Chapter 342: Fortune and Misfortune Are Interdependent

"A Three-Eyed Ghost Infant!" The Maha Fallen Spirit Grand Formation had a chance of mutating an Infant Spirit into a Rakshasa Ghost Infant. The Three Yin Sect had set up the array in the Maternity and Children’s Health Center to raise Little Ghosts and Infant Spirits for exactly this purpose.

I stared at the Three-Eyed Infant Spirit in the Ghost Mother's palm, my stomach churning. The Rakshasa Ghost Infant the Three Yin Sect dreamed of obtaining had actually been born long ago. The Ghost Mother had just kept it hidden, leaving them entirely in the dark.

Because they hadn't yet cultivated a Rakshasa Ghost Infant, the array wouldn't be removed, allowing the Ghost Mother's power to grow day by day. The bases of the silver needles were completely corroded by Yin energy. Even if I hadn't intervened, her escape was only a matter of time.

'This ghost has already gained sentience, and her sheer strength is formidable. I can't clash with her head-on,' I thought. I couldn't guess her next move, but as I watched her palm draw closer, my body instinctively tried to dodge.

"Hiss!"

The Three-Eyed Infant Spirit let out a piercing shriek. I felt like I was being targeted by a venomous snake. My legs trembled as I watched the Ghost Mother press the hand holding the Three-Eyed Infant Spirit against my stomach.

It felt as though something had been forcefully stuffed into my body. A block of solid ice seemed to materialize in my abdomen.

My blood vessels bulged, and my abdominal muscles twisted into a tight knot. The pain surged past the limits of my nerves, nearly making me black out.

"Thud!"

My knees smashed into the ground. I pressed my hands to the floor, feeling as if my internal organs were about to freeze over. "What did she do to me?"

I looked up to find the Ghost Mother's palm empty. The Three-Eyed Infant Spirit had vanished without a trace.

'Did she actually stuff that Infant Spirit into my stomach?' I wondered. Large drops of cold sweat slid down my forehead. I couldn't stand up at all; the fact that I was still conscious was a miracle in itself.

"I'm not the one who imprisoned you, tortured you, or hurt your child! I'm only here to help you!" I shouted at the Ghost Mother, panting heavily as I lay slumped on the ground.

Since she had developed sentience, she should be able to understand me. Clinging to a sliver of hope, I begged her to take the Infant Spirit out of my body, but the Ghost Mother's reaction was completely indifferent.

With her hair-woven handbag hanging from her wrist, she didn't spare me or Wang Yu another glance. She walked right between us and vanished at the end of the corridor.

An Infant Spirit had been stuffed into my stomach. The crucial problem was that as a man, I had no way to help a Rakshasa Ghost Infant enter reincarnation. The Ghost Mother's actions left me not knowing whether to laugh or cry. I could only endure the agony and seek help from the livestream viewers.

"Is Master Tianxin still here? The Infant Spirit drilled into my stomach! What should I do?"

Master Tianxin: "Don't panic, donor. You are someone with great fortune. If that Ghost Mother wanted to take your life, she could have used a thousand different methods. So why would she specifically give you an Infant Spirit? And the exceedingly rare Rakshasa Ghost Infant, at that."

'Why, indeed?' I wondered, equally perplexed. The Ghost Mother possessed overwhelming strength; killing me wouldn't require so much trouble.

"Those Involved Are Blind. She most likely has no intention of killing you; instead, she has given you a grand gift." Master Tianxin's messages flooded the chat one after another. "Donor, we Buddhists do not focus on fortune-telling, but we firmly believe that a predetermined cycle of reincarnation exists for all things in the world. My senior brother, the abbot, and I were just speculating about your past life, and we inadvertently discovered that you have Nine Locks on your body. These locks are interlinked, sealing away your past life and locking down your future."

I sat cross-legged and circulated the Profound Truth Mental Method, but the pain in my abdomen didn't lessen. "Master, why are you bringing up such unrelated things? What does subduing the Infant Spirit have to do with Nine Locks Binding the Body?"

That phrase about me being fated with Nine Locks was something I'd first heard from an old fortune-teller. Before I helped Ye Bing eliminate her Rakshasa Ghost Infant, I had run into an old man with a colorful, venomous snake embroidered on his collar right outside Jiang Fei's door. He had analyzed characters to read my fortune, claiming I had Nine Locks Binding the Body and wouldn't live long.

"Listen to me explain this slowly. With Nine Locks Binding the Body, everything about you becomes impossible to divine. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that even the heavens cannot see your fate clearly, meaning your future is not set in stone. The curse, however, stems from that very fact: your life is bound to be plagued by disasters and hardships. Only by breaking the Nine Locks can you clear away the clouds to see the sun and attain instant enlightenment."

"These nine great locks correspond to nine organs in your body. In Buddhist terms, they are called the Nine Wheels, which is equivalent to the Nine Palaces in Daoism. Rumor has it there was once another person afflicted with Nine Locks Binding the Body. Legend says that after unlocking all Nine Locks, that person directly smashed through the gates of the Pre-Heaven Stage and transcended the mortal realm."

