“There won’t be a problem, right?” Looking around, there was no one nearby. Lin Jing had noone else to talk to and could only resort to talking to himself.
From beginning to end, Gui Mian didn’t spare him a single glance, probably because he didn’tthink much of his insignificant bit of skills. Lin Jing started to console himself by muttering:“There won’t be a problem, Amitabha, definitely there won’t be a problem.”
He was on pins and needles. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was tied into a zongzi (t/n it’s awrapped Chinese food), he probably would have already jumped up as if he were sitting onnails.
Lin Jing extended his neck towards Shen Wei’s direction, but he still couldn’t see clearly. Hesuddenly thought it would be better if he was a turtle: he would be able to swim and stretch andcontract.
He carefully looked around and tentatively called: “Ai, Teacher Shen! Teacher Shen?”
Shen Wei didn’t respond.
“Shen…”
At this point, a youchu suddenly arose and bared its scraggly uneven teeth towards Lin Jing.
Lin Jing quickly closed his mouth in fear that the other would hate and envy him for his neat rowof little white teeth and use his white meat to have a large, delicious meal.
The youchu licked its lips. He probably was sent to guard him. After some thought, it didn’t dareto steal what was entrusted to its care. With a constipated expression, it circled Lin Jing a fewtimes and then backed up a bit to glare at him as if it was a predator eyeing its prey.
Lin Jing took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He tried to sooth his miserable mood bysilently reciting scriptures. However, when he closed his eyes, he tragically found that it wasn’tthe up and down lilt of the “Prajna Paramite” sutra in his consciousness but the anxietyprovoking scratching of an imaginary phantom limb—If that forgetful brute Zhao Yunlan knewthat he was indifferently reciting scripture while actually watching his baby suffer, he woulddefinitely turn him into Da Qing’s cat food.
Lin Jing thought about this and then opened his eyes to lock gazes with the youchu in front ofhim.
Then, he suddenly opened his mouth and said: “Ai, can you speak human language?”
High-leveled members of the ghost tribe naturally could speak the human language. Afterguardedly looking at Lin Jing for a bit, the youchu used a strange and hoarse voice to say: “Shutup.”
Lin Jing sighed: “Ai, look, they all ran away. Only the two of us are left in this place. If I shut up,wouldn’t you be lonely? Do your balls not hurt, do you not feel afraid when you look at HisExcellency, the Ghost Slayer, nailed high on the tree? You have balls don’t you,benefactor…Ahhhhhh don’t be like this. Please be a bit more civilized!”
The youchu threatened him with a jaw full of teeth like a great white shark.
Lin Jing: “I’ll shut up, I’ll shut up, I’ll immediately shut up really, believe me! Monks don’t lie!”
The youchu retracted its claws and teeth and slowly retreated to one side.
Lin Jing once again lifted his head to look at the unconscious Shen Wei.
However, this little bit of concern was quickly interrupted. As he was worriedly looking at thebeautiful man whose whole body was drenched in blood, a big wart-covered face of a youchusuddenly appeared in his field of vision. Lin Jing immediately felt that he changed from being ina pure little sentimental artistic film into being in an excessively heavy horror film like ResidentEvil. At that moment, his breath almost became choked in his chest.
He silently withdrew his gaze. In his heart, he said: “So what if I wash my eyes, bastard.” (t/nmeaning sw is pretty so he’s using sw to “wash” his eyes)
At last, Lin Jing finally recognized the reality—even if he was chopped up by Zhao Yunlan, therewas nothing he could do to counter the present situation. With this in mind, Lin Jing really didcalm his mind and started to silently recite “The Great Compassion Mantra” in his heart.
Seeing that he closed his eyes, the youchu from the ghost tribe thought that he was finallybehaving, and so stopped caring about him. Silently, it lifted its head to look at Shen Wei, whowas nailed to the ancient tree, then hid a bit further away in slight fear. A thousand feet underHuang Quan, tranquility was finally restored.
