Night

The fierce ghost suddenly let out a piercing shriek!

Just as she was about to unleash an attack, the sudden ghostly howl left the snake dizzy. She hurriedly retreated several steps, preventing the fierce ghost from taking the chance to launch a sneak attack.

The fierce ghost kept shrieking, the ear-piercing buzz like fine needles drilling into her head...

Ghostly monsters were best at soul arts. Against this sort of attack that targeted the soul, the Chunyang Cultivation Method had its own countermeasures. Chunyang—supremely yang, supremely hard—restrained evil.

"Sitting and Forgetting Scripture! Focus the mind and gather qi!"

In an instant, a faint glow spread from Bai Yujun's body, protecting her divine soul from the ghostly shriek.

The stabbing pain in her snake head caused by the soul attack thoroughly enraged Bai Yujun. She had secretly learned so many Chunyang Cultivation Methods—if she did not test their power on this fierce ghost today, she would be letting herself down.

Northern Darkness Sword Qi, Taiji Wuji!

Her demon spirit circulated. Faint Taiji Diagrams appeared on either side of the heavy ruler as she charged the fierce ghost again and swung two consecutive slashes! By reflex, the fierce ghost raised those terrifying claws to block. The result was miserable—the heavy ruler sliced directly across its claws, and the severed portions turned into filth qi and dispersed.

The fierce ghost screamed in pain and flew into a rage.

"Ox-nose! I'll tear you apart!"

Blood-red mist spread from the fierce ghost's body, and Bai Yujun quickly retreated several steps to avoid it.

"Don't make things up. I'm snake-nose, not ox-nose."

She still had the leisure to trade barbs. Circulating her demon spirit, she swung the heavy ruler in a horizontal sweep at the red mist.

Sitting and Forgetting Scripture, Transforming into Three Pure Ones!

The straight heavy ruler swept through the air, and a pale-blue aura spread outward in a circle. The red mist melted and recoiled like snowflakes meeting boiling water. Transforming into Three Pure Ones specifically countered strange things like poisonous mist and powders. In a life-or-death battle, caution came first.

The snake and ghost fought fiercely.

Within the shadows, a man in black accidentally moved. That slight disturbance was immediately detected by Bai Yujun's keen senses. No wonder I kept feeling a human scent nearby. Someone really was hiding in the dark.

She needed to end this quickly.

She planted the heavy ruler into the ground, drew her other light weapon—the hengdao—and burst forward with a snake's hunting speed. Reaching the fierce ghost, she immediately delivered a diagonal slash. The fierce ghost dodged. A fierce ghost that only knew how to violently wave its claws and kill people, with merely a superficial grasp of basic spells, simply did not know how to fight. Perhaps it had been an ordinary person in life, incapable of combat. Relying on instinct to conjure frightening scenes, howl like a ghost, and slaughter people wildly was no problem—but against an expert, it was finished.

The bolder townsfolk secretly watched the female Daoist fight the fierce ghost. The sight was shocking.

After two consecutive slashes forced her opponent back, Bai Yujun secretly pulled an Evil Suppressing Talisman from her robes with her left hand and concealed it in her palm. She burst forward again, brushing past the fierce ghost. Her right-hand hengdao blocked the ghost claws while her left hand swiftly pressed the talisman onto its back!

"Ah..."

The scream shook Bai Yujun so badly she nearly toppled over headfirst.

The fierce ghost's face twisted with pain and hatred. Flames continuously flickered across its back as green smoke rose, as though a red-hot branding iron were being pressed against it from behind. Before Bai Yujun could step forward and finish it with one slash, the fierce ghost turned and fled.

The black-clad man hiding in the shadows suddenly rushed out, grabbed the heavy ruler Bai Yujun had planted in the ground, and ran wildly toward the edge of town. The fierce ghost flew before him, then finally drilled into a pitch-black triangular little banner. The Evil Suppressing Talisman, having lost its target, slowly fell to the ground.

"Ghost Cultivator?"

That cultivator was undoubtedly a Ghost Cultivator. Bai Yujun also understood why she had sensed such a chilling aura upon encountering him. Anyone who spent all day playing with ghosts and corpses could hardly turn out well. As for stealing the weapon, that was even easier to explain. Cultivators valued pills and magical treasures. Even if the heavy ruler was not a magical treasure, it was no ordinary item. To a black-clad man whose cultivation was similarly not high, the heavy ruler was worth a great deal—whether he sold it or traded it for something else, it would fetch a considerable price.

Bai Yujun gave chase, a smile at the corner of her mouth...

The black-clad man ran quickly. One black figure and one white figure raced out of town beneath the moonlight.

