Otherworldly Merchant
Chapter 639: Murderous Bats

“Speed up. We need to get out of the woods fast.”

After Chuyisaid that,we accelerated. The gross smell of decomposing flesh became heavier. The rat-squeaking noise hadalsogrown louder.

Suddenly, some drops of liquidfellon my head. I thought it was raining, so I lifted my head to see. I then saw a body hanging on the tree. It was dripping blood.

Countless fatcreatures that looked like bats were nibbling on that body. The liquid drops that fell on me were fromthebites on the body.

I couldn’t helpbutcrouch and retch. Chuyiextendedhis hand as he wanted to cover my mouth. However, it was too late.

At the moment I made the first sound, the bats all turned to look at us. As soon as they saw us, their eyes turned red. They opened theirmouthsand revealedpieces of blood-dripping flesh on their teeth.

“Run!” Chuyi shouted.

I didn’t hesitateand dashedaway.Awind tearing noise arose behind us. I knew they were flying after us. I pulled myself together and turned around to see. They got Chuyi. Hewas attacking the bats withbothweapons in his hands.

The bats were as big as chickens. If they bita person, they could pull out a large chunk of flesh. Moreover,because they livedin this place, they must have some toxins. Thatwaswhy Chuyi looked troubled. Soon, they had bitten a few holesinhis clothes.

I slowed downand reachedhim with the Emei Piercer. Every timeIextendedit, pungent bloodpoured down.

Although thebats were fierce, thereweren’t many of them.Chuyi and Itriedour best to kill them.We got most of them. A few bats flew back to the treesand lookedat us in fright.

“Holymoly!” I looked at Chuyi, whoseclothes nowlookedlike rags.

Chuyi nodded and explained, “Those bats have feasted on carcasses fora long time. Living in this place, it wouldn’t be strangeif they hadn'tmutated.”

He suddenly stoppedand lookedat me with doubt. Following his eyes, I saw that I wasn’t hurt a bit. Therewereno tears on my clothes, either.

“Eh?”I was dumbstruck for a moment. I was closer to the bats than Chuyi was, but they didn’t attack me. What happened?

Chuyi looked at me and thought for a moment. Then, he suddenlysaid, “Not good!”

At thismoment, the bats hiding in the trees plungedforward, sneaking onChuyi from behind.

I instinctively controlled the Invisible Needle to stop one of them. Chuyi sawmy expressionandknew he was in danger. However,he couldn’t turn aroundintime.A fewbatsbit him. Chuyi screamedanddirectlyturnedhis back to me. I immediately stabbed withmyneedle and killedthe bats.

“Are you okay?” I asked worriedly.

Chuyi waved his hand. “I’m okay. We should run to the River of Unmindfulness.”

For the remainder of our time spent running,nothingunexpected happened. Inthe distance, I saw the sky-reaching Yin energy coming from the river.

When we arrived, I saw that the river had red water, which made it look like a blood river. Suddenly, a lot of bubblesarose.Feeling curious, Iwent to check andfounda beautiful girl waving at me. As I was about to walk to her,I felt a nudge.

“I told you to wait outside. Look carefully,”nagged Chuyi. Then, hepinched a little moldfromhis bronze whip and smeared it on my temple.He pointed at the River of Unmindfulnessand said,“Look who is calling you.”

I turned and looked in that direction one more time. It was a girl with an open stomach.Herintestineswerefloating next to her. She was waving at me.SinceI didn’tgo to her, she shot Chuyi a fierce look. Unwillingly, she sank back into the water.

“The ghosts in this placecan’treincarnate. That’s why they want to pullpeopleinto the river to replace them.All thosewho come to this place have to cover their ears and eyes and keep running forward. Yet,you are boldenough to deliveryourself in their hands!”

While Chuyi was talking, he tied the eight-faceted Han sword with the bronze whip. Then, he threw them into the river.The weapons immediatelysizzled. I gathered my courage and went to the river bank to see.Many ghosts were screaming and running away.

After around ten minutes, Chuyi read a spell to summon the eight-faceted Han sword.I nowunderstood why he had tiedthem together. He didn’t know how to control the bronze whip yet.

After beingwashed by the river water, the mold on the whip was gone. It was sparkling as if itwas freshly made. I reached out to untie the rope. Unexpectedly, the rope had become as tough as iron.

“Don’t mind that.Once it getsout of the water, the Yin energythat has seepedin the rope will disperse into the air. Then, the rope willturn intoa powder.”

“That’s amazing!” I gave him a thumbs-up. Chuyi smiled at me, but it was a wry smile. I saw beads of sweat on his forehead.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“I might have used a lot of Yang energyatthe River of Unmindfulness. I just need to rest.I’ll bealright.”

Chuyi smiled and urged me to walk. When we walked through the woods, I was surprisedto see thatall thebats’ corpseswere gone. Even the blood on the ground wasnowhere to be seen!

“Do you know what happened?”

Chuyi’s face turned serious. Then, hefellononeknee.

“Chuyi, why didn’t you tell me…”

I confirmedthere was something wrong with him. I tore his shirt.Hisback had turned black, and it looked horrible.The bat bites had turned purplish-red, ad blood oozed from them.

I had asked himearlier,but he said he was all rightas hedidn’t want me to be worried.I was fooled.

“Jiulin, I thought it was just some common corpse toxin. But now... itappears thatYi Zhangqingwas behindthose bats. It seems shecanuse the Ghost Cutter already,”Chuyi said intermittently.

I got it now.It was no wonder those bats didn’t attack me!

Yi ZhangqingdesignatedChuyi as their only target.Wehadn’t expectedher to act that quickly.However, we could confirm one thing:She didn’t know that I was with Chuyi. Otherwise, I might havewound upeven worse thanhim.

Iput him onmy back and ran. At first, Chuyi could still give me direction. However, after a while, helost consciousness. I had to use the Invisible Needle to sense the way out. Unexpectedly, even though the Invisible Needle pointed out that we just needed to move straightto reachthe village where the trade conference was held, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get there.

I recognized that I wasn’t lost. Instead,I was in Yi Zhangqing’sillusion. Fortunately, I had always kept theIllusoryMind Bell with me. I read the spell and jingled it. Eventually, I reached the village.

The market in the center was stillfull ofghostsand people. Most of the participants were gazing at the air, pointing and discussingthe events. I lifted my head to see. The flaming screen was there, but it was blank to us. Outside the crowd, One-Armed Dragon and Yin-Yang Tiger were standing with a puzzled face.It seemed thatafter the battle had started, both parties couldn’t see what was projected on the screen.

Chuyi was hurt, soI knew I shouldn’t linger. I carried him directly to Zen MasterBaimei’s room. When we got there, Zen MasterBaimeiwas studying his chain of mala beads. His facepaled when he saw us. Before he started to talk, he helped me put Chuyi on the bed.

Then, he quickly took out a set of knives and usedacandle flame to disinfect a knife. He directly cut into Chuyi’s wound. Chuyi was awakened by the pain. Heshouted andgrabbed me with one hand while his other hand gripped thebedsheettightly. Zen MasterBaimeigritted his teethand continuedcutting.

“There’s somethingin your back. We have to take it out now. Put up with it for a while, Chuyi!”Zen MasterBaimeisaidwith a frown as he continued to workon Chuyi’s back. Every time he cut Chuyi’s back, theman screamed and wiggled. His handsome face turned red. Sweat coveredhis forehead, and his eyes bulged. Hecouldn’tstopgroaning.

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