UCS Chapter 146

Chapter 146

After being carried to the destination, Gao Gusheng felt like he was about to throw up all over Feiyu.

He was currently unable to move or speak; even his spiritual energy was sealed and his cultivation techniques were blocked, leaving him able only to cast accusatory glares at Feiyu.

Unfortunately, Feiyu’s pair of scarlet eyes—looking like a high-end version of red-tinted sunglasses—blocked out all his attempts at signaling. Gao Gusheng was tied to a pillar; glancing around, he found himself facing a vast, desolate stretch of wasteland—had it not been for Feiyu, he truly wouldn’t have known such a barren place could exist in City B.

It was a dilapidated temple, yet unlike ordinary ones, this place exuded a chilling, ghostly aura—the kind that involuntarily conjures up images of scholars traveling by night, snake-women perched on walls, and foxes that drain the life force from men.

Gao Gusheng couldn’t move, though he wasn’t particularly nervous. He gazed at the sky, watching as dark clouds gathered and eerie winds whipped up, feeling a twinge of worry for his fathers’ safety. Feiyu stood beside him like a sentry, seemingly waiting for someone.

Seeing no immediate danger, the little squirrel quietly crept out of Gao Gusheng’s pocket and began gnawing at the ropes binding him. Having gained spiritual awareness, the squirrel’s teeth were far sharper than those of an ordinary squirrel; yet, the moment it bit down, it let out a whimpering squeak and went rigid, tumbling down as if it had been electrocuted.

Gao Gusheng’s heart tightened, but a tendril of black mist reached out to catch the squirrel and gently returned it to his pocket; it took quite a while for the creature to recover.

The black mist enveloped the ropes binding Gao Gusheng, making a faint hissing sound, yet it had absolutely no effect.

No wonder they hadn’t cared about the little tricks Xiao Hei and Xiao Hong tried to pull—the rope itself was extraordinary.

Gao Gusheng wanted the two little creatures to seize the moment and flee while no one was looking, but the squirrel and the black mist—usually so quick-witted—clung tightly to his side, acting as if they hadn’t a clue what was going on.

As if finally bored with watching Gao Gusheng struggle, the culprit behind it all stepped out into the open.

He wore a blue-grey Taoist robe and had short hair; tall and handsome, he carried an air of peculiar, chilling coldness.

The moment Gao Gusheng laid eyes on him, he recognized him instantly.

Well, well—wasn’t this the very guy he’d had sent to the police station back in the day? Moreover, the moment Gao Gusheng saw the man’s physique, he immediately linked him to the person he had encountered at school—the one with bandages wrapped around his face.

Damn it, I should have just sent this guy straight to the research institute.

The man looked at him, a mocking smile appearing on his cracked face. “When the snipe and the clam grapple, the fisherman reaps the benefit.”

“I had intended to evade the gaze of the Heavenly Dao and approach you gradually; I never expected that, in the end, you would still fall into my hands.”

He slapped the cloth bag at his waist; a yellow talisman paper flew out, followed by a hundred bottles of spiritual medicine, and finally a table—all of which landed neatly on the table.

Then, the man bowed respectfully toward the dilapidated stone statue in the temple. “Disciple Zhang Wenxuan…”

Yet, he did not complete the bow.

He suddenly smiled. “I forgot. Since I can glimpse the secrets of heaven and attain the Great Dao, I can establish my own sect and forge a myriad of paths.”

Zhang Wenxuan rolled up his sleeves and began to grind the ink.

Gao Gusheng looked at his sleeves and thought to himself: *You were wearing an ordinary hoodie back at school. Does this mean you specifically changed into this outfit just to mess with me?*

He had already braced himself to meet his end immediately, but he hadn’t expected this guy’s “skill wind-up” to be so long. Between mixing medicines and preparing ink, Gao Gusheng was practically falling asleep, yet the brush still hadn’t touched the yellow talisman.

Zhang Wenxuan suddenly remarked, “You certainly have a carefree attitude.”

Gao Gusheng then realized he could speak; he tentatively made a sound: “Hi?”

Once Gao Gusheng confirmed he could speak, he fell silent again. Zhang Wenxuan found the situation rather odd; holding a bamboo tube of water, he walked slowly over. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Gao Gusheng replied languidly, “You aren’t going to let me go anyway, and you can’t kill me right this moment either.”

“Letting you go is out of the question. I originally thought you merely possessed the ‘Body of Myriad Spirits,’ but it turns out you actually have the ‘Spirit-Drawing Body.'”

Zhang Wenxuan looked at the face before him—stunningly beautiful yet currently wearing a deadpan, fish-eyed expression—and felt it was a complete waste of such good looks; he failed to notice, however, that he was talking more than usual.

