Chapter 37: Borrowing the Way of the Dark Troops

  "Junior brother, don't be sad anymore." Mao Shi Jiu felt very guilty bringing up Zhong Kui's painful past.

  Zhong Wei wiped away a heart-wrenching tear and tried her best to calm down.

  "Oh, right, I don't know what brings you here this time, Brother?" Zhong Ke asked, seeing the awkward atmosphere.

  "I came to your store just for a batch of zongzi, now I want to buy some prepared things in your shop."

  "Brother, you said it's all free for you." Zhong Kui said generously.

  "That's great." I said it first.

  "Great, let's shake hands." Mao Shi Jiu turned around and blocked their line of sight, saying seriously, "It's not good to give too little, right?" He then pulled out a red ticket. Damn, five cents? Mao Shi Jiu is really my kindred spirit!

  At this time, Zhong Kui burst out laughing, "I didn't expect my stingy senior brother to still be the same! I thought you had suddenly become generous. And Zhong Kui's daughter, Zhong Ling'er, was on the side with a pouting mouth and slanted eyes looking at Mao Shi Jiu.

  "Each other. I need inkstone, glutinous rice, dog blood, chicken blood, a large candle of one zhang, incense, hundred yellow talismans, a soul-fixing bead, and a catty of realgar wine, just these things." Looks like Mao Shi Jiu is really not polite.

  Seeing Zhong Kui's extremely rich face, I felt that he was very regretful, but the words that had been spoken could not be taken back.

  "Alright, alright. Ling'er go and prepare something for your aunt," Zhong Kui said.

  "Oh, but this Shibo is also too stingy." Zhong Ling'er added a sentence before leaving.

  "Girl, don't be rude." Zhong Ke said with some reprimand.

  "Oh." Zhong Ling'er stuck out her tongue and turned around with a playful face before walking away.

  Before long, Zhong Ling'er brought over all the things and said, "There are only fifty yellow talismans written by Huangfu, and there are fifty unwritten ones."

  "That's enough, that's enough, fifty is enough." Mao Shi Jiu suddenly covered his mouth, thinking he had misspoken. Clearly fifty was sufficient, yet he asked for a hundred, this was taking advantage of others.

  "No, no, fifty of them are for that zombie town, aren't you afraid there will be too many zombies on that side?" Ma Shiyan scratched his head.

  "Master, what kind of person are you? How could I not know? Haha... This is your style. Don't delay, take it. Anyway, this shop is about to close down soon. Once my daughter finds her soulmate, I'll be chasing after her. Zhong Kui's face revealed a smiling expression, full of anticipation."

  "Then you won't be polite? Mao Shi Jiu hehe smiled, as if he had taken great advantage."

  After finishing speaking, Mao Shi Jiu put all these treasures into the Eight Treasures Box.

  He feels like he's carrying a treasure chest with him at all times, just like Doraemon can pull out different things from nowhere, and it's bottomless, able to produce anything big or small.

  "Thank you, brother. By the way, I'd like to ask you something else. Have you seen any suspicious people passing by this way today?"

  "There's nothing suspicious about it, but this morning someone came to our store and looked around for a long time, as if they were looking for something. But in the end, they didn't find anything and left," said Zhong Ke.

  Zhong Kui told Mao Shi Jiu everything he knew and understood.

  Mao Shi Jiu furrowed his brow deeply, worried that we might have missed the hearse if we were late here, and it would be impossible to catch up. Time was extremely pressing, and we couldn't afford any delay. Just as we were about to apologize to Zhong Kui, he asked us if we needed his help when we parted ways. At first, Mao Shi Jiu wanted to agree, but he refused, intending to temper me instead.

  "Senior brother, I'm giving you this sword. Be careful with it." Zhong Kui handed me a copper coin sword before he left. The seven copper coins were called the Seven Heart Sword, and any evil spirit that came into contact with it would immediately turn to water.

  Mao was deeply moved. This Seven Heart Sword is Zhong Kui's signature sword, although the workmanship is simple, its power is not ordinary, it is a Taoist treasure that requires great care to cultivate.

  We inquired again about the route to Jiangnan City. Indeed, it passes through Yizhuang, which is an old mansion with a long history. It was opened by a jinshi (a successful candidate in the imperial examination) of the Qing Dynasty as a villa, but later abandoned and became the present-day Yizhuang, uninhabited for decades.

  Arriving at the Yizhuang, from the outside it looks like an old house with a worn-out appearance. The walls of the Yizhuang have partially peeled off, and spider webs cover the exterior, but it can be seen that the path leading to the entrance is clear, indicating that others had been there before. Is this really where the hearse driver rests?

  As I entered the abandoned house, my feet kicked up clouds of dust everywhere. Blocks of wood were strewn about, and I carefully moved them out of the way to clear a path that was passable for humans.

  "Yang Guo, be careful." Behind him, Mao Shi Jiu kept reminding him.

  "Isn't there a light?" I shone the flashlight in my hand at Mao Shi Jiu, and unintentionally illuminated an unknown creature in a corner, which was hanging upside down from the ceiling, licking its mouth and making a hissing sound.

  I was startled, but it turned out to be just a bat. The bats here seem to not be afraid of strangers and don't react even when shone with a flashlight.

