Chapter 35: International Friend

Xie Sui remained focused on the ward door that had suddenly swung open, seemingly completely unaware of the anomaly at the window behind him.

The figure outside the window revealed itself fully. It still had only half a head—it was a Ghost Infant whose lower jaw had been torn away.

It wore a tattered black bellyband¹, and its flesh was pale and wrinkled. Even the interior of its wide-open mouth lacked any trace of blood, colored instead with the bruised, dark purple hue of impending rot. Judging by its size, it was much chubbier than a child of the same age, the strings of its bellyband buried deep within flesh that seemed bloated enough to burst.

The Ghost Infant pressed its pudgy body against the glass, preparing to squeeze inside.

However, after seeing the scene inside the ward clearly, the Ghost Infant froze.

Before it, dozens of child spirits densely packed every available space within sight. Some crouched on the windowsill, some floated in the air, and others were pressed against the glass, all staring at it with curiosity.

The feeling was akin to a thief breaking into a police headquarters.

The dozens of Little Ghosts watched this sudden arrival and began chattering among themselves.

“What does it want to do?”

“Don’t know. It was probably attracted by Big Brother’s scent.”

“It looks so pitiful.”

“Yeah, the person raising it didn’t even burn any clothes for it. So pitiful.”

“It smells bad. Has it not cleared its resentment in a long time?”

“It’s actually a domestic ghost. Its master is so irresponsible.”

“Does it usually not even get incense² to eat? Its whole body is bloodless.”

“Not everyone is as responsible as Big Brother, personally blending incense for us and carrying it around.”

Faced with this formation, the Ghost Infant’s movements hesitated.

It clearly sensed that the person its master wanted it to harm was inside the ward, but this small step felt like an insurmountable chasm. It actually felt an impulse to disobey its master’s orders.

Confronted by the scrutiny and gossip of ghosts its own age, the Ghost Infant, which had been controlled by resentment for years, suddenly felt a wave of bashfulness… It lowered its head, tugging at its tattered bellyband that failed to cover anything. On its bloated, pale feet, its toes curled inward.

The Ghost Infant began to sink down hesitantly, seemingly wanting to leave.

Seeing that the Ghost Infant wanted to go, how could those meddlesome Little Ghosts just watch it depart? Over a dozen small hands reached through the glass simultaneously, and like pulling a radish from the ground, they forcibly dragged the Ghost Infant from outside the window into the ward.

Xie Sui, who had been focusing on the movements in the hallway, finally noticed something was wrong.

He turned his head and found the group of Little Ghosts he kept surrounding a ‘white radish,’ chattering away.

Xie Sui pressed a hand to his forehead in exasperation.

That ‘white radish’ was actually a bloated wild Ghost Infant… Where did they pick this one up?

If he didn’t keep an eye on them for one second, they would find trouble for him. This group of Little Ghosts was getting more and more mischievous.

A Ghost Infant—or rather, any spirit in the state of a child or baby—posed no danger to Xie Sui. He didn’t pay excessive attention to the Yin Energy on them, nor did he maintain any guard. Thus, it wasn’t until the Little Ghosts dragged this white radish Ghost Infant inside that Xie Sui noticed its existence.

When Xie Sui picked up the ‘white radish’ and inspected it, his expression instantly darkened.

This wasn’t a wild Ghost Infant from the hospital. It was being raised and controlled by someone, and they were using the method Xie Sui found most disgusting.

There were many ways to raise Little Ghosts. The methods of the Xuanmen’s Shangqing Sect³ were considered the best, serving as a form of transcendence in another sense.

No matter how much Xie Sui disliked Xuanmen, he couldn’t find fault with their ghost-rearing techniques. After all, not everyone could be like him, directly transferring a ghost’s resentment onto their own body.

The Shangqing Sect usually sought out Little Ghosts with deep resentment to raise. They first used talismans to establish a contract, restraining the ghost’s ferocity and resentment, and then drove them to do good deeds to accumulate merit. Once the Little Ghost had accumulated enough merit, they could naturally re-enter the cycle of reincarnation. However, this method usually took a long time; ten or twenty years was considered short. It was quite normal for a single Little Ghost to be passed down through three generations of disciples before being sent off.

