The Dead Gate

"Qian! He's been possessed by a ghost! Hurry and drive it out!" Zhao He desperately smashed the female ghost with the chopping board, not forgetting to shout and rouse his sister, Zhao Qian.

Zhao Qian only came to her senses then. Flustered, she rummaged through her bag for her tools! She had never seen a fierce ghost possess someone in broad daylight—not even heard of such a thing! What kind of overwhelming resentment did it take to possess someone in the daytime? Besides, when it came to fierce ghosts, she could only drive them away. She had no way to destroy them.

Zhang Kaifu seized Zhao He by the arm, his fingers sinking deep into the muscle as blood poured out.

"Brother... Qian can't do it. Qian can't do it... I'm sorry, I'm sorry... Sob..." Zhao Qian murmured under her breath. She dug out a peachwood sword, but decided it wouldn't work, then pulled out an old, tattered book and tossed it aside.

After a long while, Zhao Qian, who still couldn't find what she needed, began to cry. Tears and snot streamed down her face. It wasn't that she couldn't find anything—it was that she hadn't found a single effective tool!

I sighed. Zhao Qian was only a feng shui master and wasn't good at driving out ghosts. There was nothing to be done about that. Having her set up an incense altar, arrange some feng shui, and fool a few ghosts and gods was still possible, but did Zhao He think she was omnipotent? Asking her to drive out a fierce ghost was making unreasonable demands. Besides, she was only a girl.

It was easy to imagine that Zhao Qian had probably been forcing herself all this time at home, carrying enormous pressure. Otherwise, she wouldn't have broken down like this.

"Hurry and unlock me!"

At the critical moment, while the female ghost was entangled with Zhao He, I immediately ran toward Huo Dadong and stretched out my hands for him to unlock me.

"You!" Huo Dadong, who was covering his neck to stop the bleeding, froze for a moment. Thinking I wanted to escape in the chaos, he looked at me with contempt.

"What are you waiting for?! If you don't want us all to die, let me go!" I roared at him. Huo Dadong was so startled that he pulled out his key and shakily began unlocking me. At the last moment, he even dropped the key on the ground once.

As soon as my hands and feet were free, I took out the Soul Urn, bit my finger, and stuck it into the urn. "Come out. Feast on the blood!"

The little fierce ghost immediately poked her head out, her dark, glossy eyes filled with greed.

When Yu Xiaoxue saw that it was a little girl ghost, she let out a scream and fainted.

It seemed that the sight of the little girl ghost crawling out of the coffin earlier had traumatized her too badly.

"Take her down!" Ignoring Yu Xiaoxue, I fed the little fierce ghost her blood and ordered the ghost girl to deal with Zhang Kaifu.

Huo Dadong's eyes widened. He couldn't understand why I was muttering at a broken urn, much less how I could brazenly order it to kill that terrifying "thing," Zhang Kaifu. After all, he couldn't see what secrets the urn held.

The little fierce ghost's entire body emerged. For a moment, a mournful wind howled through the daylight, and her sharp teeth grated loudly. She twisted her body, then suddenly shot toward Zhang Kaifu in a gust of sinister wind!

Huo Dadong felt a chill run through his entire body, but he couldn't see a thing.

Then a bizarre scene unfolded. Zhang Kaifu seemed to have been grabbed by the throat by something. His body rose into the air, and finally, as if all the strength had been drained from him, he collapsed limply onto the ground.

Although Zhao Qian and Zhao He had never truly cultivated Yin-Yang Eyes, they could still see a fierce ghost with such intense ghostly energy very clearly. The moment I summoned a ghost like this, they had already been scared stiff.

After the white-eyed fierce ghost was pulled out, she struggled frantically in terror. But the little fierce ghost had no intention of letting her go. Grabbing her by the hair, she opened her huge, blood-filled mouth lined with sharp teeth and began gnawing!

The white-eyed, red-clothed fierce ghost screamed. Half her face had been chewed away, and she looked as if her soul would soon be scattered.

I didn't know the difference in rank between them, but seeing the little fierce ghost seize the white-eyed ghost as easily as an eagle snatching a chick, yanking her out with a single pull, I could tell just how powerful the black-eyed fierce ghost was.

