Chapter 2: Chasing Them to the Graveyard to Keep Them as Guests

Ding ding ding lang!!!

Amid the tinkling of wind chimes, Mr. Li had one foot inside the door and one outside, frozen in place.

Previously, though his demeanor had been odd, it could still be attributed to poor rest and excessive anxiety.

Now, under the stimulation of the wind chimes, his expression grew even more aberrant—he strained his neck forward violently, veins beneath the skin turning blue.

His temples swelled, his forehead skin taut, eyes brimming with bloodshot veins, eyeballs bulging, jaw pulled taut, lips curled back to reveal crimson gums.

As his head thrust forward, his shoulders hunched, his back curved, his breathing grew heavier, like a broken bellows being pulled.

“Class, class… study hard, take the imperial exams…”

Mr. Li’s speech grew increasingly slurred; his gaze flickered for a long while between confusion and ferocity, his cloudy, bloodshot eyes rolled, finally settling on Li Xu’s back.

“Unfilial son, the tutoring classes I signed you up for, the books I made you copy—still not enough? Yes, you should hang yourself from the beam and pierce your thigh with awls, lash yourself with thorny vines…”

Outside the door, Mrs. Li and Teacher Qiao both sensed something was wrong.

“Honey, what’s wrong with you?”

As Mrs. Li took a step forward, Teacher Qiao grabbed her arm and pulled her back further.

Li Xu being possessed was fake, but his father seemed truly possessed!

The wind chimes grew even more frantic.

Chu Tianshu stared at Mr. Li, his gaze unwavering from head to toe; deep within his pupils, tiny pinpricks of light appeared.

“These days, they even deliver goods to your door?”

Chu Tianshu smiled, his expression oddly tinged with excitement, while his left hand quietly reached for something on the table.

“Brother, if my wind-chime Bagua can force you to manifest, your cultivation is pitiful—you’ve possessed someone and can’t even speak clearly.”

“I’m certain you were a failure as a human, and an even bigger failure as a ghost.”

He stepped right, moving past Li Xu, his right hand gripping a handful of silver needles.

“Come on, charge straight into my needles—better to be reborn as a dung beetle than to linger like this!”

Too vulgar.

Mr. Li’s eyes flickered, unable to hold his gaze on Li Xu any longer—he growled at Chu Tianshu, lunging forward.

But before his feet even left the ground, blinding white light flooded his vision, obscuring everything.

Instinctively, Mr. Li raised his hands to shield his face—then suddenly felt a sharp pain in his chest.

Chu Tianshu took a giant stride forward, arriving before him, his right hand driving the silver needles swiftly into Mr. Li’s chest.

One hand holding a dozen needles, he twisted his fingers and stabbed one needle at a time into different acupoints—over a dozen in rapid succession.

He’d trained this skill alone for over half a year.

In the blink of an eye, silver needles were embedded in Mr. Li’s chest, shoulders, and forearms.

He’d been shielding his face with both hands—now he couldn’t move at all; his limbs went numb, his body stiffened.

Outside, Teacher Qiao watched anxiously—only now did he realize Chu Tianshu’s left hand held a flashlight.

After being possessed, a person often appears unnaturally strong, tireless.

In truth, this is merely an illusion caused by the impurity altering the body’s sensory perception.

For example, a normal person scratching a wall or someone’s clothes—when their fingernail chips or peels slightly, the pain makes them instinctively pull back.

The possessed, however, feel no pain, fear no bruising or fractures, charge head-on, strike with full force—hence appearing far stronger than normal.

It’s as if the person had been turned into a beast.

But the beast’s weaknesses were amplified too.

For instance, such a person often fails to use tools effectively—and, more importantly… fears light!

Mr. Li’s posture from behind was already chilling; from the front, he looked like a demon.

Yet Chu Tianshu’s taunts, a flash of the flashlight, a single needle thrust—and the entity was subdued, causing no damage at all.

“Aaaah!!”

Mr. Li suddenly screamed, his shirt splitting open along the spine’s midline.

An inexplicable cold wind blew out from his back.

The thin mist outside was violently churned by the gust.

Mrs. Li was used to her husband’s deep voice—but that scream had been unmistakably the thin, unfamiliar cry of a man.

She was utterly bewildered, dared not approach, and cried out: “Master, what’s wrong with my husband?”

No sooner had she spoken than Mrs. Li gagged.

Teacher Qiao beside her covered his nose.

After that cold wind passed, the courtyard before the door seemed filled with a foul odor.

The smell of cheap ink.

In middle school calligraphy class, the school canteen sold students exactly that kind of stinking ink.

But to produce this stench, it would take the reeking fumes of dozens of bottles boiled together.

Fortunately, the stink came fast and vanished fast—within seconds, it had faded sharply.

Chu Tianshu also smelled the stench, held his breath, walked to the table, and swiftly pulled out a silver needle twenty centimeters long.

He gripped both ends of the needle, drove it straight into the top of Mr. Li’s head—fully inserted, then twisted slightly; after a moment, he withdrew a segment.

