A Little Skill in Hand-to-Hand Combat

Rumor had it that all ghosts and spirits shared a common destination known as the Spirit Realm.

It was a place of bizarre sights, utterly unlike the real world.

Although the two realms were as distinct as the Jing and Wei rivers, in a sense, they might also overlap.

Anywhere in the real world, if a human or animal was lucky enough to retain a soul after death, it might seep down into the Spirit Realm and become a ghost.

Living people could not enter the Spirit Realm, and its creatures would find it difficult to adapt to the real world.

Sometimes, however, the Spirit Realm's influence would overflow into reality, causing the environment within a certain area to change.

This was an "Overflow Zone"!

A strange fog shrouded the boundary of an Overflow Zone. Anyone who walked into it would soon come back out again, unable to leave, while those outside could not get in.

Such events were exceedingly rare and random, with no necessary connection to either the number or the strength of ghosts present at the time.

Within this area, however, any ghost would be like a fish in water, more readily capable of inflicting physical harm.

The different environment also made many precise and useful devices from the outside world difficult to use here, making it a very unfriendly place for ordinary people.

Chu Tianshu's phone, for instance, had vibrated for no apparent reason just now. It had most likely malfunctioned and shut down.

The succession of thoughts flashed through Chu Tianshu's mind like fleeting reflections on water.

He had yet to blink, his eyes still fixed on the front. Though his arm had tensed for an instant, he held himself back from hastily throwing a needle. Instead, he plunged three needles into himself between his chest and his right abdomen.

The stinging pain made his eyelids twitch.

The black Qi was moving up along the stele. Attacking it rashly would be like striking a stone, and the loss would certainly outweigh the gain.

But just as he finished sticking the three needles into himself, the black Qi reached the top of the stele and separated from it.

Now.

Chu Tianshu clenched his teeth lightly and raised both hands, but the entire mass of black Qi suddenly swayed to the side.

A silver needle flew over the stele and missed.

Boom!!

The black Qi slammed into the ground beside the stele, producing a dull thud like a heavy object hitting the earth. It contracted, then swelled, and the thin smoke around its outer edge dispersed, revealing a figure inside.

He had a bluish scalp, a thin braid, and a face as deathly pale as if it had been brushed with whitewash. His eyes were entirely black, his cheeks were so gaunt as to be disfigured, and his gray cloth robe was drenched. The sight of him was distressing.

The rumors were true. In an Overflow Zone, a petty ghost that could only possess people to cause trouble could actually gain a physical body.

"Another one of you stinking Daoists, poking your nose where it doesn't belong."

When the Ghost Scholar opened his mouth, the stench of cheap ink wafted out, and even the drool running from it was black.

"It's been so long, so long... I helped people make sure their children studied, but they were all good-for-nothings. If they couldn't pass the exams, they died. Then another stinking Daoist came looking for me... He even said he sympathized with me, ground down the inscription that admonished me, and performed rites for me. Because of him, I've been stuck in one tiny place all these years..."

He seemed agitated, clutching the front of his robe as he roared, yet his voice still had that fishy chill, as though his throat were glued shut.

Chu Tianshu's eyes, meanwhile, were fixed on his stomach.

A needle was sticking out of it.

When Chu Tianshu had raised both arms just now, he had thrown two silver needles. One had missed, but he had anticipated the ghost's movement with the other, and it had indeed struck its target.

The effect, however, was clearly inadequate.

Spirit mediums who could keep their spiritual senses open for more than five hours a day had generally developed formless, intangible Mind Power. They could use it to empower objects, an ability also known as object control.

Mind Power in film and television, also called psychokinesis, seemed to depend mainly on an object's weight for the difficulty of controlling it, while the damage it could cause depended mainly on the object's hardness.

A spirit medium's Mind Power was different.

Depending on their school, some spirit mediums excelled at controlling talismans. Even a flimsy slip of yellow paper, reinforced by their power, could slice into the top of a square table.

But if you asked one of them to try a thin blade, even if it weighed about the same and was much harder than the yellow paper, he might not be able to control it.

Some were skilled at changing an object's course midflight, making it dart and weave nimbly, while others focused solely on increasing its penetrating power.

The Annotations on Ghost Gate Witch Medicine that Chu Tianshu had studied excelled at imbuing needles with power and strengthening their penetration.

At his current level, using his full strength, he could send a light silver needle through an inch-thick board of hard camphorwood from more than five meters away.

If he shot it at a person, it could pass straight through as long as it did not hit bone.

