Chapter 41: Encountering an Acquaintance

The One-Eyed Five Gentlemen were a group of ghosts gifted to Xie Sui by a passionate international friend while he was accompanying Lin Zixin during his hospitalization.

Originally, Xie Sui had planned to send the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen back to Linchuan City. However, the television station’s variety show recording schedule was suddenly moved up, requiring an early departure for the filming location. Consequently, Xie Sui hadn’t found the time to make a trip to Linchuan City, so the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen had been temporarily residing in his shadow for the past few days.

He hadn’t expected to coincidentally encounter an Old Cat Spirit in this run-down little restaurant today, making it the perfect time for the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen in his shadow to come in handy. These five ghosts had been sponging Yin Energy and incense from his shadow for so many days; it was time they put in some work.

Without needing any specific instructions from Xie Sui, the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen, having just manifested their forms, flew straight toward the Old Cat Spirit.

The One-Eyed Five Gentlemen were extremely grateful to Xie Sui for freeing them from control. After freeloading by his side for so many days, the five brothers now had absolutely no desire to leave him. By staying near this powerhouse, the speed at which their resentment was purified had increased significantly, proving more effective than listening to a month of sutras¹ in a temple.

Seeing that they might have a chance at reincarnation within a few more years, the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen vowed to perform well this time to ensure they would be successfully taken in by the boss.

Watching those five dark shadows floating toward her, the mask-like smile on the old woman’s face finally changed. Her eyes, which had been reduced to two slits by sagging eyelids, slowly widened. Within the sockets, a pair of emerald cat pupils instantly contracted into narrow slits.

Her lower jaw dropped, and a piercing, shrill cat screech erupted from her withered mouth. She dropped to all fours, her short, grayish-white hair standing on end. Her already hunched back arched violently, making her look exactly like a startled cat.

Before the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen could reach her, she pushed off with her limbs and nimbly leaped to the side.

Ghosts like the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen, who fed on Yang energy, were a natural counter to her. Furthermore, since these ghosts lacked physical forms, a struggle with them would only lead to one outcome: her corpse would be destroyed, and she would lose more than half of her cultivation.

Eager to prove themselves, the five ghosts were not about to let the Old Cat Spirit off so easily. They simply abandoned their humanoid forms and transformed into five wisps of black smoke, tangling themselves around the increasingly cat-like old woman with extreme speed.

While the One-Eyed Five Gentlemen and the Old Cat Spirit were locked in combat, Chef Shao, who had just regained his mobility, no longer hesitated. He reached into the air, and a humanoid paper cutout appeared out of nowhere in his palm.

Immediately afterward, he slammed the paper cutout onto the ground. The moment it touched the floor, it rapidly deformed and expanded, transforming into a hunched little old man.

The little old man waved the tray in his hand, helping the chef ward off a lunging Ghost Infant.

The chef knew full well how difficult Xie Sui, who controlled the Ghost Infants, was to deal with. Therefore, he stopped stalling and decided to use his trump card to end the battle quickly. He would kill Xie Sui first, then worry about those Ghost Infants. Mindless Ghost Infants were easy to handle; the problem was when someone was controlling them. Thus, he had to decapitate the controller first.

Coincidentally, Xie Sui was thinking the same thing. To prevent this chef from using the other diners to threaten him again, he had to tear this guy apart as quickly as possible.

Xie Sui pulled a black cigarette case from his coat, took out three whole cigarettes, and lit all three at once.

The faint scent of incense ash acted like a sharp blade, cutting a hole through the disgusting smell of meat in the room. The ethereal white smoke merged into the Yin Energy, and the Ghost Infants struggling within the Yin Energy paused simultaneously. The resentful expressions on their faces faded, and their all-black or all-white eyes temporarily regained clarity as they all stared fixedly at the chef.

In the next moment, a surging torrent composed of Ghost Infants and Yin Energy, like a tsunami wave, crashed directly toward Chef Shao. The old man conjured by the technique didn’t last even a second before being torn to shreds by the Ghost Infants.

