Chapter 155 Black Mark
Prickle!
Su Li suddenly felt a sting in her wrist. She saw in horror that the black circle drawn by the old beggar burst forth white smoke suddenly and that the black gradually faded away. The white smoke thickened into a strange pattern and it seemed to move like living beings. It finally penetrated into Su Li’s skin along the pores.
Su Li only felt that there seemed to be something on her wrist, but this feeling only lasted for a moment and disappeared. No matter how she probed, she could not find anything.
After this change, the black ink mark on her wrist vanished into the thin air, as if it had never appeared before.
“What did you do to me?”
Su Li looked stern and looked at the pedestrians on the street with her black eyes, but she saw that they walked here and didn’t look at them at all. It seemed that she and the old beggar’s world were completely separated.
Her wrist shook, and the dagger fell into her hand. The tip of the dagger immediately flashed with lunar white light.
When the old beggar saw the scene, he said grievingly, “How brutal you are! I consumed my cultivation to draw a rune for you. You aren’t moved to tears of gratitude. Instead, you are going to fight with me, are you? You really break my heart!”
Whiz!
When the old beggar hadn’t finished what he said, Su Li pointed her dagger at the old beggar’s neck and said in a cold voice, “I have never seen such a strange rune. Now that you have already deceived me into having the rune, why don’t you tell me the truth? What’s the function of the rune?”
The old beggar looked at the cold dagger with his cloudy eyes. He sighed,
“Public morality is not what it used to be! I am a stranger to you. How can I harm you? The rune I drew can’t completely protect you from bad luck, but it can bring vitality to you. You pointed your dagger at my neck…”
Su Li became less cold and put down the dagger. That’s not because what he said was somewhat reasonable. Currently, now that she had been affected by the rune, there was no need for her to kill the old beggar. If the rune was really harmful to her, the old beggar should have showed off early. She didn’t have the ability to isolate the heaven and the earth. The person’s cultivation was… much higher than hers, but she didn’t know the reason why he didn’t show it.
“I hope that what you said is true. Otherwise I will spend all my life punishing anyone who is malicious to me.”
Su Li said in a calm voice. The old beggar waved his hand indifferently and said, “Go away. I rarely help someone with fortune-telling. You all have no conscience. Sure enough, the world is fake, and people can’t be trusted…”
When Su Li heard the old beggar’s words, she frowned heavily and thought that the old beggar said something that she couldn’t understand. She was unwilling to ask again and turned away. When she was three steps away, she suddenly noticed that there was something weird behind her. She looked back suddenly and then shrank her eyes in a flash.
Both the old beggar and the stall were gone! She didn’t even notice when he left.
“Or… he is still there, but I can’t see him?”
With this in mind, a sense of fear flashed in Su Li’s eyes. So, she went away subconsciously. She didn’t want to have any connection with the person. She got confused temporality today. Forget what happened.
Su Li squinted her eyes slightly and touched the very smooth skin of her right hand, but she couldn’t eliminate her fear at all.
“Today is a good day!”
Seeing Su Li leave, the old beggar packed and left. He took the bank note tightly. His cloudy eyes seemed to be sneering, “Fake things don’t work well anyway.”
…
But at the moment, in the branch of the Linli Building in Yunjing City,
Qu Qingning sat in a makeshift shed in a well-behaved manner and looked at Fang Yuan and Yin Xuetong innocently. He looked very embarrassed as if he had suffered from constipation.
“What the hell is going on? If you don’t speak, I will ignore you!”
Yin Xuetong said angrily and was ready to kill someone. Did the fool have affairs with another girl in Yunjing City?
“Qingning, if you don’t speak out, we can’t help you.”
Fang Yuan frowned and said in a weird voice, “You suddenly stopped building the underground adytum. Aren’t you afraid of Su Li’s blame?”
It was convenient to dig the mountain with the Poisonous Heart Biting Insect. The construction of the underground adytum of the Linli Building in Yunjing City was naturally assigned to Qu Qingning.
Qu Qingning heard Fang Yuan’s words, and he was even paler. He rubbed his hands together and showed a smile which was uglier than cry. Then he said, “Su Li told us to be careful and not to be found out. I… I seemed to… carelessly… dig it through.”
Yin Xuetong heard Qu Qingning’s words and was in a daze. Then she immediately widened her eyes and said, “What did you say?”
Fang Yuan had already gone to the underground passage…
At night, Su Li got an urgent message and entered the end of the underground passage. She looked at the black iron wall which suddenly appeared in the underground passage. The iron wall should have been as smooth as a mirror to show people’s images. But now it was full of bumps and hollows. It seemed that it was bitten by a dog. One of them was a deep pit with the depth of a finger. The iron wall would be dug through without a film. Fang Yuan and others could almost feel the light from the other side of the iron wall.
Su Li raised her eyebrows and glanced at Qu Qingning. The latter was standing silently like a little wife. She didn’t say anything and waved her hand to let everyone return to the temporary shed.
“You were sleeping at the time and the Poisonous Heart Biting Insect worked on its own. Then the iron wall suddenly appeared. The insect ate it directly as a mudstone. You didn’t notice it until you were woken up by the indigestion message transmitted by the insect. Right?”
