Chapter 73: The Shadow Ghost (4)
Thanks to the incense Jiang Si had offered to Old Man Jiang after returning home, although he hadn’t discerned any specific meaning from the ash at the time, he had been invisibly protected by a spell. This prevented the Shadow Ghost from targeting him, forcing it to turn its attention toward Hai Di, who was sharing the same bed.
Jiang Si hadn’t actually been sleeping very deeply. The moment the Underworld messenger arrived, his soul-hooking chains clinking, Jiang Si woke up.
Seeing that he couldn’t wake Hai Di, he got up first to deal with the Shadow Ghost that had followed him home. To his surprise, Old Man Jiang had actually manifested as well.
Shadow Ghosts are like water—adept at hiding and creating clones. If the main body isn’t captured in one go, the clones will behave exactly as they did at Shi Danxing’s house, dissolving into liquid and escaping instantly.
Jiang Si was just about to brainstorm with the Underworld messenger on how to “capture the king to catch the rebels” and seize it in one strike. In the blink of an eye, Old Man Jiang reached out directly into the wall and hauled out a pitch-black entity with his bare hands.
The Shadow Ghost had no power to resist. It was held in Old Man Jiang’s palm, its limbs hanging limp like a compliant cotton doll.
Old Man Jiang kneaded and rolled the doll between his palms. The life-sized humanoid figure grew smaller and smaller until it became a palm-sized sphere, which he tossed casually onto the floor.
The Shadow Ghost bounced once on the ground, landing right where Jiang Si and the Underworld messenger were standing. Its head had just begun to unfurl from its balled-up body when it locked eyes with a human and a ghost who shared the same bizarre expression.
“…”
Jiang Si, who hadn’t finished thinking of how to catch the ghost, and the Underworld messenger, who hadn’t even pulled out his weapon, both fell into a deep silence.
Glimpsing Old Man Jiang turning to look over, the Underworld messenger immediately pulled himself together, putting on a ferocious front to issue a warning: “Don’t move! If you move again, this official won’t be polite!”
As he spoke, he looped the soul-hooking chain around its neck.
Jiang Si glanced at him silently. He said that as if the thing had actually moved.
Ever since the Underworld messenger learned of the relationship between the City God and this young man, he had been filled with profound regret for ever having demanded various perks in the past. But things had already come to this; regret was useless. It was better to take the opportunity to build a good relationship with Jiang Si. Perhaps he could even find a “back door” to get a promotion from this job he’d been stuck in for over a hundred years.
Thus, he kindly reminded Jiang Si, “His Honor’s mood hasn’t been very good lately, and it’s especially bad today.”
Jiang Si asked him with his eyes: How much money do you want for that sentence?
The messenger, understanding the gaze: “…”
Sigh—
Old Man Jiang said with a cold face, “Take it back.”
“Yes.” The messenger hurried to leave but was stopped by Jiang Si.
Thinking of the Gu insects at Shi Danxing’s house, Jiang Si felt this matter couldn’t be left as is. Not only were the Shi couple waiting for their lives to be saved, but not a single person behind the scenes had been found yet.
Since Old Man Jiang had come, it meant this definitely wasn’t something that could be solved easily. Otherwise, the old man would have just watched from the sidelines, waiting for Jiang Si to handle everything himself.
With that thought, Jiang Si shamelessly tried to get some insider information from him.
“Grandpa, do you know the origins of the Infant Head Gu and that Tang Sancai piece? And that strange soul-calling banner for borrowing life—what exactly is the person behind this trying to do?”
Old Man Jiang raised his chin arrogantly. “You certainly are meddlesome, wanting to stick your nose into everything.”
“Matters like this shouldn’t technically be interfered with by the Underworld or the City God. It’s normal for His Honor not to say anything,” the messenger explained on Old Man Jiang’s behalf. “If you want to know what’s happening behind the scenes, you must start with the living. It may look like the work of ghosts and monsters, but in reality, it is the chaos of the human heart.”
