My family tree hollow connects to the modern era : Chapter 31

Another murder case occurred, quite similar to the one in Alley 21. It is called similar because the victim, Miao Sheng, was killed by the crystal pendant of a chandelier in his home piercing his heart, and he was also found in a kneeling position. The difference is that there were no demonic claw marks on Miao Sheng’s back.

Just as Lu Mingyu hung up his phone, Bai Zhizhi’s phone rang. It was Uncle Gao calling to say that something had broken into the house again. Presumably, they knew about the array in the courtyard, so the intruder was clearly well-prepared this time. Unexpectedly, although the intruder broke the array, they fell victim to the Illusion Bead.

Uncle Gao said, “The person who came reacted very quickly and wasn’t trapped by the Illusion Bead for long. By the time we discovered them, they had already escaped. They left a bit of blood on the ground, likely from self-inflicted wounds to shock themselves out of the illusion.”

Bai Zhizhi replied, “I understand. Stay in the courtyard and don’t go out. Don’t open the door for anyone casually either. I am coming back immediately.”

Bai Zhizhi hung up, pushed the car door, and seeing it was locked, turned to Lu Mingyu and said, “Open the door.”

Lu Mingyu said, “I’ll take you back to the courtyard.”

The murder case had already happened, and his team was already on the way; with them there to collect evidence, the situation at the courtyard was more urgent. People had tried to break into the courtyard repeatedly, specifically when Jiang Lin and the others were away, and a murder occurred not far from the courtyard, deliberately using demonic energy to mislead them. Everything pointed to the fact that the intruder was targeting Bai Zhizhi.

Bai Zhizhi said, “By the time your snail of a car drives me back, I could already be collecting a corpse at the courtyard. Open the door quickly, I’m getting out.”

Lu Mingyu unlocked the door, asking, “How will you get back if you don’t take the car?”

Bai Zhizhi answered, “I’ll fly back, obviously.” After saying this, he turned into a beam of white light and vanished on the spot.

Lu Mingyu looked at the empty seat with the door still open, then at the direction where the white light had vanished. He belatedly remembered to check the surrounding environment, noted the locations of several surveillance cameras, and hurriedly contacted the Public Relations Department of the Management Bureau to handle it urgently. If anyone had seen that, it would be impossible to explain.

In less than ten minutes, Bai Zhizhi flew back to the courtyard. The Illusion Bead was his and carried his aura, so it wouldn’t create illusions for him, allowing him to land in the yard from mid-air instead of using the front gate.

Seeing the fox suddenly return, the three people in the yard looked at the sky and then at him, asking, “How did you…” They were wondering why he didn’t take the normal path and instead descended from the sky.

Bai Zhizhi asked, “Where is the bloodstain?”

Uncle Bi hurriedly took him to check. It was under a corner of the wall, dripped onto a few leaves. If he and Gao Man weren’t practitioners who could smell the scent of blood, they might not have discovered the residual traces here.

“We were all sitting in the yard when we suddenly felt the surrounding environment was too quiet, followed by waves of spiritual energy. The whole process lasted about four or five seconds, then we smelled the blood and discovered the disturbance at the corner of the wall.”

However, they were older; their cultivation level was perfectly sufficient to deal with ordinary people, but if they had to face a practitioner, they might not be able to win. Yue Zhihuan was also in the house, so they couldn’t leave easily, leaving them no choice but to call Bai Zhizhi. They hadn’t expected him to return so quickly.

Bai Zhizhi took out a palm-sized straw doll from his storage device. With spiritual light circling his fingertips and his hand seals shifting rapidly, he extracted the blood from the leaves, condensed it into a ball, and sent it into the heart of the straw doll. Then, Bai Zhizhi took out a Mind-Suppressing Bell and gently wiped his fingertip across the bell’s body, revealing spiritual patterns. One after another, crisp bell sounds vibrated above the doll.

The doll, originally as quiet as a dead object, began to tremble under the continuous ringing, moving from a light tremor to violent shaking. Finally, the straw doll opened its mouth, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the ground as blood oozed out from its heart.

Yue Zhihuan hid behind Uncle Bi, eyes wide, and seeing the doll stop moving, she tugged on his clothes with a questioning look. Uncle Bi shook his head at her; he didn’t understand it either.

