He had left Stanford in September, and by the time he returned, it was already mid-October. The plane tree leaves had turned golden, rustling down as the wind swept through the treetops and carpeting the red-brick paths in gold. Bai Haorui sat behind the wheel of the GMC, looking at the familiar campus and the students walking along its paths, filled with emotion. If only this weren't the world of Supernatural. I could chase girls at school-with enough nerve, I could get three in one night at a party. He just wanted to belt out, "Oh, how I miss our youth~ Just want to take root and sprout in the tunnel~" Ever since seeing the second Anchor Point Symbol in Colorado Forest, he had felt as though a pair of eyes were watching him. Whenever he thought of the Yellow-Eyed Demon in particular, chills ran down his back.
"We're almost at your dorm," Dean's voice came over the radio, the Impala's lights flashing up ahead. "Dad's trail has gone cold. We'll have to stay here a few days and see if he contacts us."
Sam sat in the passenger seat, clutching his phone, Jessica's photo on the screen. Ever since leaving Stanford, he had worried about his girlfriend and called her several times a day. "Jessica said she hasn't been feeling well these past few days. She keeps having nightmares about a dark figure choking her."
Bai Haorui's heart sank, and a sense of foreboding washed over him. Just then, the system's mechanical voice suddenly sounded in his mind:
[The Yellow-Eyed Demon is about to attack Jessica. Key Plot Intervention Mission triggered!] [Mission objective: Protect Jessica and repel the person possessed by the Yellow-Eyed Demon.] [Mission reward: Unlock the active skill "Soul Subduing" (can briefly suppress demonic energy), free attribute points ×1.]
"Sam, Dean, Jessica's in danger!" Bai Haorui slammed down on the accelerator. The GMC's engine roared as it hurtled toward the dorm. Both Dean and Sam were startled by his reaction, and Dean immediately asked over the radio, "What's wrong? What happened?"
"Something feels wrong!" Bai Haorui's voice trembled slightly. He gripped the steering wheel tightly, his eyes fixed on the dorm building ahead.
Before the vehicle had fully stopped, Bai Haorui pushed open the door and charged toward the dorm building. Sam and Dean hurried out of their cars and followed. As soon as they reached the foot of the building, they saw black smoke billowing from the window of Sam's room. Firelight reflected against the glass like a hideous face.
"Jessica!" Sam shouted, rushing upstairs like a madman. Bai Haorui and Dean followed close behind. Thick smoke filled the stairwell, choking them and making it impossible to keep their eyes open. They had just reached the third floor when Jessica's screams rang out from Sam's room, shrill and desperate.
Bai Haorui kicked the door open. The sight before him made his scalp prickle. An invisible force held Jessica against the ceiling, her limbs spread like a cross nailed to a wall. Fire had burned through her clothes, tears and soot covered her face, and a deep claw mark on her neck was bleeding. A dark figure stood in the middle of the room with its back to them, black mist pouring from its body. Within the mist, a pair of yellow eyes was faintly visible, like two burning ghost flames.
"Let her go!" Dean drew his silver knife and charged at the dark figure, only to be hurled back by an invisible force. He slammed into the wall and spat blood.
Sam tried to rush forward, but Bai Haorui stopped him. "Stay back! That's someone possessed by the Yellow-Eyed Demon. Ordinary weapons can't hurt it!" He took out the Five Emperor Coins, pinching three between his fingertips, and silently recited the Soul-Subduing Mantra from his grandfather's notes. The notes recorded a short story: (In the twenty-sixth year of the Republic, there was a street called Guyi Street in the northwestern corner of Jinmen. At its far end stood a secondhand bookshop without a sign. Its door was always left ajar, its curtain made of blue cloth washed pale. Whenever the wind blew, the scent of aged paper and ink mixed with rotting wood drifted out. Everyone in the neighborhood knew there was something sinister about the books in that shop. Someone had gone in looking for an old ledger and become rich after coming out, only to die suddenly a few days later. Someone else had sought a medical book to cure an illness; the illness was cured, but the person became an idiot and did not survive another fortnight.
