“…Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on here?!”
Fang Zehao was on the verge of a breakdown.
For a moment, he even suspected he had stayed up too late, had a drink, and was having a nightmare.
…What had he just experienced?
After being ditched by his girlfriend at the roadside, he had followed some strange girl to some obscure neighborhood he’d never heard of, watched her make a paper crane flutter and fly at the bottom of the building, and before he could even process that shock, the upstairs window exploded. He felt that since things had already come to this, as a righteous bystander he should call the police, but the strange girl…no, witch…rejected his suggestion again.
She only told him to keep his mouth shut, completely ignored his confusion and his wellbeing, and ran straight up to the sixth floor.
After that, he watched as the witch used a talisman to blow someone’s door up. At that point, he thought things couldn’t possibly get any more outrageous…
Until he entered the room and realized the entire place was filled with a cold wind carrying a strong smell of blood.
At first, Fang Zehao didn’t notice this, obviously, the smell was the least of this place’s problems, because the first thing he saw upon entering was Fu Sang standing with his back to him. Next to him was an unfamiliar girl, bound in an odd position by thin threads, and… and his “Yuanyuan” kneeling at Fu Sang’s feet, blood seeping from her seven orifices.
The newly acquired romance made Fang Zehao overlook all the strangeness at first. He only wanted to rush forward and pull Fu Sang away, but Fu Sang stopped him with a single word.
In that moment, the young man exuded a ferocity akin to the “killing intent” described in martial arts novels, leaving Fang Zehao’s mind completely blank.
After that, he stood frozen in place and finally remembered to use his brain to think about some of the issues he had overlooked earlier.
For instance, why was there so much blood on the floor? Why was there so much blood on Fu Sang’s body? Whose blood was all this?
And also…
Even though Fu Sang hadn’t touched “Yuanyuan,” why did she look so pained, and why had her eyes turned completely black?
Regardless of the current situation, there was one thing Fang Zehao was certain of…
Without deliberate makeup, a normal human’s eyes wouldn’t appear like that.
…What exactly was she?
Fang Zehao was really going crazy.
He couldn’t go forward, couldn’t back away, and could only stand frozen in place, breathing in the nauseatingly bloody air as the cold wind blew past. Finally, he let out one shattered question.
“What’s going on?”
Hearing his question, Fu Sang gave a cold laugh, then picked up his flashlight from somewhere and shone the light directly into Fang Zehao’s eyes.
“I think what you should be doing right now isn’t asking questions, but kneeling down and kowtowing to me, saying ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you’, my friend.”
“?” Fang Zehao took half a step back, squinting against the blinding light: “Why?”
“Because if it weren’t for me, you’d be living in a single room right about now.”
Fu Sang found the nearest freezer, lifted the lid, and reached into the ice to grab something. It happened to be half of an arm of some unlucky bastard.
Gripping the severed end of the forearm, he waved the frozen-stiff hand at Fang Zehao, “Say hello to your new roommate?”
“What the fuck…?” Fang Zehao didn’t process it at first, but once he realized what it was, he let out a scream in horror and stumbled backwards, nearly falling flat on his back: “What the fuck! What the fuck, ahhhhh!! What is that?! What the fuck?!”
“Don’t you like it?”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow and tossed the limb back into the freezer.
“Is it fun scaring a Muggle?” Huo Wei, who had watched the whole scene from the sidelines, couldn’t help rolling her eyes.
“Go back to your Hogwarts.”
“…”
Huo Wei really wanted to punch Fu Sang to death.
Too lazy to bicker with him, she glanced at the two figures beside her, uncertain whether they were human or ghost. After confirming that neither of them could move for the time being, she turned on her phone’s flashlight to take a closer look at the room.
And what she saw was shocking:
“Holy shit… why is there so much blood on the floor?”
She rubbed her shoe against the sticky bloodstains on the ground, found them still relatively fresh, and gave Fu Sang, who was practically soaked in blood, a once-over, “Whose blood is this? Yours?”
“Yes.”
