UCS Chapter 96

Gao Shi looked at Huang Shan, and Huang Shan looked at Gao Shi.

After a long while, Gao Shi sighed and rubbed his forehead, “Brother Huang, I think there might be some misunderstanding here.”

Huang Shan smiled bitterly, “Childish temperament.”

He looked around and picked up the little wood carving from a corner. Yiyi asked anxiously, “Daddy, did Yiyi do something wrong?”

Huang Shan patted her head, “You did nothing wrong. That daddy and that uncle had a misunderstanding.”

“Mm!” Yiyi nuzzled her fluffy little head into her daddy’s neck. “Then Daddy and Uncle should make up quickly.”

From this angle, Yiyi seemed to have a strangely familiar feeling. A flash of inspiration crossed Gao Shi’s mind—he seemed to have touched on something, but just then his phone suddenly rang.

“Daoist, what is it?”

“That person has a ghost attached to him.”

***

When Gao Shi hurriedly arrived at the Spirit Management Office, Ying Bujie was sitting on the sofa drinking tea.

Drinking tea wasn’t unusual, but Ying Bujie had been placed in the seat of honor, with Yin Ling’s team sitting around the table in a circle, occasionally placing snacks and fruits in front of Ying Bujie. Some genius had even arranged a fruit plate in front of Ying Bujie—all that was missing were three incense sticks.

As soon as Gao Shi arrived, Yin Ling’s eyes lit up. He pressed Gao Shi into the seat beside Ying Bujie, and before he could react, fruit plates and tea were already set before him. Yin Ling handed him a cigarette, “Brother Gao, please.”

Great, now they had the three incense sticks too.

Gao Shi’s face darkened, “What are you all doing?”

Yin Ling grinned sheepishly, “Thanks to you two, you helped us prove the possibility of ghostly possession.”

The human body naturally has barriers—yang energy can mask the yin and ghostly energy on spirits. Though spiritual energy was recovering, it still wasn’t sufficient, causing spirit police’s yin-yang eyes to only see ghosts wandering in the air but unable to see through human body barriers. Previously, whether it was the teacher stealing cow manure or the thief tearing up homework, all were suspected of ghostly possession, but it couldn’t be proven.

Even Daoist Kongmiao had to pay a great price to read Gao Shi’s fate.

However, this time Ying Bujie caught the possessing ghost red-handed. The criminal police brigade secretly contacted the Spirit Management Office. Yin Ling happened to be patrolling nearby and saw Ying Bujie pull the ghost out of the perpetrator with his bare hands—now they couldn’t call him a perpetrator anymore, he should be called a victim.

The victim was a slaughterhouse butcher who had been missing for a week. Fortunately, his yang energy was strong, and the killing aura from slaughtering pigs diluted the ghostly and yin energy. Otherwise, an ordinary person possessed by a ghost for a week would have been in trouble long ago.

Even so, the victim had fallen into a coma. After Yin Ling and the others examined him, it would probably take at least a year of recovery for his yang energy to slowly return.

Gao Shi asked, “Any leads? Why did this ghost possess him?”

The victim was full of killing aura—not a good choice for possession.

At this point, Xuanyu’s expression darkened, “The ghost was being controlled, using Maoshan ghost-raising techniques.”

Maoshan was indeed recorded in ancient texts. Before spiritual energy recovery, Xuanyu’s sect had speculated that if “ghosts” weren’t composite beings of resentment and obsession but were human souls as recorded in ancient times, then Maoshan techniques would be feasible.

Now that spiritual energy had recovered and ghosts could linger in the world, Maoshan techniques were completely practicable.

But Maoshan inheritance had been broken for over a thousand years. Everyone thought there were no descendants left—how did someone who could skillfully use ghost-raising techniques suddenly appear?

Yin Ling bit into an apple, his cheek bulging, “We compared it with spiritual energies recorded in the spiritual energy database—there are no similar ones. This means this person either lives deep in the mountains like Daoist Ying, or is deliberately hiding himself.”

The treatment for national spirit police is excellent, and they’re also very friendly to mystical practitioners willing to assist on missions. As long as they aren’t ill-intentioned, most are willing to join the spirit police. Even if they don’t join the Spirit Management Office, they’re willing to register their spiritual energy.

Those mystical practitioners who have deliberately hidden themselves over the years mostly have ulterior motives.

There was a heretical practitioner trying to restore ancient blood sacrifice techniques—due to his small courage and good community legal education, he didn’t dare use human blood for sacrifice. Thinking that since it was all blood sacrifice, any blood should work similarly, he bought lots of chickens, ducks, fish, pigs, cattle, and sheep. However, because the animal corpses were left out too long and started to stink, he was caught after neighbors complained.

After being taken by the Spirit Management Office, the heretical practitioner reflected deeply, abandoned blood sacrifice, and instead opened a livestock farm raising sheep.

He was determined to kill ten thousand sheep with one knife for blood sacrifice. He still needed 5,800 more.

