Chapter 31 Night Talk
It was already dusk when Chen Xuanlin returned home with some fruit.
These fruits came from Tingquan Island. They had brought back quite a bit, and each household on Sanyin Island had shared some. The ones Chen Xuanlin held were among the rarest and most valuable, reserved specifically for Wu He.
When Chen Xuanlin opened the door, his wife, Wu He, was cooking.
Both trips to the shore had yielded a bountiful harvest, and Chen Xuanlin's family had shared a good portion of the food. Wu He no longer had to rely on fish bones for soup.
Seeing Chen Xuanlin push the door open, Wu He simply glanced up, saying nothing, then lowered her head to continue lighting the fire.
Most of the firewood had been collected from the seashore, and some was still damp, so it produced a lot of smoke.
Chen Xuanlin watched Wu He as she silently worked on the fire. The two stood in the smoke-filled room for a long time without a word.
It was not until Wu He was choked by the thick smoke and started coughing that Chen Xuanlin put down the fruit in his hand, went over, and skillfully fanned the fire with a fan, making it burn brighter and blowing away the thick smoke around his wife.
Wu He did not stop Chen Xuanlin's actions, but just tilted his head to one side, still silent.
After a long time, Chen Xuanlin spoke with a somewhat dry tone, "I brought some fruits. I asked the elders of the Huaigu clan to leave them for you. Please try them."
Wu He was silent for a while, and finally turned his head to look at Chen Xuanlin and said,
"Sometimes I think, if you were just an ordinary islander, not the head of the Chen clan, how nice it would be."
Chen Xuanlin only then saw the red eyes in his wife's eyes, whether it was due to smoke or other reasons.
Chen Xuanlin patted Wu He's hand and said gently,
"Born here, this is what I must do. This is the responsibility of the head of the Chen clan."
Wu He's voice trembled a little, "Do we really have to go to this extent? What should Xing Ye and I do?"
Chen Xuanlin sighed and said,
"In this situation, I have no choice but to step forward, but it's hard on you and Xingye."
Wu He looked at Chen Xuanlin's aged face, eyes mingled with sadness and heartache, and tears finally fell.
The two looked at each other in silence again. Chen Xuanlin, finally at a loss for words, simply held his wife's hand gently.
...
The next day, Chen Xuanlin brought the totem wooden plaque from the warehouse to pay respects to the sacrificial spirit.
Although he had decided to keep the totem wooden plaque, Chen Xuanlin remained concerned. After all, the plaque was connected to the entity in the gray fog.
Moreover, according to Chen Gan'er, the pattern on this wooden plaque was more intricate and complex than the one in Liu Miao's body. Perhaps it was a more powerful and mysterious entity behind it.
Chen Xuanlin pondered for a long time and decided that he should take the wooden plaque with him to seek guidance from the sacrificial spirit.
So, early this morning, he brought the totem wooden plaque to pay respects to the sacrificial spirit.
After offering his respects at the altar, Chen Xuanlin bowed and explained his purpose.
First, he wanted to ask the sacrificial spirit if he should leave the wooden token; second, if he could, he wanted to ask the sacrificial spirit for guidance on how to unlock it.
After his prayer, a moment of silence fell before the altar.
Chen Xuanlin couldn't help but feel uneasy. Could it be that because the object emanated from the gray fog, the sacrificial spirit was unwilling to respond? Or perhaps the sacrificial spirit itself didn't know how to unlock it?
Chen Xuanlin sighed inwardly. After all, the sacrificial spirit was merely a spirit born of faith, not an omniscient being. Its lack of understanding was understandable.
Zhou Yi had naturally heard Chen Xuanlin's plea, but he knew nothing about the object and didn't know how to respond.
His knowledge of the totemic wooden tokens came entirely from conversations between Chen Xuanlin and Chen Gan'er, so he naturally didn't know more than they did.
Zhou Yi was also somewhat intimidated by the engraved wooden tokens, each representing a mysterious being within the gray fog.
Zhou Yi had witnessed the horrors of the beings within the gray fog. That time, he had tried to venture into contact with the gray fog, and nearly got himself into trouble.
What struck Zhou Yi as strange was that the pattern on the wooden token in Chen Xuanlin's hand actually gave him a sense of familiarity.
Just by eavesdropping on Chen Gan'er's description of the pattern on the wooden token on Liu Miao's body, he could feel a bloody aura rising towards him.
Yet, the pattern on this wooden token felt strangely familiar to him.
This was one of the reasons he hadn't asked Chen to discard it.
Zhou Yi was troubled by how to unlock the token.
Rather than unlocking it, it simply involved sacrificing something to establish a connection with the being behind it.
When approaching the uninhabited island, the two-headed monster had used the corpses of the islanders to form a pattern for sacrifice, thereby communicating with the being behind the pattern.
As for the wooden token on Tingquan Island, Chen Gan'er's description indicated that communication was achieved through the sacrifice of living human blood.
How could the totem plaque in Chen Xuanlin's hand connect to the entity behind it?
Zhou Yi stared at the plaque for a long time, pondering it for so long that Chen Xuanlin almost thought the sacrificial spirit wouldn't respond.
Zhou Yi finally understood why he felt a familiarity with the wooden token.
It was because its aura bore a striking resemblance to the aura of the mediumship-based technique: Soul Summoning.
Wasn't the aura he felt on the plaque reminiscent of the black ball of light he'd felt when he'd first become a sacrificial spirit and chosen a technique in the sacrificial spirit space?
Furthermore, before he woke from his transmigration, in that bizarre dream, he seemed to have sensed the aura of the entity behind the totem wooden token.
With this in mind, Zhou Yi realized that the key to activating the totem wooden token might lie within Chen Xuanlin himself.
Just as Chen Xuanlin sighed and prepared to leave, golden words appeared on the Sea of Death communication tablet.
[If you wish to activate the Medium Wood Token, Soul Summoning is the method.]
Chen Xuanlin looked at the golden inscription on the Dead Sea Message Monument and immediately understood that it was the Master Sacrifice Spirit who was giving him this warning.
Chen Xuanlin knew that the Dead Sea Message Monument's predictions of an island near the shore were in red. When the golden inscription appeared on the Dead Sea Message Monument, it was the Master Sacrifice Spirit's response.
Chen Xuanlin muttered to himself, "The Medium Wood Token! No wonder it feels so familiar. So the being behind this Wood Token is the Medium..."
Chen Xuanlin looked again at the stone offering spirit that had been in the center of the village for as long as he could remember, and wondered, "Since Master Sacrifice Spirit knew how to activate it, why did it take so long to tell me? Could it be that he was trying to warn me to be cautious when activating the Wood Token? After all, the being behind it also came from the gray fog..."
At this thought, Chen Xuanlin suddenly became alarmed. He had been acting too recklessly recently, striving to strengthen the Chen family and ignore Gan Er's advice.
The prerequisite for the Chen family's development is survival. They must not actively bring disaster upon the Chen family. Fortunately, the Lord Jiling reminded them today, otherwise it would be too late to regret if a disaster occurred.
Chen Xuanlin broke out in a cold sweat and immediately bowed to the Jiling again, thanking the Lord Jiling for the reminder. He decided to find a suitable time and place to activate the Wood Order.
Zhou Yi was unaware of Chen Xuanlin's thoughts and naturally had no intention of deliberately reminding him.
However, his somewhat cowardly thoughts somewhat resonated with Chen Xuanlin's current thoughts: not to actively provoke the beings in the gray fog and bring disaster upon himself.