147: Chapter 147 Take a deep breath; dizziness is normal.

The moment the ancient coin pierced the Loach's skull, this fierce and brutal aquatic creature sensed something was wrong.

Anger and fear exploded in its heart simultaneously.

However, it did not act like an ordinary Rising Beings, blinded by rage and launching a reckless counterattack.

Its fat, oily body twisted violently, and it dove desperately into the depths of the silt.

In the blink of an eye, the Loach had completely disappeared beneath the riverbed.

Li Xiuyuan released his Spiritual Sense to track it, but he could not find its whereabouts.

Judging by the spiritual energy fluctuations just now, the Loach must have used some kind of Innate Supernatural Power to escape from right under his nose.

"To think that strike didn't kill it outright; it's incredibly lucky."

Li Xiuyuan frowned slightly. This underwater area was not his territory, and his Spiritual Sense could not locate the Loach. He didn't know if it had truly run away or just found a place to hide.

Searching rashly was not safe, and besides, the Loach's supernatural power was quite interesting.

He had clearly deployed the Hibernation domain power earlier. By all rights, the Loach should have frozen on the spot, waiting to be slaughtered.

Yet, it had still managed to escape.

"Come out."

Li Xiuyuan stood above the silt where the Loach had vanished and spoke to the Carp in a nearby rock crevice.

The Carp had already been stunned by what it saw. Confirming that the big Loach was indeed gone, it tremblingly crawled out of the crevice, its fishy eyes filled with terror.

"Are you perhaps a powerful cultivator from the human race? To pierce its skull in a single strike is simply not something achievable by ordinary means."

Li Xiuyuan waved his hand, stopping its sycophancy. "Its lair should be upstream, right?"

"This... I'm not sure." The Carp hesitated for a moment, then added, "If I may be so bold, are you going to pursue it? Please calm down; this underwater area is its territory after all. I haven't been upstream for many years, so I really don't know what the situation is like over there now."

Li Xiuyuan said, "I won't go over there for the time being."

Before figuring out the specific situation, Li Xiuyuan would not rashly head upstream without regard for anything.

He was now a Chi Dragon with strong power, but that did not mean he was invincible in the world.

"I'm leaving now. You stay here and don't leave." Li Xiuyuan paused. "I'll give you something. Once it returns to seek revenge, this will definitely be able to slay the Loach."

After saying this, a golden thread flew from his sleeve. The ancient coin turned into a thin ray of light and burrowed beneath the Carp's scales, quietly lying in wait.

"Ah?!" The Carp almost jumped out of the water. "The best choice for me right now is to find an undercurrent and escape! How could I possibly wait here for it to come back for revenge? Grandpa, stop teasing me!"

This Carp was extremely cowardly; even with Li Xiuyuan's treasure to help, it was unwilling to take the slightest risk.

"Where can you escape to?" Li Xiuyuan retorted.

The Carp hurriedly said, "There's an undiscovered undercurrent. If I go in there, I can reach a small creek. I've checked it in advance; it's full of small fish, shrimp, and some water snakes. Although the spiritual energy there is even thinner than in the Yellow River, I can be the king and enjoy myself freely there."

"..."

"Stay here."

"If you dare to leave, you will be the one who dies."

Li Xiuyuan was speechless at this unambitious Carp. It was, at any rate, a Second Realm aquatic creature, yet it only wanted to run to a small creek to live freely.

"Don't, Grandpa, Grandpa, find another unlucky soul, Grandpa..."

No matter how the Carp called out and pleaded underwater, Li Xiuyuan ignored it.

His figure broke through the river water and reached the bank.

Lu Xingyun entered the mountains according to the address provided by those Mysterious Investigation Bureau employees.

This mountain was right next to the Yellow River waterway. From the foot of the mountain to the waist, one could hear the rushing sound of the Yellow River everywhere. The muddy yellow water, carrying silt, surged forward endlessly on the other side of the mountain.

The vegetation in the mountains was not dense, consisting mostly of drought-resistant shrubs and weeds. The ground was covered with a layer of cracked yellow soil, which kicked up a cloud of dust when stepped on.

He had a Mountain Ghost Talisman on his body, and he moved through the mountain forest like a wisp of blue smoke. His footsteps made almost no sound, and his figure nimbly dodged and turned between shrubs and scattered rocks, moving at an astonishing speed.

The effect of the talisman caused his aura to blend in with the mountains and wilderness. Even if a cultivator had set up perception-type restrictions here, it would be difficult to capture his trail.

