A Woman Rides on a Golden Pagoda

Zhou Yang was in a hurry to get to work that morning. Once again, he didn't eat at the big table. After greeting the Zhou family and grabbing a quick bite, he hurried out.

On the road, he quietly opened the Ghost Mouth in his palm.

The Ghost Mouth breathed in and out, speeding up the digestion of the food for the dead he had eaten that morning. Strands of icy breath flowed back to nourish his skin.

He pinched the flesh on his arm hard. It hurt just as much as usual.

After absorbing the breath returned by the Ghost Mouth, his skin did not seem noticeably different, either.

But the villagers he met on the road today were especially friendly toward Zhou Yang.

Much friendlier than usual.

Most of the time, Zhou Yang had to greet the Guan Village villagers first before they would give him any response.

Today, though, the villagers were all the first to greet him.

The eerie sensation and feeling of being watched that often crept over him as he passed certain houses had both weakened somewhat today-it was as if, though he had always been a member of Guan Village, most of the villagers had treated him as an outsider.

Now, they were gradually beginning to accept him, truly treating him as a neighbor and fellow villager.

This change occurred only when he activated Breathing of the Ghost.

The moment he closed the Ghost Mouth, the sensation of being watched and monitored returned, as sharp as thorns against his back.

Zhou Yang tested it several times along the way before finally confirming it.

Breathing of the Ghost works on the ghosts in Guan Village too.

It's just much less effective here than it is outside.

When the dead tainted with Ghost Rhyme in Daliang Village encountered Ding Ling with Breathing of the Ghost activated, they immediately took her for one of their own. Even when the Opera Ghost came in person, he couldn't find Ding Ling hidden among the ghosts for a while.

But here in Guan Village, even with Breathing of the Ghost activated using seven strands of Mindfulness, all I get is slightly better treatment from the villagers.

They haven't cut back much on watching and probing me.

In that case... could these Guan Village villagers all be more terrifying than the Opera Ghost?

But I feel like I can hold out longer here than in Daliang Village, where the Opera Ghost holds sway... Is that an advantage my status as a "Guan Village villager" gives me...

Keeping his guard up, Zhou Yang turned into an alley.

A short distance beyond the end of the alley, A Fu's courtyard could just be made out beneath the great locust tree.

The yellow mud walls on either side of the alley were already half dry. Zhou Yang walked nearly to the far end and crouched beside one of them.

During the Wei hour, at the northwest position of the sixth Qian palace.

Stain a slip of paper bearing another person's name with your own blood, attach that person's hair and close-fitting clothing to it, and hide it in this position.

After quickly reviewing the Gate of Opening Ritual from the "draft for disguising oneself as a god and transforming into a ghost," Zhou Yang dug a handful of earth from the base of the mud wall.

This was where Cao Qing had died.

A Fu had killed Cao Qing here, and Zhou Yang had collected Cao Qing's last words and lingering image from this spot.

Cao Qing's lingering image had claimed that A Fu had sealed him inside this wall.

The place was naturally tainted with Cao Qing's aura of the dead, making its soil the perfect material for performing the Gate of Opening Ritual and using Curse Creation God.

In Guan Village, it would have been easier for Zhou Yang to obtain the Zhou family's hair and close-fitting clothing for the Gate of Opening Ritual.

But he didn't dare provoke any of the ghosts in the Zhou family. Taking their hair and clothing to use Curse Creation God was more likely to bring disaster upon himself.

Only Zhou Heigou was different-Zhou Yang suspected that this second brother of his was actually a living person like himself.

But suspicion was only suspicion. He had yet to verify Zhou Heigou's true identity, so he could hardly make a move against him on a whim.

After thinking it over, Cao Qing, who was already dead, was the only suitable person for Zhou Yang to use Curse Creation God on.

His heart pounding, Zhou Yang quickly rubbed the handful of yellow earth onto his cuffs and trouser legs. Then he rose and looked around. Only when he saw no one nearby did he turn out of the alley.

By now, daylight had brightened, casting Zhou Yang's shadow on the ground.

The shadow bounced as he walked, and in the midst of its movement, it briefly split in two.

The shadow on the left was tall, thin, and elongated, while the one on the right was tall and broad.

Zhou Yang looked down at the two utterly different shadows, his expression as calm as ever, without a ripple of emotion.