  Continue walking inside, there is a large courtyard here. This courtyard is refreshing, and there is a large wealth tree in the courtyard. I didn't expect it to grow so lush after all these years, which shows that the feng shui of the charity house is very good. In Feng Shui, it is said that the residence should face north and south, so as to contain its yin energy and avoid forming a yin house. However, this charity house actually faces south and north, and directly opposes the hole position, which belongs to the big bad luck. No wonder it can't prosper.

  I took the flashlight and carefully walked inside, in the yard there was another room, this is the main hall of the entire mansion, this was already the deepest part, I pushed open the wooden door covered with a layer of dust, three coffins appeared in my line of sight.

  It's coffins again, I've become insensitive to coffins. Since the ghost corpse incident, I thought I wouldn't see anything more disgusting than that, so seeing these now doesn't give me any feeling, just thinking I can tolerate whatever is inside. But I was too simple-minded, there were not only three coffins, but hundreds of them surrounding us, filling our view with desolation.

  There is only one hour left until the arrival of the Ghost Festival. We arrived at the charity house called "Luang Fen Gang" by outsiders. It turned out that this charity house was abandoned and used as a mortuary, but later an incident of corpses wandering at night occurred, resulting in a large number of deaths around it, and from then on, no one dared to enter it again. What's most terrifying is that after the corpses wandered at night, some people claimed to have seen ghost soldiers escorting these lonely ghosts and wild devils walking down the main street.

  The sky gradually became darker and the only moonlight in the sky was also blocked by dark clouds. Suddenly, a white shadow flashed across my head, and the air around me became colder. I listened carefully and heard some noise from all directions. There were squeaking sounds coming from the coffin boards, but what's strange is that these sounds were coming from all the coffin boards everywhere, and they seemed to be in unison, like the sound of thousands of horses and soldiers.

  "Yang Guo, hurry up." Mao Shi Jiu pulled me and we ran off immediately.

  "What's wrong? What's that noise." I was scared out of my wits.

  "This is a chaotic tomb, they all crawled out from the tombstones." said Mao Shi Jiu.

  "So many. Are they all ghosts?" I asked incredulously.

  "Isn't this nonsense? If two people were to appear inside, wouldn't it be more terrifying than ghosts?" In fact, he didn't know that there was indeed a living person inside, along with his three corpses. He chose an empty coffin and fell asleep in it, while the three corpses stood guard outside the coffin.

  The entire hall was quiet to the point of being eerie, with only the sound of someone snoring audible. Next to me stood three corpses dressed in authentic Qing dynasty attire, with a string of large pearls hanging from their chests and yellow talismans still on their foreheads, standing upright like they were in a military posture.

  "What the hell is this place, it feels so gloomy?" I looked around again, dead silence, is this a sign of the ghost gate opening? Are all the ghosts quiet?

  There are 10 minutes left until the Ghost Gate, and now there are only 10 minutes left until the next day. I and Mao Shi Jiu are waiting in the outer courtyard for the arrival of the Ghost Festival to see if there is anything wrong with this place.

  It was over in an instant, and the dark clouds completely covered the moon. In front of me, everything was pitch black, and the flashlight was quickly turned off. I fiddled with it for a few moments to confirm that it was indeed broken, but its breakdown at this critical moment made people feel very uncomfortable.

  Only to see Mao 19 suddenly set up an array, he took a flag and inserted it in the center, with chicken blood and dog blood scattered all around. Mao 19 made a very cool move, directly using a fire stick to ignite the chicken blood and pig blood, instantly bursting into flames, forming a red glow in the sky.

  "Come on, stand inside quickly." Mao Shi Jiu urged me.

  I didn't say another word and immediately entered the safe zone.

  "Now we can watch a good show." Mao Shi Jiu exclaimed.

  "Why?" I asked in puzzlement.

  "Do you know where this is?" asked Mao Shi Jiu.

  "Where? I don't know."

  "This is the entrance to the yin-yang boundary, and the entrance is in one of the hundreds of coffins. Now that the ghost festival has arrived, the ghost gate has opened."

  It just so happened that the coffin next to the corpse carrier made a noise, and a ray of light flashed out. The coffin board was directly blown away, and the first one to come out was a headless ghost who couldn't find his way. Immediately after, all the freshly baked ghosts came out from behind.

  We yawned in the array and watched as group after group of ghosts came out, it was very boring.

  "I thought Ghost Gate was a big show. It turned out that it's just watching ghosts come out of a hole, how boring!" I complained.

  The climax is here, the last ghost is a dwarf, his legs are too short, others take one step as several steps for him.

  "You see him as a dwarf, and thought he had achondroplasia, but that guy is actually very powerful, I reckon he's already at the level of the Ghost King." said Mao Shi Jiu.

  "What's that?" I exclaimed in surprise, pointing at those rows and rows.

  What? Are they government troops? Only a group of ghosts wearing official uniforms appeared in the end. This is still a lineup, and someone sat in the middle, he must be the boss.

  "Yin soldiers borrow a road. Little son and you are together, the luck is always too good, even yin soldiers borrowing a road can be seen." said Mao Shi Jiu.

  "Look, haven't you seen? The yin soldiers don't walk on official roads, they walk on human roads. Only on Ghost Festival days when the yin energy is extreme can they turn and come to the human world. Generally, when yin soldiers borrow a road, it means something big is about to happen."