C44 – Deadly Lover

In the bar, the audience was stunned by the reversal, and the votes poured in like running water to the Knightflame Union.

 

“I told you that Zhuo Yu wouldn’t accept defeat easily; how could he give in with that character of his!”

 

“Good, this time it’s a live broadcast from the whole film set. I’ll see who still comes to say that Zhuo Yu is a little fair boy. I don’t know if that group of people’s faces hurt!”

 

The fans of Zhuo Yu in the cinema got angry, and those who hadn’t been able to look at Zhuo Yu also changed their opinion of him and became members of the voting army.

 

However, after all, Zhuo Yu wasn’t money, so he couldn’t be everyone’s favorite.

 

“Che, I just can’t see what’s good about him, in terms of strength, he definitely can’t beat Zhuo Ran one-on-one, that’s why he can only use underhanded tricks.”

 

“That’s right, I still like Dong Yao’s kind that relies purely on force; it’s so cool!”

 

Dong Yao took a sip of tequila and placed the glass on the table; the congestion in his heart also loosened up.

 

He was worried about Zhuo Yu and almost couldn’t help but want to rush into the screen and punch that wolf’s face.

 

“Hiss, why is it so cold? I feel so stressed.” Vice President Feijian touched his arm and looked behind him suspiciously. He always felt that there was a terrifying low pressure coming from behind him.

 

The mur-derous intent was about to condense into substance; it was hard for people not to notice.

 

Dong Yao calmed his mind and lightly responded, “Don’t be nosy; there should be a big shot around here.”

 

In one of the booths at the back of their side, the pointed witch hat was shaking uneasily. The Western chief judge no longer had the fat white woman’s face but now had long, curly red hair, and her blue eyes were full of fear.

 

She should never have come to the pub with Number One to watch the film!

 

Underneath Number One’s calm exterior, she was afraid that he was about to go mad!

 

“…… Haha, Zhuo Yu, this kid, is quite smart; I really thought he was going to be won over. What a reversal!” The witch was talking to herself, as she wondered how to ease the atmosphere.

 

She uneasily glanced to her side.

 

Number One wore a silver-white mask and was dressed in the uniform of the Chief Judge. The beautifully tailored special fabric was straight and slim, wrapping his almost perfect figure in it, revealing only his slender neck.

 

His hands were similarly clad in silver gloves, and he was unpleasantly tapping his index finger on the tabletop, his eyes ancient beneath the mask.

 

The witch inwardly cried out to the gods; she prayed Number One wouldn’t show his true self in the bar; otherwise, the audience might be scared to death by him.

 

The witch wiped the cold sweat on her forehead and said in a hurry, “The Knight Flame Union has engaged in a big project, and it is estimated that it will be officially launched after the film is over. Do you want to go and take a look?”

 

Number One’s unnatural silver eyes finally looked at her.

 

The witch immediately continued, “He exchanged a lot of large-scale training paraphernalia; he should want to use the rules of the event to run a training ground, and when the time comes,…” She didn’t need to continue; Number One already understood.

 

“It’s about time for the culprit of this film to come out, don’t be in a hurry, it’ll be over soon.”

 

In the film, Zhuo Yu, who had used the space converter to return to Liu Jingyun’s side early, found that there were two more uninvited guests in his villa.

 

Fei Niao and Sheng Shu, two great disciples of Baoshan Temple, entered the house to take shelter from the rain and also spread out all the magic weapons in the cloth bag; the two of them breathed a sigh of relief when they realized that they hadn’t yet been damaged by the rain.

 

“I don’t see anything scary here.” Fei Niao looked around. There were only some luxurious and high-end home furnishings inside, and at most the police had pulled a cordon.

 

As soon as he spoke, however, the door closed with a bang.

 

Sheng Shu frowned and turned the handle but found that it didn’t move at all. The door that had been pried open before couldn’t be opened.

 

“Don’t be afraid; it’s that ghost’s trick.”

 

The two of them pinched their hands together and kept chanting, “Lin Bing Douzhe Jiezhe is in front! All the filth will be eliminated! All the filth will be eliminated!”

 

When they finished, the two men’s eyes snapped open, and then they put their hands over their faces, peering at the surroundings through the cracks in their fingers.

 

“You can see the truth through the gaps between your fingers” was a long-standing folk custom in Shintoism. They kept looking for dark corners in the room among their five fingers. The evil ghost must be hiding there!

 

“Fei Niao, have you seen the black mist?”

 

“No, it’s calm to the point of being abnormal.”

