Chapter 114.2

Li Zhuiyuan quietly committed it to memory. Once this incident was over, he needed Yin Meng and Tan Wenbin to spend some time in close contact with Zheng Jiayi and Fan Shulin, investigating whether certain traits in them would change.

That was very important to Li Zhuiyuan. It would help him gain a deeper grasp of the test-setter’s intent.

He even suspected that every time he deliberately pulled a dead sinker out through Ah Li, each new question drawn was accompanied by undercurrents rising beneath the river, rapidly revising everything before it could surface.

The village was just ahead. Once they took Zheng Jiayi’s blood, there would be no need to turn it into ink paste for preservation.

Li Zhuiyuan walked over to Zeng Yinyin, crouched beside her, and used another syringe to draw blood from her arm.

She was actually still pretending to be unconscious, stupidly persistent to the very end.

People like that often wound up sabotaging their own side. They could do something idiotic while still talking themselves into feeling pleased with themselves.

Tan Wenbin had woken up. Yin Meng grabbed a large handful of earthworms and let them suck blood from the wound at the back of his neck. One by one, the worms dropped off, rotting away into bloody sludge.

“Ah...” Tan Wenbin had only gotten halfway through the groan before his gaze started darting around. Only when he saw Brother Yuan walking over did he finally relax enough to let out the rest of it.

Everyone rested where they were and shared what they had each experienced from their own perspective.

In the end, Li Zhuiyuan summed it all up.

After hearing it, Tan Wenbin laughed. “Hahaha, that fish actually wanted to trick me and use me as a knife to kill someone. I’m not stupid. That’s exactly why I brought that woman over.”

Yin Meng, meanwhile, felt deeply relieved. If she had not brought Zheng Jiayi, she would have made a mistake instead.

But Li Zhuiyuan also admitted that leaving her behind would have been understandable. Then the boy added, “Next time you run into a similar situation, remember to clean up the battlefield thoroughly. The crucial clue may well be hidden in the middle of it.”

Runsheng said, “If we’d come a few days later, we would’ve missed the chance.”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “That’s the advantage of getting into the examination hall early. The previous batch of examinees’ scratch paper hadn’t even been cleared away yet.”

What Tan Wenbin cared about more was the new method he had tried this time. Full of anticipation, he asked, “Brother Yuan, can I keep using that method from now on?”

“Binbin, did you forget what happened when you first passed out?”

“Well... that’s because I had you and Mengmeng here.”

“Even if we help you clean things up in time, your body will still suffer lasting damage. When you get older...”

Tan Wenbin lit up in surprise. “I can actually live long enough to get old? I can actually have old age?”

“It’s still better not to use it. Besides, you won’t always happen to have a suitable malevolent spirit at hand for you to use.”

After all, stray ghosts were nothing like Yin gods such as Lin Shuyou. The gap was enormous, both in rank and in side effects.

“Brother Yuan, then... could I catch one in advance and keep it with me?”

Li Zhuiyuan shook his head.

Tan Wenbin looked crestfallen. He now understood a little of Lin Shuyou’s obsession and madness. Once you had possessed that kind of power and experienced that feeling, it was truly hard to let go after losing it.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “We’ll talk about it later. I’ll see whether I can improve the method for you. You can’t keep messing around like this.”

“Huh?” Tan Wenbin instantly got excited. “My Brother Yuan is still my Brother Yuan!”

The spirit-commanding art from The Twelve Edicts of Fengdu could be revised a little more.

The spirit medium ritual process from the Sutra of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva and the Officers of the Command Banner could also be copied over and refined.

And Wei Zhengdao’s outline on Yellow Talismans could provide a few more obscure talismans to pick from and adapt further.

With three top-tier manuals as references, Li Zhuiyuan felt he could tailor a ghost-commanding art specifically for Tan Wenbin.

Of course, the side effects were unavoidable. Since ancient times, those who manipulated gods and ghosts rarely came to a good end.

Even the Officers of the Command Banner were no exception. Lin Shuyou’s grandfather had lived until his grandson reached adulthood, and in their line of work that already counted as a ripe old age. Those Yin gods would never truly care about the medium’s body.

But compared with the harm it would do to Tan Wenbin’s body and fate, Li Zhuiyuan was more worried about something else.

“Binbin, you need to be mentally prepared. Commanding ghosts will change your personality.”

