Chapter 7 Offering

When I thought about all of this using Black Glasses’ way of thinking, everything suddenly became very simple.

The ancient god either came from the crevices in the wall, from the crevices under my feet, or from both sides. Not only was it a soft-bodied thing, but if it was a collection of many small living things, then the lethality of the grenade’s shrapnel wouldn’t be powerful enough. This meant that the lethality had to be more dependent on the shockwave.

The smaller the space, the more powerful the grenade’s shockwave would be, so I couldn’t detonate it on this altar. That meant that I needed to rush into the gap on the side after luring the ancient god here. If it followed me, I would detonate the grenade in the gap.

The amount of danger involved in this scenario was beyond imagination. If Black Glasses hadn’t been fully prepared to put his life on the line, he wouldn’t have resorted to this strategy.

I looked for a crevice on the side and soon found one with obvious explosion marks on the inside. Black Glasses had used more than a dozen grenades, but the rock in this crevice was obviously very hard since it didn’t collapse even though there were more than a dozen black spots and a few small blast cracks inside.

The crevice was very narrow. For the sake of success, Black Glasses wouldn’t worry about himself. I used my flashlight to illuminate the depths of the crevice and saw that there was a sharp downward turn further inside. In other words, at the end of this crevice was a vertical drop that Black Glasses could jump into at the moment the grenades exploded so as to avoid being killed directly.

The explosion caused violent vibrations to travel up the rock, which knocked the decaying floor down from above. That was why this place was such a mess.

As Fatty and Xiuxiu climbed down, I could hear other people’s voices coming from above. It looked like they had all gathered at the ancient building. When Xiuxiu came down, I saw that she was already wearing the costume.

The costume didn’t look good on just anyone, but she was originally a very beautiful girl and the Huo family had always looked like models. I suddenly wasn’t sure if the costume looked good because it seemed to give her the mysterious air of a beautiful ghostly sorceress from a thousand years ago, or if it was the Huo family’s genes playing a role in unifying that evil costume representing death with the aesthetics of feminine curves.

I couldn’t help but feel a headache coming on. Persuading girls had never been my strong point, and based on the fact that she was already wearing the costume, she was obviously prepared not to listen to me.

“The Huo family can’t afford to lose another head,” I said to Xiuxiu.

Since the Huo family was matriarchal and passed their skills down to only one heir in a generation, that meant that Xiuxiu was the only one left. Of course, it didn’t really matter, but Xiuxiu must not die.

“The Mystic Nine has been doing this kind of business for years, and the families have died out one by one. Didn’t they already expect this?” Xiuxiu looked at me. “I’ve already made up my mind, so can we stop arguing about it? Just let me go. My skills may even be better than yours.”

I looked at Xiuxiu, “We don’t have to argue.” She seemed relieved, thinking that I had agreed, but then I glanced at Fatty. He immediately leaped into action and moved to hit the back of her head with a flashlight.

Xiuxiu dodged the blow by tilting her head slightly, which caused Fatty to lose his balance and almost fall. She didn’t even look back at him but continued to stare at me. Her hair was immaculate and her face was persistent.

I knew that Fatty’s sneak attack was difficult to avoid for ordinary people, so I was slightly surprised.

“Does it have to be like this?” Xiuxiu asked me.

I pointed my flashlight to the crevice on the side. When she turned to look at it, I said to her, “The trap needs to be done here. After the ancient god appears, flee to this crevice and detonate the grenades inside. If you want to accomplish this, you need to entertain the god at the altar and then quickly enter the gap and bypass the trap. You also have to quickly take off this costume during the whole process; otherwise, you won’t be able to move flexibly in the crevice. I think that’s why we saw Black Glasses’ costume inside the ancient god’s body.”

Seeing that Xiuxiu kept her distance from me and didn’t give me the chance to knock her out, I said to her, “You’ve grown up. I won’t bother lecturing you. Do you remember how we finally solved the problem when we were fighting over candy when we were younger? We played rock-paper-scissors. You know that I’ll never let you go to your death, and I know that you’ll never let me go to my death. So how about instead of standing here at a stalemate, we leave it up to fate? Let’s play rock-paper-scissors.”

Xiuxiu looked at me, and I looked at her. At that moment, it was like we had returned to that huge house during the Chinese New Year. I couldn’t remember clearly whether it was my house, Xiao Hua’s house, or Xiuxiu’s house, but at that time, Xiuxiu was very small. She was using her small hands to tightly cling to the candy in my hand while looking at me stubbornly.

I had completely forgotten that stubborn little face in my early years, but now everything was clear.

If I had known this day would come, I would have given her all the candy, but unfortunately, I didn’t give her any of them back then.

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