Chapter 169 Explosion
A large sphere shimmering with a faint purple light.
"master,!"
"Master Li!"
The one who rushed in was Hou An, the steward of the Hou family, followed by several skilled members of the Green Gang.
The moment the group entered, they turned their attention to the sphere inside the pit.
Hou An cautiously stepped forward, about to bend down to examine the area.
"Wait a minute."
Li Jinglin suddenly spoke up, his nose twitching slightly and his brows furrowing, "Can you smell it?"
Hou Zhenyue also sensed it.
In the air, beneath the earthy smell of dust and the smoke of agarwood, there was a faint, unpleasant odor.
It was very faint, like burnt cotton thread, or like the smell of firecrackers that children played with during the Lunar New Year.
lead.
It smells like a fuse being lit.
Hou Zhenyue's expression changed drastically, and he abruptly looked up at the sphere...
"Boom~~~"
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On the side of Ming Shi Road, Chen Mo, dressed as an old woman, leaned on a cane, her cloudy eyes reflecting the outline of the Hou family mansion in the distance.
The Hou family mansion was the largest in the area, with high walls made of blue bricks and a sign for a Japanese trading company hanging at the entrance.
Tonight, mourning couplets are pasted on the Hou family's gate, and white cloth hangs from the lintel all the way to the ground.
Several black cars were parked at the entrance, their headlights still on.
Chen Mo stood under a tree by the roadside, looking at the vermilion gate, silently counting in his mind.
"three."
"two."
"one."
"Boom—"
The earth trembled violently.
The pebbles at Chen Mo's feet bounced up, and the glass cover of the street lamp shattered all over the ground.
In the distance, towards the Hou family mansion, the ground looked as if something had violently ripped it up from underneath.
The sound of bricks and tiles flying and beams breaking could be heard clearly across half a street.
The vermilion gate, covered with white paper mourning couplets, was blown away by the blast wave. The gate tumbled several times in the air before crashing into a car parked on the side of the road.
The roof of the car was dented, and the alarm went off in a piercing shriek.
A huge, orange-red fireball rose from the center of the Hou residence, billowing thick black smoke, like a suddenly blooming flower of death.
The fireball was two or three zhang wide, with blazing flames surging around its edges. Wherever it passed, blue bricks shattered into dust, and wood instantly charred and disintegrated.
The white drapery and mourning banners in the mourning hall, along with the black lacquered coffin, all vanished in that instant.
Ordinary gunpowder shouldn't have such power, but Chen Mo added Yin energy to it.
He had experimented with it before; the true energy did not change the color of the flame, nor did it add any fancy noises. It only doubled the power of the gunpowder, making it explode much more violently than ordinary gunpowder.
The loud noise was followed by a shockwave.
A visible shockwave swept outwards in all directions, carrying ash and debris.
The courtyard wall of the Hou residence collapsed outwards as if made of paper, and the windows of several neighboring Japanese trading companies were all shattered.
Neighbors ran out of their houses, their screams and cries mingling together.
Several Japanese women, dressed in kimonos, were wailing on the street.
Chen Mo narrowed his eyes.
Within that cloud of black smoke, broken bricks and tiles were thrown into the sky, then fell back down like raindrops.
The fireball had risen to a height of three or four zhang (approximately 10-12 meters), thick smoke and sparks shooting into the sky, appearing particularly ferocious in the night sky.
The alarm in the concession finally sounded, sharp and piercing.
In the distance, Japanese police officers were running quickly towards this side, blowing whistles, and someone was shouting something in Japanese.
The police ran past her, cursing in Japanese, and headed straight for the Hou residence.
Chen Mo stood still. It wasn't strange that a hunched old woman was standing by the roadside watching the commotion.
He leaned on his cane, his back hunched, and slowly walked out along Ming Shi Road.
I didn't walk fast.
It's normal to be so scared by an explosion that your legs go weak and you can't walk properly.
Walking too fast and too steadily only attracts attention.
Behind them, muffled thuds could still be heard from the direction of the Hou residence, mixed with the crashing sound of bricks and tiles continuing to collapse.
The firelight illuminated half the street, and thick smoke billowed upwards.
He silently counted the time in his mind.
The police officers are not to be feared, but behind them is the consulate, and behind the consulate is a group of Onmyoji with unknown strength.
Such a huge explosion could be heard three to five miles away; there was no way there wouldn't be a reaction over there.
He spent two days loitering at the Hou family's residence and saw a black sedan drive into the residence late at night twice. The people who got out of the car were not wearing suits or military uniforms, but rather strange wide-sleeved robes.
Hou Zhenyue personally greeted him at the door, bowing more deeply than anyone else.
Chen Mo was calculating the time it would take for the group of Onmyoji to arrive at the scene after the explosion.
After walking for nine minutes, he could already see the boundary marker.
The stone post, about half a person's height, stood by the roadside, with the words "Japanese Concession" carved on it.
Once you cross the boundary marker, you enter the Chinese-controlled area.
Suddenly, Chen Mo stopped and looked up at a certain spot in the void.
In the night sky, the thick smoke above the Hou residence seemed to be parted by an invisible hand.
Something squeezed out of that darkness.
First, there was a head.
The head, covered in dark red scales, was the size of a carriage.
There were no eyeballs in their eye sockets, only two eerie, greenish-blue flames burning silently in the night sky.
Then came the second head.
The third.
. . . . .
Eight heads, each identical, with dark red scales gleaming coldly in the moonlight, spread out in a fan shape, obscuring half the sky.
A massive, scale-covered snake coiled above the Hou residence.
The snake's tail swayed slowly in the night breeze; it was as thick as a bucket, with barbed bone spurs growing from its tip.
Yamata no Orochi.
The projection of a ferocious beast from Japanese mythology was somehow pulled down from the sky and hung in the night sky of the Japanese concession.
All eight heads opened their mouths simultaneously, roaring silently.
An immense pressure poured down like a tidal wave.
Ordinary people on the street were kneeling on the ground, some were kowtowing, and some were paralyzed on the ground, unable to move, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.
In the night sky, a streak of light shot from the direction of the consulate, leaving a pale golden trail, and in the blink of an eye, it crossed half of the concession's sky.
As the streak of Yamata no Orochi approached, it slightly turned its head, as if to make way for the newcomer.
The streak of light stopped directly above the ruins of the Hou residence, about three zhang above the ground.
The light faded, revealing a human figure.
The newcomer was around forty years old, of medium build, and dressed in a black hunting robe with tiny Sanskrit characters embroidered on the collar and cuffs, which occasionally flashed with golden light in the firelight.
Her hair was combed meticulously and tied into a bun at the back of her head with a thin black rope.
The hem of the hunting robe fluttered slightly in the night breeze, and what she was standing on was not some flying sword or magical artifact, but a palm-sized talisman.
What's most striking is his face.
He had a fair complexion and no beard, slightly high cheekbones, and dark brown eyes that almost turned black in the firelight.
He hovered in mid-air, his gaze slowly sweeping over his surroundings...