Chapter 76: The Black Aura on the Footprints

“What is it? Did you find something?” The young girl gently patted his head, her soft voice tinged with curiosity.

“There’s something wrong with this coffin!” Heize spoke up, pointing his paw outside. “Look at those Eight Immortals.”

Lin Qiu and the others shifted their gaze to the Eight Immortals. Each of them carried a dragon rod across their shoulders—a shoulder pole—and their faces were flushed. Their foreheads, necks, chests, backs, and even the hems of their trousers were soaked with sweat. From a distance, it looked as if they had just been pulled from water.

“What’s strange about that?” Lin Qiu asked curiously. “It’s over thirty degrees out here, and they’re carrying a heavy coffin. Sweating buckets seems normal to me.”

“What do you know?!” Heize rolled his dog eyes at him. “Look more closely at their feet.”

Feeling slighted by a dog, Lin Qiu cursed him silently, but he still looked toward the feet of the Eight Immortals.

“Huh!” Lin Qiu let out a soft gasp of surprise. Others might not have noticed, but as a supernatural beast, his senses were keener than those of ordinary people. With each step the Eight Immortals took, faint footprints were left in the soil. On soft earth, that was nothing odd—after all, the coffin was heavy.

But about an inch above every footprint, wisps of black mist drifted in the air, seemingly out of nowhere. Under the scorching sun, the mist vanished within three breaths.

“What is that?” Lin Qiu frowned, a hint of surprise in his eyes.

“Look at the coffin,” Heize prompted.

Lin Qiu turned his gaze to the coffin and saw that where the boards overlapped, black mist also seeped out. Yet the fierce sunlight was merciless; the moment the mist appeared, it was evaporated.

“Let’s follow them and see!” Lin Qiu’s heart sank with unease.

Xu Bing parked the car to the side. After the procession had moved on, she opened the door, and the group got out.

“We’ll keep some distance,” Lin Qiu said after the others had walked away.

The three of them and the dog trailed behind, walking slowly under the scorching sun. Lin Qiu complained, his face scrunched with discomfort, “It’s so much nicer in the car! The sun is burning my skin.”

He took out a small mirror, glanced at his reflection, and instantly became enamored. “Absolutely beautiful!”

Xu Bing, the young girl, rolled her eyes at him. She had never met anyone so vain or shameless. Even Heize gave him a dramatic eye roll.

As they followed the funeral procession, Heize muttered, “The weather’s off. It’s about to rain.”

“Nonsense!” Lin Qiu looked up at the clear sky. Not a cloud in sight—there was no sign of rain.

But the next moment, his expression changed. The cloudless sky darkened visibly before his very eyes. The glaring sun softened, and the air’s stifling heat, carried by the wind, pressed in oppressively. In what felt like an instant, a tenth of the moisture in his body evaporated.

“This weather!” Lin Qiu wiped the sweat from his brow. As a supernatural beast, and one of the water kind, he was naturally resistant to the land, which also weakened his powers. With all these disadvantages, he felt far more uncomfortable than any land-dwelling supernatural beast.

“I’ve been curious for a while, Heize. With your noble bloodline, how did you manage to evolve into a human form?” Lin Qiu wiped his sweat again, voicing the question that had long lingered in his mind.

Heize didn’t stop walking. “This isn’t transformation. It’s a skill of my lineage—Metamorphosis!”

“Metamorphosis?” Lin Qiu was surprised.

“It’s not just my lineage. Any supernatural beast with an eighth-level bloodline has this power,” Heize explained, glancing up with his striking dog eyes. “But I’m curious too. Someone as unfathomable as you, why is your aura only at the second level now?”

“Hmph!” Lin Qiu lifted his chin proudly. “That’s a skill of my own lineage.”

Seeing his smug fox-like demeanor, Heize couldn’t be bothered to argue. He lowered his head and murmured, “It’s raining.”

“What?” Lin Qiu, who was a bit farther away, didn’t quite catch it.

The next instant, a cold drop landed on his nose.

With a sudden crash, rain poured down in torrents, giving him no time to react.

“The rain! I’m alive again!”

Soaked by the rain, Lin Qiu cared not at all. In that moment, he felt as if he had been reborn, experiencing a baptism of fire and water.

Heize, having transformed into a human, and the young girl, Xu Bing, pressed a button on their multi-purpose sticks. An umbrella sprang open, shielding them from the downpour.

Rainy days always brought gloom, especially under such a deluge. The ground quickly became a muddy quagmire.

Exposed to the rain, Lin Qiu reveled in the sensation as the water washed over him. He even felt his strength returning.

He exhaled deeply, satisfaction written on his face. “So refreshing!”

He smacked his lips in delight, but in the next moment, his expression changed.

“Pick up the pace—something’s happening up ahead!” Lin Qiu said, breaking into a brisk stride.

The others were startled and hurried after him, only to see chaos erupting in the funeral procession. The rain was so heavy it was hard to keep one’s eyes open, and the mud underfoot made every step treacherous. The Eight Immortals carrying the coffin staggered left and right, and cries of alarm rose from the crowd.

There were strict rules for carrying the coffin—before reaching a certain point or a significant landmark, the bearers must not set the coffin down. If they had to stop, they must place footrests beneath the coffin, an ancestral rule whose origins most modern people had forgotten. All they knew was that letting the coffin touch the ground without supports was inauspicious.

Now, the Eight Immortals swayed, and the coffin rocked dangerously. The music and drumbeats had ceased, replaced by anxious shouts: “Careful, don’t disturb the Old Master!”

Panic was thick in those voices.

Just then, one of the Eight Immortals, his face flushed, struggled beneath the weight. The burden of the thousand-pound coffin, even divided, left each bearer with more than a hundred pounds on his shoulder. As the coffin rocked and his footing slipped, the shifting weight became a torment—pressing down heavily one moment, lifting the next.

Unable to steady his steps, he faltered in place. Suddenly, his foot slipped, and he toppled toward the ground. With the loss of balance, the coffin’s immense weight bore down on him, and his face turned ashen with fear as he cried out.

Should he fall, the thousand-pound coffin would crush him, leaving no chance of survival.