Chapter Seven: The White Bone Demon

  Just as Fai Chuan warned everyone to be careful, Mangwa and San Yang's faces showed a hint of eerie arc, as if they were smiling, but also seemed to be responding to the strange sound in the forest.

  Mangwa and San Yang walked towards the place where the enchanting sound was coming from, entranced. Xing Chengtian pressed the jade pendant on his neck tightly, which was given to him by Fu Chuan's master at that time. The jade pendant was made of Hetian jade and had been placed on the altar for purification, so it also had the effect of driving away evil spirits and avoiding disasters. Therefore, some evil objects could not enter Xing Chengtian's body, and he would not be bewildered like San Yang and Mangwa.

  Fu Chuan walked along the path, his hands and feet already numb from the cold mist in the forest. He thought that since they had come this far, he might as well stretch out his limbs and loosen up his muscles. So Fu Chuan gave Xing Chengtian a signal with his eyes, and the two of them decided not to wake the other two just yet. They were following behind San Yang and Man Wa, who were leading the way through a deep ravine. After they had climbed over a dense thicket that was as tall as a person, Fu Chuan and Xing Chengtian quietly hid behind it, their movements and voices light. They crouched down and saw San Yang and Man Wa arrive at a clearing in the forest, surrounded by a suffocating stench that made one's head spin. There were piles of white bones all around, covered in moss.

  The three sheep and the Mengwa's expressions on their faces seemed to be enjoying this place, Fu Chuan had already wiped his eyes with a preserved tangerine leaf before hiding in the woods, so what he saw was such a terrifying scene. On the contrary, Xing Chengtian seemed to have seen nothing, but instead said: "There is still such a small pavilion in this kind of place."

  Fu Chuan looked at him helplessly, then said: "Obstruction method, don't believe it, just wipe your eyes." After finishing speaking, Fu Chuan handed the pomelo leaf to Xing Chengtian. Xing Chengtian wiped his eyes as instructed and indeed saw a different scene - a small pavilion made of white bones, with three sheep embracing the pile of white bones, their expressions joyful as they kissed wildly. Xing Chengtian felt nauseous at the sight, "What kind of ghostly thing is this!"

  Fu Chuan said: "It should be a white bone becoming a spirit."

  "White Bone Demon!" Xing Chengtian's eyes widened in surprise as he stared at Fu Chuan, not expecting to encounter the White Bone Demon today. But why didn't the White Bone Demon look like the beautiful woman described in the book?

  Fuhe's eyebrows furrowed as he said, "These white bones should be the remains of people who died in that war decades ago. In the deep mountains and old forests, corpses are left unclaimed, with heavy resentment, and since this place rarely sees sunlight, it's a perfect condition for vengeful spirits to form."

  "What's to be done?" Xing Chengtian asked.

  "It's simple." Fu Chuan glanced at the watch on his hand and said, "The sun should not have set yet. This thing is most afraid of sunlight. As long as we let the sunlight in, it'll be fine."

  After finishing speaking, Fu Chuan stretched out his finger and pointed at the top of Xing Chengtian's head, where a large leafy tree blocked out the sky.

  Fu Chuan slowly walked out of the woods, holding a talisman written in gold powder. He hid his hand behind his back, but as he approached San Yang and Mang Wa, he was stared at by the white bones that had been standing up from the ground beside him. Fu Chuan's heart felt hairy, and the sweat on his palms also seeped out. He felt the gold powder slowly melting away in his palm.

  That white skeleton was slowly approaching Fuchuan, and Fuchuan didn't dare to take another step. He felt that the white skeletons around him were also moving, and they were all coming towards him.

  The chill that crept in wrapped itself around Fugui's entire body, and he could clearly feel the strong yin energy boring into his body from all sides. The White Bone Demon was born and bred in this damp and cold land, and for thousands of years, their cultivation method had been to use beauty or delicious food to lure in unsuspecting travelers who passed by, then absorb their vital energy to increase their own cultivation age. Looking at the white bones on the ground, some people still had water bottles hanging from them, with English and Chinese labels, probably left behind by those adventurers who came here before, only to meet their demise.

  Fu Chuan's feet stomped on the ground, and the moss turned over with him. Fu Chuan's movements also became more agile. He bent down and passed through the white bones that were rushing towards him, and slapped his palm on the waist of a white bone. In an instant, the white bone was reduced to ashes by the power of the golden powder, like sparks from a fire that flashed and disappeared in an instant. One, two, three...

