Chapter 565: Fate Illuminated by Kuigang

"Possessed?" I reacted instantly, forming a one-handed seal while pinching a Suppression Talisman, waving my other hand at the pregnant woman to get her out of the living room.

The situation had escalated. Though she was terrified for her husband, she wasn't unreasonable; she slipped out of the villa alone.

Seeing her leave, I finally relaxed. After so many live streams, ordinary ghosts and monsters were no longer a concern. Besides, it was daytime—a huge advantage for me.

"Can you understand me? Why did you possess him? Who ordered you to do this?"

I fired off all three questions in a row, but Wu Youde didn't answer. His smile just grew increasingly eerie, the corners of his mouth stretching so wide his lips looked ready to tear.

"Low intelligence. Shouldn't be too hard to deal with." If the entity had understood me, I might have been a bit more careful. "The villa has been arranged into a yin dwelling, and its feng shui has taken shape. Daoist spells are somewhat restricted here, but that means nothing to me. Compared to Daoist arts, my ghost arts are a bit more formidable."

"Progenitor of the Five Elements, Essence of the Six Jia, ghosts arrive at my will, acting upon my command." Stowing the Suppression Talisman, I channeled yin energy into the Ghost Ring.

"Yin-Yang Has an Order! Wandering souls, be delivered and ascend as immortals! Defy this order, and be cast into the netherworld, your bones ground to dust!"

Wu Youde's villa was designed as a yin dwelling. The entryway was very low, trapping the malevolent yin energy bred inside. It all pooled within the house, nourishing that sculpture.

But the Yin-Yang Ghost Art I practiced was arguably one of the most overbearing ghost arts in the world, dominating the netherworld and suppressing yin and yang. I easily seized the malevolent yin energy that had been feeding the statue. Cut off from its source, the ghost possessing Wu Youde wouldn't last long.

Competing with an evil spirit for malevolent yin energy—the ghost clearly hadn't anticipated this method of exorcism. It didn't react until I had siphoned off nearly forty percent of the malevolent yin energy, at which point it lunged at me in a fury.

"Filthy Ghost! Desire Ghost!" With a wave of my hand, I summoned the two ghosts to flank Wu Youde. Their attacks would take a toll on his physical body, but I couldn't worry about that right now; I just needed to end the battle quickly.

I suppressed Wu Youde with the Yin-Yang Ghost Art, slowly wresting control of the malevolent yin energy inside the yin dwelling. The entity struggled to hold on under the pincer attack, but it eventually broke. It morphed into a palm-sized white shadow, flew out of Wu Youde's back, and darted into the Double-Faced Buddha Head on the floor.

Freed from the ghost's control, Wu Youde shuddered and collapsed limply to the ground. Ravaged by yin energy, his complexion was dreadful, like a victim of severe gas poisoning.

I kicked him over to the edge of the living room, dispersed the malevolent yin energy inside the villa, opened the doors and windows, and tore down the plants on the balcony. Only then did I recall the two ghosts and cautiously approach the Buddha head.

"Why was this thing inside the sculpture?" I carried the Buddha head into the sunlight for a closer look. The head had two faces and appeared incredibly ancient. I didn't know what firing technique they had used, but it was completely sealed—not a single seam in sight.

"This looks like an antique." Nothing related to the Two-Faced Buddha was ever simple. After hesitating for a moment, I stood in the sunlight and violently smashed it against the floor.

"Crack!"

The Buddha head shattered into pieces. Amidst the pile of fragments, I spotted a slip of paper the size of a child's palm.

"What is this?" When I suppressed Wu Youde with my ghost art earlier, a similar white shadow had flown out of him.

I picked it up and inspected it closely. It looked like a very ordinary piece of white paper.

There was nothing special about it at all. It bore no writing, no talismans, and absolutely no markings.

"Wait." I placed the palm-sized scrap on the ground and suddenly noticed deliberate cut marks, along with holes left in specific positions.

"This... why does it look like a piece of a mask?" I had just seen the Human Skin Mask on my way here, making me relatively familiar with them. Holding the white paper up to my own face, I quickly confirmed my suspicion. This seemingly ordinary scrap was actually a fragment of a White Paper Figure Mask.

"The sculpture was a gift from Mr. Paper. It hid the Buddha head, which in turn contained a piece of a Paper Doll Mask. Why would he do this? Was this white paper the evil entity causing trouble just now?"