“With that much blood, you shouldn’t be alive… Did you die?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Huo Wei curled her lip in disgust, showing no concern at all for what had just happened, and only sneered. “It must have felt great for you, huh?”
“Pretty good.”
Fu Sang Fu Sang replied matter-of-factly, strolling back over to Wei Luyuan like he was taking a walk and making a grasping motion in the air.
The blood threads coiled around Wei Luyuan instantly tightened. At the points where the thin lines bit into her skin, blood had already begun to seep through, and the copper coins on the threads let out a sizzling, burning sound.
It must have been an unpleasant feeling, because even with her teeth clenched, Wei Luyuan couldn’t hold back a muffled groan.
At the same time, Xia Kui, kneeling on the ground, seemed to be enduring immense pain as well, letting out hoarse, anguished cries.
“This is…?”
Huo Wei was startled and finally took a good look at the strange girl bound by the Ghost Blood Whip, “Who is this?”
“Wei Luyuan.”
“?” Huo Wei emphasized: “I’m talking about the curly-haired one.”
“The real Wei Luyuan.”
Fu Sang enunciated clearly, raising his voice slightly to make sure the Muggle in the room, who was completely infatuated with the female ghost, could hear him too.
“Oh, she’s Wei Luyuan, so then she’s…”
Huo Wei made a reasonable guess based on the available information: “…Xia Kui?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit, nice one, San You. You’ve really got some skills, I have to say…Wei Luyuan, Xia Kui, Freezer Guy… and they’re all actually connected?”
“Want to worship me?”
“Get lost.” Huo Wei crossed her arms and got into detective mode, “So, the situation is like this: Xia Kui is a ghost, Wei Luyuan is human, and they’re in cahoots. Xia Kui uses Wei Luyuan’s identity to get close to men, and when the men fall for her, they team up to kill them, dismember them, and hide the bodies?”
“Probably.” Fu Sang nodded.
“Then you really do owe San You a kowtow.”
Huo Wei took a moment to pass judgment on Fang Zehao before getting back to the point, “But why would Wei Luyuan, a perfectly normal person, get mixed up with a ghost and help her kill all these people? That makes no sense, right?”
“Exactly. So, before you two showed up, I was in the middle of an interrogation.”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow, “If it weren’t for this little interruption from you, I’d probably have everything figured out by now.”
“…Interrogation?”
Huo Wei didn’t seem to approve. She studied Wei Luyuan seriously:
“She hasn’t said a single word even though she’s practically being strangled to death by those blood threads. This girl is made of steel. What’s the point of this interrogation? Since she’s tough, why not go after the underworld spirit directly?”
“?” Fu Sang was genuinely stumped by her question.
After thinking for a moment, he said, “Maybe because I never learned how and have no idea what to do?”
“…”
Huo Wei often forgot that despite Fu Sang’s overwhelming raw power, he had never systematically studied the curriculum of the Nether Path.
“Oh, sorry, I forgot again.”
So Huo Wei cleared her throat, “…Generally speaking, for spirits below the Crimson Evil level, we advocate for liberation over elimination. After all, most people who become ghosts lived pretty miserable lives. If we can help them preserve their souls for reincarnation and rebirth as humans, that’s obviously the ideal outcome… Well, I’m getting off track. So how does a Nether Path spirit master liberate a ghost? That’s the question.
“First, a living soul turns into a ghost because of an obsession from their lifetime. Once we understand that obsession and resolve it for them, they can be freed from their suffering.”
“Can you stop with the useless chatter?” Fu Sang had no patience for her rambling, “Are you showing off your solid foundation by saying things that even a three-year-old knows?”
“Or maybe it’s that Miss Huo can’t actually explain anything more advanced?” Huo Wei spread her hands:
“I’m a terrible student! I only know that a spirit master needs to establish some kind of connection with a spirit to share its memories and emotions, but I’ve genuinely forgotten how to do that specifically.”
“?” Fu Sang found it absurd: “You’ve never eaten pork but haven’t you seen a pig run? When you went on missions with your seniors, did they catch ghosts while you played in the mud on the side?”
