Chapter Ninety-One: The Gaze

Six Taoist priests in robes and more than a dozen townspeople surged into the courtyard and swiftly blocked every exit, leaving no chance for Li Yue and me to escape.

The priests’ faces were tight with rage, and the townspeople looked at us with naked hostility.

My face drained white. I forced down the unease rising in my chest and said hoarsely, “This is not what you think. Daoist Zhou has been keeping ghosts here. There is an evil spirit in this well!”

Li Yue nodded hard as well. Pointing toward the well, she said in a trembling voice, “This is the most yin-heavy place in town. Daoist Zhou has been raising ghosts here. Just now he wanted Wang Gongming to drag that ghost out, and I moved to stop him. That was when he came after us. We only hurt him by accident...”

“By accident? Hurt him?” The priest who stood in front had a birthmark on his face, and his eyes were full of resentment. “Can killing someone be described as ‘hurting’ them? And you even dared slander Daoist Zhou for raising ghosts?”

“Daoist Zhou has clearly spent every possible effort dealing with the wronged spirit in this courtyard. After great difficulty, he found a way and invited Wang Gongming’s spirit here. I think you two are accomplices of that evil ghost! Just as Daoist Zhou was about to make her soul scatter, you seized the chance to ambush him!”

“Daoist Li, don’t listen to their sophistry! Seize them and throw them into the river! We must get justice for Daoist Zhou!”

One of the townsmen shouted.

By now, more and more townspeople had gathered outside the courtyard. From where I stood, I could see them running in from afar, carrying wooden clubs, shovels, even ropes.

My expression was grim beyond measure, and my heart was shaken. I could not tell whether these priests knew that the ghost in the well had been raised by Daoist Zhou. Were they in league with him or not?

If they were, Li Yue and I would have no escape from disaster.

Li Yue had gone deathly pale. Her eyes were red, and tears were nearly spilling from them.

“We are not accomplices of that ghost! Just now Daoist Zhou used the Ghost-Blowing Tune to confuse Wang Gongming. He is the one who built this town and is now its guardian ghost. Find him, and you will know we are telling the truth!”

“Daoist Zhou used his arts to lure him into pulling out the heir ghost in the well, and he was injured.”

“We also wounded the heir ghost with talismans. If we had a few more, she would surely be gone, soul and all!”

Li Yue spoke with unusual urgency.

The leading townsman said rapidly, “Don’t believe them! They’re stalling for time. Look, the ghost mist from the well is already pouring out!”

I had already given up hope in those priests. Yet at that very moment, one of the younger ones looked frightened and said, “Uncle Master Li... what’s in this well is indeed an heir ghost. The old texts record that when an heir ghost is threatened with death, it releases a black mist to assimilate its surroundings and find a way to escape.”

A flash of joy appeared in Li Yue’s eyes. She sped up her words. “Exactly! We used up all our talismans just now, and she is extremely weak. For the moment she cannot leave that well. She has assimilated too much with the yin energy inside it, otherwise Daoist Zhou would not have tried to make the guardian ghost drag her out!”

The anger on Daoist Li’s face shifted into uncertainty.

He stared fixedly at Li Yue and me, then turned to look at the well shrouded in black mist.

“Uncle Master Li... this little courtyard is very strange. Master always sneaks here alone in the middle of the night... I told you before... every few days he goes out for a while. I once secretly followed him... He was actually going to the burial ground to catch ghosts...”

“If the thing in this well is an heir ghost... then what they said is true. Master... really has been raising ghosts...”

The young priest’s words finally put my mind at ease.

So Daoist Zhou had long since been under suspicion.

“You can find Wang Gongming at the Wang family estate. He is already the town’s guardian ghost. If he is not in the manor, you should have some way of finding him out.”

Li Yue panted. Her voice was already growing weak.

Daoist Li’s face darkened, and after a long silence he said in a low voice, “Zhou Kang, stay here. The townspeople stay here too. Until I return, no one is allowed to leave, and no one is allowed to approach this well.”

After speaking, he turned and strode out of the courtyard.

The other four priests followed him.

I let out a long breath and sank to the ground.

A moment ago I had thought death was certain; now I discovered these priests were not like Daoist Zhou after all. It felt as though I had been pulled back from the brink.

Li Yue’s face also showed a trace of relief.

She glanced toward the well and asked in a hoarse voice, “If the guardian ghost cooperates with you, can you kill the heir ghost inside?”

My heart thudded hard. After a brief hesitation, I said, “He might die.”

Li Yue froze. She lowered her head, and I could not tell what she was thinking.

After a moment, she forced a smile and said, “Then let’s still get out and find my master. We’ll leave it to him.”

I nodded.

