Chapter 65 - 65 62 The Illusion of the Blood Well

65: Chapter 62: The Illusion of the Blood Well 65: Chapter 62: The Illusion of the Blood Well As before, Zhou Xuan, half-awake and half-asleep, had the blood from the Ten Fingers absorbed again, bringing a minty coolness that roamed through his body. But now, the Ten Fingers were much weaker than before; having learned from the previous Blood Talisman ignition, it understood that polluting the cautious Zhou Lingyi was impossible. All it could do was wait to die, to wait for its flesh to be completely absorbed by Zhou Xuan through the repeated sacrifices. The pain of Zhou Xuan, was suppressed. “Sleep, sleep, little brother, have a sweet dream and forget everything that happened just now.” … After dawn, Zhou Xuan woke up slowly, feeling his body full of strength, with no pain in his head or eyes. Zhou Xuan focused his mind on the Divine Revelation Secret Realm, surprisingly finding that the incense was burning much faster, and the sound of the boat’s bow striking the water was like a big drum, powerful and resonant, making his ears buzz. The heart incense had also burned significantly; yesterday it measured nine and a half inches, and now it had diminished by the length of a finger joint. The spot where he sat had moved closer to the Helmsman, now level with the incense table. “The incense has burned two inches… blood… Alien Ghost’s blood,” the Helmsman mumbled, still steering the boat. With one push of the pole, the boat glided four or five meters away. “Two inches burned, with seven and a half inches remaining, yet I haven’t gathered any incense yet?” Zhou Xuan pondered over the Helmsman’s mention of “Alien Ghost’s blood,” Yuan Buyu had mentioned that besides Wish Power, incense could also be gathered by absorbing the Spirituality within flesh and blood. Adding to it, he distinctly remembered the spiritual side effects appearing last night, but after sleeping, they mysteriously vanished again, the appearance of incense, and the disappearance of side effects, both should be related to the “Alien Ghost’s blood,” Speaking of Alien Ghosts, Zhou Xuan recalled the “Mother of All Buddhas” within Mr. Dai, and pondered deeply, who in the Zhou Family’s Troupe could allow him to unknowingly absorb Alien Ghost blood? He easily guessed it was his sister’s doing… “Sister is really nice to me.” … Zhou Xuan stepped out of the room, and a chill wind blew against him, making him shiver. “Suddenly, it got a bit cold.” Zhou Xuan tightened his collar and headed towards the entrance of Zhou Family’s Troupe. Instead of looking for Yuan Buyu for guidance, he planned to go to Taiping Road to pick out a gift for his sister. “What kind of gift does Sister like?” Zhou Xuan pondered as he walked. Just as he reached the vicinity of the old stage, he suddenly spotted a fierce-looking middle-aged man, unfamiliar to him, running towards the courtyard’s gate with a child in his arms. The child’s eyes were full of spirit. It was none other than Third Senior Brother Li Shuangyi’s prized disciple—Tong Douzi. Tong Douzi was being tightly gagged by the middle-aged man, tears welling up in his eyes… “Damn, is it another kidnapper?” Zhou Xuan, seeing this, immediately took off in pursuit. Within a few strides, as he closed the gap to just half a meter, he leaped up and delivered a kick that knocked the kidnapper down. “Damn, that kidnapper’s got some nerve to come right into the Zhou Family’s Troupe.” Zhou Xuan first pulled Tong Douzi out of the kidnapper’s grasp, then picked up a rock from the ground. With one hand, he pressed down on the kidnapper’s head, and with the other, he raised the rock, ready to smash it onto the kidnapper’s head, But when the rock was just six inches from the kidnapper’s head, Zhou Xuan stopped. “No, this isn’t a kidnapper! A kidnapper wouldn’t dare come into the Zhou Family’s Troupe.” Zhou Xuan sensed something amiss. Kidnapper Liu San was already at the two incense tier, and he didn’t dare follow them into the Zhou Family’s Troupe. How could this kidnapper have the audacity to come directly into the Troupe and abduct children? S~eaʀᴄh the NôvelFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. Unless his skills were even more advanced than Liu San’s. But if he really were that advanced, would Zhou Xuan have caught up to him given the speed at which a kidnapper could move as if the wind were under his feet? “You’re not a kidnapper. You’re not a kidnapper!” Zhou Xuan shook his head unconsciously towards the fierce-looking, unfamiliar middle-aged man. “Uncle Zhou, he’s a kidnapper. He almost took me away. You should hit him with the rock, quickly hit him.” Tong Douzi urged from the side. Zhou Xuan turned his head towards Tong Douzi and also saw Li Shuangyi sitting on the steps at the entrance of Luoying Hall, eating sunflower seeds. He pushed Tong Douzi to the ground, but Li Shuangyi continued munching on sunflower seeds. “No, you’re also not Tong Douzi! Who are you really?” If it really were Tong Douzi, how could Li Shuangyi sit still and do nothing when he was pushed down? “I am Tong Douzi! Uncle Zhou, quickly, hit the kidnapper.” “Little brother, spare me this once. I have no way to survive, so I came to kidnap a child…” “Shut