 

The two of them started looking in the villa, but they didn’t know that if they looked from the sky above City C, they would find that the entire city center and the riverside were shrouded in black fog. They were the ones who were confused.

 

A crackling sound of something falling caught the attention of the two men; they looked at each other and entered the guest room.

 

“What are these two doing, covering their faces and walking so wretchedly?” Luo Musheng and Zhuo Yu sat in the attic, and he couldn’t help complaining as he watched.

 

Liu Jingyun had already gone down, and now what they were seeing was Liu Jingyun’s shared vision.

 

“They want to find ghosts, then let them meet some.” Zhuo Yu’s tone was lighthearted; he obviously didn’t care about these two little mages.

 

The deeper Sheng Shu walked, the darker the light became. He pushed open the door of the guest room and found that the room was quite large, and the bathroom was also located in it. He was about to speak when he found that Fei Niao, who had been following him, had disappeared.

 

Sheng Shu’s scalp went a little numb as he held the rune-engraved transept in his hands and said aloud, “Taishangtaixing, respond to changes without stopping, exorcise evil spirits, bind demons, protect lives, and protect the body.”

 

He was from Baoshan Temple, so naturally he had some skills; the transept began glowing, and he drew the front end of a net from it and held it in his hand, feeling the guidance the transept was giving him.

 

“Wisdom is clear and pure, the mind is at peace, the three souls are eternal, and the spirit won’t be lost!”

 

Soon, the confusion in Sheng Shu’s mind was dispelled by the mantra, and he felt himself warming up once more, a positive energy flowing through his body; the evil and sinister aura had nowhere to hide under his gaze!

 

It was in the bathroom!

 

He violently pushed open the glass door and raised his eyes to see a man covered in pale white; the man had a pretty face, but his hostile aura made him look like a ghost crawling out of hell!

 

Sheng Shu violently threw the net at the man, and then shook the glowing hot transept; the dharma seal net kept tightening, and the splintering sound of the scalded ghost kept resonating.

 

“Hehe, no demon or ghost can escape my net. I believe you have some skills. Come with me to Baoshan Temple to receive a reward. The abbot will accept you as a servant, which is also your good fortune!”

 

Sheng Shu continued to collect the net proudly. The scene of him inheriting Baoshan Temple had already appeared in his mind. However, when he turned all the nets back to the prayer wheel, he couldn’t feel that there was anything sealed inside.

 

–The transept was empty.

 

Unbelievable! Sheng Shu covered his face once again and looked at the bathroom through his fingers.

 

It turned out that what he had just attacked was nothing more than a mirror.

 

Cold sweat suddenly slid down from his face.

 

That ghost was behind him.

 

Just as he froze, a twisted and broken, bloo-d-drenched hand stretched out from the mirror.

 

Sheng Shu’s neck ached as he realized that the back of his collar was being tugged by something; he grabbed the talisman and slapped it at his back, but there was only a zipping sound and smoke oozed out; the ghostly hand was still tugging at him with a deadly grip, and within a moment he was pulling him over to the washbasin. The basin almost broke his waist.

 

“Sins… obstacles…” Sheng Shu could no longer breathe; he used the last of his strength to move his neck until he tore the shirt.

 

The ghostly hand tugged at his shirt and disappeared into the mirror.

 

Sheng Shu kept gasping for air; his full confidence after the false capture had turned to fear.

 

This ghost wasn’t afraid of charms! Nor was it afraid of his net!

 

What kind of level was this ghost at? Even a female ghost that died from torture wasn’t as difficult as him!

 

He got up and wanted to run, but the glass door looked like it was welded shut. He picked up the prayer wheel and smashed the glass, but it didn’t move, so he could only turn back in despair and look at his own face reflected in the mirror.

 

However, that face gradually became unfamiliar; it was an entirely different look.

 

The head that had been smashed to pieces by the truck emerged, and tears of bloo-d flowed from the red eyes of the ghost, who stretched his severed hand out, as if he wanted to drill through the boundaries of the world, and he slowly crawled out of the mirror.

 

With a spider-like body, it was closing in on Sheng Shu.

 

A mournful scream rang out, but no one could hear it in the otherworldly space created by the fierce ghost.

 

Fei Niao, who was also in the guest room, also noticed Sheng Shu’s disappearance; from the time they entered the door of the room, the two of them had been in a different dimensional space, but Fei Niao had never encountered such a powerful ghost and only thought that Sheng Shu was locked outside the door.

 

“Hmph, just a little trick.”

