Chapter 205
Chapter 205
After listening to Ren Fengjue’s analysis, Zhong Dingyan sneered again.
He continued to mock him coldly. “As expected of the man who solved one cold case after another as soon as he took charge of the Ministry of Justice. Anyone who heard such reasoning would praise you.
“Unfortunately, you have no concrete evidence, and you never will.”
Ren Fengjue turned and glanced at Yan Zhengchu.
Seeing Zhong Dingyan act so brazenly, Daoist Yan immediately cast a Transformation Talisman at him.
Yet even after he finished chanting the incantation and waited some time, the talisman had no effect whatsoever.
Slightly startled, he threw another. The result was the same.
Zhong Dingyan, by contrast, looked entirely fearless. He said to Ren Fengjue, “The dignified Vice Minister of Justice has actually fallen in with this charlatan.
“You aren’t here to find the murderer at all. You plainly came looking for trouble!”
Yan Zhengchu was startled again. He whispered to Ren Fengjue, “This… doesn’t seem to be ordinary possession by a soul.”
Ren Fengjue frowned. “Then what is it?”
Before Yan Zhengchu could answer, Xia Ximo suddenly spoke from beside them.
“His soul has already fused with the body. Naturally, your talisman can do nothing to him.”
Understanding dawned on Yan Zhengchu. “Is it like what happened to the Crown Prince in the Eastern Palace?”
Xia Ximo did not answer, but Wuyou spoke from within the Soul-Ferrying Lantern. “Only a Vengeful Ghost can use Body Snatching to seize a human body. He appears to have used a mysterious power to make a Living Soul parasitize another person’s body. That is why he carries no Yin-Sha Qi and appears no different from an ordinary person.”
Ren Fengjue could not help glancing at Xia Ximo. She was already walking slowly toward Zhong Dingyan.
No one knew what she intended, and all of them froze.
At that moment, a cold wind inexplicably swept through the room. The doors and windows rattled, and the candle on the desk went out.
Darkness immediately swallowed the room.
Zhong Dingyan felt his limbs stiffen. For some inexplicable reason, he could no longer move. A moment later, a cold female voice sounded beside his ear.
“He may be unable to do anything to you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t.”
His vision abruptly went black, and his consciousness sank into chaos. A strange force seemed to be pulling him out of his present body…
* * *
On the night before leaving for the imperial examination in Shangjing, Zhong Yi wrestled with himself for a long time at home.
He had finished packing before ten.
After some thought, he left the house but deliberately kept a lamp burning inside.
He and Zhong Ming had already agreed not to go.
“We are scholars. There is truly no need for us to believe in a Ghost God like ignorant market women. Man proposes, Heaven disposes. We need only do our best.”
Those were Zhong Ming’s exact words.
Zhong Yi agreed in principle, but his state of mind was completely different from Zhong Ming’s.
While his parents were alive, they had placed great hopes in him.
He had studied bitterly for so many years precisely because he wanted to accomplish something in the capital.
He had to earn a distinguished result in this imperial examination in Shangjing.
Thus, although he and Zhong Ming had already agreed not to go, he secretly left home and made his way to the Ghost God Temple on the western side of the city.
Zhong Yi remembered how frightened he had been.
When he arrived, the only person there was a woman holding a child beside the temple, seemingly waiting for the appointed hour.
Abandoned graves covered the hills, and the cold moon shone like frost.
The scene looked exactly like something described in a tale of the supernatural.
After standing there for a while, Zhong Yi felt the chill wind cut through him, and his courage began to fail.
But when he thought of the imperial examination in Shangjing, he gritted his teeth and forced himself to stay.
Around midnight, the woman carried her child into the temple, knelt before the ferocious statue of the Ghost God, and began pouring out her woes.
She said her child had died two days ago.
Her husband was already dead, and this child was the only bloodline he had left behind. She begged the Ghost God to bring the child back to life.
Hearing this, Zhong Yi felt a chill run down his spine.
The woman… was holding a dead infant?
Horrified, he turned and fled. Halfway away, however, he tripped over loose stones and fell to the ground.
Immediately afterward, he heard a baby crying behind him.
Zhong Yi looked back and saw the woman emerging from the temple with a smile on her face and the child in her arms.
Even more strangely, the child… had truly come back to life.
The sight stunned Zhong Yi so deeply that he remained sprawled on the ground, unable to recover for a long while.
Fear still gripped him, yet wild joy surged through him at once.
If even the dead could be revived, would his own wish not be granted with ease?
Ignoring the pain in his body, Zhong Yi limped into the Ghost God Temple.
Imitating the woman, he knelt on the prayer cushion and stated the purpose of his visit.
“As long as… my lord Ghost God can ensure that I place high in the examination, I… am willing to pay any price!”
He knocked his forehead against the floor several times.
All at once, a fierce, cold wind swept through the temple. A dark figure appeared and attached itself to the statue.
“I can grant your request, but from this moment forward, your soul will remain under my control for all eternity.”
Zhong Yi was too frightened even to breathe, yet he agreed without hesitation.
“As long as I pass and have the chance to accomplish something in the capital, I am willing to pay any price!”
As soon as he answered, the wind ceased, and the dark figure vanished with it.
He did not know whether his prayer had succeeded. Unwilling to remain for even another moment, he raced home.
Zhong Yi did not sleep that night. Over and over, he pondered the meaning of the Ghost God’s words. The whole encounter felt like an unbelievable dream.
At daybreak, he and Zhong Ming set out for the imperial examination in Shangjing.
But his nightmare was already quietly approaching.
On the second night of their journey to the capital, their unfamiliarity with the area kept them from finding a post station. They had no choice but to light a fire in the wilderness and make do for the night.
Around midnight, flickering points of fire suddenly appeared around them. At some unknown moment, a band of mountain brigands had arrived.
The brigands sat astride their horses, drinking and cracking their whips. The moment they saw the two pale-faced scholars, they surrounded them.
Zhong Yi froze in terror.
Zhong Ming was the more adaptable of the two. He voluntarily handed over all their money and possessions, adding a string of flattering words.
Seeing that he knew how to cooperate, the brigands agreed to spare them a beating. They stripped off the scholars’ outer robes, tied them to trees beside a cliff, and rode away.
It was late autumn, and the night was bitterly cold. With only their inner robes left, the two men grew stiff with cold as they hung from the trees.
After an hour or two, Zhong Ming, whose constitution was somewhat stronger, managed to free his hands and feet first and climb down.
Zhong Yi, however, was in poor condition.
He had always been frail, and by the time Zhong Ming got him down from the tree, his whole body had gone rigid.
As if Heaven itself were against them, heavy rain began to fall just then.
Zhong Ming could only carry him on his back to a nearby cave to shelter from the rain.
Despite that, the entire ordeal left both men burning with fever. One after another, they lost consciousness inside the cave.