the hell up, neither of you is Tong Douzi, and you’re not a kidnapper. Shut up!” Zhou Xuan’s mind fell into chaos, and he became deranged. “Xuan, Xuan, wake up.” Zhou Xuan heard the voice of Yuan Buyu. Following the sound, he saw Yuan Buyu with an apron tied around his waist, patting his back repeatedly. “Lao Yuan?” “Are you possessed? Who are you planning to hit with that rock?” Yuan Buyu asked. “Hit…?” Zhou Xuan looked around, but there was no trace of Tong Douzi or the kidnapper, and even Li Shuangyi was gone. It was as if the three of them had never appeared. “You must be possessed, come with me.” Without waiting for a response, Yuan Buyu started pulling Zhou Xuan towards the kitchen, but as they walked, Zhou Xuan suddenly shook off Lao Yuan’s grasp. “You’re not, you’re not Lao Yuan! Lao Yuan never wears an apron when cooking! Who are you really?” “Can’t you even recognize your master?” Yuan Buyu looked concerned. “Get lost, you’re not my master!” Zhou Xuan’s mind became completely deranged and twisted. He wanted to do nothing, like when he was bewitched by the stone Buddha in the Earth Temple, letting his body handle the madness on its own. But it was no use. He couldn’t stop thinking, Yuan Buyu’s voice, like a death knell, kept disrupting him. He couldn’t find peace of mind. “Why are you standing there? Master is calling you.” “Hey, answer!” Zhou Xuan was tormented mentally, and in his extreme pain, he decided to take drastic action. He squatted down, placed his left hand on the ground, and smashed it heavily with the rock his right hand held. Bang! His left hand throbbed with excruciating pain. The pain, however, cleared his mind. His right hand covered his left hand as he saw himself standing on the edge of a well. One more step would have sent him tumbling into it… Then, he turned around and saw an old lady lying on the ground crying in pain at the spot where the kidnapper fell earlier—it was Mrs. Hu, who brewed tea for the Zhou Family’s Troupe. Zhou Xuan couldn’t help but shiver. If he hadn’t realized that what he saw was all false, he would have first smashed Mrs. Hu with the rock and then been tricked by “Yuan Buyu” into jumping into the well. “W-what happened to me just now?” Zhou Xuan walked despondently towards the terrified, pain-stricken Mrs. Hu, helping her up and offering apologies and compensation… After soothing Mrs. Hu, Zhou Xuan walked towards the kitchen… … “You just went mad! It was the Blood Well madness,” Yuan Buyu said after listening to Zhou Xuan’s account, handing him a cup of tea. “Calm yourself.” “Is this the madness caused by the Blood Well? It’s a bit…” Zhou Xuan had thought the madness from the Blood Well would be more like a maniacal scream, or some form of mental disorder. He hadn’t expected the Blood Well madness to be so terrifying… creating illusions to harm oneself. “This is just the beginning… The early hallucinations are easy to discern. Just be careful yourself. But as it progresses, the hallucinations become harder to distinguish. You won’t be able to tell reality from the delusion,” Yuan Buyu said. “Will it get worse?” Zhou Xuan felt an unusual sense of panic building inside him. “Yes.” “Didn’t they say you’d only go mad after five years?” “Yes, after five years, you’ll become completely insane, but within those five years, you’ll experience alternating states of madness and normalcy. The intervals between episodes will be long at first, but they’ll grow shorter over time.” Yuan Buyu sighed, saying, “As suspected, the stronger the Blood Well’s spiritual power, the quicker the symptoms of madness appear…” His former disciple, Guo Er, first exhibited signs of madness on the sixteenth day after pledging allegiance to the Tangkou. For Zhou Xuan, it had only been a few days. “In the future, when the hallucinations strike, might I mistake you and my sister for enemies and, like earlier with Mrs. Hu, try to…” “That’s possible…” Yuan Buyu’s hand trembled as he drank his tea. “Sigh… If only I had a deeper understanding of the Blood Well.” Zhou Xuan leaned languidly against the wall, mumbling an unrealistic hope… Wait, that story! He suddenly thought of something, his spirit re-energized, and he rushed back inside. “Xuan, where are you going?” “To check the story.” Zhou Xuan returned to the room, took out the collection of clippings from the owner that he had read last time, quickly searched through it, and found the terrifying story that had left a deep impression on him. “In the afternoon, the old dog our family had raised for fifteen years suddenly went berserk, biting me viciously… I was terrified and picked up the axe we used for chopping wood, swinging it at the dog a dozen times, then I fainted, The next day, I attended my mother’s funeral. Her body had been chopped into many pieces by someone.” “This story describes the hallucinations induced by the Blood Well madness!” Zhou Xuan read the story again, feeling a deep sense of empathy. His fingers holding the paper trembled slightly. “The author of this story, like me, must have been a Blood Well Spirit Communicator. Why did he publish the Blood Well illusion in newspaper story form? For a writing fee? To gain fame? Or for some other reason?” Zhou Xuan calmly contemplated.