Chapter 275: Ritual Money, Old Capital (2)
“Bang!”
The final human mannequin was smashed violently against the ground. By then, Taoist Song Yi’s robe was already soaked in blood.
What was once a bright and spacious pharmaceutical factory had now become a complete mess—broken glass and debris littered the floor, signs of people fleeing in panic still visible everywhere.
The hall was eerily quiet, with only the occasional delayed sound of metal clattering breaking the silence.
People cowered behind pillars and in corners, trembling uncontrollably. They covered their mouths, afraid to make the slightest sound, their eyes wide and wet with tears of fright, carefully watching the Taoist standing in the center of the hall.
Taoist Song Yi took deep, heavy breaths, clutching his waist as he rested for quite a while. Then, using his peachwood sword for support, he slowly straightened up and looked toward the people hiding in the shadows.
“Is anyone hurt?” Taoist Song Yi noticed some people sobbing uncontrollably and furrowed his brow, asking sternly.
He stood amidst the shattered remains of the mannequins, blood streaming from his wounds and dripping along the peachwood sword in his hand, forming a small pool of blood on the ground beside him.
Only then did the onlookers, stunned by the horrific scene, begin to process what had happened. Their dazed minds slowly caught up—they had likely been saved.
The people who had been holding on desperately finally let out a breath of relief. Without the pressure of imminent danger, their bodies gave way, and they slumped weakly to the floor, managing to maintain a shred of dignity by leaning against the wall to keep from collapsing entirely.
Cries of sorrow and survival echoed as the group broke down in tears, weeping loudly in the aftermath of their narrow escape.
Seeing that the people left behind in the factory were all unharmed, Taoist Song Yi finally let out a faint sigh of relief.
After leaving the warehouse where the kidnapping incident had taken place years ago, he quickly realized—through the case of a woman being chased by a mannequin—that this entire industrial park was already caught in a major crisis.
When Taoist Song Yi arrived at the pharmaceutical building, it had already turned into a nightmarish scene.
The stone and bronze statues placed throughout the park, along with the mannequins inside the building—none of which should have had any sense of life or death—had all begun to move.
The workers had no idea what was happening when they suddenly saw these humanoid statues move like real people.
They were stunned.
Some rubbed their eyes in disbelief, still feeling like the scene in front of them was too surreal to be real. Dazed, they muttered to themselves that maybe they had stayed up too late and were hallucinating from exhaustion.
But before anyone could figure out what was going on, those humanoid statues launched indiscriminate attacks on everyone.
Screams rang out as people scattered in panic. The mannequins appeared and disappeared unpredictably, hiding in every corner and behind every turn. They emerged when people were least prepared, reaching out skeletal hands as if craving the flesh and blood of the living to fill their hollow shells.
Some people tried to resist, picking up chairs and tables to smash the mannequins.
But these figures, though humanoid in appearance and structure, were far from fragile like flesh and blood. They felt no pain. Even when their limbs were broken, they could still crawl along the ground, lunging toward people.
This futile resistance slowly gave way to despair, and eventually, everyone fled in total disarray, defeated and terrified.
When Taoist Song Yi charged into the factory, this was the gruesome scene that greeted him.
The moment he saw those humanoid figures clearly, his first reaction was—
This is bad.
He had originally assumed this was just a case of “Bone Substitution Technique.” Even though he’d heard news over the phone from Baizhi Lake and other locations, seeing it with his own eyes was something else entirely.
It wasn’t until he saw that most of those mannequins were mass-produced on assembly lines that he finally realized the true extent of the danger.
If this were traditional Bone Substitution Technique, at the very least the range of caution would have been narrower. One would only need to be wary of wooden sculptures or handcrafted human figures made by artisans.
Because wooden objects naturally made good vessels for spirits, and the works of artisans—imbued with human energy—also shared human-like attributes.
But once the scope expanded infinitely…
It meant that all ghost exorcists were now adrift in a vast ocean.
