I'm a Ghost

(Tomorrow's extra update will be at nine tonight...) As for where the pearl's energy came from, what it was called, and what it could do, he had searched through countless records and still found no clues!

That made Tang Changsheng wary of crossing over recklessly. If he used up the pearl's power, he would be in trouble!

But now that he was in a bind, he could not worry about all that. After two days of preparation, he finally crossed over again.

This time, though, he expected to stay at least ten days or a fortnight, enough time to go into seclusion there and cultivate properly. He would need plenty of supplies!

That raised another problem: what was he to do about the General's Temple while he was gone?

Leaving for a day and a night had not been a problem. This time he would be away much longer, and he could not leave the temple unattended.

The person who had used the Witchcraft Curse last time might still be lurking in the shadows. Even if not, it would be bad enough for some ignorant stranger to wander into the temple.

The General's Temple might look old and weathered from outside, but within it were treasures no amount of money could buy.

Asking someone else to guard the place? That was a joke!

The more he thought about it, the more he saw only one solution: he would have to rely on the Yin Soldier again!

A Grade E Yin Soldier was still too weak. Its Ghost Artifact could injure people, but only at night. By day, it would not dare come out to stand guard.

After much thought, Tang Changsheng decided to make a few arrangements in the General's Temple so the Yin Soldier could manifest there even during the day.

Anywhere else, such a plan would have been a pipe dream.

Yin Soldiers were creatures of yin and feared Solar True Fire above all else. Even stronger Yin Soldiers—Vicious Ghosts and evil ghosts, let alone a Grade E Yin Soldier of the Grudge Ghost rank—would have their souls scattered by a touch of sunlight. Solar True Fire even rose and burned inside buildings...

Fortunately, the General's Temple was different!

It had always been a place blessed with excellent feng shui. His sect's predecessors had tended it for centuries, giving it all manner of wondrous properties.

Tang Changsheng's cultivation was too shallow to let the Yin Soldier patrol everywhere by day, but he had a way to let it manifest in the hall where the Divine General was worshipped.

After all, that hall was dedicated to the Protector King Divine General, and the earth's currents converged there. As long as the Yin Soldier stayed inside it, it would surely be safe!

But if anyone dared break in, they had best stay out of that hall. Once they entered, they would never come out alive!

His mind made up, he immediately set to work. He added incense offerings for both the Divine General and the Yin Soldier, then took the materials he needed and crossed over...

He intended to find out whether the flashlight and gun had failed last time by coincidence or for some other reason...

Once Tang Changsheng had decided, he wasted no time. That very night, he locked the temple gates.

He lit a long stick of incense on the altar and instructed the guardian Yin Soldier to watch over the entrance.

Then, with unhurried ease, he activated the Bagua Mirror in the Quiet Room and passed through the oval gate of light.

Sure enough, everything was difficult the first time and easier the second.

This time, Tang Changsheng crossed over without trouble and arrived in the other world...

He found that he had not appeared in the city called something like Suxu.

Instead, he was back in the wildwood where he had left this world last time. It was still night.

A dark blue halo flashed and vanished, and Tang Changsheng appeared.

The stars shone with extraordinary brilliance. Unfortunately, Tang Changsheng discovered that the flashlight he had brought had somehow failed.

There was not a trace of lamplight here, nor the light pollution that was unavoidable even in the wilderness of the modern world.

The darkness was so pure that, without the faint starlight above, he would not have been able to see his hand before his face!

Tang Changsheng remembered.

He had checked that flashlight himself, yet he had no idea why it had stopped working. Then he checked the gun he had brought and found that it, too, had failed.

Neither showed the slightest sign of damage, but both were useless. The flashlight would not light, and the gun would not fire!

Fearing danger on this crossing, Tang Changsheng had made a point of bringing a gun. He had never expected it to fail him like this.

If only the flashlight had broken, he could have called it a coincidence. But the pistol had failed too, and that was enough to make him wonder.

He dug a hole beneath a tree and buried both objects. He had planned to wait there until dawn before leaving.

In the dark of night, with the wind high and the paths unfamiliar, who knew how badly he might lose his way?

Just then, a shaft of moonlight slipped through the clouds. Like silver frost, it lit up everything around him.

The squat shapes in the woods that he had taken for indistinct shrubs were actually crooked gravestones, one after another.

Under the moonlight, a wolf howled in the distance, startling every living thing.

Threads of ghostly green light rose from the graves. For all its eerie horror, the sight held a strange kind of beauty.

Countless will-o'-the-wisps were rising from among them!

Last time, Tang Changsheng had been in such a hurry to get back, and so intent on watching for pursuers, that he had failed to notice the wood where he had departed was an enormous burial ground.

This is bad! Tang Changsheng's heart lurched.

A place like this was bound to be steeped in yin energy. In his own world, where Daoist arts rarely manifested and supernatural occurrences were scarce, he would not have worried.

But in this world, who knew what might appear in a place like this?

As he thought that, he heard a rustling. The turf shifted, and a deathly pale ghostly claw thrust up from the earth.

Then wisps of mist surged from the graves, half substantial and half spectral, with the faint outlines of human figures.

"Holy shit!" Tang Changsheng nearly blurted out.

Grudge Ghosts, exceedingly rare in his own world, had appeared here in such numbers.

Tang Changsheng bitterly regretted not bringing the guardian Yin Soldier with him.

Fortunately, Tang Changsheng was no ordinary man. As a disciple of the General's Temple, he had methods of his own.

He formed a hand seal and traced the character for "ghost" three times on his palm. At the same time, he murmured, "I'm a ghost, I'm a ghost, I'm a ghost..."

It was a secret folk method for encounters with ghosts...

For an ordinary person, though, it would not do much good.

Tang Changsheng was different. He had cultivated since childhood and possessed formidable willpower.

Now, using that force of will to hypnotize himself, he soon felt the yang energy around him wane, while his blood vitality sank under his control.