Arriving in a Painted Skin

"Jianghu really was... perilous!"

Mo Chuan stared at the familiar ceiling in his bedroom, his expression shifting unpredictably.

After a long while, he sat up.

Thinking it over carefully, aside from losing a pile of worthless Ghost Subduing Talismans during this nighttime excursion through Qingshui County, he had suffered no other losses.

He had even gained a Soul Binding Whip.

Yet he was still furious!

If not for the Sacrificial Dao Furnace, he would already have become food for that Headless Ghost.

Judging by Chong Shizi's utter lack of hesitation, the man had plainly intended to kill him!

"My Jianghu experience is still far too lacking!"

"And I trusted Daoists too easily! Fu Luan Temple had left me with a good impression, giving me an instinctive fondness for Daoists. But who knew that every basket had a few rotten peaches?"

"Besides, Chong Shizi might not even be a real Daoist!"

"Most importantly..."

Mo Chuan's expression darkened:

"I overlooked my own identity... In that world, I was ultimately just a ghost that could never take the stage, a villain by nature."

"This cannot be left at that!"

Mo Chuan wanted to return to that "incense world," but there was currently no incense passage.

In that incense world, he could remain there by continuously consuming the power of incense, and return to his physical body in reality whenever he wished.

But if he wanted to travel from reality to the incense world, someone in that world had to burn incense and pray, establishing a passage of connection.

"Chong Shizi, I hope you don't leave Qingshui County."

Mo Chuan could only give up helplessly. Taking out his phone, he saw that it was two in the morning.

Since he could not sleep anyway, he simply began wielding his brush to draw talismans.

In any case, ever since he had begun absorbing the power of incense, his dependence on sleep and even food seemed to be dwindling.

Even without eating or sleeping, he remained full of vigor, practically no different from a ghost immortal.

The night passed without incident.

The next morning, a murmured incense prayer woke Mo Chuan.

Using incense as a mirror, he looked over and was overjoyed. It was precisely Li Guanqi's wife, Madam Liu, burning incense and praying.

Without further hesitation, he hurriedly followed the incense passage and fled over.

At that moment, Madam Liu, who had risen early in the morning, burned a stick of incense like a walking corpse. After murmuring a few words and staring blankly for a while, she went out.

Mo Chuan wanted to follow her, but the resplendent sunlight shining through the doorway made him afraid to approach.

He considered putting on his painted skin and going after her, but if he traveled to Qingshui County in a tangible body, he feared it would be noon before he arrived.

If something went wrong along the way and forced him back into his physical body, that would be a minor matter. The destruction of the painted skin would be the real disaster.

He only had this one item that could give him physical form.

If it were destroyed, who knew whether he would have to wait until the year of the monkey or the month of the horse to obtain another?

Helpless, he could only coil himself within the incense and wait quietly for nightfall.

Fortunately, before long, incense was burned at Fu Luan Temple. Listening to the old Daoist instruct his disciples, the morning passed quickly enough.

By afternoon, Mo Chuan had become utterly bored.

Unexpectedly, he ended up witnessing a scene of human scrambling and scheming.

Li Guanqi's relatives had come to visit Madam Liu. Before they had even exchanged a few pleasantries, they invoked clan rules and demanded to take back Li Guanqi's terraced fields.

Soon after, they pressured Madam Liu to remarry an old bachelor from the Li lineage. From their conversation, that bachelor was already over fifty.

Of course, the Li lineage made it sound pleasant enough.

Things like, "We're all descendants of the Li family, so why distinguish between yours and mine?" and "We'll still be one family from now on," and so on.

Not to mention Madam Liu—even Mo Chuan frowned as he listened from the side.

Madam Liu remained silent from beginning to end.

She did not even dare mention that she was carrying Li Guanqi's child.

She feared that if she said it, rather than being honored as a mother and inheriting Li Guanqi's estate,

she would be stuffed into a pig cage and drowned alive, taking two lives with her.

Only after enduring until the Li lineage finally left did night fall. Madam Liu lit every remaining stick of incense in the house and inserted them into a ceramic bowl. Without saying a word, she took out scissors and silently began cutting up a quilt cover.

Mo Chuan glanced at Madam Liu, dissolved into mist, and quietly departed.

"Sir, when did you... come again?"

Before the half-man-high Land God Temple at the entrance to the mountain village, Old Earth God stared dumbfoundedly at Mo Chuan, who had emerged from the village.

"Earth Lord, Li Guanqi has not yet died, and Madam Liu is still with child, yet someone already wishes to seize Li Guanqi's property and devour a household with no male heir. Their table manners are truly ugly. Though Earth Lord receives incense from the Li family, Madam Liu has ultimately married into the Lis. I hope Earth Lord can send them a dream or two and refrain from making things difficult for a widow and orphan."

Mo Chuan approached and solemnly cupped his hands in salute.

"Sir thinks too highly of me. This old man is willing but powerless! I was once a member of the Li lineage myself, and only by receiving incense from my clansmen did I become a god who shelters them. I can handle minor matters like children being frightened, but intervening in affairs of the living is truly asking the impossible." Old Earth God made every possible excuse.

