The Hundred Schools of Thought's Attitude Toward the Imperial Court

A great cultivator can separate their divine sense from their body.

In this state of escape, the cultivator's thinking ability is not affected.

This kind of divine consciousness is also called the Yang Soul.

The divine thoughts that escape after death are called ghosts.

A yang soul can return to its original body, but a yin soul obviously cannot return to a body that has already died.

In this situation, the spirit will either choose a dark place to gather Spiritual Qi to nourish its cultivation, or it will choose to possess or forcibly occupy another person's body.

As screams echoed through the village, Dong Zhongshu pondered another possibility.

"This tiger demon's Divine Ability is most likely to transform humans into ghosts. He is familiar with the process of humans turning into ghosts, and through this knowledge, he can quickly transform himself into a ghost after death, even possessing ghostly arts. His arts..."

Both yang and yin souls have some uses, but these forms detached from the physical body are far weaker than their normal physical state.

Since the tiger demon's spirit has not undergone cultivation, it is extremely difficult for it to become a powerful yin entity.

"He's probably growing by eating ghouls!"

After a few seconds of thought, Dong Zhongshu rushed back.

Two of the villagers who were chasing them had already fallen to the ground, and several others, holding torches, stared in terror at the bodies of the two men on the ground.

Amidst the faint, muffled roar of a tiger, two villagers' bodies appeared as hazy shadows, drifting across their bodies like weeds in a storm.

"Roar!"

Two shadowy figures contorted into the posture of tigers pouncing, their mouths emitting low, continuous roars.

"These are the accomplices of a fierce tiger!"

Dong Zhongshu's eyes widened slightly.

"Were these two previously close to the tiger demon?" Dong Zhongshu shouted. "If any of you were close to the tiger demon, you should quickly hide in the water to avoid being found by his familiar scent."

"My lord..."

Previously, they had been chasing after Dong Zhongshu with sticks, machetes, and bows and arrows, but now, witnessing the villagers die in front of everyone, fear was spreading among the dozen or so villagers who were shouting for help.

"The tiger demon is dead, but he has transformed into a vengeful spirit," Dong Zhongshu said. "He is a rather special kind of vengeful spirit, capable of growing stronger by devouring other spirits!"

"Then we..."

"Underworld creatures are different from humans. Lacking a physical body, they cannot see, smell, or hear. They can only locate things through familiar scents," Dong Zhongshu said. "Whoever gets close to the tiger demon will be sought out by it, until it devours them and grows stronger."

"Oh my god!"

Two villagers mustered their courage and ran forward for a hundred meters. Besides seeing the tiger demon's shattered body, they also heard Dong Zhongshu's explanation.

This made many villagers feel insecure.

What does it mean to be close, and how close is considered close?

Does meeting someone count? Does kowtowing and kneeling count? Does helping a tiger demon carry someone count?

No one understood the concept of 'near,' but many villagers knew very well that their village, controlled by the tiger demon, was about to undergo a major change.

Ah~

Another scream rang out, and a villager holding a torch slowly collapsed.

This situation terrified many villagers, who then disregarded everything else.

"Get out of the water! Everyone get out of the water!"

The villagers scattered like birds and beasts, and Dong Zhongshu reached out and touched the changgui.

These vengeful spirits have just taken human form and are still in their very early stages; you can only see their shape, but you cannot touch their physical form.

Normal sword strikes and slashes have no effect on the vengeful spirits, and Technique Method cannot harm them either.

To get rid of these evil spirits, you can either burn the villagers' corpses while they are growing up, or you can eliminate the source of the problem.

Dong Zhongshu couldn't do this kind of work in a short time.

Carrying his sword, he had no choice but to wander back.

Aside from the scattered villagers, sounds of fighting and killing could still be heard in the village until various shouts of warning rang out, causing the villagers to scatter in panic.

"They ran away so quickly, none of them could fight!"