The number of factory-made products versus hand-crafted ones simply wasn’t in the same league!
The plastic mannequins in the warehouse had been part of the kidnapping case years ago. Even if they showed signs of abnormality, Taoist Song Yi had assumed it was due to lingering filth from that past event, preserved within their forms.
But outside of that place—things were different.
And most crucially—
The being manipulating everything from behind the scenes had even managed to break through the limitations of Bone Substitution Technique, bringing to life objects that by all logic shouldn’t have had any vitality at all—making them move and act like real people.
Just imagining that being sent a chill down Taoist Song Yi’s spine. He knew without a doubt—this was no entity that could be dealt with easily.
To pull this off… the power it wielded was terrifying—almost godlike, as if it could control the very essence of life and death.
No wonder his master had awakened from his long meditation just to warn everyone: The ghost path is about to be born.
It wasn’t until this moment that Taoist Song Yi, several steps behind Taoist Li, finally understood what was going on.
And at that moment, a sudden realization struck him like divine inspiration—His earlier suspicions were likely correct.
Everything that had happened might truly be deeply connected to the Xie siblings.
Could it be… that the birth of the Ghost Dao was due to Xie Lin’s younger sister dying in that kidnapping case years ago, and her unwillingness to let go turned her into a vengeful ghost, thereby giving rise to the Ghost Dao?
The moment this thought surfaced, Taoist Song Yi immediately sensed something was off and dismissed the possibility.
Although he deeply sympathized with the tragic fate of Xie Lin and his sister, at his age and in his position, he had already dealt with far too many death cases himself.
To put it cruelly but truthfully—while their experience was tragic, a single kidnapping incident like that was not enough to produce such an immensely powerful vengeful ghost.
Unless the ghost had been nourished by a vast amount of death, allowing it to leap in growth from quantity to quality, there would be no way for it to form such a terrifying existence from hatred and ghostly energy alone.
But after that kidnapping case back then, there hadn’t been any reports of other deaths in the area, had there?
Only those kidnappers had died horribly… What was going on?
He couldn’t make sense of it no matter how hard he tried.
When Taoist Song Yi leapt into the pharmaceutical factory’s main hall, he arrived just in time to save a man from the hands of a bronze statue. He quickly asked the man how many humanoid objects were in the factory.
Before the man could even thank him, he heard the question and looked at Taoist Song Yi in confusion. He replied that this was a pharmaceutical factory—if there was one thing they didn’t lack, it was humanoid objects. Whether it was acupuncture mannequins used in traditional Chinese medicine, anatomical models from Western medicine, or models used for various experiments and training…
…and even a few donated cadavers stored in the laboratory.
As he spoke, the man suddenly seemed to realize something. He swallowed hard, stared at Taoist Song Yi with trembling eyes, and, with a sobbing tone, begged him to tell him he was overthinking it—that there was no way dead bodies were really coming back to life… right?
There was no need for Taoist Song Yi to answer. The chorus of screams erupting from all around had already given the man his answer.
Taoist Song Yi immediately dashed deeper inside, only having time to warn the man to be careful of all humanoid objects.
—Other than living people themselves, every humanoid object had become a threat to the living.
They wanted to use the flesh and blood of the living to fill their hollow bodies, to create the illusion that they were real people.
Just like those plastic mannequins in the warehouse, which were stuffed with the corpses of stray cats and dogs, occasionally mixed with human flesh and blood of unknown origin.
Now, the same scene was playing out again throughout the entire industrial park.
Taoist Song Yi still carried the injuries he had sustained earlier, but he didn’t dare delay even for a moment. Chanting incantations under his breath, he swept his peachwood sword in wide arcs, slicing apart every humanoid object that tried to harm the pharmaceutical factory’s employees, shattering them into pieces on the ground.
His mind raced. Suddenly, all the things that hadn’t made sense earlier began to clear up, as if the fog had been lifted, revealing a glimpse of the truth.
