Ghosts Spurred Me Forward

At the thought that she might catch this wild rabbit, Zheng Guiliang's tired body seemed to brim with vitality again.

Especially when she imagined the happy looks on her three children's faces as they ate rabbit meat, Zheng Guiliang could not help but smile.

With the medicine she had gotten from Doctor Lu, her youngest son should be fine after taking it. It would be the perfect time for him to eat some rabbit meat and build up his strength.

Zheng Guiliang put away the medicine and hurried after the wild rabbit ahead. The rabbit fled desperately as well, but Zheng Guiliang gradually gained on it.

"Got you!"

A few minutes later, Zheng Guiliang lunged forward and pinned the somewhat blackish wild rabbit beneath her. Beaming with joy, she reached out to grab it.

But when her hands closed around it, Zheng Guiliang felt that something was wrong. Shouldn't a wild rabbit's fur be soft? Why did it feel slick and greasy now? And where had the rabbit's legs gone? Why did it feel so round, like... like a human head?

Zheng Guiliang jolted in terror and hurriedly looked down at the thing in her arms. This was no wild rabbit. It was clearly a woman's head, still dripping with blood.

As for the things that had looked like four legs, they were unmistakably the woman's hair.

The hair was divided into four clumps, with bloody cracks between them that ran straight into the woman's skull. Zheng Guiliang could even see the white stuff inside.

"Help!"

Zheng Guiliang screamed and flung away the head in her arms, turning to flee, but it was already too late.

The woman's hair slammed against the ground, launching the head into the air. It pounced onto Zheng Guiliang's face, its blood-red mouth viciously biting down on her nose.

"Aah..."

Zheng Guiliang let out a shrill scream and desperately tried to tear the head from her nose, but the harder she pulled, the harder it bit.

At the brink of life and death, the faces of her three children flashed through Zheng Guiliang's mind. A mysterious strength immediately surged from within her, allowing her to wrench off the head that refused to let go.

A look of surprise appeared on the head's features. Watching Zheng Guiliang run dozens of meters away, it gave a cold sneer. Its black hair whipped wildly as it carried the head after Zheng Guiliang with a rapid swish, swish, swish.

Then it leaped again and bit down on Zheng Guiliang's neck from behind, tearing away more than half of it in a single bite. Bright red blood gushed out.

"My children!"

Before she died, Zheng Guiliang fiercely threw away the medicine meant to treat her youngest son, as though afraid that the head would swallow both her and the medicine.

Even in her final moments, Zheng Guiliang thought only of her children. She regretted that there were too many demons, monsters, and ghosts in this world, leaving her unable to raise her children safely to adulthood.

The family had already been struggling. Now that they had lost her, their main source of labor, how could her husband support them alone?

If she could not return tonight, her youngest son was likely beyond saving. If she could not tend to the household this year, perhaps even her eldest son and second daughter could not be kept alive.

Her husband was timid and afraid of death, but she hoped that he would work harder this winter. Then perhaps he could still save one child.

I cannot die in peace...

"Crunch, crunch, crunch..."

The sound of bones being crushed rang out continuously. That tiny head actually devoured a living person whole. Its hair grew far thicker, and it ran even faster.

The head continued to prowl among the villages surrounding Tongxin Town. Whenever it encountered someone going out at night, they could scarcely escape being devoured.

Yet after the head had fed its fill and returned to a certain place, great handfuls of its nutrient-rich hair were brutally torn away to nourish some unknown, terrifying existence...

The Head-washing Woman and the Bodiless Woman were only the beginning. In the days that followed, more and more Ghostly Creatures appeared within several dozen miles of Tongxin Town, preying on those who traveled at night.

Because Chaoyun Manor was managed rather strictly, especially after The Case of the Stolen Warehouse, many areas had come under even tighter control. Almost no one left Chaoyun Manor at night.

The many Tenant Farmers would at most walk within the stockade walls at night. Guards patrolled all four sides of the walls day and night, so no Tenant Farmers had come to harm for the time being—apart from the Earthworm Beast incident, of course.

But one could be a thief for a thousand days; one could not guard against thieves for a thousand days. As time passed, one night, a Tenant Farmer needed to go out after dark. Though others persuaded him to stay, he still secretly crawled out through a dog hole.

By the time they discovered he was missing the next day, it was already too late. In the end, they found only the bundle he had left behind more than a mile from the manor.

With human life at stake, the matter was naturally reported at once to Song Ankang, whose prestige had soared. Only then did Song Ankang temporarily set aside his cultivation and begin to pay attention to the matter.

He then discovered in horror that over the past half month or so, it was not only Chaoyun Manor that had suffered. The surrounding villages and Tongxin Town had all been hit as well.

Any villagers or townspeople who went out at night had almost no chance of returning home alive. Such a terrifying situation had never occurred before.

In the past, many people in the villages and town had often gone out at night to deal with urgent matters, and most had returned safely. Only a small number never came back, rather than more than ninety percent vanishing without return as they did this time.

Had the demons, monsters, and ghosts in the surrounding area gone mad?

Or had more demons, monsters, and ghosts migrated here from elsewhere?

Or had someone angered these demons, monsters, and ghosts, provoking them into retaliation?

Song Ankang immediately had people investigate. The first possibility they ruled out was retaliation by demons, monsters, and ghosts; no one had provoked the nearby demons, monsters, and ghosts during this period.

As for whether new demons, monsters, and ghosts had migrated here, there seemed to be no trace of that either. Then what exactly was happening now?

Song Ankang did not know. When he learned that Tongxin Town had already reported the matter to the higher authorities, he felt slightly reassured. This was, after all, the outskirts of the capital, only several dozen miles from An City, the core of the Human Race. The Human Race cultivators of An City would never sit by and watch a major disturbance unfold around Tongxin Town.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, reinforcements should arrive soon.

Even so, Song Ankang had someone report the situation here to Tang Mansion, to see whether Tang Mansion could send an expert to guard Chaoyun Manor for a while.

But that was unlikely. Jiang Yunhe of the Inner Refinement Fourth Layer was already stationed here, and Tang Mansion was short on people as well. They would not casually send another expert over.

At that thought, Song Ankang, who had just begun to slacken, was invigorated once more. He began cultivating with all his strength, sleeping only three or four hours a day and spending all other time cultivating and improving himself.

He handed the manor's affairs to Steward Wang and Hao Jiyong. Song Ankang focused single-mindedly on breaking through to the Earth Gate Realm as soon as possible, and then to even higher realms.