That was why, back at Shikong Temple, Xie Sui hadn’t forcibly taken that headless ghost from the Taoist Kunyi.

But the person raising this white radish Ghost Infant was using the most heinous methods.

That ghost-raiser didn’t care about the life or death of the ghost he drove, nor did he care if forcing it to kill would deepen its resentment, let alone whether it could reincarnate. He was simply stimulating the Ghost Infant’s ferocity and malice as much as possible, using it as a blade, a tool for murder.

What Xie Sui hated most were disgusting people who harmed children.

He didn’t know if the one driving this ghost was an Evil Cultivator looking for him or the Southeast Asian Curse Master who had cursed Lin Zixin… regardless of who it was, since they dared to treat a child’s soul this way, he would absolutely not let them off easily.

Holding the Ghost Infant, Xie Sui walked to a corner.

Whatever the Ghost Infant’s purpose for coming here was, now that it had arrived, it wouldn’t be leaving.

With his back to the ward’s security camera, Xie Sui pulled his left hand from his pocket and pressed that mangled, skinless hand against the Ghost Infant.

The hand without skin clawed at the Ghost Infant’s abdomen, and a translucent umbilical cord suddenly appeared in Xie Sui’s grasp—then, without hesitation, he yanked and snapped the cord.

The long-standing connection was suddenly severed, and the feeling of being controlled vanished instantly. The suddenly liberated Ghost Infant froze, looking at Xie Sui with a dazed expression.

Taking advantage of its stupor, Xie Sui stuffed it directly into his shadow.

It could stay in his shadow for now, and he would seal it properly once he got back. There was no spare locust wood⁴ at home; he would need to buy more wood to carve a spirit tablet for it when he returned.

Seeing Xie Sui’s grim expression, the Little Ghosts wandering the ward didn’t dare to linger outside. They obediently lined up and returned into his body.

The process of Xie Sui capturing the Ghost Infant took less than a minute. During this time, the ward door opened and closed once more, as if an invisible person had walked in from outside and politely shut the door.

The corridor lights flickered more frequently now. Xie Sui, already irritated by the sight of the Ghost Infant, felt his mood souring further.

He had waited for quite a while, yet the ghost intent on harming Lin Zixin still hadn’t appeared. Did he have to cooperate and scream before the ghost would make its entrance? Did it think this was a movie?

Although he desperately wanted to go out into the corridor to investigate, Xie Sui knew that Lin Zixin’s safety was the top priority. He couldn’t leave the hospital room at will.

Xie Sui sat back down in his chair, keeping a cold, expressionless watch over Lin Zixin.

The door continued to swing open and shut. Due to a lack of maintenance, the hinges emitted a piercing, rhythmic creak that was incredibly disruptive in the dead of night.

However, the nurses at the station not far from the room acted as if they heard nothing. Not a single person came to check the situation. No other patients were woken up either. It was as if the room Xie Sui occupied had been isolated from the rest of the world, their space forming a small world of its own.

The room grew quieter and quieter, until even the beeping of the monitors tracking Lin Zixin’s vital signs gradually faded away. Sitting right by the head of the bed, Xie Sui could no longer even hear the sound of Lin Zixin’s breathing.

Xie Sui reached out to check Lin Zixin’s breath and then felt for his pulse.

Everything was normal.

Just then, a layer of white mist suddenly began to crawl in from outside the constantly opening and closing door.

The white mist clung to the floor as it advanced, looking remarkably like the dry ice fog Old Liu had demonstrated for Xie Sui not long ago.

Emerging with the white mist were five abnormally tall and thin silhouettes.

The door to the ward was about 2.3 meters high, yet these five figures had to hunch their shoulders slightly just to step inside.

Among these five figures dressed in long black robes, four wore massive bamboo hats. These hats were covered in layers of Talisman Paper inscribed with various characters. The brims reached down to their shoulders, completely concealing the heads of those four.

The figure leading the way did not wear a hat. His head was entirely hairless, and a single, massive eye occupied the upper half of his face. Below the nose, he was covered by a piece of yellow Talisman Paper the size of a veil, painted with strange symbols in cinnabar.