“The human heart?” Jiang Si wasn’t sure if Shi Danxing had offended someone and was being retaliated against, or if someone was using him as a guinea pig for experiments.
“You can try to broaden your perspective. Don’t look only at Rong City, or even just within the country.”
At the same time, at the hospital, Shi Danxing had just been moved from the ICU to a regular private ward.
The man, wrapped tightly in gauze, was so thin he didn’t look human. He lay on the bed, relying entirely on a ventilator for oxygen to barely sustain his weak vital signs.
The late-night ward only had a bit of blurred light filtering in from the hallway. The blue and white indicator lights on the ventilator flickered beside the bed, signaling that it was running normally.
Sun Yu rushed to the hospital to visit the moment he received the news. Seeing Shi Danxing reduced to such a state, his feelings were incredibly complex.
There was no one else in the quiet ward, making it convenient for him to speak.
“Brother, I’m sorry. But I was forced into this. If I didn’t do it, they would have taken my life!”
Shi Danxing was the benefactor who had helped him up, and now he was also the benefactor who had invisibly saved his life. Sun Yu was very grateful, which was why he had been particularly diligent in finding various masters for Shi Danxing. He knew that no matter who they found, Shi Danxing was destined to die.
He took a talisman from his pocket, gently moved Shi Danxing’s head, and tucked it under the pillow.
After completing this, he walked out and ran right into the nurse coming for rounds. After nodding politely, he walked calmly to the stairwell. He took out his phone and first sent a text to an unknown number, then immediately called Jiang Si.
The moment the call connected, his face changed like a Sichuan opera performer, switching from a cold expression to one of terrified sorrow. He cried out into the phone, unable to hide his grief: “Boss Jiang, it’s bad! Something happened to Brother Shi at the hospital! Can you please come over right away?!”
As he spoke, a piercing alarm suddenly rang out from the ward at the other end of the hallway, like a drop of cold water splashing into a pan of hot oil, turning the originally silent floor into a cacophony of noise.
Jiang Si put the call on speaker so that the other people and ghosts could hear. He asked in a calm tone, “You said something happened to Shi Danxing? What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know either! I just heard Brother Shi was sent to the hospital and rushed over immediately. I hadn’t even been sitting in the ward for a minute when I saw the man, who was lying fine on the bed, suddenly start spitting up black water. A black hand even crawled out of his mouth—it scared me to death! I was so frightened I ran out.”
His voice trembled. “Boss Jiang, what on earth is going on?! How could a person crawl out of him—and a pitch-black one at that?!”
Jiang Si looked down at the Shadow Ghost pinned beneath his foot and confirmed again, “You said a ghost possessed him?”
“Yes!”
“How is Shi Danxing now?”
“The doctors went in to resuscitate him; I don’t know the specifics yet.” Sun Yu watched the bustle of the crowd in front of the ward from a distance.
“I understand. When dawn breaks, I’ll go and check the situation,” Jiang Si said.
“?” Sun Yu emphasized, “But Brother Shi’s condition is very serious. Are you really not coming to see him now?”
The more anxious Sun Yu became, the less Jiang Si felt like rushing. He made a random excuse about having other things to do and told Sun Yu to follow up on the situation and stay at the hospital to take good care of Shi Danxing.
After hanging up, Jiang Si’s face darkened as he looked down at the Shadow Ghost at his feet. “I’ve been making assumptions this whole time; I never once took this man seriously.”
If Sun Yu hadn’t been so anxious this time, and hadn’t failed to realize that the Shadow Ghost caught by Jiang Si wouldn’t go off to haunt Shi Danxing again, he might have been able to stay hidden for even longer.
Old Man Jiang didn’t want to get involved in these trivial matters. After seeing that Jiang Si was fine, he tossed him a small booklet. “Study this when you’re free. Don’t come crying to me with your complaints anymore; I’m very busy.”
“I wasn’t crying—” Jiang Si couldn’t help but protest. Old Man Jiang didn’t want to hear his excuses. With a slight flick of his finger, he vanished from the spot.
He left the Underworld messenger behind, showing through his actions that while the Underworld wouldn’t interfere officially, he could let the messenger take on a “private job” to help handle things.
