The night was cool as water, the surroundings silent, the lake surface without a single ripple.
Shi Che hid in the shadows by the lake, having already pinpointed the location where the bounty had appeared years ago. He didn’t forget to remind Shi Li: [Let me know when you start thinking about the phantom demon.]
Shi Li: [Too late. I’ve been thinking about it since I climbed the tree.]
Shi Che: […]
Shi Li: [If you hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have thought of it. If I don’t watch the moon with him tonight, will he really get angry? Did you manage to calm him down back then?]
Shi Che ignored him.
Suddenly, the calm water surface began to ripple, faintly revealing a golden spiritual light. His spirits lifted, and without waiting for the bounty to fully materialize, he leaped forward, pressing his hand against it the moment the characters for “Accept” appeared.
The bounty was secured, transforming into a wisp of golden light in his palm. A temporary portal appeared on the water’s surface, and without a moment’s hesitation, he jumped through it, disappearing from the lake before the originally intended bounty hunter could arrive.
The bounty flashed by in an instant. Shi Li, still in the tree, was stunned, his first reaction being that he must have misread it. The highest-tier bounty ever recorded in the Star Realm was thirty thousand merit points, belonging to him personally.
But the one just now…
Shi Li: [Eighty thousand?]
Shi Li: [Eighty thousand?]
Shi Li: [If it’s a surprise for me, I should be the one going. Where are you?]
Shi Li: [Take me with you, just in case you can’t handle it.]
Shi Li: [Are you dead? Killed in one hit?]
Shi Li: [Tell me the location now, and I can still save you.]
Messages flooded the spiritual talisman like a barrage, but Shi Che had no energy to open them. He stepped out of the portal and found himself automatically at the entrance of a household.
The sky was pitch black, the wind cold and gloomy. The street was empty, and before him, a dilapidated wooden door hung half-open, emitting waves of bloody stench from within.
Just by looking at the countless black, corroded holes covering the wooden door, it was clear this wasn’t a structure from the main city. Even the villages closer to the main city wouldn’t use such wood for doors. This had to be a poorer village, further down the hierarchy.
Those with means used high-quality Lingxiao wood, while those with fewer resources at least used red nanmu. Aesthetics were secondary; what mattered was warding off ghosts. Ordinary minor demons and ghosts couldn’t penetrate such doors.
But the wooden door before him each black hole indicated a ghost had burrowed through. The dense, countless holes made Shi Che’s heart sink. No number of minor ghosts could amount to eighty thousand merit points. Could it be that a major ghost, accompanied by countless minor ones, had swarmed into this household in a frenzy?
Prepared for a swarm of minor ghosts, he used his sword sheath to push against the half-open door and forced it open. A dark shadow suddenly swung toward him. He stepped back to avoid it and only then saw that a corpse was hanging from the doorframe. It must have been wedged against the half-open door earlier, but now, pushed by him, it had fallen.
It was a man. What had nearly struck him was the lower half of the corpse, dangling down.
The man’s arms and legs hung limply, his toes not touching the ground. A coarse, thick rope was wrapped around his neck, his mouth agape, eyes wide open, as if he had struggled violently while alive before being hanged to death on the doorframe.
Shi Che observed the hanging corpse for a moment, then used his sword sheath to push it aside and entered the household from one side.
Inside was a small courtyard. There were two low buildings facing outward one small, one large likely the kitchen and bedroom, respectively. To the right was a well.
The moment Shi Che stepped into the courtyard, he was enveloped by a familiar, loathsome aura. His gaze turned cold as his hand tightened around the broken sword at his waist.
This place was indeed teeming with minor spirits.
Low-level demons and ghosts the most common kind he had encountered since childhood were ugly, despicable, and repulsive, clinging stubbornly to their victims. Their drawn-out, piercing cries could penetrate his mind, etching themselves into his very soul.
One after another, gusts of chilling wind rushed toward him. Suppressing the urge to retch, he let the broken sword unsheathe itself. Its sharp, gleaming blade scattered the half-formed spirits before him, clearing a relatively open path.
“Wah, wah.”
As he reached the bedroom door, he heard faint sobbing from inside like that of a child, and a living one at that. Demons and ghosts could not produce such sounds.
Having been inside for a while now, Shi Che had yet to encounter any major demons or ghosts. The minor spirits in the courtyard were not lethal; they merely enjoyed tormenting people. If there truly was a living child hiding inside, they were likely being frightened and toyed with.
With that thought, he kicked open the tightly shut door. Pohuang, as always, led the way, ready to slay the horde of minor demons and ghosts within.
The moment Shi Che kicked the door, the sobbing ceased abruptly, followed by a faint, panicked rustling from beneath the bed.
