Return to Daliang Village

"Hum..."

Handprints spread outward from Zhou Yang like ripples on water, quickly filling the room.

Beneath the "ripples," Zhou Yang's seemingly plain and ordinary room suddenly underwent an unusual change.

The "ripples" revealed a layer of bluish-black mold on the doorframe and the rammed-earth walls around it.

The layer of mold struggled beneath the ripples, then abruptly coalesced into the faces of the Zhou family-

Huang Shaozi, Zhou Laogou, Zhou Baigou...

The three faces writhed wildly, trying to squeeze through the crack in the door and escape Zhou Yang's room, now enveloped by the handprint ripples. But as the ripples spread over them, they peeled away from the walls layer by layer.

Zhou Yang shared the senses of the handprint ripples spreading around him. In moments, he recognized that the moldy faces stripped from the walls were actually the Ghost Rhyme of his parents and eldest brother in the Zhou family.

The three members of the Zhou family had spent time in his room, leaving their Ghost Rhyme upon it.

Only Zhou Heigou's Ghost Rhyme was absent.

Zhou Heigou was not a ghost.

But the other three were all genuine ghosts!

Throughout Guan Village, the villagers Zhou Yang saw and greeted every day were very likely all ghosts!

Outside, Chang Dafeng, the master of the Lampstand Opera Troupe, had lived more than half his life, yet probably had only encountered ghosts a few times. Surviving a few Puppet calamities was already an extraordinary experience.

But now Zhou Yang was living in a den of ghosts!

Among those ghosts, there might even be horrors on a level above "ghosts"...

Zhou Yang's heart felt as heavy as a lump of iron. He pushed down his jumbled thoughts and focused again on the handprint ripples around him.

The Ghost Rhyme peeled from the walls had already been wiped clean by the layers of handprints.

The ripples can erase the Ghost Rhyme clinging to anything they cover. That's one basic application of the ripples.

Besides that...

At a thought from Zhou Yang, the palm-print ripples expanding around him suddenly curled their five fingers into fists, forming layers of fist-print ripples.

The fist prints contracted into Zhou Yang's body and quickly converged into a point of light.

The point of light moved with Zhou Yang's gaze, then vanished beneath the skin of his right hand in a moment.

The Ghost Mouths on his right hand closed instantly, and a faint, lustrous sheen appeared on his thin palm.

Zhou Yang did not feel the strength in his right hand diminish in the slightest. When the ripples gather in a part of my body, that part gains the power to tear apart, or even erase, Ghost Rhyme.

Using the ripples in this concentrated way gives me greater power than the earlier "ripple circulation."

And there's another variation to the "fist-print ripples"...

As Zhou Yang watched, his faintly gleaming right hand suddenly grew dull, and a layer of deathly air shrouded his palm.

Ghost Mouths covered it.

Although these Ghost Mouths were still breathing in and out, none of them made any ghostly wailing.

Zhou Yang stared at his palm, his gaze penetrating the skin to see the lifeless point of light beneath it. That was the root cause of his right hand becoming like a dead man's hand.

The point of light began to tremble faintly. The Ghost Mouths on Zhou Yang's right hand twisted and began to sing opera:

"My love dwells in my heart, while I am left heartbroken; only the moon knows my sorrow..."

The opera sung by the Ghost Mouths on his right hand was shrill and terrifying. Their voices faintly resembled Huang Shaozi's, but also carried a trace of Zhou Laogou's and Zhou Baigou's tones.

Previously, in Daliang Village, Zhou Yang had joined his Mindfulness with Ding Ling's to make the Ghost Mouths sing opera along with him.

With his own Mindfulness alone, making the Ghost Mouths speak was still enormously difficult.

Now, however, he had used the ripples to make them produce sound.

The Ghost Mouths may be a manifestation of a ghost's power on a human body.

To truly control the Ghost Mouths on my body and make them speak as I wish, there is another method besides using Mindfulness at an absolutely superior level to subdue them and force them to obey...

That is to have a ghost control the Ghost Mouths.

While erasing Ghost Rhyme, my ripples can also take on the corresponding Ghost Rhyme's aura.

The Ghost Mouths on my body mistook my ripples for the Zhou family's ghosts and then obeyed my will.

Zhou Yang looked satisfied.

The sounds made by Ghost Mouths could affect ghosts.

Before, Zhou Yang had needed to merge his Mindfulness with Ding Ling's and rely on a fortunate coincidence to force the Ghost Mouths to make a sound.

