Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Heir Ghost

The sudden voice came far too abruptly.

The face that appeared was just as unexpected.

I had never imagined, and could never have imagined, that Daoist Zhou would have followed us here so quickly.

Li Yue turned deathly pale in an instant, and her hand lashed backward.

I did not even clearly see her movement, nor the moment she had once again seized that slender nail-like spike in her grasp.

Li Yue was fast.

But Daoist Zhou was faster still.

He caught her wrist at once and twisted hard.

The instant Li Yue struck, I moved as well.

But I had no special means at all. I could only fight like any ordinary man, clenching my fist and smashing it viciously toward Daoist Zhou’s face.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye.

I only heard Li Yue let out a shriek, cold sweat rolling down her forehead in heavy drops.

Daoist Zhou shoved her away with one hand, yet never released her wrist.

His front was wide open, but he already had his other hand free. It seized for my fist at once.

Li Yue’s cry sent my mind into disorder as well. She was only a frail woman; with that blow just now, even if Daoist Zhou had not snapped her bone, he must have at least dislocated the joint.

My strength faltered by half without meaning to, and Daoist Zhou caught my fist and drove it hard forward.

I only felt a force I could not resist slam into my knuckles.

It was as though I had struck a boulder.

Pain shot through me until the bones in my hand felt on the verge of shattering, and even my arm seemed about to come apart.

Daoist Zhou’s voice was cold and merciless.

“With just this little bit of skill, you still dared come here and ruin my affairs?”

As soon as the words fell, he shoved me violently toward the wall beside us.

With a dull boom, I slammed straight into it.

My head felt as though it were about to split open, and I even sensed a thread of warm liquid trickling down my face.

This was no longer the stars-in-my-eyes dizziness of fainting. I truly felt as if I had died for a moment, only to slowly regain a bit of awareness afterward.

“Killing you would still not vent the rage in my heart, but don’t think you’ll live through this either.”

Daoist Zhou’s expression turned even more vicious. Seeing that I seemed to have lost the strength to resist, he released me outright.

I truly had no strength left to stand. I collapsed to the floor like a dead fish.

Then he yanked Li Yue toward him and gripped her throat tightly.

“Such a fine face, and still a virgin. Then I’ll use you for possession.”

Daoist Zhou’s face suddenly flashed with a greed and filth that made me nauseous.

Li Yue’s face flushed red, her eyes bulging wide as she struggled desperately.

But her strength was no match for Daoist Zhou at all.

Gasping, I fought to draw my talisman brush from my chest.

One hand already felt ruined; with the other still intact, I trembled as I drew a stroke toward Daoist Zhou.

I strained with all my might to summon the faint sharpness that had once appeared in my heart.

Yet I did not know when it had vanished without a trace.

I was drawing the Combat Talisman.

But this was already my final means of resistance.

What made my heart lurch was that it was utterly useless.

The stroke I had drawn did not form the Combat Talisman at all.

Instead, Daoist Zhou lowered his head, frowned, and a flicker of surprise crossed his face.

Then his expression turned mocking beyond measure.

“A soul talisman? No wonder that earlier talisman was able to injure her. But you’re too weak, and far too foolish. You dared brandish talismans in public without even drawing them off the paper.”

“It seems your soul has the power to devour ghosts. A virgin, and a ghost-eater. So today is my fate with Yuan’er!”

A trace of excitement had already entered Daoist Zhou’s expression.

I clenched my teeth until my mouth filled with a metallic taste.

I did not know whether it was blood from my head that had seeped into my mouth, or whether I had bitten through my tongue.

A sense of helplessness rose in my heart.

Strangely, that feeling seemed terribly distant from me, yet also as if it had only just happened.

The matter of Hundred-House Village had not occurred so long ago.

After I learned the Shock Talisman, I had no longer felt that same fear.

But at this moment, helplessness and despair rose together.

Was I really going to die here?

I still had so many things unfinished.

I was bitterly, bitterly resentful. Resentful of my own uselessness, resentful of my own weakness.

If not for my cowardice, how could I have lost all sharpness?

The Combat Talisman’s condition was the simplest of all.

It needed only sharpness.

No blood. No soul.

And yet I had even become so frightened that I could not find even a shred of it.

“I’ve changed my mind. I won’t kill you two.”

The delight in Daoist Zhou’s voice could not be suppressed.

He looked exactly like a miser who had just laid eyes on a mountain of gold and silver.

Hatred surged in me, and I still wanted to try the Combat Talisman one more time.

But before I could even lift my hand, Daoist Zhou brought his foot down on my wrist.

