noveltune Chapter 106: Fighting Poison with Poison, Xin Jin Reads Memories
Chapter 106: Fighting Poison with Poison, Xin Jin Reads Memories
Beside the gray mist, the opening scalded by the old soup was closing up.
The shadows of the blue bricks flickered, and the soup dregs froze on the ground, forming a hard, brown crust.
The aroma of braised food hadn't dissipated yet, but the chill was already creeping out along the curb. Sister Zhou's pancake cart was stuck in the fog, its bell ringing occasionally, making everyone on the street feel a chill down their spines.
Cheng Xiaojin stopped three steps away from the overlapping area, her hands wrapped in a dry cloth, her fingertips throbbing with pain.
Tang Wanqing pressed down on his shoulder, the red thread already wrapped around her finger.
"If you go in now, the superimposed shadow will follow the blue line and crawl into your body."
Cheng Xiaojin stared at the gray alley.
"Let it drill."
Tang Wanqing tightened her grip.
"Are you crazy?"
"I'm not crazy."
Cheng Xiaojin's throat was dry. "This thing is insane. It ate Sister Zhou's food and now it wants to tow her car away too. Even street vendors on Huguosi Street have to pay a stall fee. Why should it get something for free?"
Tieguai Li put the iron chain on the ground, and the iron rings rattled against the asphalt, making people's teeth ache.
Speak like a human.
Cheng Xiaojin tilted her chin toward Mancheng.
"The whole city is full of pits, and Zhenhai Iron has not been identified. The accurate number is wrong."
Zhou Banxian was guarding the compass, the needle of which was stuck between three and seven, swinging erratically.
"Do you need to say that? You just traded away 30% of it; I'm not blind."
"Old Tang can scald Huguosi Street, cursing can suppress it, and banging on a pot can shake it."
Cheng Xiaojin glanced at the iron basin in Aunt Liu's hand, and then at the empty pot at Tong Kexin's feet.
"This is not a magical artifact."
Master Ma nodded, "Living atmosphere."
Cheng Xiaojin hummed in agreement and continued speaking.
"Thirty steps, maybe it's not measured down into the pit, but up from the underground stakes, to whose stove fire, whose threshold, and who eats, curses, and lives up there."
Zhou Banxian's lips moved, but he didn't utter a curse for a long time.
Tang Wanqing's red thread stopped in mid-air, and Tieguai Li's forehead throbbed with embarrassment.
"You bunch of intellectuals are really something else. To put it bluntly, it's just that the iron rod in the whole city lacks the support of the higher-ups?"
"almost."
Cheng Xiaojin twitched the corner of his mouth.
"We're only looking for underground locations, but we haven't looked for who's living on the surface for it."
Zhou Banxian looked grim.
"The formation diagram doesn't show the living layer."
As soon as those words were spoken, a cold wind from the street corner swept into the crowd.
Master Ma said in a low voice, "I've written it."
"It's just that some people didn't understand it."
Cheng Xiaojin glanced at him sideways but didn't ask any further questions.
Gray Alley was pushed outward by another half foot.
A plastic stool by the roadside was caught in the tangle; one half of the stool leg was gone, and the remaining half was still spinning on the ground.
The sound of the basin in Aunt Liu's hands became chaotic.
"It's out again!"
Tong Kexin picked up an empty soup ladle, turned around, and shouted at the group of middle-aged women.
"Knock! Don't stop!"
The older women immediately perked up.
Iron basins, pot lids, rolling pins—everything was thrown in, turning the street corner into a chaotic mess of boiling water.
Cheng Xiaojin pulled an old ashtray from his pocket. The ashtray had a chipped edge and yellowish soot stains on the bottom.
Tang Wanqing stared at the thing.
"Do you want to read it?"
"I won't read it."
Cheng Xiaojin held the ashtray upside down in his palm through a dry cloth.
"Borrowing some old energy."
Tang Wanqing took a step closer.
"No, you can't even touch copper coins now. The Qi left by your father is on this. If you borrow it, Dieying can also sneak in through this path."
Cheng Xiaojin raised the ashtray in his hand.
"It wants to crawl in, so we'll just open the door for it."
Tang Wanqing's eyes were red, and the red thread was digging into her palm.
"Cheng Xiaojin, who do you think you are?"
"A street vendor."
He stepped on the frozen soup dregs with his toes.
"The stall has been overturned, so someone has to put the table back up."
Tong Kexin gritted her teeth.
"If you die, I'll throw all those counterfeit goods you've sold into the river."
Cheng Xiaojin smiled faintly.
"No, I never sell counterfeit goods at my stall."
At this moment, the gray fog came close to the ground, first wrapping around the shoes, then crawling over the ankles. Cheng Xiaojin's trouser legs immediately frosted over, the muscles in his legs went out of control, and his knees almost bent.
Tang Wanqing flicked out a red thread and wrapped it around his waist.
"If you dare take another half step, I'll drag you back."
Cheng Xiaojin did not turn around.
"Hold on tight, don't make me actually go downstairs to get the property certificate."
Tieguai Li wrapped the other end of the iron chain around his waist, and the chain was wrapped twice.
"Even if you fail, I can pull you back from the brink."
Cheng Xiaojin raised an eyebrow at him.
"Brother Li, the bond of camaraderie is priceless."
"Stop talking nonsense, come back and pay me more."
The cold air crept up to my calves, and the fabric hardened like sheet metal.
