Spirit Walker

"Shen Jinhua? The Green-Robed Actress ghost you beheaded in Yangcheng?"

At the mention of that name, even Yu Zhensheng, who had remained calm all along, showed surprise.

"Yes, Master. I am absolutely certain. The magistrate's wife's face was that of Shen Jinhua, the famed actress from the Yangcheng opera troupe!"

A look of recollection appeared in Zhou Sheng's eyes. "Though Shen Jinhua's dead soul had been covered in blood and looked horrifying at the time, I still remembered her appearance. I compared them carefully just now. There can be no mistake."

Someone had targeted Shen Jinhua's head when she died. Zhou Sheng had thought the mastermind wanted it to practice some evil art, yet he had never imagined that six hundred li away, in Qinggu County, he would see that head again.

And it had grown upon someone else's neck.

"Master, could the magistrate's wife know some sorcery? Did she want to change her face and become someone else?"

Yu Zhensheng shook his head. "Magistrate Zhu and his wife are both ordinary people. They merely have rather unusual backgrounds."

"Master—"

"Do not ask so much yet. We will talk once we get home."

Zhou Sheng nodded. The two remained silent all the way. Once they returned home, he recounted his experience and took out the head he had brought back from the ancient well.

"Master, I was thinking—if Shen Jinhua's head is sitting atop the magistrate's wife's neck, then could this head... be the real magistrate's wife?"

The wife was not the wife...

That explained those words.

Yet layers upon layers of fog still shrouded the matter. How had Shen Jinhua's head ended up on the magistrate's wife's neck? Why had the original wife's head been hidden in the well? And how had Cui Cui died?

And that Zhu residence—not only did it keep savage soldiers, it also concealed an expert who understood feng shui and knew sorcery. What exactly was Magistrate Zhu's background?

Too many questions filled his heart, and he immediately voiced them.

From the look on his Master's face, he clearly knew something.

"Heh, you are asking me?"

"You are the one who sings Yin Opera, not me."

"Master, please tell me everything you know."

Zhou Sheng pleaded.

"Actually, you should not be asking me about this. You should be asking her."

Yu Zhensheng smiled faintly and pointed at the rotten, reeking head on the table.

"Ask her?"

Zhou Sheng asked doubtfully, "But I have not found any remnant soul within the head, not even a trace of resentment."

"Master, aside from soul-seizing, do those of us who sing Yin Opera have other means to make a corpse speak?"

"Of course... not."

Yu Zhensheng gave a cold laugh. "Do not draw a prison around yourself. Just because we who sing Yin Opera have no such means does not mean others do not."

"Use your brain. Do not think of fighting alone in every matter."

Zhou Sheng pondered for a moment, then suddenly raised his head and spoke two words.

"Rice divination!"

Yu Zhensheng nodded, a faint smile appearing on his face.

Qinggu County, West Street, Grandma Cui's house.

Grandma Cui was something of a legend in the county. She had originally been an ordinary old widow, her husband and children all having died in accidents. She herself had also developed an eye disease, leaving her vision blurred.

Later, while out begging for food, she accidentally fell into the water. By the time someone pulled her out, she had already stopped breathing.

The neighbors had been planning to pool their money and buy her a coffin, but to their surprise, she drew breath again the next day and came back to life.

She claimed that after descending to the Underworld, the judge discovered that her allotted lifespan had not yet ended and that she possessed considerable merit. Not only had he sent her back to the world of the living, he had also taught her the Spirit Walking Technique, especially the art of rice divination.

Every trial had proven effective, and her fame soon spread far and wide.

From then on, she became Qinggu County's renowned spirit medium. She had lived to eighty-four, yet her body remained remarkably sturdy. Though afflicted with eye disease, her travels were completely unaffected.

Zhou Sheng had also heard Grandma Cui's great name, though he had never dealt with her before.

"Besides us who sing Yin Opera, there are many strange folk and extraordinary people in this world. The Spirit Walkers represented by Grandma Cui are one such lineage."