Now he could control some of the Ghost Mouths on his body using the ripples derived from Breathing of the Ghost. Naturally, he was extremely satisfied.

He opened the Knife Credit Ledger and let the ripples circulate back and forth around him.

The ripples were a combination of human Mindfulness and a ghost's aura, with Mindfulness taking the lead.

Thus, as long as Zhou Yang's Mindfulness was not exhausted, the ripples could continue operating without end.

But everyone had a different nature and different experiences. After learning Breathing of the Ghost, would the shapes of the ripples they developed also be different?

Did A Fu know how to use ripples?

A few thoughts flashed through Zhou Yang's mind.

Zhou Yang's gaze fell on the page, on the abilities section of his own record:

"Abilities: Blacksmithing, Breathing of the Ghost (Right Mindfulness Lock, eighth layer), Breathing of the Ghost (Supernatural Ripple)... (Imprinting)..."

The Right Mindfulness Lock is still at the eighth layer, but I clearly Imprinted Ding Ling's Right Mindfulness Lock to improve my own... Zhou Yang's gaze flickered. The words in the Knife Credit Ledger gave him a vague idea.

Three strands of Good Karma should be enough to Imprint one layer of Ding Ling's Right Mindfulness Lock. Added to my own Right Mindfulness Lock, which has reached the eighth layer, that would be equivalent to having cultivated it to completion in advance.

And Supernatural Ripple is an ability derived from the Right Mindfulness Lock once it reaches completion.

Later, when I cultivate my Right Mindfulness Lock to completion, new abilities may still emerge from it.

Zhou Yang's heart pounded.

If that really was the case, those three strands of Good Karma had been more than worth spending.

He now effectively possessed an ability derived from the ninth layer of the Right Mindfulness Lock ahead of time.

I have five strands of Good Karma left.

Zhou Yang turned to the second page of the Knife Credit Ledger and glanced at "Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting (Gate of Opening)" in Ding Ling's abilities section.

If he could also Imprint Ding Ling's Gate of Opening Averting God, he would not have to risk performing the "Gate of Opening Ritual" again in Guan Village.

But-

When Zhou Yang fixed his gaze on it, the Knife Credit Ledger did not give him the response he wanted:

"The Eight Gates are unsettled, and the Gate of Opening has not manifested.

"The foundation is absent. Unable to Imprint the Karmic Retribution Body's 'Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting (Gate of Opening).'"

Zhou Yang stared at the words in surprise.

The Eight Gates were unsettled, the Gate of Opening had not manifested, and the foundation was absent?

Did that mean he had not yet opened the first of the Eight Gates outside his body, the "Gate of Opening," and therefore could not Imprint this ability of Ding Ling's?

Zhou Yang understood the meaning of the inked words on the page in moments. He was somewhat disappointed, but not overly so.

He had made some preparations for the Gate of Opening Ritual, after all.

Zhou Yang went to the bed, took off his outer clothes and trousers, and carefully scraped the yellow mud from his cuffs and trouser hems. He wrapped it in rough paper and hid it beneath the earthen stove.

The yellow mud in the paper packet was, of course, the mud tainted with Cao Qing's dead-man aura.

Then Zhou Yang tied one leg to the bedpost at the foot of the bed. Having made exactly the same arrangements as the previous night, he lay down on the bed, pulled the covers over himself, and opened the Knife Credit Ledger to Ding Ling's page.

"You have taken a knife on credit. Would you like to settle the account?"

Settle the account.

Zhou Yang gave his answer in his heart.

Ripples suddenly appeared in the darkness before his eyes.

As before, a jumble of images unfolded through Zhou Yang's mind like a revolving lantern.

In that instant, it was as if an electric current had passed through Zhou Yang's soul. He recalled each of his experiences in Daliang Village, until the images finally stopped at what he had seen and heard just before leaving:

In a dilapidated courtyard, in the middle of the open yard.

With his back to Zhou Yang, the Opera Ghost drew his brows and painted his eyes, speaking in an operatic tone:

"It's still a shame, though. A shame my comprehension's too poor and my horizons too narrow. Otherwise, I could blend all these schools of opera together and invent an ingenious new play the Opera Lady has never heard. If I could captivate the Opera Lady, I could turn this skin inside out and wear it reversed sooner.

"Once I turn this skin inside out, my voice will sound completely like a woman's..."

If he composed a new play the Opera Lady had never heard, he could captivate the Opera Lady...

Thoughts raced through Zhou Yang's mind.

At the final instant before his soul traveled to Daliang Village, inspiration suddenly flashed through his mind.