Master Tianxin was sounding more and more outrageous. Unable to endure the pain, I interrupted him, "Master, my condition is rapidly deteriorating. Do you have a way to subdue this Infant Spirit? Would chanting Buddhist scriptures help?"

"To others, that Infant Spirit would be a lethal poison, but to you, it is a stroke of great fortune. The Ghost Mother drove the Rakshasa Ghost Infant into your Kidney Aperture precisely because she wants to help you unlock one of your Nine Locks."

"She's helping me? But it feels like my stomach is about to be ripped apart!"

"Endure it for a moment, and the skies will clear. The kidneys are the foundation of innate vitality; in the Five Elements, they belong to water. It is a critical acupoint in the human body, as well as one of your Life Locks. The Ghost Mother did this to use the Infant Spirit's resentment and dormant Yin energy to help you shatter the restrictions of your Life Lock."

I read Master Tianxin's messages and realized they made sense. The Ghost Mother had already gained sentience, and the reflection of the child in her pupils was none other than Wang Yu. This proved that this ghost still retained memories from her life. 'She wants to make a deal with me. She'll help me open a Life Lock, and in exchange, I'll take care of Wang Yu for her,' I thought.

My mind raced, and I quickly understood the Ghost Mother's intentions. The more powerful a ghost was, the deeper their obsession became. Wang Yu was an inseparable part of her, but since Humans and Ghosts Walk Different Paths, the best solution she could think of was to entrust the child to a human's care.

Master Tianxin: "Don't celebrate just yet. A ghost of this caliber has intelligence on par with an ordinary person. After the Rakshasa Ghost Infant helps you open the Life Lock, it will make its home in your Kidney Aperture. Everything about you will be sensed by the Ghost Mother. If you do anything to anger her, the Rakshasa Ghost Infant will run rampant inside your body until all your internal organs shatter and you die."

With a bitter expression, I continued circulating the Profound Truth Mental Method. Anyone would be upset having a ticking time bomb shoved into their stomach.

"Opening the Life Lock takes time, so please do not be impatient, donor. You possess tremendous fortune and will surely become a dragon among men in the future."

With things having reached this point, resistance was no longer an option.

Enduring the excruciating pain, I stood up, took Wang Yu's hand, and chased in the direction the Ghost Mother had gone.

I filmed with my phone as we walked. Not a single Little Ghost could be seen along the way; there were only wisps of shattered Yin energy.

Reaching the end of the corridor, Wang Yu and I stopped in front of a caved-in door. I had checked the map in the first-floor lobby, and this door hadn't been marked on it at all.

'There isn't even a doorplate. What kind of shameful secrets are hidden in this room?' I wondered. The door panel was already deformed, so it didn't take much effort for me to push it open.

"Umbilical Cord Blood Hematopoietic Stem Cell Bank?" A sign stood inside the room, accompanied by the words 'No Entry' written next to it.

'The Maternity and Children’s Health Center actually has a place like this?' I thought. I wasn't very familiar with the hospital's layout, but the actual purpose of these strange rooms likely had nothing to do with their names.

From the moment I stepped inside, the sound of dripping blood echoed in my ears. The thick, viscous liquid falling from a height sounded distinctly different from dripping water.

We walked past rows of shelves packed with various bottles and jars. There were also several massive freezers scattered around. I tried opening one of the freezer doors; a single glance at the refrigerated contents inside was enough to make my heart pound.

"Poor things. They haven't even fully formed yet," I muttered, shutting the freezer door and pressing forward. This warehouse operated on an independent power supply; the running freezers and the faint, flickering lights in the distance were undeniable proof of that.

Rounding another shelf, the sight of steaming blood on the floor made me halt my steps. I looked up but couldn't find any trace of the Ghost Mother. Instead, I only saw a middle-aged man lying flat on top of two desks pushed together.

His posture was nearly identical to how the Ghost Mother had been positioned back in the family planning room. Walking on my tiptoes, I carefully avoided the blood and approached the desks.

The man wasn't completely dead yet. I could see his chest still rising and falling, but he could no longer speak. His mouth had been pierced through by silver needles in a scene of absolute cruelty.

Not a single one of the 361 silver needles that had once been stuck in the Ghost Mother was wasted. Now, they were all driven deeply into this man's flesh, pinning him alive to the desks.

His muscles were twitching, and the expression on his face had frozen in place a minute ago.

'Good is rewarded with good, and evil is punished with evil. If the punishment hasn't arrived, it just means the time isn't right yet.' I had seen this man's face in the director's office earlier. He was the director of the Maternity and Children’s Health Center who had been missing for a long time—Wang Xiusen.

The Ghost Mother had vanished after killing him. I walked a full circle around the desks and suddenly noticed some photographs resting beneath the director's head.