Chapter 23: Death is Approaching

Hearing Zhang Shengrui say this, Xie Sui nodded with a heavy expression. “I know.”

He then quickly beckoned to the little ghost holding the phone camera, signaling it to hurry back into his body.

To think it was Shiduo Hariti¹… Forget the livestream, escaping was the priority. This ghost-god was his natural nemesis.

The reason he needed to run was that Xie Sui was currently in a “bringing the whole family along” state. This ghost-god devoured children, giving her a specialized combat advantage against them. Including the one in his body and the one in his arms, Xie Sui was currently carrying fifty children. If a fight really broke out, it would be difficult to protect them all, and his heart would ache if even one of these children were harmed.

Fortunately, so far, that ghost-god was still just a statue and had not yet awakened. Otherwise, the little ghost who had approached to take photos with the phone would likely have been eaten.

That black stone statue depicted Hariti in her state before being converted by the Buddha.

Hariti was one of the Twenty Devas, the guardian deities of Shijiao. She was the protector of women and children, guarding them against illness and harm. She had another manifestation that was even better known to the public: the Child-Sending Guanyin².

However, before being converted by the Buddha, this Shijiao deity who protected children was actually an evil ghost who spread plagues and devoured infants. Her demonic form was known as Shiduo Hariti.

The statue in the shrine was not the true body of Hariti… Well, if it were truly the physical manifestation of one of the Twenty Devas, these ghosts carrying the palanquin would have been purified long ago.

This was likely an artificial creation, a ghost-god modeled after Shiduo Hariti and crafted using powerful malicious ghosts.

He had no idea which Shijiao traitor was so sacrilegious as to dare create such a thing.

There was truly no need to fight to the death with something like this. Moreover, these underworld entities received a power boost within the Yin-Yang Gap³. It was better to find a way back to the world of the living before it noticed them, and then figure out a solution.

Xie Sui didn’t believe this statue of Shiduo Hariti would dare follow him back to the real world. As long as it dared to show its face in reality, he wouldn’t even have to do anything; the people from Shijiao would charge right over.

Don’t be fooled by how those Shijiao monks usually looked kind-hearted and indifferent to worldly struggles. If they discovered someone was using malicious ghosts to create a fake deity and insult their guardian god, they would instantly transform into Wrathful Vajras⁴ and beat down the perpetrator’s door.

Seeing that Xie Sui didn’t immediately move against the ghost stalking him as he had with the Yawu-po, Zhang Shengrui didn’t rush him. He was a very observant child and could guess from Xie Sui’s grave expression that this ghost might be very dangerous.

Holding Zhang Shengrui, Xie Sui tiptoed away from the park entrance and turned to run deeper into the park.

The ghosts wandering the street opposite the park never noticed the presence of Xie Sui and Zhang Shengrui from start to finish, and they did not give chase.

At another section of the perimeter wall outside Bihu Park, two sneaky figures were crouching at a street corner. Each held several sheets of paper, looking as if they were pasting small advertisements on the wall.

The younger of the two, a man in his early twenties, seemed unaccustomed to the tedious work of “pasting flyers.” Every time he put one up, he would stand up and look around.

Just as he stood up once more, his gaze suddenly froze. He keenly sensed movement inside Bihu Park.

They had been pasting Talisman Paper for a long time, essentially transforming the streets surrounding Bihu Park into a state of Yin-Yang Gap. Only the interior of Bihu Park remained untouched, making him very sensitive to the conditions inside the park.

Just now, he had seen clearly: a man was running toward the weakest point of the talismans inside Bihu Park, carrying a child.

And that man was exactly the person their boss had told them to watch out for, Xie Sui!

Seeing this, the young man quickly poked the person still pasting talismans and whispered, “Brother Liu, I saw Xie Sui!”

The one still pasting talismans was a man in his thirties. He was unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes larger than the eyes themselves. Wearing a crumpled set of grey work clothes, he looked exceptionally weathered and decadent.

Hearing the young man call him, he didn’t react at all. He continued to numbly paste the Talisman Paper onto the wall, his soul seemingly wandering elsewhere. His movements were as mechanical as a factory assembly line.

“Brother Liu! It’s Xie Sui!” the young man hissed, trying to keep his voice down as he poked him harder.