“Holy shit, I’ll tear your mouth apart! When I went on missions with my senior brothers and sisters, they only handled the capture part. Liberation is a dangerous, delicate job…they usually brought the ghosts back and let the more experienced seniors handle it, okay? So what we should be doing now is taking Xia Kui back and handing her over to the family. You collect a bounty and go home and replace both your crappy computer and your crappy apartment. Okay?!”
“Impossible.” Fu Sang refused flatly.
“Why?!”
Fu Sang raised his eyes and gave her a cold look, “I still have questions. And the ghost I found, whether it lives or dies, stays in my hands.”
With that, he lowered his gaze again to examine Xia Kui.
Xia Kui had curled up on the ground, her long hair spread out like creeping vines in the darkness.
Fu Sang looked down for a moment, lost in thought.
After a while, as if he had made some decision, he pulled out a talisman paper, reached out and brushed it across the corners of Xia Kui’s eye, using her blood to hastily scrawl a crude incantation onto the talisman.
“This is an exorcism talisman… what are you doing???”
Huo Wei watched his movements and suddenly had a bad feeling.
“Finding her a new home.”
With that, Fu Sang suddenly looked up and smiled at Huo Wei.
Huo Wei knew Fu Sang too well. For instance, she knew that he didn’t smile at all except for cold sneers, and whenever he showed this expression where the corners of his mouth curved up like a smile, nothing good ever followed.
Sure enough, before she could stop him, Fu Sang had already swallowed the blood-drawn talisman into his own stomach.
“You’re insane… Fu Sang!!”
Huo Wei shrieked.
If you want to read someone’s memories, the best way is to become that person.
The exorcism talisman was originally a talisman used by spirit masters to drive away underworld spirits. Its strength varied; weaker ones could only chase away small, unenlightened ghosts, while stronger ones could drive away the living soul from a living person’s body.
The effect that Fu Sang wanted to achieve was clearly the latter.
So he didn’t use cinnabar for the talisman, but ghost blood, which carried the heaviest obsession and yin energy. And instead of burning the talisman with fire, he swallowed it with his own flesh and blood, forcing the spell to take effect.
This was equivalent to him opening his doors wide and forcibly inviting Xia Kui to be a guest in his body. He left himself no escape route whatsoever, never once considering the immeasurable harm that driving away and weakening his own soul to force a ghost into his body would cause, or what would happen if any step went wrong…at best, he would lose his mind and become a vegetable or a cripple; at worst, his soul would be scattered to nothing, leaving not even ashes behind, never to be reborn for all eternity.
‘Insane…’
‘Absolutely insane!!’
Huo Wei frantically pulled at her hair in anguish.
In theory, Fu Sang’s method was actually feasible.
If the ghost possessed him, wouldn’t that establish a connection? If two souls inhabited one body, wouldn’t he be able to uncover her secrets?
But sorry…was this really how you played with your life?
Sometimes Huo Wei genuinely felt that Fu Sang was closer to ghosts than to humans.
She really couldn’t understand how a person could be so ruthless to themselves.
But it was too late to say anything now.
The ruthless Fu Sang had already swallowed the talisman. Huo Wei watched helplessly as black patterns like spiderwebs crawled from his collar up to his cheeks, saw his pupils take on a grayish filter, and watched him collapse to the ground, convulsing and trembling uncontrollably.
Huo Wei quickly calculated the probability of Fu Sang making it out of this unscathed.
Less than 1%.
Since things had already come to this, there wasn’t much more she could do. All she could do was pray that Fu Sang would come back alive.
If he didn’t, she’d just have to spend a little money to send this friend off in style.
However, if Fu Sang knew what she was thinking right now, he’d probably say she was too pessimistic.
Because in his predetermined possibilities, there was no one percent…only either one 100% success or 0% success. By his own logic, that gave him a solid 50% chance of success.
Life was too dull, so you had to throw yourself into some perilous, heart-pounding gamble every now and then.
And after he endured the pain that felt like his soul was being torn apart, slowly regained consciousness, and saw the images flashing before his eyes unfold like old photographs with yellowed edges…
He knew he had won the bet.
