Chapter 891: Chapter 645: The Way Home
Yang Xiao climbed down to make room for Jiang Qingluan above. The well mouth was about 7, or 8 meters above the water surface, enough space for both of them.
Yang Xiao stopped about two to three meters above the water. At this moment, the water no longer churned violently. The Drowned Ghost and Chang Chuchu had disappeared, and the surface was tainted with murky water from the silt at the bottom of the well, continuously emitting nauseating stenches of decay.
"Keep moving!" Jiang Qingluan, sitting on top of Yang Xiao’s shoulders, urged him fiercely.
"Move your big ghost head, it’s nothing but water below, you want me to jump into the well?!" Yang Xiao looked up and shouted, and through the gap between Jiang Qingluan’s body, he saw a terrifying scene—several broken and askew heads gathered around the edge of the well, forming a circle, coldly staring at them.
Jiang Qingluan was less than 2 meters away from these Chang Ghosts. Even with her psychological fortitude, being stared down at like this, she couldn’t help but feel fear, which was the reason she urged Yang Xiao to continue moving downward.
Furthermore, unlike Yang Xiao, Jiang Qingluan had lost two fingers earlier. The intense pain and weakness tormented her repeatedly, and the cold ghastliness of the well was piercing to the bone. In such an environment, she honestly couldn’t hold on for much longer.
Yang Xiao, positioned below her, quickly noticed that the well rope was trembling slightly; Jiang Qingluan was in very bad shape.
Taking advantage of the dim light to search nearby, Yang Xiao was fortunate to find two protrusions on the rough walls of the well. He tried to lay his body flat, stepping on the protrusions for support, spreading his body open, and grabbed the well rope below him. With effort, he pulled up the bucket sunk into the water. "Give me the mirror fragments you’re hiding!" Yang Xiao called up.
After receiving the copper mirror fragments, Yang Xiao used the sharp edge of the fragments to cut the well rope. The bucket fell into the depths of the well, and Yang Xiao wrapped the well rope around his waist and tied a knot, saving himself a lot of effort and allowing him to hold on for longer.
"Come down, lie on top of me!" Yang Xiao did this not solely for himself, but more for Jiang Qingluan above.
She didn’t hold back and quickly found the right angle to slide down onto Yang Xiao. Feeling the immense pressure around his waist, Yang Xiao’s face turned red, his chest compressed and struggled to breathe, "I said don’t lie flat completely, you need to put in some effort too!"
Under Yang Xiao’s warning, Jiang Qingluan finally behaved a bit, and no matter what, the originally fatal situation had stabilized under Yang Xiao’s actions. As long as they didn’t do anything foolish, they wouldn’t die just yet.
The several Chang Ghosts guarding the mouth of the well just coldly stared at them and showed no inclination to rush in. Even so, they put a lot of pressure on the two.
Yang Xiao knew this was just a temporary solution. Now with Chang Ghosts guarding above, they couldn’t ascend, and with the Drowned Ghost below, they also couldn’t descend. The two of them were effectively trapped in the middle and, as time passed, the situation would become even more dangerous. Chang Chuchu wouldn’t be able to hold off the Drowned Ghost for long, and once the water below boiled again, it would be their doom.
The chilling environment of the well continued to drain Jiang Qingluan’s life force, while Yang Xiao was slightly better. Being young and sturdy, he barely managed to hold on.
"Hey, think of something quick! Aren’t you a young priest of the Yi Sect?" Since both hands were needed to grip the well rope, Yang Xiao had to arch his body and jostle Jiang Qingluan a bit. Her current state wasn’t good, and Yang Xiao didn’t want her to pass out.
"Destroy those Land Temples, maybe... maybe there’s still a chance," Jiang Qingluan said weakly.
"Stop dreaming! How are we supposed to destroy those temples in our current state? We can’t even get out!" Yang Xiao suspected Jiang Qingluan’s mind had been frozen numb.
"Then there’s no way, we can only try to buy time," Jiang Qingluan shifted slightly to make herself more comfortable, and her legs leaned against the well wall trying to reduce the pressure on Yang Xiao.
"As you can see, it won’t be long until the task is over; Earl Mansion is done for. This is the price of the backfire from using Evil Techniques," Jiang Qingluan continued.
"The Earl Mansion is finished, but what about the Ancestor, that evil being? Once it has killed everyone in Fushou Manor, all these dead will become Chang Ghosts. By then, Fushou Manor will be shrouded in mystery and fog with no daylight and even more Evil Ghosts rampaging. Who, or which other power, would be able to come in and destroy those Land Temples, cutting off the root of the evil being?"
In Yang Xiao’s view, the so-called Eternal Strange Skills of those Feng Shui Masters were just self-deception. They treated the symptoms, not the root cause, and that was all.
Unless the Land Temples were quickly destroyed to cut off the roots of the evil being, the disaster would continue. Moreover, after such a commotion, with those Chang Ghosts guarding, the difficulty of destroying the temples and cutting off the roots would only increase, leaving behind a mess for the whole world.
Non-Chang Ghosts would be attacked upon entering the ghost fog, not to mention destroying the Land Temples. And since Chang Ghosts lacked consciousness, they would not actively attack the temples, so it was a genuine deadlock.
Suddenly, the well water, which had been calm, started boiling again, and Yang Xiao was shocked at how quickly danger approached.
Indeed, Chang Chuchu couldn’t hold on for long. Now, the ghost in the well was about to emerge again. At this moment, the situation of the two truly matched the old saying: no way to heaven, no door into the earth.
"Light the incense!" Yang Xiao took out the Life Burning Incense from his chest, found the Fire Starter, and ignited it with lightning speed.
As the head of the incense lit up, the next second, a ghastly ghost face emerged from the murky well water, wet hair strewn across a dark green face—it was Chang Chuchu!
At this moment, Chang Chuchu’s eyes bulged out like a goldfish, her face twisted, and a horrifying wound on her head inflicted by Yang Xiao, now swollen white and rotten without a trace of blood. Her head tilted back, with a pair of malicious dead fish eyes locked onto Yang Xiao.
