Four Secret Arts of Huang Chuping

"Die!"

The husband's face suddenly twisted, his entire face turning bluish-white and swollen. His eyes were bloodshot, his features so savage that he no longer looked human. Carrying an eerie ghostly aura, he lunged fiercely at Zhi Gang.

Zhi Gang remained unusually calm.

From the first moment he saw that ghost, he had known that he would probably not escape tonight.

The most terrifying thing about this kind of ghost was possession.

One moment it could be inside one person, and the next it might burrow into someone else's body. As long as it touched you, life and death would be decided in an instant. There was simply no guarding against it.

Buzz!

At that critical moment, a clear sword cry rang out.

A cold gleam flashed.

Sword light instantly illuminated the darkness before Zhi Gang.

Huang Bai stepped forward. His ritual sword left its sheath like lightning, and with a flick of his wrist, the blade turned into a snow-bright arc that swept past the husband's neck.

Splurt!

The head shot into the air.

The severed surface was smooth as a mirror, and blood erupted wildly, splashing across the night.

The body maintained its charging posture before crashing to the ground a second later. It twitched twice, then fell completely still.

Zhi Gang's pupils shrank sharply, and his whole body stiffened.

"That... that sword was fast!"

Even his voice had changed pitch.

Less than a second.

From drawing the sword to beheading him, it had been so fast that it was nearly impossible to see clearly. Even a butcher killing a pig was not that efficient.

The next moment, Zhi Gang abruptly came to his senses. He immediately looked around furtively and urged in a lowered voice, "Quick, go! Don't let anyone see us!"

The two hurried through the streets and alleys, one after the other.

They deliberately took secluded, dark, twisting alleyways, making a huge detour before finally returning to Kowloon Walled City.

Only when he saw the battered temple doors of Wong Tai Sin Shrine did Zhi Gang seem to let out a breath. Supporting himself against the doorframe, he panted heavily.

"This... this is safer." Zhi Gang wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, his face still pale.

Huang Bai looked at him and asked, "That family just now... they really were ghosts?"

"What else would they be if not ghosts?" Zhi Gang dropped onto a traditional armchair, poured himself a cup of cold tea, and found that his hands were still trembling slightly.

"The little girl was possessed by a Vicious Ghost first, then the ghost moved into her father's body. That whole family was beyond saving from beginning to end."

He drained the cold tea in one gulp. His Adam's apple bobbed a few times, and only then did his complexion improve slightly.

"Remember this: once that thing possesses someone, that person can't survive."

"If you want to kill a ghost, you have to kill the body it possesses too. But can ordinary people see ghosts? No. To them, that person is still alive."

"So if anyone had seen your sword tonight, you'd be sitting in jail tomorrow."

Huang Bai frowned, a thoughtful look appearing in his eyes.

"So humans are naturally at a disadvantage when facing ghosts?"

Vicious Ghosts hid among crowds and possessed living people. You might know that thing was a ghost, yet you could not act carelessly.

Even worse, it could change bodies at any moment.

A newsstand vendor, a driver by the roadside, a pedestrian on the street, even a stranger who had just brushed past you—any of them could become a ghost the next second.

"That's exactly it." Zhi Gang gave a bitter laugh, his face full of exhaustion. "Fortunately, these things aren't everywhere. The conditions for a Vicious Ghost to take form are extremely harsh. Otherwise, this world would have stopped being a place for humans long ago."

At this point, he suddenly looked up at Huang Bai.

"But speaking of which, your swordsmanship..."

Huang Bai's expression did not change as he answered calmly, "I'm from the mainland. My grandfather used to be a disciple of the Wudang Sect, and I learned a few things from him when I was young."

Naturally, he could not reveal the whole truth.

"No wonder." Zhi Gang nodded and did not ask further. He merely warned in a deep voice, "Don't stick your neck out recklessly. When you run into this kind of thing, pretend you didn't see it if you can."

He was truly terrified. Those Vicious Ghosts had long scared the courage out of him.

