50 Your Lady within the Moonlight

Grave of Wumen was at the foot of a mountain and had been rarely visited by the living for decades.

It used to be a big village named Wumen Village, with hundreds of households and a population of over 1000. The villagers lived on the mountain behind the village and had been living happily on their own.

Until a few decades ago, a bandit riot broke out in this area. A gang of gangsters began looting and burning around the surrounding villages, and Wumen Village was no exception.

The local government officials had sent the Captors to besiege and suppress the gangsters a few times. However, it was the very cunning gang of foxes; those arrested were just small fry. It was too difficult to hurt their root. Therefore, Wumen Village stepped out to came up an idea of forming a coalition with surrounding villages to fight against the gang, without knowing that the head of the gang had bought some eyes and spies in a few villages. After getting the plan of Wumen Village in advance, the gang head led his men to slaughter the entire Wumen Village overnight, with on one in the village survived. That night, the blood raining and flowing over each street of Wumen village. Ever since then the former peaceful village had been deserted into the mass grave.

After that awful tragedy, the wind blowing every night over the wild grave was mixed with creepy crying and moaning, like the low voice of the dead who were unwilling to leave and telling their suffering. As a result, the government erected a monument, more than two meters high, and invited a master to inscribe the secret runes on it. Though the mass grave turned quiet later, weird things still happened from time to time. The beasts, especially, were constantly found dead here.

With time went by, if some of the travelers who'd died far from their hometown were not claimed for a long time, they would be moved here to be buried from the Coffin Home. Thus, overtime, this place was called Grave of Wumen by surrounding villagers.

(Coffin Home: Yizhuang in Chinese, it's a temporary coffin depository where their coffins can be stored for those who are dead far from their hometowns and desire burial in their home villages.)

Among villagers in this area, it was not a secret that Full Moon Flowers used to appear in Grave of Wumen; that strange things often occurred in Grave of Wumen was not a secret either. It took Liu Xingfei and Wei Gaoyuan five days to trace the information and tips about the Full Moon Flower and finally arrived at this dead place, where they could immediately feel a depressing gloomy atmosphere even in the sunshine.

"Indeed…an unusual evil place!" Liu Xingfei looked at the large graveyard in front of him with a grim look.

Martial artists had keen senses, much sharper than ordinary people, especially those over the early stage of the Mystery, who already had a capacity for perceiving Qi within the world. Just at a glance, he'd noticed that Yin Qi amid the air was so thick that the strong sunlight could not dispel it. (Sunlight belongs to attribute of Yang.)

Wei Gaoyuan also noticed it and frowned, "Indeed, a perfect home for Full Moon Flowers!"

Liu Xingfei nodded his head and said seriously, "Full of deep darkness we could feel in the daytime, who knows what would welcome us in the evening…"

"Then we must hurry up!! Just take advantage of sunlight, get it and go!" Wei Gaoyuan didn't want to say hi to anyone or anything here at night.

Liu Xingfei spread his hands and said in a gesture of helpless sorrow, "Undoubtedly, I also wish we could do it in the day; unfortunately, the Moon Flower was the shy lady. Only at night, she breaks through the soil, facing the full moon, and that's the time we get her!"

"What?!!" Wei Gaoyuan shouted, his face pale.

"Yeah! The lady, awaiting us at night, bathing within the moonlight…"

"…"

Along the way here, the information about the Full Moon Flower was collected by Liu Xingfei. Wei Gaoyuan just followed him to be a traveler, having paid little attention to it. And once hearing it, the damned lady at the damned place at the damned night, the word flashed first in his mind was: Run! And the second was: Kick! Kick Liu Xingfei's ass!

Of course, he wouldn't. They were here now, and just went back with empty hands? That was 50 contribution points!

They looked for a bare spot to rest, waiting for the moon rising...

When the sun went home and the full moon took his position in the sky, the howls of wild beasts from the mountains in the distance made Wei Gaoyuan rally his spirit at once.

"Well, Lady~ We're~ coming~" Liu Xingfei was well ready to go, obviously. On the way, he told Wei Gaoyuan several times that they must not be too far away from each other while searching the flower. After all, it was notorious Grave of Wumen.

