Chapter Sixty-Three: Fighting to the Death

My father seized the boy, and as he spoke, he pushed Aunt Hui fiercely. Half her soul had already collapsed, and the pale blue flame sputtered out. Only a small remnant of her soul remained, barely keeping its shape, drifting in mid-air.

My father looked at Aunt Hui with bitter resentment, then swept his gaze over the evil spirit, over Liu the Mourner, and even over me. "All of you, your hearts are poisoned to the core!" he shouted, his voice harsh. Then he lowered his head, his voice trembling, "Xiao Yu, come with me, son. Don’t concern yourself with that woman anymore—she only wants you dead."

As he spoke, my father's ghost transformed into a stream of black mist. My heart gave a sharp tremor. When I saw my father appear, I had felt a surge of hope. Now, hearing him call the shadow child 'Xiao Yu', I felt a strange ache deep inside. My childhood name is Xie Yu. After adopting my formal name, I hadn’t heard it for many years. He gave this name to the shadow child.

The shadow child, Xie Yu, his body mostly decayed, yet he still hadn’t died. Granny Li had once said that the shadow child gathers innate yin energy and the accumulated resentment from the womb, making him an undying corpse—alive, but never truly dead. That’s why countless wandering ghosts covet him.

A trace of resentment flashed in Xie Yu’s eyes as he fixed a furious gaze on Aunt Hui’s fading soul, spat on the ground, and was swept away by my father’s black mist, trying to flee.

I clenched my fists tightly, a deep sense of desolation filling my heart.

Because they—could not escape.

Aunt Hui’s sudden burning of her soul had caught Liu the Mourner and the evil spirit off guard. But failing to kill Xie Yu meant she lost her chance. My father had saved Xie Yu for a moment, but gave Liu the Mourner and the evil spirit time to react.

The yin energy from the collapsed corpses of the villagers gathered. As my father's black mist carried Xie Yu into mid-air, the yin formed a hand that seized the white bones of Xie Yu’s lower body!

In an instant, the burnt parts of Xie Yu’s body grew anew from the bones. Liu the Mourner appeared next to Xie Yu in a blink. He slapped his hand toward the air.

"Out of my way!"

My father’s black mist suddenly took shape, only to be flung dozens of meters away, his soul nearly shattered before he could reform. Xie Yu’s small face twisted with hatred and fury as he lunged at Liu the Mourner.

Liu the Mourner snorted coldly. "You escaped once. This second time, you won’t. So what if you have a soul? You’re still my son’s body!"

As he finished speaking, Liu the Mourner reached out and tapped Xie Yu’s brow. The strange rune appeared again on Xie Yu’s forehead. Aunt Hui’s rune had collapsed, but Xie Yu’s had not vanished with it. The rune emerged, binding his body like countless ropes.

Xie Yu’s face contorted in pain, unable to fight back. Liu the Mourner produced several nails, driving them into Xie Yu’s arms, legs, and heart.

A soul was suddenly squeezed out of Xie Yu’s body. Liu the Mourner sneered and threw another nail at the soul!

Xie Yu’s soul was nailed to the ground, unable to move. His body, empty of soul, floated motionless in the air. With the infusion of yin energy, the body began to grow rapidly.

Moments ago, he was a child of three. Within a few breaths, he became a youth of twelve or thirteen, resembling both Aunt Hui and my father.

Excitement flashed in Liu the Mourner’s eyes. He trembled, "Son, come."

The evil spirit’s head hovered above Xie Yu’s body, its eyes filled with excitement and greed. A stream of black-red yin energy flowed from its head, burrowing straight into Xie Yu’s brow.

My father wailed in agony to the side. Aunt Hui’s remaining soul trembled uncontrollably.

All of this happened so quickly, in the blink of an eye, leaving no time to think.

A cold dread filled my heart. The evil spirit, once it succeeded in possessing the shadow child, would become even harder to deal with.

Now, we were almost entirely out of options.

---

Wang Ninth Master and Granny Li lay seriously wounded. Had Liu the Mourner not used his sinister corpse ritual, they would’ve already been torn apart by the villagers’ corpses.

Wang Erjun was just an ordinary man, so terrified he wet himself, useless in this chaos.

I threw away the butcher’s knife, opened the box containing the talisman brush, spread white paper on the ground, and took up the brush. In my mind, the strokes of the Shock Talisman merged with my movements.

Dipping the brush in blood ink, I finished drawing the Shock Talisman in a single breath.

This time, I clearly felt something draining from my consciousness, pouring into the talisman paper, even more smoothly than before.

"Go!"

I jerked my head up, staring directly at Liu the Mourner. A flash of bloody light, and the Shock Talisman shot forward—not at Liu the Mourner, but at the evil spirit in the midst of reincarnation!

My consciousness shuddered, my body feeling little, but my soul felt half drawn away, a powerful weakness nearly toppling me.

Liu the Mourner’s face was stunned. "No wonder all the vengeful ghosts I left vanished at once—I thought it was those two old fools, but it was you!"