The first victim was Zhou Qiyuan, a bookkeeper at a foreign trading firm. In his early forties, Zhou Qiyuan's greatest wish was to save enough money to remarry and carry on his family line. But the firm paid poorly, and he was an honest man who dared not fiddle the accounts. He worried so much that his hair turned white. One day, as he passed the secondhand bookshop, the curtain suddenly lifted on its own, opening a narrow gap. A slow, mild voice drifted out. "Want to get rich? I have a Qingfu Coin Manual here. It can make your money breed more money."
Entranced by those words, Zhou Qiyuan slipped into the shop. In the dim light, he could make out only a figure in a long gown, its face hidden in the shadows of the shelves, holding a yellowed, thread-bound book. "Take it," the figure said, handing over the book. "Follow its instructions. Every night at midnight, weigh down its pages with copper coins. You'll see results in three days. Just remember, once the money comes, don't ask where it came from."
Zhou Qiyuan paid no heed to any of that and carried the book home. At midnight on the first night, he placed ten copper coins on the Qingfu Coin Manual. When he woke the following morning, a hundred silver dollars had appeared beside his pillow. By the third day, the silver dollars formed little mountains, even filling the space beneath his bed. What he failed to notice was that the edges of those silver dollars always bore traces of dark red, like dried blood.
Early on the fourth morning, neighbors heard screams from Zhou Qiyuan's home. When they broke down the door, they found him lying among the silver dollars, his belly slit open and all his internal organs gone, leaving only an empty shell. The Qingfu Coin Manual lay open nearby, every word on its pages now dark red, as though written in his blood. The book had contained no method for breeding money at all. It had summoned a "Qingfu ghost" to his door and traded his organs for silver dollars.
A few days later, Liu Yushuang, an actress who played female roles in an opera troupe, also sought out the secondhand bookshop. Nearly thirty, Liu Yushuang was always afraid that she would grow old, lose her beauty, and be dismissed from the troupe. After she entered the shop, the figure gave her a book called Youth-Preserving Technique, saying that applying its formula to her face would keep her young forever. Liu Yushuang believed it. Every night, she applied the medicinal liquid brewed according to the formula. Within three days, her skin became as soft and delicate as a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl's, and even the fine lines at the corners of her eyes vanished.
Soon, however, Liu Yushuang discovered that she could no longer do without the medicinal liquid. The moment she stopped using it, her skin became dry and wrinkled, like old tree bark. Worse still, she began craving raw meat, especially the blood of live chickens. One day, while she was applying the medicine backstage, an apprentice stumbled upon her gnawing on a live chicken. Blood ran from the corners of her mouth, and her eyes had no pupils, only a murky whiteness. The apprentice screamed in terror, but Liu Yushuang lunged forward, trying to suck the apprentice's blood as well. Fortunately, the troupe leader arrived and knocked her away with a stool. But Liu Yushuang had already breathed her last, the skin on her face peeling away layer by layer to reveal blackened bones beneath. That "Youth-Preserving Technique" was actually a formula brewed from the skin of a "human-faced ghost." Every use consumed another portion of her soul.
After two deaths in succession, the people of Guyi Street panicked. Some said the owner of the secondhand bookshop was a bookseller from the reign of Qianlong in the Qing dynasty, beheaded for hiding a forbidden book. His resentment had lingered, possessing old books, and he fulfilled people's wishes to suck out their souls, drain their marrow, strip their skin, and tear apart their bones. While everyone was gripped by fear, a wandering Daoist Master Xuanzhen passed through Tianjin Wei. Upon hearing what had happened, he immediately headed straight for Guyi Street.
Daoist Master Xuanzhen stood outside the secondhand bookshop and drew a bagua mirror from his sleeve. Turning its reflective surface, he revealed a stream of ink-black mist drifting from the shop, a human figure faintly visible within it. "Baopuzi: Ascending Mountains and Crossing Streams states: 'Ghosts love life and abhor death, favor good and detest evil. Yet those with deep resentment instead use goodness as bait, tempting people into evil.'" The Daoist master's voice rang out. "You were a bookseller who lost his life for hiding a forbidden book. Now you use books to lure people into evil and devour their souls. Do you know that this is one of the Five Transgressions of the Daoist Path?"
