Jiangcheng City, Seventh Satellite City.
Faint sobbing echoed through a quiet little building in the suburbs. The sky had already darkened, and the surrounding trees cast the place in an especially eerie gloom.
With a puttering sound, a small white electric scooter pulled up outside the building and parked neatly in an empty parking space. The young man riding it hopped off, removed his little helmet, and shook out his hair.
His hair was cropped to finger length, with bangs falling between a pair of sharp brows. They did nothing to hide his prominent brow ridge, which accentuated his deep-set, star-bright eyes. Add a straight nose and clean facial contours, and there wasn't a single flaw in his features.
If handsomeness had cultivation realms, this man had reached at least the peak of the Yanzu Realm.
The young man looked up and saw a middle-aged man in a suit already waiting outside. Raising a hand in greeting, he said, "Hello, sir. I'm Yue Wen, the proprietor of the Yue Family Cultivation Office."
"Master... Master Yue."
The middle-aged man was short, with a buzz cut surrounding a bald crown. His suit was rumpled all over, and his face bore the weary look typical of an overworked wage slave.
After greeting the young man, he asked with a hint of doubt, "Can you handle an evil spirit all by yourself?"
"Just call me Yue." The young man named Yue Wen smiled. "Our office may charge low rates, but we're absolutely reliable. Leave it to me, and rest easy."
"That's good." The middle-aged man nodded, though he still had his doubts.
He could hardly be blamed for worrying. After all, this Yue Family Cultivation Office charged much less than other agencies run by Qi Refiners-he had only tried calling after spotting a little ad on a utility pole.
And the person they sent was an excessively handsome young man-not the sort of face that inspired instant confidence in a client.
Yue Wen, however, seemed quite confident. He strolled casually up to the building. "You didn't explain everything over the phone. Tell me more about the situation."
"Uh, sure." The middle-aged man followed him, casting a wary glance upstairs as he explained, "My surname is Chen. I'm a property manager at Sixty-Nine Citywide."
"This building is a property our company recently acquired. We don't usually buy properties outright, since there's a risk involved. But the previous owner was in a hurry to sell, and the price was very low, so I recommended buying it... I figured we could renovate it and take our time selling it for a much bigger profit."
"But once renovations started, we discovered something was wrong. An evil spirit haunts this building after dark! Every time I came to inspect it before, it was daytime, so I never noticed." Manager Chen looked miserable. "My boss has been putting pressure on me. If I don't resolve this within a week, I'll be fired."
Yue Wen nodded. No wonder the man had come to him.
Apparently, his boss hadn't given him much of a budget.
The Yue Family Cultivation Office had no reputation to speak of in Jiangcheng City, but its low prices made it the first choice for working stiffs.
"The workers didn't get a clear look at the spirit. They only know it comes and goes without a trace and suddenly appears to attack people. If there hadn't been so many of them there, something terrible might have happened. But precisely because nobody's been injured or killed yet, our case has to wait in line at the Supernatural Affairs Bureau. It could take them a month to get to it..."
"We're practically next to the Wasteland Zone here, and this isn't a major supernatural case. The Supernatural Affairs Bureau has its hands full, so naturally it's low on their list." Yue Wen nodded, then asked, "Have you spoken to the neighbors?"
Manager Chen pointed into the distance. "Before buying a property, we normally visit the neighbors to check for anything unusual. But for one thing, the houses here are far apart, so the neighbors don't know much. For another, we found out afterward that the previous owner had given the nearby neighbors some fruit in advance and asked them not to say anything bad."
"So he used the old fruit-gifting trick?" Yue Wen chuckled.
"But if the neighbors don't know anything about it, that means the spirit has been staying quietly inside. It doesn't sound much like a demon. It might be a nightmare wraith." He turned and said, "We'll have to go inside and take a look."
"I have to go in too?" Manager Chen jolted.
"I'll need to shut all the doors and windows in a moment. If you stay outside, I won't be able to keep an eye on you," Yue Wen said.
"Then..." Manager Chen stood stiffly for a moment before saying meekly, "I'd better go in with you."
It was already dark. Standing outside alone was pretty unnerving too.
Who knew whether the evil spirit might come outside?
He stepped forward and unlocked the door, then immediately ducked behind Yue Wen.
