“Alright, let’s do the formalities. After the formalities, we’ll be a family.”
Somehow, the sight of this white-haired woman standing superior in front of me gave me a sense of déjà vu, and this feeling was accompanied by a feeling of disgust and fear.
Have I seen her somewhere?
As I thought about this, my neck was held down, and this body that did not belong to me lowered its head towards them uncontrollably. My head hit the cold and wet ground, and then I was pulled up to bow to Ming Luo.
Just as he was about to lower his head, the candles around him suddenly flickered and went out, leaving only the dim moonlight reflected from the wet ground. The next moment, the moonlight turned into a bloody dark red.
My heart skipped a beat, and I looked up. In the sky above the temple, there was a red moon.
A tall figure stood on the spire, with a big snow-white bird perched on his shoulder.
“Tunshe Nalin!” I exclaimed. Did he really find Thailand?
He has no household registration, no passport, and can’t take a plane. How did he do that?
“You’re here, Nalin.”
The woman’s long sigh made me stunned, and I looked at her in surprise.
Did Ming Luo’s stepmother know Tunshe Nalin before? She actually called him “Nalin”?
“Don’t call me that.” A familiar voice fell from above, like ice falling to the ground, “I feel sick.”
I was startled.
“You really make me sad,” The woman said with a smile, “Nalin, after so many years of not seeing you, you don’t miss your mother at all. I even wanted to catch up with you. You are such an unfilial son.”
—Mother?
I was stunned. Ming Luo’s stepmother was Tunshe Nalin’s mother?
How is this possible? What is going on?
“You are not qualified to call yourself my mother.” Tunshe Nalin’s voice seems to be a burst of hatred from the gap between his teeth. I was stunned. Ming Luo’s stepmother… is she Tunshe Nalin’s mother? How… how is this possible? I stared at the white-haired woman in disbelief. She smiled and looked at Tunshe Nalin. She picked up a small copper bell and shook it.
With a “ding-ling” sound, a shrill wail like a mountain wailing, and a tsunami sounded in the temple. There was a rumble of thunder above my head. In an instant, it rained heavily. Ming Luo, who was beside me, hugged me in his arms. The crocodile body he was clinging to quickly grew longer. Countless twisted ghosts emerged from the ground flooded by rain under him, stretching out their hands to him, like countless drowned souls, all clinging to his lower body, which was gradually turning into a silver-white dragon’s tail, like small fish parasitic on him.
“This is…” I opened my eyes wide. Ming Luo held me up, and his body suddenly grew more than ten meters tall, almost level with the spire of the temple. He suddenly turned into a half-human, half-dragon form.
“Dragon King Naga, accept my sacrifice, accept my offering, and grant me divine power.” The white-haired woman laughed, “So what if you sacrificed yourself to become the Corpse God Lord? I used hundreds of water ghosts and their obsessions to refine the evil water demon. Nalin, give it a try. Can you compete with your mother now?”
Evil water demon?
I looked at Ming Luo and found that his pupils had turned into a pair of silver vertical pupils.
“Ming Luo, did you hear that? You were used by your stepmother!”
The arm that was around my waist tightened even more. Ming Luo seemed to be deaf to what his stepmother and I said. He lifted up his long silver dragon tail suddenly. In an instant, countless ghost shadows gathered on his tail and let out sharp howls, forming a huge wave and rushing towards my back!
I turned my head, and with a “crack,” a snapping sound came from my neck. The body, which had originally been beyond my control, seemed to have its neck broken by my sudden movement.
Through the huge wave formed by countless ghosts, I saw the figure under the red moon surge several feet, and thousands of red and gorgeous camellia flowers bloomed from his body like burning fire, and the winding and twisted gray and white vines also spread out in an instant, covering the sky above the entire temple like a spider web, blocking out the sky and the moon. The bloody red petals, the circling vultures, and the countless ghosts emerging from the blooming camellia flowers seemed to constitute a whole purgatory, which was fully displayed before my eyes.
And Tunshe Nalin, in the depths of this purgatory, embraced my body and stared at my soul.
My heartstrings were violently shaken.
