The Exorcist

With a rooster’s crow, the sky finally brightened. Hong Hao Hao looked at Xiao Xia who seemed close to death, formed a barrier, and then left both angrily and happily.

Xiao Xia struggled to open her swollen eyes, using the last bit of her consciousness to spit out the contents of her mouth onto her own chest. It was a small folded talisman, which Bao Da Tong had used to remove corpse poison from her the last time. Made of special paper and cinnabar, it couldn’t be burned or soaked. She had it in her mouth when she purposefully fell, using her tongue to push the talisman, folded to the size of a fingernail, to the side of her mouth, so it wouldn’t affect her speech.

She knew early on that Hong Hao Hao would definitely tie her up, so she hid this talisman just in case. The situation was almost as she expected, though she just didn’t know Hong Hao Hao would come up with such a cruel punishment to torture her.

At dawn, the mosquitoes, having had their fill of her blood, had already left. Thus, the talisman fell directly onto her skin, which was so swollen and red that its original color was unrecognizable. The Daoist power in the talisman instantly dissolved the invisible ropes that bound her.

The dominant thought in her mind was to find Ah Bai as soon as possible to save Ruan Zhan. So, even though she felt dizzy and stumbled every two or three steps, she still tried to make out the road. She emerged from the dense forest onto the mountain path.

After the bad luck, with the rising of the sun, good luck finally came. As soon as she reached the mountain road, she met the village chief of Naman Village who was going down the mountain to handle some affairs. Her whole body was swollen and her face was deformed, but the village chief still recognized her when she called out. He hurriedly carried her back to the village, and according to her intermittent explanations, also rescued the innkeeper’s family of three. Otherwise, if they stayed in the dense forest, they would also be dead sooner or later.

The family had no idea what had happened. The local shamans were called to pacify the nearby spirits, and Xiao Xia only woke up after being unconscious for a long time. She was covered in herbs applied by the village witch doctor using traditional methods. Everyone told her that if she hadn’t crawled out by herself that morning, she would definitely not have survived. If the ferocious mountain mosquitoes didn’t bite her to death, their poison would have gotten her.

It was already dusk and another day had been wasted. Xiao Xia couldn’t care less about the witch’s medicine making her numb and sore. She insisted on going to the Octagonal Tower. She had no choice but to lie to the village chief, saying that she came here because she Witch Doctor Ah Bai had appeared in her dream. Unexpectedly, she had been led astray by ghosts on the way, preventing her from helping the awesome witch doctor.

Although Witch Doctor Ah Bai had passed away long ago, she was still deeply loved in this area. The village chief was an especially staunch believer, so he no longer go in Xiao Xia’s way. He merely insisted on going with her. Xiao Xia had no choice but to bring him along. Considering the fact she had to go down the well, if Hong Hao Hao directed something to untie the rope, Xiao Xia would be stuck down there. Having the chief follow her might not be a bad idea.