Chapter Forty-Eight: Disassembling the Vengeful Spirit
Chapter Forty-Eight
The first true face-to-face encounter with a ghost extinguished Zhao Fusheng’s plan to escape in its infancy. The power of the malevolent ghost, already awakened, far surpassed the Zhao couple, whose own ghostly abilities had only just begun to stir. For the first time, Zhao Fusheng understood the true terror of a malevolent spirit.
The ghost’s strength was astonishing; carrying her around was as effortless as handling a mere toy. Her skin rapidly collapsed, and the fragile bones of her neck fractured under the ghost’s force with a chilling crack. The sensation of suffocation swept over her, the taste of blood filled her throat, and the shadow of death enveloped her heart.
Coldness spread from her neck, and under the oppressive aura of the ghost, she felt no pain from her twisted neck. Still, she did not despair completely, for she had a contingency. Perhaps because she controlled a malevolent ghost herself, Zhao Fusheng’s vitality was far greater than any ordinary person’s. Even with her neck twisted nearly beyond recognition, she had not lost consciousness, and even found the strength to fight back.
Resisting the darkness clouding her vision, she gripped her staff tightly and, with all the force her instincts could muster, struck out in front of her.
A dull thud echoed; it was as if she had struck an immovable stone. The force reverberated through her, and her grip loosened—the staff slipped from her hand and crashed to the floor.
At the same time, the ghost lifted her, spinning her world into chaos. Amid the dizzying motion, she heard a hissing sound emanate from the ghost lantern. As the ghost drew near, the flames inside burned ever brighter, their light tinged green.
Within the emerald fire, Zhao Fusheng forced her bloodshot eyes open, peering around. The malevolent spirit had vanished from sight. Yet the suffocating grip on her neck remained, an icy breath gazing down upon her from above.
Struggling to move her eyes, she saw the vanished ghost standing upside down, feet planted on the beam, its head and face hanging right before her, inverted and mere inches away.
That ghostly face was cold and numb, shriveled like dried meat left for ages, gray-white eyes fixed upon her. This was not a living body—cold and desiccated, its skin devoid of luster, hair brittle and tangled like wild grass, proof that all life had long departed.
Death clung to the ghost, yet this corpse still moved, its power uncanny. Zhao Fusheng was utterly powerless in its grasp.
The earthen walls trembled as the ghost moved, the whole room humming and shaking. Now, Zhao Fusheng finally understood what Fan Bisi had meant when he said, “No human can contend with the power of a malevolent ghost.”
The ghost’s pale, unblinking eyes radiated overwhelming malice. Suddenly, it released one hand from her throat.
The brief respite allowed Zhao Fusheng to catch her breath, but she felt no relief. The ghost’s unnaturally long right hand slid down her throat, icy chill seeping into her chest. The corpse-spotted hand crawled to her sternum, and its five fingers stabbed fiercely downward.
Blood sprayed, splattering across Zhao Fusheng’s face.
In this moment between life and death, she felt no pain, only a chill invading her organs. But in the next instant, something changed.
As the ghost’s hand pierced her chest, the soul ledger she carried sensed its presence. Her own ghostly minion was about to be seized—the ledger would not stand for it.
The ghostly talisman activated, crawling across her body.
Only the power of a malevolent spirit can counter another.
Where the talismans spread, the ghost’s hand could not advance. The talismans climbed along Zhao Fusheng’s body and up the ghost’s mottled arm, the two chilling forces locked in struggle, causing the ghost’s movements to halt.
That pause was critical—it granted Zhao Fusheng a sliver of hope.
But Fan Bisi was right: the soul ledger was controlled by Jia Yi, who was far away in the imperial capital. Though the talisman’s power was formidable, it could not match the ghost before her.
In a flash, the ghost’s arm squeezed, shattering the talismans that covered it. The talismans faded, and the ghost’s hand touched her once again.
“Seems I must rely on myself,” Zhao Fusheng sighed inwardly.