The room was dimly lit. Shi Che flicked a spark of spiritual light from his fingertip, igniting a lamp on the table.
Squinting slightly, he sheathed his broken sword and followed the trail of blood dragged across the center of the room toward the bed. “I don’t kill living people,” he said. “Come out on your own.”
Upon entering, he had sensed an unusual chill enveloping him, yet Pohuang remained suspended mid-air, unmoving, as if it detected no demons or ghosts that needed slaying.
The earlier crying had undoubtedly come from a living person a lone child. For such a child to remain safely hidden behind a closed door, untouched by the minor spirits swarming the courtyard, there was only one possibility.
Beside the child was a major ghost.
Pohuang remained inactive because it sensed no threat of harm from the ghost this major ghost was protecting the child.
Shi Che thought of the male corpse at the entrance. Typically, the chances of a deceased person retaining emotions after turning into a ghost were slim. But if it were their own child, and the ghost retained consciousness to guard them, such cases had indeed occurred in the Star Realm before.
There was still no movement from beneath the bed. Shi Che shifted his focus, addressing the major ghost instead. “How long have you been hiding? You can sustain yourself by feeding on minor spirits, but a child will starve to death in three days.”
Suddenly, a rustling sound came from beneath the bed. Shi Che stood motionless. In the next instant, Pohuang unsheathed itself, blocking a small, shadowy figure lunging toward him.
It was the demon ghost that had emerged first. Upon seeing its appearance, Shi Che froze. It wasn’t the man from the entrance it was a little girl.
She appeared to be only four or five years old, now pinned to the ground by Pohuang. Her body was semi-transparent, her face a sickly bluish-gray, with disheveled hair hanging loosely. She bared her teeth, glaring fiercely in Shi Che’s direction, emitting guttural cries. Where her eyes should have been, only two dark, hollow sockets remained.
Shi Che’s heart sank.
She was too young.
Children rarely turned into demon ghosts, as they seldom harbored the intense obsessions of love or hatred that adults did. Generally, children who died young were considered the safest they didn’t require “corpse guarding.”
But what if the child had been brutally tortured and killed while alive? No one had ever considered such a possibility, for the prosperous and peaceful Star Realm did not allow such assumptions to exist.
The ghost was still struggling and howling. For many demons and spirits, the oppressive aura of Pohuang was no different from that of a high-level ghost. She had already been suppressed until her entire body turned pale, yet she desperately tried to break free, attempting to stop Shi Che from approaching the bed.
Shi Che didn’t go any closer. Instead, he crouched down and sheathed Pohuang. The moment the oppressive aura vanished, the ghost opened her mouth and bit his arm fiercely with her pale, sharp teeth before darting back under the bed in an instant.
Shi Che lifted his sleeve and looked at the bloody hole on his arm, from which black energy was seeping out. He slowly stood up and spoke stiffly to the living child under the bed, “She just drank my blood. She’ll have a stomachache soon. If you don’t want her to suffer, come out. She’s been protecting you for so long.”
“…”
“How long have you been here? If there’s no food, you’d have to gnaw on her corpse. You’d get a stomachache too. If you don’t come out now, I’ll leave, and both of you will end up with stomachaches.”
“…”
There was still no response. Shi Che continued, “I could just lift the bed, but I’m afraid it might scare you. So, I’ll say this one last time, I’m here to save you. Come out now…”
Suddenly, there was movement under the bed. From the darkness, a head cautiously emerged another little girl. Shi Che met her gaze.
When the little girl saw his ghost mask, she trembled all over in fear and instinctively tried to shrink back. But she forced herself to look at him and whispered, “Little sister stomach hurts.”
The little girl looked very similar to the ghost from earlier, except her skin had more color, and her eyes were still intact in their sockets. Though her cheeks were sallow and thin, she still seemed somewhat spirited. Shi Che observed the corners of her mouth and was relieved to find no signs of her having gnawed on a corpse.
He remained where he was and asked, “Are you the older sister?”
The little girl nodded. Seeing that he wasn’t approaching, she inched out a little more.
Shi Che waited quietly until she struggled to drag herself and the corpse in her hands completely out from under the bed. Then, he rolled up a few small demons and ghosts he had captured outside and tossed them into the bed from the side to feed the larger ghost.
The little girl looked at him timidly. Shi Che stayed firmly in place, not moving forward. He observed the state of decay of the corpse and tried to soften his voice as he asked, “Have you and your sister been hiding here for two days?”
The little girl sat on the ground, staring at him for a while before slowly lowering her head and stammering something.
Shi Che focused to listen.
“Daddy on the door Mommy in the water.”
He glanced at the well in the courtyard and walked over. Sure enough, he saw a female corpse floating on the water.
