Rise and Claim Supremacy

Hearing the singing from the right wing room, Chang Dafeng was struck with alarm and suspicion!

He had come from a makeshift opera troupe, wandering from place to place to make a living, with no fixed home.

He might not have seen every kind of danger, but in the Lampstand Opera Troupe, everyone from his master to his fellow apprentices had long since died in one ghost calamity or another. He alone had survived to this day!

In times like these, surviving a long time was a skill in itself.

Having escaped ghost calamities many times, he had long realized that the entity now hidden in Daliang Village, the one that had killed all its villagers, was not a "Puppet" as he had told the troupe, but a real ghost!

If it were a Puppet, he and the rest of the troupe might just manage to deal with it.

But the one in Daliang Village was a ghost-he could only coax the others into carrying on with the performance and getting them to cooperate with him, so he could try to use their lives to fight for a way out for himself!

He had made all sorts of preparations.

Whether he succeeded or failed would depend on the grand performance three days from now!

But Chang Dafeng had not expected the ghost to come so soon!

He had summoned an Averting God, sung his way to communion with spirits, and even used a Ghost Candle, yet he still could not drive back the ghost possessing Gao Hongbo's corpse. Even now, he could not be sure whether this ghost was the one truly responsible for the calamity in Daliang Village!

And at this very moment, another ghost had come out of the right wing room!

With two ghosts blocking his path, had he finally reached the end of his rope?

At the thought, distractions swarmed Chang Dafeng's mind, and most of the energy and spirit he had gathered suddenly drained away!

In his many years traveling the world, he had lived by the principle of never burning every bridge and always leaving himself a way out. Naturally, he had done the same this time, and still had a trump card he had yet to use.

At any other time, in any other place, even if he had faced the danger of two ghosts blocking his path, he could have summoned the resolve to fight them.

But it had to happen now, just when almost everyone in the troupe was gathered together. Two ghosts had come to their door-

If the two ghosts killed everyone in the troupe and left him alone, how could he carry out his plan to escape with his life?

If he could not gather enough people, they could not perform Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister. Would that not leave him at a dead end?

What use was his trump card then, even if he kept it in reserve?

Two streams of white vapor suddenly shot from Chang Dafeng's nostrils.

The bright, knife-sharp murderous aura in his eyes dimmed in an instant!

On the wall beside him, the Ghost Candle's light cast the shadow of the Lord of Thunder, which blurred and twisted at once. Across from it, the shadow of Zhao Gongming of the Black Tiger Dark Altar swelled ever larger!

Just then.

Amid the clamor of gongs, drums, and opera singing, Chang Dafeng suddenly heard the hinge of the left wing room's door turn.

Utterly dejected, he assumed Ding Ling had also turned into a ghost and was coming out to claim his life.

As the door swung open, Ding Ling's slender figure indeed emerged from the left wing room.

She made few movements with her hands and struck no particular pose. With her back straight, she strode swiftly forward. As soon as she left the room, she snatched up an ornate spear propped against the wall. Her eyes shone like stars as she swept the spear at "Li Yichun," who was raising a sleeve to wipe away tears across from her.

From her lips rang an impassioned line: "Look ahead at that pitch-black place-it must be the villains' lair-

"I must hurry forward and kill every last one of them!"

At those lines, Chang Dafeng's gaze sharpened, and he started!

From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a slender shadow on the wall beside him. A set of back flags sprouted all at once behind it, and in an instant it became a great general!

The general adjusted his armor, mounted his warhorse, and rose to claim supremacy!

Opera Communion with Spirits!

She hasn't even formally studied the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting, yet she's sung her way to communion with spirits all on her own!

What a fine girl!

It's a pity she's a girl...

Chang Dafeng abruptly cut off his thoughts and drew back the breath that had mostly left his chest. Fixing his eyes on Gao Hongbo's corpse across from him, now bearing Zhao Gongming's painted face, he opened his mouth and sang hoarsely:

"I wave the five-thunder command flag thrice; thunder god and lord of heaven, hear my charge;

"First strike your crown, second strike your black heart!

"Third strike breaks your spine, fourth scorches your hands and feet!

"Leave your human skin hanging in the wilds, for dogs to tear your corpse and crows to peck your brains!"

"Boom!"

With every line Chang Dafeng sang as the Lord of Thunder, a clap of thunder seemed to sound in the empty air!