The one beneath the peach grove back home had studied Wei Zhengdao’s Black Book until he turned himself into a dead sinker. It had not only changed his personality, but his very species.

Tan Wenbin asked, “Uh... what direction would my personality change in?”

“You’d become more arrogant, more extreme.”

Tan Wenbin demonstrated on the spot. “Like this, Brother Yuan? Heh heh heh heh heh heh?”

“That’s the right flavor.”

“No problem. It actually suits my position pretty well.”

The old lady had taught him already. As the front crier of the Dragon King’s clan boat, he was supposed to act as over the top as possible.

In truth, Li Zhuiyuan had an even bolder idea in mind.

Was there some way to drag White Crane Child down and keep him from going back, so he could work for him whenever needed?

Those wandering ghosts really were too low-grade.

After they had finished resting, everyone except Tan Wenbin, who was still somewhat weak, had recovered to peak condition.

Li Zhuiyuan glanced at Yin Meng, then at Zeng Yinyin.

Yin Meng understood immediately. She took out her leather whip and lashed it down on Zeng Yinyin.

Crack!

“Ah!”

Zeng Yinyin let out a miserable scream. She could not keep pretending any longer.

Runsheng stepped forward, hoisted her up, and the six of them headed toward the river valley.

Between the slopes on either side, a stretch of darkness appeared. Their flashlights could only illuminate a wooden structure ahead.

The firelight they had been able to see from afar had disappeared once they drew close.

A stone table and a stone stele stood side by side in the central area.

On the stone table sat a stone bowl and stone plate, both connected to it, while the stele bore strong, vigorous inscriptions.

Li Zhuiyuan walked up to the stele. The inscription was old and had been weathered by time, making parts of it blurry. But Li Zhuiyuan had read writing far harder to decipher than this, so recognizing it was not difficult.

“I, the poor Daoist Yuxuzi, use my own body here to raise a stele and seal this place. My three disciples, Zeng, Zheng, and Xue, shall settle here on the spot. Their descendants shall, once every sixty years, offer blood sacrifice to sustain the great formation.

So long as the malevolent spirit is not destroyed, we shall not retreat. Generation after generation, we shall protect the Orthodox Path.”

Using one’s own body to maintain the seal meant turning oneself into the very core of the formation, locked in a struggle to the death with the evil thing.

Li Zhuiyuan had no idea who this Daoist Yuxuzi had been. He had never read any records about him.

Throughout history, only a tiny few ever made it into the record books. And Yuxuzi had not only sealed himself here, but had ordered his three disciples to put down roots and maintain the suppression generation after generation. Most likely, he had hidden himself away here before he ever had the chance to make a name for himself.

Of course, it was also possible that he had once achieved fame, but because all of his lineage had been bound here, with no powerful clan or disciples to spread his name and sing his praises, his reputation had naturally faded.

Still, why would the malevolent spirit Yuxuzi had suppressed appear in Ah Li’s dream?

Could it be that beneath the Daoist title Yuxuzi, his secular surname had been Qin or Liu?

But for an outstanding figure of the Qin or Liu Clan to enter another lineage would have been even more shocking than Grandpa Qin marrying Grandma Liu back then.

“Runsheng, set up the offering table.”

“Got it!”

Runsheng began clearing away the thick layer of dust on the stone table. With one hard blow and then a wipe, he discovered a rounded protrusion in the very center.

Tan Wenbin asked in confusion, “Why is this bowl upside down?”

As he spoke, he reached out to touch it.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Don’t touch it.”

“Huh?”

“That’s Daoist Yuxuzi’s skull.”

“His head?” Tan Wenbin took two steps back, and everyone else’s faces changed as well. That meant Yuxuzi himself was inside this stone table.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Light the candles. Set out the offerings. Burn the paper.”

Yin Meng went to light the candles, Runsheng laid out the offerings, and Tan Wenbin went to burn the paper.

Once everything was ready, Li Zhuiyuan stood before the stone table and arranged the bowls of blood made from the descendants of the Xue, Zheng, and Zeng families around the skull.

Then he opened the table and began the rite.

The stone table began to tremble faintly. The blood in the bowls gradually came to a boil, then dripped over the rims and flowed down, finally merging into the skull. At once, the skull began to emit a strange crystalline gleam.