Seeing the fate of the paper old man, the chef finally understood why Xie Sui had asked him earlier if he knew “what the inside of a meat grinder looks like.” Damn it, these Ghost Infants were a mobile meat grinder!

The chef gritted his teeth, clenched his fist, and punched his own stomach hard, spitting out another white lump of meat.

He threw the meat chunk onto the ground, and dense white silk threads instantly burst forth. The threads sprayed out irregularly in all directions, splashing from the floor to the ceiling and reflecting back down. Countless threads interlaced and crossed each other, forming a three-dimensional web with an extremely fine mesh.

This web made of white silk was not only incredibly resilient and capable of blocking physical objects, but it could even obstruct Yin spirits.

The One-Eyed Five Gentlemen had just destroyed the Old Cat Spirit’s corpse and were about to seize its soul when the five ghosts and the Old Cat Spirit’s soul were all pinned in place by the white silk. This thing actually didn’t distinguish between friend and foe.

Xie Sui, who was also trapped by the fine white lines, moved his wrist nonchalantly. The sharp white silk instantly sliced through his skin, and blood welled out, dripping onto the white threads binding him.

The blood spread across the threads at an unnaturally high speed. The stained threads acted as if they had been ignited by fire, instantly curling and dissolving. Xie Sui broke free from the threads binding him with almost no effort.

Xie Sui rubbed the broken threads on his body… it was silk.

He suddenly remembered that when he had first sat down, he had discovered some silk under the stove. At the time, he hadn’t had a chance to think deeply about it before his attention was diverted by the chef serving the dishes.

…What kind of technique would be related to silk?

Xie Sui didn’t need to think for long, as the chef provided the answer in the next moment.

The chef knelt on the ground, wrapped in silk as if he were inside a giant cocoon. He pressed his palms together in front of his chest, his hands so covered in silk that it looked like he was wearing a pair of white gloves. Then, with a pious expression, the chef looked up and shouted loudly, “I invite Matou Niangniang² to manifest!”

The fingers Xie Sui used to hold the cigarettes trembled slightly. He looked at the chef with a face full of shock. “Who did you say you’re inviting?”

He couldn’t be hallucinating, could he? This evil cultivator realized he couldn’t win, so he wanted to commit suicide?

The chef wore a look of disdain. “Cherish your final moments. Once the projection of Matou Niangniang manifests, you won’t have the chance to speak ever again.”

Xie Sui was completely speechless.

This guy… was there something wrong with his head?

The Horse-Headed Lady, also revered as the Horse-Headed Bodhisattva or Ma Mingwang, was a deity typically worshipped by silkworm farmers. This deity held a position in both Shijiao and Xuanmen. According to legend, the deity’s incarnation as the Silkworm Goddess was a woman draped in a horse hide.

This was the first time Xie Sui had ever seen an evil cultivator who worshipped Ma Mingwang.

Xie Sui had thought of many things the moment he saw the silk, but he hadn’t dared to link an evil cultivator who used Zaochu sorcery with Matou Niangniang.

The reason Xie Sui was so surprised by the chef’s attempt to summon Matou Niangniang was that this deity had another incarnation.

Deities had no fixed gender or definitive image. Usually, a single deity would govern different authorities, branching out into countless incarnations.

The incarnation of Matou Niangniang, who held authority over silkworms, was not widely known among the general public outside of silkworm farmers. Her male incarnation, Lord Ma, was far more famous.

The three-eyed Lord Ma was one of the most famous deities in Xuanmen. He was the fierce figure who had once set fire to the Southern Heavenly Gate and fought through the eighteen levels of the Underworld to save his mother. He was revered as the Great Emperor of Five Manifestations and Splendid Light, the Ancestral Master Huaguang. Beyond that, he also held authority as a God of Fire.

Lord Ma was upright and incorruptible, hating evil with a passion. He possessed an incredibly fiery temper and could not tolerate even a grain of sand in his eyes.

