Pioneering, Moving the Spirits

No reason, the rewards were just too low.

Ghosts were simply too weak; Fang Xiu couldn't scrape together any side quests, and the reward points were barely worth the effort.

As for the goddesses in their prime within the Hong Kong horror films, he had even less interest in them—at most, he would appreciate the view for a moment—after all, he wasn't a horny teddy bear.

They weren't even as interesting as a man named Leon.

Played by Stephen Chow, he originated from the movie Out of the Dark.

The reason was that when Fang Xiu passed by a psychiatric hospital, he immediately sensed a man inside with decent mental power and unusually active brain waves.

Unfortunately, that was as far as it went—just interesting.

Unless Leon left this world and wasn't bound by the general environment, the overall strength of the Hong Kong horror world wasn't high, aside from the Fusang Ghost King, Hermit Caolu, and the accompanying Gold and Silver Generals—those travelers from the Ming Dynasty five hundred years ago.

It was likely that the Main God took into account the fact that the Shazhou Team consisted mostly of newcomers.

One had to know that the prerequisite for enabling the "raising venomous insects" mode was to have more potential candidates, rather than applying extreme pressure blindly; if the leeks were uprooted before they even sprouted, there would be nothing left.

"Tsk, if a woman claiming to be the forty-first generation descendant of the Ma family, Ma Xiaoling, were to pop out, that would be a real collapse."

"Pangu bloodline, Fate bloodline, King Fuxi—if they started destroying the world at every turn, I'm afraid even Hashirama would have a hard time handling it."

The Three-Tomoe Sharingan rotated gently.

Inside a police station tormented by supernatural tales, Fang Xiu muttered to himself. With his current perception, he couldn't sense any improvement in his ocular power! Just a moment ago, a group of old ghosts from the Second World War from Fusang had been ground down and devoured by the Sharingan—there was a police station in Hong Kong that had been a barracks during the Japanese invasion over thirty years ago. Because of the defeat, many officers had committed ritual suicide inside. Rumor had it that their vengeful spirits still lingered in the station and would emerge on the day of the Hungry Ghost Festival.

It was worth mentioning that the fierce ghost transformed from Colonel Issey Miyake successfully resembled the Fusang Ghost King, which had perked Fang Xiu up, thinking he had encountered a fat sheep and could squeeze out some side quests.

As it turned out...

--Killed a hundred-year-old evil ghost, obtained 300 reward points.

The Main God Watch updated.

It was a complete waste of that ultimate villain face.

"Don't tell me the oil in this world has already been completely squeezed dry, and the reward pool is fixed?"

Full of disappointment, just as Fang Xiu was grumbling again, the television screen flickered: "What kind of person do you think the killer is?"

"Do you think this case involves political infighting?"

"Do you speak Mandarin? If not, how do you intend to investigate the case?"

On the screen, a group of reporters surrounded a foreigner in a suit, while the latter merely wore a formulaic, faint smile and asked in English: "Does anyone know where Officer Huang Huotu is?"

A sense of familiarity welled up in his heart.

He looked at the broadcast location—Taiwan! Immediately, Fang Xiu, who had seen countless films, recalled several points that corresponded perfectly with the subsequent news reports.

At the end of the seventh lunar month, it was still a season of scorching heat, and all of Taipei felt like a steamer. The chairman of a listed chemical group had been drowned in ice water in his office, wrapped in a blanket, with crushed ice remaining in his nasal cavity; both his epidermis and deeper dermal tissues had already frozen solid.

The second victim was the mistress of a councilor, and her method of death was even more bizarre: while she was bathing, with the showerhead continuously spraying water, she had been burned to death alive.

Moreover, when the police surveyed the scene, they found no trace of fire in the entire environment.

The forensic autopsy showed that the woman's cause of death was being roasted by high temperatures from the inside out...

The third victim was a priest, and his death was quite grotesque: he had been disemboweled, his internal organs extracted, washed with clean water, and then stuffed back into his stomach.

The wound had been stitched into a strange talisman!

From the perspective of social relationships, the three had no connection at all, but the Taiwan police classified the three homicides as a serial murder case because the latest news revealed—

After forensic examination, a type of unknown mold was found in the nasal cavities, respiratory tracts, and even the thalamus of the three victims.

Limited by backward technological means, they were unable to provide a specific report... "Double Vision?"

"Interesting."

"In the Hong Kong horror worldview, places outside of Xiangjiang are not very peaceful either; perhaps a horror story series is currently popular over in America."

With three days left before returning to the space, Fang Xiu couldn't find any valuable targets, and just as he was getting sleepy, a pillow appeared—a new location, a new event, seemingly performing some kind of summoning.

To go, or not to go.

The choice lay before him.

Without hesitation, his figure vanished into the air.

Next, Fang Xiu used an illusion to control a plane flying directly to Taiwan. None of the crew members noticed that there was an extra man on the plane who had bought a standing ticket. He was sorting out the general plot—

At the end of the film, the police followed the clues and discovered that the case was related to a Taoist temple hidden inside a building.

Consequently, after another person died, a large number of police officers went to the temple, attempting to arrest the suspects, while the Taoist priests and believers held sharp weapons, frantically resisting arrest and creating a shocking, bloody, and violent incident, openly confronting the authorities.

Of course, with the appearance of thermal weapons and the entry of counter-terrorism units, the cultists and their organizers were either shot on the spot or thrown into prison.

Up to this point, if one barely stretched it to be supernatural, it could be considered a cliché story.

But what left a deep impression on Fang Xiu to this day was that there was a super twist at the end: the police discovered a girl under the floor of the Taoist temple—she was severely injured and had been used by others to cultivate that unknown mold.

Just when everyone thought the truth had come to light, no one expected that the girl receiving treatment in the hospital was the real mastermind.

Her true identity was one of the reincarnations of two ancient Taoist priests!

The one who reincarnated as the older sister had already died in the womb; the girl claimed she had attained perfect merit and had already become an immortal, while she herself still lacked the necessary refinement and needed to emulate the Five Hells Ascension Method of the Song Dynasty's Huang Daxian to assist her.

An evil immortal?

A true immortal?

At the end of the story, there were two versions in total.

In one, the young girl ascended as she had wished, promising the protagonist Huang Huotu that she would take him with her once the ritual was complete.

When he was wheeled out of the building, his wife frantically pounded on Huang Huotu's chest, but there was still no response; his soul was on the verge of leaving his body.

In his final moments, the police officer saw his last attachments to the mortal world: fragments of happy times spent with his daughter and wife. Just then, as if sensing something, his daughter cried out, "Dad!"

Tears streamed from the corners of the cold corpse's eyes, and his heartbeat resumed. Clearly, the protagonist had chosen not to ascend with the girl, but to remain in the mortal world.

In the other version, Huang Huotu made a pragmatic decision and ascended to become an immortal; the inscription on his tombstone after death read:

"From love comes worry, from love comes fear; if one is free from love, there is neither worry nor fear."

"I hope you can give me a few more surprises."

"So-called immortals."

Due to the fluctuations in his inner emotions, his Three-Tomoe Sharingan quietly transformed into the Mangekyō form. Fang Xiu's desire for exploration and combat far outweighed his fear.

High risk, high reward! The update is here.

Apologies for being a bit late.

But there's no helping it; as a wage slave, I work overtime every day and only ride my little e-bike home at eight-thirty. I start typing the moment I get back, and my sleep time never exceeds six and a half hours a day.

Finally, thank you all for your support and affirmation. This failure bows in gratitude~