 

Fei Niao held a replica of the Tenshou Cloud Sword and plastered the blade with talismans, only to break into the bathroom, where a woman hiding behind the bathtub attracted his attention.

 

“Oooh… help…” The woman’s mournful cries gave him goosebumps, but he looked through his fingers and saw that the woman was human.

 

“Who are you?!” Fei Niao snapped.

 

“Help me, help me.” The woman kept murmuring, but she just didn’t respond positively to Fei Niao’s words, and when Fei Niao gradually lost his patience, the woman suddenly laughed out coldly.

 

Zhong Xiaoxiao’s skin suddenly grew a mouth and spat out a large amount of bloo-d with a wow sound. It couldn’t be said to be bleeding, but it seemed to fill the entire bathroom. In less than two seconds, the scarlet liquid covered Fei Niao’s calves.

 

He swung futilely at the woman, unaware that his limbs were already bound by her long hair and that he couldn’t move.

 

The bloo-d quickly filled up, covering the entire bathroom. Fei Niao’s head was submerged in the bloo-d, and he choked several times, coughing heart-wrenchingly. But the more he coughed, the more bl-ood he choked on. In the end, he could no longer breathe, and the remaining air in his lungs was exhausted.

 

Luo Musheng, who witnessed all this, tsked.

 

Because, this mage had only slipped once in the beginning and then he submerged his own head into the water basin; he was drowning himself.

 

Liu Jingyun just stood on the side, using the power she borrowed from Jiang Xingyu to create horrifying illusions.

 

“Hurry up, he’s really going to die.” Zhuo Yu said.

 

Luo Musheng nodded, and Lin Anqi’s body instantly went limp, paralyzed on the floor in a state between life and death, while Luo Musheng instantly went to the guest room bathroom and attached himself to the dying Fei Niao.

 

“Alright, alright, it’s me.” Luo Musheng hurriedly called a halt; being drowned in water was really scary.

 

He borrowed someone else’s body and naturally felt the stinging and tearing sensation in his lungs, he fished his head out of the water and sat on the ground coughing for a while.

 

“I say Sister Jingyun, you’re too ruthless; the goal was just to scare him till he passed out.”

 

Luo Musheng patted his chest, finally getting his breath back.

 

He immediately received a sign from Zhuo Yu.

 

[Union channel]

 

[Zhuo Yu: I’ve always felt that there’s a third-party force in this film; after all, the Tianxiang union ……]

 

[Luo Musheng: Don’t say too much; I know.]

 

[Zhuo Yu: The real big fish has already started moving towards the bait, they must have mistakenly thought that I had been solved by Zhuo Ran, so they recklessly sent people to the villa, you know what to do right?]

 

Luo Musheng said to himself, “Of course, I’m not stupid.”

 

He touched the cloth bag and took out his mobile phone from it, but unfortunately the phone had no signal.

 

“Jingyun, go tell Jiang Xingyu to loosen up; the signal is affected.” Luo Musheng rummaged through Fei Niao’s mobile phone and found the clue; the album was all pictures of a temple, as well as pictures of the masters and brothers together.

 

Liu Jingyun disappeared for a split second, and when she came back, her already miserable face looked even worse, she helplessly gagged.

 

“That perverted ghost made it too bloo-dy; I advise you not to look.”

 

Her heart palpated. After entering the alien space, Sheng Shu was already hopeless; his body was in pieces, as if he had been torn by some horrible beast. His intestines were flung all over the place, but he was actually still alive, babbling unclearly, as if he had already gone mad.

 

She was afraid that Sheng Shu’s fate was to be buried in another world forever.

 

The signal resumed, symbolizing that Jiang Xingyu had finished devouring Sheng Shu’s soul; the two ghosts returned to the attic, and Luo Musheng showed his phone to Zhuo Yu, who flipped through the photo albums and suddenly felt something familiar.

 

This place, wasn’t it the Baoshan Temple?

 

He rubbed his forehead and carefully recalled the shattered memories. The character had suffered a great blow and couldn’t remember too much, so he could only extract useful information from the fragments.

 

“I recalled that because of Baoshan Temple, Jiang Xingyu…”

 

Zhuo Yu remembered the ancient book that recorded the method of reviving the soul: “By the way, I went to Baoshan Temple to pray for Jiang Xingyu, and coincidentally, the abbot was also there. He immediately saw why I was trapped and gave me this book…”

 

“Instigator,” murmured Luo Musheng, “that abbot is definitely not a good person.”

