Fortunately, Zhuge Buyi was studious and loved learning. He was very passionate about the family’s cause and had practically read through every book available in the family’s Jingguan Pavilion. With his naturally exceptional memory, combined with the unique style of the rune on the red-clad spirit’s face, he could recall its name and purpose at a single glance.
Unfortunately, he wished he had never seen it or recognized it.
It was the Ten-Thousand-Deaths-Without-Reincarnation rune.
A rune specifically placed on vicious ghosts burdened with grievous sins, completely unforgivable, rejected by heaven and earth and deserving of ten thousand deaths… yet impossible for spirit masters to judge or destroy through human means. This method used the power of heaven and earth’s curse to suppress them, preventing the ghost from drawing power or causing mischief.
This rune was generally used in conjunction with a lethal formation, causing the vicious ghost to gradually weaken over a long passage of time until it was eventually shattered completely by the formation.
Of course, this level of vicious rune was never casually deployed, after all, there weren’t many ghosts worthy of its use or many spirit masters capable of casting it. In fact, throughout the entire history of the nether spirit path, this rune had only been used once. At that time, it was paired with the legendary Seven Watch Blood Crying Prison Formation, cast by the ancestor Zhongyuan Ban.
It had been used to suppress the one and only legendary seventh-rank Crimson Evil.
In the few seconds he locked eyes with the red-clad ghost, countless thoughts raced through Zhuge Buyi’s mind.
He wondered if he had been tormented too much by Fu Sang, and was battered by the journey to the point that he’d fallen asleep somewhere without realizing it and was still dreaming? Maybe if he opened his eyes now, he’d still be on that noisy, smelly green train?
Or maybe his martial uncle knew some strange hypnotic or illusion techniques and was just using this scene to scare him…
There were many wild guesses, but Zhuge Buyi could no longer deceive himself.
‘…No wonder.’
He just thought to himself: no wonder.
No wonder Fu Sang had insisted on making such a brutal blood oath with him, he really did have a shocking secret that would cause huge problems if it ever got out!
The red-clad ghost’s eye sockets were pitch black, like thick ink about to drip down at any second.
Fragments of the shattered spirit remained, and these black specks turned into wisps of mist swirling around it, almost merging with the spiritual residue surrounding it.
Zhuge Buyi’s figure was reflected in the fierce ghost’s eyes. It tilted its head as if in confusion, then parted its lips slightly, revealing sharp ghostly fangs on both sides.
“…”
Zhuge Buyi swallowed dryly and took half a step back.
He could barely put up a fight against the fourth-rank Violet Erosion from before. But if this was truly a seventh-rank Crimson Evil… how many seconds did he have left to live?
Zhuge Buyi’s heart almost stopped…until he heard a cold, indifferent voice from the side:
“Come back.”
On hearing this voice, the red-clad ghost seemed to be startled.
The ink in its eyes instantly dissolved, revealing a pair of light-colored eyes beneath, their crimson pupils like blood splattered on gray paper.
He had to admit that yet another thing beyond his understanding had just appeared…
This ghost seemed to possess a clarity of mind as lucid as a living person’s.
Even more terrifyingly, Fu Sang could command it.
It obeyed Fu Sang’s every word.
While Zhuge Buyi was still stunned, the ghost even smiled gently at him, giving a slight nod and saying something to him…though he couldn’t understand it, the tone seemed to be an apology.
Then, the ghost dragged the chains around its ankles back to Fu Sang’s side.
It stood behind Fu Sang, one arm wrapping around his shoulder, and lowered its head to deeply inhale at the crook of his neck.
“He, he is… the Crimson Evil?”
The shock was so great that Zhuge Buyi couldn’t even speak clearly for a moment.
“If I said no, would you believe me?” Fu Sang retorted.
“…” Fair enough.
The answer was obviously no.
“So you can actually see, right?”
“Under normal circumstances, I can only see him.”
Zhuge Buyi had already made the blood oath, so Fu Sang allowed him to ask questions and was willing to answer when in a good mood.
“And this is… something you raised?” Zhuge Buyi began trying to understand and summarize the relationship between the human and the ghost before him.
“My pet.” Fu Sang said casually.
‘Alright then.’
‘You are raising a Crimson Evil as a pet.’
Zhuge Buyi didn’t quite get it, but he respected it.
“What’s his name?”
“Oh,” Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly:
“It’s not really convenient to tell you.”
After thinking for a moment, he turned his face slightly toward Qi Changying and said, “You can call him Cotton.”
“?” Zhuge Buyi clearly couldn’t agree with that.
He watched Fu Sang approach with the Crimson Evil and warily took half a step back.
“Relax, the odds of him biting are lower than the odds of me biting. Guess why he’s called Cotton?”
