Chapter 45
Chapter 45
Save it?
Xie Qingling looked the Hair-Eating Ghost up and down several times.
With its terrifying face and thick limbs, it had just secretly entered “Chai Yuhu’s” dream looking utterly lawless and ready to cause trouble. Anyone who encountered it would be the one crying for help.
And it had the nerve to ask her to save it?
Or was it begging her for mercy?
Whatever the case, she would capture it first.
Xie Qingling said, “Come take a trip into my Ghost-Binding Banner.”
Still asleep, she dug her nails fiercely into her palm. A burst of pain jolted Xie Qingling awake from the nightmare.
The room still appeared empty. To ordinary human eyes, she remained the only person there.
But Xie Qingling knew the Hair-Eating Ghost was still in the dream and had not left.
She reached into the bedside cabinet and took out the Ksitigarbha Statue.
“With your eyes, see what I see.”
The Killing Field instantly spread out.
In that instant, the Hair-Eating Ghost’s true form appeared.
It had not left. Instead, it crawled toward Xie Qingling once more.
“S-save me… save me…”
Xie Qingling saw pleading in its hideous, terrifying face. Despite its incomparable ugliness, its expression looked extraordinarily pitiful.
Was it truly asking for help?
Xie Qingling frowned. She slid Bloodsworn back into her belt, then took the Ghost-Binding Banner from her canvas bag.
Excessive sympathy was useless at a time like this, but she did not want to kill the innocent indiscriminately either.
She would capture it with the Ghost-Binding Banner first and take it back for Ling Fang to examine.
The Hair-Eating Ghost looked very weak. She would first see whether she could subdue it directly.
Xie Qingling was perceptive and gifted enough, but compared with Ling Fang and the others, she still lacked practical combat experience.
For matters like this, asking them directly was the best choice.
“Mystic Way of heaven and earth, I seal the spirits. Seize the soul and pursue the spirit; lock them within.”
As Xie Qingling finished the incantation, the Hair-Eating Ghost released one mournful howl after another. Its body dissolved into strands of almost tangible black smoke that the Ghost-Binding Banner gradually drew in.
The strands of black smoke thickened like ink, about to paint the Hair-Eating Ghost’s likeness across the banner’s pristine white surface. But in the next instant, its cries abruptly stopped.
The black smoke also stopped entering the banner and went still.
The Ghost-Binding Banner’s seal had been interrupted.
The Hair-Eating Ghost was thrown out. It struck the floor and rolled several times before stopping.
It seemed stunned for a moment before realizing it had not been taken away.
Yet that realization did not excite it. Instead, a note of unwillingness entered its cries.
The outcome left Xie Qingling deeply astonished.
Anything produced by the Technology R&D Department ought to be of consistently reliable quality.
Xie Qingling had used the Ghost-Binding Banner to capture many lesser ghosts over the past few days, and this had never happened before. Why had something gone wrong this time of all times?
She would try again.
“Mystic Way of heaven and earth, I seal the spirits. Seize the soul and pursue the spirit; lock them within.”
“Seal!”
Once again, the Hair-Eating Ghost’s image slowly appeared on the canvas.
But just as before, the Ghost-Binding Banner’s sealing of the Hair-Eating Ghost was interrupted midway.
As the seal neared completion, Xie Qingling saw something drag the Hair-Eating Ghost back out of the banner.
They seemed to be several red threads… so fine that they were impossible to discern without looking carefully.
Xie Qingling took several steps forward, wanting a clearer look at the red threads. The Hair-Eating Ghost, which had behaved harmlessly all this time, suddenly moved.
It crawled across the floor like a mad dog, then sprang up and lunged at Xie Qingling with its jaws open.
Xie Qingling planted one hand on the floor and bent backward to evade the sudden attack. With her other hand, she drew Bloodsworn, spun the blade, and caught its hilt in a reverse grip.
“It seems you refuse to see reason,” Xie Qingling said coldly.
She stopped holding back. Wielding both short blades, she attacked the Hair-Eating Ghost head-on.
The Hair-Eating Ghost raised its ox-hoof-like hands to block. Its coarse, hardened skin struck Bloodsworn with a piercing scrape of metal.
Xie Qingling used all her strength, intending to sever its arm outright. But just as she exerted force, the Hair-Eating Ghost’s arm bent backward behind it at a ninety-degree angle.
An ear-splitting crack came from its arm, as though the bone had broken, yet this brutally direct maneuver neutralized Xie Qingling’s attack.
Xie Qingling froze.
How had it done that?
Did the Hair-Eating Ghost exert force differently from a human?
Yet judging from its expression, the movement that had nearly snapped its arm had clearly left its face twisted in agony.
Xie Qingling retreated, putting some distance between herself and the Hair-Eating Ghost.
From this angle, she could see its entire body more clearly.
This time, Xie Qingling finally saw them.
Red threads!
Cursed red threads were tied around all four of the Hair-Eating Ghost’s limbs.
The four fine threads were so faint they were almost invisible without careful scrutiny. Yet like the strings of a puppet, they bound the Hair-Eating Ghost’s limbs and controlled its every movement.
Those four cursed red threads were also what had caused the Ghost-Binding Banner’s earlier seal to fail.
A very bad feeling took hold of Xie Qingling.
Those red threads could counter the Ghost-Binding Banner’s seal. That meant the power behind them belonged to a ghost beyond anything an artifact of the banner’s caliber could handle.
So there was more than one ghost.
Another ghost was behind the Hair-Eating Ghost.
