Chapter 105

Chapter 105

The clanking of chains seemed to come from some distant abyss, yet it was so clear that no one could ignore it.

The streetlamp across the road was lit. Beneath its dim glow, two figures slowly came into view, one black and one white.

They wore tall, narrow hats. One had a smiling face yet held a mourning staff; the other had a black face and gripped an iron chain.

At first, they were still across the street. In the blink of an eye, they had teleported onto the steps.

Another blink, and they were already outside the threshold.

As they moved, the Hexagonal Palace Lantern in my hand flickered on and off, and the golden light of Merit visibly dwindled.

Liu Junyan retreated to the side. The instant Old Lady Bai saw those two figures, she completely lost her mind.

She screamed shrilly and charged wildly around the Southern Study. “I won’t go with you! I won’t accept judgment! I practiced medicine and pursued the Dao for hundreds of years. I should have attained immortality long ago! It’s Heaven that’s blind! I can’t die! Jingmo, save me! Save your Grandmother!”

But the street outside was empty. Old Lady Bai’s cries echoed over and over, and no one answered.

The heavy iron chain rattled and lashed viciously across Old Lady Bai’s back.

Her long robe tore apart with the impact. The Souls on Old Lady Bai’s back were instantly freed, flying out with ghostly wails and howls until they densely filled the Southern Study.

Soon, they all knelt before the two figures, sobbing piteously. Their mouths opened and closed as if accusing someone of something.

By then, the golden light of Merit inside the Hexagonal Palace Lantern had almost hit bottom.

Fu Wan’s firefly glow and the tiny black speck of Cat Bone curled up motionless in a corner, looking rather pitiful.

Old Lady Bai’s corpse crashed heavily to the floor, twitching nonstop.

Those deathly white, dead-fish eyes stared fixedly at me. Her right hand slowly lifted and reached toward me.

As if even in death, she wanted to drag me down to hell with her.

The smiling figure in white stepped forward and lightly tapped the mourning staff in his hand against Old Lady Bai’s face. Old Lady Bai’s hand dropped sharply. Immediately afterward, a pitch-black figure was drawn out from her corpse, and in the next instant, the black-faced figure in black had looped the iron chain around its neck.

The one in white and the black-faced one cupped their hands and bowed to me at the same time.

The white-clad figure’s ethereal voice rang out. “Today, summoned by the Netherworld Messenger, we have apprehended one whose sins are beyond measure and rescued more than a hundred wronged Souls. The Netherworld Messenger’s Merit is boundless. Once the two of us return and report to King Yan, rewards shall be conferred according to your deeds.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the wronged Souls kneeling on the ground turned toward me in unison. No-strictly speaking, they turned toward the Hexagonal Palace Lantern in my hand and bowed.

In that very instant, the golden light of Merit inside the Hexagonal Palace Lantern surged rapidly upward again.

Only, in the end, it still failed to rise back to its original level. One-third was missing.

I instinctively glanced toward the door. Liu Junyan, who had been standing just outside, was now standing inside. His expression was wrong.

A third of the Merit inside the Hexagonal Palace Lantern was gone. It was no longer enough to support him in walking out of the Pawnshop.

This was the price he had paid to lure the enemy into our trap.

He knew perfectly well how important the Merit inside the Hexagonal Palace Lantern was to him. But in order to apprehend Old Lady Bai, he had resolutely used himself and that Merit as bait, helping me summon Black and White Impermanence.

He… had sacrificed too much for the Pawnshop. For me.

The white-clad and black-faced figures waved their hands, and the wronged Souls vanished in an instant.

They must all have been taken into the Underworld. Next would come judgment, and the redress of their grievances.

The two figures, one white and one black, began flickering outward again in jerky stops and starts. Old Lady Bai’s Souls, dragged by the iron chain, also scraped across the ground in the same halting, stuttering motion.

As they moved farther and farther away, their figures grew fainter and fainter, until at last they disappeared completely on the street across from us.

