Chapter 946: Beat Him to Death
After steadying himself, Qiao Jiajin immediately stood beside Qi Xia, his eyes coldly fixed on the female corpse, wary of any mishap.
Everyone stared at the corpse standing in the middle of the room, completely silent. No one dared to speak.
The corpse's body creaked all over. When its eyes opened, its pupils were completely gone, leaving only eerie white sclera. The people in the room could only slowly back away at that moment.
The corpse was like a robot that had been recharged. It extended its left hand again and swiftly wrote five words on the desk in front of Qi Xia:
"Tianlong wants to see you."
After writing this sentence, the corpse went limp again, its face falling forward, and it crashed to the floor with a thud.
Everything happened within a few seconds. Everyone fell silent.
"Wh-What did it write?" Zhang Shan snapped back to reality and looked toward Qi Xia.
But upon seeing those five words, Qi Xia immediately reached out and wiped the writing away.
"You..." Zhang Shan paused at Qi Xia's action. "What are you doing?"
"What's wrong?" Qi Xia asked.
"Not wrong, I just... what did it write?!" Zhang Shan said, utterly bewildered. "This corpse charged in like a mad dog, wrote a few words, and you just wiped it away without even asking?"
"I didn't see any words," Qi Xia said lightly. "It looked like ghost scribbles. I thought it had dirtied your table, so I wiped it clean for you."
"You..."
"Besides, dead people writing things is bad luck," Qi Xia added. "Wiping it away doesn't matter."
Qiao Jiajin thought for a moment, then quickly went over to support Zhang Shan. "Hey, hey, hey! Big guy, I think Con Man is making a lot of sense. Why would a dead person break into your house to write? You'd have to be an idiot to want to see what it wrote. What if she wrote 'your mother's a hoe'?"
"What? What the hell are you talking about?" Zhang Shan couldn't wrap his head around it. "Are you saying this corpse broke into the house in the middle of the night just to curse someone? How does that make any sense?"
"What if it did!" Qiao Jiajin said with a goofy grin. "So don't worry about it. Besides, I took a look too. It really was just ghost scribbles!"
As they argued, Chu Tianqiu slowly appeared at the doorway, wearing an outer coat. He glanced at the scene inside, then asked Zhang Shan as if he hadn't even noticed the corpse, "What's this about an enemy attack?"
"Ah..."
Zhang Shan turned around and briefly explained the situation to Chu Tianqiu.
"Oh..." Chu Tianqiu finally shifted his gaze to the female corpse on the floor. "Zhang Shan, since it bypassed you to write in this room, it means those words weren't meant for you to see anyway."
"Well..." Zhang Shan hesitated for a moment. "Damn... that actually makes sense."
"Let's disperse," Chu Tianqiu said. "Maybe it's a friend relaying a message to Qi Xia, just not wanting you all to know."
"Relaying... a message... with a corpse?" Zhang Shan couldn't comprehend it.
"It's probably some kind of 'Echo,'" Chu Tianqiu said. "If someone with that kind of ability wanted to attack 'Paradise Gate,' they wouldn't need to go through this much trouble. So don't worry about it."
Everyone thought he had a point. Since this wasn't an enemy attack, the onlookers quickly dispersed. Zhang Shan greeted Chu Tianqiu and left as well.
After clearing the room, Chu Tianqiu gave Qi Xia a meaningful glance and asked, "Do you need anything from me?"
Qi Xia thought for a moment, then slowly replied, "Not for now."
"Alright." Chu Tianqiu nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
Once everyone was gone, Qi Xia walked over to the bed, gently stroked his chin, and pondered the cause of this incident.
The meaning of "Tianlong wants to see you" was crystal clear. There was no room for ambiguity.
But the method used was worth examining—writing.
Yet again, writing.
This was a way to perfectly circumvent the surveillance of "Qinglong" and "Tengu," indicating that the messenger wanted to keep this information hidden.
And the reason Qi Xia had wiped away the writing immediately was precisely because he was afraid some clueless person might read it out loud.
That would have completely ruined the carefully laid plan.
But why would Tianlong go through all this trouble...?
Qi Xia stared into the sky for a long time before he heard Qiao Jiajin speak slowly beside him, "I saw it too."
"Oh...?" Qi Xia nodded. He hadn't intended to keep it from Qiao Jiajin anyway.
"That thing definitely doesn't sound like a good person..." Qiao Jiajin said. "What are you going to do?"
"I don't think there's much I can do," Qi Xia replied. "Opportunities to talk to him are rare, especially when he's the one initiating the invitation."
"Alright!" Qiao Jiajin didn't try to stop him any further and nodded decisively. "Con Man, I'm coming with you!"
"Well..." Qi Xia gave a bitter smile. "You can't go where I'm going."
"Can't go?"
"Fist, I need to give you an important task," Qi Xia said.
"An important task?"
"Have you ever flown a kite?" Qi Xia asked. "I'm going to fall into a deep sleep here soon. Your job is to wake me up. I'm the kite, and you're the string."
"I... I don't really understand." Qiao Jiajin scratched his head. "Aren't you going to meet someone...? Why do you need to sleep?"
"This is the method to meet him," Qi Xia said. "Keep an eye on my condition. If you notice anything wrong with me... wake me up immediately."
After saying this, Qi Xia walked over to the side and began slowly arranging several desks together.
"Wait, hold on!" Qiao Jiajin grabbed Qi Xia. "Con Man... this seems really hard to pull off. What counts as 'something wrong'? What counts as 'right'?"
"I don't know either," Qi Xia said. "Since I don't know what he's going to do, I'll have to improvise."
"But..."
"Trust your instincts." Qi Xia patted Qiao Jiajin on the shoulder. "If you feel something's wrong with me, find a way to wake me up. If you think I'm fine, then let me keep sleeping."
Qiao Jiajin felt that Qi Xia was heading to an extremely dangerous place, and he was putting the power of life and death in his hands...
"Con Man, if I don't wake you up... what will happen to you?"
"I can't say for sure," Qi Xia shook his head. "He's different from the others. At worst, I'll lose my sanity... at worst, I'll disappear completely. So I have to be cautious."
"That sounds really dangerous..." Qiao Jiajin said seriously. "Con Man... Do you really have to go?"
"Yes." Qi Xia nodded. "These are dangers I have to face. Besides, even if he hadn't sought me out, I have things I need to say to him."
With that, he walked over to the desks, climbed up, and lay down in a very comfortable position.
"Con Man," Qiao Jiajin asked one last time. "This might be a bit rude... but how soundly do you sleep? How am I supposed to wake you up?"
Qi Xia smiled slightly, turned his head, and said, "I'm very tired. I might sleep quite deeply, so you'll have to hit me to wake me up."
"Hit...?" Qiao Jiajin was taken aback, then slowly raised his fist. "This kind of 'hit'?"
"Yes," Qi Xia nodded. "Beat me to death."