Just like the male corpse outside, she had died a tragic death, her face frozen in terror as she looked up at the sky, as if she had been tortured to death.
A pair of parents with two four- or five-year-old daughters a family of four. Three of them had died tragically, leaving only one child in the world. The younger sister wanted to protect the older sister, and the parents wanted to care for their daughters. With hatred and obsession at their peak, it was almost impossible for them not to turn into ghosts.
Since the younger sister was by the little girl’s side, where were the ghosts of the parents? Shi Che would never believe they could peacefully move on to reincarnation.
Just then, he caught a glimpse of the little girl sitting at the doorway of the room, staring straight in his direction as she said, “Daddy, Mommy are back.”
A sudden chill surged from behind him. Two icy hands simultaneously landed on his shoulders. Shi Che stood motionless as Pohuang unsheathed, and the two hands withdrew as if shocked.
The male and female ghosts avoided him, turning to move toward the little girl. Under the moonlight, their spectral forms were translucent. The male ghost tilted his head stiffly, limbs rigid, while the female ghost crawled on the ground, her long hair dripping with water. Both looked terrifying, yet the little girl showed no fear, staring at them without blinking.
However, just as the female ghost’s hand was about to touch the little girl’s ankle, the younger sister ghost hidden in the room suddenly lunged out, baring her teeth and roaring at them. Startled, the two ghosts swiftly changed direction, huddling in a corner of the courtyard. They stared greedily at the little girl but dared not approach, fearing the fiercer ghost beside her.
Shi Che stood in the center of the courtyard, his gaze slowly sweeping over this family of four. The parents had turned into ghosts after death but lost their consciousness, seeking to harm their own surviving child. And the one protecting her was actually the youngest sister in the family.
To be able to shield her older sister under such circumstances could be called a stroke of luck amidst misfortune. The younger sister had become the strongest ghost in this courtyard or perhaps the entire village.
Shi Che glanced coldly at the growing number of demons and ghosts gathering at the gate, drawn by the two ghosts. He slowly positioned himself in front of the bedroom.
He finally understood why this bounty offered so much merit. This wasn’t the merit of a single household but of an entire village’s demons and ghosts gathered together.
Among these demons and ghosts were men and women, old and young. Aside from the younger sister ghost beside the little girl, none of the others were particularly worth killing. Under normal circumstances, bounties offering a few dozen or even a hundred merit points would likely go unclaimed.
The poorer villages beneath the main city had larger populations. Conservatively estimating, this village had a hundred households, each with three people. All three hundred of them had turned into ghosts, and the bounty had doubled the merit, resulting in eighty thousand points.
The person who should have taken on this bounty only needed to enter and slaughter all the demons and ghosts in this village to effortlessly gain eighty thousand merit points.
No wonder no related information had spread before. Aside from Shi Li, who had stumbled upon it once due to luck, no one else knew that such a high-level bounty had appeared in the Star Realm. Or perhaps no one could have imagined that merit could be obtained in this way.
Every one of these ghosts was twisted and incomplete. Each person had suffered an extremely cruel and torturous death in life murdered before their parents or children, made to fear, to hate, forced to develop obsessions, and ultimately, without exception, turned into demons and ghosts.
Shi Che looked at these demons and ghosts before him, wanting to approach but not daring to move. Suddenly, he felt unsteady, his head splitting with pain, his vision dizzying, and his ears ringing with waves of desperate wails. The sounds were sharp and hoarse, as if hundreds or thousands of souls were being tortured in flames. Yet the scars of that scorching heat were all branded onto him, burning through every inch of his bones and blood.
“Save us,” they said. “Your Majesty, you must become a god to save us. It’s too bitter. We’ve lived too bitterly. We beg you, please become a god soon, alright? Ascend to immortality. You’re so powerful, why haven’t you ascended yet?”
Why haven’t you ascended yet?
Why haven’t you ascended yet?
Didn’t you want to save us?
Weren’t you supposed to replace our god?
Ascend to immortality.
His spirit and mind in disarray, he clutched his head, nearly collapsing. The thunder scars on his back broke free once more, currents of electricity crawling across his entire body like punishment. Po Huang suddenly fell to the ground, its oppressive aura completely lost.
The group of demons and ghosts, seeing him growing weak, began to cautiously inch closer, step by step, waiting for the moment he lost consciousness to swarm in, tear apart the sister ghost, and devour the living little girl they had coveted for two days.
Just as the foremost demon was about to touch him, a flash of silver light pierced the dark night a long sword thrust straight into the ground before him.
Silver boots landed, and Shi Li stood before him, letting out a cold snort above his head. “Wouldn’t it have been better to do this earlier? If you can’t win, just ask for help properly. I was still at the dinner table just now, and if it weren’t for seeing you.”
Shi Che hugged him.