Chapter Ten: The Thief of Chicken Way

  Four flying talismans pinned down the four corpses, just like in a Hong Kong zombie movie. The corpse driver stuck yellow talismans on the zombies' foreheads, and they didn't move at all. Similarly, the four corpses stood still, not moving an inch.

  Looking at the corpse standing still, my heart was still frightened. I saw a Taoist priest walking from afar, wearing a yellow robe, shaking his bell and reciting incantations.

  Is this a return to the Hong Kong films of the 90s? Isn't that a living, breathing Lam Ching Ying? I rubbed my eyes, as if it wasn't a dream. I stared at Li Jian Tian, with a hint of confusion in his eyes. He smiled at me and then walked towards the Taoist priest.

  "Your Excellency, could it be him?" Li Jian Tian walked and smiled at the Taoist priest.

  "Not bad, it's me." Li Jian Tian hadn't even said who it was yet, but the Taoist priest had already chimed in.

  "An old acquaintance, a thief, it's been ages since we last met at the police station. I thought you'd changed your ways." Li Jian Tian burst out laughing.

  "I, a poor Taoist, have been stealing chickens for decades, but unexpectedly I was caught by you three or four times. It's also fate. Today, I sense that the Western yin energy is overwhelming the sky, and after divining with the Eight Trigrams, I found that there are ghosts and monsters causing trouble. I came to take a look, only to find that it was just a few puppets." The Taoist had an unsatisfied expression on his face.

  It turns out that this Taoist and Li Jian Tian are old acquaintances. The chicken thief was caught for stealing chickens and had been to the police station several times. I thought to myself, this Taoist still likes to eat chicken.

  Li Jian looked up and down at the Taoist priest and said, "I didn't expect you to be a real ghost-catching master. I thought you were just making it up when we were at the police station. However, you need to change your habit of stealing chickens from others."

  The Taoist looked gloomy, "Who said I'm a chicken thief? I am the 19th generation of the Mao Shan sect, and I don't even eat chicken. Stealing chickens is just a formality, I need to collect some chicken blood for my rituals."

  It turned out that this Taoist priest didn't like to eat chicken, but was stealing chicken blood for his spells. But he shouldn't have needed to steal it at all. I gave him a look of disdain, and he saw me directly.

  "So your police station also has talented individuals, this kid's yin-yang eyes are quite something, I wonder what level of cultivation he has achieved?" The Taoist priest sized me up, a hint of surprise visible in his gaze.

  "He's not from the police department, he's a student, and our informant for the Broken Spirit case." Li Jian Tian replied.

  "Oh? So this kid has talent but is useless." The Chicken Thief said with a hint of a smile.

  This Taoist priest, no matter how I look at him, he doesn't seem quite right to me. He looks like a rich man with a well-fed appearance, his facial fat is almost dragging on the ground, and his thick eyebrows and big ears match perfectly with his facial features, it's 100% harmony! How did the Quanzhen Taoist sect decline to this generation? I couldn't help but mock him in my heart.

  "Let's get back to the matter at hand, how did these corpses come back to life for no reason?" Li Jian Tian looked around at the awkward atmosphere and immediately brought the topic back on track.

  The Taoist looked at me again and said, "You little guy, you must have seen something, don't tell me you haven't seen anything."

  "Yes, I saw a wire pulling on the corpse." I replied simply to him.

  "These four corpses are puppets, we Taoists call them 'ghost puppets', their bodies are dead but they have a certain consciousness, their consciousness is controlled, just like wooden puppets, at the mercy of others."

  "Are you saying something is controlling them?" Li Jian Tian suddenly remembered what I said at the beginning.

  "Yes, and the ghostly creature's cultivation is difficult to discern. This ghost occasionally needs the soul-offering technique to refine it, generally lower-level offerings are animals such as cats and dogs, while higher-level ones offer living humans. According to legend, there is even a saying about offering ghosts, which has not been verified by anyone so far. These few corpses should be the souls of the offered animals that have been refined."

  So that's it, no wonder I saw a black cat circling around a corpse, it turns out that there was a ghostly creature offering sacrifices to the black cat's soul to practice necromancy.

  "Watch me use these few strands of ghostly thread to find out who is behind this." said Mao Shi Jiu.

  After finishing, Mao 19 took out a few copper coins, an eight trigrams mirror, and a golden silk thread. He scattered the copper coins towards the sky, immediately biting his middle finger, and fresh blood dripped onto the eight trigrams mirror. A drop of blood kept spinning in the mirror, and the Taoist took out the golden silk thread to tie it around the dead body's hair on the crown of the head, along with the ghost puppet line, binding them together. The other end of the golden silk thread was inserted into the blood, and the copper wire seemed to come alive, being absorbed by the golden silk thread, constantly rotating.

  "The Supreme Elder Lord, urgent as a law enforcement order, blood enters the golden thread, chasing the soul for a thousand miles." Only to see that the blood droplets on the Bagua mirror had invaded the golden thread one by one, flowing along the golden thread towards the dead body's hair. When the blood droplets reached the top of the dead body's head, the Bagua mirror emitted a strong beam of light towards the southeast direction. Suddenly, the bound female corpse opened its eyes wide, mouth agape, with an extremely ferocious expression.

