The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 177 Moonlight
Qi Fei raised his head and let the light spot pass across his face.

He found that he had hardly ever been to Nanling since he became an adult.

He didn't even realize he was avoiding this place.

"You said Cui Nian would be here?" Qi Fei looked at Zhong Kui beside him. The light fell on her face, and the bright part was like top-grade white porcelain, crystal clear and extraordinary.

Behind them was the hurried footsteps of the police officers following closely.

Looking down from the hillside, there is a vast green field, which at first glance looks like a huge green lake.

Deep in the Nanling Mountains, through the dense sycamore trees, like a paradise, the stone walls are covered with moss and vines, growing wildly.

Only if you look closely will you see that these green waves are like ripples.

"This is...?" Qi Fei's words were on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't know where to start.

There was satisfaction and anticipation in Zhong Kui's eyes, as if the person in front of her was a work that she was satisfied with.

"In this world, there is only one person who can take Cui Nian away, and he is right here." Zhong Kui said.

"You said the monster is here?" Qi Fei asked in confusion, unable to take his eyes off the scene in front of him.

Qi Fei's heart was filled with confusion, because this place seemed to appear frequently in his dreams. However, time was running out, leaving him no time to dwell on this distant question.

He was the first to rush down the hillside, and in the knee-high weeds, he finally saw an entrance. It was a path between two stone walls, just wide enough for one person to pass through.

The police officer who went ahead soon returned empty-handed: "This is a maze!"

"You're the only one who can find the monsters hiding here." Zhong Kui said to Qi Fei. A gust of wind blew, and the corners of her bright red lips curled up slightly. The wind was mixed with the murderous aura that only she could sense. "We don't have much time left."

As she spoke, she took off the purple silk scarf hanging around her neck and said to Qi Fei in a commanding tone, "Bend down."

Qi Fei did as he was told without giving it much thought. Zhong Kui covered his eyes with a silk scarf and whispered in his ear, "Don't look with your eyes, use your heart to feel for what you've lost, and find your lost memories." Then she patted him lightly on the back, as if pushing him into the cycle of reincarnation.

Qi Fei stretched out his hand and walked forward like a blind man.

In my ears, I could hear the whistling sound of the wind passing through the passage through the maze, followed by the rustling sound of the ivy leaves folding and undulating.

"Keep moving forward and follow your intuition." Zhong Kui's voice came from behind him, as firm as the stone walls of this maze.

Without the guidance of vision, Qi Fei gasped nervously. The panting and the hands groping for vines and ancient walls suddenly became childish and naive. It was his three-year-old self, lost in this maze of Nanling.

Ahead, a boy's voice called out, "Come quickly, Xiaofei!"

Gradually, an amber light appeared in the pitch-black vision. The boy was running in front of him. His small figure flickered in the sunset, and his soft hair shone brightly against the light.

Childhood feelings were evoked, and he relied on the child in front of him with the kind of unreserved love that was full of childlike innocence.

"Brother...wait for me." The childish and clumsy voice seemed to come from his soul that had been taken away.

Everyone followed the blindfolded Qi Fei and walked forward step by step.

The speed was very slow, but surprisingly, every fork in the road was chosen correctly.

At this moment, his foot was tripped by vines and he fell to the ground. The police officer who followed him wanted to go up and help him, but was stopped by Zhong Kui.

A dull pain came over him, mixed with the crying of a child in his ears. Qi Fei was like a bewildered new father, not knowing how to comfort the child.

Qi Fei's groping hands began to tremble as the boy, running in the sunset, suddenly turned back to look at him. He still couldn't see his face clearly, but the strong emotion that came from nowhere made him unable to control himself. The boy stopped running, stepped closer to him, and held out his hand. This child had been waiting for him.

He is his only playmate in the world, he is the glass marble in his endless loneliness.

Qi Fei's hand, stuck in the weeds, touched something cold. He held it in his palm. It was round and smooth. It was a marble. In an instant, all the fog dissipated.

"Xihe!" This name was like a surging river that broke through the floodgates of his memory, trying to drown him.

"Qi Fei!" Behind him, Zhong Kui suddenly called his name hurriedly, like a call from the Forgetful River, pulling him up from the drowning state.

Then came the sound of colleagues drawing their guns.

As the vine leaves swayed again, the strong smell of blood invaded his nostrils.

He grabbed the silk scarf from his eyes. The setting sun had disappeared and the sky outside had become completely dark. He looked forward and found that he was only one step away from the center of the maze.

At this time, the police officers behind him had already bypassed him and ran forward.

In the gap between the crowd, he saw Cui Nian kneeling in the center of the maze, his eyes empty and dripping with sticky blood.

"Still alive!" came the police officer's voice.

Qi Fei forced himself back to reality, struggled to get up from the ground, and stumbled towards Cui Nian.

Cui Nian's old and broken body was already dying, and only a withered gasp filled with phlegm came from the bottom of his throat.

It seems that the monster is replicating Cui Nian's way of killing.

The iron nails that were supposed to be driven into his chest were scattered around.

"He hasn't had time for the final execution yet!" Qi Fei grabbed the iron nail, which was faintly warm, as if it came from the hand reaching out to him in the illusion.

He looked around anxiously. The moonlight shone on the vegetation in the maze, and also on the Nancheng Church and the Glazed Tower. The strong intuition that had not yet faded made his eyes fall on the west. Several branches of ivy hanging in the air were shaking against the wind.

Qi Fei quickly entered a black passage, just like when he was chasing his brother when he was a child.

He ran at full speed in the maze like a hound. Soon, the police officers who followed him were left behind. They lost their way and had to turn back with difficulty.

He rushed through the narrow passage, letting the jagged edges of the weeds scratch the backs of his hands and cheeks.

He remembered, Xi He!

The lonely child playing marbles on the edge of memory.

The devil on earth who raised the butcher knife against their mother!
Thinking of this, he couldn't help but yell: "Xihe! Come out!"

The sound echoed in the empty valley of Nanling like the roar of a wild beast.

The echo was accompanied by the clear sound of falling glass marbles.

He stopped abruptly at the spot where there was a three-way intersection, and the sound of the marbles seemed to be deliberately reminding him to keep up.

He could feel a chilling aura coming from one direction, making his heart nearly beat out of his chest.

He turned his head and looked sideways. At the end of the narrow and dark passage, there was a person wearing white clothes standing in front of the green vines. Even though he couldn't see the face clearly, he could tell who this person was.

(End of this chapter)