The “Bone Substitution Technique”—its original purpose was to use wooden carvings to replace corpses so that the deceased could be sent completely and properly to reincarnation in the underworld.
But now, what Yan Shixun and the others had encountered at the Baizhi Lake filming site was clearly not for that original intent.
Adding to that, Taoist Ma and Taoist Wang had also gone missing over there…
The technique wasn’t replacing bones.
It was replacing identities.
Taoist Song Yi came to a sudden halt, his eyes filled with astonishment.
Though it had been his own theory, the revelation still shocked him, stirring up stormy waves in his heart.
—The ghost orchestrating all of this wasn’t just trying to kill people.
It wanted to use these humanoid objects, filled with human flesh and even trapped souls, to deceive the heavens and the earth—replacing humans with these mannequins and living in a place untouched by other living people.
An inversion of identity.
That was how the Ghost Dao had come into being.
Taoist Song Yi never could have imagined that things had escalated to this level of severity. As he came to understand everything, he felt like his heart had been soaked in mint water—each pore exuding an icy chill.
He wanted to report this to Haiyun Temple immediately, but he was now trapped in a sea of humanoid objects that had swarmed the entire complex. He couldn’t split himself into more than one; all he could do was protect the employees with everything he had, while his injuries continued to accumulate. He struggled to stay standing.
No one from the special department had arrived yet. For now, he was the only one here. He couldn’t fall. He couldn’t die.
Even if he died, it had to be after he had personally ensured everyone else was safe.
Taoist Song Yi’s eyes were dark with resolve, his gaze unwavering.
The only thing he felt somewhat grateful for was that it was the middle of the night. Other than a few night-shift workers, most people weren’t in the industrial park.
That meant fewer people he needed to protect.
Otherwise, Taoist Song Yi would have wished he could split a single strand of hair into one hundred and eight copies of himself.
Fueled by sheer willpower, he pushed his body beyond its physical limits. Gritting his teeth, he shattered the final humanoid object beneath his peachwood sword before finally getting a brief moment to breathe.
But he didn’t allow himself much rest. He immediately pulled out his phone and dialed Taoist Li.
In recent years, Taoist Li had fallen into meditative states with increasing frequency, and it had been several years since he had left Binhai City to handle affairs elsewhere.
His activity was usually confined to within Binhai City itself.
The only show that Yan Shixun had participated in was the one that had made him break his usual rules. It was both because he cared deeply about the only disciple of his most beloved junior brother, and because he faintly believed that the Evil Spirit Bone Transformation might be the key to life. That was why, over the past half year, Taoist Li had repeatedly involved himself in events related to the show.
The Taoists of Haiyun Temple had all been very worried about Taoist Li.
It wasn’t that they wanted to restrict his movements or that they didn’t trust his abilities.
Rather, it was because when a Taoist entered deep meditation, they would fall into a state resembling death. To those who didn’t understand, it would seem as though the person had died.
Perhaps out of kindness and respect, people didn’t want Taoists to die out in the open, exposed to the elements without even a burial shroud. So they would often respectfully lay them to rest.
But the problem was—
The Taoist wasn’t actually dead; he had just remained in meditation for too long.
A hundred years ago, a grandmaster from Haiyun Temple hadn’t died on the battlefield but had a sudden moment of enlightenment on his way back to the temple. He sat down right where he was and entered deep meditation, only to be mistaken for a corpse and buried—leading to his actual death.
As his connection with the world and the Dao deepened, Taoist Li’s meditation periods grew increasingly longer.
Because of this, the Taoists of Haiyun Temple were deeply concerned. They feared that if Taoist Li entered meditation while out in the world, he might have an accident or be mistaken for dead, leading to a well-intentioned but fatal mistake.
This trip to Baizhi Lake marked the first time in many years that Taoist Li had left Binhai City.
When he received a call from Taoist Song Yi, Taoist Li and his group had just exited the highway. In the distance, they saw the shadow puppet museum.
The old, dilapidated courtyard house was barely visible in the deep darkness of the night, its outline just faintly discernible.