Mo Chuan fell silent upon hearing this. He wondered whether Li Guanqi would regret all those years of incense offerings and worship if he heard these words.

Not saving someone could still be explained as being unable to interfere with the laws of the living and having limited cultivation! But even sending a dream counted as interfering with the living? And soothing frightened children did not? Forget it. Know people without exposing them; blame people without saying everything. Perhaps the Land God had troubles he could not speak of. Better to mind his own business!

"Forgive the disturbance. Farewell!" Mo Chuan cupped his hands, then fled westward.

Seeing Mo Chuan depart into the distance, Old Earth God spat.

"A bald little brat thinks he is qualified to tell this god what to do?"

"It's finally done. It wasn't easy!"

In a Qingshui County residence, Chong Shizi sat in the place of honor, joyfully turning the Three Pure Ones Bell over in his hands.

"Ding ding ding..."

With a gentle shake of the bell, a strand of resentment surged out from its mouth. In the blink of an eye, it piled up beneath the hall into a Headless Ghost.

The moment the Headless Ghost appeared, it instinctively groped around in every direction, trying to find its head.

Little did it know that its head was the bell in Chong Shizi's hand.

"As expected of one of the Four Ghosts of the Daoist Sect. It even ate my Soul Binding Whip clean."

Chong Shizi studied the Headless Ghost with delighted amazement.

After subduing this Headless Ghost, he had patiently waited for an entire night and day.

—Even after the bell had long since fallen silent, and even when he poured Mana into it, he could not sense the ghost immortal You Xuzi's presence.

Long patience had brought perfect certainty.

Under the Headless Ghost's gnawing, You Xuzi had indeed been eaten without even scraps remaining. Even the Soul Binding Whip he had given away had been devoured clean.

"Wait one more day. Tomorrow, when they behead criminals at the market, once it swallows the foul blood and vital essence of the condemned, my Headless Ghost will surely rise another level!"

Chong Shizi silently calculated his itinerary.

The reason he had been so eager to subdue the Headless Ghost before the market executions was precisely because he feared that after it consumed the foul blood and vital essence of beheaded criminals, it would grow stronger again and become even harder to subdue.

"Knock, knock, knock..."

A knock at the door interrupted Chong Shizi's thoughts.

He lightly shook the bell and put away the Headless Ghost before rising, walking into the small courtyard, and opening the door.

"Creak—"

The door opened, revealing a pale young man with a clean-shaven face. He cupped his hands and said, "A disciple under Huang Buyu greets the True Person!"

Chong Shizi sniffed the incense aura lingering around the young man and frowned. "A Chuma Immortal?"

The young man cupped his hands. "Precisely."

Chong Shizi slightly raised his chin and assumed an aloof air. "Why have you come to find this poor Daoist?"

The young man raised his head and smiled faintly. "To invite the True Person to die!"

Chong Shizi's pupils abruptly contracted. Before he could react, the young man lowered his body and rammed into his chest.

A Nangzi dagger used by street thugs in life-and-death brawls stabbed viciously into his spleen. Nang, nǎng.

"Ding ding ding..."

A crisp ringing of bells sounded. The Headless Ghost materialized out of thin air, ready to follow its master's will and attack the murderer.

But when it looked around, where was the murderer?

Only a blood-swallowing Nangzi dagger lay in the courtyard, its blunt blade covered in mud and grass clippings.

Beside it, Chong Shizi clutched his abdomen and collapsed to the ground, struggling desperately as blood gushed in streams through the gaps between his fingers.

"Who—"

Chong Shizi shouted angrily, but by the time the sound left his mouth, his breath was already as thin as a thread.

Under the pitch-black night, the small courtyard was empty, as though haunted.

"Cough, cough... cough..."

Blood foam bubbled from Chong Shizi's mouth as he coughed incessantly. After only a few coughs, his head sank. With a thud, he slumped completely to the ground, no longer breathing.

A wisp of remnant soul emerged from his corpse.

Before it could flee, the Headless Ghost that had been hovering nearby let out a low roar, rushed over, seized the remnant soul, tore it into soul vapor, and inhaled it into its body through its severed neck.

Soon after, the Headless Ghost, fully satisfied, dissolved into mist and fled back into the Three Pure Ones Bell.

"Tap, tap, tap..."

Footsteps sounded, and the vanished young man appeared once more at the courtyard gate.

Who was this young man?

—He was none other than Mo Chuan, wearing painted skin!

After the Nangzi dagger had stabbed into Chong Shizi's abdomen, he had dissolved into mist, swept up the painted skin, and fled outside the courtyard. Only after the dust had settled did he reveal himself again.

Even so, he cautiously raised his hand and fired several Ghost Subduing Talismans, confirming that Chong Shizi was dead beyond death before approaching to loot the corpse.

Once he had gathered all the spoils, he shut the courtyard gate and dropped the bolt. Then he went outside, locked the main gate, and drifted away.

Note: A Nangzi dagger resembles a dagger or short sword and is a distinctive weapon of Shandong.