Chapter 45: Awakening

  "Who? Who are you?" I shouted loudly.

  "I am another side of you in your heart, I am inferiority, I am loneliness, I am sorrow."

  "Then who am I?" I was stunned and spaced out.

  "You are a confident, mature and happy brand new you," said another me.

  "I can't see you."

  "These eyes were originally not yours, they were given by me."

  "Why are you giving this to me? I'm just an ordinary person, I could have been happy like everyone else. Ever since I saw the ghost, my life and family have become different from others. Don't bother."

  "But it's not that simple, this pair of yin-yang eyes carries a responsibility, you haven't even discovered its true purpose yet, the pair of red eyes you see isn't someone else, it's yourself."

  Red eyes? Red eyes in cat's eyes? Whose eyes are those? I gradually came to realize that all the hallucinations were created by my own eyes, but there must be an inducing factor, right? Was it him? Another me? All of this was to stimulate my self-confidence and cast away my inferiority complex! Only after getting rid of my inferiority complex would it leave my body, but why did it take my eyes with it?

  "Yang Guo, I have sealed all your negative emotions into your eyes. From now on, when your eyes turn red, you will become violent and must control yourself." At this time, a voice appeared in his heart, it was the voice of the Living Dead.

  "Living ghost, how did you wake up?"

  "This is the contract between humans and ghosts that has awakened my savior. Just now, your other side thought it could take advantage of the situation to end your life. But now I've saved you, you'll sleep even longer. Take care of yourself, remember these yin-yang eyes can see through everything, can peek into the mystery of ghosts, any ghost or monster cannot escape the scrutiny of your eyes." After finishing speaking, the living ghost fell back asleep.

  "Despicable." Another one gritted his teeth and said.

  "You, come back! Be my eyes." I stood up, with a sense of dominance over the world.

  Another one, and I immediately transformed into a pair of blood-red eyes that shot towards my eye sockets. My eyes returned to their place, and I could see again, but a red veil covered my vision. Slowly, the red began to turn white, becoming clear.

  There is an iron gate in front of me.

  "Yang Guo, what's wrong with you? You've been dazed for so long, have you found anything?" It was Mao Shi Jiu's voice.

  It turned out that I had experienced an illusion within an illusion, and so many things happened in a brief moment of trance.

  I turned around and said coldly to Mao Shi Jiu: "No, nothing can be seen."

  "What's wrong?" Mao Shijiu seemed to have noticed something was off about me.

  "It's okay, the ghost is not inside." I said to Mao Shi Jiu.

  "Let me take a look." Mao Shi Jiu took out a piece of Xuan Jing (a kind of magical tool made from magnetite, used to detect ghosts and monsters in a space) and stuck it onto the iron door.

  As expected, there was nothing in the mysterious mirror, "It seems that this ghost really escaped."

  Actually, where there are ghosts, it has always been another me pretending to be mysterious.

  Cao Jing Yu rubbed his head, indicating he couldn't understand why the ghosts and monsters escaped so easily.

  "Alright, alright, consider it lucky this time, I'll let it off the hook. But next time, it's not getting away with it." said Mao Shi Jiu.

  "Go away, if Director finds out you came here, he'll blame me." Zhang Xinyu pouted.

  We went downstairs, and when we passed the second floor, I saw a prisoner in one of the cells grinning at me with his teeth bared. He was smiling very wickedly. Only I saw him, and he also made a gesture, covering his eyes with both hands.

  Was he hinting at something? What did he know? I was shocked in my heart. In just a blink of an eye, I followed them downstairs, but that smile and that face remained etched in my mind.

  "Master, what's next?" I asked Mao Shi Jiu without thinking too much.

  "The second move of trapping ghosts hasn't been taught yet! Next, I'll teach you the Trapping Ghost Formation." Mao Shi Jiu smiled and said, intentionally trying to make things difficult for me.

  Master Mao taught me the "Four Directions Formation" which is also known as the "Ghost Binding Array". This is the simplest beginner-level formation, where you simply lay out a one-inch red thread in a square shape. When a ghost enters the array, it will be bound by the red thread and can temporarily trap the ghost.

  Another surprise was that I picked it up quickly and didn't have any complaints, as if I had become a different person, more focused than before.

  "Yang Guo, I've found you're not right. How did you become a different person?" Cao Jingyu finally couldn't help but ask.

  "Really? Has he become handsome?" I joked.

  "There's something on my face that makes me feel like I have a completely different temperament." Mao Shijiu actually directly praised me for becoming handsome, this is a rare evaluation.

  "Say it again, I'll record it." I chuckled.

  "Alright, I'll teach you the final move of the Ghost-Capturing Sword Technique. This move is called 'Ghost-Capturing'. It has its own unique sword style, which is a culmination of all the experience and techniques passed down by our predecessors."

  "Humans have three flames, belonging to the head, chest and feet. Ghosts only have two, the head and chest. As long as you can control the ghost's two flames, you can capture it, so when fighting ghosts, hit the head first and then the chest. Therefore, the first move for capturing ghosts is to sweep the sword across the ghost's head, with a solid wooden sword, horizontally sweeping the ghost's head. The second move is to stab the ghost's chest, with a thousand soldiers' strength, stabbing through the ghost's chest." Ma Shi Jiu demonstrated while speaking to me.

  Just like the previous move, I picked it up quickly.

