Chapter 30

For someone who had just died, the soul might not separate from the body straightaway. Even if it did manage to depart, it wouldn’t stray far, lingering somewhere nearby. In most cases, such souls refused to accept the reality of their death and desperately tried to cram themselves back into their corpses.

Yet the scene here was unexpectedly pristine—no souls, no weeping, no sudden surges of resentment. Nothing whatsoever, as if the person kneeling on the ground had been nothing more than an empty husk from beginning to end, utterly devoid of any soul to begin with.

However, Xue Tong still detected faint traces of soul lingering in the air. This time, whatever had devoured it had done so even more thoroughly, leaving pitifully scant remnants behind. Without her wealth of experience, even Xue Tong might have missed them.

Malicious ghosts that devoured souls were exceedingly rare. They never formed through natural processes; there was always some other force involved, some unnatural connection.

That force could belong to an evil god, a mysterious Daoist clan, or even the rules of the Heavenly Dao itself… And whether the other party was aware of the link was impossible to say.

It was like rain falling across an entire field—you could never tell which seedlings it would save and which it would drown.

The corpse was dressed in a suit, complete with hair. Though its head hung low, obscuring the face, one thing was clear: this was no missing monk from Soaring Firmament Temple. The monks had vanished long ago. If they weren’t dead, then where were they? Even if someone had kept them as emergency rations, why slaughter the man in the suit first and leave the monks for later?

When it came to piety, the monks should have made far better offerings.

Xue Tong raised her gaze to regard it. The malicious ghost leaned down to peer back at her, seemingly baffled by what sort of creature she was. It even extended a finger, as if to prod the woman before it.

But as the malicious ghost’s finger descended, some invisible force batted it away. It let out a miserable howl and reeled back half a step before curiously inspecting its finger, plainly unable to comprehend why it hurt.

The malicious ghost cut an imposing figure, but that half-step retreat was lithe rather than lumbering. If a fight broke out, it would no doubt prove agile and evasive.

“Xue Tong, this is so strange,” Xun Ruosu said. Her brow had been furrowed ever since they emerged from the abandoned building site, the crease refusing to ease. She chose her words carefully. “Malicious ghosts are supposed to form from a person’s three souls and seven po, but this thing… Does it even have three souls and seven po?”

This malicious ghost gave the impression of a mere vessel, endlessly packing three souls and seven po inside itself.

Only a physical body could serve as a proper container. Something born purely from three souls and seven po—a true malicious ghost—lacked the fundamental prerequisites. Wouldn’t cramming in all those mismatched scraps cause an uproar and burst it apart from within?

Xue Tong had naturally noticed the same irregularity. The entity before them displayed every hallmark of a malicious ghost and yet wasn’t one—it had been artificially created, not born of nature.

Xue Tong had figured that these past two days—witnessing Double Sumeru, Chen Huaiyue possessed by a divine soul, and the naturally nurtured malicious ghost Infant Spirit—counted as plenty of excitement. Who could have guessed even bigger surprises lay in store?

In all her years working in this field, she’d never encountered a “man-made malicious ghost” before.

Since it was artificial, its actions had to be directed by whoever lurked behind the scenes. The three souls and seven po served as tribute, harvested through murder.

Xue Tong had crossed paths with her share of cults, but most only craved lives and money. Few went so far as to sever the path to reincarnation outright. The rules enforced themselves with brutal finality—who would risk it all, courting mutual destruction for such unrewarding labor?

Offerings were meant for “gods,” typically. In the old days, someone like Xue Tong might even be invited to the feast, receiving mortal incense worship. But let’s be real: incense, pickled vegetables, roast chicken—none of it held any appeal for her. Even a freshly butchered, blood-drenched human sacrifice would leave her scratching her head: “What am I supposed to do with this? Eat it?”

Tribute amounted to nothing more than one-sided delusion, useless to any “god.” This was the first time Xue Tong had seen someone manufacturing offerings for their own kind.

What use could it possibly have for three souls and seven po? They weren’t rare ginseng for a power boost or secret martial manuals for ascension. Some kind of collection fetish?

There had to be a motive. No one in their right mind sought a dead end by stacking up sins like that.

“I want to tear it open and take a look inside,” Xue Tong said abruptly, “but I’ll need some help.”

This was a refreshing change, and Xun Ruosu didn’t make things difficult. She simply asked, “What sort?”

Xue Tong wouldn’t need her for a straight fight. Xun Ruosu wasn’t terrible in a scrap—head and shoulders above the Xun Family’s frail scholars—but Xue Tong wouldn’t bother with her for that. The only skills worth a damn were divination and talisman runes. Xue Tong handled runes herself but seldom bothered, whereas the Xun Family’s true pride lay in their “calculations.”

Sure enough, Xue Tong replied, “Once I pin it down, can you divine its birth chart?”

Xun Ruosu gave the thing a once-over… Knowing it wasn’t formed from three souls and seven po, its birth chart equated to the timestamp of its creation. Even the Xun Family, masters of piercing heavenly secrets, would slap anyone who showed up with a bowl and demanded, “Tell me the exact year, month, day, and hour this was fired.”