But there were figures moving within—flickering and indistinct, not like ordinary people, appearing and vanishing like ghosts.
As soon as the Taoists got out of the car, they saw what looked like the silhouette of a little girl standing under the distant archway.
The child held something like a doll in her arms and wore a pretty dress, but her face and eyes were chillingly cold.
One Taoist accidentally made eye contact with the girl and instantly felt a drop in temperature around him, so cold that he shivered.
The girl’s beautiful, childlike face held no expression. Her icy gaze stared straight at the group as blood-red tears silently slid down from her eyes.
The Taoist was startled, his heartbeat skipping erratically.
But when he steadied himself and looked again, the girl under the archway had vanished.
He instinctively took a step forward, but then remembered—an entire show crew, along with two Taoists, had previously gone missing here. This place was anything but safe.
He immediately grew alert and turned to quietly ask the Taoist beside him whether he had also seen a little girl under the archway just now.
He was certain this wasn’t his imagination.
Unlike ordinary people who didn’t believe in ghost deities and might never encounter one in their lifetime, this Taoist had experienced the siege of evil spirits and had witnessed the Yin path engulf Binhai City.
He had personally exorcised an unimaginable number of ghosts—he knew that beyond science, there existed an older system of understanding, one that followed the yin-yang and the cosmic forces.
Ghosts and malevolent entities were real.
They hid in the corners of one’s vision, in blind spots, behind one’s back, and in neglected crevices.
Every so-called illusion of the brain might actually be a warning from the heavens and the earth.
The Taoist firmly believed this and had avoided death and many crises thanks to this conviction.
He had a gut feeling that the little girl who had appeared for only a brief moment just now had brought with her an unusual sense of danger.
The Taoist next to him confirmed that feeling.
“That little girl…”
His expression gradually turned serious. “I think I’ve seen her somewhere before.”
Hearing this, the others were shocked and hurriedly asked for more.
That Taoist thought hard for a moment before suddenly widening his eyes. “Xie Lin!”
Everyone was stunned. “Isn’t Xie Lin a boy?”
“But the girl we just saw… are you mocking me for not keeping up with the entertainment world?”
“No,”
The Taoist said urgently. “It’s about the kidnapping case of Xie Lin’s younger sister. Before we came here, Taoist Song mentioned that this was where the kidnapping took place. So I requested the case file from the special department on the way over and read about what happened back then.”
“And I saw a photo of Xie Lin’s younger sister.”
The more he spoke, the more convinced he became. “That little girl might actually be Xie Lin’s sister!”
Everyone exchanged stunned glances, frozen in place.
Meanwhile, Taoist Li stood by the car, his brows gradually furrowing as he listened to Taoist Song Yi over the phone.
After a moment of reflection, he said slowly, “So you’re saying… a new ghost deity has appeared and created a separate heaven and earth, thus forging a new Great Road?”
Even though Taoist Song’s words sounded reasonable, there was still a crucial issue.
—The power required to sustain an entire complete world was extraordinary.
It was beyond what ordinary people could even imagine, and no one could accurately measure the extent of such power.
Just like scientific theories, progress required material support.
Without a power plant capable of supplying sufficient electricity, how could one talk about everything that followed?
Taoist Song Yi fell silent for a moment before continuing, “Master, since your divination result shows that the Ghost Dao is about to be born, then if the one who created that world was Xie Lin or his sister, both of whom are ghostly beings, wouldn’t that mean…”
“The Ghost Dao.”
The Ghost Dao had already begun to encroach upon the real world, and it was no longer confined to the southwest region.
Tonight, everyone—from exorcist circles to special departments—was overwhelmed, barely able to keep up.
Many people awoke in the middle of the night, their cries shattering the stillness before dawn, echoing through buildings and sending chills down the spine.
Some heard screams from within their residential complexes. Curious to check it out, they became the next prey of malevolent entities the moment they turned on the lights in their rooms.
