The Day of Quelling Bandits and Exorcising Demons

Everyone was startled by her words.

The common folk surrounding the stall stood dumbfounded, astonishment and confusion on their faces. The Daoist reacted first, his expression darkening as he said:

"Fellow Daoist, I see you are also a cultivator. How can you spew such vicious slander?"

Yin Weiying sneered. Without another word, she formed a hand seal and began Treading the Dipper. Three Steps, Nine Traces-said to have been passed down by Xia Yu, divine lord of mountains and rivers-was a basic sequence of the art.

She muttered an incantation, her body moving with her sword. The peachwood sword in her hand seemed alive, darting straight at the Daoist like a swimming snake. Chen Yi vaguely glimpsed a little radiance, but could not make it out clearly.

At the sight of this authentic Dipper footwork, the Daoist's expression changed drastically. He retreated in panic, but Yin Weiying's peachwood sword followed him like his shadow, thrusting straight at him.

The instant the peachwood sword touched the Daoist, he reacted as though branded with hot copper. His coarse Daoist robe split apart, and the skin beneath turned a searing red before becoming ashen black and peeling away inch by inch.

Yin Weiying stepped back, sheathed her peachwood sword, and turned to leave.

As though scorched by wildfire, the Daoist's skin rapidly sloughed off. His face contorted as he howled, yet he was in too much pain to move at all. Finally, his soul scattered into oblivion. Every commoner around him was horrified. Then they all caught a powerful stench.

One after another, they lowered their heads toward the source of the smell. The talismans they had treasured in their hands slowly melted into sticky horse dung. Chaos erupted at once. Who could have imagined that these supposedly powerful talismans were nothing but manure?

Chen Yi, who had long since moved far away, watched the scene with a slight inward start.

Yin Weiying explained to him lightly:

"A dung-selling ghost, number one thousand three hundred and twenty-six in the Register of a Hundred Ghosts and a Thousand Demons. They arise from people who died carrying dung. They disguise themselves as Daoists, ritual masters, or Confucian scholars, using honeyed words to sell talismans, prayer beads, and books, swindling people out of their money."

Min Ning's brows furrowed slightly at the mention of such a ghost. She instinctively felt disgusted.

But Yin Weiying displayed no particular liking or dislike as she spoke of this kind of ghost. She simply described it matter-of-factly.

"Let's go. I'll escort you back to your residence, immortal lady."

Chen Yi lifted his lantern and started walking.

The early arrival of the Day of Quelling Bandits and Exorcising Demons had truly caught everyone unawares. All Chen Yi wanted now was to take Yin Weiying back, then hurry home.

Even so, Chen Yi was not worried about Yin Tingxue's safety. The door gods Yulei and Shentu were pasted on his front door, and there was a threshold to keep out hopping corpses, along with couplets that safeguarded the household's peace.

He simply did not want to linger in the streets. After all, who could guarantee what sort of ghost he might encounter?

Darkness shrouded the entire Capital City, turning it into a sinister ghost realm.

They continued onward. Just as they were about to turn a corner, they suddenly heard voices.

"You wretch! Didn't you want to make love to the water deity?!"

"Come on, look at me! I'm the water deity now!"

Chen Yi looked back. Faint sounds of scolding and curses drifted from the canal. Beneath the water's surface, there seemed to be figures of the drowned, drawing people a few steps closer before they knew it.

Some men who had just emerged from the Green House seemed to hear the same voices. Their faces instantly turned deathly pale, yet they slowly approached the canal as though bewitched and peered inside.

Suddenly, water splashed upward. Pairs of pallid hands broke the surface and dragged those drinking and whoring men into the canal. The men thrashed in the water, screaming for help, but more and more hands surged toward them, forcing them beneath the surface. Gradually, bubbles stopped rising. Everyone beneath the water had drowned.

"The Jealous Wife Ford Deity!"

Yin Weiying sucked in a cold breath.

"Go! We can't subdue this one!"

Having completed the game, Chen Yi knew this monster. The first Jealous Wife Ford Deity had arisen from Duan Shi, who had drowned herself. Her husband, Liu Boyu of the Jin dynasty, had fantasized in a poem about making love to the water deity. His strong-willed wife had therefore thrown herself into the water and become a demonic ghost. From the water, she had angrily rebuked her husband: now that she was a water deity herself, why did he not enter the water and make love to her?

As for the Jealous Wife Ford Deities of the present, these monsters were mostly jealous women who had drowned themselves.

The three hurried away from the water. Min Ning looked a little pale. This was not her first Day of Quelling Bandits and Exorcising Demons, but she had always stayed safely indoors before. No matter how the monsters outside ran amok, they could not break into houses protected by peachwood charms.