He blocked the talisman, hands raised, exhaling a mouthful of black mist. The mist collided with the Shock Talisman, dispersing, as Liu grabbed the talisman paper.

The bloody light vanished.

Liu the Mourner paid a price: one hand dissolved completely. He glared at me, voice hoarse, "What is this talisman? It can harm the soul itself."

As he spoke, black mist swirled around his shattered arm, unable to regrow a new hand.

Panting, I knelt, nearly fainting.

Liu the Mourner’s mouth curled into a cruel smile. "One talisman nearly shattered your soul. You’ve hurt me, but you’re still far from killing me! Once I rip out your soul, I’ll reunite your family—in death!"

Black mist billowed from Liu the Mourner, surging toward me. Within it, the ghostly face appeared again, hideous and menacing.

My heart leapt with joy—Liu the Mourner had come within reach.

"You shouldn’t have returned—now you’ll pay with your life!"

The ghostly face lunged at me, mouth wide, about to bite down. I made no attempt to resist or dodge, and was swallowed whole.

All around was black mist, seeping into me.

My heartbeat raced to its limits; the emptiness and hunger in my consciousness drove me to snatch fiercely!

The black mist shattered instantly, turning into a stream of black energy that I inhaled.

A terrified cry from Liu the Mourner echoed, "No!"

The exhaustion in my soul was instantly replenished. The energy filled me, and after two times swallowing ghosts, my hunger only grew.

Without pause, I inhaled again.

Liu the Mourner screamed, "What are you?!"

His voice echoed and faded.

Liu the Mourner’s ghost vanished completely. Yet I didn’t absorb all—when I had consumed half, I suddenly lost track of him.

Near the evil spirit, Liu the Mourner’s soul reappeared, weak and terrified.

He stared at me with horror. "You cannot be Xie Yuan—what are you?!"

My consciousness seemed on the verge of collapse, the brief fullness replaced by an even greater hunger. I lunged at Liu the Mourner.

His face twisted in dread; he clawed desperately.

From the nearby courtyard, bamboo fences flew up, shrouded in black mist, stabbing toward me.

I was shocked, unable to dodge.

They struck me head-on.

Sharp bamboo pierced me countless times, and pain made me cry out.

Liu the Mourner’s fear was replaced by cruelty. "So your soul is special—but you’re still just an ordinary man!"

The bamboo fences erupted with greater force, as Liu pressed his hands forward.

I nearly blacked out, my consciousness fading.

---

Just then, a trembling voice burst in my ear: "I’ve waited too many years! Even if I die, I won’t let you harm the master!"

It was Wang Ninth Master!

I didn’t know when he’d managed to stand, but he was behind me, arms raised high, blocking the bamboo fences.

With a fierce shout, the fences were overturned.

He grabbed my shoulder, dragging me back a dozen steps before stopping.

Wang Ninth Master was clearly at his limit.

My body was barely holding together, and most importantly, blood was pouring from my chest where I’d been stabbed.

Liu the Mourner grinned maliciously. "Master? So Xie Yuan’s body has been taken? I won’t kill you yet—my son is about to live again. Your deaths will witness his rebirth!"

The evil spirit’s head was barely recognizable, almost fully merged into the shadow child.

Above Hundred House Village, the sky churned with clouds, the yin energy heavy as lead, oppressively dark.

Despair flickered in my eyes.

Was I really going to die here?

Aunt Hui…

My father…

Granny Li…

Wang Erjun…

And Wang Ninth Master…

Truth be told, even if I had a connection to Wang Ninth Master, he had no reason to be dragged into this. Now, whether dead or alive, once the evil spirit possessed the shadow child, it wouldn’t spare any soul.

And my mother, still waiting at home.

She’d waited so many years. I’d only seen her once—was I never to see her again?

Vaguely, the image of Chan Shu appeared in my memory.

She, too, was waiting for me.

Suddenly, I remembered the second vision in my consciousness.

That man had said, "If you use my heart’s blood and soul blood, even a millennium-old fierce ghost can’t withstand it."

My chest was bleeding, blood flowing uncontrollably, and I felt my body slipping away.

I forced myself to raise the brush with effort, grabbing the inkstone with one hand to catch my heart’s blood.

"Ninth Grandfather, how do you take soul blood?"

I gasped, struggling to say the words.

Wang Ninth Master trembled, his eyes filled with excitement, regret, and guilt.

"Master… Master… You mustn’t use soul blood… You’ll die…"

I gave a bitter smile, too exhausted to correct him.

My body had lost all strength, collapsing to the ground.

But I did not fall completely.

Though my body fell, gripping the talisman brush and inkstone, my soul left my body, standing in place.

"I know now."

My soul, holding the inkstone, squeezed hard.

The edge was sharp, and with force, a special kind of blood seeped out.

Heart’s blood mixed with soul blood, and the ink in the stone turned purple.

"Xiao Yuan… don’t…"

I seemed to hear my mother’s voice.

Then, a cry of utter grief—"No!"

The voice sounded strangely like Chan Shu.

Trembling, I dipped the brush in ink.

The evil spirit’s soul was nearly fully merged into the shadow child.