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Chapter 413: Pipa Player

It was as if he had suddenly become the only person left in this world.

Ye Qing walked over to the bow and looked around, but of course he couldn’t see anything. The fog was so thick that he could barely see past three to six meters.

He lifted an eyebrow and threw out a punch. The Burning Wind roared and annihilated the fog within sixty meters of him.

“There’s a… no… multiple bodies?!”

The next moment, Ye Qing found an unbelievable number of dead bodies floating at the periphery of his vision. There had to be hundreds of them. What was eerie was the fact that the corpses’ heads were all pointing toward the same direction: him.

The next moment, the fog rolled back in and covered the corpses once more.

“Yeaaaaaaaaaaah I don’t think I want to be here. Time to leave.”

Ye Qing had no intentions of braving whatever dangers lurked at this place, but when he got ready to row the boat, he abruptly realized that the oar was nowhere to be seen as well.

“Motherfucker…” Ye Qing cursed under his breath and channeled his internal energies. The next moment, astral qi wrapped around the boat and pushed it back the way he came from.

At least the corpses weren’t blocking his way back to the shore. Otherwise, he would have to row around them or row through the corpses, both of which were inferior options with a considerable amount of risk attached to them.

Ye Qing’s relief didn’t last long, however. The boat shot through the waters at high speed, but he couldn’t see the shore despite traveling for some time. He couldn’t even see the boat or the people he passed by earlier.

Logically speaking, he should’ve reached the shore at least several minutes ago. In reality, he hadn’t. It spelled trouble.

Ye Qing thought for a moment before trying out a couple other directions. Yonghe Lake was a lake, so he should be able to make it to the shore no matter which direction he rowed. But once again, he found himself disappointed.

If he wasn’t sure before, he now knew that he was in deep trouble.

“What should I do?” he muttered to himself. Should he try crying for help? But he literally couldn’t find the shore, and he hadn’t seen a single soul since stumbling onto this situation. Who could possibly come to his aid?

A moment later, Ye Qing threw another punch and blew away the fog once more. As soon as the fog cleared up, he spotted something that should be impossible. He spotted the hundreds of corpses floating in the water earlier.

“How could this be? Have I been running in circles this whole time? But that’s impossible!” Ye Qing frowned when a possibility occurred to him. “Or maybe… they’re following me!”

Chilled at the thought, Ye Qing stared closely at the corpses to see if his assumption was true. However, he was disappointed to find that the corpses hadn’t moved at all. Even the surface of the lake was perfectly still.

A dozen breaths later, the fog rolled back in and blocked his sight once more. Just in case, Ye Qing threw another punch and blew it away again.

This time, every hair on Ye Qing’s body stood on end. It was because the corpses had gotten much, much closer during the instant the lake was covered, even though his eyes still told him that the corpses hadn’t so much as twitched in the wrong direction.

They’re not swimming. Are they moving using the fog as a medium? Ye Qing thought.

This time, Ye Qing purposely allowed the fog to cover up the corpses before he dispelled it with a third punch. As expected, the corpses had gotten closer yet again.

Despite the eerie situation, Ye Qing actually felt better now that he had figured out the corpses’ pattern. Now, he had to make another choice.

He was unable to find the shore no matter which direction he traveled. There was one direction he hadn’t checked, however: the direction where the corpses laid.

Obviously, he was afraid that the corpses were dangerous. However, it would seem that he had no other options.

The thought had just passed through his mind when a corpse floated past his boat. Despite this, its movement didn’t elicit any ripple at all.

The next moment, more and more corpses entered Ye Qing\'s view. They were so numerous it looked like they were queuing up to float past his boat.

Ye Qing channeled his energies and got ready for anything. Thankfully, nothing happened yet even though the number of corpses in the lake kept increasing.

Suddenly, a massive object appeared in the distance. It was a large ship. There were lights shining out of its windows and entrances, and overall it looked like an ordinary ship. The throng of corpses surrounding it made it clear that wasn’t the case, however. It almost looked like the corpses were protecting this ship.

As the ship came closer, the fog grew thicker as well. It was also mixed with a strange scent.

The ship came to a stop when it was around sixteen meters away from Ye Qing. Then, the corpses surrounding his boat came together to form a path that led straight to the ship.

Ye Qing looked at the thick fog around him and hesitated for a moment. Then, he jumped off the boat and soared toward the ship like a swift.

Sixteen meters was nothing to him. It certainly wasn’t a distance worth stepping on the eerie path of corpses.

After he landed on the deck, Ye Qing spread out his demonic thought like a spider web and scanned his surroundings. However, he still couldn’t perceive any anomalous energy.

He subconsciously looked behind him and felt his heart skipping a beat. It was because the bodies that were facing down had faced up before he knew it, and they were all wearing a strange, eerie smile on their face.

As for his boat, it was nowhere to be seen.

There was no going back now.

After taking a moment to steady himself, Ye Qing stepped inside the ship. It was incredibly big and extravagantly furnished. However, it was also completely devoid of life.