After he left, Hai Di suddenly felt the temperature in his palm rising. He raised his hand to look and couldn’t help but say in surprise, “What is this?”
In his cold, white palm, a red character for “Heart” (心) was faintly glowing with golden light.
Jiang Si pulled his hand close to examine it. After the messenger recognized what it was, he was also shocked. “All phenomena come from the mind; all paths are led by the mind. This is a chenyu (prophetic word) personally written by His Honor.”
“The old man actually likes you quite a bit.” Jiang Si gave a silent laugh. “He’s always stubbornly believed that the human heart is fickle and cannot be easily judged. He’s never given me a chenyu, fearing he’d be proven wrong. I didn’t expect him to have such a good impression of you after only the second meeting.”
“Chenyu?”
“It’s a good thing,” Jiang Si explained. “A Daoist prophecy, written by the City God himself. Ghosts and monsters will have to stay far away when they see it. In the future, you’ll be able to walk tall in front of them.”
Hai Di didn’t care much about that. He gripped Jiang Si’s hand back. “Does this count as the elder’s approval of me?”
“Mm-hmm, happy now?”
Jiang Si refused to go to the hospital to see Shi Danxing immediately, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t get involved. While the night was still thick, he returned to the Shi villa.
With Old Man Jiang’s help, Jiang Si no longer had any misgivings. He walked straight to the Tang Sancai figurine in the study. Staring at its dusty face, he touched it with his bare hands.
This time, without the handkerchief as a barrier, the sensation was even more bone-chillingly cold. It was a dark chill coming from the marrow of his bones. Within seconds, his fingertips felt as if the blood had been sucked out, turning pale and stiff.
Feeling a slight sting on his finger pad, Jiang Si instinctively hissed and frowned at it.
At some point, the dust on the surface of the figurine had been wiped clean, revealing the original colors beneath—shining red and deep, dark green. The pair of upward-slanting phoenix eyes on its face seemed to have come to life. Although the lighting hadn’t changed, there was a flow of light, making them look vivid.
Hai Di stepped forward in concern but was stopped by Jiang Si’s shake of the head.
Within the few breaths of this stare-down, an insect as tiny as a grain of millet crawled onto Jiang Si’s hand, biting his skin and attempting to burrow inside. Jiang Si, who was well-prepared, slammed his hand down on it and crushed it with his two fingers.
The messenger was still waiting for the Gu insect to manifest. Seeing Jiang Si standing still for a long time, he couldn’t help but ask in confusion, “Why is there still no movement after so long?”
Jiang Si said innocently, “Huh?”
“It’s just an Infant Head Gu. Is it really this hard to draw out?” The messenger thought Jiang Si hadn’t found the insect at all. He hurriedly pushed Hai Di aside and stepped forward to look closely.
He then heard Jiang Si say flatly, “Not at all. I’m planning to wipe them all out.”
“What?” It was the messenger’s turn to be confused.
“I’ve already crushed four or five of them. Only the mother body hasn’t appeared yet. I have to wait a bit longer.”
The messenger looked up in terror and met Jiang Si’s gaze. “Wait, you’re crushing them with your bare hands?!”
Good heavens, how could someone be so brutal?!
“Do you know what that is? That’s a Gu insect, not an ant on the street! You actually… you… you just used your bare hands to crush them?!”
The messenger was in disbelief, pointing at Jiang Si and unable to speak. After a long while, he finally found his voice. “Do you know that when normal Celestial Masters see a Gu insect, they have to cover themselves in talismans before they dare to approach?!”
If those people from the Celestial Master Association saw this, they’d be driven insane with anger.
Translator’s Note:
Things are heating up! Old Man Jiang is quite the character, isn’t he? “Capture the king to catch the rebels” (擒賊先擒王) is a classic idiom about going for the leader. Also, the term chenyu (谶语) refers to prophetic or mystical words. Poor Hai Di, he finally got the “Grandpa’s approval” stamp—though in the form of a ghost-repelling palm print!
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