At this moment, she dared not hold back—her desperation awakened, and she called upon her own malevolent spirit’s power.
Her thoughts shifted, and the ghostly force she had suppressed surged forth, coldness sweeping over her back, shadows swallowing her whole.
Within her mind, the Divine List’s warning sounded again: “Using the power of the malevolent spirit costs one-third of your vitality.”
The law of Zhao Fusheng’s ghost was to give first, take later; the fortune she borrowed reached its peak in this life-and-death moment.
The ghost manipulated her body, her arm falling limp, but in her frantic grasping she seized the ghost lantern that had fallen to the floor.
It was like grabbing a lifeline, and her luck continued to work.
The ghost’s bloodied hand shattered the talismans, just as it prepared to rip open her chest and seize her entrails. The slick blood made its hand slide from her chest to her arm, where it pulled up the lantern she gripped so tightly.
Once the lantern fell into the ghost’s grasp, it burned wildly. The oil within the human-skin lantern bubbled and boiled, flames roaring.
As the ghost held the lantern, it seemed satisfied, and slowly released its grip on her neck.
The flame inside soon burned out, and the ghost, as if having fulfilled its law, turned to leave.
Meanwhile, Zhao Fusheng, possessed by her own malevolent spirit, was suffused with death. With a series of cracking sounds, her twisted neck rapidly straightened, broken vertebrae snapping back into place.
The ghost’s handprints faded, her chest healed, skin pale and cold.
A bloodthirsty, violent urge to destroy filled Zhao Fusheng’s heart, her expression numb, her face ghastly pale.
Driven by her own ghost, she desperately wanted to seize something from the departing spirit before her.
Seeing the lantern-bearing ghost turn to leave, she no longer suppressed her destructive impulse.
“You’re not going anywhere!”
Her voice was hoarse as she grabbed the ghost’s lantern-holding arm.
The ghost’s form flickered between tangible and intangible, but once Zhao Fusheng harnessed her own ghost, it lost that advantage.
She tried to hold it back, but its strength was formidable.
The malevolent spirit of Beggar Alley was of the Fiend grade; so was hers. Both were equal in rank, and neither could truly overcome the other.
But malevolent spirits had their own laws and rules for killing.
The Beggar Alley ghost killed by name, enshrined in the altar, taking intestines and heads as offerings—befitting the origin of Beggar Alley’s name: the Beggar Ghost.
Now, Zhao Fusheng had substituted the human-skin lantern for herself, allowing its law to be fulfilled.
Her own ghost, meanwhile, operated on the principle of “give first, take later.” The Beggar Ghost had claimed her offering; now it was her ghost’s turn to “take.”
When two ghosts meet, one must prevail.
Ghosts cannot be killed or destroyed; they can only be driven away, broken up, or suppressed.
With a thought, Zhao Fusheng began to tear at the ghost’s arm.
The ghost’s body was a rare and fearsome object.
As this thought took hold, her ghost’s law reached its peak. With a sharp crack, she wrenched off the Beggar Ghost’s right arm and held it in her hand.
At the same time, the Beggar Ghost not only lost its arm, but its offering. As it tried to retaliate, Zhao Fusheng swiftly picked up the broken lantern and forced it into the ghost’s remaining hand.
Malevolent spirits lacked thought or pain; once they obtained an object, their law was fulfilled.
Even as black energy poured from its wound, it reacted only by turning, holding the broken lantern in its remaining hand, and heading toward the Temple of Confucius.
The severed ghost hand, forcibly removed, did not die—it continued to grasp and release, still instinctively seeking something.
With this done, the Divine List in her mind sounded:
Successfully disassembled the Beggar Alley malevolent spirit’s body; obtained one ghost hand;
Successfully broke the Beggar Ghost’s grade, reducing it to the Fierce level and changing its killing law;
Successfully solved the Beggar Alley haunting, saving the remaining lives within; merit +150;
One-third of the Liu Clan Ancestral Hall case completed;
Your controlled malevolent spirit has successfully fulfilled its law and grown stronger.