There was a chuunibyou youth who felt he had extraordinary destiny and was determined to save the world—the youth found cultivation methods passed down by his family and successfully mastered them. Fearing the government would discover and take him away for dissection, he lived in constant fear, carefully setting up fortune-telling stalls while hiding everywhere, until finally being caught by city management for operating without a license.

Considering the youth had never harmed anyone and did have some ability, the state specially recruited him as a temporary criminal police officer. If he passed the probation period, he would be officially hired.

Only then did the youth learn that the money he’d earned while hiding everywhere wasn’t even as much as a temporary worker’s salary.

There were also those like Liao Zitu who used dark arts to harm people. Those who surfaced were directly dealt with by the Spirit Management Office, including quite a few whose cultivation wasn’t advanced enough—they couldn’t kill people with dark arts, so they picked up knives to do it personally, just as an armored car happened to pass by.

This heretical cultivator used practice to prove that in non-prosperous development stages, the cultivation system couldn’t beat the technology tree.

The armored car came full and left full.

Currently, looking at this ghost-raiser’s actions, they clearly belonged to the third type.

Gao Shi immediately thought of the person who had previously controlled Gao Gusheng with ghosts.

Could it be… Master Zhang?

Gao Shi pressed his temples, voiced his speculation, and emphasized it was just a guess.

Gao Shi didn’t understand much about Master Zhang from the dream. He only knew that initially, Gao Gusheng’s encounter with Master Zhang was as dreamlike as a romance novel—a poor but self-reliant disabled youth finding an injured, unconscious man at his doorstep on a rainy night.

Gao Shi didn’t know the process, only the outcome, which was vastly different from novels.

Facing this enemy in the shadows, Gao Shi had a headache.

Currently, Gao Gusheng had many layers of seals placed by Ying Bujie and carried several protective talismans, so there was no worry about ghostly possession.

With three bodyguards by his side plus his own skills, he didn’t need to worry when encountering people possessed by ghosts like the butcher.

What Gao Shi worried about was Master Zhang directly using mystical methods against him.

Gao Gusheng’s spirit-attracting constitution was sealed, preventing him from using any spiritual energy. If the seal were lifted, within the next second, ghosts within ten thousand li would sense it and rush toward Gao Gusheng.

Gao Gusheng couldn’t cultivate at all, and after being sealed, couldn’t activate talismans with spiritual energy, so all his protective talismans were defensive types.

What should he do when facing direct mystical attacks on his person?

Yin Ling seemed to see Gao Shi’s troubles and asked, “Brother Gao, does your Lele have any talismans or something to deal with ghosts? The technical department has developed new things—want to take a look?”

Hearing this, Gao Shi’s eyes lit up, “Good.”

…

“So this is what you developed?”

Gao Shi looked at the Gatling gun before him with a dark expression.

The technical department gave Gao Shi’s arrival extremely high protocol, with the director personally explaining while followed by a group of tech geeks. Gao Shi felt their gazes were overly eager, like they couldn’t wait to show off something.

“This is our masterpiece!” the director said enthusiastically. “What boy doesn’t dream of playing with guns? I believe no guy would refuse the appearance of our weapons!”

“I understand the logic, but why carve Buddha images on it?”

The director looked excited, “This is because we adopted Buddhist thinking for ferrying ghosts to the afterlife. The gun barrel has Buddha images carved on it, the muzzle has sutra inscriptions, and all bullets are specially made—we promise each one has been blessed by Buddhist masters!”

“…How did Buddhism not kick you out?”

“Plus we modified the muzzle—originally Gatling could only fire 600 bullets per minute, now it can fire 1,000! Even those who can’t use guns can easily master it—360-degree protection with no blind spots, ferrying all malevolent ghosts to the afterlife!”

You’re really wasted in the technical department—the national armaments department needs talents like you.

“Most importantly, these bullets only work on ghosts and are harmless to humans, so you can spray freely without worrying about innocent casualties! Captain Gao, imagine when ghost domains open—you’re carrying a Gatling, and wherever you go, Buddha’s light shines universally with infinite merit!”

Good heavens, Namo Gatling Bodhisattva, right?

Gao Shi rubbed his forehead, “Good idea, but how do I carry such a big Gatling around?”

The director smiled mysteriously, “Don’t worry, we also have daily compact models.”

The director dramatically pulled away the velvet cloth behind him, revealing a wall full of weapons. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you’d entered an armory.

He spread his arms with a “this is the empire I conquered” proud expression, while surrounding staff members showed similar expressions in perfect synchronization, like they were carved from the same mold.

Displayed on the wall, from large rocket launchers to compact pistols—everything imaginable was there.

All weapons were carved with Buddha images, with Buddha faces looking directly at everyone—truly radiant with Buddha’s light.

Gao Shi felt he probably wouldn’t accept temple missions anytime soon.

“…Good. Do you have anything less flashy, something more low-key?”

The director nodded repeatedly, “Of course! Considering customers’ preferences for appearance and special needs, we also launched a couple’s edition!”

This thing can have a couple’s edition??

Just as he was speaking, the director brought out another Gatling gun.

The Buddha carved on it was replaced with the Buddha himself.

Gao Shi: …

***