Chapter 55: The Wraith That Eats Wraiths

The female wraith sensed the intense fluctuation of spiritual energy; she had already spotted Li Lin, and with the body of a virgin girl born in a Yin year, she could appear before him in the blink of an eye and kill him.

But the problem was, she was currently in a spiritual form, bound by the restrictions of the spiritual altar, unable to leave the Qin household’s grounds at all.

Yet she was not afraid—this mere ninth-rank Spirit Hunter’s spell was trivial to withstand; this was her domain.

Black malice enveloped her, and she fixed Li Lin with a venomous glare.

Now she understood: the ones who killed her two direct descendants were not the Wang or Ding families, as she had suspected, but this boy before her.

Liu Zhe’s lover!

It must have been Liu Zhe’s orders.

She stared at Li Lin, smiling cruelly.

Crimson and azure lightning split the night sky and struck the rock garden in the Qin household’s rear courtyard.

With a deafening explosion, the rock garden shattered into fragments, stones flying everywhere.

The female wraith froze, slowly turning her head toward the rear.

“You actually…”

An invisible barrier vanished—this barrier had no effect on the living, yet it had seemingly protected something.

Her pupils shifted from withered gray-black to a chilling pale-blue.

Simultaneously, her malice intensified, and her form rapidly swelled.

But Li Lin did not flee; he simply watched calmly.

Once the female wraith expanded to a certain size, even ordinary people could see her.

The Qin household’s retainers screamed in terror.

Panic spread—the neighborhood around the Qin household was relatively lively, with many people moving about even at night.

Now, seeing a terrifying female wraith floating above the Qin household, they fled home, slammed their doors shut, and trembled in fear.

Some prayed to gods and Buddhas; others collapsed into hysterical weeping.

Li Lin’s smile grew more pronounced.

Just as the female wraith turned toward Li Lin, as if to strike, a greater “wraith” appeared.

More precisely—a True Lord.

It was a massive, pitch-black humanoid shape, like a swirling vortex of darkness; its face was indistinct, but its eyes blazed with brilliant golden light, hence its name.

The moment the Golden Light True Lord appeared, a colossal black hand seized the female wraith and immediately swallowed her whole, without hesitation—the entire process was so swift it seemed like a blink.

This was why Li Lin remained so calm.

No matter how powerful the Qin household’s female wraith was, no matter how brazenly she acted under the True Lord’s nose, she had one fatal weakness.

She could not be discovered by the local guardian.

The altar, though it confined her movement, had also concealed her traces.

Now that the altar was destroyed, the female wraith naturally had to reveal herself.

The Golden Light True Lord’s indistinct face shifted slightly, as if chewing twice, then its form vanished.

At that moment, a voice filled with shock and fury rang out: “Grandmother—who did this?!”

Li Lin, on the rooftop, saw Qin Feng return and immediately leapt backward into the shadows, slipping away unseen.

Qin Feng scanned the surroundings with furious eyes, saw no suspicious figures, and his expression darkened further.

At that moment, a woman burst out of the Qin household—she was strikingly beautiful, and cried out: “Husband, disaster! The ancestral altar has been destroyed!”

Qin Feng had already guessed this; he asked: “What exactly happened? Who did it?!”

“I don’t know—I only saw a bolt of lightning strike from the sky.”

Indeed, it was a spell.

He had seen that bolt of lightning himself—that was precisely why he abandoned Wang Tianyou and sprinted back.

Because that lightning, he realized, had struck directly above his own home.

“Few people wield crimson-and-azure lightning spells. If we investigate the surrounding area, we’ll find who it was.” Qin Feng’s eyes were bloodshot: “Then I’ll make him beg for death and be denied it.”

The woman looked worried: “What about the third son? Should we keep him here, or send him to Yuecheng?”

“Send him to Yuecheng?” Qin Feng walked toward the house, saying: “Do you think if the third son steps outside the gate even once, someone won’t come to assassinate him?”

The woman’s eyebrows shot up: “Who dares?”

“Who dares?” Qin Feng’s smile was grim: “The eldest and second sons dared to kill—why wouldn’t they dare kill the third? Now even our ancestral grandmother has been taken by a thief—they mean to kill every last one of us. Not one will be spared.”

Hearing this, the woman finally grew afraid.

“What do we do?”

Qin Feng’s eyes brimmed with venom: “They killed my two sons and plotted against my ancestors—I won’t let Wang Tianyou or that gutter-dwelling bastard escape. I’ll find him, and I’ll make him suffer the cruelest torment—begging for death and denied it. His friends, his family—all will perish.”

“Go back to your room—I’m performing the Soul-Calling, Killer-Pursuing Spell!”

At these words, the woman’s face turned ashen: “Husband, please spare me!”

Qin Feng stared coldly, gripping her arm: “You don’t want your own biological son—the third son—to live in constant terror, always fearing he’ll be murdered at any moment, do you?”

The beautiful woman’s face turned deathly pale, her eyes filled with torment.

Meanwhile, Li Lin crept back to the brothel.

Sitting in the shadows, he swallowed two more Life-Restoring Pills.

Simply ingesting Life-Restoring Pills without cultivation was extremely wasteful—less than thirty percent of the spiritual energy could be absorbed.

But this method had one advantage: it caused no spiritual energy fluctuations, so the True Lord here wouldn’t sense any spiritual power; even if he saw Li Lin swallowing pills, he’d merely assume the man was taking medicine to heal his wounds.

The Life-Restoring Pills released spiritual energy extremely slowly, and Li Lin’s depleted Yin energy gradually replenished.

Li Lin had no sleepiness, so he opened the book “The Daoist’s Detailed Accounts.”

[Spiritual Script +1]

[Paper Figurine Craft +1]

[Spirit Raising +1]

Hmph—admittedly, the folk shamans of the countryside had wild methods.

This thin manual contained beginner tutorials for three different spells.

Li Lin had originally thought Spiritual Script would be the strongest—his assumption wasn’t wrong—but based on what he’d learned so far, Paper Figurine Craft was the most practical.

Soon, he mastered a basic Paper Figurine Craft.

“Golden Boy and Jade Girl.”

The two most common paper figurines used in funeral rites: a boy and a girl.

To ordinary people, these two paper figures were mere symbols.

But in the hands of a Spirit Hunter, they could move.

Too bad he couldn’t act now—he lacked sufficient materials; otherwise, he could’ve crafted several small paper figures on the spot to do his bidding.

Spiritual Script required many materials—yellow paper, cinnabar, etc.—and he couldn’t use them yet.

As for Spirit Raising!

It required capturing a wraith, taming it through various methods, and turning it into a loyal servant always at one’s side.

Capture a wraith?

Li Lin’s first thought was the Tree Immortal Lady.

He immediately discarded the thought.

He couldn’t gauge how powerful the Tree Immortal Lady was, but he was certain—if she truly flew into a rage, she’d snap him in half with one tail.

Soon, he finished reading the entire “The Daoist’s Detailed Accounts,” gaining much insight.

Then, suddenly, he felt an inexplicable chill surrounding him, growing colder by the second.

His first reaction was to crouch down and enter stealth mode.

(End of Chapter)