But it made sense when I thought about it. A little ghost raised on blood offerings by Grandma for several decades—how could she be ordinary?

As she ate, the little fierce ghost devoured most of the red-clothed ghost. The white-eyed ghost could no longer make a sound and had stopped struggling.

"Ghost... ghost raiser... path..." Zhao Qian stared as if possessed while watching a ghost eat another ghost. She turned toward me, unable to complete even a single sentence.

I glanced back at Zhao Qian. She thought I was glaring at her and immediately fell silent in fright.

Zhao He's mouth hung open wide enough to fit a fist the size of a sand pot. More than anything else, he was afraid of me.

"Come back!" After seeing the little fierce ghost finish her feast, I immediately shouted. Who knew whether this fierce ghost might cause trouble? I couldn't leave her outside casually, especially with Yu Xiaoxue lying nearby.

The little fierce ghost returned reluctantly to the Soul Urn. I quickly put the lid on, pasted a seal over it, and returned it to my trouser pocket.

The forest, which had been filled with cries of slaughter, fell silent.

I let out a breath and stretched out both hands. "Come on, Captain Huo. How about cuffing me again?"

Huo Dadong froze, then looked at Zhang Kaifu's dead body on the ground, followed by Zhao Qian and Zhao He. His face immediately fell. "How could I? After seeing what you can do, you must be Granny Zhou's grandson. I don't think the incident at the village entrance was your doing, either. Even if our eyes were playing tricks on us, we couldn't cuff Granny Zhou's grandson, could we? That ghost possessing someone in broad daylight was devilishly strange, wasn't it, Brother Tian?"

I smiled, but sighed inwardly. Zhang Kaifu had never even taken an evil-repelling talisman, so he had been doomed to die. But Huo Dadong and Zhao He had been injured largely because of me. Although I had destroyed the white-eyed female ghost in time, after learning this lesson, if I dared underestimate any fierce or savage ghost again, I might not even know how I died.

Only later did I learn that this white-eyed female ghost was a type of fierce ghost called a "Grievance-Born Kind Ghost." She had been extraordinarily kind when alive, yet had been tortured to death. After becoming a ghost, whenever she encountered someone harboring evil thoughts, she could possess them in broad daylight. Once she took over a person, she became bloodthirsty at the sight of people and refused to stop until everyone nearby was dead. Only then would she mutilate herself, continuing until her body was utterly mangled.

"Xiaoxue, wake up." I patted Yu Xiaoxue's face, but even after calling her for a long while, I couldn't wake her.

I had no choice but to sling my backpack across my front and carry her on my back.

She was light and slender, perhaps even somewhat malnourished. After all, food in the mountains wasn't very good, and her family grew nothing but cassava. I remembered her telling me that when she was little and hungry, she had secretly dug up someone else's sweet potatoes, only to accidentally dig into their ancestral grave. Their ancestors had pinched her buttocks purple in the middle of the night.

Of course, I had taken it only as a joke.

The ghost wall disappeared. Zhao Qian helped Huo Dadong and Zhao He stop their bleeding. Then we left Zhang Kaifu's corpse behind and continued toward the village outskirts.

Before long, we reached a cliffside path more than thirty meters above the ground. From here, we could see Dragon-Carrying Village below. We were all excited, and even Yu Xiaoxue had woken up.

Zhao He and Huo Dadong led the way. Zhao Qian still held her feng shui Compass, while Yu Xiaoxue and I followed close behind. Once we reached the cliff, we saw a troop in the distance, apparently fully equipped and ready to set out.

We all assumed that the town or county had learned that something was wrong in Little Yi Village and had sent the troops.

"Thank goodness. We've finally made it through. The troops are right ahead. Everyone, relax. I'm sworn brothers with Political Commissar Li, who's stationed at the border town. I'll go see what's going on and why so many people from the local authorities have come." Huo Dadong let out a soft breath, as if finally venting all the pent-up anger in his chest.

Zhao Qian and Zhao He exchanged smiles, clearly excited as well.

"Brother Tian, Eggy said we wouldn't be able to get out, but look—we're out now." Yu Xiaoxue blinked as she spoke.