Zhou Sheng recalled that on the Yin-Yang Road, that fiendish god had asked whether he was a Spirit Walker.

"Besides them, there are Feng Shui Masters, Corpse Drivers, Spirit Mediums, Living Underworld Messengers, Corpse Retrievers, Paper Craftsmen, and others, each with their own inheritance of strange arts."

"During the Spring and Autumn period, the hundred schools contended across the land. Those were the Hundred Schools of the Living. As for people like us, who work in yin trades and deal with Ghosts and Gods, we are called the Hundred Schools of the Underworld."

"Once you have completed your apprenticeship, you will gradually encounter disciples and inheritors of other lineages. Remember: Lu Bu may have been brave, but three heroes could still battle him. If you can befriend disciples of other lineages, they will be of no small help to you in the future."

"Now, go knock on the door."

Zhou Sheng carefully committed his Master's words to memory. Then he took a deep breath and raised his hand to knock.

But just as he extended his hand, the door suddenly opened.

A pretty young girl poked her head out.

"Please come in, guests. Grandma told me to welcome you."

Surprise flashed through Zhou Sheng's eyes. Could she truly foresee what had yet to happen?

That only made him more curious about the legendary Spirit Walkers.

Stepping over the threshold, he saw many mysterious talismans pasted around Grandma Cui's courtyard. They did not resemble Daoist talismans, but were black writing on white paper, somewhat like the sacrificial texts used at funerals.

The young girl led them all the way to the rice divination hall, which had been set up in a back room behind the kitchen. Ancient Rice Grains were embedded in the cracks between the blue bricks, seemingly already moldy, glowing a ghostly green like phosphorescent fire atop a grave.

Yellow funerary paper, brushed with rice paste, sealed the window lattice. Bundles of women's hair wrapped around realgar had been stuffed into the cracks in the walls. Above the door, a butcher's knife had been thrust in upside down, its handle tied with a red cord soaked in Rooster blood.

"Sealing the windows, plugging the holes, suppressing the door—these are called the Three Passages of Purity and Filth. They prevent excessive yin energy during rice divination and keep wandering souls and wild ghosts from interfering."

Yu Zhensheng explained it to his disciple.

The young girl lifted her head in surprise and looked at Yu Zhensheng. "Grandpa, do you know rice divination too?"

Yu Zhensheng merely shook his head with a smile and said nothing.

Upon entering the rice divination hall, they found the surroundings dim. Even in broad daylight, their vision was blurred.

The place was gloomy and dark, lit only by rows of candles that burned eternally without extinguishing.

The candlelight revealed an aged face, along with pupils veiled in white cataracts.

Those eyes stared fixedly at Zhou Sheng, as though examining every part of him. She clearly suffered from an eye disease, yet she gave him the illusion of a gaze as sharp as a sword.

And he, too, was studying this legendary Spirit Walker.

Kitchen ash smeared across her forehead blocked the sun aperture; clouded eyes rolled white as she boiled cold ice.

No one knew how long her messy white hair had gone uncombed. It hung in sticky clumps.

"Young man, take out that thing hanging from your waist."

She suddenly spoke. Her voice was hoarse, and her gaze stabbed like an awl at the cloth pouch on Zhou Sheng's waist.

Zhou Sheng opened the pouch, revealing a rotten head.

The young girl cried out in fright, her little face turning deathly pale.

Grandma Cui's expression did not change. She remained quietly seated in her chair, with the Spirit Tablets of her parents, husband, children, and parents-in-law behind her.

"The person you wish to ask about is her?"

Zhou Sheng nodded.

"Is she your closest kin?"

"No."

"Was she someone who died an unjust death?"

"Perhaps."

"Do you know her name?"

"I do not."

"Then please leave."

Grandma Cui shook her head. "Rice divination has Three Don'ts: do not ask about close kin, do not ask about vengeful spirits who died unjustly, and do not ask about those without name or surname."

"Xiao Yun'er, see the guests out."