As they crossed the street, they could hear distant cries of alarm from all over the capital. The sudden arrival of the Day of Quelling Bandits and Exorcising Demons had shattered the existing order, and chaos followed.

Rounding the corner, Chen Yi and his companions stopped abruptly. A Confucian scholar stood incongruously in the middle of the street. All around him was silence. There was not another person in sight-not even a ghost.

The silence was exceedingly eerie.

The scholar looked at the three of them, bowed with his hands clasped, and asked:

"Do you believe there are ghosts in this world?"

As his words fell, a sinister wind howled, suddenly fierce and showing no sign of letting up.

Unable to discern the scholar's origins at a glance, Yin Weiying refrained from acting rashly and frowned in concentration.

Before Yin Weiying could work out where he came from, Chen Yi said outright:

"You're a ghost!"

The scholar's face turned ashen, horror filling his eyes. Then the light slowly faded from his gaze. Finally, his body and clothing slowly melted into foul-smelling black water, which fell onto the street and vanished without a trace.

Yin Weiying was briefly taken aback by the sight. Then she gave Chen Yi an appraising look, as though admiring a prospective husband.

"You recognized his origins at once and knew he arose from the ghost that frightened Ruan Zhan of the Jin dynasty to death. Yet you've never cultivated. Could you possess the Heavenly Eye?"

Yin Weiying asked with a smile.

"If you possess the Heavenly Eye, you must be either an immortal or a buddha."

Chen Yi shook his head and said:

"I just happened to remember. I've read history books. I know Ruan Zhan of the Jin dynasty didn't believe in ghosts or gods. He debated a guest, and when the guest couldn't win the argument, he revealed his true ghostly form and frightened Ruan Zhan to death."

Yin Weiying praised him:

"What a memory you have, Moon Pond. You really ought to come cultivate with me on Mount Taihua."

Listening to their conversation, Min Ning was utterly speechless. She could not quite understand what they were talking about. Although she could read, she was no scholar. Never mind history books-she had scarcely even read the Four Books and Five Classics.

To avoid embarrassment, she could only nod slightly as the two spoke.

The moment the scholar ghost dispersed, a hopping tread sounded along the street. Shadows loomed in the distance. Chen Yi looked up and saw hopping corpses advancing along the road in groups, their arms raised, bouncing forward. Gusts of Yin Balefulness swept past. At the center of the corpses stood an imposing figure clad in armor and carrying a great saber—a ghost general, unmistakably!

"We can't stay here!"

Yin Weiying spoke urgently, turned, and rushed into an alley.

Chen Yi hurried after her with his lantern, and Min Ning followed close behind.

The alley twisted this way and that, moss covering its walls and roof tiles. They walked for a full half-incense stick's worth of time, yet still had not emerged.

More and more sinister gusts swept up, filling their hearts with unease.

Yin Weiying, who was leading the way, grew alert. She held her peachwood sword in one hand and formed the seal for the Golden Light Body-Protection Art with the other. Darkness shrouded them like fog, and the flame in Chen Yi's lantern flickered.

Chen Yi kept close behind Yin Weiying. When he happened to glance farther down the alley, his gaze abruptly froze, and his hands and feet stiffened slightly.

A deep-blue face appeared, rigid and motionless. Three heads sat upon its shoulders, and the silks and satins on its body were filthy. Waves of sickening corpse stench spread outward, and its deathly still gaze held not a trace of life.

An Asura had one face and three eyes, or three heads and six arms. Moreover, this Asura was on the brink of death, displaying the signs of the Five Declines of the Celestials!

Yin Weiying's breath caught. She stood rooted to the spot.

Asuras resembled celestial beings yet were not celestial beings, and resembled both gods and ghosts. At the height of their power, they were much like gods; in decline, they were much like ghosts. After death, they often lost their virtue and fell, plunging entirely into the ghost path!

And an Asura that fell into the ghost path... would become a Ghost King ruling over a region! Against a Ghost King, even Mount Taihua would have to call upon a True Person to suppress it.

Cold sweat broke out on the white-robed Daoist woman, and extraordinary dread gripped her. She dared not make any rash move, much less raise her peachwood sword and perform the Dipper steps. Behind Chen Yi, Min Ning saw the scene and placed her hand on her saber's hilt, her grip slick with sweat.

The moss on the walls surrounding the Asura gradually withered. Behind him lay pitch-black darkness, devoid of any vitality. He merely stood there rigidly as the foul, gloomy smell of decay grew stronger and stronger.

Unlike the two terrified women...

A smile appeared on Chen Yi's face.

He couldn't help it... he had read the walkthrough.