  It didn't occur to him that these things were getting more and more, all towards Fu Chuan. Fu Chuan knew he needed help, so he jumped in front of San Yang and Mang Wa. Fu Chuan's two palms hit the foreheads of the two men, which was enough to wake them up. After San Yang woke up, he had completely forgotten what he had done. He asked Fu Chuan: "Master, what happened?"

  "Shut up! Help me quickly!" After that, Fu Chuan took San Yang's palm and put it against his own, the golden curse was imprinted on San Yang's hand. As they spoke, another white skeleton appeared behind San Yang and turned into smoke and flames. Fu Chuan pushed San Yang away and shouted at him: "Use your palm to hit them!"

  "Oh, oh."

  The White Bone Spirit may have the ability to confuse people, but in terms of magical power, it is still not enough. After all, it is just a low-level spirit. Pifu Chuan had encountered a powerful White Bone Spirit before, which was considered the ancestor of this group of White Bone Spirits. That White Bone Spirit had been cultivating for thousands of years and its ability to confuse people was so strong that even those with high magical powers could not distinguish reality from illusion. It could change into anything it wanted without any time limit, making it even more powerful than the shape-shifting people in X-War Police. It took Pifu Chuan a lot of effort to subdue that demon, and he spent an entire year tracking it down. Eventually, he managed to capture it and put it in the Hundred Spirits Bag, then placed it in the Qiankun Mirror for refinement. The Southern Gate Pifu family had a rule that for demons that had cultivated for over a hundred or thousand years, they would spare their lives and not destroy their spirits. After all, all living things have souls, and any species' cultivation is not easy. As long as the demon's evil energy was eliminated in the Qiankun Mirror, it would eventually be released back into the mountains by the Southern Gate people, as long as it did not harm humans again.

  "Xing Cheng Tian!"

  Fu Chuan saw more and more white bones coming towards him, along with San Yang. Several pairs of white bony hands had already broken through the earth. Fu Chuan knew he couldn't play anymore, so he shouted loudly upwards: "Aoooouuuu!" The sound shattered the silence in the forest.

  Xing Chengtian's waist was wrapped in thick vines, swaying back and forth in mid-air. The huge leaves were also torn apart by his movements, revealing a large hole. The intense sunlight shone through, and Fu Chuan felt the chill on his body slowly dissipate due to the warmth of the sun. The white skeleton in front of him was also annihilated by the sunlight, leaving only charred black earth on the ground.

  Xing Chengtian climbed down from the tree, and all he saw was that he picked up a blue water bottle from that pile of ashes. Fu Chuan sneered: "Every time I go out with you, I feel like I'm a grave robber."

  Fu Xiang didn't bother with those tomb raiders, but instead, Xing Cheng Tian would bring back one or two souvenirs every time he went out with Fu Xiang. Last time they went to Thailand to catch monsters, he even brought back a stone statue from the owner's vineyard, which led to the owner calling him multiple times asking for it back.

  Xing Chengtian disagreed and said: "What am I studying?"

  "Archaeological." San Yang immediately responded, Fu Chuan turned around and walked away, saying: "Digging up the ancestors' graves."

  Xing Chengtian knew that Fu Chuan looked down on grave robbers or these licensed tomb raiders, so Xing Chengtian didn't mind either. He took the water bottle because he collected some pre-war artifacts, and this water bottle was obviously used by soldiers during World War II, so he had a change of heart.

  Mangwa thanked Fu Chuan all the way for saving himself, so on the road to continue moving forward, he also spoke more. Mangwa asked Fu Chuan: "Fu brother, I don't know what you're doing in that village."

  Fu Chuan said, "My friend is an archaeology major, so we came with him to this archaeological site." Fu Chuan could only tell Mengwa that, he couldn't very well tell others they were there to catch ghosts.

  The young man let out a sigh and said with concern, "Fu Ge, that village is very evil. The village is called Shiyin Village. I don't know how long those Kusou people have been living there. They've never been from the Central Plains area since ancient times. It's said that their ancestors fled to this place in exile. That village wasn't originally theirs, but they didn't care about that. They had no place to go, so they took it by force and renamed it Shiyin Village. Our genealogy has some records of those Kusou people. They killed everyone in the original village, including children and old people, just so that no one would survive to take revenge later. It's said that there was a food shortage in the forest at the time. We could have survived on wild fruits and rainwater, but they weren't used to eating those things, so they flayed the flesh of the people they killed, dried it in the wind, and ate it.