Since they could not be saved, there was no need to meddle. Living one day at a time was enough. As long as he pretended not to see anything, life could at least continue.

"I understand." Huang Bai nodded in agreement.

After returning to his residence, Huang Bai did not rest immediately.

He sat cross-legged, holding the dark-gold Five-Ganoderma Inner Elixir in both hands. Slowly visualizing the Five Prisons, he drew upon its medicinal power to cultivate.

His eyelids trembled slightly, his mind unable to settle as all manner of thoughts crowded in.

If he used the Inner Elixir to release powder, he could fight ghosts with illusions. But that would not solve the problem of Vicious Ghosts blending into crowds and possessing people.

That meant he absolutely could not act rashly before fully confirming his target.

After finishing his cultivation, Huang Bai rose and walked to the window.

The night breeze outside was faintly cool. The stacked shadows of Kowloon Walled City's buildings pressed into the darkness like motionless, lurking monsters.

Huang Bai raised his eyes, his Mind Sense stirring as he silently calculated.

"Seeking dragons and dividing gold, observe the winding mountains; each winding ridge is a barrier..."

Threads of earthly energy appeared and vanished in the darkness. The terrain of all Hong Kong faintly showed the convergence of dragons and tigers, mountains and sea embracing one another, its vital energy extraordinary.

This place truly had unique natural advantages.

The next morning.

Wong Tai Sin Shrine remained deserted.

Yawning, Huang Bai lit the first incense stick of the day.

As usual, Zhi Gang sat in the doorway basking in the sun, his eyes half-closed. He looked as though he were already on his last legs, as if last night's terror had nothing to do with him.

"Last night, a family of three at No. 95 Tsim Sha Tsui, Lin Wan's family, allegedly suffered a gas leak and tragically perished. We would like to remind all citizens..."

The news on the television played slowly.

That "family of three" in the report was precisely the family from last night.

After listening for a moment, Zhi Gang frowned.

"Strange..."

He had thought there would at least be some other commotion.

But Huang Bai understood. The Miscellaneous Affairs Bureau had most likely stepped in to clean things up.

It seemed he would have plenty of dealings with those people in the future.

He could not help recalling the details from the movie.

The commissioner seemed never to have shown his face directly from beginning to end, yet the camera was always present. That deliberate omission might well have been a hint. Perhaps there was something wrong with the commissioner himself.

Police station.

The so-called Miscellaneous Affairs Bureau was merely the most marginal department in the police station.

Its office was a rundown warehouse in the corner of the building, piled full of messy files and miscellaneous junk.

Huang Yaozu, the inspector of the Miscellaneous Affairs Bureau, was an oddball who wore leather jackets all day and never put down cigarettes or alcohol. Everyone at the station treated him like a lunatic and avoided him whenever possible.

In the dim office, Huang Yaozu stared blearily at the computer screen.

A colleague beside him reported, "It's confirmed. The girl and her mother were both possessed by a ghost. In the end, the ghost transferred into the husband, Lin Wan."

On the screen was a photograph of the headless corpse.

"The cut is extremely smooth," the colleague continued. "It was probably caused by a sharp weapon."

Huang Yaozu narrowed his eyes, a cigarette between his lips. After a long while, he muttered:

"That's an expert..."

"Could there really be someone in this world who specializes in killing ghosts?"

He thought about it for a long time without figuring it out. Finally, he simply tossed the liquor bottle onto the desk and patted his colleague on the shoulder.

"Forget it. Don't think about it. A new colleague named Li Guoqiang will be arriving later. Take him to look through the files."

"Understood."

Time passed little by little.

In the blink of an eye, a month had gone by.

Huang Bai had, quite unusually, enjoyed a relatively peaceful stretch of days.

Every day, he traveled only between the Taoist temple and his residence. During the day, he tended to the incense business; at night, he absorbed the Inner Elixir's medicinal power; in his spare time, he practiced swordsmanship.

