Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Well Ghost

Li Yue’s sudden panic in her voice sent a jolt through me as well.

I did not dare hesitate for even a heartbeat. I charged straight toward Wang Gongming.

We were not far from him at all. In just two or three breaths, I had reached him.

My heart lurched. Wang Gongming’s eyes were no longer like the deep, unreadable ones from before. They were dull and vacant, as though he had lost all awareness.

“Wang Gongming! Wake up!”

Li Yue’s voice still trembled with fear.

Wang Gongming gave no response at all. Instead, he kept walking straight toward us.

His pace never slowed. It was completely beyond my expectations.

I had thought he would stop.

But now it was as if he had not heard Li Yue’s shout at all.

What made my face turn even more grim was that, before we could even get out of the way, Wang Gongming simply passed right through our bodies and kept walking toward the far side of the town.

“He is the town’s guardian spirit, different from other ghosts. He has already become one whom the underworld cannot take, one whose name has been erased from the ledger of the dead. If he does not wish to, he can become completely incorporeal. Nothing we do will be able to stop him.”

Fine beads of sweat covered my forehead. Wang Gongming was moving at extraordinary speed, his body leaving behind a string of afterimages. His soul nearly vanished from my sight.

Yet the sense of danger in my heart only grew stronger.

A Tremor Talisman was already in my hand, and I was about to throw it forward.

But the talisman showed no response at all.

In the past, as long as there was a ghost, the Tremor Talisman would work. While I was still struggling with that thought, Wang Gongming had already disappeared completely.

“It’s useless. He has merged with the entire town. Unless he makes a move against us or the ghostly aura on him bursts forth, no talisman will work.”

“The Ghost-Flute Melody has already bewitched him completely. He did not even see us just now; his consciousness has sunk into silence. Follow him. I don’t know what that old Daoist priest is planning, but if Wang Dongming is harmed, everyone in this town will be in danger.”

As Li Yue spoke in a low voice, she followed after him.

By then, night had fully fallen.

There was no moon, no moonlight. That overcast darkness pressed heavily on the heart.

The streets of the town were utterly silent, with not a single person in sight. Not even a light shone from the houses on either side. I could no longer see Wang Dongming’s figure.

But Li Yue took out a compass.

After the needle spun a few times, it began pointing in one direction.

“A compass can seek out yin energy. The direction the needle points to is the place in the town where yin energy is strongest. The opposite direction is where yang energy is strongest.”

“If they’re using a ghost melody and need Wang Dongming’s help, then whatever that old Daoist priest is trying to do must involve a ghost!”

Li Yue spoke very quickly, and we slipped into a narrow lane, leaving the town’s main street behind us.

The night grew even darker. Especially after entering the side lane, it was almost impossible to see one’s hand before one’s face.

Li Yue had already slowed down considerably, staying especially close to me.

It was too quiet now. I could hear my own heartbeat, and even Li Yue’s.

The compass needle was trembling violently, as if it were broken.

Li Yue lowered even her breathing.

I could not help but do the same.

“We’re almost there... Don’t let them notice us.”

Her voice was barely louder than a mosquito’s buzz.

Ahead, a faint glimmer appeared in our field of vision.

But that light carried a strange green tint.

It was not a Daoist temple. Instead, it was another courtyard that stood in stark contrast to the rest of the town.

The courtyard gate was exquisite, the red lacquer still intact.

The surrounding walls were built of red brick and small gray tiles.

The gate stood open, and two red lanterns hung beneath the eaves. They swayed in the wind, back and forth. That was what made it so eerie.

The lanterns were red, but the light they gave off was tinged with green, as though a pair of ferocious ghosts were staring fixedly ahead.

“Did you hear that sound?”

The strange flute note had already grown very faint, very thin.

Just as Li Yue finished speaking, the flute sound vanished completely.

I fixed my gaze on the courtyard so hard that my eyes seemed ready to split. The strange throbbing on the back of my hand had also stopped, but my instincts told me Wang Dongming was inside.

“Don’t act rashly. Let’s first see what they’re doing. Even if your talisman is powerful, we’re not a match for so many people.”

I understood what Li Yue meant, and I knew it in my own heart as well.

Against ghosts, the Tremor Talisman was more than enough, but against people, it was useless.

I was injured. Li Yue was a woman. Those young Daoist assistants by Daoist Master Zhou’s side would be enough to seize us.

Before I could say anything, Li Yue bent low and continued forward under cover of the darkness. Soon, we crept to the foot of the courtyard wall, away from the gate, almost directly behind the house.