Yet the needle he had shot at the Ghost Scholar's stomach from less than three meters away had only penetrated about half an inch.

"The benefits an Overflow Zone gives a petty ghost like you really are considerable."

Chu Tianshu moved his lips. "Not just your strength, either. Your mind's much better too. You speak a lot more fluently now than when you were possessing someone."

The Ghost Scholar fell silent for a moment, then hissed furiously, "There's nothing wrong with my mind! You stinking Daoists all spout different nonsense. You don't understand me at all!"

He suddenly pitched forward and lunged.

Chu Tianshu abruptly stepped to the side, dodging the lunge with room to spare.

The Ghost Scholar had to lunge three meters, while Chu Tianshu only needed to move an arm's length to the side.

The two movements were not equal at all. Even if Chu Tianshu were a little slower than his opponent, he would appear to finish first.

Like a matador facing a raging, charging bull, he could dodge successfully as long as he was bold and careful.

Whoosh!

As Chu Tianshu sidestepped, he spun and threw a needle, striking the Ghost Scholar behind the ear.

Because the distance was shorter, this needle went slightly deeper than the last, but still less than an inch.

Yet there was bone behind the ear, which ought to have been much harder than the belly. The needle should have penetrated less deeply.

It seemed that even with a physical body, a ghost's structure was different from an ordinary person's. Most likely, it had no vital points to speak of.

The Ghost Scholar grew even angrier, turning to lunge again.

The force of his lunge was truly terrifying. He could cover five or six meters in a single bound, and even the braid behind his head pulled straight in midair for an instant.

There was a large pile of discarded factory materials in that direction. Seven or eight thick sheet-iron boxes with broken handles were stacked together, each about the size of a large wardrobe drawer.

Several mops and brooms leaned against them.

The Ghost Scholar's lunge sent all the thick iron boxes flying. Those on top were badly bent out of shape, and splinters from the broken mop handles sprayed everywhere.

He snatched a bamboo-twig broom that had bounced into the air and bit it in fury.

The stiff bamboo twigs were bound into a bundle as thick as a child's arm and twisted together with steel wire, making it quite tough. Yet his bite took a large chunk out of it as if he were biting into a crisp baked flatbread, spraying ink and fragments from his mouth.

Judging by the bite mark, the ink in his mouth had to be highly corrosive.

This destructive power was on an entirely different level from when he had possessed Boss Li.

His second lunge had been considerably faster than his first.

Yet Chu Tianshu had still managed to dodge because the Ghost Gate Reverse Stimulation Needles he had stuck into himself had already taken effect.

After a person passed through the gates of death, the body remained outside while the soul was drawn inside.

With Ghost Gate Reverse Stimulation, the soul did not leave the body; instead, it bound itself more tightly to the flesh.

With the aid of the needle technique, a spirit medium's Mind Power could be used to stimulate the body's potential, greatly increasing Chu Tianshu's physical strength, which had originally been that of an ordinary young man.

Once again, he felt his heart pounding like a drum. It was not the frantic beating brought on by a nightmare, but a hot, full sensation.

The muscles in his limbs felt more like taut hemp ropes quivering under tension, sore, swollen, and twisted. Only by stretching and swinging them with all his might could he feel any relief.

"Stop running!"

The Ghost Scholar lunged at him again.

Chu Tianshu's pupils contracted. This time he really did not run. He spread his arms, planted his legs apart, and abruptly lowered his body.

As the Ghost Scholar came close, Chu Tianshu's right forearm passed beneath his crotch. Using both arms like a long shoulder pole, he heaved the Ghost Scholar upward.

Caught off guard, the Ghost Scholar was sent flying straight over Chu Tianshu's head by the combined force of his lunge and the heave. He lost his balance and flipped over in midair, crashed headfirst into the ground, and rolled repeatedly.

This was Golden Peach Crosses the Bridge from Tongbei Fist!

The boxing manual said that with both arms as the bridge and the waist and legs as its piers, even a longevity peach of solid gold as big as a bushel could be heaved across in one motion, heavy as it was.

With Chu Tianshu's condition, it was said that keeping his muscles and bones limber and his Qi and blood vigorous could offset the ill effects the nightmares had on his body. His grandfather had once arranged for him to join a boxing school and learn Qi Family Old Tongbei, whose master had genuine skill.

But the awakened states of spirit mediums and martial artists were as far apart as the south and north poles.

After more than a year of study, Chu Tianshu had only learned a set of flashy moves. Though he often practiced at home over the years, they served only as exercise.

