Do you really think you can get me with just a banana?

When Su Yi said this, Guan Shanyu had almost leaned on Yan Ruchen again.

The dim environment, the howling wind outside, and the half-dead moonlight pouring in through the windowsill, gave off the atmosphere of a horror story. He couldn't even remember who he was clinging to. When he heard the disciple say there was a ghost, Guan Shanyu immediately covered his ears.

We're going to meet him later anyway, so it doesn't matter if we let him know now.

Yan Ruchen wordlessly extended two fingers and calmly pushed away the person who was half leaning on him. He continued to listen attentively to the disciple's story: "We have been walking for two days. Many of our companions have been unable to move due to qi obstruction or bites from poisonous insects, so we put them in some houses nearby to rest. Because this place is really strange, we also know that the longer we stay, the more dangerous it will be. We still need to return quickly to report to the masters and send someone to deal with it. So, the few of us with lighter injuries decided to find a way out. As a result..."

Su Yi paused, as if remembering something horrible. He clutched his chest and took a moment to calm down before continuing, "That day, we couldn't find a way out, so we planned to go to the valley to find water. But when we got there, we discovered the stream had dried up and turned into a swamp. We were about to return empty-handed when we vaguely saw something moving in the ground. It was dark and we couldn't see clearly, so we shouted in that direction, thinking it was a disciple from another sect who had fallen into the trap. But the person suddenly emerged from the soil, heard our shouts, and quickly crawled away into the bushes and disappeared."

"We immediately sensed something was amiss. A normal person wouldn't have reacted like that upon hearing our cries. Realizing something was amiss, we quickly ran towards the house where our brothers were hiding. Before we even reached the house, we saw them fighting something. We wanted to help, but the group attacking them started dragging them back into the bushes as soon as we saw us approaching. We couldn't stop them. It was dark that night, but we clearly saw that the people attacking us were disciples from other sects!"

Su Yi spoke so much in one breath, his breathing becoming unstable and he began to gasp for air. The other disciples seemed to be remembering something horrible and gathered around him, sobbing softly. Guan Shanyu had already taken his hands off his ears and was listening intently. Upon seeing this, he quickly took out a water bottle from his bag, unscrewed the lid, and handed it over, saying softly, "Drink some water first to calm down."

Su Yi took the kettle and took a big gulp. As a result, he choked because he was too anxious and coughed violently a few times. Guan Shanyu quickly patted his back to help him breathe. After a few times, Su Yi finally stopped coughing. He looked up at Guan Shanyu with gratitude and whispered thank you.

Yan Ruchen glanced at Guan Shanyu lightly, then turned back to Su Yi and said, "And then?"

Qing Fan, who was standing by, raised his head and took the initiative to say, "Let me continue. Su Yi has been looking for an outlet these past two days. Maybe she's too tired. She tends to cough when she talks too much."

Yan Ruchen nodded. Anyone could talk about this matter, as long as they made things clear.

Qing Fan took a deep breath and began to recall, "At first, we thought that other sects were deliberately retaliating against us to steal our credit and injure our disciples. So that day, several of us disciples from Yuchen Palace stayed up all night, searching for them. We did encounter disciples from other sects along the way, and we immediately started fighting. But as the fight went on, we found that both sides were accusing the other of underhanded tactics. We found it very strange, so we stopped to review the situation. As a result, they told us that they had also been attacked by other sects, including disciples from Yuchen Palace."

"Of course, we didn't believe their story and thought it was pure slander. So, we parted ways on bad terms. After returning, we thought about the strange figure in the swamp that night and decided to investigate again. But after searching all day, we found nothing. By evening, we were exhausted and decided to go back and rest for a while before continuing. But when we turned around, we found all our missing fellow disciples standing right behind us."

"But we weren't happy at all, because the moonlight was shining down at that time, and we could see their appearance clearly. They looked like they had been sucked dry. They stood there dry, with their mouths open and black teeth inside, and their white pupils rolled back like evil spirits. In addition to those standing, there were also a few who were crawling out of the soil. They didn't look like living people at all."

