Chapter 39

Chapter 39

“All right. I’m full,” Xie Qingling said.

“If you’re finished, hurry and leave. You don’t look familiar. You’re not from around here, are you? It’s a long way from here to the city center.”

“Listen to this old woman’s advice. Don’t wander around outside after dark. It isn’t safe!” the old woman instructed as she cleared the tables and chairs.

“There are plenty of bad people these days. Go home early, all right?”

Xie Qingling picked up her silver case and nodded. “I understand, Granny.”

But after obediently agreeing and leaving the noodle shop, Xie Qingling did not leave the desolate street. Instead, she continued wandering along it.

She was not afraid of danger. If anything, she feared the place would be “too safe.” She had come here today specifically to find danger.

Walking the entire street from one end to the other took about fifteen minutes.

Xie Qingling spent twenty minutes covering nearly all of it.

She lowered her head and checked the time. Seven twenty in the evening.

Daylight had faded. A crescent moon was beginning to rise, and the sky had gone completely dark.

Xie Qingling activated her earpiece and connected to Ling Fang.

“Director, I haven’t found anything yet.”

Ling Fang had expected as much. If a single visit could solve the mystery here, the reports would not have continued for over a month.

“Stay until nine. If you still haven’t discovered anything by then, come back for now. I’ll send Dai Xingyu tomorrow. Minor supernatural incidents may occur frequently on that street, but they don’t happen every day.”

The moment he finished speaking, however, Ling Fang heard a piercing scream –

“Help! There’s a ghost!”

The sound came through Xie Qingling’s earpiece.

Ling Fang instantly stood. “Go see what’s happening!” he ordered sharply.

In fact, Xie Qingling had already followed the sound before Ling Fang could issue the order, her body moving on instinct.

At an intersection connected to a narrow, dark alley, a pale-faced middle-aged man came stumbling toward her.

He trembled all over as he fled in blind panic.

Xie Qingling caught him by the shoulder. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

But…

Xie Qingling’s friendly inquiry did not calm him. Instead, it set off his terror like a lit firecracker. His pupils dilated as he stared at her in horror. “A ghost… a female ghost… a female ghost!”

His hoarse, terrified voice quickly faded in his throat.

He had fainted.

Xie Qingling: “…”

Had he mistaken her for a female ghost?

Was she truly that frightening?

After glancing around, Xie Qingling lifted the middle-aged man and propped him against a wall. She settled him securely, making sure that no passing bicycle or anything else would run over him.

Then she said to Ling Fang, “Director, I need medical support here. Someone fainted.”

“Understood. I’ll send Ye Anran immediately.” Ling Fang had not expected Xie Qingling to truly uncover a clue. He asked, “Do you need any other support? What’s the situation at the scene? Has anyone been seriously harmed?”

Xie Qingling shook her head and glanced at the man. “Not for now. The situation is still unclear, but the person who fainted was probably scared unconscious by me. No one has been harmed yet.”

Ling Fang: “…”

Xie Qingling drew Bloodsworn and held it ready. Staring into the dark alley, which seemed deep and utterly bottomless, she walked inside.

Then she would see exactly what was hiding here.

Xie Qingling raised her vigilance to its utmost limit, scanning her surroundings warily as she walked.

After walking for a while, Xie Qingling abruptly stopped. She stared at the wall blocking the way ahead, her expression grave.

She had explored this route just moments ago.

Unless she remembered incorrectly, the way should have been completely unobstructed.

So where had this wall suddenly come from?

Xie Qingling reached out and touched its surface. Ripples like water instantly spread outward as her hand sank into the wall and vanished.

It felt a little cold.

But she sensed no malice.

Nor did the “presence” behind the wall attack her.

Frowning, Xie Qingling withdrew her hand. Just as she was about to report the situation to Ling Fang, she caught something from the corner of her eye. At some unknown moment, two tall figures had appeared inside this alley, which was less than a meter and a half wide.

One wore a red robe, the other a blue robe.

Xie Qingling froze. When she tried to look more closely, the figures flickered and vanished without a trace.

This was…

Were they human?

[The Six Divisions of the City God. Golden Shackle and Silver Lock. The two generals charged with detaining evil ghosts and arresting monsters opened their long-slumbering eyes in the mortal realm.]

[What a chaotic mortal realm. What meager incense offerings. Carrying their fetters, Golden Shackle and Silver Lock trudged heavily through the mortal realm. Dutifully, they detained new ghosts sitting on fresh burial mounds and weeping, along with lost, wandering spirits, intending to send them to the Underworld.]

[But in this transformed mortal realm, the old City God Temple street could no longer be found. The City God Temple that once stood here no longer received incense offerings. The Underworld’s transit station in the human world had ceased to function, leaving the new ghosts and old souls brought here in custody to cause chaos.]

[Overwhelmed Golden Shackle and Silver Lock barred your path and asked where they should go to find the City God Temple. Hurrying passerby, offer the two lost generals a little guidance. They can no longer find their way.]

Realization dawned on Xie Qingling.

