Chapter Twelve: Entering the Tomb by Mistake

  The newcomer didn't seem to be up to any good, and that was my first reaction. The hundred ghosts were scared off by this guy, who seemed to have come for no other reason than to sniff out the scent of living people. His eyes were fixed intently on me and Zhang Xinyu, as if he had spotted prey, and his whole body was trembling with excitement.

  Looking at Zhang Xinyu's expression of being at a loss, I knew he couldn't see ghosts. I quickly took out the Ox King's Tears that Master Wuwei gave me from my bag and put them on, just in case.

  "Sister Xīn, quick, apply this to your eyes." I said, as I handed it over to her while shedding crocodile tears.

  Zhang Xinyu hadn't reacted yet, and after a moment, she probably felt the danger too, so she took over Niulei's tears and applied them to her eyes.

  "What kind of ghost is this?!" Zhang Xinyu was also frightened by the hungry ghost in front of her and let out a loud cry.

  A ghostly figure with fangs, unaware that we can see it, still scrutinizes us with a hungry expression, seemingly wondering whether to eat the tall and thin man on the left first or the plump and fair woman on the right.

  "We seal off our five senses, not looking, not listening, and holding our breath. This ghost will be blinded and can only find us by smelling human scent." I heard older generations say that this way, the blind ghost won't be able to see us. I told Zhang Xinyu, let's try it out, does this method work?

  Zhang Xinyu still had a gun pointed at the ghost, while also shouting at it not to move. The ghost only knew what I was doing, and my heart felt a wave of frustration. Can ghosts understand human language? Is this gun thing useful?

  Zhang Xinyu heard what I said, and immediately found a lifeline, putting the gun at her waist, covering her eyes, ears, mouth, and holding her breath. I was speechless for a moment, pretending to be fearless on the surface, but as soon as she encountered a ghost, she was scared like this.

  The ghost obviously reacted, wondering how the woman disappeared, staring at me with a straight face, thinking I was playing tricks on him. However, what made the ghost even angrier was that I suddenly disappeared too, and I also sealed my senses, giving Zhang Xinyu a signal to run forward, after all, holding one's breath can't last for more than a few minutes.

  Before that, I played a small trick, taking off the top and throwing it on the ground, which had my scent on it, at least to buy us some time for escape.

  As expected, the hungry ghost took the bait. We quickly ran forward and it chased after our clothes. After running for several hundred meters, Zhang Xinyu couldn't hold back anymore and heavily gasped for air.

  "Yang Guo, I can't take it anymore, slow down, run slower." I was thinking how a policeman could be weaker than me physically, but after careful consideration, the chest heaving up and down while running indeed carries its own weight.

  "It's no good if it's too big!" I blurted out unintentionally.

  "What did you say?" Zhang Xinyu looked at me with a puzzled face.

  "No, nothing, hurry up and catch up." I looked back, this ghost seemed to have already sensed our presence over here.

  "Hurry up and seal off the five senses."

  Before long, we ran past this street and it was a wasteland. There was a temple in the middle, which was strange because the temple was lit up and the gate was open.

  "Come on, let's go in." I couldn't help but say as I looked at the ancestral hall right in front of me.

  After entering the ancestral hall, the gate closed automatically. We looked back nervously and observed the surroundings. In front of us was a spirit platform with many spirit tablets arranged on it. Many candles were lit around it, illuminating the entire hall. On the top of the hall, there was a circle of white cloth surrounding the four sides, under which were placed urns containing ashes. This was not much different from an ordinary ancestral hall, except that in the center of the main hall stood a coffin.

  Why is there a coffin in the ancestral hall? I became vigilant and approached the spirit platform step by step. The spirit tablets were numbered in the thousands, and the surnames written on them were not the same, obviously not a single clan's spirit platform. The only explanation was that they were villagers who died of the plague.

  "Something's wrong here."

  But it was already too late, there was a movement in the coffin.

  A faint noise came from inside the coffin, thud...thud..., and the lid was pushed up a crack. However, upon closer inspection, there were many spirit talismans stuck around the coffin, as well as dense black threads probing out in all directions. The sounds coming from inside the coffin grew more urgent, the soul tablets on the altar were shaken into disarray, and the gap in the lid grew larger, almost unable to be contained.

  I pulled Zhang Xinyu and ran towards the gate, but it was stuck too tightly and couldn't be opened. At this moment, there was no way out, so we had to find a place to hide. We hid inside the canopy of the ancestral temple's spirit platform, from where we could see every move of the coffin.

  Zhang Xinyu's one hand was tightly grasping the hem of her dress, and the other hand was clutching my arm, her fingernails almost digging into my flesh. But at that moment, I didn't feel any pain, my eyes were fixed on the coffin.

  Suddenly, the coffin board flew up, and the surrounding ink lines were violently torn apart, turning into a pool of ink splashing around. The spirit symbol was also shaken to the ground, and a blood-drenched corpse slowly crawled out of the coffin.