Every once in a while, Ye Qing would comb through his surroundings with his demonic thought. However, there was nothing and no one. While studying the ship’s layout, he discovered that there was a platform surrounded by tables and chairs at the center of the ship. There were also boxes and theaters on the higher floors, which meant that this ship was probably a pleasure boat.

Something felt off with the furniture’s placement, however. He just couldn’t tell what.

Twang! Twang!

Suddenly, a short twang of pipa came from the stage. It sounded like the warm-up session before a performer launched into their performance.

But how could there be a pipa twang when there was no one here?

Ye Qing looked and felt his heart skipping another beat. A woman had appeared on the stage before he knew it. Her face was veiled, and she was carrying a pipa and stroking its strings gently.

“I am Hua Mei. I am very happy that you’ve all come to listen to my performance today.”

This time, Ye Qing broke out in cold sweat and goosebumps. As soon as the woman finished, people appeared on the empty tables in the blink of an eye as if magic. That wasn’t the strangest or most frightening thing, however. It was the fact that he recognized most of these people. They were none other than the corpses he saw on the lake surface earlier.

He knew this for certain because he had memorized some of their faces when they faced up earlier.

Something was different though. The people sitting at the tables seemed to be alive. “Seemed”, because they felt alive to his demonic thought even though it was the opposite when he was outside the ship.

Suddenly, the woman on the stage looked at Ye Qing and greeted him, “Please take a seat, dear customer!”

Her warm, soothing voice sounded like the March wind of spring, but Ye Qing felt chilled to the core. It was because his instincts screamed that something very, very bad would happen if he refused her. So, he obediently walked over to an empty chair and took his seat.

After Ye Qing took his seat, the pipa player withdrew her gaze and began playing her pipa. A beautiful, melodious cadence began resonating inside the ship.

The music sounded as soft, warm, and soothing as the spring wind. One could practically hear the beauty and hope contained within the notes. Even a musically illiterate person like Ye Qing found himself awed by the wonderful music.

But of course, he hadn’t forgotten his situation. He was keeping an eye on his surroundings at all times. Just a short while later, Ye Qing suddenly noticed that everyone was bleeding through their eyes, ears, nose and mouth. Everyone was so enraptured by the performance that they didn’t seem to notice their unusual condition, however.

Internally, Ye Qing snorted. Music so good you’ll bleed from all orifices! Come get your tickets while you still can!

It was at this moment he felt something warm and sticky flowing out of his own eyes, nose and ears. When he wiped the liquid away and took a look, he confirmed that it was blood.

“What the hell?” Ye Qing was stunned. He couldn’t speak for the others, but how the hell was he bleeding? And when was he hit by this spell?

Was it the music? Ye Qing looked up at the pipa player. It was the only possibility.

He tried to get on his feet and get the hell out of here, but the pipa player abruptly stared at him with her round, charming eyes. Large beads of cold sweat began rolling off Ye Qing’s forehead. A few seconds later, he slowly sat back down on the chair.

It was only then the pipa player looked away, and Ye Qing let out a huge sigh of relief. His entire body was covered in cold sweat. During that few seconds the pipa player was staring at him, he felt like a million knives were pressed up against his body. If he dared to leave his seat, he had no doubt that he would die a horrible death. The feeling was so strong that it almost felt like he had already died once.

Left with no choice, Ye Qing could only remain at his seat and listen to the murderous performance. At least it was just bleeding. Blood was the one thing he wasn’t afraid to lose.

Ye Qing soon cursed his naivete, however. At a certain point, the music took a turn and became sorrowful. Gut wrenchingly so. Ye Qing began feeling his intestines twisting and stretching until they literally snapped into pieces.

He wasn’t the only one. He could clearly hear countless people’s intestines snapping inside their bodies as well. It sounded so crisp it was almost as if they had cucumbers in their stomach, not intestines.

This was the first time Ye Qing heard and felt his intestines snapping in his stomach, ever. To say that the pain and horror were indescribable would be an understatement. The only silver lining to this situation was that he was resilient and full of vitality, so the wound healed almost immediately after intestines snapped in half.

The bad news was that the music was still ongoing, so his intestines broke down again, and again, and again.

And so began one of the worst tortures Ye Qing had ever experienced in his life. The worst part was that he couldn’t leave because it would result in certain death. Not even blocking his hearing helped because the music was no mere music. It seemed to ignore the boundaries of the physical and seep into his very soul.

There was nothing he could do besides gritting his teeth and enduring it. The performance had to end eventually. He just needed to hold on until then.

An unknown amount of time later, the sorrowful song finally came to an end, and so did the unnatural power twisting and snapping his intestines like twigs. But before he could let out a sigh of relief, the tune grew passionate and rapid. He felt like he was on a battlefield ready to fight the biggest war of his life.

His heart began beating much, much faster. In fact, it was beating at the same tempo as the pipa, which was to say, very fast.