“Oh,” Liu Wuyong replied without a hint of emotion.

Seeing him like this, the young man grew visibly anxious. “It’s Xie Sui! The guy the boss told us to keep an eye on!”

“So what?” Liu Wuyong lifted his eyelids slightly and said listlessly, “You aren’t thinking of telling the boss that you saw Xie Sui, are you?”

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I?” The young man looked confused, seemingly unable to understand why Liu Wuyong would even ask.

“Tsk.” Liu Wuyong frowned and scratched his messy, bird-nest hair with a headache. “Young people… forget it, you’re new to the job, so I won’t scold you. Let me impart some workplace experience to you first.”

Liu Wuyong stopped pasting and held up a finger expressionlessly. “First of all, the most important thing in the workplace is not to actively take on more work for yourself. You do whatever the boss tells you to do, and nothing more.”

“You tell the boss you saw Xie Sui, and then what? The boss will definitely make us go catch him. I don’t know who Xie Sui is, but seeing how he caught the Yawu-po so easily just now…”

“Caught the Yawu-po?” Hearing the keyword, the young man froze, interrupting Liu Wuyong with some excitement. “Holy crap, our Yawu-po was caught? Brother Liu, how are you still so calm? He dared to steal our stuff, shouldn’t we rush in and kill him?” He looked like a belligerent little punk, clearly dissatisfied with Xie Sui’s actions.

Liu Wuyong rolled his eyes helplessly. “It was just for filming a video. What does it matter what we film? The Yawu-po wasn’t something we absolutely had to keep. Since Xie Sui caught it first, then just let him have it.”

The young man wanted to say more, but he was interrupted by Liu Wuyong’s impatient wave of the hand.

“Give me a break, I have no desire to duel with a dangerous person like that. Don’t we know our own limits? The boss’s mission this time was just to have us come here and stick up these talismans, so let’s just stick them up and not worry about anything else. Even if you take the initiative to take on extra work, the boss isn’t going to pay you more. If you report the intel on Xie Sui to the boss, he’ll just order us to go catch him… Tsk, the boss sits in the back barking orders while we’re the ones getting hurt carrying them out, and he doesn’t even reimburse medical expenses.”

At this point, Liu Wuyong’s expression became even more listless, looking like he was barely clinging to life. “Doing an extra job doesn’t just mean no extra money; it means getting hurt, paying for your own doctor, and potentially getting chewed out by the boss if you fail to catch him. So why would you tell the boss about Xie Sui? You’d have to be stupid to do something so thankless.”

The young man looked as if he had just heard a profound revelation, his face filled with a dazed sense of enlightenment. He murmured, “I see… Thank you for waking me up, Brother Liu.”

Seeing his naive look, Liu Wuyong let out a long sigh. “Since we’ve already talked this much, I’ll give you one more pointer.”

“The boss told us to keep an eye on Xie Sui and report any intel related to him. Do you know why he didn’t tell us to just capture him the moment we found him? Because the boss’s subtext is: ‘He wants to capture Xie Sui with his own hands.'”

Liu Wuyong spoke with the earnest tone of someone who had seen it all. “Reporting info on Xie Sui after the boss has already discovered his existence is like adding flowers to a brocade⁵. But finding the target before the boss knows anything about it? That’s slapping the boss in the face.”

“If we find Xie Sui before the boss does, it ruins the boss’s chance to show off his ‘foresight’ and ‘brilliance.’ Regardless of whether our intel is useful or not, the boss will definitely end up embarrassed and angry. He’ll accuse us of meddling and find any excuse to yell at us. Why go looking for a scolding? We don’t have any personal grudge against Xie Sui, so just let the boss figure it out himself slowly.”

“Hiss… I get it now. Thanks, Brother Liu.” The young man looked grateful and stopped mentioning the idea of capturing Xie Sui. He squatted down and obediently continued sticking up talismans with Liu Wuyong.

Liu Wuyong yawned, holding a talisman and slapping it onto the wall with zero energy. “I’ve been doing this a few years longer than you, so I know what kind of person our boss is. We’re just employees. An employee does as much work as they’re paid for. The salary the boss pays isn’t nearly enough for us to start risking our lives for him.”