She understood.
She probably had not encountered ghosts.

Instead…

She had encountered deities.

Could the Killing Field’s net capture a deity?

This was the first time Xie Qingling had faced such a situation. Rather than act rashly, she contacted Ling Fang first.

“Director, I know what’s happening,” Xie Qingling said.

“There should be many ghosts on this street right now, but they aren’t malicious ghosts that hurt people. More precisely, they should be the souls of people who died. Because… because two deities are keeping them under control, nothing serious has happened for the time being. The problem is that these two deities are lost. They want to go to the City God Temple. It seems that reaching it would ease some of the pressure on them. That’s roughly the situation.”

Xie Qingling used the simplest language possible to give him a general description.

Ling Fang was stunned after hearing it.

…How did she manage to encounter things like this?

Meeting deities was hardly a common occurrence.

And she had met two deities who were lost.

Ling Fang asked, “Do you know which deities they are?”

“They seem to be public officials of the Underworld – Golden Shackle and Silver Lock. They’re responsible for detaining evil ghosts.” Xie Qingling asked, “Director, what should I do now?”

Golden Shackle and Silver Lock…

Ling Fang said, “Wait a moment.”

While keeping the call connected, Ling Fang entered Golden Shackle and Silver Lock into his computer and ran a search.

If they were “public officials,” they should be righteous gods listed in the official records. Finding information on them ought to be fairly simple.

The internal database soon displayed an entry on Golden Shackle and Silver Lock.

After scanning it briefly, Ling Fang understood the essentials.

“Judging by their duties, those two should be on the same side as us,” he said.

“We maintain order in the human world, while Golden Shackle and Silver Lock maintain order in the Underworld. Black and White Impermanence seize souls, while Golden Shackle and Silver Lock detain evil ghosts. In fact, those two are senior to Black and White Impermanence and rarely take action themselves.”

“They only mobilize when an evil ghost appears in the human world or some monster begins causing trouble.”

For those two to appear here… was there some evil ghost nearby? Not necessarily. It was also possible that they were simply short-handed.

Speaking almost to himself, Ling Fang said, “If there were an evil ghost, the disturbances probably wouldn’t be this minor.”

He was more inclined to believe that the order of the other world had also fallen into chaos and was no longer as organized as it had once been.

“What did you say they’re looking for?” Ling Fang asked.

“The City God Temple.”

“Find a way to communicate with them. If you can point them in the right direction, that would be ideal.”

Xie Qingling froze. “Point them in the right direction? There isn’t a City God Temple here at all.”

Now Xie Qingling understood.

There might have been one in the past, but there truly was none now.

Even the old woman who had lived for sixty years had never seen it. In other words, the City God Temple had already disappeared at least sixty years ago.

Under those circumstances, how was Xie Qingling supposed to point the way?

Ling Fang said, “Ask your divine ability. The people buried underground may know everything.”

Xie Qingling understood. “I know what to do.”

After ending the call, Xie Qingling gestured toward the empty air, uncertain whether the other party could understand her.

“I’m going to try to find the way for you now. Don’t worry. It will only take a moment.” After a pause, Xie Qingling added, “Keep those ghosts under control. Don’t let them play tricks on people.”

The reports that had continued for more than a month were probably the work of these detained souls.

Xie Qingling crouched on the ground, pressed one hand to the earth, and closed her eyes.

“Soul Recall!”

In that instant, Xie Qingling felt as though countless presences had gathered in the formerly empty space around her. The cries of men and women, old and young, intertwined, their sobs and whimpers almost tangible.

They were dead souls. Instinctively sensing Soul Recall, they scrambled over one another to answer.

They could feel that the power pouring from Xie Qingling carried the faintest trace of a return to life.

They wanted to return to life, wanted their souls recalled, wanted… to live.

In an instant, countless ghosts surged toward Xie Qingling.

A chill swept down her spine, nearly turning her body rigid. Ghost after ghost piled onto her, their insubstantial weight forcing her waist to bend slightly.

Although these ghosts lacked the means to harm anyone, being buried beneath them like a small mountain was exhausting enough.

Xie Qingling frowned and hesitated, wondering whether she should deploy the Killing Field.

But before she could act, the weight on her body began to ease.

Xie Qingling did not know what had happened. If she had been inside the Killing Field, she would have heard an angry growl behind her and seen two figures in red and blue flinging the ghosts away.

“Roar – ”

The ghosts clinging to Xie Qingling were driven off one by one. After that, not a single abnormal presence dared approach her.

Two exceptionally tall figures in red and blue now stood guard behind Xie Qingling, glaring majestically at the dead souls that longed to return to life.

At last, Soul Recall found the presences it sought.

One, two, three, four…

Six skeletons in total broke through the earth.

They formed a line in front of Xie Qingling.

Some of the skeletons were male, some female; some old, some young.

Judging by the color of their bones, they had been dead for at least a century.

“All right.” Xie Qingling rose to her feet and asked them, “Tell me, where is the City God Temple?”