Heiress Unmasked: Shaking the World With Geomancy novel Chapter 2494

Lexie and Mike stood quietly at the side, giving Felicia the space to grieve. It wasn't until her sobs faltered that Lexie said, "Let's bring him home first."

Now that they had recovered the corpse, their next step was to return it.

Realizing that, Felicia wiped at her tears and forced herself to get up. As she looked at the still-sitting corpse of Colton, her voice trembled as she nodded through choked sobs.

"Yeah, we should take him home… Mr. and Mrs. Day are waiting."

She reached into her pack and pulled out a satellite phone, ready to call for a rescue team, but Lexie stopped her.

"Just leave it to me."

Lexie stepped forward, pulled several small bottles from her backpack, and carefully arranged them on the ground. She opened one of the bottles and poured three cups of liquor.

"Today, we bring back Colton Day, son of Gordon and Melissa, and guide his soul home."

She lifted the first cup and tilted it gently, letting the liquor spill onto the ground. "This one, to the sky."

She raised the second cup. "This one, to the earth."

Then the third. "At last, to the mountain spirit who watches over this place."

As soon as she finished, Lexie turned toward the encircling mountains across the cliffside valley and paid her respect—one solemn salute to the land that had both hidden and held the lost.

She then turned around.

From her pack, she opened another porcelain vial and poured out a thick, dark brown liquid with a faint sheen. Mike recognized it immediately—the embalming oil for corpses.

Intrigued, he zoomed the camera in to capture every detail.

Lexie ignored him. She pulled out a special brush made of special animal hair, dipped it into the mix of cinnabar ink and embalming oil, and carefully dotted a mark at the center of Colton's brow.

She sat up and, almost on instinct, rushed out of the tent.

Gordon didn't know what was going on, but he quickly grabbed a coat and chased after her.

The two of them made their way to the same trailhead where they had seen Lexie and the group off a few days ago.

He draped the coat over his wife's shoulders, just about to say something, when he realized she was staring, wide-eyed, at the woods ahead.

The morning mist still blanketed the trees, and the sky was just beginning to pale. However, the forest itself was already glowing with the soft light of dawn.

Through the pale fog, they saw slow, distinctive movements coming through the mist. There seemed to be a figure—no, there were two, three, and four in total.

Gordon and Melissa stared, not daring to blink.