At this moment, the youchu suddenly felt something. With a terrified start, it abruptly lifted itshead—He saw Lin Jing was still sitting there with his eyes closed, almost as if he had become astatue of Buddha. However, the big stone seal behind him seemed as though it was respondingto something, lighting up with a soft white glow.
The youchu abruptly leaped up, originally intending to reach past the big stone seal to grab LinJing’s shoulder. However, the moment its hand breached the boundaries of the white light, itwas as if it was put on the fire to roast, unexpectedly turning into a lump of coal.
The youchu broke out in piercingly loud shrieks, finally interrupting the sutra in Lin Jing’s heart.
The fake monk was an intelligent person. When he opened his eyes and saw the situation, heimmediately realized what was going on. As such, he took a deep breath, opened his throat,and started to recite the sutra loudly. The white light on the big stone seal behind him becamemore and more scorching. The youchu guarding him jumped about but was unable to get close.
The halo of white light gradually expanded, and some even spread to Shen Wei’s body. Theman who had appeared to have already lost vitality seemed to feel something, and hiseyebrows furrowed uneasily.
The youchu obviously didn’t understand why this was happening. It became more and morerestless, and then finally decided to risk everything to stop Lin Jing from creating trouble. With ahowl, it rushed over, deciding that even if he burned into coal, he had to tear apart the mouth ofthis fucking monk who said he would shut up but who was actually playing with his life to recitemantras.
The sizzling sound of the roasted skin and flesh resounded. The youchu comrade was broken inbody but firm in spirit, and still opened its mouth, which was burnt so that only the razor-sharpteeth were left. With it, it rushed forward to bite at Lin Jing’s neck.
Lin Jing’s reciting of mantras was finally interrupted. Closing his eyes, he howled: “Buddha, thisdisciple is about to sacrifice himself for sanctification. Where is my elder Shixiong! Help!Teacher Shen! Elder Shixiong!” (t/n shixiong aka senior martial brother)
He called out all sorts of messy things but no movement came from the other party. After a longtime, Lin Jing finally opened his eyes a small crack from where he had hunched his neck. Hesaw the youchu, who had just recently wanted to sacrifice itself, startle greatly and run awaydejectedly.
Lin Jing was shocked by this. A moment later, he seemed to sense something and raised hishead slowly, incidentally meeting Shen Wei’s cold pools of eyes—he’d woken up at some point.
Lin Jing tentatively called out: “Teacher Shen?”
Shen Wei’s gaze moved slightly and landed on his body. Then, he nodded at him in a courteousand gentle manner.
Lin Jing: “You, you, you, you, you’re ok?”
Shen Wei struggled lightly. The shackles clasped on his four limbs knocked against each othera few times, creating noise. This little motion practically made blue veins appear at the cornersof his forehead. It was only after a while, a couple of low gasps later, that he was finally able tohoarsely say: “Not too good.”
He lost so much blood that his pale white lips were trembling.
Lin Jing: “Why are you here? How did you end up in, end up in that…that, uh, the hands of thatguy who looks very much like you?”
Shen Wei closed his eyes. He leaned his head back against the Ancient Tree of Merits as if helost his strength and quietly said: “He surprise attacked from the back. I originally could havedodged him but I wasn’t able to fully succeed at the time and was pierced by him. For the timebeing, it’s not a big deal and it’s nothing serious.”
Lin Jing was stunned into silence for a while. Uncertainly, he asked: “Really…?”
Shen Wei seemed to be getting weaker. As if he was trying to conserve his strength, he loweredhis voice and slowed his speech: “But because he stabbed an icicle formed from the watersfrom Huan Quang into my heart, I can’t move.”
Listening to this, Lin Jing thought that it didn’t seem like it was “nothing serious” and swallowedhis saliva with difficulty: “Then what should I do? Do you have any way of letting me down fromthis broken rock so that I could free you?”
Shen Wei was silent for a bit: “The ‘broken rock’ behind you is actually the mark of the HoutuGreat Seal that Nuwa set up herself.”
Lin Jing was again stunned into silence and then dryly said: “I, I’m scared into peeing myself.”