But in this moment, she merely nodded. “Shouldn’t be difficult.”

“Good.” Xue Tong knew full well how absurd her request was; precious few in the world could assist with something like this. For an instant, she’d assumed Xun Ruosu lacked the ability and prepared a graceful exit. Yet Xun Ruosu barely hesitated before delivering that brazen assurance.

“Let’s get started,” Xun Ruosu added. “To avoid missing our window, I’ll watch from right beside you.”

“You’re not worried I’ll mess up and accidentally splash over to you?” Xue Tong arched an eyebrow with a grin.

Xun Ruosu had already descended the fountain’s steps, her target the nearby corpse. Without so much as glancing up, she replied, “You won’t.”

Xue Tong’s bold smile froze solid on her face. She wanted to demand, “What makes you so sure?” But a trace of long-faded sweetness pricked at her heart, silencing her.

As the two conversed, the hulking malicious ghost loomed nearby, watching. It apparently scorned those whose three souls and seven po lay beyond reincarnation—far too picky. It made no preemptive move, instead waiting for Xue Tong or Xun Ruosu to frighten themselves away from the trouble spot and leave its hunt uninterrupted.

Yes, Xue Tong had clocked it from the start: this thing operated like a predator, its kills driven by precise intent.

The Xue Tong who had seemed so charming moments before suddenly unleashed a wave of murderous aura. She held her ground steadily as golden runes unfurled from above, half a meter before her. In a blink, radiant golden motes bloomed around her like a bridge linking heaven and earth. Startled, the malicious ghost fell back another step—but then it realized the golden light itself posed no threat. Xue Tong, however, very much did.

Picky or not, self-preservation kicked in. With a guttural “gurgle” from its maw, the malicious ghost’s hands shot toward Xue Tong. But those mild golden runes shed their facade in an instant, baring their true black-and-purple essence…

Scriptures seared into a black scroll. Xun Ruosu heard the disturbance and glanced up, beholding those words—”born alone, die alone, come alone, go alone; joy and sorrow are one’s own to bear, no proxies allowed…”—twisted into interlocking chains. They formed a prison of her own making around the brash, brilliant woman.

The captive within had loosed her hair, a bronze hairpin gripped between her teeth. She stared at the malicious ghost with calm, utter detachment.

It was the sort of cold indifference that chilled the blood—arrogant, contemptuous of all creation. Xun Ruosu abruptly grasped the chasm between them. Those inscribed in Yama’s Palace had long transcended life and death; she was merely a fleeting visitor in Xue Tong’s endless existence. Xue Tong… had no reason to care.

The healer heals not herself; the diviner divines not for herself. Xun Ruosu shrugged off life and death, able to chart her own demise down to the second, matching her forebears precisely. But Xue Tong… Xun Ruosu dug a fingernail into her knuckle, only to find she couldn’t divine any link to herself. Anything Xue Tong touched roiled her emotions, denying her any peace.

Even old nags stumble. Xun Ruosu could only sigh and turn her full attention to the corpse at hand.

The body wasn’t young; the wrinkles pegged it at least in the mid-fifties. The suit was high-end, worth three or four months’ salary for your average wage earner. Xun Ruosu lifted the man’s chin for a closer inspection—even in death, he retained an air of refined masculinity, his brows neatly groomed. A man who took care with his appearance.

A disappearance like his would surely hit the news. Clear Canal County—and even Pingyuan City above it—wasn’t that big. Xun Ruosu whipped out her phone and sped through local media feeds. No missing persons alerts, but one poverty-relief story snagged her eye.

It covered an entrepreneur from a neighboring county bringing a project to assist with aid. The accompanying high-res photo showed a man who matched the corpse before her by seventy to eighty percent… Factoring in postmortem shifts in features and complexion, it had to be him.

The entrepreneur in the picture was named Fang Youcai, a road-construction contractor. Though billed as “poverty aid,” Clear Canal County wasn’t destitute; the past couple of years had seen a tourism boom that demanded new roads and bridges. Places like Soaring Firmament Mountain remained wild and overgrown beyond the peak, locals scraping by on field crops and orchards, at the mercy of the weather—and mostly consisting of elderly folk too frail for heavy labor. Hence the “aid” pretext.

A quick search for “Fang Youcai” turned up mostly glowing coverage. Now fifty-six, he enjoyed a happy family life and doted endlessly on his daughter. His wife had passed from breast cancer four years prior; he’d remained single since, gradually handing the company reins to his daughter while devoting himself to charity work.

The one scrap of negative press captured him ordering a lavish spread, leaving half untouched. The media blasted it as wasteful excess, but commenters noted it was a dinner to woo a prospective son-in-law—polite extravagance, hardly villainous.

No matter how Xun Ruosu turned it over, Fang Youcai struck her as blameless. How had he wound up like this?

A hunch stirred her. She pulled up the news story Yan Qing had shown her a few days back. As expected, the first to die in this abandoned building site had been a city-college senior, as ordinary as they came. Snooping netizens had unearthed nothing but a simple life and devastated parents.

Two utterly innocent people, strangers with no ties between them—not even close in age—both ending up dead here, their three souls and seven po stripped away clean. Why?