Eating a Ghost (Monthly Votes, Please)

"Zhou You?" Su Tingxue called. They were only three steps apart. Why hadn't Zhou You responded? Had something happened to him?

Zhou You answered gravely, "There are two Sight-Obscuring Ghosts. One's covering my eyes too."

He tried hard to stay calm.

Everything before Zhou You was pitch-black. He had completely lost his sense of direction and could no longer tell forward from backward.

Su Tingxue should have been in front of him, so her voice should have come from straight ahead. Instead, it came from his left. That meant even Zhou You's hearing had gone haywire.

Sight-Obscuring Ghosts affected more than vision-they distorted all the senses!

Zhou You didn't dare move now, afraid he might wander onto the road without realizing it.

How could there be two Sight-Obscuring Ghosts? Su Tingxue hadn't anticipated this.

Even when someone died with a grievance, the odds of a ghost appearing were low. The odds of two ghosts appearing from the same accident were minuscule.

But they weren't zero.

The details of the case flashed through her mind. The ghost on her was the pedestrian who had been killed. Could the one on Zhou You be... the driver who caused the accident?!

Did the driver think he had been wronged too?

What a joke! He had been playing on his phone while driving, killed someone, and still thought he was the victim!

To passersby, Su Tingxue and Zhou You looked very strange. Two people who had been about to collide had suddenly frozen in place, as though someone had pressed pause.

The passersby shook their heads and thought nothing more of it. There were plenty of strange people in the world. They had simply encountered another two today.

"Don't move. I'll think of something." Su Tingxue's mind raced as she recalled what she had learned at Dragon-Tiger Mountain and searched for a way to defeat their enemies.

Zhou You didn't simply stand there waiting for Su Tingxue to help. He was thinking of a solution too.

He was fine, standing on the sidewalk, but Su Tingxue wasn't. She had stopped in the road, where some inattentive passerby might knock her over.

To deal with a ghost, you first had to be able to see it.

Sight-Obscuring Ghosts covered your eyes, so there was no way to fight them...

Wait. A Sight-Obscuring Ghost can't actually cover my eyes, can it?

In a flash of inspiration, Zhou You realized he had almost let Su Tingxue's thinking lead him astray. He and Su Tingxue saw ghosts through different means.

With that thought, Zhou You's Soul Projection left his body.

The Sight-Obscuring Ghost behind Zhou You wore an eerie grin, seemingly pleased that he had covered another person's eyes.

Sure, he had been single, but what was wrong with that? He hadn't needed to support elderly parents or raise children. He had been free of all burdens, able to spend his money however he liked. Every day, he could get a few friends together and stay up all night drinking and gaming. What a carefree life.

His death had been so unfair. He had checked his phone while driving so many times, and nothing had ever happened. The surveillance cameras hadn't caught him either. Why had something gone wrong this time?

Running over that woman was just a traffic offense. He should have paid compensation and spent a couple of years in prison, but he hadn't deserved to die.

He hadn't enjoyed the good life nearly enough. How could he have died?

Heaven was blind. He had been wronged!

At that thought, resentment filled the Sight-Obscuring Ghost's pitch-black eyes. He wanted revenge. He couldn't be the only unlucky one. Every person who passed through this intersection had to suffer too!

Then he saw another Zhou You's upper body emerge from the top of Zhou You's head, its form ethereal, looking down at him.

Man and ghost met each other's eyes. Zhou You rolled his head around and flexed his fingers, his mouth slowly spreading into a delighted grin.

The Sight-Obscuring Ghost began to panic. What was going on with this guy? How could he emerge from his own body? The ghost had never encountered anything like this before.

Zhou You didn't care about any of that. He swung his arm back and punched the Sight-Obscuring Ghost.

That felt pretty good.

Zhou You's confidence soared. Su Tingxue had been right: in terms of fighting strength, a Sight-Obscuring Ghost was weak, weaker than even an ordinary person, let alone a mighty expert like him, half a step from the Qi Refining Stage.

"That's for being a ghost!"

"That's for killing someone!"

"That's for causing car crashes!"

Thump, thump, thump! His fists rained down on the Sight-Obscuring Ghost, pounding him until he howled in pain.

A vicious ghost's wails should have made for a terrifying scene of despair, but Zhou You was wildly excited. His punches never stopped, his arms swinging like giant pendulums as he aimed straight for the Sight-Obscuring Ghost's face.

Someone like this was a menace in life and remained a menace in death!

For some reason, after seeing the Sight-Obscuring Ghost, an unusual sensation welled up inside him. Zhou You found it somewhat familiar. It seemed to be... hunger?

Unlike the usual hunger of his physical body, this was a craving that came from the depths of his soul!

Zhou You instinctively swallowed. This ghost looked delicious.

The Sight-Obscuring Ghost noticed that Zhou You's gaze had changed. It was like a hunter's-no, it wasn't even a human gaze anymore. It was the gaze of a beast eyeing its prey!