Shen Wei smiled gently: “Don’t worry. The Gui Mian from earlier has a lot of troubles to dealwith right now. Kunlun’s godly tendons are on my body and so he temporarily do not dare to doanything to me. He probably doesn’t have time to worry about this place either. For the timebeing, it’s safe.”
Lin Jing quickly said: “Don’t, don’t. I should still think of a method to save us. If Chief Zhao knewthat I saw you bleed this much and still didn’t do anything, he would definitely turn me into thisyear’s New Year’s Eve dinner.”
Shen Wei laughed soundlessly, his gaze clearly softening for a moment. After a while, hethought and said: “Actually, if you really want to try, you can recite some sutras. The Great Sealoriginated from Nuwa’s compassion. If you have a heavy heart, maybe it can help you.”
In actuality, Shen Wei didn’t expect Lin Jing to really accomplish anything. Although he was in adifficult position, he had a plan in his heart. He only wanted to find something for Lin Jing to do,and so he spoke offhandedly.
Who knew that when Lin Jing heard this, he actually sat up in seriousness. Like a news anchorreporting the news, he evened his breathing and, articulating clearly in a mellow and full tone,started broadcasting the evening Buddhist study program. When Shen Wei first heard him, hethought it was a bit funny. However, as time passed, he actually slowly started listening as well.His eyes and brows that appeared a bit ruthless as a result of being dyed in blood graduallybecame gentler. He lowered his eyelids and looked at the icicle on his chest, momentarilyentering some unfathomable thought.
The white light on the Great Seal Rock gradually became more piercing to the eye. Lin Jingproved himself worthy of the school of Dharma and unexpectedly really made up his mind.
After an unknown length of time passed, the ropes on Lin Jing’s body actually melted within thefield of white light. However, he didn’t realize it himself. Although a little shocked, Shen Wei didnot open his mouth to interrupt.
He abruptly sensed in his heart that, like birds of a feather, the people around Zhao Yunlan weremore or less somewhat similar to him—for example, they were all very persistent aboutsomething, the kind of persistence where they could forget about everything else.
For example this one, and for example that little boy who becomes nervous the moment hespeaks.
Shen Wei squinted a little. In fact, he already had some speculations about the Guardian Lampin his heart. However, looking at it now, it seemed as if it would be better at this moment for it tonot show up.
“Little boy” student Guo Changcheng successfully kept all the families with missing people fromleaving the town. However, no good news came.
It was nearly midnight when Chu Shuzhi came back, travel-worn and weary, with Da Qing. Itwasn’t very realistic to collect other things so they only gathered some IDs, personal keys,cellphones, and such. It was as if the only things that were swallowed were living things. Thesebroken goods were all safe and sound.
The small Public Security Bureau in the town was ablaze with lights. From some unknownlocation, a sharp crying sound suddenly rang out. The conference room that was vacatedspecifically for them became a mess. Chu Shuzhi held Da Qing in one hand and pinched hiseyebrows wearily. He waved at Guo Changcheng and brought him over to the adjacent littleoffice, shutting the door.
Guo Changcheng’s intuition wasn’t very good. He looked at Chu Shuzhi and then at Da Qing:“Chu ge, where is Chief Zhao and the rest? Did you find big brother Lin? Did you see Zhu jie?Are there still no news from the missing people?” (t/n ge= big brother, jie =big sister. With LingJing he used “da ge” which is also big brother)
Chu Shuzhi took out an evidence bag from his pocket and handed it to him. Inside contained asmall amount of ashes.
Guo Changchang was stunned momentarily. He suddenly had a sort of unspeakablepremonition in his heart: “This is…”
“Bone ashes.”
The evidence bag fell onto the floor with a patter.
“Yes, these are ashes made from human bones.” Chu Shuzhi briefly explained what happenedin the small town, and then said to Guo Changcheng: “Call the headquarters immediately andtell Wang Zheng that she and Sang Zan should deal with this matter. These people should betemporarily treated as missing. However, dead is dead and we can’t hide it for too long. Let hertake in the circumstances and communicate as she sees fit; see how she wants to best breakthe news on a surface level.”
