25: Bad luck strikes, but Wildcat gets lucky

To all esteemed readers, please follow, add to your bookshelf, and send free gifts. This isn't a plea for sympathy, but the author is truly in a dire situation. I'm being completely serious!

Shen Zhao's crimson eyes were fixed on Zhang Xuanyi, the ancient mirror with its cracked surface still pointed at him. The 'future' corpse, flayed and hung from a tree in the mirror, seemed to be sneering at his present promises.

Her voice was hoarse, tinged with a hint of madness: "Survive tonight? The Skin-Peeling Ghost is already in the shadows, and my son is the fattest prey in its eyes! You want me to wager his life on your vague, ethereal promise?"

Xiao Man, in her arms, was burning hot. The 'Purification Talisman' pasted on his chest, though its green flame still flickered, was unsteady, clearly only suppressing, not eradicating, the invasive ghostly aura.

"Otherwise?" Zhang Xuanyi met her almost man-eating gaze, his tone terrifyingly calm. "If you rush out with him now, it's no different than delivering a steaming piece of flesh to a hungry wolf's mouth. Or, you could try to snatch the compass now and see if you destroy my stall first, or if the Skin-Peeling Ghost rips off your son's skin first."

Each word, like cold iron dropping to the ground, struck Shen Zhao's heart.

She wasn't foolish. Zhang Xuanyi's stall, though seemingly dilapidated, possessed its own distinct aura. The faint, almost imperceptible power of the 'Golden Flow' made her instinctively wary.

And the horror of the Skin-Peeling Ghost, she had witnessed with her own eyes.

"Senior Brother!" Su Qingzhu and A Che quickly stepped forward, guarding Zhang Xuanyi on either side, vigilantly watching Shen Zhao and the mirror box in her hand.

The Iron Lady, moreover, held her blood-stained broadsword across her chest and said in a deep voice, "Fellow Daoist, the Skin-Peeling Ghost is not to be trifled with. Infighting now will only make us all its meal. Young Master Zhang is right; the only way to survive right now is to defend!"

Shen Zhao's chest heaved violently. Finally, the insane killing intent slowly receded, replaced by endless despair and exhaustion.

She held Xiao Man, stumbled back two steps, and said hoarsely, "Alright... I'll wait. But if anything happens to my son before midnight..."

She didn't finish, but the murderous glint that flashed in the ancient mirror said it all.

"No waiting," Zhang Xuanyi shook his head, his gaze sweeping over the increasingly dense night. The mountain wind whimpered, as if countless wronged souls were wailing.

"We're not waiting to die; we're waiting for the rabbit to come to the stake."

Before he finished speaking, he moved.

He pointed his fingers like a sword, and using his foot as a brush, quickly sketched on the muddy ground around the stall.

His movements were fluid, so fast that they left only afterimages.

Innate Qi surged from his Dantian, flowing through his toes into the earth. Golden lines, invisible to the naked eye, lit up one by one, instantly forming a simple yet complete Bagua array.

"A Che, get the cinnabar ink and a chalk line; draw the boundaries!"

"Qingzhu, don't put away your phone; monitor energy fluctuations at all times!"

"Iron Lady, guard the Gate of Life position. Your killing intent is the strongest; it can deter petty evils!"

Commands were issued one after another. Though surprised, everyone instinctively acted immediately.

A Che pulled out his tools from his cloth bag, drew the cinnabar line, and precisely snapped eight red lines around the perimeter of the Bagua array, firmly enclosing the entire stall.

Without a word, the Iron Lady stood majestically in the direction Zhang Xuanyi indicated. Her blood and qi condensed, and a battle-hardened, steely killing aura surged skyward.

Su Qingzhu held up her phone. On the screen was her self-made Qi flow sensing software. At this moment, the energy curve on the software was frantically jumping, especially in the direction of Dongpo Forest, where a huge red alert was flashing.

After completing all this, Zhang Xuanyi's forehead was also covered in fine beads of sweat.

He walked to the center of the stall and gently placed the bronze compass on the tattered cloth.

A miraculous scene unfolded. The compass seemed to resonate with the entire stall. The mysterious 'Golden Flow' power beneath the stall was instantly activated, circulating along the Bagua array on the ground. The eight cinnabar red lines also lit up with a faint golden glow.

A temporary sanctuary, with the stall as its core, the Bagua as its framework, and cinnabar as its boundary wall, was thus formed.

