Severing ties with family to marry the young marshal, his whole family chases me to the crematorium.

Chapter 147 The Mysterious Beads

Just as Shen Qingyao was concentrating on treating Long Jiaojiao's wounds, the tiger slyly rolled its round eyes, as if it were plotting some scheme.

Suddenly, it flashed and disappeared without a trace, like a ghost.

Seeing this, Long Jiaojiao merely glanced indifferently in the direction where the tiger had disappeared, a look of disdain on his face. He curled his lip in disdain and thought to himself:

"Hmph! This stinky tiger was lucky to run fast. If it weren't for the fact that it didn't offend me willingly, I definitely wouldn't have let it off so easily this time! If there's a next time, I'll definitely swallow it whole!"

At this moment, the tiger, which had already fled, suddenly shivered, feeling a chill on the back of its neck, as if a cold wind was blowing past.

The tiger trembled with fear at the thought of the unfathomable dragon it had just confronted, and ran even faster as if the wind was blowing through its body.

"Mommy, I'm fine! Don't worry about me! This is actually another part of Princess Hengyang's tomb, you could say it's the tomb's back garden. Princess Hengyang brought us here via a teleportation array, so let's get out of this awful place quickly."

Long Jiaojiao said to Shen Qingyao in a childish voice.

Hearing Long Jiaojiao's explanation, Shen Qingyao's long-standing doubts finally vanished.

No wonder she and Ruan Hongshuang couldn't see through the clues before.

Unexpectedly, Princess Hengyang used a teleportation array to transport them to a real-world location.

"Okay! Let's leave here first."

Upon hearing Shen Qingyao's words, Ruan Hongshuang nodded in agreement, and at the same time, the huge weight that had been hanging over her heart finally lifted, and she let out a long sigh of relief.

Fortunately, Long Jiaojiao successfully defeated the ferocious tiger; otherwise, the entire group would likely have lost their lives there.

Just as Shen Qingyao and the others were about to leave this dangerous and tense place, a dazzling light suddenly flashed in Shen Qingyao's eyes.

Shen Qingyao stopped in her tracks, a look of confusion on her face. She then turned her head and stared intently in the direction from which the light was coming.

Not far away, the body of the middle-aged man who had previously relentlessly pursued Shen Qingyao lay quietly beneath a towering tree.

Shockingly, the corpse was decomposing at an extraordinary rate, as if it had been subjected to some terrible magic.

Immediately afterwards, the thick tree roots extending from the ground, like greedy giant pythons, frantically coiled around the gradually decaying corpse and began to rapidly decompose and absorb its nutrients.

The brief glint in Shen Qingyao's eyes just now came from the hand that the middle-aged man was holding tightly.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out that he was tightly clutching a bead that emitted a mysterious light in his hand.

Si Jingnian, who had been walking ahead, keenly noticed Shen Qingyao's unusual behavior behind him. He turned around, full of suspicion, and asked with concern:

"Ayao, what happened? Why did you suddenly stop?"

Upon hearing Si Jingnian's question, Shen Qingyao first shook her head slightly as a conditioned reflex, but her gaze never left the strange bead.

It was as if the bead possessed some irresistible magic, deeply attracting all her attention.

Upon seeing this, Si Jingnian quickly looked in the direction Shen Qingyao was staring.

To his surprise, apart from the large tree that was devouring the corpse and some ordinary scenery around him, he did not see anything special or anything that could cause the light to flash.

Just as Ruan Hongshuang was about to pull back her foot, which was about to step through the stone gate, she heard Si Jingnian's concerned voice asking:

"Junior Sister, what's going on? What are you looking at? Have you discovered something?"

At this moment, Shen Qingyao ignored Ruan Hongshuang's question. Without even turning her head, she quickly and without hesitation handed the dragon Jiaojiao she was holding to Ruan Hongshuang's arms.

Then, with slow but firm steps, she walked straight toward the middle-aged man's corpse.

"Ah Yao!"

Seeing this, Si Jingnian became extremely anxious and shouted loudly.

"Little junior sister!"

Ruan Hongshuang, standing to the side, also looked worried and called out loudly.

However, no matter how anxiously the two of them called out, Shen Qingyao seemed not to hear them at all. She walked straight toward the middle-aged man's corpse as if she had lost her soul, without even pausing along the way.

Seeing this, Si Jingnian rushed forward, grabbed Shen Qingyao's shoulders firmly, and shook her violently, trying to wake her from her strange state.

However, no matter how hard Si Jingnian shook her, Shen Qingyao seemed to be bewitched by some mysterious force and did not react to his actions at all.

At this moment, her gaze remained fixed on the middle-aged man's corpse, as if nothing else in the world could capture her attention.

Seeing this, Si Jingnian became increasingly anxious and uneasy, and thought of shaking Shen Qingyao more vigorously to wake her up.

Unexpectedly, at that moment, Shen Qingyao suddenly flung her hand away, effortlessly pushing Si Jingnian aside.

Shen Qingyao's extraordinary strength came crashing down like a tidal wave. The force was so great that it almost made Si Jingnian, who was usually strong and healthy and had excellent physical fitness, lose his balance and almost fall to the ground.

Fortunately, thanks to the strong physique and quick reflexes he had accumulated through years of persistent training, Si Jingnian was able to stabilize his shaky body.

Immediately afterwards, Shen Qingyao pushed aside Si Jingnian, who was blocking her way, without hesitation. Her steps were not affected at all, and she maintained her original rhythm and speed, striding straight toward the middle-aged man's corpse not far away.

Upon closer inspection, the middle-aged man's corpse was found to be unrecognizable, a truly gruesome sight.

At this moment, it was almost just a lonely skeleton. The flesh that used to cover it had long since disappeared, almost completely decomposed and absorbed by the towering tree next to it.

However, faced with such a terrifying scene, Shen Qingyao didn't even blink. Her gaze was straight and firm as she stared ahead before slowly crouching down.

At that moment, without showing the slightest hesitation or fear, she reached out and picked up the inconspicuous bead from the middle-aged man's skeletal hand.

Strangely enough, this seemingly ordinary and unremarkable bead, after falling into Shen Qingyao's slender and delicate hands, seemed to gain a new life and began to undergo a subtle and wondrous change.

The bead resembled a freshly baked egg, and its outer shell began to peel away at a visible rate.

As time went on, this change became increasingly apparent.