…
The prompts sounded in succession, but Zhao Fusheng had no time to rejoice.
For as she tore off the Beggar Ghost’s arm, her own malevolent spirit also fulfilled its law and grew stronger.
Nearly at the same moment the Divine List prompted her, she felt a familiar chill sweep over her.
The nightmare returned.
A ghostly shadow silently drew near, its cold gaze fixed upon her, coveting her lifespan and fortune.
Its deathly pale hand reached for her back; as its fingertips touched her, a familiar terror enveloped Zhao Fusheng.
At the same time, the Divine List prompted again:
You have been influenced by a Fiend-grade malevolent spirit. Spend 10 merit to cleanse the ghost’s lingering resentment.
As the prompt faded, the Divine List unfolded in her mind.
On the blood-soaked roster, red light flashed, fierce fiendish energy spreading. The malevolent spirit was suppressed by the Divine List’s power, its hand recoiling as if shocked.
Zhao Fusheng spun around to find a deathly pale ghost only a step away, its cold eyes locked onto hers.
Both its hands were raised, frozen mid-grasp as though held back by some mysterious force. Its resentful, unwilling aura pressed upon her, its body gradually becoming a shadow.
As she turned, the ghost tried again to reach out.
The chill struck, touching her, deadly intent flooding her chest.
Terrified, Zhao Fusheng retreated, but the ghost was faster.
In the next instant, the ghost’s shadowy claws pierced her chest, but suppressed by the Divine List, they lost their deadly force and dissolved into ten streaks of tar-like black energy.
The ghost’s form collapsed like a sandpile, pouring downward.
The grasping shadow faded into black mist, shrinking and flowing into her own shadow, vanishing without a trace.
This harrowing scene happened in a flash; Zhao Fusheng narrowly escaped being devoured by her own ghost, nearly sharing the original owner’s fate.
The malevolent spirit was gone, but the murderous resentment it had tried to carve into her still lingered through the cold ghost hand.
She sensed danger.
She had used her ghost’s power twice, losing two-thirds of her vitality.
With the Divine List, the harm was quantified, but from her perspective, every use brought the ghost closer.
The day would come when it could touch her directly—her death would follow.
The more she thought, the more uneasy she felt, when the ghost hand she held twitched, snapping her back to reality.
Now was not the time to deal with her own ghost.
According to the Divine List, the Beggar Alley haunting was temporarily subdued; she had completed her task.
Her gaze fell on the ghost hand she held. Even severed, it lived on, its fingers groping for something.
“A ghost hand from the Beggar Ghost.”
Zhao Fusheng reached out to touch it; the Divine List warned: When this hand asks for something, no human or ghost may refuse.
Her eyes brightened at the warning, and the Divine List prompted again:
Use malevolent spirit items with caution—they may ultimately claim your life.
Zhao Fusheng shuddered, but she was not yet out of danger.
Until she found a solution for her own ghost’s power, she could not use it again. But to solve the ghost case, she needed a tool—the arm wrenched from the Beggar Ghost would suffice.
She clutched the severed hand like a treasure, turning it over, unfazed by its monstrous appearance.
Seeing its shriveled fingers open and close, she considered, then lovingly withdrew a piece of human-skin parchment from her bosom—taken from Paper Zhang—and placed it in the ghost hand’s palm.
“Here, take it.”
She stroked the ghost hand fondly, murmuring to herself:
“Be good—next time I drive away a ghost, I’ll be counting on you.”
The ghost hand gripped the parchment, immediately satisfied.
Once it held the parchment, the arm ceased its restless movement, shriveling and shrinking before her eyes, becoming a tiny, palm-sized dried hand, like a model, resting quietly in Zhao Fusheng’s palm.
At first, this transformation startled her; she feared the ghost hand had lost its power after separation.
She tugged at the parchment, and black mist surged from the tiny fingers—the hand, motionless before, clenched tightly.
With a thought, Zhao Fusheng understood—the ghost hand had fulfilled its law.