Screams of agony echoed one after another, calling for help.
The smell of blood spread through stairwells and neighborhoods.
On streets that should have been empty at dawn, beneath dim streetlights, people ran in panic with horror on their faces, unaware that the plastic mannequins nearby were turning their heads in unison, following their every move.
Hotlines to officials and temples had already been overwhelmed by frantic calls from citizens.
Cries for help could be heard everywhere.
Some clutched wounded family members or loved ones, sobbing until they nearly fainted, begging passersby to help.
Some warmhearted people rushed over to assist, never expecting that their enemy wasn’t even human—
—but a human-shaped statue possessed by an evil ghost.
They felt no pain, had no fear of death. Even when shattered into broken fragments on the ground, they could still launch an attack.
The exorcists moved swiftly through the streets and alleys, rescuing those whose lives were threatened by ghosts, pulling them from their homes.
On social media, countless posts were calling for help.
In response, the authorities urgently opened a dedicated help section where those in need could describe their situation, leave their address and contact information, and have their requests passed directly to the ghost expellers on the front lines for immediate rescue.
The public opinion leader’s voice had become so hoarse he could barely speak, his throat parched to the point of burning. Yet he was so busy walking around with a water cup in hand that he hadn’t even had a chance to take a sip. He kept contacting platform managers and tirelessly repeated the pre-agreed explanations to people from other departments.
Centered around Binhai City and the Southwest region, similar incidents kept spreading outward, repeating themselves again and again.
Social media accounts also issued emergency alerts, urging everyone to immediately throw away any humanoid statues at home, then ensure all windows and doors were tightly shut—and no matter what, not to leave the house.
With a severe shortage of manpower, the special department racked their brains to frame things in ways that ordinary people could understand, encouraging them to practice self-rescue and self-protection as much as possible.
Due to the official in charge going missing, these updates could not reach him in real time, nor could he make decisions and coordinate the situation.
Fortunately, due to the prior incident at Nanming Mountain, the official had already taken extra precautionary measures.
To prevent the entire department from grinding to a halt if something happened to him, he had made detailed arrangements before heading to Baizhi Lake. He had seriously instructed the remaining staff in Binhai City that if he went missing, all matters were to be handed over to Haiyun Temple and the team leaders left behind, with the Haiyun Temple abbot making the final judgment.
While the special department personnel worried about the official’s safety, they also reported everything to the abbot at Haiyun Temple.
It was then passed along to Taoist Li.
After hearing the full, detailed report, Taoist Song Yi fell silent for a long time before finally speaking: “Master, the root of all this lies with Xie Lin and his sister. It’s very likely that his sister died during the kidnapping years ago and became a vengeful ghost, which has led to everything happening now.”
“It’s just that I don’t understand—how could a vengeful ghost influence such a wide area? And the Ghost Dao…”
Taoist Song Yi’s already stern expression grew even darker. The deep vertical crease between his brows made his face look particularly terrifying.
As Taoist Li listened to Song Yi, he also heard something from the Taoist standing beside him.
He immediately turned his head and asked, “What did you just say? You saw Xie Lin’s sister?”
The nearby Taoist respectfully cupped his hands and replied, “I’m certain. I’ve seen that face before. Judging from what just happened, Taoist Song is likely correct—Xie Lin’s sister is already dead and has become a ghost.”
“But what I can’t understand is, why would Xie Lin’s missing sister appear at Baizhi Lake, and at the shadow puppet museum?”
Perplexed, the Taoist said, “Could it be that she knew he was here, so she came looking for him on purpose?”
“Then how do you explain the shadow puppet museum?”
Someone immediately pointed out the flaw: “Taoist Ma and Taoist Wang both went missing there. Before that, Fellow Taoist Yan and the variety show crew also disappeared there. Then the rescue team that followed vanished too. That place is like a black hole—no one ever comes back.”
