Chapter 33: Encountering the Old Ghost Again Part 1

Wang Ya gripped the Yin Spirit Scroll tightly as unprecedented fear enveloped her. She was so close to this world that differed vastly from the present one—close enough that she only needed to take a single step to enter a realm filled with death and Yin Spirits. She could clearly feel the yin wind stirred up as Yin Spirits drifted past her, close enough that the Yin Qi brushing by even tousled the few strands of hair on her forehead. She could even distinctly smell the stench of death emanating from them. In all her years, having caught countless ghosts, she had never been this close to the aura of death or Yin Spirits before. Compared to the Yin Spirit Scroll, the Ancient Old Ghost she had encountered previously was merely a grain of sand in a desert sandstorm or a single raindrop in a summer downpour.

Time ticked by slowly. The Yin Qi emanating from the Yin Spirit Scroll grew thicker and thicker, and the darkness before her filled with more and more Yin Qi, crowding together densely until it formed a solid mass.

Cold sweat dripped down Wang Ya’s forehead in beads!

She hadn’t expected this thing to unleash such power upon opening! Well, it wasn’t exactly overwhelming power—just an abundance of Yin Qi and Yin Spirits! But damn it, her grandma had never told her that the Yin Spirits sealed within this Yin Spirit Scroll could form three entire armies without any shortage!

How was she supposed to reel them back in?! Ah!

Wang Ya watched as the incense burned lower and lower, with less than two minutes left before it reached the end.

If so many uncontrolled Yin Spirits were released, how many people would die?! Without the Incense Boundary or any dharma realm barrier, could the thin walls of this guesthouse possibly hold back these Yin Spirits? How many desiccated corpses would there be? How many innocent people would she doom?!

Wang Ya was drenched in sweat from fear, and her hand gripping the Yin Spirit Scroll had stiffened from holding the position so tensely for so long.

What to do? What to do?

She racked her brain frantically, recalling the previous time she had opened the Yin Spirit Scroll. Last night, the more she unrolled it, the stronger the Yin Qi released became. Later, when she rolled it back up, everything returned to normal!

With a flash of insight, Wang Ya suddenly noticed one stick of incense had burned down completely. Terrified, she tossed the other end of the Yin Spirit Scroll and reeled it back in like rolling up a painting. The nearly two-foot-long scroll was fully retracted in less than five seconds.

As Wang Ya rolled up the scroll, the Yin Qi in the room surged back toward it like being sucked into a high-powered exhaust fan. Vast quantities of Yin Spirits and Yin Qi rapidly flowed back inside. By the time she fully closed the scroll, every trace of Yin Qi had vanished from the room, leaving not even a hint in the air—only the scroll itself remained wreathed in thick, lingering Yin Qi.

Wang Ya let out a huge “whoosh” of relief, her legs giving way as she knelt down on the floor. Only then did she realize that her sweat had soaked her clothes through, with large droplets even rolling down her chest. She was drenched from head to toe, as if she’d just been pulled from water.

Panting heavily, her gaze fell upon a pile of crumbled mud shards. Those had been the three fist-sized Soul-Collecting Dolls containing the souls of the three people she had seized. Now, they had all shattered into fine mud particles, as if subjected to tremendous shock.

Once she caught her breath, Wang Ya climbed to her feet and meticulously cleaned the room. She swept the incense ash and the bamboo sticks left from the burned incense into a plastic bag. She stuffed the Mud Steamed Buns into another bag, kneading and stomping them into a lump that bore no resemblance to “meat buns.” She collected all the ash from the burned Talisman Paper and flushed it down the drain. She scrubbed the floor spotless, inspected the room thoroughly to ensure no traces remained, then went to the bathroom to wash up before finally crawling into bed to sleep.

The next day, Wang Ya rose at dawn, checked out early, and carried the two bags of packed trash out of the guesthouse. She had planned to dump the garbage far away, but spotting a garbage truck by the roadside loading bins, she tossed both bags into it before heading to a shop for breakfast.

Wang Ya’s mood hadn’t improved despite successfully dealing with those three. She was certain she hadn’t left any clues for the police to trace, but an expert would see at a glance that the three had died suddenly from having their souls seized—and would inevitably link it to her, the inheritor of the Zhongyin Feng Family’s Inheritance. After all, she, Wang Ya, had even summoned back the soul that Zheng Yanxia had sealed away by the Dead Old Lady. Seizing those three men’s souls and taking their lives was hardly difficult for her.

She believed those three had already spread the news that her grandma was Feng Yuqin and summoned reinforcements. More people would come looking for her hometown. She had grown up hearing the old saying, “You can outrun the monk, but not the temple.” She, Wang Ya, could leave and take her fool of a father with her—but what about her relatives back home? Could she take them all? If they learned she had brought calamity that could wipe out the family, they would absolutely tie her up and hand her over to avert disaster. Not to mention others—even her biological father, now nominally her eldest uncle Wang Chengzhi, was capable of such a thing. From the moment Wang Chengzhi tried to drown her in a urine bucket and sold her to her grandma for two fat pigs, their bond had been severed completely. She could ignore Wang Chengzhi’s fate, but could she ignore her Second Uncle’s family? Moreover, others might not know her true Birth Chart, but Wang Chengzhi and his wife did.