Monument of Life and Death

   ***

Luo Jiutian stood in the middle of the crowd, staring at his father's body.

Xiao Lan stared at Luo Jiutian, and the others were in a similar state. They were all afraid that the almost crazy symptoms before would appear again in Luo Jiutian.

 But this time, Luo Jiutian was surprisingly calm.

 He just looked at the corpse quietly, breathing quietly, so quietly that even his eyes were silent.

Only Jasmine didn’t know what happened.

Jasmine stood in the dark for a while. She didn't speak because she felt the atmosphere around her. After a long time, Jasmine finally couldn't help it anymore. She quietly tugged on Qin Yin's sleeve next to her and gently touched her The voice asked, "What happened?"

Qin Yin seemed to be waking up from a dream. She rubbed her face and lowered her voice, "Inside the stone pillar is... Jiutian's father."

 Jiutian’s father.

Jasmine frowned, as if she thought the title was a bit unfamiliar, but then she realized it.

"How is that possible?" Jasmine couldn't control her voice for a moment, "Uncle Luo...Uncle Luo has long been..."

“Inside is Director Luo’s body.” The Taoist priest explained.

 “But Uncle Luo…”

“I watched my father being buried with my own eyes,” Luo Jiutian’s hoarse voice sounded like a sudden explosion of firecrackers, loudly reaching everyone’s ears, “This can’t be my father’s body.”

Li Muyuan stepped forward and tried to touch Lao Luo in the stone pillar, but was stopped by Yi Yao.

“Muyuan, be careful,” Yi Yao said, “be careful of traps.”

Li Muyuan thought about it and retracted his hand.

“Judging from the appearance alone, this is indeed Jiutian’s father,” Li Muyuan expressed his judgment. “The possibility of someone digging the grave and robbing the body cannot be ruled out.”

Luo Jiutian looked like his anger had reached its peak. Xiaolan was waiting for him to lose control, but Luo Jiutian calmed down.

Luo Jiutian took a long breath, closed his eyes, and opened them again.

 “That’s all, it’s just a secondary body.”

 Ouch.

Xiao Lan was very impressed with Luo Jiutian.

“Jiutian, it seems you have really grown up.” Qin Yin said sincerely.

“I have grown up a long time ago,” Luo Jiutian snorted, “This is not my father.”

 It seems that being with Lao Luo, a ghost sergeant, really gave Luo Jiutian a lot of relief and security.

but…

Xiaolan bit her lip and glanced at everyone with suspicion.

Is it true that no one noticed that Lao Luo was missing?

Luo Jiutian forced himself to look away from Lao Luo's body. He stepped forward and walked firmly towards the third stone pillar.

"Let me see what's hidden here," Luo Jiutian's eyes were blazing and full of provocation, "It seems you really want to see our jokes, but I want to see what else you are capable of."

Luo Jiutian said as he pressed his palm on the surface of the third stone pillar. The stone pillar shattered. There was something hidden inside the third stone pillar as well.

 There was a man, maintaining the same posture as Lao Luo just now, sitting cross-legged inside the stone pillar.

 Only, this time it’s a woman.

The woman is thin and crouched, looking almost like a child. The woman's hair is thick, long and black in color. The length of her hair has grown beyond her height. The dark hair surrounds the woman's thin body. It looks both magical and holy.

The woman was wearing a red dress, and her face was too low to see clearly. Xiaolan looked at Yi Yao, trying to get answers about the woman's identity from this well-informed person. As a result, everyone just looked at each other in confusion, with question marks in their eyes.

  Doesn’t anyone know her?

 "How? What's going on?" Only Jasmine asked anxiously, "Why don't you speak?"

"There... there is a woman inside," Qin Yin scratched the back of his head and said, "No one seems to recognize her."

 “Woman?” Jasmine frowned slightly, “What does she look like?”

Qin Yin introduced the woman's appearance in detail. Jasmine's brows tightened and she shook her head, saying that she didn't know either.

While everyone looked at each other, the Taoist priest knelt down and stretched out his fingers to the woman's hand.

“Brother Dao, be careful,” Yi Yao reminded again.

 The Taoist priest nodded and his fingers stopped a few centimeters away from the woman.

 “Look here.”

 The Taoist priest pointed to the woman's hand.

The woman's hand was buried in the waterfall-like black hair, almost invisible. Among the layers of black, Xiaolan saw a few pale patches, and...a scarlet red flower.

 The pale ones are the woman’s fingers, the scarlet ones are her nails.

"Her nails are so red," Li Muyuan also noticed. "The redness comes from the inside out. It's not something that is applied on the nails the day after tomorrow. It's like the color coming from the flesh and bones."

"Red nails..." Jasmine suddenly thought of something, "Look at her hair."

The Taoist priest squinted his eyes and felt that the surrounding light was not enough. He lit another talisman and put the talisman turned into a light source towards the woman's hair.

“The hair is very dark, very long, and of very good quality. It doesn’t look like the hair of a deceased person at all.”

“Look at the end of her hair, that’s where the tail is.” To give an example, Jasmine grabbed her shoulder-length hair and raised the tail of her hair. “Is there anything special about it?”

The Taoist priest leaned over and looked at it carefully for a long time, and finally made a "hiss" sound.

Like everyone else, Xiaolan leaned forward and looked over curiously.

 “It’s so strange,” the Taoist priest turned sideways so that people behind him could see the scene in front of him, “The ends of her hair seem to be reflecting light.”

 The ends of your hair are reflecting light?

Xiaolan couldn't understand this sentence, so she could only look hard at the position pointed by the Taoist leader's finger.

The woman's body has always remained still. Logically speaking, her hair should be the same, but strangely, now it seems that the tails of her hair trailing on the ground seem to be moving.

 But if you look closely, you will find that it is not the hair itself that is dancing, but the flames.

  It is the fire in the hands of the Taoist priest.

The light from the fire is reflected on the ends of the woman's hair. As the light and dark of the flame change, the woman's hair also changes color.

While Xiao Lan was still amazed, Li Muyuan's expression suddenly changed.

"Could it be that..." Li Muyuan looked at Jasmine with disbelief in his eyes, "Could it be that this person is from Qiqiao..."

“I think so too,” Jasmine nodded, “This is probably the leader of Qiqiao, Qiao Nu.”

 A clever girl.

"Qiqiao's whereabouts are unpredictable, and her relationship with other strangers is not good. The whereabouts of Qiao Nu, the leader of Qiqiao, are even more mysterious. Very few people have seen her," Jasmine explained, "But we have all heard of it. There is one very powerful thing about this clever girl, and that is she uses her body to hide poison."

 “Hide poison in your body?”

"Yes," Jasmine said, "Legend has it that Qiao Nu can cast thousands of poisons, and all these poisons are hidden in Qiao Nu herself. The ends of her hair you see are actually not her hair, but Qiao Nu's. Magic weapon, red tip."