Chapter 257: The Function of the Blood Jade |
Bai Mu instantly understood where the white porcelain doll was pointing to. It was actually showing these little ghosts the way home. As was evident from the Red-Clad Female Ghost, the specters in this tomb had low intelligence, far inferior to when they were alive. Therefore, they needed such small trinkets to prevent them from getting lost and to allow them to be controlled by others.
Inside those clay figurines were likely mummified corpses subjected to wicked sorcery...
After the Ghost Children melted into the darkness, Bai Mu took out the Bronze Lamp.
The firelight revealed the shadows surging in the darkness. Bai Mu gently shook the Bronze Lamp. As the flame swayed, the shadows writhed along with it, but their movements were opposite to normal light and shadow. If he shined the light to the left, they dodged to the right; if he raised the light high, they shrank toward the ground. They seemed incredibly afraid of the light, which explained why there were no candles in this tomb chamber.
Bai Mu simply held the Bronze Lamp high and charged forward. To his surprise, the Ghost Children let out panicked shrieks and scattered in all directions.
"To be so timid even after becoming ghosts, it seems they aren't combat units," Bai Mu muttered. "And they still know how to feel fear..."
[You have changed your Title to "God Slayer".]
[Remaining Title changes for this Script: 3.]
The "God Slayer" Title came with the passive skill Intimidation. These Ghost Children seemed to possess a much sharper perception than ordinary monsters. The moment Bai Mu equipped this Title, they immediately fled in all directions, and not a single one dared to approach his vicinity.
On a whim, Bai Mu wanted to catch a Ghost Child to study it.
Their intelligence felt like it had reached a level where communication was possible. That didn't mean they could converse with Bai Mu. The communication here was akin to meeting a hungry stray dog on the street while you just happened to hold a sausage. The dog looks at the sausage, you look at the dog and toss the sausage over, and both you and the dog mutually understand the situation.
Of course, Bai Mu wasn't just acting out of sheer curiosity. His goal was to find the exit, and these ghosts were the original inhabitants of this tomb. Rather than blindly stumbling around on his own, asking these little specters who lived in the tomb might just be a shortcut.
But the Ghost Children were all as slippery as loaches. Once they drilled into the darkness, it was completely impossible to catch them. Consequently, Bai Mu walked toward the clay figurines. Seeing his actions, the Ghost Children immediately let out sharp screeches.
'Just like that Red-Clad Female Ghost, are the clay figurines their true bodies?' Bai Mu wondered to himself. 'After all, they are ghosts from the same tomb. It makes perfect sense for them to share some similarities.' He grabbed the nearest small clay figurine and said, "You better come out on your own, otherwise I don't know what I might do."
A Ghost Child materialized in the darkness. It was a young boy. Setting aside his ghastly, underworldly complexion, his appearance was actually quite adorable, but he was simply shivering in the corner.
Bai Mu pondered for a moment and switched his Title back to "Witch's Friend". Only then did the Ghost Child raise his head, but in the very next second, he drilled straight into the clay figurine and vanished without a trace. The other Ghost Children who were still watching from the sidelines also scrambled back into their respective clay figurines, looking just like children hiding their heads under the covers out of fear of the dark. No matter what Bai Mu said from the outside, or how hard he shook the clay figurines—even pretending to smash them against the ground—the Ghost Children refused to show themselves. It seemed they were genuinely terrified. Bai Mu swapped between several clay figurines, but there was no reaction at all.
"Wait, when I came in, weren't you all acting so fiercely? How can you be so easily frightened?" Bai Mu was a bit at a loss.
If Bai Mu really did smash the clay figurines, they would likely be dead for good.
If making an example out of one of them would have worked, Bai Mu would have already smashed one. However, these Ghost Children had hidden themselves specifically because they were terrified of him. Smashing a clay figurine would probably only make them even more reluctant to show themselves. Another possibility was that terrifying them out of their minds would cause them to lose all reason and attack him en masse. Getting them to obediently listen was going to be difficult.
"So in the end, this Title actually had a negative effect?" Bai Mu scratched his head.
Avoiding scaring these Ghost Children was probably the correct approach. Their grand entrance had been a bit intimidating, but they weren't necessarily malicious spirits that drained human essence and took lives. If he had approached this differently, he might have been able to get some help from them.
But it was too late to say all this now. Bai Mu wasn't a prophet who could foresee the future, nor could he reload a save file and try again.
He placed the clay figurine back into its original pit, thinking to himself that he would just treat this as having killed some monsters along the way and wasted a little time. It hadn't delayed him for long anyway. But after he put the clay figurine back, a pair of eyes actually popped out to peek at him. The moment he lowered his head, however, they immediately shrank back, leaving only the clay figurine trembling slightly.
"Little guy, don't be afraid, I was just playing around with you," Bai Mu said, deciding to employ desperate measures. He crouched back down and offered a few words of comfort. "Can you tell me which way the exit is?"
The clay figurine trembled a few more times, but the Ghost Child did not show itself.
Still, he felt there was a chance. Right then, Bai Mu thought of something. He reached into his inventory and pulled out the Blood Jade he had obtained from the Red-Clad Female Ghost. He waved it in front of the clay figurine, and the Ghost Child popped its eyes out again, staring straight at the Blood Jade.
"Do you want this?" Bai Mu asked.
It made no sound, but the way its gaze followed the Blood Jade already betrayed its thoughts.
"If you want it, you'll have to trade something for it," Bai Mu said.
It suddenly reached out to snatch it, but Bai Mu swiftly dodged.
It made several grabs, but Bai Mu didn't let it succeed once. The interactions between the human and the ghost looked more like playful frolicking. This kind of interaction actually seemed to cure the Ghost Child's fear of Bai Mu. It boldly climbed out, likely finding it quite fun.
After all, it was still a child when it died; being playful was perfectly normal.
After messing around for a while, it probably realized that Bai Mu wasn't going to hand over the Blood Jade for nothing. So, it suddenly wandered off somewhere else, seemingly intending to fetch something in return.
Bai Mu waited right where he was, using this time to observe the tomb chamber.
Near many of the clay figurines and pits, he discovered faint, blurry writings and drawings.
Most of them were so faded that he couldn't tell what was originally written, and only a small portion could still be recognized.
These weren't the marks of craftsmen, nor were they epitaphs; they were actually the handiwork of children.
The carvings were shallow and crooked. Some spots were rather high, clearly made by someone standing on their tiptoes and stretching their arms as high as they could reach. The strokes were messy, and some words were abandoned halfway through.
He found a row of little stick figures holding hands. Their heads were round, their bodies were vertical lines, and their limbs were represented by a few thin strokes. There were also many other drawings that were completely unrecognizable.
The firelight in the Bronze Lamp flickered, and those childish strokes seemed to sway along with it.
Bai Mu could almost envision the scene of those children holding hands. The lamp oil would have extinguished one by one, and the darkness would have swallowed them bit by bit, leaving their eternally youthful corpses to be sealed within the clay figurines.
When the children first arrived here, they probably had no idea what was going to happen. They simply drew on the mud using their fingernails, or the jade fragments and iron locks given to them by their parents.
They weren't trying to leave behind a legacy for after their deaths; they were merely playing around.
Because they thought that when the sun rose tomorrow, they would still be able to draw, just like they did today.