Soon, Lu Xingyun circled to the back. From a distance, he suddenly stopped, his pupils constricting sharply.

In front, he saw several corpses, hanging upside down by rough hemp ropes from the horizontal branches of several large trees. The uniforms on the bodies were already tattered, but it was still possible to identify them as belonging to the Mysterious Investigation Bureau.

Below the corpses, someone had drawn a huge array on the ground with cinnabar.

The patterns of the cinnabar were like an opened spider web, extending from directly beneath the four corpses, with dark red light flowing through the lines.

Seeing this, Lu Xingyun's face immediately darkened. He recognized that array.

It was an exceptionally vicious Spirit Restraint Array, specifically used to imprison the souls of the dead. The souls imprisoned in the array would suffer repeated torment, a hundred times more cruel than any torture.

Between the corpses and the array, there were four nearly transparent phantoms, bound by invisible chains and suspended in mid-air.

Those were their souls. Their mouths were wide open, unable to make any sound, but one could see their pain and suffering at this moment.

"These lunatics, killing people isn't enough, they actually imprisoned their souls to torture them!"

Lu Xingyun's fingers tightened, his knuckles turning white. But he did not rush out directly; this was clearly a trap. He didn't rush to leave either, but lowered his body, sticking to the shadows between the rocks and shrubs, and moved through the forest.

Since the corpses of those Mysterious Investigation Bureau employees were displayed here so blatantly, the people who set the trap must be nearby.

Only by finding their hiding place and figuring out their numbers and layout could he decide how to proceed.

Following the contour of the mountain waist, Lu Xingyun quickly circled around, his gaze scanning every dark corner like a hawk.

Just then, a violent aura rose into the sky from the direction of the Yellow River without warning!

That aura carried a thick scent of blood.

Lu Xingyun's heart skipped a beat, and he turned his head sharply to look in the direction of the Yellow River waterway.

He saw a greasy black Loach leap suddenly from the turbid river water, kicking up a large spray of water.

The Loach was huge, its whole body covered with a layer of slimy black mucus, glistening with an eerie luster in the sunlight.

There was a shocking penetrating wound on its head, and a pillar of blood was spurting out from the wound, spraying a bright red arc in the air.

It paused briefly in mid-air, then twisted its fat body and fell toward the foot of the mountain in the southwest.

Lu Xingyun's pupils contracted slightly. He had never felt the aura of this Loach before, but the brutality and bloodiness on its body clearly marked it as no good.

Moreover, judging from the penetrating wound on its head, it should have been pierced by something in a single strike; something that could cause such a wound was definitely not an ordinary means.

He immediately changed direction and tracked toward the location where the Loach had fallen.

Under the blessing of the Mountain Ghost Talisman, Lu Xingyun's figure was light and swift. He moved quickly between the scattered rocks and shrubs, leaving no sound behind.

A moment later, Lu Xingyun arrived at the southwest side of the foot of the mountain.

The terrain here was lower, blocked by several huge rocks, making it difficult to see the situation below from above.

He cautiously circled to the side of a huge rock, poked his head out, and looked down, immediately spotting a fat figure.

The figure was fat and greasy, and the most eye-catching thing was his head; a fist-sized penetrating wound appeared on the top of his head, with fresh blood flowing down his forehead, staining half of his face dark red.

Clearly, this was the human form that the Loach had transformed into just now.

"To be alive after suffering such a serious injury?" Lu Xingyun felt surprised.

Next to this Loach stood three men in black suits.

The three had rather cold and hard temperaments, their eyes fixed on the wound of the fat figure, their expressions varied.

Lu Xingyun held his breath and pricked up his ears to eavesdrop carefully.

"You useless thing, we fed you almost all the resources in the Yellow River, and yet you were almost killed by someone in a single strike. How are we supposed to nurture you into a True Dragon like this?" One of the men in suits spoke, his voice deep and carrying a hint of anger.

The fat figure covered the wound on his head, his voice full of suppressed anger and unwillingness: "I thought it was just a human cultivator, how was I to know he carried a treasure? That thing was fast and sharp; I didn't even have time to react before my head was pierced."

Another man in a suit frowned, reached out to touch the wound on the fat figure's head, and rubbed his fingertips stained with blood: "The grade is not low; it's not something an ordinary treasure could do."

"Is it someone from the Jiantian Bureau? Or from another faction?"

"Cannot judge, anyway the grade of the treasure is very high, it might be about the same as the President's Seven-Day Ruyi Bell."