If we turned into the side, there would be a narrow path. The wall extended inward.

In a large compound, the wall usually ran together with the buildings.

But in a small courtyard like this, the wall enclosed the yard itself, with only one large house at the far end and a few guest rooms or other smaller rooms beside it.

After moving inward for a few meters, Li Yue suddenly took out several slender, nail-like objects.

She gently pressed them into the wall. They sank into the bricks with effortless ease, making almost no sound at all.

Her movements were swift, and soon a short row had been set into the wall.

Then she stepped on the protruding ends and climbed upward.

To describe Li Yue as light as a swallow would not have been an exaggeration.

In an instant, she had reached the top edge of the courtyard wall.

I wanted to climb up too.

But I knew myself well enough. With my slight skill, and my injuries besides, if I tried to lift a leg and climb, I would surely make a sound and be discovered.

Sweat was pouring from my forehead. Agitated and restless, I desperately wanted to see what was happening inside the courtyard.

Li Yue’s face was pale, and her eyelids kept twitching.

Just as I was growing increasingly anxious, like an ant on a hot pan, a cold tremor suddenly ran across the back of my hand again.

The next moment, it felt as though an invisible hand had seized my wrist.

My wrist lifted on its own and reached toward the courtyard wall.

My expression changed slightly, and I subconsciously restrained the body’s instinctive reaction. I did not resist.

A slender bone appeared on the back of my hand, like a finger, only longer and eerily distorted.

The bone touched the wall and easily pierced into it.

I could clearly see its joints elongating. After one or two breaths, it stopped, then instantly withdrew back into the back of my hand.

My eyelids jumped wildly. I immediately pressed myself against the wall.

Sure enough, a hole had been bored straight through the brick, and I could now see the scene inside the courtyard directly.

The whole courtyard was laid out with exquisite care, nothing like a building that ought to exist in a town like this.

In the middle of the courtyard stood a well.

The mouth of the well was very small. From where I was looking, it seemed no bigger than a washbasin.

Inside the courtyard, there was only one person.

It was Daoist Master Zhou!

He still held a flute in his hand, lowered at his side.

Wang Gongming stood beside him, and now a talisman had actually been affixed to the top of his head.

It was not like any talisman I had seen before at Granny Li’s place, nor like any I had seen in Master Wang’s hands.

Cold sweat streamed down my forehead.

My Tremor Talisman would not even work, so what method was this Daoist Master Zhou using?

At that moment, Daoist Master Zhou suddenly crouched down.

Only then did I see that a straw effigy lay on the ground.

The same kind of talisman was affixed to the straw figure as well.

The next instant, Daoist Master Zhou moved the straw effigy’s body.

What made my pupils contract was that Wang Dongming’s body also suddenly shuddered.

Then he actually drew closer to the mouth of the well, half-crouching, extending one hand down into the well.

My eyelids jumped violently, and at that same moment I felt a fierce burst of yin energy erupt.

Wang Dongming gave a muffled groan.

He seemed to have awakened, his body trembling uncontrollably, yet at the same time he seemed to be under control and unable to move at all.

Then an even stranger sight appeared.

From within the mouth of the well, a hand emerged, pale from soaking in water and somewhat rotted.

A terror seized my heart.

That hand gave me the same feeling as the evil ghost I had once seen before.

After it seized Wang Dongming, Wang Dongming’s body trembled, and a current of vital force actually began flowing toward that hand.

Just then, a streak of blood light suddenly shot forth.

That blood light was the Tremor Talisman!

In the blink of an eye, it plunged into the well.

A shrill, miserable scream rang out.

Wang Dongming’s body vanished from where he stood in an instant, without the slightest trace left behind.

“Run!”

Li Yue’s voice suddenly exploded beside my ear, so frightened that it was several times worse than before.

The next moment, her hand clamped onto my shoulder.

Her hand was trembling to the extreme, and after grabbing me, she dragged me deep into the side lane and ran.

My heart pounded wildly. I did not know how long Li Yue dragged me on, nor did I know where we stopped.

All around us were houses, with only a narrow path between them.

Li Yue panted hard, her face so pale that no words could do it justice.

“Do you know what kind of ghost that is?”

“Do you know what that old Daoist priest is trying to do?”

“We have to get out immediately. We cannot handle what is happening here!”

My eyelid kept twitching. I was just about to speak when, all of a sudden, a gloomy, sinister voice rang out.

“Get out? And where do you think you’re going?”

A deathly pale face appeared soundlessly behind Li Yue’s shoulder.