Gu Zhe sat on a stool with his back against the wall, slowly looking the woman over.
It was hard to tell whether he was admiring a beauty or listening to her story. Perhaps both.
Across from him, after a blush flashed across Ming Xuan's face, she composed herself and began explaining what had happened to her younger sister.
Liu Zhaodi, who had tagged along like a piece of stubbornly clinging candy, eyed her with open hostility. In particular, her gaze kept sweeping over certain parts of Ming Xuan's body, leaving her rather baffled.
But the matter at hand was urgent, and she had no energy to spare for this younger girl's feelings.
A little while later.
Gu Zhe frowned.
"So you're saying your sister is possessed by an evil ghost every day now, all because that Spirit Rice Divination actually summoned a ghost?"
He recalled what he had learned about ghosts during his time in the Netherworld.
"That doesn't make sense. Even if the Netherworld is drawing closer, it's not the Ghost Festival, when the gates open wide and the rules of the Yin-Yang Realms connect. Even during the Ghost Festival, ordinary evil ghosts aren't capable of breaking through the barriers and safely adapting to the World of the Living. Even the few powerful enough to adapt can only retreat once the Gate of Yin and Yang closes. They couldn't possibly possess someone every day!"
"Even if your sister is a born Spirit Child with extraordinary spiritual sensitivity, she should, at most, be able to sense those powerful ghosts, relay their thoughts, or have them enter her dreams. Being possessed every single day is rather strange."
"What's more, this ghost seems able to come and go every day. Does it think the barrier between the Yin-Yang Realms is its own back door?"
As he spoke.
Gu Zhe stirred his consciousness.
With his Paper Control Technique perfected, a single thought brought his awareness to the Netherworld Hotel and the Apartment, where he began asking his tenants about the matter.
Most ghosts were ignorant themselves, but as the scraps of information accumulated, a theory gradually took shape.
Neither the worried Ming Xuan nor Liu Zhaodi, whose entire worldview was beginning to crumble, could have imagined that the young man before them-
While he frowned in thought, several strands of his consciousness were already roaming the Netherworld.
A little while later.
Gu Zhe's brow relaxed.
After checking with different ghosts, he concluded that, under these circumstances, the ghost could not yet harm people in the real world. Never mind him-it could do nothing even to the girl's ordinary parents or the ropes binding it.
From some of the details supplied by this beautiful woman named Ming Xuan.
He could conclude the following:
First, this evil ghost still could not adapt to the rules of the World of the Living. It could only possess someone and, at least for now, could not exist independently.
That eased Gu Zhe's concerns. At the very least, he could not lose.
Second, it appeared and withdrew each day without a sound, affecting only the person it possessed, with no changes to the surroundings outside the house. That proved there was a Spiritual Passage between the ghost's location and this extraordinarily sensitive Spirit Child.
Third, this evil ghost could not have come from the Netherworld, because even the beings there that spanned the void and could destroy heaven and earth with a thought could not freely enter and leave the human world.
That left only one possibility.
Near her home-or rather, near where she had performed the Spirit Rice Divination-there was one of those strange Secret Realms said to emerge in legends. At the time, a ghost within that Secret Realm had happened to connect with her spiritual sensitivity, leading to everything that followed.
As for requiring spiritually gifted flesh and blood, or sincere sacrificial worship, those were all normal.
A Secret Realm?
Recalling what some of the ghosts had said, along with the Bone Dragon's remarks that day about Gaia awakening and Void Realms evolving.
Gu Zhe formed a theory.
The Underworld, the World of the Living, and perhaps other worlds existed in different dimensions, and those dimensions were now converging, slowly drawing closer.
But no matter how close they came, they were still separate worlds, with World Crystal Walls between them.
The so-called Secret Realms.
They were like spatial bubbles formed on the inner "walls" of a world through some extraordinary "mystical chemical reaction" caused by changes in certain rules and energies. Those bubbles lay within the great crystalline barrier. Though they still had membranes of their own, those were nowhere near as thick as the crystalline barrier.
The so-called Weird Realms, ghost realms, and Yin-Yang Domains.
Those might form after the dimensions of different worlds came into contact, with tiny portions interpenetrating, perhaps through some sort of inertia.
In certain places, minute portions of the Yin-Yang Realms mingled, and their rules canceled out or fused together, allowing some less powerful ghosts, ghost beasts, and ghost monsters to pass through. These became the Netherworld Tendril Passages spoken of in Netherworld legends.
As for whether other supernatural realms existed, Gu Zhe did not yet know.