Immediately afterward, wind blew in from outside, growing stronger and stronger. Even the darkness ahead began to recede, revealing a complete single-story house. It was very wide, with a large open yard, not at all like a traditional residence.

Farther behind it, a fleeting glow of rosy light appeared, dispersing a great stretch of murky haze and instantly sobering the demonic atmosphere.

What surprised Li Zhuiyuan slightly, however, was that the formation’s effect seemed somewhat weak. Suppression and annihilation, by definition, required both suppression and grinding destruction.

This formation still had strength to spare when it came to suppression, but in terms of grinding the target down, it was clearly falling short.

It might be that Daoist Yuxuzi’s skill with formations had never been especially high to begin with. Or it might be that the formation had lacked later maintenance, causing many of its functions to weaken or be crippled outright.

After all, among the Xue, Zheng, and Zeng families now, only the Zeng family still retained even a trace of ability. The other two were no different from ordinary households.

Their descendants had become so hopelessly incompetent that they no longer even had the ability to perform routine maintenance.

In that way, they were a little like the Yin Clan.

As descendants of Yin Changsheng, Yin Meng still had not learned Walking the shade, and The Twelve Edicts of Fengdu had degenerated into the Yin Clan’s Twelve Techniques, which by now they could not even practice anymore.

Fortunately, Yin Meng had developed other talents. That ability of hers to poison unclean things directly to death was a path even Li Zhuiyuan had never imagined.

With the seal reinforced, this formation could hold out for another full sixty-year cycle.

If they went in shortly and he discovered that the big fish truly could not be killed, Li Zhuiyuan would have to retreat, head to Min’an Town or the county seat to buy materials, then spend a great deal of time and effort repairing and perfecting the formation.

Yes, he was still going inside.

After all, since they were already here, they might as well.

Zeng Yinyin and Zheng Jiayi were left outside. On top of the bindings she already had, Yin Meng wrapped another round around Zeng Yinyin, bundling her up so tightly that absolutely nothing could go wrong.

They left Zheng Jiayi some clean water and food, and told her that if two days passed and she still did not see them come back out, then she should ignore Zeng Yinyin, retrace her route alone, and if she got lost after crossing that river, she should just keep shouting, “Idiot.”

The reason they were still keeping Zeng Yinyin alive was that she was the Zeng family’s only remaining bloodline. Later, when Li Zhuiyuan repaired the formation, he would still need blood from all three families as the catalyst.

The four of them passed the stone stele and stone table and walked inward.

When they reached the house at the very front, they saw the plaque hanging above it:

Charity Coffin House.

No wonder it had looked so strange from the outside earlier.

Tan Wenbin asked in confusion, “Hey, why would there be a Charity Coffin House built right at the village entrance?”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “We may have entered from the back of the village.”

The Charity Coffin House was clearly some distance from the next residence, and the road in front of it, where the four of them now stood, was also just a side path branching off from the village’s main road.

Everything here was steeped in decay, yet that decay had not continued endlessly. It seemed to have frozen once it reached a certain point.

That might have been the formation’s effect, or it might have been the influence of the dead sinker.

In the yard of the Charity Coffin House lay six rotting coffins.

“Runsheng, open them and take a look.”

Carrying the Yellow River Spade, Runsheng stepped forward and quickly pried open the first coffin. There was no corpse inside, only a backpack, a trekking pole, and a bottle of water.

“Open them all.”

Yin Meng and Tan Wenbin joined in. All six coffins were opened. None of them contained corpses, only backpacks, some tools, folded clothes, and unopened food and water.

Tan Wenbin said, “Looks like that expedition team of six college students really did enter this place.”

Yin Meng said, “Then where are their bodies?”

Tan Wenbin frowned. “That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re dead. Why does the inside of these coffins look so much like dorm beds at a university? I like keeping my stuff on my bed like this too, so it’s convenient when I go to sleep at night.”

Dong! Dong! Dong!

The sound of a bell came from inside the village.

All four of them looked in that direction. Since the Charity Coffin House stood on higher ground at the rear of the village, they could see a line of young men and women in modern clothing walking along the main street.

Each of them carried a lantern in the right hand and rested the left hand on the shoulder of the person in front, all moving in step.

Suddenly, they stopped.

The next moment, all six turned around as one and looked toward the Charity Coffin House, their lantern-bearing hands swinging back and forth without pause.

They

were inviting them.

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