Before the Paper Sedan, paper puppets filed out and formed ranks, guarding the sedan from every direction.
Suddenly, a cloud of sand and gravel taller than a man burst from the ground, raining down toward the Paper Sedan like a volley of arrows.
Several paper puppets rushed forward like human shields. The gravel, each piece as hard as an arrowhead or a stone missile, struck their bodies and seemed to hit an invisible wall. A faint glow appeared over the puppets, made from paper mulberry bark.
This was Armor-Clad Spirit Light. The paper puppets He Ping had made all looked like they were made of paper, giving the impression that they were fragile and could be shattered with a single blow. In reality, each one was protected by a layer of spirit light.
With this "spirit light" protecting them, ordinary blades and spears could scarcely hurt them at all. Even spells had difficulty breaking through it.
At the same time, as the sand and gravel churned, the Green-Grasping Ghost hidden underground seized its chance. Its form became a wisp of smoke, slipped past the paper puppets' formation, and flew toward the Paper Sedan.
This ghost was clever. It knew there was a living person inside the sedan, and decided that bothering the living person was better than tangling with the puppets.
With a swish, the Green-Grasping Ghost reappeared. It thrust out a long, sharp claw from midair, but when it came within half a foot of the sedan, countless fine threads like spider silk wrapped around its green claw.
"Zing!"
A tremor like a plucked zither string rang out. The threads, forming a web of blades, suddenly tightened, shredding one of the Green-Grasping Ghost's arms and half its body. In pain, the ghost's form turned blurry. It seemed to dissolve into smoke, then slipped underground like a winding smoke-snake.
"Did it get away?"
Seeing some of the ghosts dead, others running, and still others escaping, He Ping's expression barely changed.
He realized that Wandering Soul Village was no ordinary place. The spirits and ghosts dwelling here were no common haunts.
"Graveyards and lonely burial mounds are full of weak wandering souls. They're only good for scaring ignorant travelers—not worth mentioning... But this Ghost Stockade has old, vicious ghosts, like Cat-Monkey, Tree Crawler, Well Ghost, and that Green-Grasping Ghost. None of them would be much trouble alone, but for so many to gather together like this is clearly wrong!"
The Green-Grasping Demon Ghost in particular. To become one of these wicked ghosts, a person had to die bearing a deep grievance and hide beneath the coffin of a corpse buried at an hour, day, month, and year all marked by yin. After using the corpse as a foundation, the person had to cultivate for forty-nine days without food or water. Even then, the chance of becoming a half-ghost, half-corpse Green-Grasping Ghost was extremely low.
Of course, there were many taboos and tribulations along the way. And even if someone was lucky enough to become a Green-Grasping Ghost, they still had to keep absorbing the death aura of those who died at a yin hour, on a yang day, in a yin month, and in a yin year to maintain their body.
Still, these wicked ghosts were not entirely spirits of yin. They had physical bodies, so they feared no sunlight and could move about in the daytime. They also possessed all kinds of strange abilities, making them extremely difficult to deal with.
However, the wicked ghosts in Wandering Soul Village might have been a problem for ordinary people, but against someone like He Ping, who had made some progress in spellcraft and could use puppets to form arrays, they were hardly able to do much.
"This Wandering Soul Village is seriously strange. Could someone be cultivating ghosts here? No... Could they be cultivating a ghost formation?!"
He Ping grew more and more surprised.
He didn't know much about ghosts, but from the knowledge he'd gained from Wu Yousheng, he knew that it would make sense for powerful ghosts like these to appear alone. But with so many gathered in this Ghost Stockade, it made no sense.
Ferocious ghosts were like tigers and wild beasts, each with its own "hunting ground" and "territory." As the saying went, two tigers could not share one mountain. Ghosts also came into conflict when their territories overlapped.
This village was so small, yet so many powerful ghosts were crammed into it. In theory, they should have been at each other's throats long ago!
"This is a ghost-cultivation ground, a ghost formation. The only reason so many ghosts are here is that someone put them here..."
He had never considered that someone might have turned an entire village into a ghost realm, and that this ghost realm had then become a ghost formation. Whoever had laid out the formation must have been using the yin energy of this ghost realm to nurture a horde of ghosts.
"Anyone with that kind of ability can't be an ordinary person. They must be a genuine cultivator who practices spellcraft."
He Ping muttered to himself, thinking that there was no need to offend a master of Daoist arts. He had initially thought this Wandering Soul Village was a naturally occurring ghost realm.
Now that he suspected it was the work of someone who practiced Daoist arts, just like him, there was no need to take things too far.
After driving off the horde of wicked ghosts, he didn't pursue and wipe them out. Instead, he ordered the paper puppets to keep carrying the sedan.
The white Paper Sedan set off once more, and in a blink it reached the ancestral hall at the end of the long street.
"Fellow Daoist, I trespassed on your territory by mistake. I meant no disrespect. I'm only here to capture a thief who secretly learned my sect's arts. Please show mercy and let the thief out so I can take him back and punish him."
He Ping had no intention of offending the other party from the outset. He decided to pin a charge on the blue-robed pageboy—secretly learning the sect's arts, for instance. It was the kind of matter only people inside the Immortal Puppet Sect would know about. He could make up whatever he wanted; an outsider couldn't possibly know the truth.
"Fellow Daoist, this concerns a private matter of my sect. I ask you to be accommodating. Just let the person out, and I'll leave at once."
He furrowed his brow and added another sentence. Compared with his earlier words, this one carried a much firmer tone.
"Fellow Daoist, why not spare me a moment and meet me?"
He Ping's expression darkened slightly as he called out again, but the ancestral hall gave no reply.
In the pitch-black night, the ancestral hall stood there as if unmoved, offering him no response at all.
He Ping made several more polite appeals to the shadowy ancestral hall, but still received no answer.
"What's going on? Are they too lazy to deal with me, or... could this Wandering Soul Village really be unclaimed, an empty ghost realm?"
He Ping looked puzzled.
That couldn't happen, could it...? With a village like this being used to "cultivate ghosts," someone had to be managing it. They wouldn't just leave it empty, would they?
Suddenly—
The ancestral hall's two bronze doors, each bearing a beast's head, creaked open. Behind the dark doors, it was as if a giant beast had opened its jaws, revealing a bloody maw.
He Ping immediately grew alert. His eyes narrowed, his ear twitched, and he heard a sudden flurry of "whoosh, whoosh, whoosh" sounds.
In that instant, he saw countless white shadows densely packed inside the ancestral hall, shooting toward him.
Even He Ping was startled by their sheer number. His expression shifted, and his pupils contracted!
The next moment, his fingers rapidly formed several hand seals, and he shouted,
"Form ranks!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, dozens of figures leaped out from behind him. The paper puppets, driven by his command, rushed over, each with a different expression: joy, anger, sorrow, worry, and fear.
The ghost spirits attached to the puppets had long since been refined into curse spirits. Their power burst forth at once. In an instant, Armor-Clad Spirit Light activated over the puppets. Their slender hands swung through the air, leaving streaks of afterimages.
Swish, swish, swish! The white shadows flying toward them twisted and turned in midair. The paper puppets sliced them apart with hand-blades, and they writhed like severed worms.
"Fellow Daoist, won't you at least talk?"
He Ping frowned slightly, but his voice remained calm.
The old red-painted doors of the ancestral hall had turned pitch-black with age. Countless white shadows streamed out through the open doors, then surged through the air toward the Paper Sedan, blotting out the sky.
Judging by the looks of it, the other party had no intention of talking this through!