Ch41 - Of course I want to go with you!

Bei Quan frowned deeply when he heard Wei Fuyuan’s question.

He had witnessed the death of a girl named Julie, with whom he had empathized, and it was as Wei Fuyuan speculated, the others who had gone missing in the fragmented space may have died somewhere in “Xuan Men village”.

[Every time I open my eyes, I see the same group of people breaking into the room and dragging me out of the room to attend the damn sacrifice!]

[Then every day, when the sacrifice is over, a companion will have disappeared!] 

“Ayun” once said this on the phone.

This group of teachers and students from the photography department arrived at Xuan Men village on the evening of May 31st and had been lost for four days. If one of the companions went missing every day, as Ayun said, then, it was likely that at least half of the eight teachers and students had already died.

“… I really can’t delay.”

Bei Quan looked down at his watch.

The date displayed on the dial was June 5, and the time was 12:20 in the morning.

He turned to Wei Fuyuan and Tian Xia Jin and said, “I’ll go into the fragmented space and have a look. You two wait here.”

Tian Jia Xin opened his mouth and almost blurted out “I will go with you,” but quickly swallowed it back.

He was plant spirit, and his combat effectiveness was very urgent. He was concerned that if he entered the fragmented debris space and faced anything, he would only be able to protect himself. So, regardless of how concerned he was about Bei Quan, he could only be a diligent guard at most. 

Young Master Wei, however, immediately jumped up with senseless courage and was ignorant of the fear of death.

“That won’t work!”

Wei Fuyuan shouted, “How can you go in alone? Am I not your assistant? Of course, I want to go with you! ”

Bei Quan squinted at him, “What if you can’t get out after you go in?” 

Wei Fuyuan retorted without thinking, “How is that possible? Aren’t you there?”

After working together for a month and a half, Young Master Wei was convinced of his boss’s ability. Subconsciously, he felt that as long as Bei Quan was there, there would be no problem.

“How could it be impossible?” Bei Quan smiled helplessly, “I almost couldn’t come back just now?”

Wei Fuyuan was stunned. He remembered that Bei Quan really couldn’t even breathe just now. If he hadn’t done artificial respiration for him… 

——Stop that train of thought!

Young Master Wei pinched himself under the table.

——What time is it? What are you thinking about!!?

He forced himself to correct his attitude quickly. 

“In that case, I have to follow.”

Wei Fuyuan said, “If something goes wrong with you, I can pull you as I did just now, can’t I?”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Dfl Hejc: “…”

Lf vlv gfwfwyfg atf ygffhf atja yifk jmgbrr tlr afwqifr ktfc tf kjr ibra lc atf ogjuwfcafv rqjmf, jr kfii jr atf rajgvera-ilxf ubivfc iluta atja agjlifv atf klcv. 

“… Qfii.”

Dfl Hejc cbvvfv rboais.

“Pc atja mjrf, Wljb Qfl klii ub klat wf.”

Lf rwlifv ja Qfl Mesejc, “Aera bcf atlcu…” 

Bei Quan paused and muttered:

“… I have to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

————————- 

To guarantee that Wei Fuyuan would return in one piece, Bei Quan spent another two hours traveling around the hamlet and making several preparations that Young Master Wei had no idea about.

After all of this, it was three o’clock in the morning of June 5th, and the rain that had been falling for half the night had finally ceased.

Bei Quan took Wei Fuyuan and Tian Jia Xin to the cemetery at the end of the village. 

“We’ll go in from here.”

He pointed to the east of the village, saying, “The entrance to the fragmented space is right here.”

On this night, there were no stars or moon shining over the deserted village, and it was dark everywhere.

Wei Fuyuan used a powerful flashlight to shine the direction indicated by Bei Quan, but he was only able to see a wilderness with clumps of weeds and low bushes. 

Nothing out of place at all.

Wei Fuyuan, “Where is the entrance?”

Bei Quan smiled, “The water source in the village is the entrance to debris space.”

He was referring to the riverbed ruins that had dried up for many years. 

Droughts occurred every three to five years in the mountainous areas of Southern Henan. Small villages in the highlands, such as Xuanmen village, had to rely on water sources to live, especially in the past, when water conservation facilities were quite poor.

Unfortunately, following a flood in the upper reaches around 30 years ago, the river to the east of the village abruptly altered its course without notice. The riverbed dried up overnight, and the groundwater level dropped year after year. Even a deep well of 20 or 30 meters could no longer provide water.

The cause of the inhabitants of Xuanmen Village migrating around the village is also connected to the village’s water issue.

Now that the village was deserted, the river was nearly full of sand after decades of continuous exposure to wind and sun. It was also covered with weeds. With the naked eye, it was difficult to tell the difference between the riverbed and the riverbank. 

“Although it rained a little just now…”

Wei Fuyuan used his flashlight to patrol the ruins of the riverbank twice.

“Why is there no water in the river?”

Bei Quan smiled and nodded. 

“There’s no water now.”

He smiled and said, “But at some point in the past, it had water.”

After he spoke, Bei Quan flicked his wrist, and the Qingguang Vientiane Brush appeared in his hand.

“Stand back!” 

