The moment she stepped into the main chamber, Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze went straight to the inner bedroom — from it came a rapid, wailing infant’s cry, high-pitched and grating, as though countless babies were howling in unison from within a single doorway. The grievance woven into that crying stirred in the listener a creeping irritation and indignation.
From inside came the anguished, low cries of two people: “Stop it — stop crying!”
But with those pleading voices, the entire room began to dim, as though the sky outside had darkened in sympathy. The chamber fell into a gloomy murk, and then a fierce yin wind surged up with a howl, sending all the talismans pasted to the walls flapping with sharp, rapid snapping sounds.
“Father — Mother—!”
That cry was drawn out and mournful, drenched in grievance and poisonous resentment.
Bai Maoxing’s eyes had gone bloodshot. His hands clawed frantically at the top of his own skull, raking at the fleshy growth there in a frenzy. His blackened fingernails gleamed with a cold light; with each violent scrape they tore away a patch of scalp mingled with hair and bloody flesh.
Dark red blood dripped down his brow, quickly smearing across his entire face, yet he seemed to feel nothing, and kept clawing without pause.
Not far from him, Madam Bai’s arm had been wrenched grotesquely backward as though someone were pulling it. The large bone of her arm had already been dislocated from its socket; the violent pulling had torn her clothing apart, exposing the skin beneath — a livid, violent red, as though the flesh had been forcibly shredded open until it was soaked through with blood.
And her abdomen — it had swollen larger still, splitting the fabric of her dress apart, exposing a distended, rounded belly covered in thick streaks of black-red that mapped across her skin in every direction. The surface looked as though it might rupture at any moment.
Lang Jiuchuan took in the state of both and her expression grew heavy and grim. Such savagery. Such depth of grievance. This exceeded any infant ghost she had encountered before — but why? Was it truly all down to having been forcibly expelled before term, stripped of its placenta, denied a natural birth? That alone seemed insufficient — surely there was more to this.
“Foul creature — how dare you harm others!” Yice had entered through the door at some unknown moment. His eyes went cold at the sight; his whole body radiated upright energy as he flung two yellow talismans toward Bai Maoxing and his wife, simultaneously forming a seal with his left hand as he chanted rapidly: “Pierce the hidden, fathom the unseen — call upon the divine, command the ghost — subdue the demon, suppress the evil — I act upon my ancestral master’s decree, as the law commands: descend!“
Two yellow talismans shot through the air, trailing a blue-green light charged with combat energy. They struck both figures squarely.
Both Bai Maoxing and Madam Bai gave a shrill, simultaneous cry — a cry that came out sounding exactly like an infant’s.
Lang Jiuchuan had not been fast enough to stop Yice. When a practitioner of the art interrupts a ghost-binding mid-seal, they suffer the rebound. Yice ought to count himself fortunate that he carried the upright energy of accumulated merit — otherwise, she would have left him to die.
“Blundering fool!” Lang Jiuchuan said coldly.
Yice: “?”
Was she talking about me?
I’m a master of ghost-catching… wait — why isn’t my Azure Darkness Talisman working?
Instead of recovering, the two struck by the talismans erupted in even greater violence. Blood-red killing energy wrapped thickly around them both, cocooning them like silkworm chrysalises, then transformed into thread-thin threads and began slicing into them.
Yice’s expression changed drastically. He raised his ritual sword and moved to advance.
Lang Jiuchuan extended one foot and kicked him aside. “Get out of my way!”
Yice stumbled. Outrageous — what is this woman doing? I’m older than her!
And how does she have this much physical strength?
But none of that was what he should be focusing on. What mattered was this: she moved with extraordinary speed, hurling her string of flowing beads toward Madam Bai. Her other hand sent a talisman brush flying toward Bai Maoxing. Both hands simultaneously formed seals, as her lips began to move through the Vajra Divine Mantra: “Ah a xia sa ma ha…”
The moment the incantation sounded, the ritual instruments she had sent toward the two blazed with sudden, brilliant golden light, enveloping both figures within it — the golden radiance forcefully purging the killing yin energy from their bodies, expelling the unclean and suppressing the evil.
Both Bai Maoxing and his wife went rigid. Their faces, previously twisted with savagery and pain, gradually softened beneath the washing of the golden light.
