Fearless Before Ghosts, Yet Afraid of Death

Fearless Before Ghosts, Yet Afraid of Death

But perhaps the strong liquor had bolstered his courage, or perhaps he had always been a brazen brute.

Li Er had not been scared limp to the floor at once. Instead, as if possessed, he took several more looks at that ghostly figure!

And with that look, he recognized Sun the Old Lady!

His heart was filled with even greater shock!

Hadn't Sun the Old Lady just been sent up the mountain today?

How had she appeared at his shop again?

For a moment, he gripped his butcher's knife tight, pointed at Sun the Old Lady's ghostly figure, and shouted harshly, "Old hag! Dead old ghost! Stay away from me!"

But Sun the Old Lady ignored him and continued floating toward him, murmuring eerily, "Li Er... return my money... return my money... I cannot rest in peace!"

Those words gave Li Er quite a fright!

He finally understood. This old hag's ghost had come to demand her money back from him!

But Li Er had always taken money in. When had he ever paid any out?

No person could make him pay, and neither could a ghost!

Liquor gave cowards courage, and Li Er himself was already a bold brute who feared neither heaven nor earth!

Under the effects of the liquor, even a ghost did not frighten him much!

He gritted his teeth and stamped his foot!

"Old hag, this butcher's knife of mine has slaughtered pigs and sheep for over ten years, but it has never chopped a ghost before. Today, I'll let you have a taste!"

With that, his ferocity flared. His eyes turned red as he raised the gleaming butcher's knife and hacked down!

If it had been a real ghost, naturally it would not have feared an ordinary mortal blade.

But what stood before Li Er was no real ghost. It was merely a paper figure made from a couple ounces of bamboo strips, several sheets of yellow paper, and a bowl of paste.

Forget Li Er's Killing Intent-filled slash—even an ordinary person could have knocked it flat with a single slap!

The blade came down, and the paper figure split apart at once, no longer able to maintain Sun the Old Lady's ghostly form.

Li Er focused his gaze and saw that the ghost from moments ago had turned into a mess of paper scraps and bamboo strips on the floor.

He stood stunned for a moment.

Then realization dawned on him!

"Ha! So it was this kind of Jianghu trick!"

Li Er did not practice martial arts, much less cultivate the Dao, but he listened to plenty of storytellers and had seen much and heard much.

Naturally, he knew that among the unorthodox arts and street tricks of the Jianghu, there were methods of deceiving the eye.

Using stupefying drugs like "bewildering incense powder," along with puppets such as straw figures, one could make people believe they had seen a True Person.

—Though Yu Chen's Paper Man and Paper Horse Art was not like that, at this moment Li Er crudely lumped the two together.

He immediately came to his senses!

He decided it had not been a ghost at all. Some lowlife must have been taking advantage of Sun the Old Lady's death to frighten and extort him!

At once, fury rose from his heart. He prowled around inside and outside the house, yet found no suspicious figure.

"You dare scare your Grandpa Li? You must have eaten a bear's heart and leopard's gall!"

In the end, Li Er returned to his room. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, and he could not help swearing loudly. "Don't let Grandpa Li find you, or I'll twist off your head and use it as a chamber pot!"

After saying that, he spat viciously onto the floor!

On the roof, however, Yu Chen frowned.

All along, the paper figures had never failed to frighten people.

Whether it was Knife-Faced Big Strong, the square-faced young man, or the Zhao Household servant who had risen at night, none had dared act presumptuously before a "ghost."

Yet Li Er, the brazen thug of Hanging Bridge Market, had muddleheadedly broken the paper figure's eye-deceiving technique.

Still, thinking about it, it was understandable.

Though they were all scoundrels and rogues, the foolish woman's ghost that Knife-Faced Big Strong had encountered was far more terrifying than Sun the Old Lady's ghost. Moreover, the foolish woman had been violated to death by those two pieces of human filth. Seeing a wronged soul come to claim their lives had naturally scared them out of their wits.

But Sun the Old Lady had not been killed by Li Er. Coupled with Li Er's liquor-fueled courage, such a result was hardly strange.

Still, one thing was understanding the circumstances.

Sun the Old Lady's final wish was another matter entirely.

He could not return with his feathers clipped, could he?

On the roof, Yu Chen, dressed all in black, sighed and silently leaped down.

Since Li Er could not be frightened, there was only one option left... force.

He pushed open the door and entered.

Inside the shop, Li Er was cursing as he threw the broken paper figure and bamboo strips from the floor into the stove and set them ablaze, venting the fury in his heart.

Then, suddenly, he heard a creak as the door was pushed open.

Amid the howling wind and snow, a figure in an ink-black robe and a pitch-black mask strolled in as if no one else were there.

Li Er froze. The red flowers on that black mask seemed to weep and laugh at once, strange beyond measure!

But he immediately recalled the eye-deceiving paper figure from earlier and formed a guess!

"So it was you, you bastard, playing god and ghost to scare your Grandpa Li?"

At the same time, he gripped the butcher's knife once more.

Yu Chen did not answer. He merely spoke in the hoarse voice altered by the Infernal Mask. "A debt must be repaid. It is the law of heaven and earth."

"Repay your mother's big-headed ghost!" Seeing that the other party did not deny it, Li Er's fury surged from his chest, and evil sprang from the edge of his courage!

—Earlier, though he had chopped the paper figure apart in one stroke, there was no denying that Li Er had truly been frightened.