And now, this evil cultivator, who had likely harmed countless innocent lives with the Zaochu Art, actually dared to summon one of Lord Ma’s incarnations… Had he lost his mind?

Xie Sui couldn’t understand the man’s logic. The evil cultivator’s actions made him wonder if the man had gone senile from eating human flesh.

Watching the chef kneeling and bowing in devout prayer, Xie Sui, who had intended to continue his attack, came to a halt.

He placed the three burnt-out cigarettes back into the pack, took out three fresh ones and lit them, then recalled the Ghost Infants. He leaned against the kitchen counter and silently watched the evil cultivator’s performance.

Ignorance truly was a terrifying thing. Could this guy have seen a statue of a deity draped in horse hide, thought it looked similar to his own Zaochu methods, and decided to misappropriate a righteous god to make his own sorcery’s origins look more prestigious? And then, after lying for so long, he ended up deceiving even himself?

Xie Sui was genuinely curious. While directing the Ghost Infants to use his blood to dissolve the silk in the room, he asked, “Could I interview you about your thought process? Why exactly do you think that after the projection of the Silkworm Goddess, Matou Niangniang, appears, she will choose to kill me first instead of you? Don’t you feel there’s something fundamentally wrong with an evil cultivator summoning a righteous deity of Xuanmen?”

It was unclear which of Xie Sui’s words triggered the chef, but he suddenly flew into a rage. Ignoring his incantations, he roared at Xie Sui, “I won’t allow you to insult the deity we believe in! What Silkworm Goddess? What righteous deity of Xuanmen? Matou Niangniang has always been the deity who passed down the Zaochu Art to us!”

Xie Sui suddenly didn’t know what to say.

The man was so incredibly self-righteous.

What a terrifying level of vanity. Xie Sui had seen people steal holidays and traditional clothing, but this was the first time he had seen someone try to steal someone else’s god.

If Ma Mingwang actually knew what this evil cultivator was doing, he would probably strip the skin right off the man’s body.

The closer one got to the chef, the thicker the silk became.

Xie Sui was dissolving the silk on the outside, while the chef knelt in the center of the webbing, praying desperately.

The two were currently in a race against time. It remained to be seen whether Xie Sui would reach the chef first, or if the chef would successfully invite his divine projection.

Chef Shao had truly never been in such a pathetic state. The Xuanmen practitioners he had encountered in the past were either hindered by the lives of hostages or possessed such limited techniques that they couldn’t even beat the Old Cat Spirit. Some, after witnessing his Zaochu methods, didn’t even dare to fight him and could only run away.

Yet this time, he had suffered a massive setback at the hands of Xie Sui, a creature he couldn’t even identify as human or ghost.

Not only was his most capable assistant, the Old Cat Spirit, easily suppressed, but he himself was being countered at every turn. Furthermore, this man’s combat methods were utterly despicable. He actually used over forty Ghost Infants to gang up on one person! How could this guy have no shame? Being mobbed by so many ghosts, all of them Ghost Infants with incredibly deep resentment—it was the first time he had seen such a shameless fighting style. What a petty man!

While complaining about Xie Sui in his heart, the chef completely forgot how he had previously used the lives of innocent children to threaten Xie Sui. For a double-standard person like him, it was perfectly fine for him to persecute others, but others were not allowed to use the same methods against him.

The chef chanted the incantation to summon the divine projection at top speed, his silk-wrapped hands constantly shifting through mudras³. He had never felt his tongue move so nimbly, nor had he ever felt a summoning incantation was quite this long.

Just as Xie Sui tore through the final web of silk and approached Chef Shao with a pale face and a swarm of Ghost Infants, a very strange aura suddenly appeared.

This aura carried a heavy pressure, as if all the air in the room had turned solid, making it feel slightly difficult to breathe.

Along with this aura, a faint phantom appeared.

At the final moment, Chef Shao had finally summoned his divine projection.

However, whether it was lucky or unlucky, the figure that appeared was not the real Ma Mingwang.