“Later, when the Heavenly Dao vied with me for control of this body, I caught a glimpse of the heavenly secrets. That’s when I realized you are a spirit-flower entity born only once every hundred thousand years. How could I possibly pass up such a spiritual treasure?”

Gao Gusheng was speechless. “Hey, buddy, do you know why none of the demons in *Journey to the West* ever managed to eat Tang Monk’s flesh?”

“Why?”

“Because they were too dawdling about the work—debating how to cook him, inviting their brothers and sisters over to join the feast…” Gao Gusheng said scornfully. “With all these jars and bottles you have, couldn’t you have prepared them beforehand? Did you really have to wait until you’d already captured me to start getting ready?”

Zhang Wenxuan was left speechless by this retort. Scowling, he said, “You think I *wanted* it this way? The Heavenly Dao just went haywire. I’d barely finished preparing everything when it snatched you away; I had originally intended to bide my time and plot slowly while staying close to you.”

Gao Gusheng let out an “Oh,” then suggested, “So, how about you let me go? Look, all you really want is power and spiritual energy—my dads can give you both.”

“You know Gao Shi and Ying Bujie, right? Those are my dads!”

Gao Gusheng boasted about his fathers with smug pride; if he had a tail, it would likely be wagging high up in the air. “Even if you wanted a star from the sky, my dad could pluck one down for you.”

“If you let me go now, you’d be a benefactor to my family—is there anything you couldn’t have?”

Finally seeing his prey attempt to negotiate, Zhang Wenxuan felt—for some reason—no sense of satisfaction. The smug look on the kid’s face was infuriating; it made one want to snatch the candy right out of his hands and watch until his eyes turned red from crying.

Zhang Wenxuan’s gaze darkened.

He had always been indifferent to desire, viewing the act of mating with a Spirit Flower as a purely functional matter; now, however, he found the situation rather amusing.

A wicked smirk played on his lips as he grazed the bamboo tube against Gao Gusheng’s cheek; the youth’s skin was so tender that a red mark appeared instantly.

“There is only one Spirit Flower in all of heaven and earth; what I want is something your dads likely cannot give me.”

He waited for the youth to offer more terms for negotiation—or perhaps even beg for mercy—but Gao Gusheng simply let out an “Oh” and fell silent.

A vein throbbed at Zhang Wenxuan’s temple. “Is there nothing else you want to say?”

Gao Gusheng thought for a moment. “Moron.”

Zhang Wenxuan: …

Amused by the sheer audacity, Zhang Wenxuan laughed—then promptly sealed his mouth shut again.

Such a beautiful creature—what a pity he had a mouth.

After drinking some water, Zhang Wenxuan began grinding ink.

Outside, a cataclysm of heavenly thunder and earthly fire raged; the deafening roar was incessant. Gao Gusheng trembled with fear, his face no longer wearing the languid, provocative expression he had used to irk Zhang Wenxuan.

A torrential downpour lashed the sky, accompanied by ceaseless thunder. Thick bolts of purple lightning struck the ground, reducing vast patches of withered grass to charred, ashen earth.

Yet, whether due to some mystery of the dilapidated temple or a measure taken by Zhang Wenxuan, the apocalyptic scene outside left the temple untouched; not a single drop of rain touched Gao Gusheng.

Zhang Wenxuan dawdled for a long while before finally setting brush to paper. Although he drew talismans quickly, this particular one seemed exceptionally complex, consuming a great deal of time. It made Gao Gusheng silently wonder if such a thick brush would simply turn the entire talisman into a big, smudged mess.

As Zhang Wenxuan worked, the air grew cold. The little squirrel shivered and burrowed into Gao Gusheng’s arms, while the black mist became much more active, wrapping itself around Gao Gusheng to shield him from the chill.

Such heavy ghostly energy.

Under normal circumstances, humans cannot see ghosts. Gao Gusheng had not fully awakened; at best, he was currently an ordinary person brimming with spiritual energy, so naturally, he shouldn’t be able to see ghosts either.

However, when the yin energy becomes sufficiently dense, even ordinary people can encounter them.

Thus, Gao Gusheng watched as faint, dark shadows began to emerge from the previously empty, desolate ground.

As Zhang Wenxuan continued his work, the number of dark shadows multiplied.

Yet, the place where the yin energy was heaviest was right beside Zhang Wenxuan.

At his chest hung a piece of blood-red jade that had turned almost entirely black; within every streak of crimson lay a vengeful spirit. Before long, Gao Gusheng could clearly make out the surrounding ghostly figures; they were a teeming mass, jostling against one another, and their numbers were steadily increasing.

