Chapter 123: Meeting on a Narrow Path
The blind old Daoist held a peachwood sword, its tip pointing straight at the bride-dress female ghost. "Are you demon or ghost?!"
The female ghost in bright red wedding gown gently turned the umbrella handle, standing alone on the distant mountain path, giving an impression of solitary desolation. As she walked along, the hem of her skirt was already muddy and soaked. For some unknown reason, she had not used any demonic arts to condense the formless mountain miasma into garments that could repel dirt and grime. The flamboyant red wedding dress she wore was clearly made of genuine silk satin, possibly even from the hands of a tailor in a shop down the mountain.
The female ghost had previously wiped down, stripping off her entire facial skin. Now her palm slowly lifted upward again, covering her face with a new, pale, colorless countenance. She looked like those beautiful maidens awaiting marriage down the mountain—young, delicate, and pretty. If not for her sickly complexion, she would actually be no different from ordinary worldly women. So close at hand, even the blind Daoist could not sense any demonic aura from her.
Such great demons with cultivated Dao, when walking through human cities and towns, were actually already unimpeded. As long as they did not actively approach the City God's Pavilion or the Civil and Martial Temples, they would not provoke suppression by worldly powers. Of course, the prerequisite was that such great demons were willing to restrain their aura and suppress their murderous instincts, not bringing harm to the world.
The female ghost twitched the corner of her mouth, but her lips did not move as her voice arose on its own.
"The Daoist master is single-mindedly dedicated to slaying demons and vanquishing monsters, accumulating boundless merit. So I have come. As for the Daoist master's so-called Five Thunder True Method, I await it with great anticipation."
The old Daoist's heart grew more and more shocked. The reversed disc in his sleeve, with four layers inside and out, was designed to target demons, spirits, shady creatures, and mountain-water deities. It was now spinning wildly. Except for the layer for spirits, the other three layers were all spinning violently, indicating that the entity before him had a complex identity. It was very possible that in life, it had been a great demon with cultivated Dao, and after death, it had transformed into a fierce ghost wreaking havoc across the land. But before completely falling into the evil path, it had already qualified for promotion to a mountain-water deity.
The blind Daoist's heart was filled with bitterness. Compared to that treacherous mountain ghost of Mount Sanzhi, this was not just one or two degrees more troublesome! The old Daoist tried his best to maintain an unchanged expression and calm heartbeat, so as not to let the female ghost detect his inner panic. He slowly put away his peachwood sword, holding it reversed to show goodwill, and laughed heartily: "Although this young lady has overwhelming demonic aura, with the bearing to command a region and transcend heaven and earth, it is commendable that when I observe with my mind's eye, the young lady clearly has very little killing aura and few sins. Even if there are some lingering resentful energies, they are remnants from many years ago, not worth mentioning. As a wandering cultivator in the wilds, I can consider myself half a fellow traveler with this young lady. That great waters have washed over the Dragon King's temple, disturbing the young lady's cultivation, is a grave offense."
The bride-dress female ghost, who had been looking up at the oilpaper umbrella, suddenly withdrew her gaze and fixed her stare on the wandering Daoist skilled in thunder methods. This time, she directly opened her mouth to speak: "Young lady? Can you not see my attire? Call me 'madam'!"
The last four words were almost roared out by the bride-dress female ghost.
In an instant, the rain poured down even more heavily, and the mountain wind howled.
With a slap sound.
The female ghost closed her oilpaper umbrella, holding it in one hand while gently stroking its surface with the other, tenderly wiping away the rainwater. But her face, as she looked at the master and two disciples, kept twisting. "So you are indeed blind. An old blind man! You can observe images with your mind's eye, can you? Then I shall take you back to my mansion and let you, this ill-intentioned ox-nose Daoist, know what heart-piercing pain truly is."
The old Daoist tried to soothe the atmosphere, sighing: "Why must Madam be so aggressive? Is there no room for negotiation?"
The female ghost began to walk slowly forward, step by step treading in the mud of the path. With one hand holding the umbrella and the other lifting her skirt, she revealed a pair of soaking wet, dirty embroidered shoes, smiling: "Dao techniques are not refined, yet you dare harbor ill intentions. Death is good, death is good. Better than later delaying the young master's studies, delaying his success in the imperial examinations..."
Toward the end, the female ghost murmured softly, her gaze gentle. Those fragmented words that seemed like whispers were completely drowned out in the fierce wind and rain.
The blind Daoist sneered: "Madam, do you truly want to bring about mutual destruction with me?"