  "You will all die." The female corpse spat out word by word.

  "What kind of evil spirit is this? Quickly reveal your true form." Mao Shi Jiu felt that someone was opposing him in a battle of magic.

  With a flick of his wrist, Cao's fingers touched the center of his eyebrows, and he muttered an incantation under his breath. The blood flowed faster towards the ghostly thread, when suddenly, with a loud "thud", the golden thread snapped, the copper coins fell to the ground, the corpse collapsed, and the ghostly threads all vanished.

  Only saw Mao nineteen covered in sweat, panting heavily.

  "This ghostly creature's cultivation is extremely high, and we were evenly matched. If it weren't for this place being shrouded in darkness with an overabundance of yin energy, it's uncertain who would have won or lost." Ma Shi Jiu explained to us with some weakness.

  It's clearly a crushing defeat, yet you still have the nerve to say it was a evenly matched battle. How shameless can you be? I couldn't help but mock him silently in my heart.

  "That ghost thing is in the southeast, and its specific location is still unknown for the time being. At the last moment, that ghost thing cut off its connection with the ghost puppet, and the thread of the ghost puppet was cut off, so my golden thread was also broken." Ma Shi Jiu added.

  Li Jian Tian then took out the few strings of golden bells and asked Mao Shi Jiu: "Does Daozhang Mao know what these golden bells are for?" Li Jian Tian clearly felt that this Daoist had some real skills, and immediately switched from being rude to Shi Ji Dao Ren to being polite to Mao Dao Zhang.

  I stared at Li Jian Tian with a speechless face.

  "Look carefully, this bell is a soul-capturing bell. It can control the souls of living people and make them do anything. You should go back and destroy it with holy water, this thing is very evil."

  No wonder, four girls in the dormitory hanged themselves at the same time, it turned out that their souls were captured.

  Just after finishing speaking, the police station's support team arrived. Seeing so many policemen, Mao Shi Jiu's first reaction was to flee backwards.

  "You won't want to catch me, will you? You won't repay kindness with enmity, I don't want to go into that damned police station, the food is too terrible." Mao Shi Jiu was afraid in a conditioned reflex manner.

  "Director Dao can rest assured, you didn't steal chickens, why would they arrest you, they are just supporting troops." Li Jian Tian hastily explained.

  Cao Jing Yu let out a sigh of relief and said: "I never want to set foot in that damned police station again."

  I burst out laughing, it turns out this Taoist priest also has something he's afraid of.

  "That poor Taoist has something else to attend to, I'll take my leave." Mao Shi Jiu said to Li Jian Tian.

  Li Jian Tian didn't expect to run into a ghost-catching master, and he said as they walked forward: "Master Dao, please wait. Our police station needs someone with your skills. If you're not unwilling, you can come to the police station to help us crack cases. We'll definitely give you a generous reward."

  "Never mind, the environment at your police station is too poor. I'm used to being free and don't like being constrained by others. Don't bother keeping me here." Mao Shi Jiu bluntly refused.

  As he was about to leave, Mao Shi Jiu looked at me and walked over, leaning against my ear and whispering: "If you need anything, come find me on Ghost Street." After that, Mao Shi Jiu turned around and left.

  Li Jian sighed and said it was a pity.

  Li Jian Tian ordered people to handle the scene properly, and the four dead bodies were directly taken to the crematorium for cremation. Given the severity of the incident, they feared that the corpses would come back to life, so they had no choice but to cremate the bodies without obtaining consent from their families.

  I went back to the police station with Li Jian Tian, he vacated his office for me and made it a place for me to sleep.

  "Stay at the police station for now while we investigate." Li Jian Tian said to me.

  I took a look and felt quite satisfied, so I agreed to it in one go. Thinking that I can see the beautiful Zhang Xin Yu every day, my mood was joyful for a while, but then I suddenly thought of Lin Mo, the little dragon girl, and couldn't help feeling a pang of sadness, wondering how she's doing now.

  It's getting dark soon, I lie on the bed staring at the ceiling, and a sour feeling emerges in my heart. At this time, being in a foreign land, with everything going against me, I miss my family so much, wondering if my parents are doing well back home? I really miss home, it's the first time I feel the loneliness of studying abroad.

  Before long, I fell asleep and had a nightmare again.

  A forest, in the dark of night, with waves of light and fire ahead. I slowly walked towards the light and fire, when suddenly I heard someone crying for help, it seemed to be Lin Mo's voice, she was shouting "save me", what had happened to her? I quickly ran towards the direction of the sound, my heart racing with anxiety, as I ran out of the forest, there was a cliff. The sound continued to come from the valley below the cliff, without hesitation, I jumped down.

  Ah...

  I thought I was going to smash into pieces, but at this moment I woke up, the sweat on my face had already formed beads and I was still panting heavily.

  Oh no! Has something happened to Lin Mo?