The figure inside the shop made no reply, but the curtain suddenly flew up and shot straight at the Daoist master's face. Prepared for this, he drew an ancient scroll from inside his robes, unfurled it, and shouted, "To subdue evil, first discern its kind, then establish the altar, and afterward recite the incantation. Today, I shall follow the ancient texts and set up an altar to subdue your soul!"
With that, the Daoist master set up a ritual altar outside the shop. On it, he placed an image of the Three Pure Ones, a peachwood sword, a bowl of "evil-subduing water" made from cinnabar mixed with rooster blood, and three sheets of yellow paper bearing Soul-Subduing Talismans. The patterns on the talismans followed the "evil-subduing incantation" in the Scripture of Great Peace, every stroke shining with golden light.
At midnight, the bookshop door creaked fully open. Ink-black mist surged out and formed a dark figure in a long gown, holding a tattered forbidden book. It was the bookseller from all those years ago. "Daoist, I fulfilled their wishes, and they willingly exchanged their souls. What wrong have I done?" the ghost roared. The forbidden book suddenly flew up from his hands, its pages rustling as countless black characters crawled out like insects and lunged at the Daoist master.
"The Scripture of Great Peace states: 'Desire is the root of calamity; twisted wishes are the bait of ghosts.' You use evil to further evil and have long since fallen onto a wicked path. Today, I will destroy you!" the Daoist master shouted. He picked up the peachwood sword, dipped it in the evil-subduing water, lifted a Soul-Subduing Talisman with its tip, and touched it to a candle flame. The talisman burned into a ball of fire, and the Daoist master began reciting the Soul-Subduing Mantra.
"Mystic source of heaven and earth, root of all qi. Through countless eons of cultivation, attest to my divine powers. Within and beyond the Three Realms, the Dao alone is supreme. Golden light within my body shines over and envelops me. Look, and it cannot be seen; listen, and it cannot be heard. Encompassing heaven and earth, nourishing all living beings. Uphold and recite ten thousand times, and the body shall shine. The Three Realms stand guard, the Five Emperors attend my arrival. Ten thousand gods bow in homage, thunder obeys my command. Ghosts and demons lose their courage, spirits and monsters lose their form. Thunderbolts dwell within, the Thunder God's name lies hidden. Penetrating wisdom shines throughout, the five qi surge. Golden light, appear at once and shield the perfected one!"
With every line, the image of the Three Pure Ones on the altar grew brighter, and the fire on the peachwood sword burned fiercer. Whenever the black characters touched the firelight, they hissed and dissolved into black smoke. Seeing the situation turn against him, the ghost tried to retreat into the bookshop. But the Daoist master was ready. He stepped forward, swift as wind and elusive as an illusion, pointing the peachwood sword straight between the ghost's brows and pressing the ball of fire against him.
"Aah-!" The ghost let out an agonized scream as his body began to dissipate bit by bit. The forbidden book in his hands also caught fire, and countless wronged souls' faces appeared on its pages-the very people whose souls he had devoured. "I can't accept this... I only wanted to live..." The ghost's voice grew weaker and weaker until he finally dissolved into a wisp of black smoke. Enveloped by the golden light of the Soul-Subduing Mantra, it vanished into the air.
The Daoist master looked at the burned-out forbidden book, then drew a scroll of the Tao Te Ching from his sleeve. Placing it on the altar, he recited, "To the good, I am good; to those who are not good, I am also good. Thus is goodness attained," to give those wronged souls a deliverance rite. Early the following morning, the secondhand bookshop on Guyi Street was gone. Only a pile of ashes remained, with a scrap of paper buried in it bearing the words, "Desire must not be indulged; indulged, it becomes calamity." It was a line from the Tao Te Ching, like the ghost's final repentance.
Afterward, the elderly often used the incident to warn the younger generation: "Don't covet blessings that don't belong to you. Some wishes seem sweet, but they're really soul-stealing poison. Not even immortals can save you.")
"Mystic source of heaven and earth, root of all qi. Through countless eons of cultivation, attest to my divine powers..." Though Bai Haorui's voice trembled slightly, it was clear. He threw the Five Emperor Coins at the dark figure. The copper coins traced three golden arcs through the air and landed around it, forming a small circle. The instant they struck the floor, golden light erupted like a golden cage, trapping the figure within.