Wang Gongming was indeed powerful enough, but I had drawn talismans with soul blood, and only by devouring enough spirits could I keep myself alive. I could not be certain whether I would drain Wang Gongming to death, and he might not be willing to let me feed on him anyway.

Even after Daoist Li and the others had left, I still felt that something was off.

The townspeople’s gazes toward us were not simply hateful. They were hostile.

But I felt that their hatred was directed more at the well.

The young priest Zhou Kang who remained behind no longer wore any expression of enmity toward us. Instead, he came over curiously and asked in a low voice, “Did you really beat that heir ghost into this condition?”

Li Yue smiled. Her expression softened considerably as she replied quietly, “I did the striking, but he drew the talismans.”

The young priest’s eyes filled with admiration as he looked at me, hesitating.

“Can you teach me how to draw talismans? In the temple, Master never wants to teach us. He only makes us keep up with our daily practice. Apart from Uncle Master Li, none of us can draw talismans.”

My pupils contracted, and Li Yue’s expression changed slightly as well.

What kind of temple had priests who did not draw talismans? This Daoist Zhou had been suspicious from the very beginning.

Perhaps Daoist Li belonged to the same generation as him, which was why he knew the arts.

I shook my head and said softly that I could not teach him, because the talismans I used were not something others could learn to use even if they copied them.

Zhou Kang looked disappointed and forced a smile. “It’s all right. It was rude of me to ask.”

Li Yue immediately said, “He isn’t lying to you. His talismans are not Daoist talismans. My own cultivation is shallow, so the talismans I draw are not very powerful. But I know many talisman forms, far more than you can imagine. I can teach you.”

Zhou Kang’s face instantly lit up.

Just then, the townsman who had spoken before suddenly stepped forward and stared straight at me.

“You really did injure that ghost earlier?”

My heart gave a jolt. His movement had been too abrupt, his question too unexpected, and it startled me.

I nodded and said hoarsely, “She was fierce. There was too much yin energy in that well. We used up all our talismans just to beat her into that state, but I’m afraid she will recover before long.”

Zhou Kang immediately said, “That’s already very impressive. The old texts record that an heir ghost is a spirit that changes after devouring a thousand ghosts. A bone chain forms around its neck, and for every ten ghosts it eats, another link is added. Wherever an heir ghost appears, devastation follows. If she had not been trapped in the well, our town would have...”

His voice trailed off, and his eyes were full of lingering fear.

I had already let my guard down around this young priest.

Yet the townspeople’s gazes still made me deeply uneasy.

Their hostility toward Li Yue and me was still there, though it had lessened somewhat.

But their eyes toward the well remained filled with outright hatred.

“Both of you, go and kill the ghost in the well at once!”

Suddenly the townsman seized my collar, his voice loud and commanding.

Zhou Kang’s face changed slightly. “Uncle Liu, Master Li hasn’t returned yet. Don’t act rashly. They are already badly injured.”

But the townsman’s expression was ugly beyond words. “So you know Daoist Li hasn’t returned, and yet you’ve already decided they’re good people? The evidence is not even complete. Could Daoist Zhou truly be the villain? He protected our town for so many years, and now that he has been killed by two outsiders, are we supposed to believe these two murderers without question?”

“You two go and kill the ghost in the well right now! Otherwise you are accomplices too! The river outside town will be your grave!”

My expression changed, and an instinctive sense of danger rose at once.

These townspeople were not really coming for us. They were aimed more at the ghost in the well, as though they bore some deep and irreconcilable grudge against it.

But they clearly had not known there was a ghost here before. If they had, they would not have suspected us so readily.

I could not make sense of it.

Then Li Yue suddenly mouthed something to me, and my face changed in an instant.

What she mouthed was: “The flesh of the offerings, the blood flowing out of the coffin. It wasn’t Wang Gongming’s. It belonged to the ghosts in the burial ground that pushed him into the river.”

A chill ran straight up my spine.

The townspeople glared at us like wolves. The man Zhou Kang had called Uncle Liu stared at me and said, “Why are you still not going? Could it be that you really are accomplices?”

Zhou Kang was equally anxious. “Uncle Liu, why will none of you listen to reason?”

Suddenly, someone reached out and violently shoved Zhou Kang.

“You call that old thief your master? Then you deserve to die too!”

The one who pushed Zhou Kang was a man, but the voice was shrill and piercing, unmistakably a woman’s.

My scalp prickled, and a cold dread filled me.

Zhou Kang had no chance to react. His face changed dramatically, and he pitched straight toward the well!

The ground around the well was slippery.

I had already sensed how treacherously slick it was, how difficult it was to keep one’s footing there.

After Zhou Kang fell, he rolled once and tumbled directly into the well.

The next instant, a scream rang out, so agonized it seemed to tear the air apart.