The world was complex, and so were heaven and earth. A few words could never explain them clearly.
But one thing was certain.
As long as he did not physically enter the place where the evil ghost's true body resided, it could only roar helplessly at him and slowly erode the Spirit Child's mind and convictions.
Since that was the case.
Gu Zhe looked at Ming Xuan and smiled calmly.
"Since fate has brought us together, how could I stand by and do nothing?"
Liu Zhaodi muttered.
"What fate? And calling her a girl? She might even be older than you. You're just interested because some old woman can't see her own toes, aren't you? Hmph, a pig and a dairy cow!"
"Fate? Is your connection stronger than ours? I went from calling you Uncle to calling you Brother. There's been tender longing, twists of fate, joy and sorrow, and all the ups and downs of everyday life."
Ming Xuan first blushed despite herself, then started to frown. Who was she calling an old woman?
I'm only twenty-six, okay?
Gu Zhe was speechless too. He knocked Liu Zhaodi on the head.
"What would a little brat know?"
He glanced at the beauty and thought, That's the age when a flower blooms at its most dazzling.
"Ahem. When you see injustice, you draw your blade to help. An evil ghost is tormenting a young girl-how could I pretend not to see it? As they say, Ride the Sword on the Wind, slaying demons throughout heaven and earth!"
"Heh, keep pretending. If I hadn't heard what you said at the beginning, I almost would've believed you. Um, Brother Gu, are ghosts really real? Don't scare me. How am I supposed to mind the shop in peace now?"
Ming Xuan inwardly agreed with Liu Zhaodi.
If you hadn't said those things at the beginning, I almost would've believed fate really had brought us together.
For some reason, she recalled Liu Zhaodi's comment about not being able to see her own toes.
It did feel a little inconvenient when she bathed, and she had tried it before. She really could not see them. A blush rose uncontrollably to her cheeks.
Smack.
A stack of paper figures was placed in her hands.
"Take these! Lead the way!" "Zhaodi, watch the place for me!"
Although Liu Zhaodi was a little unhappy and wanted to go along to see the excitement, she reconsidered. Asking her to watch his home meant Brother Gu did not think of her as an outsider.
She broke into a dreamy smile. "Okay!"
Ming Xuan looked fearfully at the paper figures in her hands. Their blank, wooden stares made her shudder instinctively.
But thinking of her sister, she gritted her teeth and followed the man, whose personality seemed rather unpleasant.
You said I was leading the way, so why are you strolling ahead with your hands behind your back?
I'm a real beauty, you know. Yes, the, um... kind who can't see her own toes.
For some reason, she instinctively cast a guilty glance at Liu Zhaodi.
Still, unpleasant as his personality was, their brief conversation had put her at ease. He seemed to possess a certain personal charm that inspired trust.
At the home of Ming Xuan's second uncle.
The young girl was tied to a bed, looking utterly pitiful.
"A few classmates and I performed a simple rice divination ritual in the study. I didn't feel anything at the time. I just thought it was fun and mysterious, and my classmates were all impressed with me. But that night, I had a dream. I saw it. It was over two meters tall, with a long, pointed face, and its teeth..."
"In the dream, it kept smiling at me, smiling and smiling. Then, then..."
Her father picked up the story.
"Then that evil ghost started appearing in Xiao Fei's body from time to time..."
Gu Zhe looked at the girl.
"Can you sense it when it hasn't appeared?"
"I can feel something watching me. It's always watching me. I'm so scared, so scared!"
Gu Zhe was now certain this was indeed a kind of Secret Realm. If the tendrils of another world had merged into the real world, there was no way only this one girl would be affected. Everyone in an entire area would have been caught up in it.
The Netherworld was even less likely.
Separated by the boundary between the two realms, how could it appear and watch someone whenever it pleased? Even if the ghost was powerful, without countless people summoning it, using their thoughts and faith as coordinates and fuel, it naturally could not have come from beyond this greater world.
"Brother, I'm scared. I'm so scared!"
Ming Xiao Fei could sense that this young man who had come to her home was different.
Her spiritual sensitivity, which had grown increasingly acute under the influence of ghostly possession, could sense an unimaginable majesty in this young man, along with something... uncanny.
But that uncanny presence did not frighten her now. Instead, it felt like a lifeline.
Only the mysterious could fight the mysterious!
"Big Brother, I'm so scared, so scared!"
"I can feel its gaze getting heavier and heavier, closer and closer. It's coming, coming! It's coming again!"