It shouldn’t have been like this!
That was the first thought that surfaced in Zhao Chengcai’s mind.
His power came from a deity; he was, in essence, a divine representative. A single word from him could annihilate ghosts and monsters. These creatures were fundamentally flawed, imperfect products of existence. Most were no different from single-celled organisms, endlessly repeating their slaughter and the resentments they held in life.
To deal with such a ghost, even using a paper talisman felt like a waste.
And his shout just now should have awakened the softest, most vulnerable part of this ghost’s heart. At the very least, it should have scattered her very soul.
Even if it didn’t destroy her outright, she should have lost all will to fight.
What kind of ghost, when the softest part of her heart was exposed, would not hesitate for a single moment and slash out with a blade?
Was her heart made of iron?
Did she have no one she cared about?
Not even a single person she deeply loved?
Reality, however, was a blade aimed straight for his throat. It was far too fast; he didn’t even have time to react before his throat was slit in a single stroke.
The paper talisman in his hand fluttered powerlessly away. The ghost opposite him even reached out and caught it, crushing it into a ball in her palm, utterly disregarding the divine power burning upon it.
The Blood Thread Long Blade vanished from Bai Yu’s hand, reforming into a gauntlet-like armor over both hands. Her right hand shot out, seizing Zhao Chengcai’s severed neck, from which dark blood was gushing out. The webbing of her armored grip tightened, prying the wound open.
This man’s blood was unlike a normal person’s; it was almost black and exuded a putrid stench. That foul odor mixed with the metallic scent of blood. Within the wound, something could be seen wriggling, like insects.
Bai Yu’s other hand grabbed the collar of Zhao Chengcai’s clothes. Ignoring the man’s struggles, she tore the fabric open, revealing his upper body, which was completely covered in painted sacrificial runes.
A slit throat doesn’t kill a person instantly, but they won’t last long.
As the dark blood poured out, Zhao Chengcai continued to struggle, clawing at Bai Yu’s hand, trying to beat her arms to make her let go.
But Bai Yu’s grip only tightened. The sharp fingertips of her armored gauntlets pierced into his neck, and his bones let out a series of sickening cracks.
Zhao Chengcai was a divine representative, his body offered up to the Evil God. Naturally, he wouldn’t die so easily. Even with his throat sliced open, he was still trying to speak, mouthing sounds.
The syllables he uttered were incomprehensible to anyone else. But to Bai Yu’s ears, they were the pleading voice of her sister, Bai Sisi.
“Sis, it hurts so much…”
“Sister, do you want to kill me…?”
“Please, let go.”
Just moments before, the attack had directly targeted the deepest resonance within Bai Yu’s heart, making her hear Bai Sisi calling her “big brother.” Now, this was Zhao Chengcai expressing his own will, yet it transformed into Bai Sisi’s voice in Bai Yu’s mind.
A flash of red light blazed in Bai Yu’s eyes. She formed a claw with one hand and drove it toward Zhao Chengcai’s abdomen.
Listening to the agonized, childish voice in her ears, Bai Yu slammed Zhao Chengcai heavily onto the ground.
“Shut up!”
Squelch!
Both claws pierced in simultaneously, one on the left and one on the right, ripping outward with violent force.
But she didn’t find what she was looking for. There was nothing but a writhing mass of small black worms.
Raising her hands, Bai Yu flipped the still-living Zhao Chengcai onto his stomach. She stepped on his tailbone, formed a dagger in her palm, and carefully peeled a small patch of skin from his body.
Throughout all this, she deliberately closed Zhao Mingyue’s eyes, using only her own to see, keeping the sight hidden from Zhao Mingyue.
And her purpose wasn’t merely to vent her rage.
Zhao Chengcai’s body had long become inhuman. It was almost devoid of fat, his withered, gray flesh inscribed with unrecognizable black characters. These words were effectively etched onto his very soul, ensuring his spirit could never find release.
It was hard to imagine that a man in such a state was still technically alive. This only indicated that the entity behind him was far more troublesome than she had anticipated.
In Bai Yu’s eyes, the characters on Zhao Chengcai’s flesh seemed to come alive. They twisted and squirmed, forming a few distinct words.
“I will find you.”
She blinked. The characters on the flesh vanished. In that same moment, Zhao Chengcai’s body finally lost all signs of life. It shriveled at a visible pace, and countless black worms beneath the skin scrambled to escape, only to be utterly devoured and consumed by Bai Yu’s blood threads.
Bai Yu stood there in silence. Black blood still dripped from the gauntlets covering her hands, and her body was almost completely drenched in it. She willed the blood threads to writhe slightly, and they directly swallowed the bloodstains covering her.
With that done, she turned back around to face the group of Zhao Mingyue’s relatives, still cowering against the courtyard wall, too terrified to move.
Wax corpses created from Fierce Ghosts possessed a certain degree of self-regeneration. They could even reattach a severed head, so long as the head wasn’t completely crushed.
During the time it took Bai Yu to kill Zhao Chengcai, they had already been attempting to restore their bodies.