“If Xie Lin’s sister appeared at the shadow puppet museum, then she’s likely connected to both the shadow puppets and Baizhi Lake…”
Taoist Li silently listened to the debates around him. As the arguments continued, a sudden realization struck him. His eyes widened in shock as he turned to look at the shadow puppet museum.
Shadow puppetry—also known in ancient times as ghost plays.
Although the official records of the shadow puppet museum didn’t mention anything about sacrificial rituals or ghost deities, and only described Southwest puppetry as a display of local customs, the Southwest itself…
…was long rumored to be the location of the ancient ghost capital, Fengdu.
If that vengeful ghost had used shadow puppetry—ghost theater—to reshape the world and harnessed the power of Fengdu, then all their seemingly dead-end theories would suddenly make sense.
—Xie Lin’s sister became a vengeful ghost. On top of Fengdu’s power, she created ghost plays, forming her own path. Within that ghost plays, a Great Dao was born, meant to replace heaven and earth.
In that instant, Taoist Li felt all sounds around him fading away.
The Taoists’ arguments, the howling wind sweeping through the mountains, even the voice of his disciple Song Yi on the phone—everything disappeared.
Only heaven and earth remained.
He could feel it—he now stood beneath the boundless sky, the Great Dao beside him, allowing him to see everything happening before his eyes with sudden clarity.
The Great Dao, which had always remained sealed to him, finally acknowledged the path he upheld and opened a sliver of light, letting him glimpse the future through its vision.
And the crisis that would bring about that future.
—Vengeful ghosts ran rampant.
It was no longer the human world, but hell itself.
Everywhere Taoist Li looked, there was blood and bones.
The living cried out for help, and exorcists sacrificed their lives, yet they were only weakly filling the massive gap—death could not be stopped.
Evil ghosts rampaged through the streets, hunting the living while laughing hideously. No one could stop them anymore.
Heaven and earth gave no response. The Great Dao fell silent. Yin and yang were reversed.
Humans were no longer the spirits of all things.
Ghosts were.
The power of exorcists came from drawing on the might of the four divine directions, through natural Taoism that governed the sun and moon.
But if yin and yang were reversed? If what was right became wrong, and what was wrong took absolute precedence?
Then what could exorcists still do?
Nothing but die in vain.
That was a complete deadlock, with no hope of survival. All self-rescue efforts became useless. No miracles would happen. The Great Dao had been fully replaced by the Ghost Dao. Heaven and earth had switched places.
Taoist Li felt as if he were a drifting cloud in the sky, watching the events below from above.
He wanted to act—but in the end, could only watch helplessly as it all unfolded.
This… was the true hell of vengeful ghosts, where all hope had been lost.
“Taoist? Grandmaster?”
The concerned voice beside him pulled Taoist Li back to his senses.
He steadied himself, the wondrous vision of the Great Dao fading away. The hellscape of blood and fire turned back into a shadowed forested mountain.
Everything he had seen hadn’t yet come to pass. There was still a chance to stop it.
A thin layer of sweat appeared on Taoist Li’s forehead.
The Taoist next to him looked at him with concern, knowing that he had nearly slipped into a meditative trance again.
Such frequent meditation might have been a sign of spiritual progress for a Taoist, but it also indicated that misfortune was imminent—it was by no means a good omen.
The Taoists exchanged silent glances with each other, sighing inwardly.
“Taoist Li, I’ll go check out the Shadow Puppet Museum first,”
One of them said. Then he turned to the people beside him and added, “The official in charge went missing nearby. One of their vehicles is still parked here as a backup, so they must be somewhere close. Divination won’t work anymore, so I’ll trouble all of you fellow Taoists to search in person.”
Everyone nodded, accepted their tasks, and immediately dispersed. One Taoist remained by Taoist Li’s side out of caution, worried that he might fall into another trance. In a place this dangerous, meditating was like delivering meat to a pack of wolves.
Taoist Li watched their actions, but didn’t react.
This recent trance had suddenly made something clear to him—why he had come out of the previous trance so precisely.
—The Great Dao had been guiding them here.
