Chapter Seventy-Nine: Sealing the Vengeful Spirit

Chapter Seventy-Nine

Zhang Chuanshi, standing nearby, overheard her sigh and looked at her with a puzzled expression.
“Milady, what danger are you talking about?”
His face was tinged with a sickly green, and his eyes were bloodshot. Under the influence of the ghost’s law, his cognition had been severely impaired; he had most likely forgotten the reason he had come here and, like the local villagers, now lived under the ghost’s control.

Zhao Fusheng had no time to reply. After regaining her memories, the clues she’d gathered from repeated questioning now converged in her mind—coalescing into the truth that surfaced within her consciousness.

Forty-one years ago, Wu Datong of Doghead Village was poor, unattractive, and burdened with hardship; he remained unmarried past the age of thirty. Driven by desperation, he resorted to vile means to abduct a young girl, hiding her away at his home. The girl died in childbirth, leaving behind a ghostly child. Because the circumstances of its birth could not withstand the light of day, this peculiar ghost-child possessed an innate “invisibility” trait.

Anyone who learned of its existence either died or lost their memory; even mentioning it would trigger the ghost’s law. So, forty-one years ago, in a panic, Wu Datong fled the village. Upon entering Wanan County, his “unusual” nature was soon noticed by Zhang Xionwu.
At that time, Wu Datong must have realized he was haunted, and struck a deal with Zhang Xionwu. He agreed to do Zhang Xionwu’s bidding in exchange for Zhang Xionwu resolving his calamity and sparing his life.

Afterwards, Zhang Xionwu made use of the ghostly child’s unique attributes to steal the coffin nails from the ghostly coffin that suppressed the headless specter in Liu Huacheng’s home.

As for the specifics of the transaction between those two men, with Wu Datong now dead and the paper man Zhang missing, Zhao Fusheng had no way of knowing. But she suspected that the life-preserving method must have been related to Wu Datong’s second son, Wu Liren.
Perhaps after Wu Liren was born, he inadvertently became the “master” of his elder brother, thus turning into another ghost-wielder. Thereafter, man and ghost coexisted.

A decade ago, while Wu Datong was alive, he somehow extended his lifespan. Later, the reason Wu Liren survived so many years without dying might have been that villagers privy to the truth perished in his stead. When Wu Liren came of age, his sons died one after another at the hands of the ghost, postponing his own death.

Yet, in living alongside the ghost, Wu Liren must have sensed something amiss—hence the human-skin quilt tucked within his bedding. Its function was akin to the case files Zhao Fusheng had retrieved from the Demon Suppression Bureau: a reminder not to forget.

Alas, though Wu Liren realized something was wrong, he was but an ordinary man—he could only wait passively for death, unable to act.

After all of Wu Liren’s sons had died, his turn finally came. When Wu Dajing reported the case, he claimed that dozens of Wu Liren’s family had disappeared. In truth, according to Zhao Fusheng’s findings, Wu Liren’s family had long since perished over the years; Wu Liren was the last to die, which was why his room remained relatively “clean,” still bearing traces of habitation and the largest amount of human skin flakes.

The villagers had always known about Wu Datong’s abduction and the birth of the ghost-child. Thus, the villagers had been marked by the ghost long ago. Over the years, they died one by one, but, under the influence of the ghost’s law, remained completely unaware.

Had it not been for Zhao Fusheng’s arrival, after Wu Liren’s death, everyone in the village would have been killed by the ghost, erasing the last traces of its existence from the world. If it ever matured, no one would know its origins or rules, and it would bring unthinkable consequences when encountered.

The mere thought of such a scenario sent chills down Zhao Fusheng’s spine.

She raised her head, looking toward “Wu Liren.”
His sons and wives nestled beside him, while Wu Datong, looking somber, sat to his left. This was a man who, before death, had lived alone in the ancestral house, surrounded by ghosts and phantom shadows, sometimes lucid, sometimes confused—who knows what torments he suffered at the end.
All of this sin had its root in his father’s actions, yet in the end, he bore the consequences alone.

In the palm of the ghostly arm, the blood-red paper doll quivered frenetically.
This hidden ghost should never have been “caught” by a human, but Zhao Fusheng possessed the ghostly hand that could claim anything.

The Divine Registry continued to prompt her: A baleful ghost has been detected. Use hell’s capture?
She remembered this prompt had appeared twice before; she had used hell’s power once but gained nothing.
The first level of hell could not capture or confine a baleful ghost—especially not one wielding the law of invisibility.

But clever and perceptive, she gazed at the paper doll with certainty in her mind.
Though the baleful ghost could not be captured for now, it could be sealed using its own characteristics.

