Beat You to Death, You Bastard

The voice that came from Ding Ling's mouth was sinister and full of resentment.

It was not her own voice.

As the operatic singing went on, the dressing mirror in front of Ding Ling suddenly began to shake!

The assorted objects piled on the trunk bounced and swayed along with it!

Layer upon layer of blood welled up from the edges of the mirror and swept across its surface!

Ding Ling's reflection had vanished from the scarlet, blurred mirror.

Only strings like the strings of a zither drifted through the mirror. When they reached its center, they abruptly pulled taut and upright!

"Puppet Threads!"

Zhou Yang immediately recognized what the strings represented!

In the next instant, three vertical bloody marks suddenly appeared on Ding Ling's face-

The three marks corresponded exactly to the three upright strings in the mirror!

The shallow marks on her face quickly began to deepen, and bright red beads of blood seeped from the wounds. If this continued, it might not be long before the three strings in the mirror sliced her face apart!

In the mirror, blurred with blood,

a white-robed woman with loose hair appeared behind the three strings.

It gently stroked its long black hair. Its ghastly pale, bony hand held a comb, drawing it through the hair again and again. Each stroke left a bloody streak, staining the horn comb and dyeing its white robe red.

Outside the mirror, Ding Ling did the same, combing her hair.

The operatic voice kept singing: "Pity me... my three souls fading away, my seven spirits grieving in sorrow, my spirit wandering aimlessly, all scattered on the wind-scattered on the wind..."

Ding Ling's hands were covered in blood.

The hands with which she combed her hair were also covered in tiny cuts.

Her long hair seemed to have turned into those terrifying strings as well, slicing her palms.

The strings in the mirror continued to multiply!

The bone-chilling cold seemed to flow into Zhou Yang's soul along with the mournful, eerie singing.

His soul seemed to have frozen, and even his thoughts no longer moved as swiftly.

With the last breath left in him, he silently repeated a few lines over and over: "A general must first master his heart. Only when Mount Tai collapses before him without changing his expression, and deer spring up to his left without making him blink, can he weigh advantage and harm and face the enemy.

"A general must first master his heart..."

Zhou Yang had long since learned these lines from Su Xun's classical essay, The Art of the Mind, by heart.

Ever since arriving in Guan Village, whenever he was overwhelmed by fear and unable to settle his mind, he would recite those lines again.

From those lines, he seemed able to find a way to "master his heart."

As he silently recited them over and over, the power that had frozen his soul dissipated as well.

He tried to take control of Ding Ling's body and stop her from combing her hair-

But what he had previously done with ease was now immensely difficult!

There seemed to be an invisible membrane between him and Ding Ling's body. Every time his mind tried to take control of it, he struck the flexible barrier and bounced back!

The connection between Zhou Yang and Ding Ling seemed to be growing weaker.

Why?!

The life she has now was lent to her by me!

I'm her creditor!

No one but me can take it away-

Zhou Yang steeled himself. With no other choice, he frantically searched through his consciousness for the original connection between himself and Ding Ling, his Karmic Retribution Body.

The connection established by that iron knife of exceptionally poor quality!

He finally traced the connection between himself and Ding Ling.

In a haze, Zhou Yang seemed to sense a door.

The door, which should have been open, was now mostly closed.

The remaining gap was slowly closing.

Zhou Yang stared at the door.

At that moment, there were no superfluous thoughts in his mind. Gathering all his conviction, he suddenly hurled himself at it!

"Thud!"

In his daze, Zhou Yang seemed to hear the muffled sound of himself striking the door.

Or perhaps nothing had happened at all.

That hazy sensation suddenly receded from his consciousness-

His eyes flew open, and he saw the dressing mirror shaking nonstop, along with all the miscellaneous objects on the opera trunk!

"Benefactor..."

Ding Ling's bewildered, nervous voice entered Zhou Yang's consciousness.

Her voice greatly reassured Zhou Yang!

Zhou Yang had succeeded in taking control of Ding Ling's body!

Ding Ling's mind had been bewitched by the ghost. If Zhou Yang had not taken control of her body and faced the ghost in the mirror in her place, she could not have recovered her senses and called out to him of her own accord!

Even so, the situation was still desperately urgent.

Ding Ling's body, now under Zhou Yang's control, no longer sang those mournful, sinister operatic lines.

But her hair continued to sing in response to the operatic voice in the mirror:

"A lone soul drifts, like floating fluff and mist...

"On the road to the underworld, snow shrouds bones, blood-soaked silk wraps frozen flesh!

"Love left unfinished in this life-cannot become a cuckoo weeping blood at the grave to tell its sorrow...

"If fate should bring us together in another life-we cannot mend the broken mirror or restore the waning moon..."

The singing was as tangled as strands of hair.

It was no longer just a woman's voice; men's, elders' and children's voices were mixed in as well!

Zhou Yang looked into the mirror again:

Beneath its blood-covered surface, strings intertwined like hair to form a net.

A different person stood in every opening of the net.

They stood packed tightly together inside the mirror: men and women, young and old.

The white-robed female ghost that had first appeared in the mirror was nowhere to be seen.

The throats of all these men and women, young and old, had been slit by the strings. Their voices flowed with their blood along the strings and into Ding Ling's hair!

There was more than one puppet in the mirror.

All the men and women, young and old, whom Zhou Yang now saw were puppets!

They were all ghosts!

The net of bloodstained strings seemed to have ensnared Ding Ling's body as well, making Zhou Yang feel that it was becoming harder and harder to move.

His heart went cold, but with a thought, he could still turn the pages of the Knife Credit Ledger before his eyes as usual.

Ding Ling's personal record on the second page of the old book had changed again:

Karmic Retribution Body: Ding Ling.

Mindfulness: 6 (1 of her own + 5 from the Blade-Credit Merchant)

Ding Ling's Mindfulness, which had fallen below zero, was now positive again.

Zhou Yang's Mindfulness had not decreased for the time being.

The ghosts in the mirror could not yet affect Zhou Yang, whose Mindfulness had reached "5"!

That was a welcome change!

It was also Zhou Yang's only advantage at present!

Now that he had seen the ghosts in the mirror clearly, he had to stop the singing that kept coming from it and bring this Grooming Before the Mirror ritual to an end!

Chang Dafeng had never taught Ding Ling how to end the ritual.

Perhaps, once the ghosts had been summoned through the mirror, the ritual could only be completed when the person dressing before it died.

Ding Ling was the sacrifice Chang Dafeng had prepared long ago.

But Zhou Yang could not stand by and watch Ding Ling be killed by ghosts like this!

He had an idea that was worth trying!

If he smashed the mirror, so that he could no longer see the ghosts inside it, wouldn't that put an end to everything?

With Ding Ling's own consciousness, she could not control her body while under the influence of the ghosts in the mirror-earlier, she had been completely unable to move!

But Zhou Yang was different from her!

For the time being, he could still control Ding Ling's body!

Zhou Yang took a deep breath and reached for a horsewhip leaning crookedly against the opera trunk. At the same time, he asked the Karmic Retribution Body, "Ding Ling, do you remember any operatic passages where someone curses another person out?

"A line or two will do. The nastier, the better.

"Sing it for me!"

"An opera where someone curses another person out?" Ding Ling had recovered her senses. Hearing Zhou Yang's question, she suppressed her nerves, gave it some thought, and actually came up with a passage-

Zhou Yang "heard" the operatic tune coming from her consciousness.

He was taken aback for a moment, then raised the horsewhip and imitated her. As he sang, he swung the whip at the dressing mirror that kept shaking on the opera trunk. "Steel whip in hand, I'll give you a beating, beat you to death, you living bastard-"