Chapter 72

Chapter 72

Xie Qingling bit into a crisp, piping-hot stalk of bok choy that had just been picked from the ground. “Li Jiao didn’t volunteer. Someone who fought on the brink of death, won her life back, and found hope again would never treat that life so cheaply.”

“This is where they disappeared.” Xie Qingling did not want to say they had died. “We need to find the other three. If they’re alive, I want to see them. If they’re dead, I want to see their bodies.”

“For the next day and night, most of the villagers will probably be busy and won’t pay much attention to us. Once the banquet begins and everyone is drinking wedding wine at the ancestral hall, we’ll turn this village upside down. I refuse to believe we won’t find a clue.”

Dai Xingyu said, “Someone was watching you outside, but we knocked him out on our way in.”

That was within Xie Qingling’s expectations.

After they knocked out one watcher, a second would come.

“Then let’s communicate through our earpieces as much as possible from now on,” Xie Qingling said. “I’ve already bought us time. All we need to do next is wait until we can act.”

Dai Xingyu muttered, “Even if you wanted to stall for time, you didn’t have to take such a… huge risk. Making yourself the bride? What if you really get dragged into this? It’s too dangerous.”

“Of course stalling for time isn’t my only goal.”

“The River God has to appear at her own wedding, doesn’t she? Instead of searching for a god, I’ll make the god come to me.” Now full, Xie Qingling casually wiped her mouth with the wedding dress. “Even if the Director and the others break their legs, a day and a night gives them enough time to crawl here. Once they arrive, we’ll surround the River God together and kill her. Simple. It accomplishes several things at once, and I truly can’t think of a better plan.”

Dai Xingyu was rendered speechless.

The plan was flawless, genuinely convenient, and extremely efficient.

It simply felt as though they were dancing on sword blades every moment, one careless step away from being pierced bloody.

When the Director led a mission, the Department acted steadily and cautiously. Suddenly switching to Xie Qingling’s wild methods was difficult to adjust to.

Shen Huaizhou said, “It’ll work. The plan is perfect.”

Dai Xingyu stared at him in disbelief.

That was all it took?

Oh, right. Shen Huaizhou was reckless too. He had quieted down after the Director disciplined him, but now something inside him seemed ready to stir again.

Caught between the two of them, Dai Xingyu felt like a husky that had wandered into a wolf pack – out of place, weak, helpless, and pitiful.

He said, “The Director and the others can get here tomorrow. You two… please don’t do anything too reckless.”

“Why would we?” Xie Qingling said. “I’m only asking you to search the village chief’s house. That’s called gathering intelligence on the enemy. How could it be reckless?”

Dai Xingyu said nothing.

Fine.

Apparently, everyone defined recklessness differently.

“In this village, the people I find most suspicious are the ones in charge. Aside from the village chief, who leads them, Crazy Wang is also highly suspect,” Xie Qingling said.

“You two search the village chief’s house. I’ll search Crazy Wang’s. Avoid alerting anyone if possible, and don’t create any unnecessary complications.”

[Arrogant Spirit Wielder, though you employ dangerous gambits, you always achieve victory through surprise. Yet the River God is no weak god newly awakened. She has received this village’s worship for thirty years and feasted on incense offerings for three decades, firmly establishing herself within the river.]

Oh.

Xie Qingling remained unmoved.

Feasted on incense offerings for thirty years?

Had she never heard the saying? Thirty years on the east bank, thirty years on the west – fortunes always changed.

Thirty years meant jack shit.

Besides, Xie Qingling was not fighting alone.

If she had been facing the River God one-on-one, not even Xie Qingling would have been this bold.

After the meal, all three of them were full.

Then they split up.

As Xie Qingling had instructed, Shen Huaizhou and Dai Xingyu headed for the village chief’s house, while she went to Crazy Wang’s.

Xie Qingling first visited the woodshed and dug her silver case out of the firewood pile. Carrying it, she set off for Crazy Wang’s home.

As the bride, Xie Qingling was painfully conspicuous in brilliant red. At first, she considered concealing herself, but on second thought, that would be as pointless as taking off her pants just to fart.

The villagers did not believe she had truly volunteered, so they were bound to watch her closely and prevent her escape.

No matter what she did, they would assume she was trying to flee.

Rather than waste time searching on her own, she might as well…

Xie Qingling strode out in plain sight, grabbed a passing villager, and asked, “Where does Crazy Wang live? I need to discuss something with him.”

“Dis… discuss?”

“Yes. I need to discuss tomorrow’s wedding. He must have plenty of experience, right? This is my first marriage, so I’m a complete novice. I’m unfamiliar with everything and don’t have any experience. It would be terribly unlucky if something went wrong and I couldn’t marry without a hitch.”

How terrifying. Was there something wrong with her head?

Everyone else avoided the matter, yet she insisted on throwing herself into it.

In this village, not even dogs ventured near Crazy Wang’s home or the surrounding area. Yet here she was, volunteering to seek him out.

Then again, she had also volunteered to become the River God’s bride. Compared with that, nothing else seemed particularly outrageous.

“Keep walking, climb that little slope, then go around the bend. You’ll see an old, ruined house standing all by itself. That’s Crazy Wang’s home.” The villager gave Xie Qingling directions without worrying that she might escape.

She was going to Crazy Wang’s house. Where could she possibly run?