To alter her perception and disturb her consciousness, when she and Zhang Chuanshi realized Wu Dajing was dead, “Wu Dajing” had returned under the law’s influence. Upon his return, he mentioned events from forty-one years ago, letting slip a remark that Zhao Fusheng remembered.
When she asked about Zhang Xionwu’s theft of the coffin nails, Wu Dajing replied: “It was Wu Liren who stole them.”

When she entered the village last night, Old Wu Jiu had also confidently stated that Wu Liren was born forty years ago.

Wu Datong had two sons: the eldest, unspeakable; the younger was Wu Liren. Under the ghost’s law, the unspeakable eldest was also referred to as Wu Liren.

This was a crucial point.
Zhao Fusheng’s understanding was that the ghost-child and Wu Liren were not the same person, but the ghost’s law did not lie—it assumed the ghost was Wu Liren.
Could it be that this invisible ghost could not exist independently, and could only serve as a substitute, hidden behind a chosen individual?

She looked down at the blood-red paper doll writhing in the palm of the ghostly arm.
This paper doll was pieced together from flakes of her own skin. The reason it had taken the form of a paper man was because she had written the ghost’s birth date on those fragments of skin.
The moment the birth date was inscribed, the paper doll was formed, and the human-skin paper man inherited the ghost’s law of invisibility...

A bold idea dawned on her.
Ever since, the ghost had remained hidden around her. Though she was only a recent arrival to Doghead Village, her name was high on the “death list.”
If the paper man had the ghost’s invisibility, did that mean, by creating a substitute from her own skin, she had sealed part of the ghost within it?

Yet the prompt from the Divine Registry indicated the ghost was not fully sealed, meaning she hadn’t completed the final step of binding the ghost entirely into the substitute paper man.
What was missing, leaving the substitute incomplete and unable to fully imprison the ghost?

As this thought struck, blood began to drip steadily from her nose.
She could feel her life ebbing away. The spirits bound to her soul register sensed the ghost’s power, desperately casting ghostly curses to save her life.
The ghosts under her control were also on the verge of awakening, as if afraid she would fall into the hands of another spirit.

Yet Zhao Fusheng remained unhurried. She even struggled to bring the ghostly hand closer, letting her bloody nose drip onto the substitute paper man.
Since she was already bleeding, there was no reason to let it go to waste.

The blood was quickly absorbed by the paper man, and Zhao Fusheng, feeling her life slip away, calmly reasoned through the problem.
If the act of writing the birth date formed the paper man, then perhaps what was lacking was the inscription of the ghost’s identity.

She already knew the ghost’s identity: the eldest son of Wu Datong.

Her hand trembling, she tore the incomplete substitute from the ghostly arm’s grasp.
The arm, deprived of its prize, immediately began to revive.
But Zhao Fusheng, existing in the space between life and death, was now the focus of three competing ghosts, each vying for her soul.

As she had predicted, she now occupied a unique, highly coveted position.
By rights, she should have perished instantly, but the competing ghostly laws created a tenuous balance, granting her a precious sliver of hope.

She let the ghostly arm clutch her hand while, with her other, she dipped her finger in her own blood and swiftly wrote on the paper man.
But as she wrote, memories flooded back—of the substitute’s nature, of the unspeakable status of Wu Datong’s eldest son, and countless fragmented clues merged into a single surmise.

She grinned, a smile twisting her lips, and murmured hoarsely,
“To hell with it.”

Time grew short, and her decisive temperament allowed no hesitation once a choice was made.
At once, she laboriously wrote into the void: Zhao Fusheng.

The moment her name was inscribed, it flared red and merged into the body of the paper man.
The blood-colored substitute in her hand exploded with a terrifying ghostly aura, crimson light blazing forth.

All at once, her face and body itched unbearably.
Yet under the ghost’s power, her mind remained lucid; thus, the instant her skin peeled, she felt a searing, piercing agony.

The dreadful law tore her body apart, and the sloughing skin was hungrily absorbed by the paper man.
With the inscription complete, the substitute was finally whole, drawing the invisible ghost within.

As Zhao Fusheng hovered on the brink of death, the Divine Registry prompted her: Substitute paper man detected—send to hell?
“Yes!”
She mustered the last ounce of her will, her bloodied hand clutching the human-skin quilt wrapped around her—hell was unleashed.

Shadows surged like water, enveloping her hand.
The blood-glowing substitute paper man she held was silently devoured by the shadows.

The ghost’s murderous law stopped abruptly.
Illusion shattered; broken cognition returned.

As the substitute paper man was sealed in hell, Zhao Fusheng felt pain sharp as knives all over her body.
Blood spurted everywhere, soaking the human-skin quilt and plastering it to her flesh.
Fortunately, she had prepared herself mentally.