 

“Yes, that’s right,” Zhuo Yu woke up from his daze. “From his behavior, it seems that he was inciting me to ki-ll my friends and summon the ghost back on the first seven nights.”

 

Liu Jingyun also said, “Putting aside your character who went mad, isn’t the biggest scourge the abbot? So many people died because of him. What exactly does he want to do?”

 

“In my opinion, he has only one purpose, and that is Jiang Xingyu.” Zhuo Yu recalled the various manifestations of the film, “I’ve always wondered whose handiwork that truck was; if it was Zhuo Ran, why did he go after Jiang Xingyu? Obviously, k-illing me directly is more in line with his persona of wanting to take over the family’s property.”

 

“And he couldn’t have done all these moves alone, although he called my friend and told me to head for the road with the traps, but how did he figure out how many minutes and seconds it would take me to reach that point? If there was a truck parked on the side of the road and it saw Jiang Xingyu and me and ran over, it would be too obvious. The police would have taken him away.”

 

Luo Musheng quickly continued, “Indeed, this is a job that requires precise calculations; if I had used the prediction module, I could have done it, but he didn’t. The most likely thing is that someone high in metaphysics did the calculations for him.”

 

“So, that’s right, the abbot of Baoshan Temple and Zhuo Ran also have a connection.” Zhuo Yu was enlightened.

 

“But, then why did he still look for you and give you the means to invoke the soul?” Liu Jingyun was very puzzled.

 

“Because of interest.” Zhuo Yu held his chin. “Humans will always be creatures driven by interests; uninteresting things will not make him go to such great lengths. Judging from what happened to Jiang Xingyu, first he died, and then he was revived. It’s very likely that the abbot is after Jiang Xingyu’s soul.”

 

Luo Musheng nodded, “Very likely, I’m in favor.”

 

Zhuo Yu pondered for a while, then entered a string of numbers on his mobile phone. “This is Jiang Xingyu’s birthday; go check.”

 

“Ah, you’re really good at making the best use of things.” Luo Musheng grinned with a smile and opened Fei Niao’s WeChat. Their Baoshan Temple was also quite up to date with the times; there was a WeChat group. He went into the group and chose someone with the word senior brother to send a private message.

 

[Senior brother, do you have any idea about this birth date?]

 

Luo Musheng sent in his birthday.

 

[August 28, 1996, according to the lunar calendar, it’s the Bingzi year, belonging to the Jianxia water life, very yin, and the birthday is on the Yulanpen Festival, yin on yin. When was he born? It couldn’t have been Zishi, could it?]

 

[I don’t know.]

 

[If it’s Zishi, you have to seize the opportunity. There are very few people like him. He is born with a very Yin physique. It’s a pity not to train him into a ghost servant. I’m afraid he can become a ghost king. Do you know his name? 】

 

[Only know the surname Jiang.]

 

[Excellent! With water in his surname, he’s even more yin. How do you know him? Why don’t you introduce him to senior brother? I’ll make his death a little bit easier.]

 

Luo Musheng had a vicious chill; from the dialogue of these brothers, they really didn’t treat human life as life, only as resources.

 

As expected, it wasn’t Zhuo Yu who was targeted in the beginning, but Jiang Xingyu!

 

[Senior brother, that isn’t good.]

 

[Afraid that I’ll snatch it from you? Also, it’s such a superb product, even Master would be red in the eyes, hahaha.]

 

[Does Master also like to refine ghostly servants?]

 

[Of course, don’t blame me for speaking out of turn; people with this kind of destiny are born unfortunate; they have been uprooted since childhood; they have no relatives, and they don’t have a marriage destiny; they can’t start a family; it’s a kind of torture for him to live, so it’s a good deed to ki-ll him instead.]

 

Luo Musheng turned off his phone, no longer looking at this dialogue that caused his moral values to collapse.

 

“My guess was right; that abbot wants Jiang Xingyu.” Zhuo Yu furrowed his eyebrows; he wanted to snatch someone from him? It depended on whether he could keep his life.

 

Luo Musheng tsked twice; the intrigue of this film was gradually revealing itself.

 

He flipped out his “master’s” contact information and dialed it, and soon, the other side answered.

 

“How is it? Has it come to fruition?”

 

“Master …… ” Luo Musheng pinched his throat, sounding exhausted: “Disciple has disgraced Baoshan Temple. I only sealed the evil ghost in the prayer wheel…”

 

He still had stabbing pains in his chest that hadn’t eased, and at this time, he was even more comfortable pretending to cough.

 

“Ahem… the disciple is no longer able to bring that fierce ghost back to the mountain gate; the disciple tried his best.”

