Daomu Biji: The Mystic Nine
Chapter 27: Hot Pepper Ba Ye Chicken Soup

Lieutenant had a very solemn look on his face as he brought the chicken in from outside, which gave Qi Tiezui a bad feeling. It made him feel as if he was going to be stewed alongside the chicken.

He looked at the chicken, and the chicken looked back at him. After a few minutes of this, he finally managed to get out, "Fo Ye, if you have something to say to me, just say it directly. I can't guess this charade."

Lieutenant looked at Zhang Qishan, who squatted down and stared at Qi Tiezui for a while before nodding to him. As Lieutenant came over to untie Qi Tiezui, Zhang Qishan said, "Do you know what you did before?"

There was still a trace of doubt in Zhang Qishan's eyes, which made Qi Tiezui feel a little uncomfortable. He recalled everything that had happened before and looked down at his legs, only to replace that there was nothing on them. His ankle was fine, his legs were as white as a lotus root, and there weren’t any problems at all. He opened his mouth and told them everything he could remember.

When he was done speaking, everyone looked puzzled and Lieutenant said, "Ba Ye, I didn't see any of that when I brought you back."

"You might as well tell me how you carried me back, and why I came out so muddled." Qi Tiezui replied.

"Ba Ye, I was scouting along the railroad tracks when I heard you call me.” Lieutenant said. “When I came back to replace you, I saw you crawling on the railroad tracks. Your movements were very strange. You were walking on your hands and feet on the same railroad tie like an animal, but you didn’t seem to have trouble walking. You ignored me when I called you, but you kept talking to yourself the entire time."

"I was crawling?" Qi Tiezui asked surprised. When Lieutenant pointed to his hands, he raised them to get a look and found that his palms were full of wounds. "I thought you had been possessed by something evil, so I could only knock you out and bring you back. The whole way back, I didn't see that upside-down thing you mentioned. Is it like you said and you were—"

Qi Tiezui took a deep breath. He really wasn’t very adept at this kind of skill, but after moving his body, he suddenly thought of a possibility, "Fo Ye, do you remember when we were at the morgue, I told you that your Zhang family has a special constitution, and if the weasel spirit wanted to enter someone’s body, it would have to be mine?"

Zhang Qishan nodded and gave Lieutenant a look. Lieutenant picked up the chicken and threw it to Old Man Zhang, who caught it effortlessly.

Qi Tiezui continued: "I think I was right, and the weasel spirit has been with me the whole time. I have to send it back."

"Is there really such a thing as a weasel spirit?" Zhang Qishan asked skeptically.

In fact, Qi Tiezui was also skeptical of such things. As someone who made his living in the underworld, he mostly relied on his own intelligence. He had thoroughly learned everything from his family, but he often didn’t believe it. In his words, he believed in fate, but he didn't believe that people couldn't change their fate.

With the present situation, he had to start thinking about it from that aspect.

"Fo Ye, I think what I saw just now should be what the weasel spirit wanted me to see. This… this… this is an omen of great evil. What I saw… it’s probably what we’ll have to face later—" He thought of the endless bodies hanging on the beams, and the huge shadow hanging upside down, and asked himself, what the hell did the Japanese encounter in that ancient tomb? Why is it like this?

Zhang Qishan stood up and paced back and forth for a while as he thought things over. He eventually shook his head: "It’s not that simple. Since the entrance has been found, our destination is the end of the railroad tracks. I just got urgent news from Changsha and need to go back as soon as possible, so we’ll do an in-depth investigation tomorrow. With our current manpower, we can get away with it."

Qi Tiezui was deeply moved as he listened. He had seen Zhang Qishan's true abilities before and was relieved that he was handling things now, so he quickly nodded: "If that’s the case, Fo Ye, I’ll wait for your good news."

Zhang Qishan patted him on the shoulder: "Old Ba, don’t think you can take it easy. The feng shui array here is complicated, so you have to lead the way. Be sure to eat a lot at dinner."

As soon as he heard this, Qi Tiezui jumped up: "Fo Fo Fo Ye, I almost lost my fucking life. If Lieutenant didn't carry me back, I would have definitely died down there. I can't, I can't go. I made a great contribution in replaceing the railroad tracks, so now I’m retiring. I won't charge you for this, Fo Ye, just give me back my donkey."

Lieutenant said, "Don't worry, Fo Ye will be the one to carry you this time."

Zhang Qishan patted Qi Tiezui on the shoulder, unwilling to discuss the matter further. He then pointed to the rope, and Lieutenant went up as if he was going to tie Qi Tiezui up again. Qi Tiezui hid himself by the foot of the bed and muttered to himself that Zhang Qishan was really being unreasonable. He shouldn't have been greedy for the pigs’ feet and lotus root stew back then.

He waved his hands frantically, "Ok, I'll go!"

As they ate the hot pepper chicken soup that evening, Qi Tiezui’s sensitive palate found that it tasted very similar to the oracle bone fragment. He felt sick and didn't eat much, but he knew that all the clues and traces aligned with where they were.

Their group returned to the Taoist temple the next day. While the Zhang family was sorting out their equipment, Qi Tiezui continued his previous exploration, which had been disrupted by Lieutenant’s sudden disaster at that time. He looked up at the everlasting tower and started awkwardly climbing it like a bear climbing a tree. He went all the way up until he could see the whole canyon in the distance.

"What do you see?" Zhang Qishan asked him when he still hadn't come back down almost half an hour later. Qi Tiezui looked into the distance and murmured, "Fo Ye, I missed a step before. This major event is far from good."