For someone with Taoist Li’s talent, the Great Dao was like a test setter who not only handed him an open-book exam but also placed the answer sheet right next to him, anxiously telling him, “The problem is here. You must resolve this, or something terrible will happen.”
Taoist Li was dazed for a moment, then suddenly gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
Everyone said he was extraordinarily gifted, but he knew very well—his youngest junior brother was the truly brilliant one.
Now that he himself had only just found Baizhi Lake, could it be that his junior brother… had already glimpsed the Great Dao and found this place many years ago?
Maybe he had even sacrificed himself to the Dao here.
And now, that junior brother’s only disciple—the one and only documented case of someone with the Evil Spirit Bone Transformation fate who had survived—had arrived here ahead of him.
All of this… was orchestrated by the Great Dao behind the scenes.
An invisible hand moved silently, gently guiding everyone and everything to this place, warning them of the danger here.
But just as the other Taoists had said, this place was like a bottomless pit—everyone who came in never came back out. They all perished here.
So what about this time? Could Yan Shixun, the only one with the Evil Spirit Bone Transformation fate, really resolve everything and restore order to the world?
Taoist Li’s heart sank with a heavy weight.
…..
Yan Shixun hadn’t expected that just a short walk to Zheng Shumu’s house would end with something happening to Zhang Wubing by the time he returned.
What truly chilled him was… when this person who looked exactly like Zhang Wubing—yet carried a completely different aura—stood in front of him and claimed to be Zhang Wubing, his very first instinct was that the other person wasn’t lying.
The one standing before him really was Zhang Wubing.
But how could that be possible?
Yan Shixun stared at Zhang Wubing, his sharp brows gradually furrowing.
He had met Zhang Wubing in their freshman year. Initially, he hadn’t wanted anything to do with this soft and silly rich kid who seemed to smile cluelessly at everyone. But because Li Chengyun had advised him to make more friends, he had reluctantly tolerated him, letting this goofy young heir flit around him without kicking him away.
Yan Shixun remembered it clearly—if Zhang Wubing wanted to, he had the kind of personality that could easily make friends with anyone.
After all, smart people liked fools. Interacting with them was easy. You didn’t have to worry about being manipulated by someone like that.
Combined with Zhang Wubing’s face, which made it impossible to dislike him, and his soft yet loyal personality, it was hard for anyone to truly resent him.
But this version of Zhang Wubing standing in front of him was completely different from the foolish kid in his memory.
Gone was the warmth and approachability, the smile nowhere to be seen. His gaze was cold and detached, as if life and death meant nothing in his eyes, and nothing in the world could scare him.
When Zhang Wubing didn’t smile, his clean and delicate features seemed distant and unapproachable. The powerful aura that surrounded him made people afraid to take even half a step closer.
It felt as if just looking at him was already an offense.
Yan Shixun frowned slightly. This demeanor gave him an eerie sense of familiarity.
…Who was it?
As he thought, he slowly turned his head and looked in surprise at Ye Li, who stood beside him.
Ye Li had also been watching Zhang Wubing with downcast eyes, his mood anything but pleasant.
The moment he saw Zhang Wubing in that state, a rare feeling of regret stirred in Ye Li’s heart.
If he’d known earlier that the one who clung to Shixun every day was this guy, he should’ve found a way to kick him out back when they were still living in that little courtyard in Binhai City.
Or better yet, under the pretense of testing dishes, he could’ve just helped this guy reincarnate again.
Still, thanks to this, Ye Li finally understood why he had always found Zhang Wubing so irritating.
No matter what form this guy took, he was exceptionally detestable to ghost deity.
First, they had been at odds for hundreds of years. Even after his death and the collapse of his Dao, he refused to rest peacefully. His spirit lingered, obsessively entangled with Ye Li’s beloved exorcist.
At that moment, based on his past understanding of this guy, Ye Li even made the worst possible assumption about his sudden reappearance here.
Could it be… that this guy had deliberately chosen to be reborn beside Shixun?