These five tall, thin figures formed a single file line. Led by the One-Eyed Ghost, they swayed unsteadily toward Lin Zixin’s bed.

Judging by their gait, it seemed that aside from the leader, the other four were blind.

It wasn’t until the five ghosts reached the bedside that the leader finally seemed to notice Xie Sui’s presence. His forward momentum came to an abrupt halt.

The One-Eyed Ghost recoiled several steps as if he had seen something utterly terrifying, completely disregarding his four blind brothers behind him, who nearly toppled over from his sudden movement.

Facing these five strangely designed ghosts, Xie Sui showed no reaction. He simply sat in his chair with a cold face and spat out a single, concise word:

“Get out.”

The five ghosts in black robes trembled in unison. Without needing Xie Sui to say another word, they scrambled toward the exit, leaning on each other for support.

Xie Sui suddenly thought of something and called them back: “Wait. Come back here.”

The five ghosts shuddered again, but they didn’t dare resist Xie Sui’s command. Dragging their feet, they shuffled back to stand before him.

These five ghosts, sent to murder Lin Zixin, were summoned and dismissed by Xie Sui as if they were five well-trained dogs. It was as if Xie Sui was the one controlling them.

These five were the Five Strange Ghosts, also known in folklore as the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen⁵, a group famous in the ghost realm for bullying the weak and fearing the strong.

They didn’t dare harm virtuous people protected by deep karmic merit, nor did they dare touch wicked, ferocious villains. They only dared to persecute ordinary people who were neither evil nor particularly meritorious.

The One-Eyed Five Gentlemen’s method of killing was to suck the Yang Qi from a sleeping person. If the five ghosts took turns inhaling, the sleeper would die. To prevent their persecution, one only needed to cover their nose and mouth or pull a blanket over their face.

They had thought this mission would be simple, just draining the Yang Qi of a rich young master… but they never expected this rich young master would be guarded by an evil spirit. This was like trying to snatch food from a tiger’s mouth; it was fucking terrifying.

To avoid making the malevolent “Big Brother” look up at him, the leading One-Eyed Ghost was very perceptive. He knelt down directly beside Xie Sui.

Xie Sui rested his crossed leg on the ghost’s shoulder and reached out to tear the yellow talisman from its face.

Beneath the talisman, the One-Eyed Ghost’s mouth had been sewn shut tightly with red thread.

Xie Sui frowned. He shifted his position and gently pressed his mangled left index finger against the uneven flesh of the ghost’s mouth.

The blood dripping from his fingertip soaked the red thread, staining the sutures a darker, murkier red.

In the next instant, a flash of fire erupted. The red thread binding the One-Eyed Ghost’s mouth spontaneously combusted, turning to ash.

Feeling the restraint vanish, the One-Eyed Ghost froze for a moment. The massive eye occupying half his face instantly filled with tears.

He bowed down, intending to kowtow to Xie Sui, but was stopped firmly by the foot Xie Sui kept on his shoulder.

“Don’t bother with that useless stuff. I want to ask you something,” Xie Sui said coldly.

“Who sent you here? How many more ghosts does he have under him? And do you know where he lives?”

Xie Sui didn’t want to spend a sleepless night being harassed, nor did he want to spend the next week stuck by Lin Zixin’s side day and night.

There was no sense in guarding against a thief for a thousand days; it was better to cut the problem off at the source. Since that Curse Master dared to take on a job to harm others, he naturally had to be prepared to be harmed himself.

The One-Eyed Ghost wiped his tears with his sleeve and spoke in a complaining tone, “The five of us brothers haven’t actually harmed anyone in a long time. We usually just wander the mountains of Linchuan City. Occasionally, we go down the mountain to the temples to listen to the sutras and get a bit of incense. The monks of Shijiao are very easy to talk to. We were originally…”

Xie Sui interrupted him impatiently: “Answer my questions. I’m not in the mood to hear about your freeloading experiences.”