"The Skin-Peeling Ghost has just emerged; its intelligence is incomplete, and it hunts purely by instinct," Zhang Xuanyi explained in a deep voice. "Xiao Man's 'Body of Misfortune' is like a lighthouse in the dark to it. It will definitely come. What we need to do now is to ensure that it… comes but never leaves."

Shen Zhao looked at the arrangement before her. She had traveled far and wide, met countless eccentric individuals, but had never seen such a bizarre array-setting method. It had traces of Daoist formations, yet also seemed to contain some ancient power she completely failed to comprehend.

She held Xiao Man and carefully walked into the array, placing the child on a relatively clean piece of cloth.

Time passed by the minute.

The mountain forest fell into complete silence; even the chirping of insects disappeared.

The air seemed to freeze, the temperature plummeted, and the white mist from their breaths lingered before their eyes.

It was a chill that originated from the depths of the soul, as if they were being greedily watched by unseen eyes.

On Su Qingzhu's phone screen, the red dot representing the Skin-Peeling Ghost was moving towards their direction at a slow and steady pace.

"It's coming..." She lowered her voice, her throat a little dry.

Suddenly, a faint, ethereal sound of children's laughter drifted from the forest. The laughter was innocent and carefree, yet in the dead of night, it sounded particularly eerie.

"Xiao Man?" Shen Zhao's expression changed, and she looked sharply at her son, only to see Xiao Man still with his eyes tightly closed, his breathing weak, not making any sound at all.

"It's testing us!" A sharp glint flashed in Zhang Xuanyi's eyes. "It's imitating a living person's voice to lure us out! Don't move, guard your minds!"

The laughter grew closer and closer, as if just outside the array, a child in a red bellyband was running circles around them.

Immediately after, the laughter turned into a woman's wailing, shrill and mournful, like weeping blood, each cry lamenting the pain of being flayed.

A Che, being the youngest, had turned pale, gripping the peach wood sword tightly in his hand.

The Iron Lady, however, frowned deeply, the hilt of her saber creaking in her grasp.

Shen Zhao desperately covered her ears, but the sound seemed to possess a magical power, drilling straight into her mind.

She saw an illusion, seeing Xiao Man being snatched up by an invisible hand, his skin being torn off inch by inch!

"No!" She let out a piercing scream, about to rush out of the array.

"Freeze!"

Zhang Xuanyi's voice boomed like thunder.

The Bagua array beneath his feet glowed brightly, and a powerful, majestic force instantly swept across the entire area. The mind-boggling wailing stopped abruptly, and the illusion in Shen Zhao's mind shattered instantly.

She stumbled, falling to the ground, gasping for breath, her entire body drenched in cold sweat.

Outside the array, a blurry black shadow abruptly recoiled when the golden light appeared, letting out an inhuman, beast-like shriek, and quickly retreated into the darkness.

"It's injured," the Iron Lady said in a deep voice, sniffing the faint smell of scorching that had appeared in the air.

"Only slightly injured; it will come again," Zhang Xuanyi's expression was grave. "It already knows there's a defense here. Next time, it will likely be a full assault."

He glanced at the sky. The moon had already quietly climbed to its zenith, and midnight was drawing near.

Everyone fell silent, the atmosphere even more oppressive than before.

The first probing attack was so dangerous; could they truly withstand the next full assault?

Everyone's hope rested on the mysterious compass after midnight.

The night wind blew again. This time, it carried a strong smell of blood and... a unique scent of women's cosmetics.

Su Qingzhu's phone suddenly emitted a piercing alarm. The red dot on the screen instantly magnified, almost filling the entire screen!

"It... it's right outside us!"

As soon as she finished speaking, a gentle, alluring voice sounded in everyone's ears. The voice was so close, like a lover's whisper.

"My dear husband... it's late, why are you still not resting?"

Everyone looked up in horror, only to see an graceful figure slowly emerging from the darkness at the edge of the array.

It was a beautiful woman dressed in a emerald-green silk skirt, her eyes smiling, her steps like lotus flowers blooming. However, the skin on her face was excessively smooth, like a perfect mask.

She smiled charmingly at Zhang Xuanyi.

And what she was wearing was precisely the intact... cicada-molt human skin from the villager's corpse that had been flayed and hung from the tree earlier that day.

Midnight was approaching, and the mountain forest was silent. Zhang Xuanyi stood before the stall, the compass needle in his hand slowly returning to its position.