Su Li briefly summed up what happened. Qu Qingning smiled with embarrassment and hid behind Yin Xuetong quickly. Then he nodded gently.
Su Li did not say anything, but Yin Xuetong smiled with anger first, “Aw! How dare you! You dared to lie in when we were away. Do you know that if the wall is dug through, we are likely to deal with two furious inborn masters?”
Qu Qingning shook his body and looked ashamed and uneasy. He was almost crying out and said, “I… I didn’t mean it.”
“If you had meant it, you would have died earlier.”
Su Li said lightly and scared Qu Qingning much. He instantly became silent. Then he lowered his head and said disappointedly, “I am willing to accept any punishment.”
“Since Su Li said that the winery next door has an extraordinary origin, we should have thought that they would build an underground adytum too.”
Yin Xuetong said with some annoyance and regretted that she could not remind Qu Qingning. Then she said, “They are really rich and powerful to use the black iron to make the wall. The weapon cast in black iron is the hard currency and extremely valuable outside.”
Su Li shook her head and explained, “The black iron with certain thickness can also isolate the psychic awareness detection of the inborn warrior. Now the wall has been spoiled by Qu Qingning in that way, and it is useless.”
Fang Yuan pondered and said, “That is to say, you can see things in the adytum. Right?”
Su Li looked at Fang Yuan and said, “The cultivation of the two persons is much higher than mine. If I use the psychic awareness, they will come to us for tea in the next moment.”
After Fang Yuan heard Su Li’s words, he was so scared that there was a cold sweat on his forehead instantly. He was about to break through to the inborn hurdle. He originally intended to probe the adytum after he broke through to the acquired hurdle. Fortunately, Su Li had already reminded him.
Su Li noticed that Fang Yuan’s vital energy was not stable and Su Li’s eyes flashed with astonishment. Then she said, “The sound of breaking through the inborn hurdle is very loud. Remember to go out to find a desolate place and let Qingning and Xuetong protect you.”
After Fang Yuan heard Su Li’s words, his face was slightly red and he looked a little discouraged. He originally wanted to give her a surprise.
Su Li’s eyes flashed with a glimmer of smile and she handed over the Ao Sword Skills. She didn’t actually have much expectation. She didn’t expect that Fang Yuan had a remarkable aptitude and was about to break through the inborn hurdle before he was eighteen. It was really a surprise.
Then Su Li looked at Qu Qingning and said in a calm voice, “I will fill the iron wall up with something. Don’t worry. Qu Qingning, you are not allowed to sleep for three days and three nights to make the structure of the underground adytum complete. If anything goes wrong again, I will have a ‘good task’ for you. I’m worried that no one do it.”
Qu Qingning heard Su Li’s words and shook his body. Then he immediately guaranteed that even if he didn’t sleep for seven days and seven nights, he would not make any mistakes.
Fang Yuan saw the scene and pondered. What was the “good task”? Qu Qingning did not do it. It seemed that Su Li didn’t let them intervene. Would she take action personally?
Su Li heard Qu Qingning’s assurance and smiled mildly. She reminded Qu Qingning to speed up the process of building the Linli Building, and then she disappeared into the night.
The so-called “good task” was originally there, but now there was Qu Lu. She had to make the best use of her. It was more appropriate to let someone in the line to do such a troublesome thing.
In the Hongyan House,
Qu Lu received the first order from Su Li and felt puzzled at once. She thought, “Why should I follow Su Zipei? It makes some sense for me to follow Su Li. But Su Zipei… Who is she?”
In the next few days, there was an extremely strange scene in a remote winery alley in Yunjing City.
There were only three or five small wineries and inns in the alley, but there were two shops adjacent to each other. One shop was broken and had bleak business. For the other one, a two-story building was being built in full swing. The quality of the materials was top. The timber delivered cost more than 100,000 taels of silver.
“Head of the family, the boss of the shop is stupid, isn’t he? Our business is so bad, but he still builds a store here.”
A woman dressed as a peasant came out from the kitchen with a kitchen knife in her hand. They looked at the tall buildings which were several times higher than their winery and could not help but shout.
In a short time, a middle-aged man of letters came out in the front room. He wore a gray cloth robe and was slovenly dressed with a bristly unshaven chin. He was like a down-and- out Xiucai who failed in a competitive examination. He was very thin, which was in sharp contrast to the woman with a powerful back and shoulders.
The poor man of letters glanced at the tall building and was foul-mouthed with green eyes, “Son of a bitch! Such a waste of money! If you have money to build a building, you might as well give it to me!”
When the sturdy woman heard his words, she instantly hurried over and grabbed his ear. Then she roared,
“Whom did you scold? Are you complaining I’ve given you less pocket money? Or do you miss Yanyan of the Qinghong House? Well, you bad guy. Have you learned to scold the locust while pointing at the mulberry after several years of reading?!”
“It hurts. Dear, you get me wrong! Let me go! Ah ah ah… My ear is going to fall!”
On the opposite side of the street, a few families watched the scene of bustle and instantly laughed. Everyone knew that the boss of the “Zhouyue Winery” was very afraid of his wife. He could be taught by his wife almost every day. Then the families took out wooden benches and sat at the door to watch the scene. It added a bit of fun for their boring days.