Chapter 133
Chapter 133
Every bit of my attention was focused, my senses stretched to their limit.
My eyes swept in every direction, my ears straining for the slightest sound.
At first, I assumed that since the ghostly entity had entered the main room, it had probably concealed itself in some corner and was preparing to ambush us.
But even after my talisman fire dispersed the yin energy and darkness, restoring the room’s light, there was still no sign of it.
“W-where is the ghost?” Xia Sanjin asked fearfully, both hands clamped around his wooden club. “I don’t see it. Is it invisible?”
Xia Degui also looked uneasy. I couldn’t begin to guess what it felt like for him to face a vicious entity wearing his daughter’s form.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
I knitted my brows tightly.
Wait!
Realization struck me. I looked at Xia Degui and saw the same terrified understanding dawn on his face.
“My wife!”
“Aunt Xia Dong!”
We shouted almost simultaneously.
Obviously, the vicious entity had always come back for Aunt Xia Dong.
She still lay unconscious in the bedroom. The entity must have passed straight through the main room and gone to her.
“Come on, hurry!”
Clenching my teeth, I sprinted toward the bedroom.
Xia Sanjin and Xia Degui followed close behind with their clubs.
At that moment, I also realized how the entity transformed from a little girl’s corpse had bypassed every obstacle I had arranged and entered the house.
“Damn it! I’m still too young and careless. I should have personally checked everything more than once. Xia Dong must still have some important keepsake that belonged to her daughter, Xia Mi.”
Regret filled me.
When I first arrived that morning, I had told Xia Degui to make sure the house contained nothing associated with Xia Mi, especially anything she had treasured while alive.
Otherwise, the vicious entity would retain a mysterious connection to this house.
Xia Degui assured me everything was gone. I believed him and thought no more about it.
Clearly, he either hadn’t grasped how serious the problem was or hadn’t searched thoroughly enough.
Of course, Xia Degui himself might not have known that Xia Dong kept one of their daughter’s important possessions hidden on her body. He could hardly strip his wife’s clothes off and inspect every inch of her.
According to folk custom, after a family member died, all their important possessions were either burned or buried with them.
The reasoning was similar: sever every tie to this life so that the dead could peacefully enter the Netherworld and reincarnate.
They should not retain too much longing or attachment to the mortal world.
That was all the more essential for something like Xia Mi’s corpse, which had clearly become a vicious entity through some form of evil occult art. Nothing connected to Xia Mi could be left behind.
Otherwise, the entity could exploit its link to the keepsake and acquire strange abilities.
Such as bypassing the cinnabar-coated red cord, the stove soot, and the Clear-Water Ghost-Cutting Rite to enter the house directly.
We raced from the main room, down a short hallway, and reached the first-floor master bedroom within seconds.
I twisted the handle.
It rattled but refused to turn.
I frowned. “It’s locked from inside!”
“I’ll do it!” Xia Degui shouted.
He swung his thick club into the handle with all his strength, then raised one leg and kicked the bedroom door open by force.
A spiraling current of icy wind poured from the open doorway.
Goose bumps rose all over us.
The bedroom was black.
Not merely dark, but absolutely, impenetrably black.
It looked like a void into which no light could enter. At the threshold, the darkness formed an almost tangible barrier.
Powerful waves of rotting corpse stench struck us in the face, nearly making us vomit up our dinner.
This time, both Xia Sanjin and Xia Degui could smell it too.
“That reeks!”
Xia Sanjin instinctively covered his nose and mouth.
My voice turned exceptionally grim.
“The entity really is inside the master bedroom. That smell… I’m afraid it isn’t even trying to conceal itself this time. Maybe it’s deliberately provoking us.”
I still hadn’t figured out what the entity truly was.
Neither ghost nor corpse, yet resembling both.
“It’s extremely vicious. Its power has probably filled the bedroom with so much yin energy that ordinary people’s vision is being distorted and blocked. Don’t go in. Guard the doorway while I face it alone.”
Xia Sanjin and Xia Degui seemed relieved, though they also looked embarrassed.
