Too Many Nights on Dark Roads!

If they had not known the Long-Haired Rebels had been gone for a century or two, they would have pissed and shit themselves already. "Don't be scared. They're only shadows. Just shadows..."

But even as he spoke, the Long-Haired Rebels drew closer. The wind blurred their forms, yet they never broke formation as they advanced toward the men...

Or rather, as they closed in around the entire General's Temple.

Everyone sensed something was wrong. No matter how stubbornly they talked, none of them could believe these were merely shadows.

And images supposedly recorded by a magnetic field should not have looked so vivid and solid...

"Ah!" Whether one thug was brave or frightened half out of his mind, he charged at the shadows with a scream, swinging the steel pipe in his hand...

It passed through one shadow as though through mist. The next instant, the man shrieked, foamed at the mouth, and rolled across the ground.

It looked for all the world like an epileptic fit!

The sight scared the souls out of them. Their leader shouted, "Damn it! Walk enough roads at night and you really do meet a ghost. We've spent years roaming the underworld, but I never thought we'd run into something this wicked today. Brothers, there's nowhere to run. Let's fight!"

By then, they were surrounded. Thick fog lay ahead and the ruined temple stood behind them. They could neither flee nor retreat.

For a moment, their viciousness seemed to flare. Instead of wetting themselves, the thugs were roused by their leader's words. The two beside him threw caution aside and shouted, "Let's fight!"

"This damned temple must be behind it! Watch me smash its rotten door!"

One man's savage streak took hold, and he lunged forward to kick the door of the General's Temple.

Unfortunately, he had forgotten that purple sandalwood was renowned for its strength, especially timber this old.

After being treated with the General's Temple's secret methods, the door might have looked worn and battered, but it was harder than fine steel. Forget a man's kick—even an elephant might not have knocked it open.

His kick did not budge the door. Instead, it nearly sent him flying backward. As he clutched his foot and howled, he heard his companions cry out in terror, "Watch out!"

Before he could react, cold struck his back, as though a slab of thousand-year profound ice had been pressed against it. He froze almost instantly, unable to move.

Then he felt an evil, icy consciousness rise from behind him and shoot straight toward his brain.

I'm finished. A ghost's entering my body... That was his last thought...

Cries like the wailing of ghosts and the howling of wolves came from outside. Tang Changsheng heard them clearly, and a savage sneer crossed his face. "Hmph. Even if the General's Temple is a tiger brought low, it won't be bullied by wild dogs like you!"

As he spoke, the smile on his face suddenly stiffened.

The key in his hand—or rather, the Bagua Mirror—had begun to shine with ripples of light.

The ripples swept over Tang Changsheng. An instant later, he vanished without a trace, as though he had never been in the quiet room at all...

With Tang Changsheng gone—or perhaps with the Bagua Mirror gone—the bright pearl hanging high in the quiet room slowly began to glow again.

As its light spread, the fog creeping closer to the General's Temple seemed to encounter its natural enemy. Step by step, it drew back...

Tang Changsheng did not know that the next day, several helicopters landed before the General's Temple.

The temple doors were shut tight. Outside, bodies lay scattered every which way.

The burly men who climbed out of the helicopters shivered at the sight.

Then a gaunt man in his fifties jumped down, knelt before the General's Temple, and respectfully knocked his head against the ground three times.

Only then did he stand. Looking at the bodies strewn across the ground and the thugs who had been frightened out of their minds, he said, "Take care of all these bodies..."

"Boss, we got here so late. You don't think the mage at the General's Temple will be angry, do you?"

The man who spoke stood over two meters tall and was built like a bear. Yet he lowered his voice comically and whispered with a furtive look on his face.

The old man said nothing. Worry flashed through his eyes...

"Should we go in and explain?" the man asked.

The old man shuddered. "Do you have a death wish? Can't you see how these thugs died? You'd dare set foot in the General's Temple without the mage inviting you in?"

The barrage of questions brought the burly man to his senses. He looked at a thug who was still alive but foaming at the mouth, now laughing and crying in turns as he screamed, "Ghost! There's a ghost! Help..."

The nearly two-meter-tall man shivered and dared say no more.

Only then did the old man pull out a satellite phone with trembling hands. "Hello, Zhang Dacheng? It's me, Zuo Xingfa... Something's happened at the General's Temple. Seven or eight thugs are dead outside the gate, and another five or six have gone mad!"

He could almost hear the sharp intake of breath through the connection. After a long silence, a dry voice came from the other end. "I'm not involved in the Lower River underworld anymore. I've washed my hands of it and gone completely legitimate... Tell you what. I'll handle the official side of the deaths."

The meaning was clear: nothing else had anything to do with him.

Zuo Xingfa gave a dry laugh. "Fine. But what if the mage asks for you?"

The former underworld big shot on the other end shuddered. After a long pause, he said hoarsely, "The General's Temple hasn't contacted us in more than ten years!"

Zuo Xingfa chuckled. "You can tell the mage that yourself!"

He hung up. His mood improved at once...

Well, when misfortune struck, seeing someone else in the same boat was a comfort, wasn't it?

Zuo Xingfa was a local big shot in Lower River, yet the business with the General's Temple had left him with a bone in his throat, trembling with fear.

If he could not drag Zhang Dacheng down with him and make his old companion in misfortune worry too, he would have felt dreadful!

It was uncanny. The General's Temple had not contacted them in almost twenty years.

From what they had privately observed, cultivation arts seemed to be growing harder to practice in this world. Great masters seemed to be growing fewer, too...

So why today, of all days...

One look at the bodies and thugs scattered across the ground, and the little notion that had just formed in Zuo Xingfa's mind vanished without a trace!

Soon, word spread once more among Lower River's three great Households: more than a dozen thugs had gone to the General's Temple looking for trouble, only to be subdued by its mage. Every last one was either dead or injured.

"Strange, strange. All these years, people have said we've entered an age when the arts are fading and Daoist magic no longer shows its power. How does the General's Temple still have such formidable abilities..."