Chapter 21
Chapter 21: Yin Sha Five Ghosts
While he spoke, the five shadows revealed their true forms—five men with grim faces and features so similar they looked stamped from the same mold. The leader’s voice was low and cold.
“We serve our sect. We don’t dare be careless. These mortals were only frightened. No one died from it. As for the five lives earlier…”
He paused, as if doing someone a favor. “I, Wu, am willing to pay spirit stones to compensate those mortals on behalf of my younger brother.”
The young cultivator’s smile didn’t move an inch.
“You’re the Yin Sha Five Ghosts of the Yin Fiend Sect, aren’t you?” he said lightly. “As expected of a well-known heretical sect in Great Yue. You kill five people, stir up chaos in the city, and think a handful of spirit stones makes it clean. What do you take the Clear Spirit Guard for?”
The leader’s face sank further. “Fellow Cultivator, why be so rigid? They’re only mortals. Kill them and it’s done. If you lift your hand and let this pass… the Yin Fiend Sect will repay you with a heavy reward.”
The young man’s smile widened—warm as spring on the surface, glacial underneath.
“A heavy reward?” he echoed. “If you want to thank me, then use your five lives to do it.”
The leader’s expression twitched. He knew this couldn’t be smoothed over. In one motion he opened his mouth and spat out a small black knife. The blade caught the wind and swelled, stretching into a massive saber several meters long.
“Go!”
With a jab of his finger, the black saber cleaved toward the young cultivator.
Li Yan Er gasped, reflexively crying out. Gu Shi Yi hissed, “Quiet! Cultivators hear everything. Their Divine Sense is terrifying. One flick of a finger and we’re dead.”
Li Yan Er clamped her mouth shut and pressed herself against the branch, whispering, “How did that knife get so huge?”
Gu Shi Yi whispered back, “I don’t really know. Master said cultivators need spiritual roots. Only then can they sense the spiritual qi of heaven and earth. Once they learn cultivation methods, they can move that qi, and their treasures can grow or shrink however they want…”
“Like Sun Wu Kong’s golden-hooped staff?”
“Yes—exactly like Sun Wu Kong.” Gu Shi Yi nodded quickly. “Except he’s a special breed born of heaven and earth. He doesn’t even need cultivation methods to move spiritual qi…”
In their world’s terms, Sun Wu Kong was a Primordial Era creature—one of those beings that existed when heaven and earth first took shape. Some of them had divine powers vast enough to swallow the world, roam the cosmos, and slip between time and space. Of course a being like that would never settle for being a measly stable official.
Li Yan Er nodded like she half understood, then looked at Gu Shi Yi. “Then… do you have spiritual roots?”
Gu Shi Yi shook her head. “No. When I was little, Master disguised himself and took me to the entrance test at the Heavenly One Sect. I didn’t pass.”
“Oh…” Li Yan Er looked genuinely sorry for her.
In the sky, the young cultivator extended one finger and tapped the charging saber. The blade stopped dead and began spinning in place, trapped as if nailed to the air itself. The young man smiled, showing a flash of white teeth.
“That evil blade of yours… you must’ve refined it with a lot of flesh and blood, hm?”
The leader didn’t answer. He pointed again. The black saber wriggled like a serpent and let out a shriek that sounded like ghosts wailing.
Gu Shi Yi winced, her eardrums screaming. Li Yan Er’s soul-body shuddered so violently she couldn’t cling to the branch. She slipped and fell.
Gu Shi Yi jumped after her and snatched the Clay Doll into her arms before it hit the ground.
“This kind of fight… mortals like us have no business watching it.”
Still fighting the stabbing pain in her ears, Gu Shi Yi stuffed the Clay Doll against her chest and sprinted back toward the crowded shore. Cultivators usually avoided harming mortals—so as long as she vanished into a sea of people, she’d be safer.
Just as she squeezed into the crowd, the black saber in the air shrieked and slashed at the young cultivator. He didn’t even flinch. He reached out and caught it barehanded.
The blade writhed like a black snake in his grip.
He squeezed.
Crack.
The saber snapped in two.
Across from him, the five men stared, stunned. The leader’s jaw tightened. He reached into his robe and hurled something forward. The instant it left his hand, black qi boiled out and rose into a thick fog above their heads. From within came a weird, delighted chuckle.
“Heh heh heh…”
A massive skull pushed out of the fog, its mouth spewing black mist.
The young cultivator’s smile finally fell away.
“Yin Sha Five Ghosts,” he said coldly, “you actually dare refine a Blood-Fiend Skull. You truly think the Clear Spirit Guard is nothing.”
The leader remained expressionless. He didn’t reply. He simply shoved his index finger into his mouth and bit down hard—so hard he tore it off. Without even slowing to stop the bleeding, he tossed the severed finger upward.
“Heh heh heh…”
The skull laughed with greedy delight and swallowed the dripping finger. The black fog thickened, turning almost solid.
“Go!”
The leader pointed at the young man with his bloody stump. The skull shrieked and lunged.
The young cultivator sighed as if tired of children misbehaving. He patted his waist, and a small jade bottle appeared in his hand. He did nothing dramatic—only angled the bottle’s mouth toward the charging skull.
A beam of white light spilled out.
The moment it touched the skull, the skull froze, jaws hanging open. Then it was dragged forward, inch by inch, and swallowed into the bottle like smoke being sucked into a pipe.
In the blink of an eye, it was gone.
The five men turned deathly pale. They were only around Qi Refining Level Seven or Eight; their opponent was at the Foundation Establishment Stage. They’d dared to unleash the skull because it was a treasure bestowed by their Sect Master, powerful enough to match an early Foundation Establishment cultivator. With all five acting together, they could even hold off a mid Foundation Establishment cultivator for a short time.