Cheng Xiaojin's face turned pale, but she bit the edge of the dry cloth with her teeth and tore a hole in it.
Tang Wanqing shouted urgently.
"Don't tear it!"
The ashtray was covered with a dark blue palm.
Pain shot from the base of his palm all the way to his shoulder. Cheng Xiaojin let out a muffled groan, and the red thread around his waist tightened.
As if smelling fresh blood, the gray alleyway sent gushes of malevolent energy into the palm of the hand, pressing down along the blue line into the wrist.
Tong Kexin covered her mouth, tears falling onto the back of her hand.
Zhou Banxian stared at Cheng Xiaojin's arm.
"The blue line didn't rise."
"It's been suppressed."
Tang Wanqing clenched her teeth.
"He's using his own backlash to counteract the Yin Water煞 (negative energy)."
Tieguai Li's face turned black.
"Is this even humanly possible?"
Cheng Xiaojin could no longer hear clearly.
Huguosi Street receded in his eyes.
The streetlights turned into oil lamps, the blue bricks under the asphalt road were turned upside down, and someone shouted work chants in my ears, the voice muffled in the earth, hitting my heart again and again.
An underground tunnel has been revealed.
The younger Cheng Shouyi squatted by the wet bricks, holding an iron shovel, and carved a vertical hook on the brick seam.
There was a person standing next to me, their face hidden behind the lamplight.
"Hidden here in thirty steps, will future generations be able to understand it?"
Cheng Shouyi flicked his cigarette ash.
"It's better if he doesn't understand. Once he does, it will be his turn to suffer."
The screen flickered.
Cheng Shouyi looked up and gazed at him through the dust of twenty years.
"Don't just look at the iron, look at the person."
Cheng Xiaojin felt a pain in his chest, and the gray fog in reality took the opportunity to swirl up to his waist.
Tang Wanqing tightened the red thread.
"Cheng Xiaojin, come back!"
Tong Kexin rushed forward, but was hugged from behind by Aunt Liu.
"Let me go!"
Aunt Liu cried and cursed.
"If you leave, he'll be even less likely to come back!"
Cheng Xiaojin lowered his head, the ashtray in his palm burning hot.
The old energy suppressed the Yin Water evil, and the iron-blue color did not fade, but the pain changed from deathly cold to a bearable, living pain.
He raised his hand, his fingertips tracing the edge of the gray fog in the air, and an invisible line was pulled out from the fog, causing the entire gray alley to tilt by half an inch.
Half of the threshold was exposed, and black water seeped out from under the threshold, which was connected to the axle of Sister Zhou's pancake cart.
Zhou Banxian's eyes widened in disbelief. "He's found the pulse?"
Tang Wanqing whispered, "My sense of touch is back."
Tieguai Li shouted, pulling on the iron chain.
"What percentage?"
Cheng Xiaojin turned his face away, his face covered in cold sweat, his smile looking more like a grimace.
"Sixty percent."
Tong Kexin cried and cursed.
"Damn it, that scared me to death."
Cheng Xiaojin didn't reply, his gaze sinking into the depths of the gray alley.
"Sister Zhou isn't here."
The street corner fell silent instantly, even the sound of the basins subsided slightly.
Tang Wanqing asked.
"What did you read?"
Cheng Xiaojin gripped the ashtray tightly.
"She was dragged away; the crowd didn't disperse."
Zhou Banxian gasped.
"The Illusion of the City of Shadows".
Cheng Xiaojin pointed to the pancake cart.
"The cart is still connected to her stall, and the stall is still connected to this street. As long as the connection isn't broken, she hasn't been completely lost."
Master Ma held the teacup down, pressing his fingertips against the chipped edge of the porcelain.
"Is there any hope?"
Cheng Xiaojin did not answer.
The Zhenhai Iron made a sound from the wooden box in the back of the bread cart.
The basin sank into the ground, the sound of the basin stopped, the cursing stopped, and even the gray alley seemed to shrink back half a finger.
Tieguai Li's Adam's apple bobbed.
"What did it say?"
After listening intently, Cheng Xiaojin's eyes lit up.
"recognize."
Zhou Banxian's expression changed.
"Is Zhenhai Ironworks located at the Huguo Temple waterway?"
Tang Wanqing gazed at the shadows of the blue bricks on the ground, then looked at the old street that was still emitting the smell of cooking pots.
"The thirty steps your father left behind point here?"
Cheng Xiaojin put the old ashtray into his palm, his fingers turning ashen, but his fingertips remained steady.
"It's not referring to this piece of land."
He looked up and glanced at the stove fire, the iron basin, the frostbitten red hands of the older women, and Tong Kexin, her face streaked with tears, by the braised food stall.
"It refers to people."
Deep in the gray alley, the bell on Sister Zhou's pancake cart rang again.
Cheng Xiaojin turned around and shouted to Tong Kexin.
"Light the pot."
Tong Kexin wiped her face.
"The soup is gone."
"I don't want water, I want oil, I want stove ash, and I want human voices too."
Cheng Xiaojin looked at the middle-aged women all over the street.
Keep banging the pot, keep cursing. Zhenhai Iron doesn't recognize empty pits, it recognizes the warmth of this street.
Aunt Liu hugged the iron basin tightly, her sobs still lingering, but her voice rose higher.
"Sisters, knock!"
The next moment, the pots and pans on Huguosi Street were reignited.