劍問蒼天 - 第157章 秘密 - 翰墨軒

Facing Ming Li, Mr. Ghost still had not emerged from that coffin, yet he was plainly far more cautious than before. In midair the ghostly blue flame burned soundlessly, growing ever brighter and larger, until the faces of all those around were cast in green.

Ming Li gazed at the orb of ghostly green without expression, then suddenly took a step forward. Almost at the very instant Ming Li moved, the ghost fire seemed to be provoked by something and flared violently—yet this time it did not split into five parts to form that five-pointed array, but instead a single mass of ghostly green surged upward, raising a great wind that shook loose the dust of the whole gloomy house. Zhou Yixuan and the other two, caught off guard behind, rubbed at their eyes.

At this ever more tense moment, the air grew thick with ghostly aura, and it looked as though some mysterious and uncanny art was about to be unleashed. Facing this ever-enigmatic Mr. Ghost, Ming Li dared not be careless either, and stood fully on guard—when all at once his brows shot up, his whole body abruptly shot up into the air, and almost at the same instant a thunderous crash came from deep beneath the floor of the gloomy house. The whole room began to shake violently, as though the earth itself were quaking and the mountains tottering.

A colossal, deathly white skeletal arm burst through the flagstones with a crash and came down with terrible force upon the very spot where Ming Li had stood, reducing the blue bricks and flagstones of the floor to powder in an instant, shards flying everywhere. The whole room was suddenly shrouded in a chorus of ghostly howls. Ming Li had sprung into the air, and the giant white bone arm, as though driven by some mysterious power, surged upward and lunged straight at him.

Ming Li's brows knit tightly, but there was no panic in his face. The white shadow of the onrushing bone arm was mirrored in his eyes; at the very moment it seemed about to smash into him, his body swayed in midair and drifted to the right, evading it by a hair's breadth. The giant bone arm came crashing down onto the ground, sending up another storm of flying sand and stone.

By now the room was thick with ghostly aura and a bitter, keening wind raged. Zhou Yixuan and the other two pressed themselves tightly against the wall, wanting to flee yet not daring to move, lest in all this chaos they be wounded by the white bones by mistake. Fortunately, Mr. Ghost's attention seemed fixed wholly upon Ming Li, and where the three of them hid in the corner by the offering table, the bones did not come for them. Only, amid the swirling sand and stone, they watched as that gloomy house—never spacious to begin with—was suddenly filled by a gigantic skeletal arm chasing Ming Li's figure, and already seemed rather crowded.

But even this was not enough. Just as Zhou Yixuan was muttering inwardly, another muffled cry came from deep underground, faintly carrying a note of irritation and ferocity, like a vicious spirit long imprisoned that had at last found a chance to breathe and vent the stifled rage in its heart.

The gloomy house shook violently, earth heaved and stone split, and amid the flash of white bone another equally gigantic skeletal arm thrust up from the ground and slammed viciously at Ming Li. Ming Li wove and dodged between the two bone arms, his eyes fixed and intent—and yet to this point he had not struck back once.

Within the room, in but a moment, it grew more crowded still.

White bones gleamed and danced wildly through the air, and a scene bizarre and terrifying played itself out quietly within that gloomy house. Though Mr. Ghost and Ming Li fought fiercely, the two seemed to share a tacit understanding: the reach of their arts was confined to the room. Mr. Ghost's ghostly sorcery did not spill beyond the walls, and Ming Li too kept his maneuvering within the house.