The dark figure roared, its black mist churning violently as it tried to break through the golden circle. But every time the mist touched the golden light, it sizzled like hot oil poured over ice. The invisible force holding Jessica against the ceiling weakened as well, and her body began to slide down.
"Sam! Save Jessica!" Bai Haorui shouted, pulling the peachwood sword from his backpack. The Three-Five Evil-Slaying Talisman on its blade glowed red. He knew the Five Emperor Coins' "temporary minor formation" would not hold for long. He had to drive the dark figure back as quickly as possible.
Sam reacted immediately. Stepping onto a chair, he reached up, caught Jessica's hand, and pulled her down from the ceiling. On the verge of losing consciousness, Jessica leaned against Sam's chest and said weakly, "Sam... the dark figure... it wanted to kill me... What's going on?"
Seeing Jessica rescued, the dark figure roared and lunged at Bai Haorui. A sharp claw reached out of the black mist and slashed at his chest. Bai Haorui tightened his grip on the peachwood sword, twisted aside to dodge the claw, then thrust the sword hard at the figure's back. The Three-Five Evil-Slaying Talisman on the peachwood sword could counter demons.
Thwack! The peachwood sword pierced the dark figure's back. The black mist exploded outward, and the figure let out a piercing scream, its body beginning to contort. It turned its head, fixing its yellow eyes on Bai Haorui, and said hoarsely, "I'll remember you..."
With that, the dark figure dissolved into a wisp of black smoke, drifted out the window, and vanished into the night. The flames in the room gradually died out, and much of the thick smoke dispersed. Breathing heavily, Bai Haorui withdrew the peachwood sword, the red glow along its blade slowly fading.
Dean got up from the floor, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and walked over to Bai Haorui. "What incantation did you just use? It actually trapped the Yellow-Eyed Demon."
"The Soul-Subduing Mantra. It was in the notes." Bai Haorui took out a tissue and wiped the sweat from his forehead as the system's notification sounded in his mind:
[Key Plot Intervention Mission completed! Jessica survived. Mission rating: Excellent.] [Active skill "Soul Subduing" unlocked (can briefly suppress demonic energy, duration: 10 seconds, cooldown: 48 hours).] [Received free attribute points ×1 (current attributes: Strength 7, Constitution 6, Agility 5, HP 18/18).] [Notice: The Yellow-Eyed Demon's target is a "special child" (Sam). The original body's parents may have been silenced for "preventing the demon from finding anchor points." Anchor points are connected to the "special children."]
Bai Haorui assigned the attribute point to Agility and immediately felt his body grow lighter and his reactions a little faster. He walked over to Sam, examined Jessica's wounds, and took out the mugwort ointment he had made recently according to the notes. Brewed from mugwort and honey, it could stop bleeding and reduce inflammation.
"Apply this to the wounds. It'll stop the bleeding." Bai Haorui handed the mugwort ointment to Sam. "Luckily, we got here in time. Don't worry. Jessica only has minor injuries."
Sam took the mugwort ointment and carefully applied it to Jessica's wounds, his eyes red-rimmed. "Thank you, Haorui. If it weren't for you, I might have lost her."
Dean leaned against the wall, staring out at the night with a deep frown. "The Yellow-Eyed Demon won't let this go. It'll come back for Sam. We have to find Dad as soon as possible and figure out what it wants."
Bai Haorui nodded, but his thoughts were elsewhere. The original body's parents' car accident, the Anchor Point Symbols, the Yellow-Eyed Demon... He took out his phone and looked at the photo of the Anchor Point Symbol. Perhaps the original body's parents were hunters too, and the Yellow-Eyed Demon was behind their car accident.
"I want to uncover the truth about my parents' car accident." Bai Haorui raised his head and looked at Sam and Dean. "There was an Anchor Point Symbol at the scene of their crash too. I suspect the Yellow-Eyed Demon killed them because they discovered the secret of the anchor points."
Dean paused, then nodded. "All right. Tomorrow, we'll go to Seattle and investigate your parents' accident. Whatever the Yellow-Eyed Demon is planning, we'll stop it."