  "Genius! I feel more and more that I've picked up a treasure." Mao Shi Jiu was overjoyed.

  "Alright, you've also learned the Ghost-Capturing Sword Technique. Now I'll take you to a place to practice." Mao Shi Jiu's smile was somewhat sinister, as if he still wanted to trick me.

  But strangely, I agreed in one mouthful. According to the previous me, I might have thought about it, made an excuse, and been afraid, but now I just agreed so easily.

  Mao is even weirder than me, I always thought I took the wrong medicine.

  "Let's go at night, it's not very suitable during the day." Mao Shi Jiu smiled slyly, who knows what he was thinking in his heart.

  It wasn't until late at night that Mao nineteen urged me to set off early. We took a night taxi and quickly arrived at the destination he mentioned.

  "How will you all get back later?" I thought of this matter.

  "This... I really haven't thought about it." Mao Shi Jiu rubbed his head and smiled.

  "Damn it!" I stormed inside.

  "What the hell?" I almost tripped over something underfoot.

  A corpse! It's actually a dead body.

  "What kind of place is this?" I asked.

  "Grave of Disorder". Mao Shi Jiu said with a smile.

  "How can there be a chaotic burial ground in this era? Are you kidding me?" I was deeply puzzled, such a place should not exist in the city.

  "How can it be impossible? You only see the bright side of the city, but you can't see the poor people living in crowded and cramped conditions. This is where they died, generation after generation, until now they still can't afford a proper burial and have to abandon their bodies in the wilderness." Mao Shi Jiu said with some sadness.

  "It's really unthinkable that no matter how advanced technology is, no matter how high the skyscrapers are, there are still people starving to death every day. This is a true portrayal of modern society where people freeze to death on the streets." I also feel a bit sad.

  "Alright, those people are dead and we don't need to mourn for them. This place won't be so simple, the starving ghosts have grievances, and places with grievances are more evil than living devils. In the deepest part of this chaotic burial ground, there is an evil spirit that you can't afford to provoke. But these shrimp soldiers and crab generals outside will be enough to deal with you, just right for a trial by fire." It turned out that Mao Shi Jiu was trying to temper me.

  "Alright." I unexpectedly felt a hint of joy in my heart.

  "I'll go help you block the most powerful evil spirit now, you come slowly, no rush." Mao Shi Jiu said with a relaxed face.

  After Mao nineteen went to the deepest part of the chaotic tomb, leaving me alone here. A gust of cold wind blew over, and I felt a chill. The ghost fires lit up in many places around me, like a smiling face welcoming me in. I let out a cold snort and walked inside.

  Today is just the day of the full moon, and the yin energy is heavier than usual. The moonlight shines on the Luanyu Gang, where you can see corpses scattered all over the place. The smell of rot is everywhere, and in front of me, there's even a pool of blood water that must have formed slowly over tens or hundreds of years. If it continues to exist, it will surely gradually turn into a lake of blood, or even a river of blood. At this moment, a ghostly shadow sweeps across the sky, blocking out half of the moonlight, and the place where I am becomes dark.

  My first reaction, danger is coming! I took a defensive stance and looked around for the ghost's shadow. There was none in front of me, so I quickly turned around and saw a ghostly face. I stabbed my sword at it, but missed. The ghost changed its position and swooped down from above. I directly stabbed my sword upwards towards the top of my head, and let out a sharp scream as the ghost was hit. It tried to escape.

  "Let me take a look at you." I used yin and yang in an attempt to pry into this ghost.

  At a glance, all of the ghost's secrets were seen through by me.

  "Died less than half a year ago, this is the new ghost of this chaotic burial mound. In life, he was no more than 15 years old and starved to death, his corpse was left on the street and taken away by wild dogs, his bones were gone, but his spirit had grievances and became a wild ghost." This is what I saw as the conclusion.

  "Go away." At this moment, I suddenly had a kind heart and thought that this ghost was pitiful. Seeing me not accepting it, the ghost quickly escaped.

  I continued walking deeper, occasionally running into a few ghosts, but they all ran away as soon as they saw me.

  Just when I was feeling extremely bored, that ghost suddenly came back, bringing with it several other ghosts that were even stronger than it.

  That ghost just whispered something to the few ghosts it brought along and pointed at me.

  "This damn thing has gone to find someone, it seems I'm too kind-hearted after all, shouldn't have let it go! This makes me feel for the first time that I shouldn't be soft-hearted towards vengeful spirits."

  Those few ghosts were summoned to yell at me, but I just looked at them coldly.

  "It turned out to be the parents of that ghost, who died at his hands, both beheaded by someone in the middle of the night, just because they offended a local tyrant. From then on, their resentment lingered and they wandered among the chaotic tombs. Later, when they learned that their son had starved to death, their resentment grew even stronger, becoming more and more intense."

  Two big ghosts moved, one ghost came from the east and one ghost came from the west, surrounding me from both sides. I quickly placed two pieces of red silk on both sides, and the two big ghosts were like hitting a wall, being stunned and disoriented. They planned to make a surprise attack from the south and north directions, but I had already prepared the red silk, trapping the two ghosts inside. I controlled the red silk to tighten up, binding the two big ghosts.

  The son of the big ghost outside was anxious and floated in the sky, suddenly changing his shape into a little boy kneeling in front of me and speaking: "Please spare my parents."