As soon as he finished speaking, the two female disciples sitting on the ground couldn't help but retching.

The rest of the story is easy to speculate. Unfortunately, this group of disciples were attacked, suffering heavy casualties. Although the remaining people managed to escape, they could not find a way out and were unable to fight against the fellow disciples who were temporarily called the "Four Corpses". They had to hide here. By chance, they encountered Yan Ruchen and the other two people coming in. Unaware of their position, they had to hide.

Guan Shanyu listened to their stories, his brow furrowed. He glanced back at the movements behind him, secretly speculating that the "dead" disciple they were talking about might be the one captured tonight. He glanced at Yan Ruchen with concern. Yan Ruchen noticed his gaze, turned back and nodded slightly, then asked the disciples again, "According to your story, how did you escape? Can we really hide here without being discovered?"

Qing Fan said, "We survived entirely by luck. We were suddenly attacked that day and beaten so badly that we had no power to fight back. We had no choice but to drop our weapons and flee for our lives. But we were also lucky because it happened to rain that night. As we were running, we realized that they had stopped chasing us and were standing still, as if they had lost their target. After two more days of escaping death, we finally realized that those monsters were inactive during the day and would come out at night. However, it seemed that if they couldn't smell us, they couldn't see us. And those of us who survived were all Qigong cultivators who practiced Qigong and could regulate our breathing, which is why we saved our lives."

So that's why these people smeared mud on themselves and then huddled here at night. This shabby house was filled with smoke and dust, and they knew how to adjust their breathing, so it's no wonder they weren't discovered.

Guan Shanyu kept glancing at the tightly bound "corpse" disciple behind him. Feeling anxious, he quietly approached Yan Ruchen and said, "Ruchen, if we just walked out so brazenly and captured one of their companions, would those ghosts smell the scent and come looking for us?"

Yan Ruchen lowered his eyes, as if lost in thought. After a moment, he looked at the group of disciples and asked, "How many of you came? How many disciples were killed?"

Su Yi frowned as he recalled a few words before slowly speaking, "We originally had eight people in Yuchen Palace, but now only Qingfan and I remain." The disciple beside him wiped away tears sadly and pulled another male disciple to his side, saying, "I'm from Fang Jiulong, and he's from Yunjichan. We each sent five people, so now there are only two of us left." The two female cultivators nearby sobbed again after hearing this and replied, "We're from Yulintai. My name is Jinyu, and hers is Guyu. Our sect sent six female cultivators, so... there are only two of us left."

After saying this, the disciples seemed to recall what they had experienced in the past few days and began to lower their heads and wipe away their tears.

Yan Ruchen listened with a frown and counted the number of people. Thirteen disciples had already died. Adding those disciples who had already disappeared as mentioned in the case file, if they all turned into such a horrible state, there would be at least a hundred people in Wangshuiling.

However, because those who were originally missing were mostly from small sects, and there was no news after entering the mountain, they did not attract enough attention from the hundreds of immortal sects. Therefore, even if they received a call for help to find people, the sects only sent some people to check symbolically.

Yan Ruchen frowned, his head bowed as he pondered a strategy. He wasn't worried about being unable to cope; whether he was surrounded by a hundred or a thousand men, he was confident he could escape unscathed. However, if he still needed to take care of the group before him, he would need a thorough plan.

As Guan Shanyu said, once they captured a monster, more would surely be drawn in. If they attacked en masse, protecting everyone would become a challenge.

Thinking of Guan Shanyu, Yan Ruchen turned his head to glance at him, only to see Guan Shanyu looking at him with an unscrupulous face. That expression was neither fear nor worry, but more like... watching the show?

Yan Ruchen: “?”

Guan Shanyu was secretly staring at Yan Ruchen when he suddenly saw him turn around. His expression suddenly lost control, and he was caught red-handed. Guilty, he immediately turned back, coughed lightly, touched his nose, wiped the water bottle on his hand, and pretended to be busy, but his eyes unconsciously glanced at the two female cultivators.

Gold and jade, Grain Rain?

Isn't this the wife he arranged for Yan Ruchen in the original novel?!