He suddenly raised his voice and shouted.

Tian Jia Xin was too aware of Bei Quan’s ability. Seeing Bei Quan’s posture, he immediately grabbed Wei Fuyuan’s arm and pulled him back more than ten steps.

Bei Quan lifted his left hand and slashed his right wrist. A line of blood suddenly ripped open and blood gushed out.

However, the outflow of blood did not drop to the ground, but went retrograde along with the exquisite carving of the pen body of the Qingguang Vientiane Pen, and dyed the snow-white brush head red. 

Then, Bei Quan picked up his life magic weapon dipped in blood and drew a talisman in the void.

Wei Fuyuan had seen Bei Quan’s unique skill of drawing runes out of thin air many times, but it’s the first time he’s seen runes with such a large range and complicated strokes.

There was less and less blood on the Qingguang Vientiane Brush, and the riverbank, which had been hidden in the darkness just moments before, now revealed a dazzling golden-red rune.

The last stroke fell. 

The tip of the brush outlined a set of Cangqiu. Bei Quan retracted his magical weapon, hand sealed and shouted, “turn!”

At his command, the huge golden-red talisman took the center of the circle as the fulcrum and slowly rotated counterclockwise.

At first, it turned slowly, but quickly began accelerating every second. After a complete turn, it was almost difficult to see the strokes on it.

Wei Fuyuan held his breath— he intuitively felt that something was going to happen soon. 

Tian Jia Xin who was next to him, was so nervous that his eyes were strained wide open and he subconsciously strangled Young Master Wei’s arm with both hands as if his life depended on it.

Finally, when Wei Fuyuan could no longer count how many turns the talisman had gone, he vaguely heard a “rumbling” sound in the distance.

Wei Fuyuan: “!!!”

Following the sound, he noticed a torrent originating from the higher reaches, flowing down the already dry river with the force of thunder and approaching them at breakneck speed. 

Bei Quan turned back at this time and reached out his hand to Wei Fuyuan, “Come here!”

Wei Fuyuan: “!!!”

——This is just like the Yellow River flood discharge. What do you want to do!?

“The light of lightning, the fire of flint“, this idea raced through his mind for a split second, but he didn’t have time to express it because the next second he saw Bei Quan, who was reaching out to him, being engulfed by the tidal wave! 

Wei Fuyuan, “What the fuck!!!”

He had no time to think more. His body reacted faster than his brain.

In that split second of yelling, Wei Fuyuan had already thrown away Tian Jia Xin, who was holding his arm, dashed up and plunged into the flood peak…

———————-

Wei Fuyuan wanted to grab onto Bei Quan, who had been swept away by the current, but he clearly underestimated the flood’s ferocity. He felt like a button in a washing machine drum almost as soon as he plunged into the water. He was stunned by the water pressure and couldn’t tell the difference between East, West, North and South.

For about a second or two, Wei Fuyuan seemed to lose consciousness. 

But immediately, he was choked by the current and woke up again.

He opened his eyes in the water and found that he had been slapped into the river bottomriver bottom by the waves.

The river was mixed with a lot of sand and soil, and it was very turbid— he could barely see anything. Fortunately, the water current appeared to be smoother than before. At the very least, Wei Fuyuan could swim.

He didn’t have time to wonder why it was so black that he couldn’t see his fingers but  the visibility quickly improved, and he could now see things under the water when he opened his eyes. 

The most urgent and only thought in Wei Fuyuan’s heart was— Where was Bei Quan!?

As he trod over the water, he headed upstream.

Just when Young Master Wei was about to emerge from the water, he suddenly saw, about a few meters away from the front left, a figure in white clothes.

——Bei Quan! 

Wei Fuyuan remembered the color of Bei Quan’s clothes. He immediately swam in that direction.

“Bei Quan!”

He tried to stretch his neck. As soon as he took a breath, he shouted at the figure in front of him, and then he inevitably choked on the fishy and bitter river water.

Wei Fuyuan’s voice was swallowed by the sound of water the moment he shouted. 

Wei Fuyuan didn’t know if Bei Quan was struck unconscious by the water pressure when he fell into the river since the figure in white in the distance didn’t move; he floated in the water with his back to the sky and face down.

Wei Fuyuan felt even more anxious.

He tried his best to swim in the water, trying to pick up the Bei Quan before the current washed him farther.

But sailing against the current was even more difficult than Wei Fuyuan imagined. No matter how hard he swam, he was always an arm’s length away from the figure 

“Bei Quan! Bei Quan!! ”

Wei Fuyuan was going crazy.

He was merciless, gritting his teeth, gasping, plunging into the water, flopping twice, and eventually catching the man’s hem on the water before he could breathe.

“Bei Quan!!” 

Wei Fuyuan jumped out of the surface of the water, hooked his backhand on the other party’s shoulder, turned the person over, and looked at him again——

——A pale, bloated and deformed face, which had been soaked in water for an unknown time, appeared in front of him!

———————— 

Author’s note-

The author has something to say: By the way, when I was chatting with a very close friend before I was writing this paragraph. Close friend after reading this: Comrade Xiaowei still does not resign like this, he really loves Bei Quan!