Chapter 37: That Useless Dad Part 2

Wang Ya was secretly alarmed: Ghost Hitting Wall? But with the Lotus Guiding Talisman leading the way, how could she still fall into one?

She activated another Lotus Guiding Talisman and tried walking forward two meters. Both talismans pointed in the same direction. She looked back at Wang Cheng’an, who was already asleep where he sat. Then she noticed something eerie: her dad sat right by the roadside, and she’d been walking straight along the edge, yet when she turned back now, she was over two feet away from it. If not a Ghost Hitting Wall, then an Array? She recalled one of the old men behind Zhang Qingshui had started calculating the moment he got out of the car—she hadn’t paid it mind then, but now she wondered if he’d detected the Array ahead and calculated because of it. Zhang Qingshui hadn’t stopped her, confident she couldn’t escape the Array?

Wang Ya only knew basic theory on Arrays; calculating one out was beyond her. Being trapped in an Array was different from a Ghost Hitting Wall—even if the effect was the same, “Ghost Hitting Wall,” the principles and breaking methods were worlds apart. If caught in an Array, even just looping in place until dawn, she was done for! She checked the time: 4 a.m. She had just over an hour.

Anxious, Wang Ya ignored clumsy trial-and-error methods to break the Array. She went straight back to Wang Cheng’an and pinched his nose and covered his mouth again until he woke.

Wang Cheng’an exploded in anger. “What the hell! Won’t you let me sleep?!” Seeing Wang Ya’s darkened face, he shut up in fear.

Wang Ya asked, “Do you still remember the Array-Breaking Method Grandma taught you? Lead the way.”

Wang Cheng’an pouted furiously at Wang Ya.

Wang Ya stared at him unblinkingly, her expression stern, eyes icy.

Wang Cheng’an reluctantly got up, hands behind his back as he slowly calculated. He mumbled like reciting a textbook, occasionally rolling his eyes and tilting his head to think. He’d think a bit, take two steps, think more, take two more—steps uneven, path twisting like a snake.

Wang Ya followed silently behind. Five minutes later, she saw lights, then the car they’d come in and Zhang Qingshui standing by it, watching her expressionlessly. She saw her dad dash toward the car, grabbed his collar, and glared fiercely at him: Where the hell are you leading me?

She yanked his collar and dragged him back toward the pitch-black rural path stretching ahead. “Wrong direction! We can’t take the road we came from. If we can’t get through this one ahead, when dawn breaks, bad guys will kill us both.” She released his collar and walked into the darkness ahead.

Wang Cheng’an glared huffily at Wang Ya, calculating as he walked forward.

Wang Ya stepped in his footprints. Time ticked by; the Lotus Guiding Talisman expired and extinguished. Yin Qi grew thicker, the sky blacker. She and Wang Cheng’an were plunged into darkness. Knowing her Cultivation Methods would fail at dawn, she preferred eternal night.

At sunrise, she couldn’t open Yellow Springs or use the Yin Spirit Scroll. With pursuers behind and Ghost Family ahead, how could she resist? How protect her dad?

Things had gone completely against her expectations—they hadn’t attacked the moment she left Zhang Qingshui’s protection. Now, it was like they all lurked in the shadows, waiting for dawn.

Wang Ya suddenly realized she had become like a night-wandering ghost, dreading the dawn. She clutched her mobile phone, eyes glued to the time. At 4:30, whether they attacked or not, she had to open Yellow Springs—even if it meant forgoing extra gains to preserve strength.

Suddenly, Wang Cheng’an ahead let out a trembling, pitch-shifted wail: “Yaya—!” As if he’d encountered something utterly terrifying.

The moment Wang Ya heard him, a thick stench of corpses hit her. Thinking a ghost was coming, she gripped the Ghost Collecting Bell, but no ghost lunged—no Ghost Shadows even. She asked gravely, “What is it?” She listened closely; aside from the whooshing cold wind whipping past her face, there was nothing else. How could there be such fierce mountain winds on a rural path this season?

Wang Cheng’an cried out, “I won’t walk anymore!”

Wang Ya pulled out her mobile phone, turned on the flashlight, and shone it ahead. She gasped in shock. Ahead was a cliff—her dad stood right on the edge, legs shaking so badly he dared not move.

They were like jammed in a crevice halfway up a cliff face: sheer drop ahead and on both sides, rocks overhead within arm’s reach. The path behind had become a deep, narrow mountain fissure less than two feet wide, crammed full of arms—some turned to white bone, some hairy, some half-rotted with corpse bugs and maggots crawling over them.

Wang Ya’s face turned green! Her half-baked dad had led them deeper into the Array! She wasn’t even sure anymore if they were still on the rural path, if what they saw and felt was just Array illusion, or if they’d wandered somewhere far more dangerous. If mere Array effects, breaking it would return them to the start—but could they break it? If they’d gone elsewhere… she didn’t dare think.

Should she open Yellow Springs to the Underworld Courts right here? They’d reached the Ghost Family’s doorstep, yet couldn’t take even one Ghost Family member or Scroll-coveter with them. She was so unwilling.