Chapter 38: Blood Sacrifice Yellow Springs Part 1

Even though Wang Ya had a thousand unwilling thoughts, as long as she hadn’t lost her mind, she knew that the situation had shifted from whether to deal with the Ghost Family to whether they could escape safely. The longer they delayed, the worse it was for her. Wang Ya reached out and grabbed Wang Cheng’an’s arm, pulling the terrified man—who had gone weak in the legs at the cliff edge—back two steps. Wang Cheng’an felt as if he had been granted amnesty, but fearing that Wang Ya would blame him for leading them astray, he timidly looked at her, not even daring to breathe loudly.

Wang Ya had no time to deal with Wang Cheng’an and simply instructed, “Stand behind me and stick close.” Then she turned to gaze at the rock wall behind them, where the corpse qi grew ever thicker.

At that moment, the rocks seemed like living things, or perhaps a moving wall, advancing at a visible speed. It moved extremely fast, covering nearly a foot in less than a minute. The “ghost hands” in the narrow mountain wall strained toward Wang Ya and Wang Cheng’an, scaring Wang Cheng’an into squeezing his eyes shut and covering them with his hands as he chanted nonstop, “I can’t see, I can’t see…”

Wang Ya summoned a Vermilion Bird Burns Evil Talisman and flung it at the encroaching wall. The talisman didn’t erupt with power to strike the Ferocious Souls and Malevolent Ghosts; instead, it vanished into the rock crevices like it had hit thin air. Wang Ya thought to herself, Could it be an illusion? But the rock wall was already upon them, and the ghost hands stretching from the crevices all reached for her.

Wang Cheng’an, standing at Wang Ya’s side, suddenly let out a shrill scream: “Ghosts!” He jumped up and frantically slapped at the hands grabbing him. Those hands relentlessly tugged at his clothes, his hair, and clawed toward his face. But when the “ghost hands” touched Wang Cheng’an, they recoiled as if burned by something scalding. After a brief pause, they lunged at him even more frenziedly.

Wang Ya pulled Wang Cheng’an back a step, pressing close to the cliff edge. She quickly drew the Yin Spirit Scroll from her canvas shoulder bag and unfurled it entirely toward the rock wall. Thick, surging ink-black Yin Qi and Yin Spirit Ghosts erupted like a tsunami, crashing toward the wall in rolling waves. In the blink of an eye, what Wang Ya saw before her was no longer the rock wall and ghost hands, but countless, endless armies of Lost Souls and Ghosts. It was as if she had opened the gates to a hell of Evil Ghosts. Her ears filled with the howls of Evil Ghosts, and her eyes beheld nothing but Vengeful Souls and Fierce Ghosts, densely packed and overlapping. That churning black mass like ink was not mere Yin Qi, but streams of Ghost Shadows and individual Fierce Ghosts.

Amid the surging waves of Evil Ghosts, Wang Ya spotted Blood Light emerging. Vivid red, like flowing Cinnabar Ink, or a winding river. In the red blood light, she saw flowers blooming—flowers with only petals and stems, no leaves. They were bright as blood, fiery red, their petals curling backward in utmost enchanting allure. The needle-like stamens in the center rose high like phoenix wings spreading toward the heavens, as if blooming to their extreme, unleashing all of life’s beauty in this moment—beautiful to the point of heartbreak, shocking to the soul.

Wang Ya naturally recognized this flower. It was the Yellow Springs Other Shore Flower, the Soul-Guiding Flower blooming on the Yellow Springs. She hadn’t expected to find one like this in the Yin Spirit Scroll. The flower shimmered with hazy blood light, its beauty bewitching and seductive, as if it could hook away one’s soul. It gave Wang Ya a feeling of such familiarity and sorrow that her mind blurred. Why did this flower feel so familiar and painful to her? Was it pain? Wang Ya couldn’t be sure.

“Wang Ya…” It seemed someone was calling her.

“Wang Ya!” A clear, bright voice rang out, startling Wang Ya back to her senses. She realized she had somehow rolled up the scroll and clutched it in her palm. She turned around and was shocked to see Zhang Qingshui standing behind her, along with two old men at her side. Wasn’t there a cliff behind me? Borrowing the light from the flashlight in Zhang Qingshui’s hand, Wang Ya looked down. What cliff? Zhang Qingshui was clearly standing on the rural road. Scanning her surroundings, Wang Ya found herself in a shallow cave beside the road, no more than a meter deep. At her feet wasn’t a bottomless abyss but merely a drainage ditch beside the road. A two-foot-wide crevice ran through the cave, damp with green moss and overgrown with common wild grass from the cliffs.

Wang Ya asked, “What happened?”

Zhang Qingshui said, “You got trapped in an array.”