Chapter 64: Inviting Spirits

The Talisman Paper looked as if it had been soaked in fresh blood. Its red hue was tinged with black, giving off an extremely sinister first impression. If I hadn't been backed into a corner, I definitely wouldn't have used this talisman of unknown origin.

"Fellow livestream viewers, do any of you recognize this talisman?" I was acting out of pure desperation now, hoping for a stroke of dumb luck, like a blind cat catching a dead mouse.

The Talisman Paper was half a chi long and about five cun wide. The front bore the inscription Qimen Dunjia Divine Concealment Returning to the Ruins, while the back depicted a Nine-Tailed Blood Fox. Its nine tails reached up to support the sky, corresponding to the Daoist Nine-Syllable Mantra.

Half-immortal Liu from Qingcheng Mountain: "Do not be impulsive, my young friend. The Talisman Paper in your hand was not drawn by a Daoist of the Celestial Master Dao. The brushwork is coarse, and its murderous aura is heavy. If it isn't the work of an evil practitioner out to harm others, then it's a divine communication talisman left behind by an anomalous entity that achieved sentience."

"Are you saying this talisman wasn't drawn by a Daoist priest, but by a monster?"

"I'm ninety percent certain. This talisman is the most common Deity-Inviting Talisman, except it doesn't revere deities—it reveres evil spirits. It invites a wicked ghost or demonic entity to possess your body!"

I understood what Half-Immortal Liu meant. The risks of using this talisman were tremendous. Inviting an evil spirit to do one's bidding would definitely deplete my vitality, and it might even reduce my Yang Lifespan.

"Half-immortal, do you know the incantation for the Deity-Inviting Talisman?" I had to prepare for the worst. If the ghosts and monsters outside managed to get in, I would stall them until dawn even if it cost me my vitality. Otherwise, both Yi Yi and I would die.

"My young friend, the Deity-Inviting Talisman isn't something to joke around with, especially a Blood Talisman of unknown origin like this one."

"A Blood Talisman?"

"Have you ever heard the saying that it is easy to invite a deity, but hard to send them away?" Half-Immortal Liu knew I was acting out the proverb that newborn calves fear no tigers, so he wanted to make the stakes absolutely clear. "I once met an old lady in her seventies. Years ago, she picked up a broken idol by the roadside. She couldn't bear to see it exposed to the wind and sun, so she took it home with her."

"As a result, the old lady grew healthier and healthier, but disasters constantly struck her family. First, her eldest son's company went bankrupt. Then her second daughter miscarried, her young grandson died prematurely, and finally, even her third daughter, who was still in school, was expelled for various reasons."

"She racked her brains but couldn't figure out why. Later, she invited someone to inspect her house and discovered that the idol she had brought back was an evil Thai deity."

"Terrified, the old lady sent the idol away, but it was too late. That dilapidated idol kept appearing around her residential area. She had already been targeted by that evil deity."

"Not long after, the old lady's eldest son jumped off a building due to a debt dispute, her second daughter fell into severe depression, and her youngest daughter was murdered by thugs in another city. A perfectly good family was utterly destroyed in the blink of an eye. This is the consequence of indiscriminately inviting spirits."

I didn't read Half-Immortal Liu's barrage of messages carefully. Even if he talked until the sky fell down today, I still had to use this talisman.

If I didn't use it, I was dead for sure. If I did, there was still a sliver of hope.

"Stop nagging and just tell me how to use it! I'm burning my bridges today—there's no turning back." I noticed Zhang Rong's footsteps approaching outside the door. She was checking the rooms one by one, and she would find this place very soon!

"Half-immortal!"

"Forget it. I don't know whether I'm harming you or helping you, but I hope you won't hold a grudge against me in the future."

"I take full responsibility for my own actions. Why would I hold a grudge against you?"

"My young friend, listen closely. Focus your mind, visualize the Blood Talisman, and chant silently in your heart:"

"Wandering the five directions, spanning over a zhang."

"Radiant in presence, obscured in the void."

"Overflowing with Yin Merit, breaking through the five elements."

"Let fortune arrive and the heart reach, and enter my spirit platform!"

I recited it silently once, committing it firmly to memory. "Thank you, Half-immortal."

"No need to thank me. This incantation is not a normal deity-inviting chant. I can only help you this much."

I wanted to say a few more words to the half-immortal, but the footsteps in the corridor had stopped right at the door.

"Crap!" I scooped up Yi Yi and hid behind the shelf storing the cremation urns. "It's almost dawn. I need to stall for time as much as possible."

Creak... The door was pushed open. Zhang Rong crawled into the room. Her appearance had become even more terrifying; blood dripped from the corners of her mouth, and her hair draped wildly down her back.

She prowled the room like a hunting beast. To keep her from discovering us, I carried Yi Yi and didn't dare stay in one spot, moving in circles to evade her.

About five or six minutes later, Zhang Rong disappeared from my line of sight.

"Is she gone?" Setting Yi Yi down, I peered outward. The doorway was completely empty. Just as I was about to heave a sigh of relief, my head seemed to bump into something.

I slowly raised my head. A few strands of black hair fluttered in the air...

"Holy shit!"