But now, seeing Bai Yu turn toward them, a surge of intense terror rose from within them. It was as if, in that short span of time, Bai Yu had forcefully cured their mania and psychosis, leaving only their rational selves, capable of understanding human speech.
Because just moments ago, their “junior relative” had almost sadistically executed Zhao Chengcai, the man who had turned them into this. Even more absurdly, this representative had been killed, and the Divine Mother they worshipped didn’t even let out a single fart. Her will hadn’t descended at all.
“Speak. Tell me everything you know.”
Blade in hand, Bai Yu walked toward them.
The one standing at the front was the very Second Aunt who had urged Zhao Mingyue to drop out of school and marry early. Facing Bai Yu’s question, all she could stammer was, “I… I don’t know. I’m just a believer.”
“Then you’re useless.”
The long blade embedded itself in the wax corpse’s skull. A Blood Lotus bloomed and detonated, blowing the head apart. Even the lingering resentment was absorbed by the blood threads.
It was a pity. Right up until the last wax corpse was killed, she gleaned no useful information. She also believed these wretches truly knew nothing, to the point they even resorted to making things up.
The house fell into a profound, dead silence. Bai Yu stood before the main door, her back to the house. She separated from Zhao Mingyue’s body.
The icy white mask on Zhao Mingyue’s face dissolved. She regained control of her body, but she didn’t look back, not even a single extra glance. Her fear hadn’t originated here, but it had reached its peak within these walls. Every one of those people Bai Yu had cut down inside had left an indelible shadow on her soul.
Honestly, hatred was secondary now. She just wanted to know where her sister was.
She didn’t care what these people had become, whether they were inhuman wax corpses, whether they were under someone’s control, or if they were simply dead.
Her gaze flickered as it swept over her Eldest Uncle’s corpse. Her expression was complex.
“Sigh. At least… I got some answers.”
“Little Sister Yu, do you think what we did counts as a good deed? Helping them find release from this monstrous state?”
“Anyway, I didn’t lie to them. I promised to help them find release, and I delivered.”
Stepping out of the courtyard, Zhao Mingyue took one final look back.
From this day forward, this place would never appear in her nightmares again.
“To me, this place was never home. Little Sister Yu, where do we go next?”
“To the Village Ancestral Hall.”
“Mm.”
They retraced their steps along the small path. The Ancestral Hall was in West Village, which meant she had to go back.
Halfway there, a thought struck Zhao Mingyue. “Little Sister Yu, back at my uncle’s house, what did you hear? I felt like you were really angry.”
She had never seen Bai Yu like that. Well, not seen, exactly—more like felt. Up until now, Bai Yu had always come across as extremely steady, calm, and composed no matter the situation. Nothing ever seemed to cause major emotional fluctuations in her.
But just then, she had been angry.
“It was nothing.”
“Was it something that deity did?”
“Sort of.”
“Don’t be angry. When we find it, we’ll chop its head off so it can never speak again!” Zhao Mingyue raised her right hand in a chopping motion, slapping it into her left palm.
“I will find it.”
Zhao Mingyue didn’t press the issue further. She knew whose voice Bai Yu had heard. In her heart, she muttered to herself—this Zhao Chengcai truly had guts the size of the sky. He just had to step on the biggest landmine. Who else would die if not him?
Attacking the vulnerable soft spot in someone’s heart was a viable tactic, but it depended entirely on the target.
If used incorrectly, not only would it fail to weaken their combat ability, it would amplify it exponentially. She even had a feeling that if Bai Yu had been in that state just now, she could have even cut down the Divine Mother of the Tongue herself if she really came.
They passed the small pond they’d seen on the way here. The pond was empty now; there was no human head spinning endlessly, blowing bubbles. Zhao Mingyue had deliberately taken this route. She just wanted to let her friend know that she was okay, that she had returned safe and sound, and that she had resolved everything.
“Bai Yu, seriously, thank you. Even my best friend thought I’d definitely die if I went back, which is why she deliberately scared me like that. You know, that best friend of mine has loved to dress up since she was little. She was always so pretty.”
“Her personality… she would absolutely never show herself to me looking like that.”
“So, when we get back, I’ll give you a reward. Well, not a reward, more like a token of gratitude.”
“Right. Gratitude.”
As she spoke, they reached the main road separating the East and West Villages.
Unnoticed, the fog shrouding the village had grown thicker. Standing on the road and looking further into the mountains, the path ended in a dense bank of white mist.
Suddenly, Zhao Mingyue heard something.
She stopped, tracing the sound’s origin to the far end of the road.
Indistinctly, the cheerful sounds of gongs and drums echoed. Within the mist, crimson figures bounced and hopped into view. As they drew closer, Zhao Mingyue could make it out—it was a wedding procession carrying a sedan chair.
“Bai Yu, is that the ghost bride you mentioned?!”
The sound of gongs and drums vanished abruptly. Against the backdrop of the dark night and fog, the wax corpses in their red robes, bouncing up and down, were eerily bizarre.
“Let’s go. Don’t block their path.”
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