The One-Eyed Ghost paused before continuing. “About two months ago, right around the Lunar New Year, we were captured by a Curse Master from Siam. He used Siamese dark arts to control us. Two Daolao Ghosts⁶ were caught along with me because we usually wandered the mountains together… It was our fault they were dragged into this.”

Perhaps because his mouth had been sewn shut for so long, the ghost couldn’t help but drift off-topic as he spoke.

However, he seemed to realize this himself. Without waiting for Xie Sui to prompt him, he hurriedly returned to the main point. “Besides us and those two Daolao Ghosts, that Curse Master has a particularly fierce Little Ghost under his command. That Curse Master is in Zhaoping City right now, because his Flying Drop and Ghost Drop have distance limitations.”

Two months ago… Xie Sui frowned. The Lin Family Feng Shui Formation had been sabotaged two months ago as well.

“Did that Curse Master ever take you to Rongcheng? Did he meet anyone?”

The One-Eyed Ghost shook his head. “I’m not sure. When he isn’t making us harm people, he doesn’t let us out.”

Xie Sui thought for a moment and asked again, “What are the Flying Drop and Ghost Drop?”

Hearing this question, the One-Eyed Ghost, who had been looking a bit dejected because he couldn’t answer the previous inquiry, suddenly perked up.

He knew the answer to this one! After several months of exposure to that Siamese Curse Master, he at least knew these basic commonalities.

“The Flying Drop is similar in effect to the talisman curses of the Xuanmen. However, using a Flying Drop is more complicated than Xuanmen techniques. It requires a week of chanting and empowerment before it can be used. Furthermore, the caster must know the target’s birth date and time, and they cannot be too far away from the victim. During the period the Flying Drop is active, the Curse Master continuously steals the target’s luck, causing them to attract ghosts and suffer constant attacks until they die.”

One week… the timing matched.

It seemed that shortly after he had finished dealing with the Water Fiend at the Lin Family Ancestral Hall, the person who sabotaged the Lin family’s Feng Shui had received the news and immediately initiated the next phase of their plan. The first target they chose was Lin Zixin, who was alone at university in Zhaoping City rather than back in Rongcheng.

Xie Sui looked at Lin Zixin, who was still unconscious on the hospital bed.

He still couldn’t see any signs of bad luck or a Blood Calamity on the boy. It seemed the Flying Drop was an exceptionally well-hidden method. Although it had many restrictions and required a long preparation time, it was much harder to detect than Xuanmen arts.

“The Ghost Drop is a ghost-controlling technique, the method that Curse Master uses to command spirits like us,” the One-Eyed Ghost continued. “Placing a Ghost Drop on a marked person sets a fixed target for us, commanding us to attack.”

“I see.” Xie Sui nodded. “So, besides you, two Daolao Ghosts will be coming here shortly, right?”

“Two Daolao Ghosts and a Ghost Infant…” the One-Eyed Ghost added in a weak voice. “Even though we know the Daolao Ghosts, they are currently under control. We can’t stop them.”

“The Ghost Infant is in my hands now.” Xie Sui smeared the blood on his hand onto the One-Eyed Ghost’s forehead and said, “Go into my shadow for now. We’ll discuss your future after I’ve dealt with that Curse Master.”

To control the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen, one only needed to control the leader, as the other four ghosts relied on this One-Eyed Ghost to move.

The One-Eyed Ghost nodded obediently, dragging his four brothers behind him as they slowly sank into Xie Sui’s shadow.

As the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen disappeared, the white mist in the ward gradually dissipated, but that strange sensation of being isolated from the rest of the world remained.

Xie Sui looked at the ward door, which was still swinging open and shut. He suspected the two Daolao Ghosts had arrived quite some time ago.

Daolao Ghosts were born from miasma. Although their name included the word ‘ghost’, they possessed physical bodies. Rather than ghosts, they were more like mountain spirits or forest demons. Daolao Ghosts usually appeared as a male and female pair and never acted alone; their appearance was always accompanied by whistling mountain winds.

These creatures were short in stature, resembling apes, and were extremely skilled at hiding. Their method of attack involved firing a poisonous needle from their mouths while letting out a roar.

The male Daolao Ghost’s venom was potent; the area struck by its needle would swell instantly, and the victim would die within half a day. The female’s venom was slower; if struck by her, the victim’s body would slowly rot, and they would suffer for a week before dying.