I had no idea when Zhang Rong had climbed on top of the shelf. Her long hair cascaded down, and she was currently flashing a wide, gruesome smile right at me!

"Run!" I grabbed Yi Yi's hand and sprinted toward the door, but to my shock, the normally docile Yi Yi flung my hand away. She seemed to have spotted something and ran to the other side of the urn shelf.

"Yi Yi! Come back!"

I yelled at the top of my lungs, no longer caring about exposing my position. Just as I was about to rush over, Zhang Rong bared her teeth and lunged down at me from the shelf.

"Get lost!" I grabbed a nearby chair and pinned her into the corner. Her sharp, narrow fingernails clawed at my face through the gaps in the chair. This crazy bitch even started gnawing on the chair legs with her teeth—hysterical and completely devoid of reason.

"Yi Yi!"

I shouted again, but unfortunately, Yi Yi didn't come over. Instead, the main doors of the adjacent memorial hall swung open.

People who were supposed to be dead appeared one by one: the driver, the guy in the hospital gown, Wang Chunfu, Jianye, Jianbang...

"So you were all dead all along..." The only two living people on the bus aside from me were Yi Yi and Yuan Feng.

I initially thought the guy in the hospital gown was alive, assuming he was a car crash victim who had run out of a hospital. But I saw his photo in the crematorium's computer. This crazy guy in the hospital gown was named Zhou Wei, a famous cancer fighter. He had lingered on the boundary of life and death multiple times, and during his final days, his mind grew muddled. With one foot in the Ghost Gate, it was said he could see both humans and ghosts.

Yi Yi getting on the bus was deliberately orchestrated by a yin soul. I got on because I accepted a commission from the Underworld Live Show, and Yuan Feng boarded because his countless wicked deeds doomed him to destruction—plagued by evil thoughts, it was his karmic retribution.

The passengers I had traveled with all night reappeared before my eyes, but they seemed to have lost their individual consciousness. Right now, they were nothing but cold corpses.

I understood clearly that these people were merely puppets for some vicious entity. Any vengeful ghost with even a slight ability to resist wouldn't be enslaved so easily, like the Woman in Red.

"Dawn is about to break! Evil spirits, disperse at once!" I bellowed to bolster my courage, but I hadn't expected to attract the attention of even more yin souls in the memorial hall.

There were far too many of them. Some had been dead for who knew how many years, yet they were still trapped in this place, unable to pass on.

"Transforming yin into malevolence... what a terrible sin!" I didn't know who possessed such grand means to spend years setting up this scheme just to gather the ten evils. "Who exactly is the sacred entity acting behind the scenes?"

My voice trembled slightly. I clutched the Talisman Paper tightly, entirely at a loss for what to do.

The number of yin souls in the hall exceeded a hundred. Moreover, this place was a Yin Fiend Ghost Den, a dead-end layout in feng shui.

"What should I do?" Yin winds whipped up all around, and the wandering ghosts and wild spirits stranded in the mortal realm surged toward me like a tidal wave. My breathing grew difficult; I could only risk everything on one desperate gamble.

"We're only a dozen minutes away from dawn! Come on then! I absolutely will not back down!"

I held the Blood Talisman in front of my chest and stared intensely at the Nine-Tailed Blood Fox. Discarding all distracting thoughts, I focused my entire mind.

"Wandering the five directions, spanning over a zhang."

"Radiant in presence, obscured in the void."

"Overflowing with Yin Merit, breaking through the five elements."

"Let fortune arrive and the heart reach, and enter my spirit platform!"

The moment the last word left my lips, the talisman at my fingertips erupted into a blazing fire. My vitality churned as all the energy in my body flooded into the talisman.

"It's not enough! Still not enough!" The flames burned, but ultimately failed to take shape. "Don't you just want a sacrifice? Bring it on! Take my lifespan, take my flesh and blood—take whatever you want!"

I bit my wrist open and splattered blood into the talisman. The Mind-Clearing Jade given to me by Blind Liu, which hung around my neck, shattered in response and crumbled into powder.

"Let fortune arrive and the heart reach, and enter my spirit platform!"

The flames formed by the Talisman Paper scattered like a rain of blood. I let out a loud roar, and my consciousness abruptly grew blurry.

"Inviting spirits!" My eyes grew bloodshot and crimson, and an unprecedented aura of brutality and majesty descended upon my body.

"What kind of deity is this? How could it possess such immense resentment and murderous intent?" In the livestream room, Half-Immortal Liu continuously sent bullet screen messages. Unfortunately, I was already possessed by an invited spirit; I was no longer myself.

The phone dropped to the ground. The figure in the camera lens looked familiar and ordinary, yet he stood amidst a hundred ghosts without so much as furrowing his brow.

"Reverse Severing Yin Gathering Formation, Ten Evils Spirit Rushing Formation... what an ingenious method. It's just a pity that you're blocking my path." The figure on the screen gave a devilish smile and raised his right hand. "First came the Spirit Fox, then came Heaven; Xue Zhuo taints the mortal realm and slaughters immortals."

"Oh no!" Hearing this line of poetry, Half-Immortal Liu in the livestream room suddenly came to a terrifying realization. "How did he invite it?!"