The sight made my scalp crawl.
"I'll bite you to death—"
The head shot into the air and flew toward the Paper Sedan. Just then, a paper puppet, its face full of sorrow, leaped forward and blocked its path.
"Out of my way!"
The swordsman's head shouted and tried to charge past. The paper puppet looked utterly grief-stricken. It lightly waved its right hand, and a burst of spiritual light flared. With a bang, the head exploded, turning into countless splashes of black-red blood.
Beside it, another paper puppet held a paper lantern. Its emerald-green flame was a mass of cursed fire.
The puppet lifted the lantern, and a ball of green will-o'-the-wisp flame shot out, landing in the blood and scorching it away, leaving behind a charred-black stain.
"Fool. Your acting was terrible from the very beginning."
He Ping gave a cold snort. Several nearly invisible strings dangled from his fingers inside his sleeve.
"Any normal person who saw my Paper Sedan and still had the nerve to come over asking for help would have to be out of his mind."
An ordinary person who saw a group of paper puppets carrying a paper sedan, speeding along like the wind, would think it was some demon or ghost procession and hide as fast as they could. How could anyone possibly come running over to ask for help?
He Ping wasn't stupid. One casual glance was all it took to see something was wrong with the man, so he immediately gave him a taste of the Milo Blade.
The Milo Blade was driven by fine strings. Within a hundred paces, it could slice through metal and shatter jade; severing a head or cutting a throat was child's play. A single strike from afar had chopped the swordsman into several pieces.
He Ping lifted his eyes and looked toward the direction the slain swordsman had come from: a road in the middle of the village.
"There really are traces of living people on the road through the middle. Looks like some of the Hu Ma Gang survived. They must be trapped in the village."
Faintly visible on the ground were numerous chaotic hoofprints. From their tracks, it seemed the group had circled around here several times.
"It looks like the Hu Ma Gang really did get stranded here. They'll have a hard time escaping this place alive."
He knew very well that ordinary mortals who entered Wandering Soul Village were all but certain to die.
Wandering Soul Village had evolved into a ghost domain. Once ordinary people were trapped inside, they couldn't escape even if they tried. The outskirts of the village were sealed by a barrier, and anyone who reached the end would run into a Ghost Wall.
"Then you're on your own..."
He Ping shook his head and ordered the sedan to take the road on the right. As for the Hu Ma Gang, their lives or deaths had nothing to do with him. Why would he waste his energy saving them?
The Paper Sedan turned around and slowly made its way down the village road on the right. Its ghostly jade-green lantern flame receded into the distance, gradually disappearing into the darkness.
The moment the Paper Sedan left, several pale figures slowly drifted out from the houses, the eaves, and behind doors and windows.
Their faces were transparent, their bodies blurry and indistinct. One by one, they stared at the departing sedan, their faces full of undisguised greed.
The ghosts of the village had already caught the scent of the living. No longer hiding their intentions, they began appearing one after another...
Halfway along the road, He Ping sensed that something had its eyes on him.
He found it rather amusing. He hadn't gone looking for trouble, yet someone had the poor judgment to come looking for trouble with him.
"No. In a place like this, whatever comes knocking won't be human."
As the sedan headed toward the ancestral hall, a faint glow gradually rose along the earthen walls on either side of the street. But the glow carried a thick ghostly aura; instead of brightening the street, it made it seem even darker.
"Stop the sedan."
At his command, the Paper Sedan came to a halt.
Just then, a mass of black air suddenly surged up at the end of the street. Several blurry ghostly figures blocked his way.
The strange figures stared at the Paper Sedan, their eyes shining like lanterns.
He Ping lifted the sedan curtain and took one look. He could tell that the ghosts in the black haze were almost tangible, unlike ordinary spirits. They were vicious ghosts that had grown powerful.
He couldn't help but sneer.
"...Dry bones in the grave, and you dare get presumptuous."
"Meeow—"
A plaintive cat's cry came from a corner of a thatched-roof shed. A monster with four furry hooves, a monkey's face, red eyes, and a green nose was crouched there like a spider.
Thump, thump-thump!
Inside a pitch-black empty house by the street stood a red coffin. Strange pounding sounds came from within it.
"Hee hee hee..."
A chilling laugh rose from beneath the coffin. The pitch-black figure lying underneath slowly reached up with a pair of gaunt claws and set them against the bottom of the coffin. Its black hooks scraped across the wood several times, carving deep marks into it.
On the other side of the street stood a great camphor tree. A strange gust swept past, and its leaves rustled in the night wind. A human skin clinging to the trunk like a bitter cicada suddenly swelled as if it had been pumped full of air.
"Now the forsaken wife regrets it too late~ Do you recall how, back then, the phoenixes delighted in each other~ Do you remember how you turned your back on our love and took another branch~ Do you feel nothing for your old love, now without a place to lay her head~ Do you spare a thought for the orphan, with a mother but no father..."
From a dry well came the sound of a woman singing an old opera song. A moment later, countless strands of black hair slithered up from the well like black snakes.
The wind howled, and ghosts danced wildly.
Ahead of the sedan, the paper puppets carrying it moved stiffly. Some wore crying faces, others grinned, giving anyone who saw them a sinister, absurd impression.
The ghosts' murderous aura surrounded them like a pack of wolves circling its prey.
On the roof of the thatched shed, the Cat-Monkey licked its forked, snake-like tongue;
Beneath the red coffin in the coffin shop, a faint blue shadow slipped into the earth;
On the camphor tree, the Tree Crawler opened its blood-red eyes and peered through the leaves at the Paper Sedan;
The black hair in the dry well writhed rapidly. Half a head slowly emerged from the well, greed and cruelty glinting in its rotting face.
"Looking for death."
He Ping was thoroughly displeased. His right hand, hidden in his wide sleeve, gripped the strings and lashed them out with a violent sweep. A piercing crack suddenly split the cold, dry air of the night.
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!!!
Several gray threads cut through the sky. This was the Immortal Puppet Sect's killing art, the Milo Blade: the strings, unleashed by the Formless String, shuddered through the air.
At once, a gale swept outward in every direction from the Paper Sedan. Tall grass shattered, and mud and stones flew.
Several ghosts in the black haze let out sharp, miserable shrieks as the Milo Blade sliced through them. They turned into wisps of smoke and scattered away.
The Cat-Monkey on the roof suddenly sprang up and pounced through the air like a nimble cat. But an astonishing blast of pressure exploded around it mid-leap, and great splashes of green blood flew everywhere.
The monster cat let out a piercing yowl, though most of the sound was muffled into a whimper, as if its throat had been crushed.
Boom!
A deep, heavy impact rang out. Half of the tamped-earth wall outside the courtyard was blasted down by a single blow.
The camphor tree seemed to have been struck by a sharp blade and a heavy axe. Its bowl-thick trunk was swept through and snapped. A flash of blood darted from its hiding place, but a blade of wind already cut through the air, slicing the blood shadow in half at the waist.
Elsewhere, from the direction of the Ancient Well, great waves of black hair surged toward the sedan. The oily strands writhed forward like snakes and worms, only to be intercepted by several paper puppets.
Three paper puppets stepped forward. Their movements were strange, yet held a touch of the absurd.
They swung their lanterns. The will-o'-the-wisp flames swelled fiercely, then sprayed outward. The mass of black hair burned and curled, recoiling with a hissing sound.
The Well Ghost had been wounded. It hurriedly pulled back the hair crawling across the ground. The strands that slithered back into the well curled up like an injured snake.