Uncle Gao asked after Bai Zhizhi retracted the bell, which clearly wasn’t an ordinary object, “Zhizhi, what is this situation?”

Bai Zhizhi replied, “A backlash spell. It can use the body of a straw doll and the binding power of blood energy to heavily injure the person from a distance. It’s a pity there was only this little bit of blood; it can only heavily injure the person who tried to break into the courtyard. If I knew their name or had their heart blood, I could have made them drop dead on the spot.”

Although a bit dissatisfied about not being able to kill the intruder remotely, Bai Zhizhi was generally easily satisfied: “It doesn’t matter. Although I can’t kill them, crippling them works too.”

Uncle Gao said quickly, “Heavy injury is enough, heavy injury is enough. Zhizhi, the path of cultivation is not easy, don’t easily commit acts of killing.”

Bai Zhizhi looked at Uncle Gao strangely: “Committing a sin of killing refers to slaughtering the innocent and practitioners randomly persecuting ordinary people who have no power to fight back. The other party is also a practitioner; they offended me first, so killing them is only right. This doesn’t count as a sin.”

If this could be considered a sin, then he shouldn’t even bother cultivating. The path of cultivation is meant to defy heaven and change one’s fate, struggling with the world for longevity. His parents became immortals because they fought their way up, and even his sister, when she went out for training, had to walk a path of blood to refine her heart and verify her Dao. How could the practitioners here be so indecisive and afraid of everything? No wonder their cultivation levels were so low; with too many concerns, how can one fight against heaven for life?

Gao Man and the others understood this logic, but they were worried that because Bai Zhizhi didn’t grow up under worldly laws and lacked a mental framework to constrain himself, it would be difficult to control himself once he was stained with blood.

Bai Zhizhi casually cast a ball of spiritual energy, burning the straw doll to ashes, and said to Gao Man and Bi Weiqing, “Check to see if anyone suddenly suffered a serious injury today. Your circle of practitioners is small, so it should be easy to find out.”

The two sighed and nodded, wondering who they had offended to have people come looking for trouble just when Jiang Lin was away.

Bi Weiqing went to get a broom to sweep up the ashes in the yard, while Yue Zhihuan gave Bai Zhizhi a thumbs up: [Zhizhi, you are so amazing!]

Bai Zhizhi took her hand: “You are the only one in the yard without cultivation. I’ll leave a protection on you. If you encounter danger, whether it’s a practitioner or an ordinary person, just lift your hand and strike them, and it will buy you time to escape. Do you remember?”

Yue Zhihuan watched as Bai Zhizhi drew a rune she couldn’t understand on her palm. When he finished the last stroke and a flash of light passed, the entire rune vanished. Yue Zhihuan touched her palm and typed on her phone: [Zhizhi, why are you so good to me?]

Bai Zhizhi looked at her and smiled: “Because you are very cute.”

Because he also had a sister, and he hoped that when his sister was out training, she would meet only good people and be treated with such kindness.

On a road in the opposite direction of the courtyard, inside a black car, a man exposed half of his arm, letting others help him heal. Sitting in the passenger seat, the blond Eke was full of dissatisfaction: “A mere courtyard with only a few old people, a woman, and a child, and you couldn’t even get through the front door.”

The person being reprimanded looked down at his injured area wrapped in healing spiritual light, his expression sour: “You can go and break in yourself if you want to know how tough that courtyard is. Jiang Lin is one of the top practitioners in China; how could his territory be easy to break into?”

The person treating him spoke up: “Let’s leave it at this for now. China has opened a new energy field, and what the situation is inside remains unknown. We shouldn’t make enemies with them.”

As for that fox demon, this scheme didn’t work, but there would be opportunities in the future. Moreover, from the beginning, they hadn’t really counted on the scheme succeeding. They didn’t understand Chinese demons, but they knew that demons were different, and their demonic energy was different. This could be found out with a little investigation. The calculation of this murder case was not exactly clever; their purpose was actually just to alienate them.

As long as they showed a little bit of suspicion toward Bai Zhizhi, given the treacherous, cunning, and suspicious nature of the fox race, if humans treated him even a little poorly, he would likely hold a grudge. Even if he didn’t fight back immediately, once a crack formed, a total rupture would be a matter of time. Without Jiang Lin protecting him from behind, what was a small fox demon without any roots? They could use some means to get him back to the United States and do whatever they wanted with him.