The ghost’s true killing method was to flay its victims alive; when her mind was clouded, she mistook the itching for dead skin, but it was, in fact, her human skin being stripped away.

At first, she hadn’t realized this, but as she grew weaker and pain spread throughout her body, she knew something was terribly wrong.

Those under the ghost’s law were denied all real sensation until the very instant of death, when shock and helplessness overcame them.

Zhang Chuanshi and the others had also experienced the skin peeling and itching, but felt no pain at all.

Only Zhao Fusheng, as both a ghost-wielder and bearer of the soul register, retained a fragment of awareness despite the confusion. Real pain and weakness warned her of the peril, preparing her for the outcome.

Meanwhile, in Wu Liren’s ancestral home, as soon as the ghost was sealed and subdued, its influence vanished in an instant.

Wu Datong’s cough fell silent; Wu Liren’s outstretched hand, reaching to steady him, dissolved into gray mist.

In Doghead Village, familiar faces turned to dust.

Wu Shaochun screamed in agony.

Without the ghost’s power sustaining him, over half his skin had been stripped away, exposing raw, bloody muscle.
Blood and clothing clung together as he uttered heart-rending shrieks.

“Mother—!”
He cried out instinctively, but when he turned, he saw the mother who’d been sitting cross-legged by his side, now pale-faced, dissolve into gray mist in a heartbeat.

Distorted memories reawakened.
He recalled his mother, the night before, slaughtering a chicken at Wu Liyou’s home, only to be slain by the ghost in an instant.

His screams of agony turned into the wailing of a child who had just lost his mother.

Wu Liyou remembered the deaths of his father and brother, but the pain in his soul was soon eclipsed by the agony in his flesh.

Cries of anguish rose in waves.

For all, nightmares returned—no, Zhao Fusheng could not even say whether, for these villagers, the ghost’s illusions had been the nightmare, or if waking to reality was even worse.

The illusions faded, the ghostly mist dispersed.

The true state of Wu Liren’s ancestral home was revealed at last.

All around lay a ruinous courtyard, overrun by weeds.
The wooden pillars, neglected, were encrusted with strange fungi.
Countless scattered bones littered the grass; items once snatched by villagers were smeared with blackened, dried blood.
The Wu family estate was doused in brownish bloodstains, white bones strewn everywhere, and strips of torn, filthy, hair-matted skin hung from eaves and fences.

Everywhere, blood was smeared; the entire compound looked like a scene from hell.

Zhang Chuanshi, too, was screaming.
Only a moment before, he had been dutifully carrying out Zhao Fusheng’s orders, counting the villagers, when suddenly he was jarred back to reality.

The old man remembered why he had come to Doghead Village, remembered Wu Dajing’s death, and recalled all the horrors he’d witnessed the previous night.

He’d eaten at the same table with ghosts, shared a roof with them after his memory was lost...

Now, at last, terror seized his heart, and he shrieked piercingly. At the same time, great swathes of skin vanished from his back, belly, arms, and face, blood gushing forth.

“Milady—help, help me!”
Zhang Chuanshi cried out in desperation.

But Zhao Fusheng had no time for him.
As the blood-red substitute paper man was claimed by hell, the Divine Registry’s prompts rang out in rapid succession:

Successfully sealed the Invisible Ghost. Obtained one baleful substitute paper man. (Note: This paper man shares the host’s name, blood, and flesh.)

Successfully resolved the Doghead Village ghost murders, prevented the ascent of a great ghost, and nipped a future catastrophic calamity in the bud.

Successfully saved the lives of Doghead Village. Gained 1000 merit points.

Hell is empty; evil spirits roam the mortal world.

Successfully used hell to subdue a ghost for the first time. Reward: 10 merit points.

Host’s death tendency detected; consuming 10 merit points to recover.

Ghosts under host’s control are showing signs of revival.

Ghostly arm, partially decomposed, is showing signs of revival.

Consuming 20 merit points to suppress.

...

The prompts continued to sound.

With each message, the human-skin quilt wrapped around Zhao Fusheng fused eerily with her flesh, transforming instantly into a new layer of skin, fitting her perfectly and instantly healing her wounds.

The pain vanished, and her mind cleared rapidly.

With the loss of the substitute paper man, the ghostly arm reluctantly released her under the influence of her merit points, but not before stubbornly tearing off a strip of her skin to clutch in its bony hand.

Afterwards, the ghostly arm was subdued, shrinking back into a shriveled bone, which fell into her palm.

The nearly-awakened ghost silently melted into shadow, once more merging beneath her feet, quietly awaiting its next opportunity.