The next moment, a huge wave formed by vengeful spirits rushed into the giant net formed by vines. Circling vultures and groups of ghosts rushed forward, and the scene before them instantly became a Shura field where thousands of ghosts were fighting.
In the chaotic black fog, I suddenly heard a “wool”. A thrilling wolf howl came straight towards me. A white shadow emerged from the black fog, leaped into the air, and passed the red moon above, it was a huge white wolf, and lying on the wolf’s back was Tunshe Nalin, who was hugging my body.
In just a blink of an eye, he jumped in front of me, and his palm covered with blood-red curse marks covered my forehead, while the five fingers of his other hand became like sharp ghost claws and went straight into Ming Luo’s chest.
With a “puff”, a rotten heart entangled by black seaweed was taken out by him.
“No, Tunshe Nalin…” I wanted to ask him to spare Ming Luo, but everything in front of my eyes went dark. When I came to my senses, I saw his dark curly temples, I returned to my own body.
“Plop”, the giant wolf leaped onto the wet ground. I turned my head and saw the half-dragon, half-human shadow falling on the coffin, smashing the extinguished candle all over the place. He was twitching violently, and his pupils returned to their original brown color.
“Ah Ran.” He looked at me deeply, his lips moving silently, his hands curled up and scratching on the ground unwillingly, and he dragged his body to crawl towards me, but his body was tied up by vines.
“Ming Luo… I will pay you back in the next life.” I was so overwhelmed by the heavy guilt that I couldn’t breathe. I blurted out the words, but my mouth was covered tightly by a cold, big hand.
“Ranran, if there is an afterlife, you will also be mine.”
“Ugh!” I couldn’t make a sound and watched Tunshe Nalin crush Ming Luo’s heart into pieces.
The rotting membrane wrapped in seaweed instantly turned into a pile of mud, emitting a foul stench. Yet, at the same time, golden light burst forth from between his fingers. His hand trembled, loosening his grip, and the object in his palm fell to the ground, it was a three-sided golden pick, about the size of a finger.
“Hahaha—” A sharp woman’s laughter suddenly resounded through the sky. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw the white-haired woman covering her mouth and laughing. “It’s still your mother who knows your weaknesses best. As soon as you saw your loved one was in danger, you lost your mind and didn’t think carefully. Since I know that you are the Corpse God who devoured thousands of ghosts, how can I really use water ghosts to deal with you? Dragon King Naga is the main god here. If the ghosts in this foreign country can’t cure you, then can’t God? Nalin, my remaining followers worship you as a god out of fear, but are you really a god? You are a demon!”
My heart sank when I saw that the hand that Tunshe Nalin used to crush Ming Luo was trembling slightly. There was a hole in the palm of his hand corroded by the golden light, and I could glimpse the bare bones inside.
I grabbed his hand and said, “Are you alright, Tunshe Nalin?”
He clenched his five fingers, and the sound of flapping wings came. Thousands of vultures pounced on the white-haired woman, and he pressed my head against his chest hard. The white wolf under him carried him and me to the top of the temple, leaped over several tall buildings, and then leaped into a tropical rainforest. The white wolf kept running, and I turned my head in shock, wanting to check his hand, but he grabbed the back of my neck, and then a cold voice answered me in my ear: “I’m fine.”
“Really? But your hand…”
“I’m fine.” He answered again and hugged me tightly. I felt his body trembling slightly. I looked sideways and saw that his eyes were tightly closed. Under his thick eyelashes, there were two bloodstains.
“Your eyes are bleeding again!” I raised my hand to wipe it for him, but he grabbed my wrist. He turned his face away and pressed my face against his shoulder, as if not allowing me to look. I was a little confused, and after a moment, I finally realized that his eyes were probably not injured… but were weeping blood.
He was crying. Perhaps he couldn’t shed tears like an ordinary person, so instead, it was blood that flowed.
Why is he crying? Is it because of… that white-haired woman?
Is it because of that woman, who called herself his “mother”?
“Tunshe Nalin… that white-haired woman, is she your biological mother?”
After a long silence, he finally said “en”.
I was startled and subconsciously reached out my hand. For the first time, I took the initiative to hug him back.
Tunshe Nalin’s body shook slightly.