Ye Li looked at Zhang Wubing with suspicion, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that this was the truth.
If anyone knew this guy best, now that the Great Dao was collapsing and all other ghost deities had perished, it would be Ye Li—without a doubt.
After all, this was the guy who, even after death and the shattering of his divine status, had still managed to betray the Great Dao with a final blow.
Even though Ye Li had been at odds with him for centuries, when he learned of his death, Ye Li had descended from his divine altar and entered the cycle of reincarnation, hoping to find his soul.
That was his way of showing respect to a lifelong rival.
Ye Li hadn’t wanted this man’s soul to simply vanish into the cosmos after death, merging completely with the Great Dao, leaving no trace for the world to remember.
But Ye Li never expected this guy to be even more insane than he’d thought.
His rival of a thousand years had forcibly stripped the power from his own soul and divine name, leaving that power on the border between yin and yang to continue guarding the cycle in his place.
The Great Dao’s plan to absorb his remaining power to sustain the world had failed.
Even when the Great Dao quickly realized something was wrong and tried to retrieve it, this guy acted like a cunning fox—separating his divine name from his soul, and hiding his soul among the countless spirits.
Hiding a tree in the forest.
The perfect camouflage.
To this day, even the Great Dao hadn’t found him.
And neither had Ye Li.
Not until now, when Ye Li suddenly realized—this guy’s soul had been right under his nose the entire time.
And what’s worse, he openly clung to Ye Li’s beloved exorcist every single day!
Shixun even looked like he had long gotten used to it!
If Zhang Wubing were truly just an idiot, Ye Li might’ve let it go. But now he realized: beneath Zhang Wubing’s human skin, there were still the calculations and counterattacks from a century ago.
That cunning soul had hidden himself right next to the very image of an Evil Spirit Bone Transformation.
Countless times, both the Great Dao and Ye Li had cast their gaze over him—yet failed to notice a thing.
The blind spot under the lamp.
Ye Li thought of this and let out a cold, almost amused laugh out of sheer fury.
“Zhang—Wu—Bing?”
Ye Li bit out each syllable of the name with icy emphasis. His voice was low and frigid, sending an involuntary shiver through every guest present.
But Zhang Wubing reacted as though he had just received the highest praise in the world. Only then did he shift his gaze, finally looking at Ye Li standing next to Yan Shixun.
He raised the folding fan in his hand to his lips, arched his long eyebrows slightly, as if amused by how close Ye Li was to bursting with anger.
“Long time no see,”
Zhang Wubing said with a bright smile. “Lord of Fengdu.”
As soon as he said this, the guests were stunned.
People like Song Ci and Zhao Zhen remained relatively calm. After all, they had lived for a long time as ordinary people in a world without ghosts or deities—Zhao Zhen had even once been a firm atheist.
They had no idea what “Fengdu” was. All they sensed was the dangerous tension between Zhang Wubing and Ye Li, and that was already terrifying enough.
But for someone like Nan Tian, a descendant of a shaman line with a complete spiritual inheritance, he knew exactly what “Fengdu” referred to.
The Lord of Fengdu…
Nan Tian held the ice-cold Lu Xingxing in his arms—so cold he felt like a corpse—and in that moment, when he heard those words, he felt as if his own body had dropped to the same temperature. A chill ran through him, making him want to curl up into a ball, hoping no one would notice him.
Especially not those three people standing over there.
Nan Tian was very clear about one thing: matters involving ghost deities were not something mortals could meddle in.
The less curious you were, the longer you lived.
Yet Yan Shixun seemed completely unaffected by the strange, tense atmosphere between Ye Li and Zhang Wubing. He fell into silent thought for a moment, his gaze shifting back and forth between the two, and finally understood where that sense of familiarity he felt around Zhang Wubing came from.
It was exactly the same faint coldness he had sensed the first time he encountered Ye Li.
That was…
A ghost deity who had once been worshipped high upon a sacred altar.
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