Only under the effects of the Ghost Gate Reverse Stimulation Needle, when his physical strength rose sharply, could he use a portion of the real skills described in the boxing manual.

After Golden Peach Crosses the Bridge came Spirit Monkey Pounces on the Deer.

Chu Tianshu sprang up from his half crouch and chased the Ghost Scholar. After two long strides, he stamped heavily on the ground and leaped forward at full speed.

Spirit Monkey Pounces on the Deer differed from an ordinary pounce. Rather than reaching the deer with the hands first, hands and feet arrived together, with the feet a fraction quicker, before the entire body bent down and pressed upon it.

Chu Tianshu's leap brought him crashing down on the Ghost Scholar's back in an almost perfect squat. His hands and feet landed together, steady as a rock.

Thud!! The Ghost Scholar's whole body seemed to sink into the earth. His mouth, buried in the soil, let out a howl. His limbs flailed and struggled with great force, but he could not get up.

If he had been human, Chu Tianshu's squatting stance would have placed his front foot on the ghost's thoracic spine and his back foot on the lumbar spine.

Although he was not human, after their earlier exchanges and probes, Chu Tianshu had confirmed that while an Overflow Zone gave a ghost like this a physical body and greatly increased its destructive power, it also imposed limitations.

The range of motion in its bodily joints was limited; it was not as slippery as it had been in spirit form.

That was why Chu Tianshu dared fight him at close quarters. Having restrained his opponent's movements for the moment, he reached into his pocket and smashed a fist into the back of the Ghost Scholar's neck.

A thick needle was held between his fingers. Once most of its length had been driven in, he swiftly pressed the tail in with his thumb and pulled his hand away.

Boom!!!

A muffled bang came from the Ghost Scholar's neck, as if a large firecracker had exploded inside it. The skin on both sides bulged, and he let out a scream as piercing as metal scraping against glass.

A small black-and-red hole had appeared in the deathly pale, bluish skin at the back of his neck, and it was still giving off wisps of blue smoke.

The two pockets of Chu Tianshu's coat were large, and cowhide needle pouches had been sewn inside both of them.

They held ordinary silver needles as well as a kind of glass needle.

In ancient times, glass was also called medicinal liuli or medicinal jade, a material that could be fitted to ritual implements as a warning device.

Glass was relatively susceptible to Yin Qi. In many supernatural incidents, ordinary people could not see the unclean things, but they could see windowpanes shake and crack.

The same was true when light bulbs shattered and all the lights went out.

Chu Tianshu's glass needles were specially made. Though called needles, they were actually as thick as steel nails, made of fairly hard material, hollow and filled with cinnabar. They were also called Cinnabar Glazed Glass Needles.

They would not easily break under normal circumstances, but when stuck into a ghost and stimulated by Yin Qi, they would burst like firecrackers.

The cinnabar inside would then scatter, causing secondary damage.

The needles were fairly expensive, and Chu Tianshu had not brought many, only nine in total. Earlier, his probing attacks had revealed no vital points, and his thrown needles had penetrated only shallowly, so he had not dared throw them and alert his quarry.

Now that he had the ghost pinned at close range, he used both hands in rapid succession, driving the Cinnabar Glazed Glass Needles entirely into his opponent's body and detonating them.

He had no vital points, but he could still be hurt.

The Cinnabar Glazed Glass Needles detonated one after another inside the back of the Ghost Scholar's head, his neck, and his back.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!!

The screams that stabbed at the brain rapidly grew quieter.

The Ghost Scholar's body turned faint and insubstantial, then finally collapsed into a gust of pale black smoke and foul wind. It swept along the ground and burrowed beneath the stele.

It felt as though the Ghost Scholar's physical body was more like a suit of battle armor bestowed by the Spirit Realm's influence, but he still had to operate it himself. Once the armor was destroyed, the ghost was caught in the aftermath, not only falling back to his original level but also suffering grievous injury.

Chu Tianshu's feet met empty air and his body dropped. Fortunately, he had been squatting rather than kneeling. His soles landed on the broken glass without much harm, and he immediately straightened up.

His face was already flushed and hot. In the cold, gloomy surroundings, he opened his mouth and breathed out a visible cloud of white vapor.

"Brother, this is your home turf. Why are you hiding again?"

"I heard that after a soul enters the Spirit Realm and becomes a ghost, it develops a strong hatred of and appetite for the living, while everything else diminishes, leaving only the traits that were most deeply ingrained in life. Was your most deeply ingrained trait bullying the weak and fearing the strong?"