Suddenly, for some unknown reason, the black-clad man violently threw away the heavy ruler. Without looking back, he waved his little banner and released more than ten lost souls to cover his escape. While Bai Yujun was entangled by the lost souls, he slipped into the forest in a flash and vanished.

After slashing apart the lost souls with several consecutive strikes, she picked up the heavy ruler and returned to town.

"How amusing. You dared touch a Venomous Snake's things so casually. Poisoned, aren't you?"

She had deliberately left the heavy ruler behind to lure that cultivator, obsessed with magical treasures, into stealing it. Bai Yujun had smeared plenty of her own snake venom over the hilt. Fighting carried risks; poisoning was safest. That fellow was probably not feeling too well right now.

That black-clad man truly was not feeling well.

In the pitch-black forest, shadows shifted all around. By the moonlight filtering through the branches, the black-clad man looked at his hands. Both palms had turned blue-black, and both arms were numb. Had he not sealed his acupoints early on, the poison would likely have erupted by now and killed him. Panicking, he pulled out a small porcelain bottle. His hands trembled constantly, shaking the pills from the bottle onto the ground. Not caring whether they were clean, he lay prone and picked them up with his mouth, swallowing them. His mouth was full of grass clippings and dirt, and he looked utterly wretched.

"Cough, cough... Chunyang Palace people actually use poison... Despicable!"

Back in town.

"Poison really is more convenient. Who told me I'm a Venomous Snake? Sigh, nothing to be done."

Bai Yujun shook her head and went back to sleep. That ghost-playing cultivator would definitely not come looking for trouble tonight. Hopefully, he would return for revenge tomorrow—then she could cut him down with one stroke.

The night passed without incident.

Originally, Bai Yujun had thought that Ghost Cultivator would return for revenge, so she waited quietly in town.

However, three days passed without any sign of the Ghost Cultivator. Bai Yujun did not know whether that fellow had been poisoned to death by her snake venom or had cured himself and fled. Her venom was not especially potent, and she had not directly bitten him. He had most likely detoxified himself and run away. If they met again, she could bite him and inject a little venom.

Once she confirmed that nothing was amiss, Bai Yujun left town with the Book Box on her back.

Day after day passed.

She traveled according to her plan while performing rites for the dead at mass graves. She had long lost count of how many wandering ghosts she had sent on. She dug up the graves of five or six evil ghosts and left them out in the sun. She never encountered another mutated Wild Dog, nor did she encounter any more toads that ate rotten flesh. After each rite, she would paste a Soul Calming Talisman onto a tree in the mass graveyard, ensuring that fierce ghosts would not arise there in the future.

The talismans in her hand were steadily being used up. They would probably be gone in less than a month, and she would have to go to the sect's temporary outpost to collect more.

As time passed, the disaster grew increasingly severe.

One day, Bai Yujun saw a pile of particularly unusual human bones by the roadside. From their appearance—the stark white bones, the small amount of rotting flesh remaining—they looked as though something had gnawed away most of them. The bones bore signs of being boiled in water and roasted over fire. Without question, animals could not possibly boil meat or roast it over flames. Only humans ate meat this way.

Refugees driven mad by hunger had begun a human tragedy...

Passing by a temporary refugee camp, Bai Yujun saw many people with oily, well-fed faces and abundant Qi and Blood. The children had strength to spare, laughing and shouting as they ran wild and played.

Then Bai Yujun spotted a butcher's stall with a sign hanging outside.

The temporary butcher's stall was made of tents. Meat was sold in front, while Paoding worked in the back. A clerk went into the rear tent, chopped and hacked for a while, then brought out bloody chunks of meat to sell to the refugees in the camp. The refugees painfully took out silver to pay, no different from any ordinary transaction in the past.

A breeze stirred the tent flap, lifting one corner. Inside, someone lay on the chopping block... blood dripped from an arm onto the ground.

She looked back at those refugees, then at the carefree children, her jade hand tightening around her sword hilt.

In the end, she still did not draw her blade.

For some reason, a serpent's instincts urged Bai Yujun to get away from this place as quickly as possible—the farther, the better. The peace and tranquility here filled the snake with fear. Compared to this, those villages where people had starved down to skin and bones made the snake feel more at ease. Every smiling face seemed strange. The scent of meat drifting through the air made Bai Yujun nauseous. It was very cold here.

Only after she had walked far away did that inexplicable terror fade. Looking back, she could still see the large characters of the butcher's sign hanging from its pole.

The people there had been staring at Bai Yujun all along, greed in their eyes. Perhaps they feared the two weapons hanging at her waist, or perhaps they feared the white Daoist robe with blue-patterned trim she wore. In the end, they did not dare make a move. Otherwise, a few more people would have been added to the Yellow Springs Road.