Yue Wen strode inside without a care and surveyed the furnishings. Solid wood furniture and relief carvings filled the room, giving it the unmistakable feel of a nouveau riche household from twenty years ago.
"Close the door. Don't turn on the lights-we might alarm it," Yue Wen said.
With his back against the wall, Manager Chen whispered, "How do we find an evil spirit in the dark?"
Human instinct told him he would feel safer with the place brightly lit.
"Rest easy." As he spoke, Yue Wen pulled a pair of sunglasses from his trouser pocket and put them on.
Manager Chen stared. It was already dark in here, and this kid was putting on sunglasses?
What are you, a rapper?
"These may look like sunglasses, but they're actually a Demon-Detecting Mirror," Yue Wen explained. "They let me perceive an evil spirit's aura in the dark and see its true origins, leaving it nowhere to hide."
Upon hearing that they were a magical artifact, Manager Chen's gaze immediately turned reverent.
Thick curtains covered every window in the house. Once the door was closed, not a trace of daylight remained. Everything was pitch-black and silent.
After Yue Wen put on the Demon-Detecting Mirror, mist began rising throughout the ground-floor hall in his field of vision. He slowly walked farther inside. Everywhere he looked was filled with gray vapor as thick as fog.
Manager Chen stayed by the entrance, afraid to move forward. He couldn't see the gray mist around him and could only ask in alarm, "Where's the evil spirit?"
"I don't know yet." Yue Wen shook his head. "This is a nightmare wraith with considerable mental power. Its yin energy is everywhere."
"Then what do we do?" Manager Chen asked in panic.
"Rest easy." Yue Wen raised his left hand, revealing the watch on his wrist. "This may look like a watch, but it's actually a Spirit-Tracking Needle. It can track fluctuations in spiritual energy. As long as that nightmare wraith moves around inside the house, I can pinpoint its location!"
As he spoke, he seemed to activate the watch, and a thin glow rose from its surface. Amid the shimmering light, its hand began spinning rapidly.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh-
After several revolutions, the hand pointed toward the stairs, then swiftly swung around toward the front door.
"Have you found the evil spirit?" Manager Chen asked, his voice trembling.
"Yes." Yue Wen glanced at him and replied, "Behind you."
"Huh?" Manager Chen froze.
Then a mass of shadow beside him
suddenly burst out, instantly extending several tentacle-like appendages that clamped around Manager Chen's body and neck.
Bang!
His throat was seized, and his entire body was hoisted into the air. Suffocating, he thrashed his limbs wildly and waved his right hand at Yue Wen. "Help... help me..."
"Heh, rest easy." Yue Wen gave a wicked smile and displayed the silver bracelet on his right wrist. "This may look like a bracelet, but it's actually a Flying Sword. It cuts down demons as easily as chopping vegetables. Now that this spirit has shown its true form, it won't get away."
"You..." Veins bulged on Manager Chen's face as he forced a few words out of his throat. "Hurry... the fuck... up."
"With the sword heart as my guide, command the spirit across the nine heavens!"
Yue Wen pointed his right hand forward. Sure enough, the bracelet transformed into a streak of silver light and shot through the air!
Shing-
The hall was spacious, but to the speeding sword light, the distance passed in an instant. Before the shadow holding Manager Chen could react, the keen light pierced straight through it.
"Ah-" It let out a wretched scream. Inky black light burst around it, faintly revealing the silhouette of a tree spreading a hundred or so vines.
Its true form appeared briefly before exploding.
Boom!
"So it was a century-old tree. It must have been on the verge of taking human form when construction started here, and they cut it down. No wonder its resentment was so strong. Its lingering mental power managed to become a nightmare wraith this powerful."
Having seen through the evil spirit's origins, Yue Wen spoke unhurriedly.
Meanwhile, Manager Chen fell with a thud, landing face-first on the floor. He weakly extended one hand. "Help me... call... an ambulance."
"Rest easy." Yue Wen stepped forward, picked him up, and carried him outside to his little electric scooter.
"This may look like an electric scooter, but it was actually refined from the skeleton of a White Dragon Steed, a spirit beast. At full speed, it goes like the wind. I can get you to the nearest hospital in under five minutes."
"Even if we don't make it in time, you can still rest easy."
"I know a good funeral supplies shop. Great quality, low prices, and guaranteed full-service care from start to finish."
Before you continue