With those slender arms and legs, even the hunched Crazy Wang could pin her down with ease. There was nothing to worry about.
After learning the correct route, Xie Qingling did not hurry onward.

To shake off her annoying tail and avoid the prying eyes, she pushed open the door of an empty house and stepped inside. She closed the door behind her, activated Concealed Presence to hide herself completely, then vaulted over the wall. Racing down the path, she soon reached Crazy Wang’s front gate.

His door stood half-open. Before she even stepped inside, she smelled something unpleasant.

An overpowering odor of pickled vegetables mingled with a strange stench, filling the entire courtyard with a foul smell.

As long as she did not attack, Concealed Presence could keep her invisible for at most five minutes.

The journey had already taken three minutes, which meant she had no more than two minutes to investigate.

The area around Crazy Wang’s house was indeed so quiet that only insects could be heard. No one was nearby, which suited Xie Qingling perfectly.

The first thing she saw upon entering was an extremely cluttered courtyard. Farm tools leaned against its walls: shoulder poles, hoes, sickles, and more.

Several large earthenware crocks beneath the wall held pickled mustard greens.

Strips of cured meat hung beneath the eaves, while several pieces of clothing lay haphazardly across a laundry pole in the courtyard.

Everything looked perfectly normal for a farmer’s home.

Xie Qingling entered the house and discovered that Crazy Wang had set up an incense altar inside. Sticks of incense burned before it, though she could not tell what he worshiped.

The incense on the altar was nearly spent, shedding its final ash. Through the curling smoke, Xie Qingling saw a clay statue formed from several little ghosts stacked together into a bizarre, horrifying, hunched figure.

She had not deployed the Killing Field and could not tell whether these were the same three ghosts riding on Crazy Wang’s back.

“Who’s there?!”

Crazy Wang’s voice suddenly came from behind her without warning.

Xie Qingling frowned and turned. Crazy Wang had already entered the main room with his back hunched, his piercing eyes sweeping sharply through every corner.

But his gaze never focused on Xie Qingling. Good. He could not see her.

She circled behind Crazy Wang. In the final instant before Concealed Presence ended, she snatched the clothes from the laundry pole, flung them over his head, then vaulted over the wall and escaped.

Crazy Wang was frighteningly perceptive. He had actually sensed someone’s presence.

Xie Qingling felt that he would be difficult to deal with.

Could Ma Qiaoqiao’s father have been right? Had Crazy Wang truly “opened his eyes” and gained the ability to see what others could not?

As Xie Qingling considered this, her back bent involuntarily.

An unbearable weight pressed down upon her, as though an entire mountain had descended onto her shoulders.

Xie Qingling’s expression turned cold.

[It treads your spine like a staircase and drinks your yang energy as incense offerings. It clings to your back – do not turn your head. It whispers beside your ear – do not answer. The Back-Rider Ghost that tracked you here is crouched upon your back, calling to your soul beside your ear in hopes of luring it away and making it an offering.]

[But the Back-Rider Ghost never expected your spine to be so unyielding or you to ignore its calls completely. It can only cling to your body and weigh upon you like a mountain, forcing your back to bend.]

A Back-Rider Ghost?

Was it one of the ghosts that had ridden on Crazy Wang’s back?

Had her intrusion into his home been discovered?

Still…

Being discovered did not matter, so long as she kept it from returning to report.

Xie Qingling drew Bloodsworn, held the blade in a reverse grip, and slashed down from above her head.

She heard no scream from the Back-Rider Ghost, but Bloodsworn plunged into something nearly solid, as though the blade had struck a mass of fluid.

The seal-script character *zun* on Bloodsworn flashed red. After it “drank blood,” the cursed red thread continued spreading until it filled the blade.

The *zun* character was full.

The vessel was full.

At last, she had absorbed enough energy from ghosts and monsters.

Xie Qingling’s mood lifted so much that she even smiled. Much of her displeasure at being secretly watched faded away.

How nice of it to deliver itself to her door.

Then the weight on her body eased, and her bowed spine gradually straightened.

It had only been a little ghost.

Xie Qingling sheathed her blade and continued forward.

The entire incident had barely delayed her.

Although the search had failed to uncover any clues about the three missing people, it had at least established one thing: Crazy Wang was a troublesome opponent.

He was very likely worshiping some evil entity he could command.

Now that she knew this, she could use unconventional measures to restrain him when the time came.

The short, steep slope ahead and a bend in the path beyond it should have led back to the village.

Yet Xie Qingling walked for more than ten minutes without emerging from that narrow road.

She was lost…

More precisely, she had probably entered a “ghost maze.”

Xie Qingling kept circling in place, utterly unable to leave the path.

No matter how many times the route repeated, and no matter how she tried turning onto paths beside it, she always returned here in the end.

Was this Crazy Wang’s doing too?

Xie Qingling glanced at the familiar yet eerie surroundings and frowned.

She was about to activate her earpiece and ask Shen Huaizhou, the illusionist, for help when the voice in her mind sounded.

[The Eight Zha Gods, forgotten for many years, have been spoken of once more and received a faint measure of faith and incense offerings. Youbiaozhui, fourth of the Eight Zha Gods, opens eyes that have slumbered for many years within the mortal realm.]

[As the god of fields and dwellings, roads and paths, they open a road before you, seemingly inviting you to travel somewhere.]