Liu Wuyong was the very “Horror Old Liu” that Xie Sui had been searching for without success. He had been sticking up talismans in the vicinity all along, and naturally, he had noticed Xie Sui looking for him. He had simply been playing hide-and-seek with Xie Sui while he worked.

Because he had a natural talent for erasing his own presence, Xie Sui hadn’t been able to find him even as night fell.

The two were strangers, but Liu Wuyong knew exactly why Xie Sui was looking for him. It was undoubtedly because of his wretched, scoundrel boss who deserved to be fried in oil.

As someone who had worked for him for several years, Liu Wuyong knew better than anyone that his boss would eventually face retribution. Given the heinous things the boss did that outraged both gods and men, it was only a matter of time before an enemy came knocking on his door.

Liu Wuyong also knew his boss was up to no good and that staying with him wouldn’t end well, but he couldn’t resign. Staying to work at least meant earning money; resigning meant losing both his money and his life.

His primary mission in Xiangcheng was to help the boss recover a lost ghost-god. Investigating urban legends at the primary school and catching Yawu-po to film videos were just secondary tasks.

That ghost-god had been raised by the boss because he felt the Life-Swapping Talismans⁶ were too inefficient and wanted a faster way to kidnap children. It had cost a massive amount of money and human lives, harming countless pregnant women, before a single one was finally successfully raised half a month ago.

However, unexpectedly, just as it was finished and before the boss could place a control talisman on it, the ghost-god had fled into the Yin-Yang Gap carrying its own physical statue, leaving the boss furious.

Then, two days ago, the boss saw a post on a paranormal forum. He suspected the poster had abducted the ghost-god he raised and confirmed that the entity was now in Xiangcheng. Thus, he dispatched Liu Wuyong here.

Liu Wuyong’s task was to use sensing talismans to find the ghost-god and then use more talismans to cordon off all the Yin-Yang Gaps in the vicinity. The talismans would enhance the aura of the Yin-Yang Gap, and since the ghost-god was heavy with Yin energy, it would automatically fall into the gap.

Once the Yin-Yang Gaps in the area were completely surrounded by talismans, he would use a Mother Talisman⁷ to recall all the sub-talismans. This would trap the ghost-god inside a Yin-Yang Gap whose entrance and exit were controlled by the talismans.

The Yin-Yang Gap was a void space with no specific location or size. One could stumble into it from any point in the living world and leave from any point.

What Liu Wuyong was doing was fixing the entrance and exit of a specific section of the Yin-Yang Gap so it could only be opened with a talisman.

Once this was done, Liu Wuyong could hand in his mission. He only needed to return the Mother Talisman to the boss. When the boss used it to open the Yin-Yang Gap, the ghost-god would return to him.

That was the extent of his duties.

As for Xie Sui… that was related to a talisman the boss had handed him yesterday. The talisman contained a sliver of divine sense with Xie Sui’s appearance and name. The boss had simply told him to watch out for this person and report immediately upon seeing him.

Liu Wuyong had already arrived in Xiangcheng when he received that talisman. The boss hadn’t given him any extra money, and the mission requirements for Xiangcheng didn’t include finding Xie Sui, so he acted as if he had never seen the talisman.

He wasn’t stupid; he wasn’t going to do two jobs for the price of one. He would wait until the boss officially paid him and gave him a mission to find Xie Sui.

While Liu Wuyong and his companion were diligently sticking up talismans, Xie Sui had already reached the other side of Bihu Park while carrying Zhang Shengrui.

He sensed that the frequency of the Yin-Yang Gap overlapping with the living world was highest here. As long as he timed it right, they could get out.

However, just as Xie Sui reached the spot, he ran head-first into a pitch-black shadow.

Both the human and the ghost were startled by each other, and they both took a step back simultaneously.

Xie Sui wanted to escape the Yin-Yang Gap. Coincidentally, the Shiduo Hariti wanted to leave as well. She was even willing to abandon her own physical idol. It didn’t matter if she lost her foundation and suffered severe damage to her vitality; the mere thought of being controlled by that Taoist, forced to capture children while being unable to eat them… what kind of eternal torture was that? The Shiduo Hariti felt like she would rather have her soul scattered.

