Chapter Ninety-Eight: The Turbulent Currents of the Spirit Path

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“Xiyue...”

In my anxiety, I cried out her name.

“Don’t worry. She knows this place far better than we do, and these ropes infused with Taoist magic are just as harmful to her. Miss Xiyue can make her way to Painted-Brow Village on her own.”

Only after hearing Chen Chuyi’s words did I slowly nod.

“Let’s go!”

I glanced at the silver moon hanging in the sky, surrounded by a faint crimson halo, and felt a sudden chill in my heart. But at this point, I had no choice but to face it.

With one hand clutching the hem of Zhao Shiwu’s clothes and the other gripping the red guiding cord, I walked step by step into the cave. I could clearly feel my entire body trembling, though I did my best to keep my fear under control.

Every step felt soft beneath my feet, as though I were treading on human flesh. The thought sent cold sweat streaming down my forehead. Yet I did not dare look down. Zhao Shiwu had warned me beforehand that I must never lower my head to look, because the moment I did, I would lose myself completely and be swept into the chaotic currents of the Ghost Path.

“Xiaodong, pay attention. No matter what you see later, don’t believe it. They’re all illusions meant to deceive you, just like the phantom images on the Ghost Road that try to make you turn back!”

I murmured my assent, clenching my teeth and biting my lip.

One step after another.

Then, suddenly, I saw a glimmer of light ahead. My heart leaped with joy. It seemed we were finally about to arrive. After remaining on edge for so long, I let out a long breath.

“Xiaodong, stop! Don’t take another step!”

It was Xiyue’s voice. I saw her standing where the light entered the cave, but a hand had pierced straight through her body. Strings of copper coins were wrapped around that hand, making the sight utterly horrifying.

“Xiyue...”

I could not help calling out.

My body halted where I stood. The instant I stopped, my heart gave a violent shudder, and a bone-chilling cold swept through me.

I couldn’t stop. I had to keep moving forward. I must not look down! I must not look down!

I warned myself again and again.

“Xiaodong, let go and come over here! The one holding you isn’t me—it’s a powerful ghost. Don’t let it deceive you!”

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“Yes, Xiaodong, come over here!”

Chen Chuyi and Zhao Shiwu suddenly appeared in an open patch of ground not far away. Beneath them lay corpse after corpse, all with their eyes tightly shut and their bodies covered in strange, bizarre talismans.

“Come over? In your dreams!”

I cursed loudly and continued forward. After walking a few more steps, I once again saw countless scenes unfolding before me. This time, however, I could not help but believe them, because none of these visions possessed any power to harm me. They were scenes from my life, from childhood to the present.

In truth, I had no idea what I had been like as a child. Whenever I asked my parents, they only told me that when I was ten, I had come down with a severe cold and a fever that rose above forty degrees and would not break. In the end, they had summoned a yin-yang master to treat me, and I had swallowed a great deal of talisman water before I gradually recovered. After that, however, it was as though I had lost my memory. I had completely forgotten everything from my childhood.

But now, the scenes appearing before me were precisely from those forgotten years. I even saw my grandparents—people I had previously encountered only in photographs.

To be honest, I was deeply moved. Yet it was precisely because of that emotion that I became even more certain this was an illusion. This powerful ghost was truly terrifying. It could read a person’s heart and recreate the entire world within it—even things whose existence the person himself had never known.

But in the midst of that tender, heartwarming moment, I saw a hand gripping a knife and driving it straight into my sleeping mother’s chest. Beside her, my father had not even managed to resist before the man seized his neck with his sharp fingernails and snapped it.

“Ah!”

My entire body shuddered, and I screamed.

“Xiaodong!”

A voice suddenly rang out from within the mist, shaking me until my head spun. Even then, I still could not make out the figure clearly, because he had never turned around.

I knew this was an illusion, but I wanted even more desperately to know what lay behind it. Who was the person who had murdered my parents?

“We keep moving!”

I exhaled, my forehead drenched in cold sweat and my entire body already soaked through. I could not tell whether it was from tension or fear.

Zhao Shiwu told me to calm my mind and steady my breathing, to think of nothing and listen to nothing. All I had to do was keep my eyes straight ahead and focus on moving forward.

I nodded, but by then, a desire had already taken root in my heart. I wanted to know who that person was. The thought seemed to sink into my mind in an instant, sprouting and growing without end.

“No. I have to know who that is!”

The moment I said those words, I suddenly let go. At once, my vision filled with hazy human figures and countless voices.

Not far away, a gigantic whirlwind suddenly came rushing toward me.

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“By the power of Heaven and Earth, let the ghost soldiers suppress the soul!”

“Heaven, Earth, Mystery, Yellow—hasten!”

In an instant, the whirlwind before my eyes vanished, replaced by Zhao Shiwu standing directly in front of me.

“Chuyi, use the guiding cord to bind Xiaodong. We’ll enter Painted-Brow Village using the Ghost-Escape Technique from the Azure Dragon Secret Arts!”

“But...”

“There are no buts. Break!”

Zhao Shiwu wasted no more words. The moment he stepped forward, countless bizarre howls erupted from the space before us. Only then did I realize what kind of path we had been walking.

When Chen Chuyi looped the guiding cord around my neck, a transparent golden bell suddenly appeared around my body and enclosed me within it.

“Let the ghost soldiers lead the way—hasten!”

Pfft!

Zhao Shiwu spat out a mouthful of blood. It suppressed the frenzied howls before me, and I instantly felt a violent force surge through the air. In the next moment, it was as though I had been thrown onto a roller coaster, hurtling with a roar into the darkness ahead.

By then, I was scared out of my wits. Only now did I truly understand that the entire cave was filled with bones. Countless howls and shrieks rang out without end. When I realized that I had just been stepping on human bodies again and again, I shuddered from head to toe, cold sweat pouring from me.

“You finally came...”

Just as I was still reeling in terror, a voice suddenly shattered the darkness before me. The golden barrier surrounding my body, which had been protecting me, broke apart in an instant.

I opened my eyes and saw the figure standing at my window, holding something crimson, slowly turn around.

At that moment, my entire body went rigid.

Because that person—that person was actually...