Huo Dadong could see them too, so there should be no problem this time. I followed them, but after walking a little farther, I suddenly couldn't move. My wife-sister abruptly tugged on my clothes. I could practically feel that if I took another step, my clothes would be torn apart.

"Stop! Don't go over there!" I suddenly shouted, reaching out and pulling Yu Xiaoxue back.

"What's wrong, Brother Tian?" Yu Xiaoxue looked at me in bewilderment.

At that moment, the troops ahead had finished preparing. They began marching, chanting "One, two, three, four" in rhythm as they jogged toward us.

I couldn't see anything wrong at all, but my wife-sister kept pulling me back.

I looked at the cliffside path. There wasn't a single ghostly thing in sight. Suspicious, I still became alert. "Zhao Qian, take a look. Is there anything strange ahead?"

"No. What could there be? The Compass isn't showing anything." Zhao Qian didn't quite understand what I meant and thought I was imagining things.

I shook my head, thinking that the Ninth Princess was acting spoiled again. But when I took one step forward—rip! My clothes tore!

"Xiaoxue! Run!"

Without thinking, I immediately grabbed Yu Xiaoxue and ran back!

Zhao Qian froze. Zhao He thought I had gone crazy, while Huo Dadong grew frantic. "Little brother, don't run! They'll think you're a fugitive! They'll shoot! Do you understand? They'll shoot!"

"Hey! Why are you running? My sister hasn't even seen anything yet!" Zhao He panicked as well, looking toward Zhao Qian.

Zhao Qian stared at her calm feng shui Compass and was somewhat stunned. Could this fellow have been possessed by a ghost too?

Seeing that they weren't moving, I stopped caring about anything else. Without even turning my head, I dragged Yu Xiaoxue along, running faster than a rabbit!

After we had gone some distance, I saw the Zhao siblings still standing there stupidly. I immediately shouted, "Damn it, are you all idiots?! The Yin soldiers are passing through! Do you know what that means? The Yin soldiers are passing through! You idiot Zhao Qian, why the hell aren't you running?! If you don't run, you'll die here!"

When I called her an idiot, Zhao Qian's face instantly flushed red. Her lips puckered in grievance, but because she was also somewhat afraid of me, she glanced back at the approaching troops. There's nothing wrong with them. Captain Huo doesn't have Yin-Yang Eyes, yet he can see them too. Why are you scolding me?

She carefully examined the feng shui Compass again. As soon as she looked it over from top to bottom, she suddenly understood.

It wasn't that the feng shui Compass had stopped spinning. The little post supporting the needle had been shaken clean off. It couldn't rotate at all!

This time, Zhao Qian was so frightened that she dropped the Compass and began running for her life as well.

But the result was that her butt was somewhat large, making her sway from side to side as she ran. Though she looked good, she wasn't nearly as fast when fleeing for her life.

"The Yin soldiers are passing through? The Yin soldiers are passing through!" Zhao He's face turned deathly pale. He took off running, and after catching up, he casually hoisted Zhao Qian over his shoulder.

Huo Dadong froze for a moment. Because he ran a step too slowly, the Yin soldiers directly seized his soul!

When I looked back, I saw Huo Dadong staring blankly ahead with vacant eyes. At last, he walked toward the cliff, circled around several times, and rolled down along the edge. By the time he reached the river below, the water had become a pool of blood.

Yu Xiaoxue and I didn't know how long we had run. When we stopped, both our calves were trembling uncontrollably.

Zhao He was panting heavily as well. Only after he saw that the Yin soldiers had disappeared did he set Zhao Qian down.

I looked ahead, and my heart sank. The Thought Bridge—we had returned to the Thought Bridge. After all our running around for the entire day, we had circled back.

"We can't get out..." I sighed. When the Yin soldiers gathered and passed through, they came to seize living souls. Without a soul, a person became either an idiot or a fool.

So when one happened to encounter Yin soldiers, running for one's life was the only sensible choice.

No wonder there were Yin soldiers guarding the stretch of road from Dragon-Carrying Village into Little Yi Village. Ghosts couldn't enter, and people couldn't leave. It was a dead gate.