Guo Changcheng said incredulously: “Break it…on a surface level?”
In actuality it was asking for Wang Zheng to think of a way to cover up the reality of this event.
Chu Shuzhi glanced at him. It’s clearly the SID’s unwritten rule on how to handle events but, forsome unknown reason, he didn’t want to tell Guo Changcheng this. Thus, the Corpse King wassilent for a moment, and replied in a roundabout way: “You need to know that, in mostsituations, DNA can only be detected when there are human remains left. It’s impossible todetermine from bone ashes that have been burnt through high temperatures, let alone when it’s been destroyed like this. There’s not much we can do in this situation. Even if you collected allthe dust in this entire little town, we wouldn’t be able to tell the family who it used to belong to.”
“But there should at least be a murderer…”
Chu Shuzhi sneered helplessly: “Guo Changcheng, someone who could secretly plot againstHis Honor, the Ghost Slayer, even if he used dirty tactics he should at least be equal to theGhost Slayer in cultivation. Is it that your time with us is too short and you’re still not clear whatkind of person the Ghost Slayer is?”
Guo Changcheng looked at him dazedly.
“I’m not afraid to tell you the truth. I cultivated for a thousand years and can already walkunderneath the hot sun. Now I’m considered Corpse King, able to command all the skeletalzombies. The next step would be Ba (t/n legendary drought demon), otherwise known as animmortal corpse. However, if it wasn’t for Chief Zhao’s relationships, for example people like theGhost Slayer, I would have had to withdraw. Do you understand?”
Guo Changcheng seemed like he momentarily couldn’t really accept this conclusion, but henever argued with others. Even more, he wasn’t some hot-blooded teen who would go beyondtheir depth. For a while, he felt as though something was blocked in his heart but he absolutelydidn’t know what he should say, suppressing it so much that his face turned white.
After an unknown length of time, Guo Changcheng finally asked: “But what about the soul?Even though the body is gone, the soul should still remain, right? How could someone be bornand then just disappear like that without any reason?”
Chu Shuzhi was taken aback but Da Qing jumped out from his arms to sit on the table.Suddenly, he opened his mouth and said: “That has happened before.”
The two people immediately turned toward the black cat.
However, Da Qing seemed to be lost in thought and didn’t say anything else. After a while, ChuShuzhi had no choice but to speak up to prompt him: “Da Qing?”
Before his words fell, Da Qing’s body suddenly started experiencing weird changes—the blackcat’s body slowly stretched out and the black fur gradually disappeared. Under GuoChangcheng and Chu Shuizhi’s bewildered gazes, he became a youth with hair down to hisankles!
The youth wore clothes from who knew what era, appearing as if he had casually pulled a pieceof cloth to wrap around his body. His feet were bare…This wasn’t important. The important thingwas, he didn’t appear black or fat!
Chu Shuzhi: “Da, Da Qing?!”
A cat’s unique languid expression appeared on the face of the youth. Raising his eyes that wereslightly bigger and rounder than everyone else’s, he glanced at him: “En.”
As he spoke, he jumped off the table to land soundlessly on the floor. His actions were also likea cat’s—even his walk was in a cat’s straight line. Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng moved out of the way to create a path for him in wordless mutual agreement. They heard Da Qing say: “Idon’t know who sealed my memories. From a long time ago, I already couldn’t recall the thingsfrom the far past. Last time, I was only able to transform at the top of Mount Kunlun because Iwas stimulated by the Da Shenmu. After transforming, even though I’m really ugly without fur,some blurry memories become a bit clearer.”
Similarly without fur, Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng who were “even uglier” than “ugly”,simultaneously revealed a complex expression.
“The things we met today, the officials of the underworld call them youchu, but actually, in theearliest times they were called the ghost tribe.” Da Qing, with his unique aesthetic standards,did not pay attention to the reactions of the two in front of him and continued: “I don’t know thetheory of where the ghost tribe came from. Either way, I know that they are related to the deathof the two great Gods—Fuxi and Nuwa.”