"Ah? That's a bit of an exaggeration; the President's Seven-Day Ruyi Bell is an incredible treasure."

"Although the Seven-Day Ruyi Bell is also of a very high grade, it is ultimately not focused on killing. You have to know, it has been painstakingly nurtured by us for a long time and already has the appearance of a dragon. To be able to pierce it in one strike is enough to show the power of that treasure."

"What should we do now?"

"That treasure also carries a killing aura, and there is a lot of residue on the wound. With our current abilities, we can't heal it; we can only cut off the head." The man in the suit in the middle said calmly.

The human form transformed by the Loach raised his head and said in astonishment: "It hasn't reached that point, has it?"

"Otherwise, what do you want? Don't worry, we can make you grow your head back."

"But that would be equivalent to living a new life, and all my memories would be gone."

"Do you really have anything worth lingering over? Hurry up, stick your head out. It will just be a little dizzy; take a deep breath, dizziness is normal."

After the man in the suit in the middle finished speaking, he took out a knife from somewhere, and the Loach very sensibly stuck its head out. The man raised his hand and brought the blade down.

'Szz!!' The head was cut off, and a pillar of blood gushed up, spraying more than five meters high.

The Loach that had transformed into human form had turned back into its original shape, its fat black body lying limp on the ground.

The man in the suit in the middle didn't mind the dirt, shouldered the headless Loach, and looked around.

"What's wrong?" The person next to him asked.

"Nothing, it feels like someone is secretly watching." The man in the suit in the middle shook his head, thinking it was his own illusion.

"Don't overthink it; it might just be the Seven-Day Ruyi Bell that the President will use in the future."

"Sigh, it will take a while for this guy's head to grow back, which has disrupted our plans. We were originally planning to ambush here and kill a few more people from the Mysterious Investigation Bureau."

Then, the three left together. And in the distance, Lu Xingyun had already heard the entire conversation of the three.

"Listening to them, the Loach's head can actually grow back? Is it using some special method?"

"Also, what is the Seven-Day Ruyi Bell? How does it seem like it can come back to the present from the future?"

Lu Xingyun muttered to himself. These lunatics from the Guiliu Society seemed to want to nurture a dragon, but what was their intention in doing so? Just simply looking for another 'Lord River God'? Lu Xingyun felt it definitely wasn't that simple.

However, those people had already left, and now there was a way to bring those corpses back.

Li Xiuyuan left the Yellow River and returned to sit outside the restaurant in the city center. Pedestrians were coming and going on the street, and everything was peaceful.

Li Xiuyuan sat on a public bench outside the restaurant. This street was not very prosperous, but there were quite a few pedestrians coming and going.

He was wearing a moon-colored robe, his waterfall-like long hair hanging down. Under the illumination of the lights, it seemed as if he was shrouded in a faint silver glow. His face was handsome and elegant, and his temperament was ethereal and refined.

Just sitting there, he looked like a painting that had walked off rice paper, completely out of place with this mundane street scene. Passersby couldn't help but take a few extra looks.

A young girl in a floral dress came over, hesitated for a while a few steps away from Li Xiuyuan, and finally gathered the courage to walk up: "Um... hello, would it be convenient to add your contact information?"

Li Xiuyuan shook his head, his tone flat: "It is not convenient."

The girl was choked by this direct refusal, her face turned red, and she walked away awkwardly.

But this did not stop subsequent people from coming to strike up a conversation; there were even talent scouts who came to invite Li Xiuyuan to be a star.

In the end, Li Xiuyuan couldn't stand these attempts at conversation, stood up, and walked into a nearby alley. Immediately, his whole body was wrapped in white mist, and he returned to the bench.

This time, the passersby nearby seemed to automatically ignore him, and no one came to disturb him again.

Not long after, hurried footsteps came from the restaurant behind him. Those employees of the Mysterious Investigation Bureau opened the restaurant door and ran out while answering the phone.

"Quick, quick, quick, Old Zhao, go drive the car, Senior Lu has already transported the corpses to the side of the road!"

Li Xiuyuan watched the car disappear at the end of the street, knowing that Lu Xingyun had ultimately chosen to intervene, just not knowing if he was safe.

Just as Li Xiuyuan withdrew his gaze, suddenly, he saw a man across the street also staring in the direction where the car had disappeared.

The man stood there motionless, and the dim streetlights stretched his shadow very long.

Li Xiuyuan's gaze narrowed slightly, and the man seemed to sense something and slowly turned his head.