“Young Mr. Wu, you–”
“Save it. You’re both ordinary men. You might be better than me in a brawl, but I’m the one who has to handle something like this. Whatever happens, guard the bedroom door.”
Without waiting for their answer, I charged headlong into the seemingly boundless darkness.
Xia Degui’s master bedroom wasn’t particularly large. I had seen it during the day.
It was roughly a square measuring eighteen feet on each side.
But engulfed in darkness, it seemed like an endless void.
I considered igniting a talisman and using its fire to disperse the concentrated yin energy.
My intuition warned me that it would be useless.
I would only waste qi and talisman paper. Instead, I channeled qi into my eyes and strained to see through the endless blackness.
In an instant, pitch-black faded to pale gray. I could make out an indistinct figure ahead, surrounded by drifting black mist.
The mist emitted the powerful stench of a rotting body. It was clearly corpse-ghost energy.
I crept closer, step by step.
Gradually, I saw a little girl in a red dress standing beside the bed with its back to me, apparently watching Xia Dong as she slept.
It wasn’t tall. Had Xia Mi still been alive, she would probably have been the kind of adorable little girl everyone loved.
Now, the sight made my blood run cold.
It wore a red dress, but time spent buried in the grave’s soil had dulled the color. Mud stains marked the fabric, with dirt and bits of gravel still clinging to its shoulders.
Black mist poured from its entire body and swirled around it.
“This thing really is something else!”
As the thought passed through my mind, I pinched a Corpse-Suppressing Talisman between the fingers of my right hand. I intended to ambush the entity and immobilize it first.
Then I would immediately follow with Fire Talismans, Evil-Repelling Talismans, Bane-Suppressing Talismans, and every other offensive talisman I had for fighting evil, blasting it to ashes on the spot.
There was no reason to fight fairly or announce myself when facing a vicious entity that had already killed people and wanted to turn others into ghost servants.
Destroying it by any means necessary was my only objective.
“I’m still too far away. If I get closer, I’ll have a better chance of landing the Corpse-Suppressing Talisman.”
I gauged the distance, held my breath, and carefully edged forward.
I had taken only one step when movement came from the bed.
Haa…
After an exhalation, a weak but delighted voice spoke.
“Xia Mi, my little Xia Mi. My sweet girl, have you come back to visit Mommy? How wonderful. How wonderful…”
Xia Dong sat up and wrapped both arms tightly around the entity in the red dress, then began to sob.
My heart immediately tensed.
Xia Mi had been Xia Dong’s daughter, but the real Xia Mi had died long ago. Her soul had probably already entered the Netherworld to await reincarnation.
This thing was nothing more than an empty shell transformed into a vicious walking corpse by some evil and unnatural power. For all I knew, it might thrust a hand through Xia Dong’s heart in the next instant.
I wanted to throw the Corpse-Suppressing Talisman immediately, but feared that startling the entity would make the situation even more dangerous.
Concern for Xia Dong’s safety left me at a loss.
To my astonishment, however, the entity in the red dress slowly lifted its arms and hugged Xia Dong in return. A strange, spine-chilling moan emerged from its throat.
The sound alone covered my body in goose bumps.
Yet Xia Dong instantly became excited.
“Xia Mi! Xia Mi, can you understand Mommy? Have you really come back?”
My heart lurched.
Impossible!
Every sign indicated that Xia Mi’s soul had left her body and entered the Netherworld long ago. Because her death had been accidental, she was unlikely to harbor resentment, so the chances of her soul becoming a vicious ghost were extremely low.
Besides, even if Xia Dong had somehow heard the advice of a powerful rogue occultist and combined a deadly feng shui formation with a Face-Down Burial to “resurrect” her daughter…
Several days had already passed since Xia Mi’s death by then. Her soul couldn’t possibly have remained in her body.
This terrifying entity in the red dress had absolutely no connection to Xia Dong’s daughter on the level of their souls.
So why did it interact with Xia Dong instead of hurting her?
I couldn’t understand it.