Fu Sang noticed Zhuge Buyi’s apprehension.
He glanced at Qi Changying and jerked his chin, “Go on, show him your teeth.”
“…What?”
Qi Changying’s gaze had been fixed on Fu Sang’s face.
Probably finding the request amusing and endearing, Qi Changying couldn’t help but smile upon hearing it.
When he smiled, his eyes curved and the corners of his mouth lifted. Even though his overall appearance as a ghost was nothing like a human’s, the expression he made wasn’t frightening at all. It was actually gentle and infectious.
Fu Sang stared at him, his gaze faltering for a moment.
Only after a beat did he look away, extending his hand toward him, “Give me a drop of blood.”
“Alright.”
Fu Sang held the snake-bone nail between his index and middle fingers. Qi Changying used it to prick his own finger as usual, letting a drop of inky blood fall into Fu Sang’s palm.
Fu Sang smeared the drop of cold blood onto the corner of his eye. The droplet transformed into thick, elongated wisps of smoke that burrowed into his dark red left eye.
At the same time, the familiar stinging pain hit. He thought he’d be used to it after having gone through it so many times, but the pain came too suddenly and violently. Fu Sang couldn’t help but clutch his eye and crouch down.
It took a moment for him to recover. When he opened his eyes again, everything he had been unable to see was now crystal clear.
The mountain was actually quite beautiful. The trees grew tall and lush, complementing the rocks perfectly, the kind of natural scenery local tourism authorities loved to promote.
But previously, as he walked on, the energy he felt was so terrible that the experience was deeply jarring, as if his eyes were flying in the sky while his body sank beneath the earth.
Now that he could see, the picture and the feeling finally aligned…
The rocks and green leaves within sight were all draped in a gloomy, heavy hue, as if someone had layered a black-and-gray filter over everything. Even the sky felt heavy, as though the sunlight had lost its proper color and warmth.
“What was that thing we encountered just now?”
Fu Sang rubbed his eyes, stood up, and continued walking forward.
It took Zhuge Buyi a moment to realize Fu Sang was asking him.
“Oh… a lingering spirit. Judging from its form and aura, it was at least a fourth-rank spirit.”
“What did it look like?”
“Actually, I didn’t get a very close look…”
“Useless.”
Fu Sang was succinct.
“…”
Though it was indeed his fault for not clearly seeing the lingering spirit’s form, Zhuge Buyi still silently defended himself…
It was all because what happened afterward was so unbelievable it scared his brain right out of his head and robbed him of even the ability to think!
But for now, Zhuge Buyi didn’t dare speak up, much less refute Fu Sang.
He watched the Crimson Evil hovering beside Fu Sang like an accessory and once again questioned his existence.
If a fourth-rank had been that vicious, then why did the seventh-rank before him show none of the temper or strength it should possess?
Zhuge Buyi couldn’t figure it out and didn’t dare ask.
He hurried to keep up with Fu Sang.
Beyond the rocks from before, the path grew even rougher, and the aura more dangerous and oppressive.
They could already see Mitou Village they were looking for in the distance. The village was located halfway up the mountain and was shrouded in clusters of black mist, making it almost impossible to see the buildings inside. Only the density and concentration of the black yin energy indicated that it was likely the source of the danger.
And the deeper they went, the more spirits there were.
This time, Fu Sang could see them clearly himself, without needing a secondhand account.
They were all grotesque, like wax figures melted by fire. Perhaps because of their lower rank, or perhaps because of the deterrence of the seventh-rank Crimson Evil, the spirits they encountered later showed no aggression toward them. At most, they would hide behind trees or rocks, peeking out and observing them curiously.
“How’s your theoretical knowledge?” Fu Sang asked out of the blue as they walked.
Zhuge Buyi, who had been warily scanning their surroundings, snapped back to attention. After a moment’s thought, he humbly replied: “It’s not bad.”
“Then let me test you.”
The little martial uncle’s test came without warning:
“What would you call the situation in these mountains?”
As it happened, Zhuge Buyi had been pondering the same question.
“I think… we’ve walked into a particularly strong binding with an unusually wide coverage. The yin-energy here is too heavy. Even before reaching the true center, so many lingering spirits are gathered. The situation inside the village is likely even worse.”
After speaking, Zhuge Buyi concluded, “A lot of people must have died here, and in extreme tragedy and resentment, to create such a spectacle. My guess is that there are no living people left in this village.”
Hearing this, Fu Sang nodded, but then countered, “Have you not had much practical experience?”
On that topic, Zhuge Buyi looked a bit embarrassed.
“My experience is indeed lacking. I don’t have much time outside of school. Most of my field missions were with my master and seniors. On my own… I haven’t really handled much.”