After Wumen Village became the graveyard, its range expanded a lot. The two boys searched carefully, afraid of ignoring any piece of land under their feet.

The smell of beast bones filled in the air around. Seeing helplessness in each other's eyes, they had to keep covering their noses.

Time passed quietly and quickly. A mist rose over the sky. As the morning was approaching, Wei Gaoyuan suddenly stared and pointed at his front, asking, "Brother Liu, look at that! Is that…your lady?"

With a smile, Liu Xingfei replied, "Beautiful! Just get closer!"

There were more than a dozen palm-sized flowers on the ground in front. Each pistil of them was facing the bright moon in the sky; the pistils' outer ring was bright scarlet, fading gradually into a flesh-colored inner ring with a black nail-sized spot in the center.

Liu Xingfei looked at the stems deep into soil and said, "Little boy, stand aside, let me say hi~"

Wei Gaoyuan nodded, standing beside him with the blade out of its sheath.

Liu Xingfei took out a piece of cloth wrapping his hand, carefully leaned out and grabbed the stem near him, and then pulled it.

"Unmoved? Huh?" he frowned, and added some more strength yet the flower still didn't move.

"Brother..." Wei Gaoyuan seemed to have noticed something abnormal and wanted to warn Liu Xingfei.

"My lady~ Out!" Liu Xingfei gave a bark, and made a great deal of strength. The whole Full Moon Flower was pulled out with its long roots and a large amount of dirt…

"Brother!!" Wei Gaoyuan suddenly grabbed Liu Xingfei's arm and pulled him away from the flower!

At the same time, a dry human face emerged from the ground! Red light flashed in the eye sockets, with the roots of the Full Moon Flower extending deeply into his open mouth!

All came as a sudden and a shock, Liu Xingfei was so frightened that he wanted but was reluctant to let go of the flower in his hand. Just hesitating for a moment, the neck and the upper body broke through the soil and his withered claw grabbed Liu Xingfei's chest.

As soon as Wei Gaoyuan pulled Liu Xingfei away, he'd hacked at that claw. The blade clashed with the withered claw, making a sound like chopping wood. Liu Xingfei immediately let go the flower stem, and drew out the long sword behind him.

"Well, your queen has her king," Wei Gaoyuan saw a dry face, like a skeleton wrapped in a layer of bark, and the Full Moon Flower grew out of the dark hole under the bark, which was his mouth.

The height of "flower host" was similar to that of a living human. His atrophied muscles were like dried bacon, his hands were dry claws, so sharp and tough that it was not damaged at all against Wei Gaoyuan's blade.

"The Whining Dead?" Liu Xingfei cursed a thousand in his heart, "dammit, that dead Fatty Power 5! Never told me the flower grows in the mouth of the Whining Dead!"

As one branch of Corpse Cultivators, the Whining Dead, whose consciousness was unwilling to leave his body after he died in deep grievances or resentment, learned the method of perceiving and absorbing Spiritual Qi and cultivated in his body. His joints was more flexible than that of the ordinary Chinese Zombie.

Seeing the red light in the eyes of Whining Dead, Liu Xingfei got relieved a little, knowing that they could handle it.

The Whining Dead was blocked by Wei Gaoyuan's sword, but did not stop, stretching out the other arm and clawed Liu Xingfei's chest.

Liu Xingfei avoid it easily and slashed at the stem of Full Moon Flower in his mouth.

In a crisp sound, the stem was cut. Liu Xingfei grabbed the flower part and said to Wei Gaoyuan, "Retreat!"

At the same time, the Whining Dead screamed so harshly, as though he had been killed again.

Wei Gaoyuan could not help frowning as he had never heard such an unpleasant and twisted scream. He gave a heavy kick against the chest of the Whining Dead, who was kicked several steps back, but still didn't fall. Then a dark gray fog sprayed from his mouth before he fell to the ground.

"Stay away from that fog!"

Liu Xingfei pulled Wei Gaoyuan away to the distance. At this moment, the remaining Full Moon Flowers on the ground began moving together, more than a dozen, and soon the soil around was broken open with a large amount of mud flying over — the army of Whining Dead was getting out of ground!

Within the army, there was one, whose mouth had four Full Moon Flowers!!