Chapter 25: Damn, There's Something Wrong with This Ghost!
“Cousin, I’m ready.”
The fox, whose hands were bound with hemp rope, smiled at Iron Mask and nodded.
“I only need five breaths,” said the scholar, coldly raising his chin and extending five fingers.
“No problem!” Iron Mask, eager to finish, nodded heavily, expressionless, not bothering to argue with the scholar.
“Hoo…”
He took a deep breath, placed his hand on the hilt of the Ghost-Slaying Blade at his waist, stepped back three paces, bent his knees, and stood bowing behind the fox, mouth open as he chanted:
“The human heart is perilous; the heart of the Way is subtle.”
The fox, hearing this, slammed his fists together and grinned as he echoed:
“The human heart is perilous; the heart of the Way is subtle.”
After these two voices, Xu Ye noticed that the once dark and damp room had grown much brighter, and Iron Mask and the fox were surrounded by circles of pale golden light.
“Only through refinement and singularity can one uphold the center!”
Just as Xu Ye wondered, the fox and Iron Mask shouted this phrase in perfect unison.
Boom!
Almost as the words fell, a scorching gale burst forth like rippling waves, with Iron Mask and the fox at its center, slamming into Xu Ye’s chest.
“Rise!”
At that moment, the scholar suddenly raised his hand, and the ink-washed scroll pressed on the millstone snapped up, flying straight into his grasp.
Bang!
Before Xu Ye could recover, a loud crash sounded—the two to three hundred pound millstone was overturned, exposing a pitch-black cellar entrance.
“Ah!...”
A piercing shriek erupted from the cellar as thick, inky fog surged out, gathering into a monstrous ghostly face that lunged at the fox and Iron Mask in front.
“Hey!”
Just then, the fox squinted and grinned, his fist, already charged with golden radiance, struck heavily at the black fog.
Bang!
With a thunderous collision, the cloth strip inscribed with golden seal script formed a giant net, centered on the fox’s fist, enveloping the black fog entirely.
“Ah!...”
Another scream rang out.
The human face formed from black mist slammed into the golden net, slender arms stretched out from the fog and tore at the net with force.
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Rip!
The net shattered, and the black fog split into countless slender arms, swarming through the gaps.
Bang!
The fox threw another punch, this time with his left fist. Upon impact, instead of a net woven from seal script, a dozen golden fist shadows appeared, hammering simultaneously at the black mist pouring through the net’s hole.
“Ah!—”
A shrill cry echoed within the black fog. The mist retreating through the net’s opening swiftly dispersed, and the golden net repaired itself.
Xu Ye watched the fox’s move with astonishment. He hadn’t expected that even this seemingly unskilled ghost officer possessed such remarkable prowess.
“In my homeland, he’d be considered a peerless master,” Xu Ye mused.
“The human heart is perilous; the heart of the Way is subtle; only through refinement and singularity can one uphold the center!”
As the fox neared exhaustion, Iron Mask, who had been standing behind him, suddenly shouted and drew his blade.
“Canglang!”
The Ghost-Slaying Blade, long and gleaming, unleashed righteous energy like a tidal surge, sweeping through the courtyard.
But what caught Xu Ye’s attention even more was the sight of twisted ghost faces reflected on the blade’s surface.
Zheng!
Before Xu Ye could look closer, Iron Mask cleaved the ghostly mist before him in two with a single stroke.
“Ah!—”
With another sharp scream, the black fog in the woodshed dispersed, leaving behind a frail girl standing at the doorway clutching a kitchen knife, a long wound running vertically from her forehead down her body.
“Your turn, scholar!”
After the slash, Iron Mask turned and shouted at the scholar.
Their task, Iron Mask and the fox, was thus completed.
“Got it.”
The scholar rolled his eyes impatiently at Iron Mask, then lifted the Qinghu Inkstone and began reciting a splendidly ornate parallel prose.
Boom...
When the recitation ended, the inkstone in his hands burst forth with azure light, a vortex of invisible suction appearing, rapidly drawing the black mist around the frail girl into itself.
“Went fairly smoothly.”
Seeing this, Lin Buyu, who had been somewhat tense, finally breathed a sigh of relief. In normal circumstances, as long as the Qinghu Inkstone’s power was unleashed, ghosts of this rank had no way to escape.
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“Brother Iron Mask, what a blade!”
The fox turned with a smile and gave Iron Mask a thumbs up.
“Hmph, in the end, it’s the Qinghu Inkstone that matters!” the ghost officer scholar sneered, holding up the inkstone.
“Why… did you hurt me?”
“What fault… have I committed?”
At that moment, the girl, nearly stripped of ghostly aura, her eyes once hollow, now filled with rage as she murmured dreamily.
Black miasma, like smoke, burst from the wound on her body, coalescing into a column that shot toward the roof.
Swish!
Before anyone could react, the girl’s slender arm suddenly raised the kitchen knife and swung it straight at the fox.
Bang!
At the moment the knife fell, a barrier of seal script shone in front of the fox, but even that could not withstand the blow. A deep wound, bone revealed, stretched from his right shoulder to left abdomen, and a spray of blood erupted before him.
Everything happened so suddenly that even veterans like Iron Mask and the scholar were a beat slow to react.
“Fox!”
Seeing the fox collapse in a pool of blood, Iron Mask roared, and the Ghost-Slaying Blade in his hand vibrated with a metallic clang, unleashing a golden blade shadow over a yard long at the girl.
Bang!
Crack...
Collision and the sound of breaking metal rang out simultaneously—Iron Mask’s blade was shattered by the girl, who was now wreathed in ghostly aura.
A deep wound split Iron Mask’s chest, blood gushing forth.
“Damn!”
Xu Ye furrowed his brow, and without hesitation, hand on hilt, rushed forward.
It wasn’t recklessness, but with the situation as it was, even a moment’s delay could see the girl’s kitchen knife take Iron Mask’s head—he had no wish to see a colleague die his first day on the job.
“I know not…”
“The speaker bears no fault!”
As Xu Ye prepared to recite the ghost-slaying chant, a clear, youthful voice rang behind him. He saw Lin Buyu swiftly step in front of him, raising both hands high with the Plaque of Innocence:
“The listener should heed the warning!”
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