When had Li Er of Hanging Bridge ever been toyed with like this?

Spurred on by the strong liquor, he immediately raised his butcher's knife, sprayed another mouthful of liquor onto the blade, and chopped at the black-clad masked man!

The shining butcher's knife tore through the air. In the candlelight, it gleamed with a trace of red as it descended toward Yu Chen's head!

That slash came swift as wind and fierce as fire, without the slightest mercy!

Forget ordinary folk—even a trained fighter would have been horrified at the sight!

After all, that thing could kill!

When Li Er saw that the black-clad man before him neither dodged nor evaded, his heart jolted. Though he was overbearing, he did not want to cause a death!

He could not help trying to turn the blade and strike Yu Chen's forehead with the back of the knife instead!

But immediately afterward, he saw that slightly lean figure reach out at a speed the naked eye could scarcely follow. A black shadow flashed!

He directly seized Li Er's knife-wielding wrist!

In that instant, Li Er felt as if his arm had been clamped by a pair of huge iron pincers, and pain shot through it!

Before he could react, the figure raised his other hand. That palm, likewise wrapped in leather, grew ever closer in Li Er's eyes!

Slap!

A crisp sound rang out!

Li Er's two-hundred-pound body was sent spinning in a full circle by a single slap before crashing onto the ground with a bang!

His head spun as though the world had turned upside down!

The heavy butcher's knife also fell to the floor!

Li Er had been slapped senseless for a moment. Blood seeped from his nose and mouth, and his head buzzed.

Yet Yu Chen remained calm and composed, not even breathing heavily.

—Before truly exchanging blows with Li Er, Yu Chen had still felt a trace of unease. Though the Scripture of Deliverance had tempered his body to the Innate Realm, he possessed no experience or techniques in combat whatsoever.

But once they truly fought, he discovered that Li Er's seemingly fierce movements were incomparably slow in his eyes.

That seemingly powerful chopping strike felt as soft and weak as cotton to him.

At once, understanding filled his heart.

—This was the absolute crushing superiority of the Innate Realm over ordinary mortals.

Certainly, Li Er fought and brawled as often as eating meals. He was experienced and had seen grand scenes.

But at the end of the day, he was only a rogue, not even a trained fighter. Whether in speed or strength, he was utterly crushed by an Innate body.

This was not something so-called experience could make up for.

It was like an infant with a head full of fighting techniques facing a nine-foot-tall strongman who had never fought before.

—The other person could send you flying with a single slap. What use was it, no matter how skilled you were?

But Li Er did not understand any of this.

After being slapped away, the intense pain and stimulation of the strong liquor only made this Hanging Bridge brute even angrier!

Staggering to his feet, he picked up the butcher's knife from the floor, gripped the handle with both hands, raised it high, and practically leaped into the air as he chopped toward Yu Chen!

Having gained experience from the first exchange, Yu Chen began to find his rhythm.

Facing the charging Li Er, he threw a completely unpracticed punch!

Bang!

The sound of fist striking flesh rang out!

Li Er took a punch to the stomach and was sent flying backward with a bang, smashing the rack covered with pork into a scattered mess!

The butcher's knife also clattered onto the ground!

That punch thoroughly sobered Li Er from his drunken haze!

How much did he weigh?

Over two hundred pounds!

Yet one punch had blasted him five or six meters away!

How could they possibly be opponents on the same level?

Before he could say anything, the black-clad man walked toward him and casually picked up the butcher's knife from the ground.

Li Er sat collapsed amid the wreckage, staring at the gleaming blade and the black-clad figure approaching step by step.

The fear in his mind finally overcame all his ferocity!

He trembled from head to toe!

The figure came before Li Er, his voice still calm and hoarse.

"A debt must be repaid. It is the law of heaven and earth."

As he spoke, he pressed the butcher's knife directly against Li Er's black-haired chest! As the cold metal touched his skin, Li Er felt his heart tremble!

"I'll repay it! I'll repay it! Tomorrow, I'll repay it! I will!"

Under that cold threat of death, how could Li Er dare resist in the slightest? He nodded again and again!

"From this day forth, will you still dare bully merchants and dominate the market?" the black figure asked again.

Li Er hurriedly shook his head like a rattle-drum. "No! No! Never again!"

Only then did the black-clad man nod.

Just as Li Er breathed a sigh of relief, the black-clad man suddenly threw the butcher's knife in his hand!

With the sound of air tearing apart, the cold blade streaked past Li Er's ear with a sharp hiss, then plunged deep into the hard granite wall!

Li Er felt as though several strands of his hair had silently been severed.

That fright made his legs shake, and foul filth streamed out in rivulets!

"Remember tonight. If you offend again, I will take your head."

"If you dare mention what happened tonight, I will take your head as well."

The black-clad man looked at him. His voice was indifferent and calm, yet laden with heavy threat.

"Yes! Yes! I wouldn't dare! This little one absolutely wouldn't dare!" Li Er was covered in tears and snot, his voice trembling. He had long since been scared out of his wits. How could he dare resist?

Only half an hour after the black-clad man had left did Li Er tremblingly crawl up from the floor.

His face was pale and livid, his legs unable to support him. He had been scared out of his wits. Where was even a trace of his usual tyrannical bearing?

Li Er, the Hanging Bridge brute, had borrowed courage from liquor and feared no ghosts, but in the end he was flesh and blood, and he feared death!