The wind and rain on Funeral Street were even more violent than in the world outside.
Fallen leaves flew alongside yellow paper, and water cascaded down like a waterfall, as though intent on washing everything away and starting anew.
The door panels struggling in the storm banged against the walls. The sound was nowhere near as loud as the thunder, but it formed a denser barrage of noise that unsettled the mind.
The coffin shop's ground floor was already a wreck. Six of its seven coffins had shattered, and nearly twenty Paper Effigy People had been reduced to scraps of vividly colored paper.
Of the Blood Character Talisman originally drawn on the floor, less than thirty percent now remained.
Only a few barely recognizable traces lingered, and even those were being eroded by the rain blowing in from outside. They would vanish at any moment.
Ji Li had held out to his limit.
He was a manager without a Sin Object. Against supernatural attacks, he could only rely on his own mind to find loopholes and seize opportunities.
The appearance of the Five Elements Talisman had been a mercy from heaven, granting him a little time to postpone his death.
But the Gold Generates Water Barrier was still too weak.
Perhaps heart fire really was far more important than the other four organs. Against another Five Elements Talisman of the same kind, the Wood Generates Fire Barrier had proved overwhelmingly dominant.
Ji Li's lung function was nearly exhausted by now. He could no longer stand upright and knelt on one knee, barely clinging to life.
When Huang Banxian and Zhang Huairen appeared on the stairs together, Ji Li saw that blurred human face again.
Before this, the featureless, blank white face had already spread all around Huang Banxian's body.
This