  The corpse was covered in black blood clots all over its body, the flesh on its face had completely rotted away, and maggots crawled back and forth on it, covering the entire face and eye area, which had turned into two black holes. As the corpse climbed out of the coffin, the rotting flesh infested with maggots fell off its body, making the whole scene extremely nauseating.

  Just as the blood corpse emerged from the coffin, everything in front of me suddenly turned black, and the surroundings changed. The ancestral hall disappeared, leaving only a silent and dead sky, with intermittent frog calls coming from all directions in the middle of the night.

  Ah...

  She took a look at Zhang Xinyu beside her and was directly scared unconscious. It turned out that this was a cemetery, with large and small tombstones all around. A gloomy atmosphere rushed over, and green ghost fires emerged in clusters, flashing before her eyes and illuminating the entire area.

  I hastily helped Zhang Xinyu up, pinching her Renzhong acupoint with force. As the pain hit her, she woke up. However, it was clear that she had been frightened badly, and her face had turned pale.

  "Yang Guo, I just saw a face behind you with empty eye sockets and blood flowing out, it's so terrifying." Zhang Xinyu said weakly.

  I looked back cautiously, but there was nothing.

  When I turned around to look at Zhang Xinyu, I saw that her eyes were wide open again, staring at something behind me, and she seemed to want to shout out something. I immediately reacted and turned my body back around.

  A thing with both eyes dug out, bleeding, wearing white clothes, with a face that is not quite human, standing in front of you, it's unclear whether it's human or ghost.

  "Come with me." This thing actually spoke.

  It didn't seem malicious, it just said its piece and turned around and left. Looking from behind, this thing surprisingly had no legs, it must be a ghost.

  We followed it and walked, at this time Zhang Xinyu's mood had calmed down a lot, but she was still leaning on my arm, hiding behind me.

  It led us back to the Ghost Street, without seeing the hungry ghost's shadow. We didn't dare speak all along the way and could only follow it closely. When we walked about halfway, it suddenly stopped in front of a shop.

  "You go in." It finally spoke up, then disappeared without a trace.

  I stopped and looked up at the top of this shop, where there was a sign that read "Ghost Affairs Shop". I hesitated for a moment before leading Zhang Xinyu inside.

  Pushing open the door, a wave of incense and wax scent hit her nose, Zhang Xinyu couldn't help but cover her nose. Various funeral items were scattered all over the place, as well as some Taoist ritual objects such as wooden swords, copper mirrors, and oil lamps. At the other end of the cabinet, there was a table with someone wearing black clothes sitting behind it, their back to us.

  "I knew you'd come looking for me as soon as I saw you arrive," the man said.

  At this time, I can probably guess who it is. Isn't it Mao Shi Jiu that we came to find? It's so mysterious.

  "You've come all this way and now you're causing me so much trouble." The man slowly turned around.

  Taking a closer look, it was indeed Mao Shi Jiu. Mao Shi Jiu still had that arrogant expression on his face, as if we all owed him money.

  "You knew we were coming for you, and yet you still let us run into ghosts!" Zhang Xinyu scolded angrily.

  "It's not my fault, you guys wanted to come at night. Everyone in this town knows that at night, there are hundreds of ghosts roaming the streets, and this month just so happens to be a yin month, when hungry ghosts patrol the streets too." Mao Shi Jiu said with an innocent face.

  "What's going on with that graveyard?" I was also puzzled about what had just happened, the bloody corpse came out of the coffin and we ended up in a graveyard.

  "That was a vengeful corpse I suppressed, he was the source of the plague that year, and it was him who spread the disease. Later he died, but the resentment on his body couldn't be dissipated, so he turned into a vengeful corpse. During the Yin month, he would become very restless, transforming his grave into a temple, luring living people in. You all intruded upon his grave, smelled the human scent, and that's how my seal was broken. Luckily I had just called Old Five to take out my artifact and break your illusions, otherwise you would have been completely trapped there today." Ma Shi Jiu said with a serious face.

  I felt a chill in my heart, and it turned out that we had entered the lair of the ghost corpse. That old five should be the one who brought us to that ghost.

  "But now it's also troublesome, the ghost corpse was released by you, who knows what kind of trouble it will bring to me." It seems that Mao Shi Jiu is also a bit worried.

  "Old Chang, Old Chang, Zhang Daomei on the street has died, come and take a look." An old man suddenly pushed open the door and shouted loudly.

  Zhang Daomei, this name is also unlucky enough, I thought to myself.

  "You all wait here for me now, I'll go and suppress the vengeful spirits and then come back." Mao Shi Jiu said to us.

  "Follow me, Old Five." Mao Nineteen took out a banner and casually brushed it twice. The white-clothed ghost from just now came out again.

  Mao Shi Ba and Lao Wu went out. I told Zhang Xin Yu to stay in the store, don't run around, and I followed them too.

  He soon arrived at the scene and upon entering the house, he saw a corpse lying properly on the bed with no signs of life on its face, undoubtedly dead.