Female Hanging Ghost

Zheng Que hurriedly stopped in his tracks, but his body continued to rise.

Realizing something was wrong, he quickly tried to crouch down. But the moment he exerted force from his waist, his body didn't descend at all; instead, his feet, which had barely been touching the ground, lifted rapidly into the air.

Zheng Que was shocked. He looked down and immediately discovered that the sunlight shining from behind him cast his shadow onto the courtyard wall in front. On the head of that shadow, a hemp rope was tied, firmly hanging from a tree.

This is...

His own shadow was being hanged from a tree!

Zheng Que's pupils dilated. The next moment, intense pain flared in his neck, and a suffocating sensation rushed over him. It felt as if a very sturdy rope was tightly strangling his neck, constantly pulling him upward.

He immediately understood why his body had been floating upward; it wasn't that his body had become lighter, but that he had been hanged by a Resentful Soul without even realizing it!

Coming to his senses, Zheng Que reached out to grab his neck. However, he swiped several times and felt nothing but empty air—he couldn't touch a thing.

He calmed down instantly, quickly sliced his palm, and smeared the blood all over his hand before reaching for his neck again.

This time, he immediately grabbed a coarse rope.

Zheng Que pulled with all his might, trying to snap the rope, but it was unexpectedly sturdy. Even with the strength of a cultivator at the Qi Refining Stage, his repeated efforts did nothing but make the rope tighten further.

However, a cultivator's vitality is incredibly tenacious. Even though his neck was turning a bruised purple and the suffocation was overwhelming, his intuition told him that the chilling sense of impending death he had felt last night was absent.

This Female Hanging Ghost in the tree was not as strong as the Call-Sound Ghost from last night!

Thoughts flashed through his mind like lightning. While gripping the rope at his neck with both hands to alleviate the pressure, Zheng Que quickly looked toward the spot where the Female Hanging Ghost's shadow had been.

The tree shade was sparse, casting mottled, swaying light and shadows. The familiar figure of the Female Hanging Ghost had vanished without a trace. Before him, only the shadow of the withered old tree was cast limply across the wall and ground, swaying in the wind.

Zheng Que was stunned, but he quickly reacted. His gaze sharp as lightning, he looked back at his own shadow.

His shadow was currently stretched across the wall. Aside from the rope pulling his body up bit by bit, the outline of the shadow had grown significantly larger at some point, looking strangely bloated, as if two people were stacked on top of each other.

The next moment, Zheng Que felt a bone-chilling coldness on his back. A slender, graceful figure was clinging to him. From within wide, fluttering sleeves, a pair of thin, skeletal arms suddenly reached out and viciously clawed at his throat.

Crack!

The Female Hanging Ghost's pale hands passed right through the palms he was using to protect his neck, clamping down tightly on his throat.

A sinister chill spread instantly throughout Zheng Que's entire body.

The color drained from Zheng Que's face in an instant, replaced by a deathly, paper-white pallor.

He immediately let go with one hand, intending to strike backward, but at that moment, he seemed to think of something...

Without any hesitation, Zheng Que dug his fingernails into the scab on his chest from last night's wound and tore it open.

Blood gushed out immediately, and a faint, metallic scent permeated the air.

Zheng Que mimicked his master's movements from earlier, waving his arm to rapidly execute a complex hand seal.

The blood that had just flowed out instantly transformed into a living mass of blood mist. It spread out with remarkable agility, expanding like a net, and in a flash, it tightly encircled both Zheng Que and the Female Hanging Ghost.

A cultivator's spirit blood is brimming with yang energy, which is particularly aggressive during the daylight. Sensing danger, the Female Hanging Ghost ignored Zheng Que for the moment and immediately tried to dive into the shadows below.

Zheng Que did not give the Female Hanging Ghost a chance to escape. His hands moved rapidly, weaving one hand seal after another.

As the hand seals shifted, the Spirit Blood Net trapping the human and the ghost quickly manifested into runes of various sizes. They hovered in mid-air, flickering in and out of existence, and began to fly into the body of the Female Hanging Ghost according to a specific pattern.

The moment the first Spirit Blood Rune was branded into the shell of the Female Hanging Ghost, its body suddenly stiffened, and the yin energy swirling around it weakened in an instant.

Zheng Que immediately felt the rope strangling his neck loosen just a little.

He dared not let his guard down and continued to cast the hand seals.

The Spirit Blood Net churned in the air, gathering and dispersing, yet it denied the Female Hanging Ghost any possibility of escape. Dense clusters of runes were branded into the ghost's body one by one.

Eerie characters began to appear continuously on the white robes and disheveled hair of the Female Hanging Ghost. Its body thrashed violently, like a fish or shrimp pulled onto the shore, yet no matter how it struggled, its body became increasingly unresponsive.

Snap!

At that moment, the rope that had been strangling Zheng Que's neck suddenly lost its strength and snapped.

Zheng Que dropped back to the ground. The sensation of suffocation vanished, and with no further restraint on his neck, he could finally breathe normally.

His heart steadied; the Ghost Controlling Technique was already taking effect!

With this thought, Zheng Que continued to cast his hand seals while looking up.

He saw that slender, graceful figure hanging stiffly amidst the canopy of the dead tree, lacking any of the lightness that would come with swaying in the wind. Runes of various sizes continued to emerge from its body, and the extremely dangerous yin energy it had possessed was mostly dissipated. At this moment, the Female Hanging Ghost gave off a sense of being on the verge of death.

As Zheng Que cast the final hand seal, all the runes were completely branded into the body of the Female Hanging Ghost.

The Female Hanging Ghost immediately detached from the treetop, descended slowly, and collapsed limply onto the ground, motionless.

Filtered through the canopy of the dead tree, the sunlight illuminated its thin frame, which now appeared half-real and half-illusory, as if it might dissipate at any moment.

The application of the Blood Seal was complete!

Thinking of this, Zheng Que used his blood-stained finger to quickly draw a character that resembled both a bird and an insect on his palm.

This was the final step of the Ghost Controlling Technique: issuing the command!

The moment the character was finished on his palm, Zheng Que immediately raised his hand toward the Female Hanging Ghost and shouted with a commanding voice, "Duo!"

The Female Hanging Ghost lay prone on the ground without any reaction.

Watching this scene, Zheng Que was momentarily stunned. He aimed his palm at the Female Hanging Ghost once more: "Duo!"

However, just like before, the Female Hanging Ghost remained motionless, sprawled out as if she were dead.

Zheng Que could not help but feel deeply puzzled. His Ghost Controlling Technique followed the exact same steps as his master's just moments ago, so why did this Resentful Soul show no reaction at all?

Did he miss something in the middle?

While he was deep in thought, the indifferent voice of Daoist Qu suddenly reached his ears: "You learned well."

"However, your spirit blood has too much yang energy."

"A Resentful Soul in the daylight cannot withstand it."

"This Female Hanging Ghost is unsalvageable."

"Wait until tonight, and try with another one."