And so, these two beings, one human and one ghost, both desperate to flee the Yin-Yang Gap, happened to cross paths at the very spot where escape was easiest.

“Big brother! This is it, ergh—” Before Zhang Shengrui could finish his sentence, Xie Sui turned and bolted without hesitation. The sudden burst of speed forced a mouthful of wind down Zhang Shengrui’s throat.

No wonder the statue on the palanquin hadn’t awakened; the deity’s true form had actually been wandering around outside. The idol was right nearby, so why was this ghost-god roaming about instead of staying inside it?

Initially, the Shiduo Hariti thought Xie Sui was an agent sent by that Taoist to capture her, part of the same group that had been plastering talismans in the Yin-Yang Gap to trap her.

However, she hadn’t expected this person to turn and run the moment he saw her. Furthermore, she noticed he was clutching a child she knew very well.

It was Zhang Shengrui.

Zhang Shengrui was the first child the Shiduo Hariti had seen upon her awakening. It was his obsession with wanting his mother to stay with him that had summoned her from the Yin-Yang Gap into the living world. She had always treated him as her own biological son, pouring all her maternal love into him.

This man actually dared to steal her child right in front of her!

Already burdened with heavy resentment due to the nature of her creation, the Shiduo Hariti instantly went berserk. She no longer cared about leaving the Yin-Yang Gap; she only wanted to tear the man who dared to steal her child into pieces.

The shapeless mass of black mist solidified instantly, faintly revealing the form of a pitch-black woman with four arms. She let out a piercing shriek and charged toward Xie Sui at high speed.

Feeling the chill emanating from behind him, Xie Sui felt utterly helpless.

It really was a case of “whatever you fear most will happen.” How could he be this unlucky? Was it because he had used too much Yin energy lately, causing his luck to turn sour?

In the past few days, he had consecutively dealt with a haunted house and a Water Fiend, fought a magical duel with the Kunyang Taoist, and just now handled a Yawu-po… well, it did seem like he had been a bit excessive. The corpse Qi had already spread to his arm. If things continued to deteriorate like this, he would eventually find himself back in his old situation, being hunted and cornered by the Xuanmen.

Once this incident was over, he was definitely going to take a long break. He swore it.

The cold behind him grew heavier, feeling as though it were right at his heels. Seeing this, Xie Sui simply threw Zhang Shengrui forward.

Before Zhang Shengrui could even scream, he felt as if he had landed on a pile of cotton. He watched helplessly as he remained suspended in the air, dragged by something invisible, flying away at extreme speed.

At the same time, the Shiduo Hariti’s massive claws, formed from black mist, swung down violently toward Xie Sui’s back.

Xie Sui had intended to tank the blow with his own body. Since he had already thrown the Little Ghosts and Zhang Shengrui away, it didn’t matter if he got hurt.

To his surprise, however, the moment the black claws were about to make contact with his back, a speck of golden light suddenly appeared behind him. That speck of light was like a firework exploding in the night sky, instantly spraying countless streaks of golden radiance outward from its center, surrounding Xie Sui.

Before Xie Sui could react to what was happening, the Shiduo Hariti was sent flying by this golden light barrier.

Accompanying the golden light were ethereal Sanskrit chants and the heavy tolling of a bell. This Buddhist seal, originating from the orthodox Shijiao, vibrated with such force that the black mist on the Shiduo Hariti’s body became unstable.

Xie Sui stood frozen in place, staring blankly at the golden streaks of light that had suddenly appeared on his person—each streak was composed of countless tiny golden Sanskrit characters.

Seeming to realize something, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small slip of paper.

On that small card printed with Li Duanyuan’s name, a golden Mantra Wheel composed of the Six-Syllable Mantra slowly emerged. This was the source of those golden streaks of light.

The business card Li Duanyuan had given him was actually blessed with a Mahavidya Mantra Wheel.

Xie Sui’s current mood was incredibly complex. He had only met Li Duanyuan once, yet the man had given him such a life-saving treasure. The Shijiao was perhaps too friendly toward ordinary people haunted by ghosts.

Li Duanyuan’s actions didn’t represent all members of the Shijiao; he had given Xie Sui this life-saving item purely for his own sake.