But the skull hadn’t even gotten a chance to strike before it was sealed away.
The leader shouted, “Form up!”
Born of the same womb, the brothers moved as one. They raked their nails across their palms, carving shallow cuts. Blood poured. They clasped hands and began chanting seals, eyes flooding red.
The young cultivator lifted an eyebrow. He formed a hand seal. White light flashed, and a small jade sword appeared before him.
“Go.”
The jade sword shot forward. The pressure rolling off it was terrifying. The five brothers spat blood as a crimson barrier surged up around them, barely blocking the blade.
The young cultivator snorted. He pointed again. The jade sword rose as if gripped by an invisible hand, then slammed down.
White light flashed.
The blood barrier split like wet paper.
“Go!”
A harsh shout erupted from within the crimson glow. The five brothers took the hit and transformed into a streak of blood light, fleeing toward the horizon.
The young cultivator laughed, amused. “Interesting.”
He didn’t move. He simply recalled the jade sword and brushed his fingers along its blade, white light flickering.
The blood light fled only a little over a hundred zhang before a streak of blue light blocked it. A cultivator surnamed Wen—who had been waiting nearby—stepped into the air as if climbing an invisible stair.
“Heretics!” he roared. “Where do you think you’re going!”
He flicked his folding fan.
Whoosh.
A blue wind surged out and shoved the blood light back more than ten zhang. It wavered and revealed the five brothers again, faces drained and eyes wide with fear.
“Go!” the leader barked once more.
They tried to flee in another direction—only to be blocked by yet another young cultivator holding a small bow. He loosed an arrow. The shot was silent, the impact just as silent—until it burst into a skyful of white light.
“Not good!”
The Yin Fiend Sect brothers felt their bodies tighten, as if caught in a net. It was an ambush.
The leader’s eyes went hard. “You go first!”
He yanked a small knife from his Storage Pouch, reversed the grip, and drove it into his own chest. Then he dragged it down, brutally opening himself. With both hands, he tore the wound wider.
A blood-slick infant was inside his belly.
“Fiend infant!”
The archer cultivator froze for a fraction of a heartbeat. Recognition hit—and by then it was too late.
The infant opened its eyes.
They were pitch black, like two bottomless holes, slowly spinning.
The archer’s body went rigid.
“Waa…”
The blood infant cried.
The archer cultivator swayed and fell from the sky.
The brothers seized the opening, trying to ride their blood light and escape again—
“Hmph! Still trying to run?”
A massive earthen-yellow hand appeared soundlessly above them. It closed as gently as a person picking up fruit.
All five brothers were grabbed at once.
They screamed, voices sharp with pure terror. Whatever technique formed that hand, the moment it clenched, their spiritual power poured out as if a dam had shattered. In a few breaths, they were empty—powerless, trapped, waiting to be carved up.
The smiling young cultivator appeared before them in a flash. Below, Cultivator Wen swooped down, caught the colleague shaken by the fiend infant’s cry, and brought him back up.
“Hundred-Captain Official!”
The young cultivator glanced over. “Brother Li—are you all right?”
Cultivator Li’s face was pale, but he forced himself steady. “I’m fine, sir. I was careless and got caught by that thing. I’ve already taken a pill…”
“Good.” The young cultivator nodded, then turned his gaze back to the captured five. His eyes landed on the leader’s torn belly—and on the blood-red infant, still bound tight.
He gave a thin, contemptuous smile.
“That isn’t even a real fiend infant. Who knows what broken technique the Yin Fiend Sect dug up to refine something so half-baked. You only fell for it because your combat experience is lacking.”
A true fiend infant needed to feast on the flesh of over a thousand people, be tempered in underground yin fire for three years, then soaked in yin water for another three before it could be complete. This thing had only eaten a bit of mortal flesh and didn’t even know how to purify and refine it. Any halfway competent expert of the Buddhist Order could purify it on the spot.
Cultivator Li flushed. “Thank you for the guidance, Official.”
While they spoke, more than ten streaks of light flew in from the direction of Xuan Cheng. The leader of the group stopped before them, revealing a burly, bearded man. He clasped his fists politely.
“May I ask if you are the senior from the Du Cheng Clear Spirit Guard?”
The bearded man was only at the early Foundation Establishment Stage. Facing someone at mid stage, he was naturally respectful. The young man returned the salute with an easy smile.
“I am Clear Spirit Hundred-Captain Si Tu Xiao of Du Cheng.”
The bearded man hurried to respond, “I am Liu Meng, Hundred-Captain of Xuan Cheng…”
He was tall and imposing, and even his name sounded like something a battlefield general would carry.
Liu Meng said, “Dao Brother Situ, these five came to my Xuan Cheng to cause trouble, yet we don’t even know their origins or purpose. Why?”
Si Tu Xiao answered, “We tracked them here. Now that they’re captured, we’ll need to borrow Dao Brother Liu’s place to interrogate them before we know the details.”
“In that case, let’s go into the city and talk.”
“All right.”
They mounted their escaping lights and sped toward the city. As Si Tu Xiao’s light crossed the river, his gaze swept over the crowd below—and paused, just for a few breaths, on one woman’s face.
Gu Shi Yi’s scalp prickled. The hair on the back of her neck stood straight up.
She didn’t dare look up. She stayed mixed among the commoners at the riverbank, as if she were just another gawker.
Only when the lights had gone far, far away did she cautiously lift her head. After she confirmed they were truly gone, she quietly slipped toward the back of the crowd.