernible.

Zhang Qiang's face turned pale. He tried to remain calm, but his voice trembled almost imperceptibly: "What... what are you afraid of! It's just a stone! A stone with words carved on it!"

"It's not unusual to have graves in this desolate place!" He seemed to be convincing others, but more like convincing himself. "The country has been established for so many years! Let's break free from feudal superstition! Where would ghosts come from!"

Liu Wen swallowed hard, oblivious to the rainwater getting into his mouth, and stammered in agreement: "Yes...yes! Zhang Qiang is right! It's just a tombstone, just a stone!"

There are no ghosts in the world! You're just scaring yourself! Juanzi, don't be afraid!

As he spoke, he tried to get closer to Li Juan, but his eyes involuntarily drifted into the thick, impenetrable darkness around him, as if countless eyes were lurking in that darkness.

The flashlight beam began to sweep erratically in all directions.

As the beam of light reached, more silhouettes emerged from the shadows of the windswept, rain-swept trees.

There were more than one tombstone that was crooked, broken, or half-buried in the ground!
A broken stone altar table, a toppled stone beast.

This place is a desolate graveyard that has been abandoned for a long time and has long been neglected!

Rainwater washed over the soil on the grave mounds, forming muddy streams. The air was filled with damp earth, decaying leaves, and an indescribable, stale, stoney smell.

Qi Yun stood beside Li Juan, silently watching Zhang Qiang and Liu Wenqiang put on a calm performance, listening to their pale and powerless "stone theory" and "no ghost theory".

His lips twitched very slightly, a silent curve.

No ghost?
Hope so.

"Alright!" Qi Yun's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a strange penetrating power, instantly overpowering the sound of the wind and rain and Zhang Qiang and the others' self-comforting words, calming the panicked group down a little.

“Li Juan twisted her ankle.” He glanced at everyone. “I’ll carry her up.”

His tone was flat.

Zhang Qiang and Liu Wen were taken aback. They looked at Qi Yun's not particularly burly figure, but they remembered that Qi Yun had carried that heavy luggage by himself with ease before, and they also knew that Qi Yun was the strongest among them!

"Brother Qi, this slope is too slippery. Can you carry her up by yourself?"

"How about we..." Liu Wen hesitated.

"It's nothing." Qi Yun interrupted him, walked directly to Li Juan, squatted down, and said, "Come on up."

At this moment, Li Juan no longer cared about the shyness between men and women. The immense fear and the excruciating pain in her ankle made her want to leave this hellish place as soon as possible.

She endured the pain, and with a sob in her voice, she groaned and, with Liu Wen's help, shakily climbed onto Qi Yun's back.

Qi Yun supported her knees with both hands and helped her stand up steadily.

Li Juan was very light; for his body, which had been tempered by the internal organs and nourished by the Crimson Hunt Fire, this weight was nothing.

Just as he picked up Li Juan and was about to turn around to find a foothold to climb up, his fingers, which were supporting Li Juan's knees, inadvertently touched the edge of the cold tombstone that Li Juan had just been holding.

"Om-!"

A faint, yet strangely cold and slippery sensation, like the forked tongue of a venomous snake, instantly burrowed into the skin of his fingertips!

At the same time, the warm crimson flame in his heart suddenly throbbed without warning! A surge of scorching heat instantly rushed to his fingertips, dispelling and extinguishing the chilling sensation!
Qi Yun paused almost imperceptibly.

It's not an illusion.

This tombstone, this desolate grave, is indeed unclean.

A trace of foul air, like a leech, lurked within this cold stone.

He remained calm and composed, as if nothing had happened. He simply steadied Li Juan's hand more firmly and scanned the slippery slope with sharp eyes, searching for the best climbing path.

"Zhang Qiang, Liu Wen, you two go up first and provide support from above, give them a hand," Qi Yun calmly assigned the tasks.

"Okay...okay!" Zhang Qiang and Liu Wen felt like they had been granted a pardon and hurriedly climbed up using both hands and feet, not caring about the mud.

Back on the road.

The wind and rain intensified, as if countless cold whips were lashing the heavens and earth.

They hastily wiped the rain off their faces, looked anxiously ahead, and their hearts sank.

Ahead, the dim yellow halo that represented the team and hope has been reduced to a blurry, swaying dot in the distant rain curtain!

The team had long since gone, and the roar of the wind and rain swallowed the sounds of their fall and the rescue; no one noticed that four people were missing.

(End of this chapter)