Zhang Xuezhou's shouts echoed through the ancestral hall. Dong Zhongshu went inside and saw that the people the young man had knocked down behind him were almost lined up in a human-shaped passage, with one person lying down every two or three meters.

As a cultivator in the True Spirit Realm, even though Zhang Xuezhou is not skilled in offensive Technique Method and does not possess martial arts, it is obviously not too difficult for Zhang Xuezhou to beat up these people.

By avoiding the risk of being ganged up on, Zhang Xuezhou could take down people one by one.

The main reason for this was that the most ruthless villagers had already been lured away by Dong Zhongshu.

Seeing Zhang Xuezhou knock down an old woman and then put his hands on his hips, Dong Zhongshu felt that this young man had become arrogant.

"You don't even spare old women in their seventies or eighties?" Dong Zhongshu asked in surprise.

"Don't underestimate this old woman. She used a stick to poke Zhang Debiao in the back, and she made him cry!"

"The anus?"

Dong Zhongshu shrank back. He looked at Zhang Debiao, who was piled up in the crowd. After pulling away the several unconscious villagers who were lying on top of him, he saw tears welling up in Zhang Debiao's eyes.

"I need healing, Eastern cultivator, please heal me!" Zhang Debiao cried mournfully.

"I didn't know that anal pain could be cured without treatment!"

There are quite a few wounded!

The chaotic battle not only killed the villagers who had been misled and coerced, but also the members of the merchant guild.

Those who were sober wanted to fight with the villagers, while those who were not sober often ended up being trampled.

Dong Zhongshu felt that everything was extremely bad.

He hadn't even left the Sichuan-Chongqing region yet, and this almost resulted in the complete annihilation of his entire group.

But the matter is not over yet.

However, Dong Zhongshu had little else to offer at the moment. He was unable to find the tiger demon's spirit, nor could he easily harm such a spirit that had never taken form.

"In other words, to completely eliminate the tiger demon scourge, we must find him and restore him to his normal physical form?"

While reaching out to heal his wounds, Zhang Xuezhou also learned about some of the current situation.

"Indeed," Dong Zhongshu nodded, "This tiger demon is extraordinary. Whether it is a demon in its natural form or transformed into a yin creature, it will bring disaster to the region."

As long as the tiger demon can cultivate and improve, and as long as the other party has a need for humans, the tiger demon will continue to harm humans because of this need.

"That tiger demon is incredibly audacious, daring to cast a spell right in front of us! Accountant Du, chase him down!"

Seeing three hazy gray shadows rise from the villagers in the ancestral hall, Zhang Xuezhou roughly understood how the tiger demon harmed people.

But just a few seconds later, Zhang Xuezhou stopped shouting, and Dong Zhongshu's expression changed.

It wasn't just the villagers of this village who were turning into ghouls; some members of the merchant guild were also beginning to do so.

"Quickly, Master Xu, expel the evil spirits from their bodies!"

After pondering for a while, Dong Zhongshu couldn't help but urge Xu Ji to hurry up.

Looking at the old man from the agricultural school, he felt that he could only rely on this old man to temporarily solve many of his troubles.

Putting everything else aside, at the very least, Zhao Liang cannot be transformed into a ghost.

Dong Zhongshu took a deep breath and then instructed Xu Ji to proceed with the priority treatment.

He muttered incantations, and in just over ten seconds, the area was covered by a light drizzle.

Although ghosts still occasionally appear on people in the ancestral hall, the rate is much slower than before when three or four would suddenly appear.

"Why does my whole body still ache so much even after a good night's sleep!"

Dong Zhongshu only breathed a sigh of relief when Zhao Liang cried out that he had regained consciousness.

"This tiger demon must be eliminated!"

With his heavy heart at ease, Dong Zhongshu couldn't help but sift through the Technique Method he knew, searching for a way to subdue the tiger demon.

"Once the tiger demon finds its target, wouldn't it be able to kill whoever it wants?"

After listening to Dong Zhongshu's explanation, Zhang Xuezhou felt that even if the tiger demon died, it could take a large group of people with it.