The Knife Credit Ledger had collected Li Yichun's and Qian Heng's last words and lingering images in Daliang Village, and he had now brought them back to Guan Village.

He approached the gatehouse of A Fu's home. The left half of the gate stood slightly ajar, as if waiting for him to come in and start work. Zhou Yang pushed it wider and passed through the entrance passage, where he saw A Fu standing ramrod straight on the steps of the main room.

A Fu's eyes stared blankly ahead from his withered yellow face.

Even when Zhou Yang entered his courtyard, he seemed not to see him. He stood there with his neck stiff, motionless, as though his soul had left him.

His skin was pocked with hollows where it had shriveled and collapsed. He looked like a sheet of hide stripped of all the flesh and blood inside.

Almost every time Zhou Yang came to work for A Fu, some strange thing happened to him.

Zhou Yang was by no means immune to it. The sight still made his throat tighten and his heart race-

He really didn't want this damn job anymore!

But he had no choice...

Standing at the mouth of the passage, he looked at A Fu, who stood on the steps like a sheet of dried skin, kept his expression steady, and said, "I'm here for work."

A Fu's brownish-yellow eyes did not move, and he gave no response to Zhou Yang's words.

Fucking bastard... Seeing this, Zhou Yang cursed A Fu viciously several times in his head. On the surface, he remained impassive, looking this way and that by the foot of the wall as though bored out of his mind.

After a little while longer, a sudden rustling came from A Fu's mouth.

It was as if something had burrowed inside that sheet of skin!

Right afterward, his hands, which hung at his sides like a pair of gloves, suddenly swelled up along with his arms. Flecks of oil seeped through his withered yellow skin. Then his feet inflated too, his sunken chest and belly sprang out, and the skin of his shriveled, wrinkled face abruptly pulled taut, as if he had undergone a facelift!

In moments, A Fu had become a middle-aged man with an oily sheen all over his face.

His eyes swept coldly over Zhou Yang, who was crouching at the foot of the wall. "From now on, if you see me resting, just go into the workshop and get to work yourself.

"Smelt iron in the morning, forge it in the afternoon. That's always the routine."

"Okay."

Zhou Yang kept his answer short.

Although A Fu had taught him Breathing of the Ghost, A Fu had not meant well. When he taught him the method, he had intended to use it to control him later. Moreover, Zhou Yang understood A Fu's nature even less, so it was naturally better to say less in front of him.

He must never assume that A Fu was on his side just because A Fu had taught him Breathing of the Ghost.

Zhou Yang said no more, and neither did A Fu.

It was as if A Fu had never taught Zhou Yang the method of Breathing of the Ghost yesterday.

This made Zhou Yang certain that A Fu's reach wasn't so long after all.

A Fu knew nothing about him teaching Breathing of the Ghost to Ding Ling in Daliang Village.

Or perhaps, when he practiced Breathing of the Ghost, he had eliminated the possibility of A Fu reaching in at its very root...

Throughout the day, A Fu did nothing beyond making idle conversation with Zhou Yang as usual.

He really didn't mention yesterday's events at all.

Even when Zhou Yang used Breathing of the Ghost to forge iron right under his nose, he didn't bother to bat an eye.

Only at dusk, when Zhou Yang finished work, did A Fu give him some extra paper copper coins as he had yesterday. With a strange look in his eyes, he said, "Now that you've officially started forging iron, I'll pay you this much extra from now on.

"You'll need to put aside more paper money so you can buy a full measure of fat paste.

"That way, you can take proper care of yourself..."

Did the fat paste take care of the person, or the person's skin?

A few panicked thoughts flitted through Zhou Yang's mind.

He accepted the paper money, thanked A Fu, and left the courtyard.

Behind him, A Fu's gaze followed him down the path outside the courtyard, only disappearing completely after he turned a corner.

He then pulled the Knife Credit Ledger from the back of his waistband-

The lingering images of Li Yichun and Qian Heng had already been completely absorbed by the Knife Credit Ledger that afternoon, as he hammered the iron again and again.

New content slowly appeared on the third page of the Knife Credit Ledger:

"Title: A Woman Rides on a Golden Pagoda.

"On the Linzang Kora Route... Nengsheng Liberation Temple... golden pagoda..."

Ink swirled and spread, leaving nothing else on the page beyond the title and those few small words.

Those scant words were nowhere near enough to give Zhou Yang even a glimpse of the story.