Mobei was remote and sparsely populated. To make communication easier when the Hu Ma Gang was on the move, they usually used tunes from the Ghost Wolf Reed Pipe as signals.
The swordsman took out his reed pipe, pursed his lips, and blew.
Wuuuu~
The wind suddenly shivered, and the Ghost Wolf Reed Pipe's unique tune rang out. At first listen, it sounded bizarre, like a needle being thrust into one's ear—extremely unpleasant.
The reed pipe's pitch rose and fell, stopping and starting. Ordinary people couldn't understand the signals hidden in its notes, but the Hu Ma Gang members knew them by heart.
If any Hu Ma Gang members within several miles heard the Ghost Wolf Reed Pipe's summons, they had to arrive at once. If they delayed or ignored it, the gang's rules would be enforced without mercy.
The Ghost Wolf Reed Pipe had been sounding for quite some time. Those two groups that had split off should have come hurrying over by now.
Yet Chenxing Stone and the Hu Ma Gang swordsmen waited for half an incense stick's time, and there wasn't the slightest response from the village.
Second Boss Chen Er stood in the middle of the road with a gloomy face, watching both ends of the street. But nothing stirred for a long time. There were no other voices in the village, no sound of horses—only a deathly silence.
"Something's wrong..."
Suddenly, one of the Hu Ma Gang members seemed to realize something. His eyes widened in terror.
"I remember now. There's a tale told around North Prefecture. Once, a village suffered a terrible calamity, and not a man, woman, or child survived. Later, for reasons unknown, that village of the utterly bereft turned into a ghost village."
The man spoke as if he couldn't stop himself.
"The people of North Prefecture call it Wandering Soul Village. It's become a thing of uncanny power—not rooted in one place, but wandering around as if it had grown legs. Its whereabouts are unpredictable, and no one knows how many people it's claimed over the past hundred years."
He murmured, "Wandering Soul Village, souls cannot return; those who enter cannot leave. The living have no roots, the dead no graves..."
"What nonsense are you spouting?"
His companion beside him was furious.
"Ghosts and gods? I've roamed Mobei for all these years and never run into any. Don't come peddling this ghost story here."
Before he could finish, a strange, shrill laugh—its notes stretching and wavering—cut him off.
Hee hee hee hee...
Everyone froze and listened closely, scanning their surroundings. To their astonishment, the eerie laughter seemed to be coming from a nearby house.
"Who's there? Quit playing tricks and show yourself!"
Chenxing Stone swept his right hand, hurling several Locust Stones into the house on the left. They crashed inside, and the only sound was the clatter of broken earthenware.
"...Nobody?!"
He stared, then felt a chill crawl over him. It had nothing to do with the temperature.
"Hee hee hee hee..."
The shrill laughter came again, this time from the thatched mud-walled house on the right. Chenxing Stone turned his face toward the right side of the street and shuddered violently. Goosebumps rose all over him, and a piercing chill seemed to seep in through every crack.
He saw it: a face emerging from behind a mud wall beside the street.
If it had been just a face, that wouldn't have been so strange. But the face—and every feature on it—was as huge as a cartwheel, like a giant millstone.
Every swordsman there stared with bulging eyes, unable to believe what they were seeing.
Hee hee, hee hee hee!!
More laughter drifted in from all directions, shrill and piercing. Some of it sounded like old people, children, or women; some like wolves howling or foxes yelping. And some was impossible to identify as the laughter of any kind of creature.
Chenxing Stone's pupils contracted as he sat on his horse. Fear rose in his heart. It felt as if dark currents were moving through the night all around him. Had his group really stumbled into a forbidden place occupied by vengeful spirits and evil ghosts?
"Wandering Soul Village... Did we really wander into Wandering Soul Village?"
Wandering Soul Village. A forbidden place where the living should keep away.
At the end of the long street stood an ancient ancestral hall.
The plaque hanging above its entrance was crooked, but the four characters "Chen Family Ancestral Hall" could still be made out.
The ground was covered in thick leaves. When the wind blew, they spun into the air, swirling like spirit money burned at a funeral.
The ancestral hall was hung all over with filthy white mourning cloth, densely draped in every direction. The walls, the courtyard, the beams—every available space was filled with hanging white cloth.
Though no one had lived here for a long time, the place still reeked of burning incense, candles, and spirit money.
"Sis, how much longer... do we have to hide here?"
Cheng Zhi's voice was barely louder than a mosquito's buzz.
"Until daylight, I suppose... Let's hope we can get out once the sun comes up."
His sister replied in a weary whisper.
Cheng Zhi could tell she wasn't very confident either.
After all, to escape, they really had barged into an extremely dangerous place.
"Wandering Soul Ghost Village... So the legends were true. And how did Sis even find this place?"
Cheng Zhi was full of questions.
At that moment, he was hiding with his sister in the ancestral hall on Wandering Soul Village's main street, in a concealed room at the very back.
Like the rest of the hall, the room was hung with white mourning cloth. The only difference was that it held a table, its surface piled high with black spirit tablets.
Cheng Zhi and his sister, Cheng Yujiao, were hiding beneath the table where the spirit tablets sat. It was the safest place in the ancestral hall.
"This is Wandering Soul Village. If we want to shake off that man surnamed Chen, there's no other way but to rely on this ghost village."
Cheng Yujiao bit her lip hard.
"If that man surnamed Chen dares to come in, he'll never make it out alive."
If they hadn't been at the end of their rope, why would the siblings have chosen the most dangerous path?
"But it looks like we can't get out either."
Cheng Zhi could only smile bitterly. He stole a glance past the table leg. Not far from the table bearing the spirit tablets, a pair of black cloth shoes stood on the floor. Looking farther up, their owner wore a black robe and held a battered black umbrella, standing eerily in the middle of the ancestral hall.
—as if deliberately blocking their way.
In the eerie village, a low, mournful wind howled, making the wooden doors and windows of several shacks sway nonstop.
At the eastern entrance, a bank of mist suddenly drifted in. Then a procession of strange figures appeared, carrying a paper sedan straight into Wandering Soul Village.
"This place really is strange."
From inside the sedan, He Ping tracked his target with magic and had finally found Wandering Soul Village. Though he was still inside the sedan, he could already tell there was something deeply unsettling about the place.
"This should be thirty li from Suian City. How have I never heard of an abandoned village in this area?"
He Ping's expression darkened.
Had he known Wandering Soul Village was so eerie, he might not have chosen to enter. He would have stayed outside and watched instead.
But this strange village was a ghost domain, with a vague connection to the Nether Realm. His Paper Spirit Puppet technique relied on the Nether Realm's convenience to travel between the Yin-Yang Path and the two realms. As the sedan traveled through the Nether Realm, a whirlpool-like force had dragged it into this village.
He Ping looked thoroughly displeased. This was the exact opposite of what he'd planned. He was an extremely cautious man, and he'd only ventured out this time to try his luck and see whether he could dig up anything. Getting dragged headlong into trouble wasn't his way.
"The flow of energy in this area is in complete disarray, and there's a 'Ghost Wall' around the outskirts. This should be a ghost domain parallel to the Nether Realm... If I try to force my way out, it'll cost me a great deal of energy. Better to wait until daylight, when the sun is high and the yin energy has weakened. Then, with one side waning and the other waxing, breaking through will be much easier."
Under normal circumstances, that would have been the best course of action. But that might not be true now.
He Ping could feel the intense hostility emanating from this ghost domain...
That hostility wasn't directed at him alone. It was aimed at every living person who entered the area.