The morning mist had not yet cleared from Yaochi Peak when the diaper navigation device at Danwa's waist grew as hot as a branding iron. The bloody arrow stopped spinning erratically and pointed straight down toward the Sword Tomb Abyss below the sea of clouds, a designated forbidden area. The little infant bit the Bronze Box for a long time, leaving a row of tooth marks, before smacking squarely against Chen Mo's leg and issuing a squeaky command: "Stinky... stinky... go down!"
Chen Mo gripped the heavy bronze box, his fingertips seemingly still retaining the suffocating spatial compression of yesterday. The box was ice-cold, yet the Soul-Fixing Smoke sealed within it felt like a living creature, twitching occasionally against his fingertips with a strange odor of sulfur mixed with scorched mugwort that made his head ache. "Spare me, little ancestor," he pleaded with Danwa with a mournful expression, bowing with cupped hands. "That ghost place almost cost Elder Li his life last time..."
Before his voice trailed away, the back of his collar tightened. Li Wuhen had appeared behind him at some unknown moment, the hem of his dark cyan robe hanging motionless while the stone slabs beneath his feet sank silently by half an inch. "Move." A single word, pounding so hard Chen Mo shrank his neck.
Chapter 70