Seeing that the situation had reached a point of no return, the old Daoist, who had wandered for decades across half of Vase Prefecture, was not one to shy away from trouble. He shouted: "Lame boy, if we can join forces to repel the enemy this time, I promise you that Little Wine won't have to hand over any talisman spring for an entire year."
The lame boy nodded, reaching out to grasp the soul-summoning pennant inscribed with "Subdue Demons, Capture Ghosts, Vanquish Evil, Protect the Way," and said in a deep voice: "It's done."
The blind old man stamped his foot heavily on the ground, pressing both hands together with two fingers joined, forming the hand seal of a Daoist ritual sword. He quickly chanted a series of sword incantations to himself, ending with "By imperial decree, haste, haste!"
The soul-summoning pennant stuck in the ground suddenly unfurled from its rolled-up state, flapping in the wind with a loud cracking sound. The eight characters on it turned into a ghastly white, like eight small soldiers clad in silver armor, beginning to move across the pennant surface as if obeying military orders, arranging themselves in battle formation.
Then the four characters "Subdue Demons, Capture Ghosts" slid swiftly along the pennant surface, the wooden pole, the lame boy's arm and shoulder, eventually flowing into the boy's four orifices—ears, nose, and mouth.
The boy's eyes immediately turned pure white, and with each breath, black smoke swirled around his seven orifices.
The lame boy clenched his fists, raised his head, and roared. Black smoke billowed all over his body, and raindrops the size of soybeans evaporated into steam as soon as they approached within three feet of his head.
Compared to the female ghost with her internally restrained yin aura, the lame boy seemed much more like a yin creature or monster ready to devour people.
The bride-dress female ghost had been observing the round-faced little girl. When the boy began charging toward her, she finally turned her gaze to the relieved blind Daoist and said calmly: "How disappointing. You can't even be considered unorthodox Dao; you're nothing more than a lowly crooked path. A thief crying 'thief'—you don't deserve death, you deserve a fate worse than death."
In the blink of an eye, the lame boy reached the female ghost, leaped high into the air, and swept his leg toward her head.
The bride-dress female ghost neither dodged nor blocked. She kept one hand pinching her skirt, her posture graceful, moving straight forward. With a loud bang.
The female ghost's entire head was "uprooted" and flew off somewhere down the mountain.
But the headless female ghost continued forward.
After landing, the boy swept his leg again, this time targeting the headless female ghost's waist.
The hand holding the umbrella simply used its back to lightly block the boy's leg sweep, which carried the weight of a thousand jun. The boy's leg failed to make the back of her hand budge even slightly.
Using the huge rebound force, the boy twisted his hovering body in a circle and thrust his palm toward the bride-dress female ghost's heart, shouting: "Subdue demons!"
The silver characters "Subdue Demons" appeared on the back of the boy's hand, then automatically disassembled stroke by stroke, finally converging into a murderous silver short sword imbued with cyan-white light. It shot out from his hand and flew straight toward the female ghost's heart.
The female ghost caught the sharp flying sword, which was about to pierce her red wedding dress, between two fingers.
The flying sword, barely a foot long, trembled violently, buzzing incessantly.
The female ghost's voice rose leisurely: "I don't care if I lose my head, but this dress cannot be damaged. It can be washed if dirty, but if it's torn and mended, it won't be beautiful anymore. Otherwise, how would my young master mock my needlework..."
After delivering his palm strike, the lame boy almost simultaneously threw an uppercut, but he did not shout the "Capture Ghosts" character. From his fist, another flying sword condensed from the pennant's talismanic characters shot out. Clearly, although he seemed dull, the boy was not truly simple-minded.
He attacked to kill, combining orthodox and unorthodox methods.
A loud roar exploded: "Wretched ghost creature, this poor Daoist shall act on behalf of Heaven this time! Even without a head, you will still be struck by the Five Thunders!"
In the air ten-odd zhang above the mountain path, a white thunderbolt crashed down.
The female ghost, still holding the umbrella with one hand, used her thumb and index finger to pinch the first "Subdue Demons" flying sword, then lightly raised her arm, catching the second "Capture Demons" sword with her ring and little fingers.
Then, with an effortless motion, she struck the boy's forehead with her elbow. The boy flew backwards, crashing onto the muddy path and sliding back over a zhang.
The female ghost raised her umbrella hand and opened it with a slap sound.
The white thunderbolt struck the top of the oilpaper umbrella, exploding brilliantly.
Standing under the umbrella, the female ghost applied slightly more pressure with her four fingers, snapping the two flying swords in half. They fell to the ground, turning into two pools of silvery white liquid, quickly mixing with the mud.
With a wave of her hand, her head flew back and reattached to her neck. Flesh grew, and it quickly returned to its original state.
