Demons

My roommate Chen Ling was always coming up with strange rules. For example, after the dorm power went out, we weren’t allowed to turn on any lights, and once a bag of snacks was opened, it had to be finished within five minutes.

If we didn’t follow them, she would nag us about it all day long.

Just now, at three in the morning, she woke all of us from a dead sleep and said:

“You have to survive. The drill is officially over now.”

With that, she gave us an eerie smile, then turned and walked out the door.

A scream came from downstairs soon after.

She had jumped from the dorm room below ours.

Spending the night in an abandoned temple, I found a thin gauze handkerchief wreathed in fragrance. After nightfall, someone murmured beneath the window:

“My lady, have you perchance seen the handkerchief this humble scholar left behind?”

Through the crack in the door, the figure outside looked so ethereal that it seemed he might drift away on the wind at any moment.

At his words, I couldn’t help recalling the rumors about this place.

They said this temple had been abandoned for ages, and that seductive ghosts haunted the area. Any traveler who got entangled with them would either have their essence sucked dry or be dragged into another world, vanishing without a trace.

With that in mind, I hurriedly cracked open the window and tossed out the piece of cloth I had used to wipe the floor, the windowsill, and my stinky feet.

The other party caught it with lightning-fast reflexes.

Then he stared down at the gauze scarf in his hand, now crumpled and ruined like dried pickled greens, and fell into deep contemplation.

I am blind, and I make my living reading feng shui.

That day, a seductive woman came to my fortune-telling stall and said she dreamed every night of a man coming to see her.

After I went to her home, the dog she kept caught my attention.

It was clearly a Yin-Yang Dog!

A new junior sister arrived at the Demon-Slaying Bureau.

She was astonishingly talented, with an ethereal beauty that seemed untouched by the mortal world.

Everyone adored her.

Everyone said she was far better than me, her senior sister.

But what I saw was the Red Thread of her fate, tangled beyond repair, every strand of it tied to me.

Later, when my junior sister was wounded by a demon, she chose my fiancé to help purge the poison.

So I threw a demon in with her.

“Trust me, he won’t cut it. This one’s better. Guaranteed to purge the poison.”

When my junior sister came out, she drove her sword straight at me. I let out a soft laugh and caught her blade.

“That’s more like it. Now you finally look like a demon slayer.”

I was a bridesmaid at my friend’s wedding, but the bridesmaid’s red envelope I received was stuffed with spirit money.

My friend got into a fight with the groom’s side.

The groom stormed in with a group of people, trapped us in the room, and even threatened that when they came to “tease the bridesmaids” that night, he’d make sure I paid for it.

What he didn’t know was this: seal paper money inside a red envelope, and a hundred ghosts will come to feast.

That night, every ghost for miles around came to offer their congratulations.

And I was the sole Earth Master successor.

In my first few years driving rigs, my master used to tell me that the main road could hold back evil.

So unless you absolutely had to, you should never leave the proper road, and you should never pay any attention to the “things” that stood outside the guardrails.

Lately, though, whenever I’m out on the road, I keep seeing my childhood friend-the one who’s already dead.

At first, he only stood beyond the guardrail, one leg raised stiffly.

But little by little, he managed to get that leg up onto the rail. Now half his body is leaning out over the highway.

While staying at a hotel, I discovered a headless corpse under my bed.

Time of death was less than an hour ago, making me the prime suspect.

The police arrested me, but I told them the corpse would come back to life by nightfall.

Everyone thought I was insane. What they didn’t know was that I am the sole successor of the Earth Master lineage.

And this corpse belonged to a Jiangtou Practitioner who could use the Flying Head Jiangtou.

I was livestreaming fortune-telling when I connected with a male streamer.

When I asked if he had ever killed anyone, his expression shifted instantly. “Yeah,” he replied. “And you’re next.”

Ten minutes later, there was a knock at my door.

The bullet chat was exploding with people screaming for me to run. “He’s that famous serial killer streamer!”

I let out a soft chuckle. What they didn’t know was that I am the sole Earth Master successor.

The day my Senior Brother emerged from the Secret Realm, he brought back a Mermaid.

She was a pitiful, innocent creature, seemingly unable to care for herself the moment she left his side.

To protect her, he went as far as threatening to break our engagement, demanding that I show her more tolerance and understanding.

So, I granted him his wish. I called off the engagement and seized his opportunities.

I kicked him down from his position as the Mountain-Guarding Senior Brother.

They came to the Cultivation World to play at love and romance.

But I am different. I am going to achieve immortality.

I had a dream while boating on the lake with my friends.

In the dream, a man told me he had taken a liking to me and demanded that I marry him.

I refused.

The next day, a female classmate on the boat vanished without a trace.

When I dreamt again that night, I agreed.

He laughed with joy, but unfortunately for him, he had no idea that I am the sole Earth Master successor.