The days seemed ordinary, yet they allowed him to observe this world more closely.

"I have three Gold-Seeking Talismans."

In his room, Huang Bai looked down at the three dark brown talismans in his palm.

"They say these can ward off evil. Perhaps... they really can prevent ghost possession."

Gold-Seeking Talismans had been passed down since the Eastern Han. They had endured countless sinister tombs and dangerous places without being destroyed, so they were no ordinary objects.

As he pondered this, Zhi Gang's voice suddenly came from outside the door.

"Huang Bai."

Huang Bai pushed open the door and stepped outside. Zhi Gang had packed his belongings and changed into an unusually clean, tidy Taoist robe. He looked more silent than usual, and more haggard as well.

"Where are we going?"

"Mong Kok Cemetery." Zhi Gang's tone was calm. "Come with me to move some things."

The cemetery.

Trees provided deep shade, and tombstones stood in rows. When the wind blew, blades of grass rustled, carrying a bleak, desolate air.

Zhi Gang remained silent all the way, his expression complicated. His already stooped back seemed even thinner than usual.

At last, he stopped before a row of tombstones.

"Beloved wife, He Hua."

"Beloved sons, Chen Jiahao and Chen Jiajie. Beloved daughter, Chen Xiaoying..."

Further down was his eldest grandson, Chen Guoming.

Eight tombstones in all.

There were husband and wife, siblings, and younger generations.

Huang Bai looked at the names on the tombstones, then turned to Zhi Gang.

At that moment, the old Taoist seemed to have aged another ten years in an instant. His eyes were empty, and the usual sharp-tongued meanness had vanished from his face. All that remained was a shell barely able to stand.

"That's right."

Zhi Gang stared at the row of tombstones, his voice hoarse.

"These are all my family."

Then, he slowly began to speak of the past.

Although he was a Taoist at Wong Tai Sin Taoist Temple and did not understand true spells, he had spent years in this line of work and inevitably encountered strange supernatural events.

Many years ago, he provoked a Vicious Ghost.

That ghost possessed his eldest son and slaughtered the entire family in a single night.

And in the end, he had killed his eldest son with his own hands.

Huang Bai was silent for a moment before saying only:

"My condolences."

At that moment, he finally understood Zhi Gang's fear.

It was not merely fear. It was more like an avoidance carved deep into his bones.

Anyone who had watched their entire family die horribly, then killed their own son with their own hands, could never truly move on for the rest of their life.

Zhi Gang said nothing more. He simply arranged the fruit offerings one by one, lit incense, and stood blankly before the tombstones.

Huang Bai stood beside him without urging him.

The sun gradually sank westward.

Zhi Gang crouched down and pried up a stone brick in front of his eldest son's grave. Beneath it was a hidden compartment.

Inside the compartment lay an ancient, simple booklet.

Its pages were yellowed, its binding old, and its text written in vertical columns. It carried an ancient, weathered aura.

Several words were written on the cover:

Four Secret Arts of Huang Chuping.

Huang Chuping was the legendary Wong Tai Sin.

Holding the booklet, Zhi Gang slowly said:

"When humans fight ghosts, humans have always been losing. We just haven't lost completely yet."

"Ghosts destroyed the genuine methods for exorcising ghosts and spread a heap of fake texts."

The spells circulating in the world today were mostly fabricated by swindlers or fakes created by Vicious Ghosts.

"This book of spells was passed down from the Eastern Jin."

Zhi Gang handed the booklet to Huang Bai. "Unfortunately, it lacks the most crucial cultivation method, so no one can master it."

"If you meet someone truly talented in the future, pass it on to them. Don't let even this little bit die with me."

Huang Bai accepted the ancient text and felt his hand sink slightly.

"All right."

He said no more and merely nodded solemnly.

Opening the first page, he saw the names of four secret arts:

Solar Curse, Lunar Curse, Brightsight Curse, Wall-Piercing Curse.

Were these true spells?