While Xie Qingling was thinking, the Hair-Eating Ghost swiftly charged at her again.
She could not retreat. There was no way to retreat.
The Hair-Eating Ghost might be weak, but with those four red threads, it had become a troublesome opponent.
Killing it would save her a great deal of effort.
But Xie Qingling did not want to do that.
The Hair-Eating Ghost had never harmed anyone.
She had to find a way to capture it first, then force whoever was pulling the strings to show themselves!
Xie Qingling revised her approach. Just as the Hair-Eating Ghost was about to slam into her, she turned slightly aside, raised her leg, and kicked it hard.
The kick sent the Hair-Eating Ghost crashing into the wall.
As it tried to flip itself upright, Xie Qingling hurled the blade in her left hand. It struck the Hair-Eating Ghost squarely in the arm.
Bloodsworn pierced its hand, temporarily pinning it to the wall.
Xie Qingling sprang up and rushed toward the Hair-Eating Ghost. With a single slash, she severed the threads wound around its limbs.
There. Time to try again.
“Mystic Way of heaven and earth, I seal the spirits. Seize the soul and pursue the spirit; lock them within.”
As she finished the incantation, the Ghost-Binding Banner stirred once more, fluttering without a breeze.
The Hair-Eating Ghost again dissolved into black smoke and was drawn into the pristine white Ghost-Binding Banner.
Even its final cries were filled with relief, as though it had been set free.
Before long, the Hair-Eating Ghost appeared on the banner, with a silver horn atop its head, three eyes, and a vertical mouth.
Good. The Hair-Eating Ghost really was weak. That was all it took to deal with it.
Now only the ghost lurking behind the scenes, which had yet to show itself, remained.
[Spirit Wielder, oh Spirit Wielder. Brave and quick-witted though you are, this time your ill fortune has led you to provoke a monster you should never have provoked.]
[A candlelit wedding night; a name on the golden list of successful examination candidates – what joyous milestones in a person’s life. Yet those unfortunate enough to breathe their last amid life’s greatest celebrations become Celebration Ghosts. In a Celebration Ghost, wedding red collides with funeral white. Baleful energies clash, resentment rises to the heavens, and murderous intent seethes. To see one is to face certain death.]
[The great events of life: marriages and funerals, becoming a bride or taking a wife. In a single day, the Bride in Red experienced the plunge from the greatest joy to the deepest sorrow. Having met an untimely death at her own wedding, the Bride in Red wore red robes and a phoenix crown. A white cloth was laid over her face, and she was placed in a coffin for her eternal rest.]
[The Bride in Red waited and waited, but her groom never came. All day long, she wandered the banks of the River of Forgetfulness amid the wails and howls of ghosts. My husband, oh my husband. You have yet to lift my bridal veil. How could your wife bear to leave you?]
[At last, after who knew how many years in death, the Bride in Red finally found a gentleman who cherished a beauty.]
[A yellow-and-white chrysanthemum drifted slowly down the River of Forgetfulness until it reached the Bride in Red.]
[The Bride in Red picked up the flower laden with tender affection and took a fancy to her beloved. Yet she was steeped in yin energy, her entire body cursed. Her resentment was too heavy for her to walk freely in the mortal realm. My husband, do not be impatient. Wait just a little longer. Soon she would cross these turbid waters of the underworld and come to your side.]
[An unlucky Hair-Eating Ghost happened to pass by and became the Bride in Red’s messenger. It was too ugly to serve as a maid accompanying her into marriage, but it would do well enough for running errands and carrying messages. After all, these frail little ghosts, having never taken a human life, had no fear of sunlight in the mortal realm and could roam freely. What excellent messengers they made.]
[Worn out from running errands as a matchmaking messenger, the Hair-Eating Ghost sent the Spirit Wielder a plea for help. By taking it into your Ghost-Binding Banner, you have indeed saved its life. But, Spirit Wielder, you have interrupted the happy union the Bride in Red has longed for all these years. You have stolen her beloved and deceived her heart. It seems unlikely she will spare you.]
[And now that you have severed the cursed red threads she used to control the Hair-Eating Ghost, the Bride in Red has noticed you. Those black eyes, brimming with curses, have already turned their gaze upon you.]
[The sun in the mortal realm hinders the Bride in Red’s eager rush toward her beloved. But night in the mortal realm is a paradise for ghosts and monsters, and the deep darkness welcomes her arrival. Listen closely. The Bride in Red has already stepped through the waters along the River of Forgetfulness and is racing toward you.]
The moment the voice in her mind fell silent, Xie Qingling felt the cramped studio apartment suddenly fill with sinister yin energy and layer upon layer of shadow.
The cold air raised goose bumps all over her body, as though the air-conditioning had been set to the teens Celsius. The sensation of something indescribable staring intently at her made her skin crawl.
Xie Qingling pulled her earpiece from the canvas bag and hooked it over her ear.
She tapped it several times, trying to contact the department and report what was happening here.
No connection.
The communications equipment had stopped working.
Xie Qingling’s expression was cold. Her hands tightened involuntarily around Bloodsworn as she fixed her eyes on her surroundings.
Within the boundless, heavy darkness of the night, an unsettling reek of blood seemed to churn and surge.
Xie Qingling’s sharp eyes caught a red fluid suddenly appearing in the cracks of the once-white walls.
The red liquid slowly seeped through the walls. The viscous red fluid crept along as though alive, seemingly intent on coating every wall in the room. A rust-like odor spread into every corner.
It was slowly surging toward Xie Qingling.