"With a tiger at our side, how can we escape easily?" Dong Zhongshu frowned. "Anyone who tries to get away with a tiger will find it difficult to escape unscathed. Whether it's because the tiger demon knows our aura or because we have the 'Changyan Poison' in our bodies, it could locate and control us!"

"Can't your method of neutralizing the poison of the 'Changyan' kill the tiger demon?" Zhang Xuezhou asked.

"What's your method for eliminating the poison from the opium?" Dong Zhongshu asked.

"My body can only withstand a little bit of strain; I have absolutely no skill in dealing with this kind of thing!" Zhang Xuezhou said.

"If only someone from the Corpse-Eating School were here, they'd be very good at breaking these kinds of strange phenomena," Xu Ji interjected.

"The Corpse-Raising and Corpse-Controlling School was wiped out by the imperial court. It is said that some members of the school went to western Hunan. I'm afraid there are no more Corpse-Raising School members around to exorcise and cure ghosts," Dong Zhongshu said, shaking his head.

"The Great Han Dynasty is a complete scoundrel!" the young Xu Yuan cursed.

"That's not entirely true," Dong Zhongshu said. "The Corpse-Eating School is both righteous and evil. Their evil deeds are no less than those of the Tiger Demon. They are also the school that most enjoys using human sacrifices. They have done many good deeds, but their evil deeds are countless!"

"Every school of thought has good and bad people. It's just that some members of the Corpse-Eating School have corrupted hearts. The imperial court is killing indiscriminately without distinguishing right from wrong. There are plenty of corrupt officials in the court too, but they haven't wiped out the entire court!"

Xu Yuan muttered a few curses.

This may reflect the attitude of the various schools of thought during the Hundred Schools of Thought period towards the imperial court.

Even though he didn't have a strong connection with the imperial court, Emperor Nongzong didn't have a good impression of the Great Han Dynasty.

This impression, though not deeply ingrained, was unlikely to be formed by these schools of thought in support of the Great Han Dynasty's development, given the impact of a series of events.

Xu Yuan and others cursed the imperial court, while Dong Zhongshu pondered how to deal with the tiger demon's spirit.

"Either let this thing take form, or burn the corpses of the ignorant villagers in this village, so that the tiger demon can't devour its accomplices and becomes isolated, lacking the possibility of taking form for decades!"

Xu Ji expressed his opinion in a low voice.

This prompted Dong Zhongshu to nod reluctantly.

The former option would naturally require enough villagers to die so that the tiger demon's spirit could take human form.

The latter plan is to buy time and see how the tiger demon fares. If it lacks good fortune, the tiger demon's spirit will naturally dissipate. If it has good fortune, then it will be another calamity, and it may cause trouble in the area decades later.

But regardless of whether it was the former or the latter, many villagers were destined to die.

The former was killed by a tiger demon, while the latter's actions would lead to them being ostracized by the villagers, who would believe that their merchant group had burned people to death, causing a protracted entanglement and potentially even prompting government intervention.

These are two solutions that are not perfect.

Dong Zhongshu weighed the pros and cons repeatedly until Zhang Xuezhou shushed him.

"This is a den of ghosts! There are already twenty-three ghosts here!"

As he fiddled with the ball of white light, Zhang Xuezhou felt the Yin Entity Tracking Technique thriving intensely.

This was the discovery of a large quantity of Yin objects, causing his Technique Method to behave abnormally—a perception he had never experienced before.

Originally, he just saw a lot of ghosts and wanted to use this Technique Method to his advantage, but Zhang Xuezhou discovered that the Yin Entity Tracking Technique wasn't entirely useless.

He looked toward the center of the three bronze incense burners.

That was the location where the tiger demon had been. As the tiger demon and Dong Zhongshu fought, the latter also left that Buddhist shrine.

However, when the Yin Entity Tracking Technique was pointed at, the shrine shone brightly, as if a large ghost existed there, far more active than the surrounding accomplices.