“You heard Shen Wei’s words at the gate of the small town. When the ghost tribe was born, theentire land was barren.” The black cat swept the transformed gaze of the youth around him.Looking carefully, one could see his eyes change color with the different brightness of the light.“But as far as I know, the ghost tribe gnaws on the bones and blood of living humans, sucks thesouls of cultivated people, but do not actually eat the souls of ordinary mortals because, even ifthey did, it would be of no use. I think maybe it’s because of the sudden situation. Those peopleweren’t supposed to die. Their bodies suddenly disappeared, and the souls are in fact souls ofthe living. The underworld cannot take them away and so those souls that experienced amassive fright ran away to unknown places.”
Guo Changcheng’s brain was a bit slower than others’. He only fully digested what Da Qing’swords meant a while later. Suddenly, he said: “Then I want to go find them.”
Da Qing and Chu Shuzhi, who were already lowly discussing the possible whereabouts of ZhaoYunlan and Zhu Hong, lifted their heads at the same time. Da Qing asked in confusion: “Whywould you find them? It’s the underworld’s problem that they lost the living souls even thoughright now they probably aren’t in the mood to care.”
Guo Changcheng was silent for a moment: “But…But I promised them, those family membersout there who have missing loved ones, I promised that I would give them an explanation…”
“You can’t give that.” Da Qing said, “Plus, they wouldn’t believe you anyways.”
“That’s why I will look for the souls of the dead. How could a person who should naturally existdisappear so suddenly?” Guo Changcheng was particularly stubborn in untangling this question.“That…that shouldn’t be.”
Chu Shuizhi laughed coldly: “There’s plenty of things that shouldn’t be. How do you plan onlooking?”
Guo Changcheng was stuck with just this one question. His heart palpitated for a moment andthen he lowered his head in embarrassment.
Who would have suspected that Chu Shuzhi remained silent for a moment, then suddenly tookout a bottle of eye drops to toss to him: “Cow tears. It’s used to open the Divine Eye, allowingyou to see living souls.”
Guo Changcheng raised his head in disbelief and looked at him in excitement.
“Take care of proper business first. Call Wang Zheng and let her attend to the external affairs,and then send for reinforcements.” Chu Shuizhi avoided his overly enthusiastic gaze a bitawkwardly, “I’m going to go find Lin Jing anyways so it’s on the way. Don’t go looking for troublefor me.”
“You guys go together. I’m going to go find Zhao Yunlan.” Da Qing said, “I’m worried about himbeing by himself.”
Da Qing took a few awkward steps in his human form. When he walked to the window he turnedhis head around and warned: “If the kid doesn’t know the gravity of the situation, Corpse Kingyou should take more responsibility. Absolutely be careful. We just got our new office…wehaven’t even had time to renovate it yet.”
After he said this, Da Qing jumped out of the window. In the dim light of the night, he flashedtwice before disappearing without a trace.
Zhao Yunlan was silent for the whole trip. The ghost messengers who still had lingering fearsdidn’t dare approach him for conversation. Only Zhu Hong followed him in the wake of his everyfootstep, no matter what he said.
After passing the gates of hell and arriving at Yanluo temple, the magistrate was just about tolead Zhao Yunlan inside when a little ghost suddenly appeared to block their road.
The magistrate furrowed his eyebrows.
The little ghost smiled gloomily: “Your Honor. The Ten Halls of Yanluo* requests the pleasure ofyour presence.”
Before Zhao Yunlan could speak, the magistrate could already no longer bear it and said: “Whatis the meaning of this? The Ghost Slayer was secretly plotted against by Gui Mian, chaos isabout to break open, the Great Seal is about to completely fracture…Can you take responsibilityif you delay official business? Move!”
The little ghost held down his head very low: “Yes, Lord Magistrate, but this small one is merelyacting under orders.”
Magistrate: “You guys…”
Zhao Yunlan suddenly interrupted him: “Bring me over. I’ve lived for this long and still haven’tmet the Yan King.”
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