From the phantom, it was clear that this deity the chef called ‘Matou Niangniang’ had no human form at all. Instead, it was a monster cobbled together from the body parts of five different animals.

At first glance, its silhouette looked like an overly thin, one-legged human. But upon closer inspection, it didn’t look human in the slightest. Its entire body was covered in messy fur. It had the face of a monkey, the neck of a snake, and the body of a wolf. Its single leg ended in a bird’s talon, and it wore a horse hide as a bizarre cloak.

Looking at this misshapen monster and feeling the familiar, nauseating aura radiating from it, Xie Sui frowned. It seemed he had thought of something, as a blurry name flashed through his mind.

The phantom clearly noticed the man standing beside its believer as well.

Before Xie Sui could say a word, the deity Chef Shao had placed such high hopes on froze. On its monkey-like face, two small eyes bulged wider than light bulbs, and its fanged mouth hung wide open, unable to close.

Evidently, the entity had recognized Xie Sui before Xie Sui had recognized it.

As Xie Sui stared at it in contemplation, its phantom form shuddered violently and dissipated instantly. Completely disregarding the life or death of its follower, it fled with decisive speed.

Watching that familiar escape posture, Xie Sui’s brow smoothed as a name flashed through his mind.

Tsk, so it was the Wutong God.

Xie Sui had assumed this treacherous fellow had been killed off by the practitioners of the Xuanmen long ago. He hadn’t expected a sliver of its divine sense to remain. Moreover, in just thirty years, it had recovered to this extent and even managed to cultivate followers.

The Wutong God, also known as the Wuchang God, was an evil deity transformed from a one-legged mountain spirit. It spread mountain miasma and plagues. Narrow-minded, jealous, and prone to theft, it took pleasure in violating the wives and daughters of men. It accepted only blood sacrifices, preferring living offerings above all, and among living offerings, it favored the flesh and blood of children.

From ancient times to the present, this evil god had been a fugitive from official authorities, a rat in the street that everyone wanted to beat.

People often confused it with the Wuxian God due to their names.

To place an evil god as wicked as the Wutong God alongside the Wuxian God would make even the Wuxian God complain about the bad luck of the association.

The Wuxian God was a righteous deity in charge of wealth, formed by five brothers who attained the Dao through cultivation. He was highly renowned in the vicinity of Rongcheng and was also known as the Great Emperor Wuxian or the Great Emperor of Five Blessings.

The Wutong God had once used the title of the Wuxian God to swindle people.

Because the Wuxian God was a god of wealth, the Wutong God told everyone it met that it shared the same origin as the Wuxian God, claiming that worshipping it could also bring riches.

Worshipping the Wutong God could indeed bring wealth, but it was always ill-gotten gains that carried a karmic debt.

The Wutong God was most skilled in the Art of Wutong Transport. With the blessing of this technique, one could move swiftly and remain hidden. Thus, it frequently used this art to steal the wealth of others and distribute it to the followers who provided it with blood sacrifices.

Xie Sui’s grudge with the Wutong God began thirty years ago. It was because this creature used that very technique to tip off the Xuanmen that those practitioners were able to locate Xie Sui so quickly.

However, the Wutong God hadn’t expected the Xuanmen practitioners to choose to kill it before they even pursued Xie Sui, which showed just how much it was loathed.

Yet, it had somehow managed to escape and survive until now. The Wutong God’s methods for fleeing were truly peerless.

Xie Sui looked expressionlessly at the empty space in front of Chef Shao. There was no longer any divine projection there; by the time he realized the fellow was the Wutong God, it had already vanished without a trace.

From the fact that Chef Shao called the Wutong God the “Horse-Headed Lady,” it was clear the creature had been beaten into submission by the Xuanmen and didn’t dare reveal its true name. When developing followers, it even had to “borrow” the titles of other deities. It didn’t even dare to leech off the name of the Wuxian God, which was so similar to its own, choosing “Horse-Headed Lady” instead.

It consumed the incense and sacrifices offered by the followers itself, while other deities bore the burden of the sins committed by those followers. When it came to stealing, taking advantage, and being generally disgusting, the Wutong God had truly mastered the game.

