Chen Shi sensed a pair of sharp gazes measuring him up from behind, so invasive that it even stimulated his Qi-Blood and made it flow through his body, involuntarily triggering a stress response.
However, Chen Shi forcefully suppressed this reaction and remained calm and collected.
His footsteps were light and floating, indistinguishable from a normal child's.
Black Pot stealthily sized up his young master and noticed that Chen Shi's smile was growing increasingly rigid.
"I really can't figure out where I gave myself away."
Chen Shi was puzzled, thinking, "Is it really that hard to kill someone and then pretend to be normal?"
From the riverside of the Jade Belt River came sobbing; Chen Shi stopped and looked towards the river to see a woman with a basket burning paper money. He recognized her as a woman from a neighboring village, who around this time last year had cried for a long time at this very spot.
"Yu Shuan, come home with Mommy, Mommy misses you so much." The woman's call came from the riverside.
"It seems today is the anniversary of her son's drowning."
Chen Shi looked towards the Jade Belt River, where the three child water ghosts appeared again, one of whom must have been the woman's son, frantically shouting, "Mommy, don't cry! I'm here! I'm not lost!"
"Mommy, I've always been here, look at me! Why can't you hear me?"
"Mommy, my foot has a cramp, I'm stuck in the mud! Come save me!"
Chen Shi approached the riverbank, where the woman obviously could neither see nor hear her own son and continued to weep softly.
The child called Yu Shuan ran over, desperately orbiting around her but failing to catch her attention.
The wind carried the ash of the burning paper money into the air.
Zhuge Jian, along with other government officials, caught up and reined in their horses, only to see Chen Shi take off his clothes and jump into the river in just his shorts with a plunge, diving towards the deeper water.
Zhuge Jian glanced at the woman, then at the splashing water, his brow slightly furrowed before suddenly taking out a yellow talisman.
This talisman was a Heavenly Eye Talisman, which allowed one to see spirits.
The talisman flickered, burned, and gradually Zhuge Jian could see into another world, where, below in the Jade Belt River, two water ghosts were holding onto Chen Shi like large fish in water, one gripping his neck and the other his legs, intending to drown him.
But Chen Shi's strength was surprisingly great; the two water ghosts couldn't restrain him and were instead being dragged by him towards deeper waters.
Like octopuses, the two water ghosts clung to his body, while Chen Shi, using his hands and feet, was digging into the mud as if searching for something.
"Sir, this child seems to be entangled by the water ghosts," the government officials peered into the river, unable to see the scene below, they said.
Zhuge Jian, however, saw everything and silently thought, "With such strength, such long breath, he should be capable of killing from ten feet away."
The murderer from the Li Family campsite had moved like lightning from a distance of ten feet, taking lives as easily as picking objects from a bag, even leaving cultivators in the Divine Embryo Realm no chance to cast their spells!
"But what is he risking being drowned by the water ghosts for?"
At that moment, Chen Shi seemed to have found something in the mud and quickened his pace. Zhuge Jian froze, only to see Chen Shi pulling out a dark object from the mud that resembled a human.
After the black mud was washed away by the water, it revealed the skeleton of a child around ten years old.
Chen Shi, holding the skeleton, swam upwards, but the two water ghosts stubbornly clung to his legs, and his chest was out of air, his strength dwindling, gradually unable to contend with the two water ghosts.
Just when he was about to be drowned, another, younger water ghost swam over and started fighting the other two, punching them while crying, though it was unclear what it was saying.
Zhuge Jian's Heavenly Eye Talisman could only see spirits, not hear them, so he was in the dark about what the young water ghost was saying.
However, the other two water ghosts clearly heard, as they let go of Chen Shi's legs.
Using his remaining strength, Chen Shi surfaced, gasping for air, his heart still racing.
He had nearly drowned in the river!
He steadied himself and began to walk to the shore, holding the child's skeleton. The woman burning the paper money through her tear-filled eyes, saw him bathed in sunlight, holding the skeleton of a child.
Chen Shi laid the skeleton on the ground, and the woman rushed over; around the skeleton's neck was an amulet, engraved with the word "Yu Shuan."
The woman cried uncontrollably.
"Mommy, you've found me!"
The water ghost child who had rescued Chen Shi ran over joyfully, only to see his mother crying even harder, and he too couldn't help but cry, saying, "Mommy, don't cry, you found me, why are you still crying? When you cry, it makes me want to cry too..."
"Yu Shuan, Mommy found you, I'll take you home."
Yu Shuan's mother picked up the child's remains, looked at Chen Shi, then knelt down, knocking her head against the ground in gratitude to Chen Shi untold times. Chen Shi stood there, not knowing how to respond.
After Yu Shuan's mother had left, Chen Shi stood on the riverbank, lost in thought.
"You're a water ghost, and you have a mother, but I don't." He mumbled low, picking the mud from beneath his fingernails.
In the river, the other two water ghosts stared at him yearningly.
Seeing this, Chen Shi once again plunged into the water with a splash.
"What a long breath!"
Zhuge Jian held back his restless horse, watching Chen Shi dive into the water again, his eyes sparkling, "Such a long breath indicates robust internal organs; his punches and kicks must be extremely fast, as heavy as hammers, as sharp as axes! If he finds an opportunity, he could kill nine cultivators in the Divine Embryo Realm in the blink of an eye!"