Chapter 57
Chapter 57
Yan Yanchi raised a hand. Answering his summons, the Demon-Subduing Sword embedded in the wall trembled several times and flew back into his grasp.
He could sense that Shen Qingyu was a formidable opponent, but he neither flinched nor retreated. His frosty gaze settled upon the girl behind the young man. “Are you not the ghost committing evil inside Guang’en Temple?”
Qiao Ying poked her head out from behind Shen Qingyu. “I’m human. We only came inside to escape the rain.”
For several miles around, rumors had long circulated that a female ghost dwelled in Guang’en Temple. She used her beauty to lure passing travelers, then devoured their souls and vital essence.
The ghost was said to possess unforgettable beauty that bewitched the hearts of all who saw her.
Of those present, only Qiao Ying matched that description. She also clung to a gentle, warm young man, rather like the legendary ghost who seduced scholars.
Then again, Shen Qingyu had stopped Yan Yanchi’s sword without apparent effort. Even if every female ghost in the world joined forces, they might not be capable of bewitching him.
Yan Yanchi set aside his suspicions of Qiao Ying for the moment, but became wary of Shen Qingyu instead.
Just then, the corpses on the floor began to change.
Their bodies withered and collapsed inward, eventually dissolving into puddles of black mud.
“These mud puppets haven’t disappeared,” Yan Yanchi said. “The true culprit is still here.”
Qiao Ying was often stunned by scenes that defied all common sense.
Only moments ago, these people had sat around the fire, talking and laughing. Then a Daoist surnamed Yan had abruptly appeared and slaughtered them without explanation.
Yet the dead “people” were not people at all. They were nothing but figures molded from mud.
Yan Yanchi looked at Qiao Ying again, a crease forming between his brows. Then his gaze shifted to the white-haired young man in blue. “Her brow is dark, and her vital essence is weak. She has spent too long in this Ghost Realm. With your extraordinary strength, you could not have failed to notice. You must know that the longer she stays, the more her Yang Qi will suffer.”
Qiao Ying stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean? Isn’t this my first time in the temple? I haven’t even been sitting here for an hour. How is that a long time?”
Yan Yanchi explained, “Ghostly energy envelops this mountain. Anyone who enters loses their way and their sense of time. You think this is the first time you have entered the Ghost Temple, but in truth, you may have wandered here for a long while. However…”
He inspected Qiao Ying from head to toe, his confusion deepening. “There is indeed no ghostly or demonic energy upon you. You should be an ordinary person. I watched from below the mountain for three days and saw no one enter or leave. That means you arrived at least three days ago. For an ordinary person to wander in a Ghost Temple for days without losing Yang Qi or having any of her three souls and seven spirits stolen is very strange.”
Qiao Ying finally understood why she had felt so exhausted and sleepy. She had entered a place where the living did not belong.
She raised her face and stared fixedly at Shen Qingyu’s clean, jade-like profile.
He lowered his head and returned an unconcerned smile.
Through gritted teeth, Qiao Ying asked, “This isn’t my first time walking in here?”
Shen Qingyu looked innocent. “Perhaps not.”
“And today isn’t the first time I’ve spoken with these mud puppets?”
His lips curved. “Perhaps not.”
Qiao Ying caught his hand. “Then why, as this Daoist Master says, did I enter the Ghost Temple without losing my Yang Qi or my three souls and seven spirits? What did you do?”
Shen Qingyu extended a hand and brushed the pad of his index finger over her lips with lingering tenderness.
He smiled. “Because every night, you cling to me and demand that I cure you.”
Qiao Ying froze. When his meaning dawned on her, she covered her mouth. Her face flushed scarlet once more, and she glared at him over her fingers. “Don’t twist the truth just because I can’t remember what happened! I would never pester you to cure me. You must have started it!”
Yan Yanchi’s eyes shifted. “You possess a method for preventing the loss of Yang Qi? Would you be willing to share it? If it could be widely taught, Evil Ghosts would no longer be able to harm people so easily.”
Shen Qingyu deliberately asked Qiao Ying, “Yes, should we tell this Daoist Master?”
Her face burned hotter. “There is no method. I’m merely a common mortal, so dense with mundane impurities that ghosts and monsters have no taste for me!”
Shen Qingyu moved closer. She could even feel his body tremble with laughter. Compared with the days when he sat on rooftops basking in moonlight, he was far more alive now.
“Yingying, you’re so silly.”
Qiao Ying swallowed her anger and decided to ignore him for the time being.
Yan Yanchi knew they were hiding something, but further questions would yield nothing. He said, “A greater evil is still concealed within this temple. You are an ordinary woman. You should leave as soon as possible.”
With that, he passed Shen Qingyu and Qiao Ying and headed deeper into the temple.
The black mud on the ground suddenly stirred and spread toward him. Before it could wrap around his ankles, Yan Yanchi drew his sword. A sweep of sword energy forced much of the mud back.
At the same moment, the sky grew darker.
But when they looked up, they realized it was not the sky. Black mud had surged in from every direction and swallowed the entire temple. The rain and thunder alike were sealed beyond its black barrier.
More mud seeped into the main hall. Human shapes composed of the substance seemed to rise directly from the floor, their forms becoming steadily clearer.
They were all large men. Some lacked heads, others arms or legs, while still others had been split in half. They carried broadswords whose blades dripped viscous black slime. With every heavy step, droplets struck the ground and pitted the muddy floor with shallow craters.
“What are those?” Qiao Ying asked.
Shen Qingyu merely drew a circle on the ground with his Blind Staff. Bitter cold radiated from its edge. The instant the black mud touched that frozen boundary, it retreated.
In a world being consumed by darkness, he alone remained entirely at ease.
“Souls that could not be delivered to the next world. They can only preserve the form they wore at death and wait for some unlucky victim to arrive, so they can force that person to take their place.”
Qiao Ying looked at the Daoist Master wreathed in sword energy, then back at Shen Qingyu’s radiant smile. She had the distinct impression that she would make a very convenient replacement.
The dead souls formed from black mud were clearly no decent men. She remembered the story she had heard earlier.
Many years ago, a wandering master had become a God of Slaughter and massacred every bandit on this mountain.
If these souls belonged to those bandits, then what had become of the master in the legend?
Just as that absurd suspicion surfaced in Qiao Ying’s mind, she faintly heard a woman crying.
The sobs came in broken intervals. The woman seemed to be trying desperately to suppress them, but she could not.