His pupils shrank slightly, and with narrowed eyes he said, “Have you never heard the saying that caution keeps a ship afloat for ten thousand years? Since you don’t even want to live out your last little bit of time properly, I’ll just stomp and break another one of your hands!”

His foot suddenly pressed down with force.

I had thought this hand would be lost too, and my heart was almost utterly hopeless.

But Daoist Zhou’s body stiffened all at once.

I only felt a chill on the back of my hand, as though something had darted out from it.

The next instant, a wave of heat spread there, faintly scalding.

That heat was like the blood that had run down from my head.

That thing had returned to my hand.

Daoist Zhou did not step down. Instead, the hand he had used to hold Li Yue suddenly went slack as well.

He toppled backward with a crash.

My heart nearly leaped into my throat.

Because I had clearly seen a bloody hole beneath Daoist Zhou’s foot.

I did not know how deep that hole was, but blood quickly poured out and spread across the ground.

Daoist Zhou had already stopped breathing. His face was pale with a dead, bluish cast, his eyes bulging wide in eternal unwillingness.

I stared tremblingly at the back of my hand.

That thing again.

It had just killed Daoist Zhou.

Li Yue’s face regained a little color.

Yet her eyes were filled with astonishment.

“How... how did you kill him?” Her voice shook violently.

Gasping, I struggled up from the ground, my voice hoarse beyond measure. “It’s hard to explain in a sentence or two. Leave this place first.”

I did not dare look at Daoist Zhou’s corpse.

Having escaped death should have filled me with joy, but instead I felt a profound and sinking dread.

Daoist Zhou was dead.

A living man had died before my eyes in an instant like that.

Even if he had been killed by the thing on the back of my hand, it still counted as my doing.

I had killed a person.

My face was deathly pale. After putting away the talisman brush, I grabbed Li Yue’s unharmed arm and headed back the way we had come.

I had no intention of stubbornly remaining here. Li Yue and I lacked the ability to handle the matter in Qianshui Town. We had to do as she said and find Li Cangshui.

Soon we had run along the narrow path and reached the side of the courtyard we had come from earlier.

Li Yue and I both looked miserable beyond words.

The fingers on my left hand had broken, I did not even know how many, while Li Yue’s right hand hung limp and powerless.

Yet at that very moment, Li Yue suddenly stopped.

Her eyes widened, and her voice trembled and rasped. “We can’t go.”

My face was white as paper, and my voice still carried uncontrollable fear. “Why not? Didn’t you say you wanted to find your master?”

“We can’t go...”

Li Yue shook her head violently and, biting her lower lip, said, “It was only because that ghost was too terrifying, and the old Daoist was too hard to deal with. I used your Shock Talisman to injure that ghost. The old Daoist is dead now, so this is the best time to deal with that ghost. She must not know yet that the old Daoist has died. But if we leave and someone else discovers the old Daoist’s corpse, she will know too.”

“By then she’ll surely flee! And if Wang Shuiming comes back again, he’ll scare her off as well!”

“Then we’ll have no chance to deal with her anymore! This is a very terrifying ghost, even more terrifying than the ghosts outside the town trying to get in. If we don’t deal with her, the town will face a huge hidden danger. When she comes out, the people here will die, and not a single soul will remain.”

My expression changed again, and I asked, “What kind of ghost is she, exactly?”

Li Yue bit her lip hard and said in a trembling voice, “Ghosts absorb human yang energy, and they also devour other ghosts to strengthen themselves. But the more ghost-souls a ghost eats, the more an aura will gather around her, enough to frighten away all the other ghosts nearby.”

“When a ghost has devoured enough of them, a small bone chain will appear around her neck, and every bead on that chain looks like a human head.”

“That kind of ghost is called an heir ghost.”

“She can no longer consume ghost-souls, but the aura she gives off can frighten away ghosts within ten li.”

“To obtain souls, such ghosts will choose to swallow the living soul of a human being.”

“What I saw in the well just now was only half a face, but around her neck that bone chain was wrapped around twice. I don’t know why she is trapped in the well, but we must scatter her soul. Otherwise, this town will surely be plunged into utter ruin.”

I clenched my fists tightly.

Yet I no longer knew whether I should go in.

To go in was to face dangers whose extent I did not know.

But if we left...

Li Yue gritted her teeth and asked what I was still waiting for, why I still had not gone in.

Her face was pale, and her voice hoarse as she said that against a ghost like this, if we did not seize the chance to kill it now, I was afraid there would never be another opportunity.