Li Qingying and I let out long breaths and collapsed onto the stools. My mind was a mess, and I couldn’t quite come back to myself.
Liu Junyan, however, kept staring out the door, as if he were still waiting for something.

Before long, a burst of drumming suddenly sounded from the street outside.

The drumbeat was hollow, struck by hand, and accompanied by a chorus of Copper Bell chimes.

After the drumming, a shrill cat’s yowl abruptly rang out.

Immediately after, a Black Cat appeared on the street. It was pitch-black from head to toe, white scriptures curled over its two upright ears, and a faint flame flickered at the tip of its tail.

Its spine arched high, all the black fur on its body bristling. But its back was bare, exposing eight segments of stark white Cat Bone.

Those eight segments of Cat Bone were exactly the same as the piece Jin Wuya had pawned here.

So it was this!

It was the Du’e Maotan!

Liu Junyan had said that Du’e Maotan had nine pieces of Cat Bone containing the Lotus Sutra. Once all nine were gathered, the Black Cat would appear.

But now, the Black Cat outside the door had only eight pieces of Cat Bone containing the scripture, and yet it had already appeared.

And it was in an extremely ferocious state.

In the darkness, its eerie green cat eyes flickered with a strange light, reminding me of the Evil Monk’s eyes that day.

So this Black Cat had most likely been under the Evil Monk’s control all along.

Just then, the dense roll of drumming drew closer and closer.

Soon, the Evil Monk’s tall, burly figure came into view.

He was still barefoot and dressed in monk’s robes, but the string of Prayer Beads hanging around his neck had been replaced with the kind Li Qingying had described: each bead the size of an egg, all carved into skulls.

In his hand, he held a small drum. The drumhead was flesh-colored and well maintained with oil.

If your eyesight was good enough, you could even see the fine pores on that sheet of skin.

It was the Human Skin Drum!

His broad palm beat rhythmically against the Human Skin Drum as he muttered under his breath.

As he chanted, the Black Cat beside him grew more and more frenzied, its back arching to an impossible degree.

It was like a bow drawn to its limit, ready at any moment to shoot straight into the Southern Study.

Liu Junyan was already blocking the doorway.

Li Qingying had also stepped outside the counter with her whip in hand, on guard every second.

Meanwhile, the Hexagonal Palace Lantern in my hand was trembling nonstop.

The black speck of the Cat Bone seemed to have sensed something. It rolled and shuddered continuously within the golden light of Merit.

It wasn’t trying to rush out. Instead… was it afraid?

At the same time the shrill cat’s yowl rang out, I clearly felt a powerful current of air from outside pour into the Southern Study like a tornado.

Even the Antique Shelf standing against the wall behind me trembled with it.

In the next instant, Liu Junyan struck out with his palm.

He drew a talisman in his palm, faced it toward the sky outside, and began chanting under his breath.

With Liu Junyan’s cry of “Water, come,” it seemed as if a true wave crashed down outside the door.

The moment the wave came down, Liu Junyan spat out a mouthful of blood. He leaned sideways against the wall, his face frighteningly pale.

And the Black Cat that had been so full of murderous hostility moments ago was now sprawled on the ground.

Beneath it was, shockingly, a pit!

There was water in the pit. Half the Black Cat’s body had sunk into it. It struggled and roared with all its might, but that pool of water seemed to hold a Seal, sealing it firmly inside the pit.

This was the first time I had ever seen Liu Junyan use such a strange technique.

It was incredibly powerful.

But he had already consumed too much Merit, and being trapped inside the Pawnshop had limited what he could do. Even so, he was still giving it everything he had.

When the Evil Monk saw that things were going badly, the rhythm of the scriptures and incantations in his mouth changed, but no matter what he did, he still could not summon the Black Cat out of that pit.

He panicked. Tearing the Prayer Beads from his neck, he yanked off one skull bead and actually hurled it at the Black Cat…