I didn't sleep well that night. I don't know who was farting and grinding their teeth in their sleep, and on top of that, the mountain specters outside the cave were making noise all night. They finally quieted down for only about two hours until dawn.
Before going to sleep, Li Jian had planned to assign people to guard the cave entrance to prevent the mountain specters from accidentally breaking in, but Yue'er stopped him.
"None of you go. I've put medicine there, and the mountain specters definitely won't come in."
At first, Li Jian was a little worried, but when Hei Zi told him that the mountain specters suddenly got scared and ran away when they passed the cave entrance, he felt relieved. However, he still assigned guards just in case.
When I woke up in the morning, I yawned widely. Not only did I not sleep well, but every part of my body ached, as if I had been severely beaten with bamboo strips by my master when I was a child.
After breakfast, Li Jian asked Hei Zi to take a few people out of the cave to see if the mountain specters were still lingering nearby. An hour later, Hei Zi returned with his men.
"There's no movement outside. All those mountain specters have run away. However, one thing is very strange." Hei Zi hesitated and then continued, "Their corpses are all gone. I checked the places where we fought yesterday, and besides some bloodstains, there wasn't a single corpse."
When I heard this, I couldn't help but frown and asked, "Are you sure you looked in the right place?"
Hei Zi shook his head confidently. "Impossible. As the commander of my reconnaissance company, I'll stake my life on it, we definitely didn't look in the wrong place."
"That's strange. Mountain specters don't have the habit of collecting the corpses of their own kind. Even other animals don't have such habits; only humans do. How did those corpses disappear?"
"When something is abnormal, there must be a reason. These mountain specters have violated their original biological behavior patterns. There must be something we don't know about this. If we don't figure this out, we might still be attacked on our way forward," Yue'er also chimed in.
Fang Niuzi frowned and thought for a moment, "When you went to check, did you find any other fierce beasts nearby? Could they have been eaten by other large beasts?"
"That's unlikely. Even if other fierce beasts ate the mountain specters' corpses, there should be some scraps of meat or something on the ground, right? But yesterday, where we fought, there were only bloodstains and nothing else. So your theory doesn't hold water at all." Hei Zi, when it came to professional matters, wouldn't back down an inch, directly silencing Fang Niuzi.
"Hei Zi!"
Seeing Fang Niuzi's displeased expression, Hei Zi quickly apologized, but Fang Niuzi stopped him, waving his hand to indicate it was nothing.
"Everyone, what do you think about this matter? We are all people of the Feng Shui world, and you are all familiar with the habits of mountain specters. These creatures hold grudges and even deadly grudges. So, everyone, please share your opinions. Otherwise, it will be difficult for us to leave this mountain forest."
Fang Niuzi's words plunged everyone into thought, and they began to rack their brains for a solution.
Yue'er, who had injured the mountain specters yesterday, seemed incredibly relaxed. I don't know why she liked listening to music so much; she even brought her MP3 player into the mountains. While everyone else was figuring out how to leave, she took out her MP3 player from her bag and listened to it, shaking her head. It was as if she wasn't here to search for treasure but to go on vacation, which made everyone, including me, speechless.
Finally, Hei Zi spoke up, "Masters, I have an idea, I don't know if I should say it."
"What time is it? Hurry up and say it, don't beat around the bush," Li Jian reprimanded Hei Zi angrily.
Hei Zi was not annoyed and said in a deep voice, "I encountered these creatures before when fighting in the Yunnan region. As long as their leader is killed, they become a chaotic mess until a new leader is chosen and they regroup. My suggestion is, should we carry out a decapitation strike?" He then made a throat-slitting gesture.
Hei Zi's idea was indeed good, and it was the only way to prevent the mountain specters from bothering them for the time being. However, he forgot one problem: how to find the mountain specters' lair?
"That's a good idea, but where do we find their lair?"
Hei Zi smiled at me. "I can't solve this problem. These creatures are said to be related to Yin souls and evil spirits, so it depends on the abilities of you Feng Shui masters."
Hearing this, I was a bit dumbfounded. You want me to find a Yin soul or chase an evil spirit? I'm good at that. As long as I have their medium or birth date, I can find them. But asking me to find the mountain specters' lair is like forcing a duck onto a perch!
I avoided Hei Zi's gaze and looked at Fang Niuzi. He noticed me looking at him, and his expression darkened. "What are you looking at me for? I only know how to slay demons and eliminate evil; I can't do the job of finding the mountain specters' lair."
Before we could turn our gaze to Li Jian, he also spoke up, "My skills are the least among us, and my cultivation is nowhere near that of everyone present. So I'm even less capable."
After Li Jian finished, Zhang Dabiao also said he couldn't do it, as his expertise was completely unrelated to tracking people or finding things.
Finally, we all turned our attention to Kang Pangzi. He tilted his head back at a forty-five-degree angle, looking aloof.
When all our gazes were focused on him, he slowly turned his head back. "Such a small matter, and you can't handle it. I wonder if you're here just to drag us down."
His words made everyone's faces darken. Fang Niuzi's two elegant mustaches almost stood on end. "Hurry up and say whether you can find it, don't show off here."
Seeing that Fang Niuzi was about to get angry, Kang Pangzi quickly replied, "I can find it. I have a type of Gu that is used for tracking, but I need some hair and bloodstains from the mountain specters."
Upon hearing this, Hei Zi, without waiting for Li Jian's instructions, immediately arranged for someone to retrieve the mountain specters' hair and bloodstains.
In a short while, Hei Zi received over a dozen mountain specter hairs and a small pile of bloody mud from his subordinate.
"Are these enough?" Hei Zi asked Kang Pangzi as he handed him the items.
"Sufficient."
Then, Kang Pangzi took out his rattle drum and shook it gently. Two black centipedes, about the length of a little finger, crawled from Kang Pangzi's body into the bloody mud with the shaking of the rattle drum.
In a few moments, they were covered all over with red, making them appear a striking red and black color, which looked very eerie.
"Get me a piece of white paper."
Kang Pangzi placed one of the centipedes on the white paper and muttered incantations that we couldn't hear. Then, Kang Pangzi shook the rattle drum again.
"Go!"
As soon as he finished speaking, the other centipede, which was lying in the bloody mud, vanished from our sight.
At the same time, a "rustling" sound came from the paper. I looked back, and the centipede on the paper had actually started to crawl slowly. After it crawled, it left behind a red line as thick as a pen.
By then, even a fool would understand that Kang Pangzi was drawing a map with the cave as the center. Once the map was drawn, they could determine the location of the mountain specters based on the direction.
Looking at the serious expression on Kang Pangzi's face, I understood the meaning of the phrase "you can't judge a book by its cover" for the first time, as I experienced it vividly with Kang Pangzi.
After about half an hour, Kang Pangzi stopped shaking his rattle drum, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and grinned, "I have fulfilled my mission and finally found it."
Kang Pangzi asked Hei Zi for the map and then, according to the direction, placed the white paper on it and traced the path the centipede had crawled. In a short while, a faint trace was left on the map, and finally, Pangzi drew a circle on the map.
"Here, this is their hiding place."
Looking at the location Kang Pangzi had drawn, Li Jian's expression changed slightly.
"Why are they here?"