Chu Tianshu sighed. "If I ever become a ghost, I'll have to tell myself not to be a coward like that."

A spirit medium's Mind Power came from the mind and spirit. Although it usually helped coordinate the body somewhat, forcibly interfering with other bodily functions and stimulating its potential would certainly have side effects.

The Ghost Gate Reverse Stimulation Needle's effects could not possibly last more than ten minutes.

And after suffering grievous injuries, that unclean thing had hidden beneath the stele again, making it rather difficult to deal with.

Chu Tianshu said a few things and found that the thing beneath the stele was no longer provoked. His gaze hardened, and he broke into a run.

Whoosh!!

He leaped into the air, face upward, and kicked the stele with both feet at once.

Old Ape Kicks the Branch, Turns and Lands!

After the kick, even if the object kicked was a flexible branch swaying endlessly, one had to use the rebound to regain balance, turn slightly in midair around the upright spine as an axis, and land squarely.

Chu Tianshu had not, after all, practiced his kung fu to the required level. His kick made the stele sway sharply backward, but when he bounced away and landed, he failed to keep his balance. He staggered several times, his toes aching and his ankles sore and numb.

If he could not keep using his legs, he would use his hands.

Chu Tianshu did not pause. He moved forward with both arms extended, his elbows bent slightly outward, as though forming a circle.

He was using his hands to push the stele, but the force of the movement made it look as though he meant to slam his chest straight into it, with his encircling arms merely serving as a cushion.

He shoved hard, drew back slightly to release the force, then shoved again. He pushed three or four times in one breath before inhaling, repeating the process again and again.

Though the old stele was fairly thick, it had been erected in the late Qing dynasty and had no reinforced concrete foundation. After all these years, it was covered in moss and badly weathered, clearly giving the impression of shoddy construction.

Under Chu Tianshu's continuous, powerful shoves, the already small foundation gradually rose out of the soil like the roots of an old tree.

In fewer than thirty shoves, the stele and its base toppled backward, exposing the damp, brown-black soil beneath.

"What are you doing?"

A voice came from underground. Even through the layer of soil, it still sounded shrill, with a hint of bluster masking fear.

"Aren't you a Daoist? Why are you behaving so viciously? Why aren't you drawing talismans and chanting spells? Why aren't you delivering me from suffering? What exactly are you doing?"

Chu Tianshu looked around, then picked up a deformed sheet-iron box that had been bent into the shape of a pointed dustpan.

"Shut up. I'm here to deliver you, all right-by digging up your damned home!!"

Chu Tianshu dug viciously into the earth and flung it to either side, looking every bit as fierce as the ghost had said.

Before finding the medicine that worked, he had spent several years running wildly, screaming, diving into water, fleeing, and being bitten in his dreams night after night.

Could anyone expect someone who had grown up that way to have a good temper?

But his grandfather had always told him that a violent temper could easily put him at a disadvantage in society.

Seeing that he would not listen, his grandfather had offered him a great deal more advice. He had also told him that venting a bad temper on friends, family, and uninvolved people was like throwing a punch at the wrong target: how could that possibly feel satisfying?

Chu Tianshu understood that. As he grew older, he learned to make an effort to restrain himself, or at least put on a convincing show of it.

But with certain fellows who did nothing a decent person would do, there seemed to be no need for restraint.

For him, this was a very important outlet.

Otherwise, with the medicine becoming less effective over the past two years and his mental pressure steadily increasing, he was afraid he would bottle it all up and become a pervert.

"Digging up another's grave! You unfilial wretch, you unfilial wretch!"

Shrill curses came from underground. The Overflow Zone's enhancement of the ghost's thinking was still in effect, and even his cursing was coherent.

"A Daoist is a man of learning too. Where is even a shred of a scholar's bearing in you, you dog of a thief? With your crude fists and heavy feet, you're like a mountain savage or a bandit! The authorities will never tolerate you. You'll be beheaded and displayed to the public, sentenced to death by a thousand cuts, and your corpse exposed for three days..."

Chu Tianshu treated it as background music. The harder the ghost cursed, the more merrily he dug.

Before long, he had dug a pit about a meter deep. But digging from level ground was easy at first and harder afterward, and going any deeper would be much more difficult.

At the very least, he would have to widen the opening considerably and slope the surrounding sides before he could continue digging down.

With the broken tool at hand, he feared the little time he had left would not be enough.