“I can tell.” Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly, “This isn’t a binding. Not long ago, I saw a binding with even broader coverage and a longer timespan…completely unsolved for over a thousand years. The spirits inside were who knows how many times more numerous, yet even that binding didn’t feel as bad as this place does.”
“Feel…?” Zhuge Buyi didn’t quite understand.
“Yes. In an ordinary binding, the heavy yin energy comes from quantity, which is the total accumulation of each underworld spirit. The yin energy you sense is dispersed. But here, it’s different. The yin energy here has a single source, as if this entire area is nourished by one ghost’s yin energy.” Fu Sang explained.
Zhuge Buyi tried his best to imagine it, but still couldn’t, “How can you tell?”
“Is it because I didn’t turn my microphone on, or are you deaf? I said, I, can, sense, it.”
“…Then if it’s not a binding, what could it be?” Zhuge Buyi couldn’t argue, so he just asked.
“…”
Fu Sang felt he’d explained more than enough, and his patience was wearing thin. He hated nothing more than explaining things to kids who only knew how to study textbooks rigidly, refused to think for themselves, and kept asking questions….especially since it was for the sake of raising the Zhuge family’s children.
“Shut up. I’m getting annoyed.”
“Oh…”
Zhuge Buyi’s speculation was indeed quite off the mark.
As they approached Mitou Village, the yin energy did grow heavier, but the spirits around them grew fewer.
Ghosts with recognizable faces were gathered on the village outskirts, while the village itself, with its heaviest yin energy, was eerily empty. There were no people, yet no ghosts either.
To be fair, the village was actually quite beautiful. It was located halfway up the mountain with patches of lush terraced fields. The houses were built of brick and tile, old but carrying a quaint, storybook charm unique to primitive villages.
Of course, if the scene weren’t so gloomy and the energy so terrible, Fu Sang might have appreciated it more.
He put the Ghost Blood Whip on his hand.
“Have your magical weapons ready. Don’t die next to me later, it’ll be hard to explain.”
Probably finding the suitcase cumbersome, Fu Sang carried it to a corner before entering the village.
But just as he bent down to set it aside and was about to straighten up, a crisp, bell-like laughter drifted in on the wind, carrying a hint of eerie echo.
“Are you here to be our guest? Big brother?”
The voice abruptly cut into the scene, making Fu Sang pause briefly before he straightened up and turned around.
Behind him stood a little girl, no older than thirteen at most. She was thin and small, with long, shiny black hair braided into two pigtails hanging over her chest. She was standing on her tiptoes with her hands behind her back, smiling as she asked.
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly.
Instead of answering the girl, he first turned to look in another direction…
Where Zhuge Buyi should have been standing, there was now nothing but an empty, chipped blue stone slab.
What obedience? He had just told him not to die next to him, and in the blink of an eye, the guy had disappeared.
“Are you here to be our guest? Big brother?”
The girl’s question came again, the rising inflection at the end identical to the first time, as if someone was replaying a recording with especially clear audio.
Fu Sang didn’t like children.
He especially didn’t like ghost children.
Asking the same question over and over annoyed him too.
So he formed a hand seal with his right hand. When he raised it again, the five blood threads of the Ghost Blood Whip had already wrapped around the girl’s neck and limbs. With a slight curl of his fingers, the threads yanked her apart into a dispersing mist with tremendous force.
The world fell silent again.
After confirming there were no other disturbances, Fu Sang glanced at his phone.
There was not a single bar of signal, even though there was clearly a cell tower on a nearby hill.
That meant his thinking was right…the village had likely been cut off from the normal world. As for whether the source of power was yin energy or something else, he’d have to confirm.
Fu Sang somewhat disdainfully wiped the traces of the little ghost off the Ghost Blood Whip and turned to head into the village.
The next second, an unfamiliar chill pressed up against him.
The pigtailed girl he’d shredded reappeared. Unlike before, this time she was right under Fu Sang’s nose, looking up at him fixedly, almost toe-to-toe with him.
Her smile had vanished. Her little face was stern, with the corners of her mouth naturally turned downward, making her look somewhat fierce.
She tilted her head up, her large eyes fixed heavily on Fu Sang. But Fu Sang didn’t move, silently looking down at her, as if playing a game of “whoever speaks first is a pig.”
Until he saw her black pupils suddenly expand, deepening in color and nearly consuming all the white of her eyes.
“Answer.”
The girl’s voice had grown heavy, carrying a hint of threat.
But the next line, as if a recording had started playing again, came out with her expression unchanged, yet when she spoke, her voice was as clear as bells and laced with laughter once again, which was jarring:
“Are you here to be our guest? Big brother?”