The gazes they fixed upon him were filled with malice and greed.

Even though Gao Gusheng had steeled himself for death, being the target of such stares made a chill run through his entire body.

What followed was a surge of anger.

Having studied under Ying Bujie for so long, he knew full well that spirits ought to enter the cycle of reincarnation after death. Forcing spirits to remain in the realm of the living not only damages the spirits themselves but inevitably harms the living; if allowed to persist, it disrupts the natural balance between the yin and yang worlds.

His thoughts instantly flew to the two beggars who had died on the streets of City B.

At the time, Gao Shi had remarked that there was something amiss about their deaths—specifically, the area around them was far too clean.

For nearly a month, a steady stream of spirits had been drawn to City B—as if by some vortex—causing a lingering yin aura in the city’s dark corners. Usually, this aura was faint and would dissipate after a brief exposure to sunlight.

Yet, around the two beggars who died under the bridge and in the narrow alleyway, there wasn’t a trace of yin aura.

The only explanation would be if someone had immediately stepped in after a malevolent spirit drained the victims’ life force—clearing away both the spirit’s lingering aura and the ambient yin energy—and spiritual police had arrived within ten minutes. Only then would the area around the bodies remain free of such traces.

Moreover, it was highly likely that Zhang Wenxuan was the one attracting these spirits to City B.

The malevolent spirits had murky, vacant eyes, clearly indicating that most had lost their sanity. Generally, spirits turned malevolent either because they had suffered great injustice and died with grievances, or because they had devoured the souls of other spirits after death, resulting in a fractured consciousness. There were tens of thousands of ghosts here; the vast majority were likely malevolent spirits formed by devouring the souls of other ghosts.

Because the government had taken timely measures and strengthened patrol and protection protocols, Zhang Wenxuan dared not command the ghosts to devour human *yang* energy; instead, he began luring in the souls of other ghosts to hunt and consume them.

With tens of thousands of ghosts arriving in City B every day, the disappearance of one or two would go unnoticed.

Now that the Underworld had fractured and the Book of Life and Death was missing, he had found a loophole to exploit.

He had blocked the path to reincarnation for over ten thousand souls.

…

Zhang Wenxuan finally finished inscribing the talisman. By this time, the area surrounding the dilapidated temple was teeming with malevolent spirits—a chaotic crush reminiscent of a highway during the Spring Festival travel rush—as they tore out each other’s intestines and gouged out each other’s eyes in a frenzied melee.

Gao Gusheng tried to curl his lips into a smile, but couldn’t manage it.

Zhang Wenxuan walked slowly toward him, talisman in hand. Noticing the anger in Gao Gusheng’s eyes, he found this version of Gao Gusheng all the more vivid and alluring—

So full of life that it made one want to see what he would look like once that vitality was extinguished.

Zhang Wenxuan could hardly wait to turn him into a ghost.

He smiled as he looked at Gao Gusheng; the movement stretched the cracks on his face, creating an indescribably eerie effect.

“The Heavenly Dao has been trying to erode your consciousness, yet after all this time, it still hasn’t succeeded.”

“You’re right—time was indeed tight, so I had to resort to expedient measures.”

A sense of foreboding rose within Gao Gusheng.

Zhang Wenxuan moved in to affix the talisman, while the malevolent spirits behind him surged forward like a tidal wave. “I’ll have a myriad of ghosts couple with you, injecting their ghostly essence and flooding your mind with the memories of their deepest hatred and resentment from the moment of their deaths—shattering your sanity—before I finally put an end to you myself.”

So that was it; that was the purpose of the talisman.

As the talisman drew near, the little squirrel lunged forward, biting down hard on Zhang Wenxuan’s wrist.

It couldn’t bite through the binding rope, but it could sever the tendons in his hand!

The little squirrel was violently flung to the ground, hitting it with a heavy *thud*.

Seizing the opportunity, the black mist surged forward to envelop Zhang Wenxuan, while the little squirrel—displaying astonishing leaping ability—pounced onto the talisman, desperate to tear it apart!

Who would have thought the two little critters knew how to use a feint?

But the next moment, the black mist writhed and faded, thinning almost to a wisp of smoke; it was tossed into the Ghost Forest, where the ghosts swarmed to snatch it up, devouring it completely in the blink of an eye. Meanwhile, the little squirrel was seized in Zhang Wenxuan’s grip.

It struggled in vain; blood trickled from the corner of its mouth, and its fluffy tail hung limp.

Zhang Wenxuan looked into Gao Gusheng’s misty eyes and smiled.

“I underestimated you.”

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