Overwhelming terror engulfed him. Which one of us is the ghost here?!

"You look pretty tasty. I'll just try one bite."

Zhou You muttered to himself, unsure whether he was speaking to the Sight-Obscuring Ghost or to himself.

It was his first time eating a ghost. He needed to mentally prepare himself.

Zhou You took a small bite, and his eyes lit up. It tasted even better than he had expected. He took another bite.

When Zhou You came back to his senses, his soul returned to his body. He licked his lips. The Sight-Obscuring Ghost was gone, and he felt very full.

Huh? What's going on with me?

Zhou You looked down at himself in disbelief, uneasy. Had he just eaten a ghost? Would that cause any problems?

Zhou You looked toward Su Tingxue. His own problems could wait. He needed to save her first.

The Sight-Obscuring Ghost behind Su Tingxue had witnessed his fellow ghost being eaten. Now, seeing Zhou You look his way, he trembled all over and involuntarily released his grip. He had never experienced anything so terrifying.

Su Tingxue could see again. When she saw the Sight-Obscuring Ghost trying to flee, she seized the opportunity despite not knowing what had happened. She immediately recited an incantation silently and pulled out a talisman.

"Capture!"

The talisman burst with golden light that enveloped the Sight-Obscuring Ghost. With a scream, the ghost turned into thick smoke and was drawn into the talisman.

Zhou You leaned closer to look. The Sight-Obscuring Ghost seemed to have become a photograph, imprisoned inside the talisman with a large "Seal" character stamped over him.

Su Tingxue folded the talisman and put it away, planning to choose an auspicious day to send him on to the afterlife.

"What about the Sight-Obscuring Ghost behind you?" Su Tingxue asked, ready to deal with that one too.

Zhou You didn't know how to explain it in a way she could readily accept. After a moment's hesitation, he chose the truth. "I ate him?"

"Ate him?!" Su Tingxue nearly failed to maintain her icy expression. What did he mean, he had eaten him?

Throughout its history, Dragon-Tiger Mountain had developed a whole host of ways to deal with ghosts, from immobilizing them to restraining their souls, from sealing them to sending them on to the afterlife. Eating them had never been an option.

"Wait. How did you break free just now?"

Zhou You briefly described what had happened. Listening to him, Su Tingxue began to wonder whether anything she had learned was useful, because nothing Zhou You described matched her teachings.

She gestured as she spoke, both her words and her movements slow to give her brain time to catch up. "You mean your soul emerged from your body, saw the Sight-Obscuring Ghost, beat him up, and then ate him?"

"Yes." Zhou You nodded sincerely and rubbed his stomach. "I'm a little stuffed."

"You can actually use Soul Projection?" Su Tingxue asked in surprise. No wonder Zhou You had asked whether Soul Projection counted as a sign of reaching the Qi Refining Stage.

But leaving one's body wasn't an ability a Qi Refining Stage cultivator could master. Could Zhou You's cultivation method be unusual?

Cultivators rarely asked about each other's cultivation methods. Doing so was tantamount to exposing one's weaknesses.

Her brows knitted as she pondered seriously, unable to explain Zhou You's situation for the moment. "How about I ask my master when I get back? He might know something."

Despite her words, Su Tingxue wasn't confident either. If her master knew the reason, he should have covered it in class.

Zhou You waved a hand. He was thin-skinned and didn't know Su Tingxue that well, so he felt rather embarrassed about asking her to consult someone for him. "I know who I should ask."

"Your deskmate, Chu Xiaoyao?"

"Chu Xiaoyao, the Carefree Sect's Grand Supreme Elder."

Su Tingxue fell silent. She had no idea what sort of extraordinary figure this Chu Xiaoyao was supposed to be, for Zhou You to trust her so much.

After confirming that both ghosts had been dealt with, the two rode their bikes back to school. It was nearly dinnertime, and Su Tingxue offered to treat Zhou You to dinner. Perhaps because he had eaten a ghost, Zhou You still felt rather full and couldn't eat another thing, so he had to decline.

"Are you really not going to consider joining Dragon-Tiger Mountain?" Su Tingxue asked again. Though she hadn't figured out Zhou You's constitution, she was certain it was well suited to catching ghosts. Once he joined Dragon-Tiger Mountain, they could take their time studying it.

Zhou You refused again. "How could the head of a sect defect? If word got out, our Carefree Sect would lose all face."

Su Tingxue felt that if word got out, people would be more likely to ask what the Carefree Sect was.

"How about this? Tell me about the cultivation world, and we'll call that my payment for this job." With Chu Xiaoyao around, Zhou You wasn't lacking cultivation methods or knowledge about cultivation. What he lacked was information about the cultivation world. He knew practically nothing about it.

Su Tingxue thought it over. Chu Xiaoyao didn't seem like a serious person to her, yet Zhou You trusted her so much. He had probably been tricked. He really did need an introduction to the cultivation world.

"Then let's find somewhere to sit down, and I'll explain everything."