The look of pleasant surprise on Chef Shao’s face at seeing his deity hadn’t even faded before he was stunned by the Wutong God’s unhesitating flight.

He knelt on the ground, half his face filled with joy and the other half with bewildered helplessness, completely unable to understand why the deity he had worshipped for half his life would abandon him.

It wasn’t until he felt a sudden, deathly chill on his shoulder that he snapped back to his senses.

Chef Shao’s eyes were dull as he turned his head to look. The man, who was more terrifying than a vengeful ghost, had already walked up to his side. Those horrific blood-colored Double Pupils were filled with cold murderous intent.

Then he saw a ghastly smile appear on the man’s pale face as he spoke: “I actually don’t like torturing people. After all, I’m not some kind of monster.”

“Originally, I only planned to tear your body and soul apart piece by piece. Now it seems that such gentle methods might not be suitable for you.”

Xie Sui rolled up his sleeves. On his pale arms, mottled purple and green bruises were exceptionally frightening. He moved his wrist, and the torn flesh there opened and closed with his movements.

“Come, let’s have a ‘proper chat’ first… Start by introducing your ‘deity’ to me.”

The producer was jolted awake by a punch delivered ruthlessly to his abdomen.

His body curled up like a shrimp. Before he could speak, intense pain accompanied by a wave of nausea surged from his stomach to his throat. He couldn’t hold it back and collapsed on the ground, vomiting.

Large chunks of bright red raw meat mixed with bloody water poured from his mouth. Occasionally, one or two white maggots would burrow in and out of the surface of the meat. The producer was so revolted he punched himself in the stomach again, wishing he could turn his stomach inside out to wash it.

Only after the producer reached the point where he couldn’t even bring up stomach acid did he relax slightly. Clutching his abdomen, he looked around.

The entire production crew, including the guests and staff—over thirty people in total—were all vomiting. However, no one had vomited as many meat chunks as he had.

The producer dazed-ly wiped the bloody water from the corner of his mouth. He could no longer remember clearly what had just happened. He only vaguely recalled bringing the crew to Shao’s Restaurant to eat donkey meat… and then… ugh.

At the thought of donkey meat, the producer couldn’t help but dry heave a few more times.

The small restaurant that he remembered as always being filled with a strange aroma of meat was now, for some reason, occupied by a heavy, thick stench.

That stench was indescribable. It was more disgusting than canned herring mixed with durian and stinky tofu, stuffed into a dirty sock, and then thrown into a sewer to ferment for fifteen days.

Don’t ask how he knew that specific smell. The answer was that during a variety show once, there was a punishment segment, and one of the options was a mixture of canned herring, durian, and stinky tofu. He had personally experienced the scent and then told the directing team that the smell was too much and the guests didn’t deserve such a fate, so the punishment was cancelled.

Everyone in the restaurant was in the same state of bewilderment as the producer, with the exceptions of Xie Sui, Nie Pengpeng, and Liu Wuyong.

Nie Pengpeng was thoughtfully handing out tissues dabbed with medicated oil to everyone present, telling them to hold the tissues under their noses. Meanwhile, Xie Sui and Liu Wuyong were helping the staff members who were too sick to walk move outside.

Fortunately, the five celebrity guests had each brought two burly bodyguards… assistants. Those ten muscular assistants recovered significantly faster than the average person. With the help of these strong men, Xie Sui quickly moved everyone from the restaurant into the courtyard.

The producer finally regained his composure and started fumbling for his phone in his trouser pocket.

After lighting up the screen, he realized it was already midnight. They had arrived here around nine o’clock, meaning he had lost three hours of memory out of thin air.

Supported by Xie Sui, the producer asked in a weak voice, “What… what happened? Why did I throw up that disgusting… urgh… I seem to have amnesia, what exactly is going on?”

Xie Sui said coldly, “You’re a regular at this shop, aren’t you? Don’t you know what the owner has been doing?”

