Evil Spirit

Everyone present except Yu Jing had formed some conclusions from their investigation that day.

Yu Jing habitually pulled up the hood of his one-piece outfit while thinking. This narrowed the range of vision on both sides and reduced part of his hearing, allowing him to concentrate better.

After dragging the old woman's rapidly decaying corpse into the bathroom and sealing it inside, everyone gathered in the room for a discussion. Yu Jing also used vines to block the broken window, ensuring that any intruder could be detected immediately.

"Yu Jing, just tell us what you think."

Jiang Pengyu watched as Yu Xiaoxiao, the strongest fighter in the group, had lost the use of her arm during the physical training. Zhang Xingyue from his own team was still unconscious, with no idea when she would wake up, and soldier Hu Zhi was dead. Their situation was getting worse and worse. If they continued wasting time aimlessly, they would ultimately have no chance of victory.

"I've basically determined that the female ghost here won't attack us for the time being. After tonight's discussion, everyone should get a full night's rest and recover. We'll act first thing tomorrow morning... First, let me explain the situation we're in."

"Since the physical training began, this should be the second night. This three-story inn is quite conspicuous in this mountainous region. Eight hundred disciples have been moving through the mountains, yet not a single one has entered this area after an entire day. In my opinion, we've probably been completely isolated here. No disciples will enter this place during the physical training."

"Then we can only rely on ourselves." Jiang Pengyu nodded.

"We need to analyze our combat strength. When we faced the true ghost hiding inside the Deep Mountain Inn just now, our naked eyes seemed unable to see it, and our bodies could barely touch it. I'm not clear about this myself. Does anyone know what's going on and can explain it in detail?"

"Since we're not pressed for time, I'll explain it in detail."

Men Qian, the newcomer from the Medical School, volunteered and began explaining:

"These true ghosts are born from dead humans. That was also the original purpose behind establishing the Dihua Ability Institute, which we study at. The two great mysteries in modern science are the universe and humanity. Humans are organisms capable of performing countless functions and independent thought. There are still many things about ourselves that the global scientific community doesn't understand.

"Twenty years ago, the 'Soul Hypothesis' proposed by our country's renowned scientist, Mr. Xu Ze, was confirmed. A spiritual state exists within the human body, possessing ultra-low-frequency waves that can be received by instruments. However, certain mentally ill patients or people experiencing intense emotional fluctuations can detect powerful electromagnetic reactions.

"Current experiments have also proven that changes in brain waves caused by human emotional fluctuations can strengthen the soul. Therefore, a small number of people who retain powerful obsessions from life, or who suffer such immense mental torment that their soul energy reaches a certain threshold before death, will form the ghosts we're facing now upon dying."

"The ghosts that first form are generally divided into two types: Flesh Ghost types and Spirit Ghost types."

"Flesh Ghost types are exactly what the name suggests. A powerful soul attaches itself to a completely dead body and continues to act through it. Transcending the limits of the human body, it can make all kinds of changes to the corpse under the soul's control, making it extremely difficult to kill.

"Spirit Ghost types are souls powerful enough at the moment of death to abandon their bodies. They rely on their immense energy to form a stable spiritual shell and exist independently in the world. Although these spiritual ghosts aren't as powerful as Flesh Ghost types, they're usually invisible to the naked eye. They act strangely, and ordinary objects have difficulty harming their souls. For rookies like us in the Rook Stage, they're extremely difficult to deal with.

"As ghosts grow, they develop even more types later on. As long as we survive this physical training, an Ability Institute commissioner will naturally explain them in detail during class. We don't need to cover them here, so I'll say no more."

From Men Qian's explanation of ghosts, Yu Jing learned the meanings of many terms he had never encountered before. He paid particular attention to "Rook Stage," but did not ask about it in detail here.

"Is there any way to deal with a Spirit Ghost type?" Yu Jing asked.

Men Qian answered, "There are many ways. As long as you can touch the soul, it'll work. But judging from what I've observed, the only person here who can currently harm this kind of ghost is Miss Yu's dagger, which has inscriptions carved into it."

This could be determined from the moment the white-clothed woman's teeth clamped down on Yu Xiaoxiao's dagger.

"Actually, I have a way too. The body-tempering technique passed down through my Jiang family involves the field of qigong. I learned from my elders that this kind of qigong can touch spiritual matter. My body can currently barely condense a small amount of qi around my fists, so I should be able to touch it as well... Yu Jing, the vines in your body should work too, right?"

At Jiang Pengyu's question, Yu Jing nodded.

When the white-clothed woman left earlier, she had torn open the vines hidden beneath the floorboards. If her body could pass through the vines, there would have been no need for that unnecessary tearing motion. This proved that the vines in Yu Jing's arms could capture spiritual matter.

Yu Jing immediately added, "Even if the three of us can touch the ghost, we can't see it with our naked eyes. That will be extremely fatal. Before we find a solution, let me reason through the entire inn incident."

"Let's start before the physical training began. To be honest, Commissioner Lu Chuan gave me special guidance in private and told me that the most difficult part of this physical training would be the ghost in the 'Deep Mountain Inn.' I've also been wondering why every ghost is the lowest level, yet the difficulty still differs. Based on the information we have now, I think I understand a little.

"This is only my guess, but the ghosts in the other parts of the mountains should have been formed from people who had certain obsessions in life, as Men Qian described. But the ghost we're facing belongs to someone with a twisted personality who was extraordinarily cruel while alive, fundamentally different from the other ghosts... This female Supernatural Ability disciple probably killed dozens of people while alive, perhaps even close to a hundred."

"An evil spirit..." Men Qian furrowed his brows and uttered two unfamiliar words.

"On the surface, it seems that the woman here often 'solicited customers' and eventually died here for some reason. But on closer inspection, many problems become apparent.

"Various events have shown that this female Supernatural Ability disciple used 'soliciting customers' to lure men into her family's inn, then killed them by some method. The men's names marked in the account book we found on the counter were her targets."

"As for where the murders took place, it wasn't in any of the inn's normal rooms. It was..."

Yu Jing pointed at the floor below.

"The basement!?"