But the yin-fetus vengeful spirit inhabiting them suffered greatly. Suppressed under the golden radiance, the ferocious killing instincts could not surge forth. Lang Jiuchuan’s incantation was like the Buddha’s five-fingered mountain sealing it in place — it could not escape the encirclement, and was forcibly brought under the purifying current of the mantra, its violent energy being worn away.
Yice was completely stunned. She’s from the Daoist tradition — so why does she also know the Buddhist Vajra Divine Mantra?
More to the point: she could actually perform it.
But undeniably, her method here was far gentler than his own blunt approach to driving out the ghost. It did not provoke the yin-fetus spirit’s savagery, which also reduced the danger to the two innocent people inside. He had to acknowledge that.
This mantra delivered salvation to all living beings — its merit was boundless and immeasurable. It could dissolve the karmic obstructions of three lifetimes, and it also had the power to guide the deceased toward rebirth. Even a being such as the yin-fetus vengeful spirit, already fallen into an evil path, could under the blessing of the mantra emerge from it and be reborn into a pure realm.
Yice watched as Lang Jiuchuan’s ritual seals shifted and changed. With each syllable she murmured of the incantation, her complexion grew paler. To use the merit of a mantra to deliver salvation to all beings was no small feat — especially not when her powers had not fully recovered.
The yin-fetus vengeful spirit continued to struggle, yet the blood-killing energy wrapped around the two had already begun to scatter. Yice clearly saw what was at the crown of Bai Maoxing’s head. His pupils contracted sharply. He tightened his grip on his ritual sword — yet did not dare make a single move.
He was afraid of breaking Lang Jiuchuan’s concentration.
Lang Jiuchuan had also seen the top of Bai Maoxing’s head. That enormous fleshy growth had taken on the shape of an infant’s face — only a head, with no body. She looked immediately to Madam Bai’s abdomen: beneath the skin, curled there, was a headless infant’s body.
As they watched, the infant head at the crown of Bai Maoxing’s skull began pushing through the scalp. Both witnesses found themselves looking into the vengeful spirit’s eyes — grey-white all the way through, without a single pupil. It even grinned at them, its mouth stretching nearly to its ears, supremely insolent and brazen.
A provocation.
“Shameless thing!” Lang Jiuchuan’s hand seals shifted abruptly. She abandoned the Vajra Mantra and turned instead to the Daoist nine-syllable incantation: “Lin — bing — dou — zhe — jie — zhen — lie — zai — qian. Strike down the evil!”
Even more piercing golden light condensed into a blade of pure radiance and drove downward toward the crown of Bai Maoxing’s head. The vengeful spirit finally let out a shriek of terror, attempting to retreat into the skull cavity — but Lang Jiuchuan gave it no such opportunity.
With a single thought, the jade-bone talisman brush shot like an arrow toward Madam Bai’s abdomen, transforming into golden light and driving straight for the heart of the headless infant body curled within.
“Aowu!” The vengeful spirit let out a piercing howl — and at last, unable to endure any further, it burst from the top of Bai Maoxing’s skull.
Splat.
Bai Maoxing cried out and collapsed. From the crown of his head erupted a spray of black-red blood, and the vengeful spirit’s infant head burst free with it.
Lang Jiuchuan immediately flung out a Five Thunder Talisman: “By the authority of the earth god, thunder and fire — lightning and thunder, cast across all directions. When divine might is unleashed, let all evil spirits be obliterated. Rise, thunder!“
Boom!
The Five Thunder Talisman struck the infant head squarely, releasing a thunderous explosion that reduced the vengeful spirit to nothing but dissipating smoke.
Madam Bai expelled a mouthful of black foul blood and collapsed to the floor in a faint. Her enormous, swollen belly — moments ago as large as a basket — shrank rapidly like a deflating sheepskin, its air rushing out all at once.
The yin wind stopped dead. The room was flooded with light.
Lang Jiuchuan let out a quiet sound and sank to both knees, a thin trickle of blood escaping the corner of her lips, her face drained of all color. She had drawn upon both Buddhist and Daoist methods simultaneously — this had cost her dearly.
Yice stared at her, speechless.
Almighty Ancestors above — whose prodigy is this girl?