The producer looked completely bewildered. “What did he do? Isn’t he just a chef? And I’m not really a regular. A friend brought me here once six months ago. I’d never tasted such delicious meat and wanted to have it again, so I booked the whole place before we even left. Then, when my turn finally came, it happened to coincide with this variety show filming. I brought you all along as a treat for the guests and staff.”

This “treat” was nearly a death sentence.

Xie Sui consoled him softly, “It’s nothing major. It’s just that the meat the chef served you was all human flesh.”

The producer covered his mouth in despair, his eyes brimming with tears.

As if oblivious to his expression, Xie Sui continued, “The restaurant owner is a human trafficker who specializes in using knockout drugs. Your brief memory loss is because you were drugged. By the way, the meat you ate came from the people he kidnapped. There are still human bones in the kitchen. If you don’t believe me, you can go take a look.”

The producer finally couldn’t take it anymore. He wrenched his hand away from Xie Sui, knelt on the ground, and began to dry heave violently.

Xie Sui added further, “Don’t worry, the Donkey Meat Burgers weren’t made from living people, but from the dead. As for the people he kidnapped this time, he didn’t have time to kill them before Liu Wuyong and I stopped him.”

The producer just wanted to faint and stay unconscious.

Dead human flesh wasn’t exactly better than living human flesh…

The producer asked with a voice as thin as silk, “What about the people he kidnapped this time?”

Xie Sui pointed to two little girls, about five or six years old, who were being led by Nie Pengpeng not far away.

“I’ve already called the police. This place is too far from Zhaoping City, so the Law Enforcement Team from the Zhaoping City Inspectorate Bureau won’t arrive until tomorrow. The Law Enforcement Team from the nearby town’s police station should be here in about two hours.”

“Then…” The producer looked around. “Where is the restaurant owner? Where did he go?”

Xie Sui wiped some blood from his fingertips and said expressionlessly, “I’m not sure about that. He probably took advantage of the chaos to escape.”

In a dim basement.

Various eerie blood-colored symbols covered the walls and floor.

A middle-aged Taoist priest in black robes sat at the very center of an array. A shrill cat’s cry rang out, and the yellow paper talismans beside him ignited without any wind.

He slowly opened his eyes. “The Cat Gu failed. The one who picked up the cat corpse was Xie Sui, who is traveling with Liu Wuyong.”

The young Taoist standing guard nearby was shocked. “But that was a Cat Gu refined from the child of the Old Cat Spirit! How could it fail to work?”

The middle-aged Taoist showed no emotional fluctuation, as if he had already expected this. “If I’m not mistaken, that streamer named Xie Sui must have been refined into a living corpse by Liu Wuyong. My array couldn’t detect a single trace of living Yang energy from Xie Sui’s body. Instead, it detected the aura of a Ghost Infant… Xie Sui is clearly just a vessel for Liu Wuyong to house ghosts, which is why the Cat Gu had no effect on him.”

The young man pursed his lips in frustration.

The middle-aged Taoist stroked his beard and said unhurriedly, “Neither the Old Cat Spirit nor the Zaochu sorcery could harm him in the slightest. Liu Wuyong’s cultivation is indeed unfathomable. Furthermore, he is extremely calculating. Even with such strength, he remains cautious, shrinking back like a turtle. For the past few days, he has taken that living corpse with him whenever he steps out, leaving no opportunity to strike. With a temperament like his, it’s no wonder he could endure under Zhang Dadao for eight years without being discovered. It’s no shame that Zhang Dadao fell by his hand.”

“What?! Old Shao, who uses the Zaochu Art, also lost to Liu Wuyong?”

Seeing the young Taoist so easily rattled, the middle-aged Taoist frowned with dissatisfaction. “It’s fine. The Cat Gu and this shop were merely tests of Liu Wuyong’s strength. The killing move I’ve prepared is at the destination. Now that we know the gist of Liu Wuyong’s capabilities, the place that program crew is heading to is my Senior Brother’s territory. That will be his burial ground.”

Translator’s Notes