 

Afterwards, he stopped speaking, and after a long silence, the other hung up the phone.

 

Liu Jingyun gave Luo Musheng a thumbs up, “Oscar owes you a small gold medal!”

 

“I’m just following suit.” He looked at Zhuo Yu.

 

Zhuo Yu ignored Luo Musheng’s teasing as he said, “Well done; this will lure that abbot over. You are the last piece of bait on the fish hook.”

 

So far, their guesses were all right.

 

The path to the pass was close at hand; as long as the abbot of Baoshan Temple was resolved, this film would reach its end as long as he was made aware of the final conditions for the pass.

 

After playing the cat and mouse game with the fierce ghost for so many days, Zhuo Yu was also a bit tired.

 

He thought of Jiang Xingyu, and the perfectionism that had been suppressed for so long suddenly bubbled to the surface.

 

He had said to No. One that he wanted to get the BOSS while BOSS hated him, and now, Jiang Xingyu’s feelings for him were far from “love.”.

 

There was no love for a ghost.

 

He was now just a mad dog, being held by a thin silk leash; as long as Zhuo Yu made a mistake, this thin silk would be taut, and the mad dog would devour the master. Zhuo Yu had no doubt that even now BOSS still wanted to ki-ll him.

 

As a person who pursued perfection, Zhuo Yu couldn’t endure such a status quo.

 

He wanted to make it clear and change the relationship between the two of them.

 

Once the abbot was resolved, their relationship might change.

 

Seeking skin from a tiger was the most dangerous job.

 

Far away on the other side of the city’s outskirts, the abbot of Baoshan Temple looked at his mobile phone. Out of his mind, he was silent for five minutes, and then he put down his mobile phone and suddenly laughed maniacally.

 

“Hahahahaha, I finally waited for this day!”

 

He pushed open the pagoda room and saw that the Evergreen Lamps of two disciples had collapsed, and instead of investigating, he said happily, “Eaten two more people? Your power must be even stronger, right? If my days weren’t numbered, I would have sent dozens more to feed you.”

 

The abbot let out a long sigh. “I, Ichiro Toyama, will finally be able to escape my destiny.”

 

As if he had been agitated for too long, his face flushed, and he coughed all of a sudden, and that strong face quickly greyed out; he sat down on a chair and inhaled a few puffs of incense ash before he calmed down.

 

“When I’m cured, I want to go back home to see the cherry blossoms so badly.”

 

Ichiro Toyama sighed. Because of the indiscriminate k-illing of innocents and the forced production of ghostly servants, he was expelled from Japan as the scum of the Shinto religion and could only come incognito to this temple with its historical legacy, gradually seizing power.

 

By the time he had managed to become abbot and was able to rake in the money, he realised that his body was terminally ill because he had been immersed in oni-do for so long.

 

He had calculated for himself that if he didn’t do something about it, he might die within three years.

 

He didn’t want to die yet; his renewed life had just begun; he couldn’t die!

 

Ichiro Toyama was anxious day after day until Zhuo Ran contacted him about wanting to take his brother’s luck and how he could ki-ll him by means without being detected.

 

As a personal friend for many years and someone who has made a lot of money from Zhuo Ran, he naturally agreed to help, and when he saw the information Zhuo Ran handed over, the first thing he saw wasn’t Zhuo Yu’s birth date.

 

Instead, it was Zhuo Yu’s sidekick.

 

He found a way to renew his life.

 

The heavens had no limits; this kind of perfect product could actually be found by him. This must be mercy; the heavens saw that he hadn’t yet reached the end of his Yang life, so they showered him with mercy!

 

The abbot immediately changed his words and swindled Zhuo Ran by saying that after Jiang Xingyu’s death and after he was made into a ghost servant, he would be able to perform the more powerful Five Ghosts Luck Spell, which was much more reliable than ki-lling Zhuo Yu, and Zhuo Ran agreed instantly, and the two of them created a mur-der case.

 

However, of course, the abbot wasn’t trying to cast a spell for Zhuo Ran; he was trying to seize Jiang Xingyu’s supreme yin soul, casting a spell to reverse yin and yang, and forcefully renewing his yang life with the yin ghost. He had waited for this day for too long.

 

The abbot recited the Heart Sutra for a while to calm down his agitation; he was going to Zhuo Yu’s villa to collect his victory.

 

— Zhuo Yu’s big fish had finally been hooked.

 

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TN:

Oooooh, sometimes “righteous people” can be so blinded 😮‍💨