Era of Magic and Martial Arts-Chapter 289 - 273: Ominous

After the link was opened.

It's a somewhat basic website window, with a text input box in the center.

You can enter a name and date of birth, and based on this input, the website automatically calculates recent fortunes, which is already shaping up to be a scam site.

Feng Mu casually entered Imoto's information.

[Feng Yuhuai (ominous)]: Position six-five, blood shadows appear faintly, disasters follow like a shadow.

[Explanation]: An omen of misfortune looms over you; soon you will encounter an unexpected calamity that might become a turning point in your life, altering your destiny's trajectory.

If you wish to break this calamity, you need to...

A payment window popped up on screen with a ding.

Feng Mu's lips twitched, then he decisively exited the page, as he wouldn't be fooled by such clumsy trickery. However, out of care for his family, he still entered Feng Ju and Wang Xiuli's information.

[Feng Ju (very ominous)]: Seven kills with a blade, wealth star prosperous, positioned in the place of triad, signifies injuries. If kill without a blade, the murderous aura is even stronger, making injury unavoidable.

[Explanation]: Shadows cover, murderous intent lurks. You may soon face misfortune, with disaster looming overhead. To break this calamity, you need to...

Please pay the appropriate fee to seek a technique for relief.

[Wang Xiuli (ominous)]: A tough fate, blood disaster arrives quietly.

[Explanation]: Your destiny is troubled, with a cloud of misfortune quietly gathering. Soon, you may encounter unimaginable calamity. To escape this misfortune, you need to...

Please pay the appropriate fee to seek a method for relief.

Feng Mu smirked, thinking that this website is quite well-made, enough to disguise and back advertising texts completely under a cover.

On the other hand, he couldn't help but complain: "So the website's fortune assessments only have ominous hexagrams? No wonder, fear has always been easy to exploit for profit."

In any case, Feng Mu would never easily admit that perhaps the site's assessments indeed had a trace of... some accuracy?!!

Feng Mu shook his head lightly, deleting the information in the input box with one click, then fell into brief contemplation, and subsequently input the information he needed assessed again.

Name: Mask

Date of Birth: April 1, 233

April 1, 233, might be an uneventful moment in the river of time, but it was the moment [Mask] officially met with Ma Bin.

In a sense, for Ma Bin, April 1, 233, is a commemorative day of [Mask]'s true inception.

In fact, not only for Ma Bin but for Feng Mu too, that day is filled with significance. To use a classic explanation favorite of story narrators:

From that moment, the wheels of destiny began to turn quietly.

The input box froze for three seconds, then disappeared, revealing a sentence — under destiny's gaze, all is auspicious.

In the next instant, the entire screen vanished, transitioning into another hidden page.

The page initially was dark, then slowly revealed a somewhat dim yellow light; the image wasn't very clear, resembling a live broadcast being covertly filmed by a pinhole camera.

There were no comments, no interactions, the entire "live room" had only him as an audience — a movie screen set up just for him.

The filming location was an abandoned warehouse.

The light came from an emergency lamp on the table; its power was clearly running low, emitting dim and weak light, ready to extinguish and plunge this space back into darkness.

The table legs were covered with rust left by time, and the floor was coated with thick dust.

Various outdated boxes and moldy canned foods were scattered all around, along with some plastic instant noodle tubs.

The faint light cast onto the wall behind — peeling paint and cracked lines, with wires extending from within casually hanging down, resembling the tendrils of the dead, powerlessly draped on a rusting iron rack, looking ominous.

The iron rack, once used for storing goods, now sits empty, save for the person tied to it.

This person was bound with thick hemp ropes in a spread-eagle position; the knots at the wrists and ankles were stained with blood from deep indentations, appearing particularly sinister.

Their mouth was taped shut, head hanging weakly, unable to see facial expressions.

Their clothing was torn to shreds, the exposed skin surface was covered with scars that tore and healed, healed and tore again.

The entire scene looked shocking, like a person nailed onto the rack as if on a clothes hanger, even casting a solidified "large" blood stain in that shape against the wall behind the rack.

Even the top forensic experts might find it hard to discern from this static scene whether the person was alive.

However, Feng Mu had insight into death beyond the ordinary; with just a glance, he could tell this person wasn't dead, yet had only a quarter of their vitality remaining.

After a while, a strange sound suddenly came from inside, breaking the existing dead silence.

The person on the rack slowly lifted their head, a face covered in blood stains entered the camera's view.

Under the dim light, the person's features almost fused with the blood stains, coupled with unclear camera quality, making it difficult to see their appearance.

Feng Mu moved the phone closer, the double Hook Jade rotating like high-tech image processing software, visibly enhancing the blurry image.

The originally unclear image instantly became sharper, displaying details, seemingly upgrading the resolution by two tiers.

"Hou Wendong, I think that's the name, right?" Feng Mu uttered a name.

Feng Mu didn't know all the details of the event Ma Bin was orchestrating, but indeed Ma Bin had disclosed some key information to him, even reporting Hou Wendong's photos.

In some ways, the feeble main character of the film could be considered part of Ma Bin's early reservations.

"So, what I'm watching now is the closing stage, a real-time report of the event's final result, isn't it?" Feng Mu got the idea.

This situation, like a workflow in the workplace, the twists and hardships in the process might not have to be reported to the superior one by one; after all, leaders are so busy, where is there time for worrying over every detail.

But no matter what, the beginning and end of an event must be reported in time.

On the phone screen, Hou Wendong slowly lifted his head as the man who kidnapped and tortured him slowly walked toward him, Hou Wendong's face involuntarily revealing uncontrollable fear, his entire face contorting.

The man's back was to the lens; in the dim light, his silhouette appeared particularly menacing; he slowly took out a bloody wrench from his arms.

He ruthlessly clamped the scabbed blood marks on Hou Wendong's belly with the wrench, and then inch by inch tore them outward, seemingly enjoying the cruel pleasure.

Hou Wendong let out heart-wrenching screams, filled with despair and breakdown.

This past week, he has endured various inhuman tortures; both his body and will have neared the brink of collapse.

At this moment, he no longer hoped to escape; his only remaining thought was to end this hellish torment — he craved death fast. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"Kill me, please, kill me—"

At this moment, as if destiny heard his heartfelt plea, suddenly, the iron window at the warehouse top exploded open with a loud noise, shattered glass rained down like a storm.

In the debris of shattered glass, several silhouettes descended from above…