The bride-dress female ghost raised her free arm and plucked a few blades of grass from her hair.
"Again!"
The blind Daoist's heart trembled. He knew that if he didn't act now, it would be too late. Resolved to face death, he completely unleashed his full power. After taking a deep breath, his face became majestic, enveloped in a faint yellow hue.
The old Daoist lifted one foot off the ground, clenched one fist at his abdomen, and pounded his stomach heavily. With his other palm facing the sky, his sleeve slipped down, revealing a string of vermilion talismans on his arm.
The old Daoist said in a deep voice: "Exhale as wind, chuckle as thunder! Above the clouds, resplendent—an immortal shows the way!"
The female ghost, holding the oilpaper umbrella, twitched the corner of her mouth. As she passed by the severely wounded lame boy, annoyed that he blocked her way, she casually kicked him off the mountain. But the boy's figure disappeared in midair.
The round-faced little girl went mad. She used a knife to cut her palm and arm, smearing the blood haphazardly on her face, then charged at the female ghost, ready to fight to the death.
But the little girl forgot that the rain was pouring heavily, and she didn't have the immortal skill of the blind Daoist to retain the spiritual energy of talismans. By the time she reached the bride-dress female ghost, her face was already clean, with only rain continuously sliding down. The blood had long been washed away by the rain.
The female ghost casually slapped her, hitting the little girl on the cheek. The small, thin body immediately flew into the air, tumbling sideways, and like the lame boy, quickly disappeared from sight.
After that, each step the red-clad female ghost took was accompanied by a white thunderbolt as thick as a bucket crashing down onto the oilpaper umbrella surface. Electric light splattered everywhere, and the white thunder shattered.
If someone were looking at this mountain from afar at this moment, they would see bolts of lightning like white snakes, repeatedly falling from the not-so-high sky and then exploding brilliantly among the forest.
---
A lingering drizzle that could be weathered with a bamboo hat had, without warning, turned into a torrential downpour, making it truly difficult to proceed.
Just as Chen Ping'an suggested finding a place to take shelter from the rain, Lin Shouyi reached up to steady his bamboo hat, which was being battered askew by the driving rain, and said gravely, "Something's wrong."
Li Huai tugged at Li Baoping's sleeve and shouted, "I'm a little scared!"
Li Baoping scolded, "Isn't the Yin spirit a ghost? So what are you afraid of?"
Li Huai's eyes lit up. "Oh, right!"
He turned and lectured the white donkey behind Lin Shouyi, "Little white donkey, don't go getting lost, okay?"
The donkey snorted.
The Yin spirit appeared beside Chen Ping'an, speaking hoarsely, "There's a female ghost holding sway over the surrounding mountains and waters. She's currently fighting that old Daoist. Unless something unexpected happens, she's sure to win. She has an unknown origin and considerable cultivation. Normally, in other places, I could capture her, but here and now, it's very uncertain."
The Yin spirit cautiously looked around, explaining, "In the mountain-and-water registry, any legitimate mountain-and-water deity has its own territory or jurisdiction. When fighting within their own domain, they have a significant advantage of time and place. Besides that, for mountains and rivers not designated by the court, even if there are extraordinarily powerful demons, ghosts, or various spirits that manage to stand out, wanting to obtain something like a Confucian academy or college, a Daoist sect or mansion's blessed land, or a military cultivator's ancient battlefield site—it's harder than reaching the heavens. This isn't just about having deep cultivation; it also requires immense fortune. But the Heavenly Dao has never favored us yin creatures. Wanting to legitimately occupy a territory is like a feudal separatist regime in a mortal dynasty—how could it be easy?"
Li Huai muttered to himself timidly, "This Yin spirit senior must have been a scholar in life too."
The Yin spirit spoke with a deep tone, pointing at the mountain path beneath everyone's feet. "A very bad piece of news: the female ghost leading all the evil forces here has a status no less than that of a local mountain god. She might even simultaneously hold the position of a river goddess. Everything about her is strange from start to finish. And as for what's under your feet—you've been walking on a 'Yellow Spring Road' that she secretly laid out from the beginning. As a yin creature, I can freely enter and leave, but if I forcibly try to lead you out of this path, it might severely damage your bodies and souls."
Lin Shouyi said calmly, "Yin spirit senior, since you can't win a fight against her and we can't leave, what do we do?"
The Yin spirit said solemnly, "Wait until she shows herself. Don't worry—I won't let any of you get hurt."