However, Daolao Ghosts were not invincible. They always roared before firing a poisonous needle. As long as one moved from their current position immediately upon hearing the roar, they could avoid it. Furthermore, after firing a needle once, it took a long time to recharge for another shot.

He wondered if the hospital’s snake antivenom would work against Daolao Ghost poison… Then again, there were many types of venomous snakes, and he had no idea which one might correspond to them.

It would be great if there were a specialized serum. Perhaps because Daolao Ghosts only lived in the mountains of Linchuan City, were few in number, rarely came down the mountains, and didn’t actively attack humans, they had not been noticed by the state until now.

He hoped the two Daolao Ghosts would attack him first rather than that unlucky fellow, Lin Zixin.

Xie Sui stood up and tucked the blankets around Lin Zixin, wrapping him up tightly so that only his head was exposed.

As for the poison, he wasn’t particularly concerned. The toxins of such spirits couldn’t harm him.

Xie Sui scanned the ward, looking for something like a cover to protect Lin Zixin’s head. If he used a quilt to cover the boy’s face, he worried this fragile second-generation rich kid might suffocate if left like that for too long.

He paced around the room and eventually only found a portable bedpan under the bed.

Holding the white bedpan, Xie Sui felt that placing this thing over someone’s head was a bit impolite. Putting himself in the other’s shoes, if he were lying in bed and the only way to survive a ghost attack was to wear a bedpan on his head… he would rather let the ghost kill him.

Just as Xie Sui was about to put the bedpan back under the bed, he suddenly felt it grow heavy, as if something had dropped into it from above.

Xie Sui focused his gaze and saw a pile of pale pink intestines resting in the indentation of the fallen bedpan.

Who was so rude as to throw internal organs around like litter?

Following the trail of intestines upward, he saw a neatly arranged set of other digestive organs. However, they were several sizes smaller than normal human organs. If they weren’t still emitting steam, they would have looked like anatomical models stolen from a medical school.

And at the very top of these organs sat a human head.

What on earth was this? A human head balloon?

Judging by the features, it appeared to be a middle-aged man in his forties. He had little flesh on his cheeks, dark skin, a flat nose, and thick, slightly protruding lips… The most absurd part was that this head was alive.

He was a living person. He possessed Yang energy, meaning he was neither a spirit nor a vengeful ghost.

Xie Sui was so surprised he forgot he was still holding the bedpan.

With a look like that, a single head trailing various internal organs, how could he possibly still be alive?

He was a living human, not a ghost or a spirit. After ruling out all other possibilities, only one truth remained. This fellow flying around with his head and organs must be the Siamese Sorcerer who had cursed Lin Zixin. He likely sensed that his Ghost Infant and the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen had fallen out of his control, so he had come to the hospital in person to investigate.

He was truly gaining some new perspective today. Foreign Evil Cultivators were certainly dedicated to their craft. Other Evil Cultivators usually collected various vengeful ghosts and souls to strengthen themselves with external forces. This Siamese Sorcerer, on the other hand, had gone as far as taking a knife to his own body, transforming himself into something more terrifying than a ghost.

Xie Sui felt a sudden urge to take a photo as a souvenir.

He had never been abroad, so this was his first time engaging in an “academic exchange” with a foreign friend. It was also his first time seeing such a novel thing; he felt it was quite a commemorative occasion.

Seeing Xie Sui still observing him, the head twisted its face into a sinister grin.

He had no intention of communicating with Xie Sui. The intestines hanging at the very bottom lunged forward like predatory pythons, flying out to coil directly around Xie Sui’s neck.

It seemed he intended to use those intestines to strangle Xie Sui to death.

“Holy crap!” Xie Sui couldn’t help but swear. He tossed the bedpan aside and retreated several steps, a look of genuine horror appearing on his face for the first time.

Pointing at the intestines still inching toward him, Xie Sui shouted with a trembling voice, “Stay away from me! Those things of yours were just sitting in a bedpan! We can fight all you want, but can we please have some basic hygiene?!”

Translator’s Notes