I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Returning to the living room, I dragged Wu Youde into the sunlight, fetched a basin of hot water mixed with cinnabar, and poured it directly over him.

Drenched in cinnabar, Wu Youde took a sharp breath, his eyes snapping open as he woke up with a miserable shriek.

His body was covered in wounds he had gouged out himself. Washed with hot water, the pain was naturally unbearable.

"Stop wailing like a ghost. You were entangled by yin energy, and this was the only way to save you." I helped Wu Youde up from the floor. Heartbroken, his pregnant wife brought dry clothes from the inner room to help him change.

Only after they finished did we sit back down in the living room to talk properly.

The fact that Mr. Paper had targeted Wu Youde meant the man definitely possessed something he needed. My priority now was to figure out what that was and stop Mr. Paper's scheme from succeeding.

Wu Youde was just as clueless, having no idea what he could possibly own that was worth coveting. Although his career was reasonably successful, he was still leagues below Mr. Paper, who had entered the upper echelons of the Li Group.

"Thinking about it, it shouldn't be about money. The two of you have no professional overlap, and you don't have any impressive treasures at home that would tempt the Two-Faced Buddha..." At the mention of treasures, my eyes lit up. What would the Two-Faced Buddha consider a treasure? The only thing that could attract a fate usurper was a special fate pattern!

Still somewhat unsure, I looked at Wu Youde. "Let me see your birth eight characters."

"You mean my birthday? I don't believe in this stuff, so I don't even know what my birth eight characters are."

Wu Youde's answer left me speechless. I had no choice but to call Blind Liu, who was recovering in the hospital. Old Liu had a sharp tongue but a soft heart. He never missed a chance to lecture me on a normal day, but whenever something went wrong, he instantly became my most reliable teammate.

The phone rang over a dozen times before it connected.

"Gao Jian? Do you need something?"

"Old Liu, I have a very special person on my end. Help me calculate his fate pattern." I fired off Wu Youde's birthday, along with his photo, ancestral home, and birthplace.

After five or six minutes, Blind Liu's voice finally came through the phone. "Ren-Chen, Geng-Xu, Geng-Chen, and Wu-Xu form the four pillar gods of Kuigang. Unseen by Wealth, Official, Punishment, or Malignant stars, the body walks in a prosperous land with unparalleled nobility. His fate is certainly not ordinary!"

Blind Liu spouted a lot of jargon, but the only part I understood was the last bit—"not ordinary." Sitting right there in Wu Youde's house, I was too embarrassed to look utterly ignorant in front of him, so I coughed dryly and matched Blind Liu's tone. "Old Liu, what are your thoughts?"

"I just calculated it. His fate is called the kuigang noble, a rather special type among noble destinies. Chen represents the Heavenly Gang, and Xu represents the Earthly Kui. Those born under Heavenly Gang and Earthly Kui are uncommonly noble and illustrious when strong, but suffer from bone-chilling poverty when weak. If my guess is right, he should be at the lowest point of his life right now. This year is the darkest the Kuigang star has been in nearly a century, but as of last night, the stars have shifted. This star will only grow brighter in the future." Blind Liu wasn't strong in combat, but he was incredibly well-read, likely thanks to the Liu family's rich collection of books. "Looking at his bone structure, he was meant to suffer a great calamity in his thirties—meaning this year. If he couldn't survive it, his body dies and the Dao dissolves. But once he passes it, the sea will be broad enough for fish to leap, and the sky high enough for birds to fly!"

"The kuigang noble. To think he has a noble fate pattern." Back when the heavenly yi noble appeared, the Two-Faced Buddha had stepped in to lay out a scheme personally. After forcing that heavenly yi noble to death, he had to wait twenty full years to eliminate the karma before daring to act again. Although this kuigang noble was inferior to the heavenly yi, it at least proved Wu Youde's fate was extraordinary. He harbored immense potential, making him worth cooperating with.

Divinities and malignant spirits included auspicious gods and ominous demons. The Two-Faced Buddha's plot was vast; regardless of whether they were good or bad, he needed any special fate pattern he could get. I, on the other hand, was different. My innate fate was completely blurred, my path ahead was as tangled and confusing as running hares, and I had been forsaken by the heavens. If I were to associate with ominous demons, bad things would inevitably happen. But auspicious gods were a different story. With Kuigang illuminating his fate, sticking close to Wu Youde would bring me nothing but benefits.

"It seems our cooperation can go a bit deeper." I hung up the phone with Blind Liu and silently looked at Wu Youde.