After five thunderclaps, black smoke suddenly poured from the crown of the corpse wearing Zhao Gongming's painted face. Its rotting, foul-smelling flesh was smashed and scorched black by some invisible thunderbolt, and it fell with a thud like a rotten wooden post!

"Bang!"

The charred corpse shattered on the ground like a lump of charcoal!

Chang Dafeng stared at the pieces of the charred corpse for a moment. Once certain there was no chance of it "coming back to life," he suddenly turned to the right and saw-

The red tassel on Ding Ling's wooden ornate spear fluttered like a cloud in turmoil as the wooden spearhead and half the shaft slammed into "Li Yichun," who bore the face of a beautiful woman!

On the wall before her, the shadow of the great general, having already risen to claim supremacy, thrust his ornate spear fiercely into the empty air-

The beautiful face on Li Yichun's head suddenly opened its almond-shaped eyes wide, and two streams of black blood trickled from their corners!

A black, bloody hole appeared between its brows. In a short time, the whole lovely face decayed, bloated, broke apart, and rotted away completely!

Only Li Yichun's corpse remained, standing stiffly in place and giving off a rotten stench.

Its face, however, was completely blank, without any features.

So they were two Puppets!

They nearly fooled me!

Seeing Li Yichun's faceless corpse unable to move, Chang Dafeng sneered.

He glanced at Ding Ling, who stood across from him, apparently still absorbed in the performance, and grunted. Without asking her to do anything, he dragged Li Yichun's corpse into the courtyard himself, piled firewood around it, doused it with lamp oil, and used a flame from the Ghost Candle to light the pyre.

Burning a corpse was no easy matter.

Ordinarily, even several piles of dry firewood would not have been enough to burn Li Yichun's corpse to ashes.

But the fire in the courtyard, lit with a flame from the Ghost Candle, did indeed grow fiercer and fiercer. Before long, Li Yichun had been reduced entirely to ashes.

Only after burning the corpse did Chang Dafeng extinguish the Ghost Candle, now just a thumb's height, and return to the main room.

When she saw Chang Dafeng enter, she turned to face the troupe leader and suddenly spoke. "Troupe leader, just like that, the two of us are all that's left of the troupe...

"If they were only a few Puppets, could they have killed so many of us so quickly?"

As Ding Ling asked, she stared fixedly at Chang Dafeng.

Was the one responsible for the strange calamity in Daliang Village a ghost or a Puppet? Zhou Yang had already reached a conclusion.

The one now roaming Daliang Village was a ghost, a ghost capable of giving off Ghost Rhyme.

Not a Puppet with Puppet Threads wound around its body!

Zhou Yang had already told Ding Ling what he had discovered.

Ding Ling was asking Chang Dafeng now to test him-to see whether the troupe leader was worth trusting and whether she could continue to work with him.

Chang Dafeng must also have discovered the truth about that ghost.

If he sincerely intended to work with Ding Ling, he should at least stop concealing the truth now!

Yet when Ding Ling questioned him, Chang Dafeng's expression remained unchanged. He gave a soft chuckle and said, "Puppets, of course!

"If it were a ghost, it wouldn't just be the others in the troupe. The two of us would already be dead here too!"

Chang Dafeng spoke with absolute confidence and conviction.

Ding Ling sighed inwardly.

"They're only a few Puppets. You don't need to be so afraid." Chang Dafeng's tone softened as he continued, "We weren't prepared today, and the Puppets came to our door. That's why the troupe suffered such heavy casualties. Next, I'll help you truly open the first gate of the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting and create an Averting God-

"With the two of us working together, those remaining Puppets will be nothing to worry about!

"Once we're out of this village, I'll formally take you as my last disciple and pass my mantle on to you!

"Though opera has never been a woman's business since ancient times, you've done better than all of them. There's no harm in breaking the rules for you..."

Chang Dafeng went on, making grand promises to Ding Ling.

Suddenly, a man's voice came from the right wing room, which had been silent for a long time.

The man's voice was filled with terror:

"Shitou! Shitou!

"Don't come after me. Stay away-

"I was wrong, I was wrong, Shitou... I shouldn't have pushed you down the mountain. For the sake of all those years I looked after you, please spare me...

"There's no way we could both have survived in this village. Couldn't you sacrifice yourself and use your life to pave a way out for Uncle? Your aunt is still waiting outside for me, Shitou!"