He felt somewhat guilty, regretting that earlier, amidst the vast righteous energy, he had stubbornly gone against the current. Although it had greatly benefited his cultivation afterward, to the point of being incalculably advantageous, the problem was that now his Daoist practice had been reduced to only seventy or eighty percent of its full strength. And he had fallen into the female ghost's trap. It was very likely that her original target was Chen Ping'an's group, not that blind Daoist and his two disciples.
Those white paper lanterns stretching for several li along the mountain path were nothing but a diversion to lure him in for exploration.
The Yin spirit's emotions were complicated. That blind Daoist might not have high cultivation, but his mouth was truly venomous.
The Yin spirit said, "All of you stand behind me."
Soon, the Yin spirit stood at the very front of the path.
Chen Ping'an and Lin Shouyi moved back, one on the left and one on the right.
Chen Ping'an had already swapped his firewood knife for the Xiangfu sword. Lin Shouyi's hands hung at his sides, each sleeve containing a talisman.
Li Baoping and Li Huai stood even further back.
At the very rear, the white donkey was restless and irritable, stomping heavily on the ground, splashing mud.
A bride-dress female ghost holding an oilpaper umbrella slowly approached from the distance. In one hand, she dragged the blind Daoist by one leg. When she was still several zhang away from Chen Ping'an and the others, she finally stopped. On the mountain path, lanterns lit up one after another, even behind Chen Ping'an. Clusters of crimson glow bathed everyone in a ruddy light.
The female ghost casually tossed the Daoist, whose condition was unknown, between the two parties. With an expression of unconcealed "pleasant surprise," she raised a finger, pointed, and said, "So many distinguished guests! One, two, three—there are three scholars! Which one is the Confucian gentleman? My young master once vowed that he would become a virtuous gentleman in this life, to seek peace for the nation and its people. I never thought that at such a young age, you would have already fulfilled my young master's long-cherished wish."
Chen Ping'an wanted to step forward, but the Yin spirit shook his head and said quietly, "Not yet."
The female ghost tilted her head, looking left and right at the three little ones carrying small bookcases on their backs. "My young master always said that only scholars with upright conduct could be called 'seeds of learning.' So whenever I missed my young master, who had traveled far and not yet returned, I would invite some passing scholars to be my guests, bestowing upon them beautiful young maidservants, rare ancient texts, thousand-year-old zithers. I loved to hear them speak those moving words of solemn vows and passionate oaths. Only scholars well-versed in poetry and books can speak such sweet nothings with such tender, heartfelt emotion."
The bride-dress female ghost finally fixed her gaze on the Yin spirit, smiling. "This Yin spirit senior is really unlucky. If it were a few years later, I certainly wouldn't dare to show myself in person this time."
She talked to herself, lowering her head slightly, covering her mouth with a delicate laugh, her eyes full of coquettish allure. "For a woman to appear in public like this—it really isn't good."
But even under the lantern light, her face, still ghastly pale, was far too hair-raising.
Li Huai only poked his head out for a look before his legs began to shake.
She asked with a laugh, "I haven't talked with anyone for such a long time. I can't help myself. You don't mind, do you?"
Then, remembering something, she gently closed her oilpaper umbrella.
Almost simultaneously, the heavy rain suddenly ceased. Not a single drop of rain remained in the air.
Lin Shouyi asked with a smile, "May I ask, Madam, what ultimately became of those scholars who were invited to your home as guests?"
She continued walking forward, her smile unchanged. "Them? In the end, I cut those oath-breaking scholars in half at the waist. After helping them stop the bleeding, I planted them in my garden."
"Because I wanted to know whether the 'seeds of learning' my young master spoke of would bloom into flowers in the soil, and whether one day they would bear abundant fruit."
"But I was very disappointed. They only turned into piles of bleached bones. But maybe those scholars couldn't really be called seeds of learning. So your arrival has made me overjoyed."
Lin Shouyi's face turned ashen.
Li Baoping trembled with rage.
Li Huai simply covered his ears with both hands. "I'm not listening, I'm not listening..."
"In the past, I loved scholars the most. But I hate faithless men the most!"
The bride-dress female ghost slowly raised her head. Bloody tears flowed from her eye sockets.
The deepest infatuation in the human world is always the most betrayed.
The white paper lanterns hanging in midair along both sides of the mountain path all began to drip streams of blood from their tops, eventually extinguishing the candle flames.
"In the end, I realized that there isn't a single scholar in this world who isn't a faithless man!"
Her face covered in blood, the female ghost casually dropped the oilpaper umbrella that had once been a token of love between her and her young master. She covered her face with both hands, and the sound of sobbing, barely suppressed, seeped through the gaps between her fingers.
"Young master, I don't blame you anymore. Please come back."
(End of chapter)