Because Li Duanyuan possessed a unique Fate Pattern, anyone who shared a “karmic bond” with him would suffer constant bad luck at best, or die a violent death immediately after meeting him at worst. This was why his master had named him Duanyuan—Severing Bonds.

The moment Li Duanyuan first saw Xie Sui, he had a bad premonition. He felt a strange sensation that he would encounter Xie Sui again in the future. Fearing that this inexplicable bond would catalyze the spirits clinging to Xie Sui and cause him to die an accidental, violent death, he had given him this card blessed with the Mantra Wheel.

As long as this card could save Xie Sui’s life at a critical moment, the connection between them would be severed.

Settling a debt with money is one way to sever a bond; using a life-saving favor to cancel out the karma brought by a connection is another.

The Shijiao’s Sanskrit chants and the Mantra Wheel seemed to stimulate the Shiduo Hariti. She was completely enraged, and the black mist on her body began to spread outward.

The black mist in the area where Xie Sui stood grew thicker and heavier. At the edge of the mist, the eerie glow of cyan Ghost Fire became clearer. Tall, thin ghostly figures dressed in white appeared, swaying as they stepped over the Ghost Fire—the ghosts carrying the divine palanquin had been directly teleported here by the mist from the Shiduo Hariti’s body!

As the palanquin appeared, the golden light on Xie Sui’s body began to dim… The blessing on the card seemed to be a one-time use, its power slowly fading over time.

Seeing her idol appear, the Shiduo Hariti’s formless body completely dissipated. She turned into black mist and surged into the black stone statue.

As the last wisp of black mist entered the idol, the statue of the woman with closed eyes atop the palanquin snapped her eyes open.

That gaze, as tangible as a physical object, pierced through the cover of the shrine, through the churning black mist, past the flying paper money and the eerie Ghost Fire, stabbing straight toward Xie Sui.

Bloody tears rolled down from the corners of the statue’s eyes. Xie Sui suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest and could not stop himself from coughing up a mouthful of fresh blood.

As if he knew exactly what was happening, he yanked open his collar and looked down at his chest.

Upon his pale, bloodless skin, bluish-purple scars radiating the aura of death occupied nearly his entire chest cavity. Those marks representing death seemed to have already branded themselves deep into his internal organs, like a cancer of the bone that could never be eradicated.

However, none of that was the most terrifying part. The most frightening sight was the area over Xie Sui’s heart. The interlaced blue and white skin had become translucent, and the pulsing, bright red heart within his chest was clearly visible.

Shiduo Hariti was not only fond of devouring children, she was also a plague ghost capable of spreading disease.

Xie Sui’s physical symptoms were rapidly deteriorating under Shiduo Hariti’s gaze, and his life force was draining away at high speed.

Looking at his own horrifying, crumbling body, Xie Sui fell silent for a moment. Then, he suddenly began to laugh. “How pathetic… Now even things like this dare to trample all over me.”

“I don’t want much. I just want to live properly like a human being. Why is it so difficult?”

At a distant street corner, two figures were huddled against a wall, sneakily poking their heads out to watch Xie Sui.

From their perspective, they could clearly see Xie Sui’s wretched, sightless body.

The younger man could not help but whisper, “Brother Liu, are we really not going to make a move?”

“No,” Liu Wuyong replied with absolute decisiveness. “If you want to die, I won’t stop you.”

“But Xie Sui looks like he’s about to die. His heart looks like it’s going to fall out. We just need to deliver the finishing blow,” the young man said, sounding somewhat confused.

“Tsk, you still haven’t given up on the idea of using Xie Sui to suck up to the boss? Look at the situation. Xie Sui is already talking tough, which means he definitely has a trump card. Why are you so eager to rush in? Do you want to sacrifice yourself as cannon fodder just to highlight Xie Sui’s cool comeback moment? Leave that kind of cannon fodder work to the ghost over there. We’ll just stay here and enjoy the show.”

“But, that ghost is on our side. The boss spent a lot of money and resources…”

“You know the boss spent money to raise it, don’t you?” Liu Wuyong could not help but roll his eyes. “What the boss spends money on has nothing to do with us.”

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette case, and stuck one in his mouth. He said indistinctly, “Fighting isn’t nearly as fun as slacking off. Getting paid to slack off is comfortable and easy.”

Translator’s Notes