Unfortunately, the fox demon was too cunning and didn’t fall for it at all. He didn’t chase after them last night, and the people in the courtyard stood by the fox demon’s side immediately, missing the best opportunity to sow discord. They had originally intended to give up, but while monitoring, they discovered that Jiang Lin and his group of practitioners were all away. Thinking of the newly discovered energy field, they figured everyone was probably at Luoxia Village, a perfect opportunity. Eke had been moved to action, wanting to keep the fox demon in the courtyard. Even if the fox demon didn’t kill the people, they didn’t believe Jiang Lin or that woman’s brother wouldn’t harbor resentment or gaps against the fox demon. They could also use this to severely injure Jiang Lin, killing many birds with one stone.

The plan was good, but they didn’t expect that they wouldn’t even be able to get into the courtyard.

Eke looked at Ousen, the reputed descendant of a shadow warrior family, best at hiding breath, assassination in the shadows without leaving any traces or aura, with extremely fast speed, coming and going without a trace—yet he couldn’t even get through someone else’s gate! This angered him so much that the scratch on his face from the fox demon seemed to hurt again.

Eke was just about to speak when he saw Ousen, who had been fine just a moment ago, suddenly change expression. The color vanished from his face, turning as pale as paper. Both hands gripped the clothes on his chest tightly, his breathing became rapid, and his whole body began to convulse and twitch, struggling in immense pain.

Everyone in the car was frightened, not knowing why Ousen had suddenly become like this, so they quickly pulled over to the side of the road to check on his situation. Just as the car came to a stop, Ousen bolted upright and vomited large mouthfuls of blood, as if he wanted to spit out all the blood in his body.

The person who had just treated Ousen’s wound hurriedly reached out to press on him; his special ability was healing. No matter what was wrong with Ousen, his ability could at least save his life. But the ability that had always been effective seemed useless now. The energy probing into Ousen’s body seemed to have fallen into a bottomless pit, unable to fill the void in his body no matter what.

Just as he was panicking, Ousen twitched twice after vomiting the last mouthful of blood, closed his eyes, and fainted. Looking at the blood filling the carriage and the person collapsed on the seat, unaware of life or death, Eke looked at Hanwens with some unease: “What… what happened to him?”

Hanwens activated his ability again to probe his body, and his face turned pale almost instantly: “His ability core… is broken.”

…………………

By the time Lu Mingyu drove his snail of a car over, Bai Zhizhi was already lying on a recliner in the courtyard, eating watermelon cut by Yue Zhihuan. While eating, he commented, “The taste is quite average. It’s sweet, but the fruit flavor is very light.”

Yue Zhihuan was using the watering can Bai Zhizhi gave her to water the grapevines. The grapevines that were still flowering yesterday were already bearing grapes today. They were still very small, but at this rate, they would probably grow to maturity in another night. It was just as Bai Zhizhi said; she would be eating grapes within three days.

When Lu Mingyu parked the car and knocked to enter the yard, he was hit in the face by the abundant water spiritual energy that hadn’t been fully absorbed by the spirit soil, making him subconsciously take two deep breaths. He looked at what Yue Zhihuan was holding and said with a pained expression, “You use this water to water flowers?” If this water were used to brew Mist Crystal tea, he dared not imagine what kind of celestial drink it would be.

Yue Zhihuan smiled and nodded at him. Zhizhi insisted on using this water, saying the grapes wouldn’t grow without it. Uncle Gao and Uncle Bi, who also found it painful, couldn’t even bear to look. She had just poured a pot from her hands, and they were currently in the house brewing tea with it.

Seeing that the courtyard looked very calm, Lu Mingyu asked, “What about the people who broke into your yard? Do you know who it was?”

Yue Zhihuan looked at Bai Zhizhi. Bai Zhizhi put down the finished watermelon rind: “We will know soon.”

Lu Mingyu asked sharply, “What did you do?”

Bai Zhizhi replied, “I didn’t do anything, I just crippled them.”

Lu Mingyu: “…” This is called doing nothing? He was suddenly a bit curious; according to the style of this fox, if he *had* done something, what would it look like?