Seven or eight centimeters of the needle’s tail remained standing upright on Mr. Li’s head.

As the other needles were removed, Mr. Li’s arms dropped limply, his eyes vacant, his face blank—as if sleepwalking.

Teacher Qiao leaned in: “What happened?”

“The entity that possessed him has fled.”

Chu Tianshu said, “It hasn’t gained much power yet. To possess this man, it must have been in prolonged, unnoticed contact with him.”

“Now that it’s left his body, it can’t possess anyone else—it must return to its own corpse.”

“Since it’s daytime, and heading toward noon, I’ll go straight there.”

Teacher Qiao was startled: “So soon?”

“To deal with such spectral evils, you seize the best opportunity—miss it, and you’ll invite far more trouble.”

Chu Tianshu placed a hand on Mr. Li’s shoulder, turned him around—without much force, Mr. Li moved like a puppet, turning and walking forward on his own.

“Mrs. Li, your son’s needles must stay for over half an hour—stay here with him, don’t wander off. I’ll handle your husband’s problem.”

Mrs. Li had been torn between her husband and son, but once Chu Tianshu gave clear orders, she nodded quickly: “Yes yes yes!”

This was a small trick: seize control early when the client is panicked—it makes everything smoother.

Exorcism and spirit removal were rare business—but when you had confidence, the payout could significantly boost your account balance.

But Chu Tianshu hated the kind of job where clients endlessly questioned him, demanded endless explanations, forced him to earn their trust before he could even begin tracking and removing the entity.

By then, the timing would be lost, complications multiplied.

So whenever he encountered such cases, once he made his judgment and entered “big money mode,” he acted swiftly, seizing initiative.

“Let me be clear—I don’t work cheap.”

Chu Tianshu dropped this line to raise the client’s expectations, then walked toward the bridge: “Teacher Qiao, I remember you have a driver’s license—drive us.”

Teacher Qiao had once idolized Chu’s grandfather, served as his assistant for a while, and had even benefited from his grandfather’s early fortune.

This scene now felt familiar—he said nothing, simply followed Chu Tianshu across the bridge.

Mr. Li was shoved into the front passenger seat.

The car keys hadn’t been removed; Teacher Qiao started the engine and asked: “Where to?”

“His body still holds traces of the entity’s corruption—perfect for sensing its direction.”

Chu Tianshu sat centered in the back seat, his gaze piercing through the gap between front seats, watching the road ahead; his lips moved as he chanted a spell, pointing at the passenger seatback.

“Teacher Qiao, watch the needle on his head.”

The seven-centimeter tail of the needle atop Mr. Li’s head trembled slightly, acquiring a faint bluish tint, slowly bending toward the front-right.

Teacher Qiao drove along the cement road up the eastern hill of the village, then turned onto the highway.

The needle’s tail atop Mr. Li’s head acted like a peculiar compass, constantly adjusting direction during travel.

Chu Tianshu used this to determine whether to go straight, turn, or reverse to a previous intersection, guiding Teacher Qiao in real time.

In just over half an hour, Teacher Qiao drove them to the city’s outskirts.

This area included government-reclaimed forest land and several factories.

Beside the road where they stopped stood a grove of magnolia trees; to the south, a classic factory building with white walls and blue-tiled roofs, its corrugated stainless steel roof gleaming blue.

The needle’s direction pointed precisely between the factory and the trees.

There lay a large open space—effectively the factory’s back entrance—piled high with scrap alloy, broken plastic barrels, and worn-out mops and brooms.

Most conspicuous was a moss-covered stone stele.

To ordinary eyes, it was merely an old, weathered stele.

Chu Tianshu stared at it for a while—he could see a wisp of ink-black mist, gently swirling atop the stone.

Whether cultivating spirit or martial arts, the first threshold is called “opening the senses.”

This “opening” doesn’t mean physically unblocking a specific point—it refers to the holistic elevation of all seven sensory channels.

As if, before, the seven senses were clouded, all sights and scenes dim and blurred—then, in a single night, the world was washed clean, vivid, radiant, dazzlingly rich.

A martial cultivator who opened his senses could hear the internal movements of his organs, begin refining his flesh, blood, and bones with precision.

A spirit cultivator who opened his senses could, according to his sect’s methods—chanting spells, drawing talismans, etc.—purify his mind and perceive non-human spirits, wandering souls, and yin evils.

A spirit cultivator’s depth was often measured by how long they could maintain the “opened senses” state in a single day.

Chu Tianshu had cultivated to the point where he could maintain opened senses for over five hours daily.

In terms of Dao cultivation alone, he could be considered a minor expert across the Jianghuai region.

But he carried a deep-rooted illness, studied only fringe arts, and possessed no powerful artifacts, which is why his name remained obscure.

After watching for a while, Chu Tianshu had already deduced that the ghost’s remains were buried beneath the stele, no more than two meters deep.

Chu Tianshu did not get out of the car immediately; instead, he said, “Call Mrs. Li and ask if this factory belongs to her family.”

Teacher Qiao dialed the number, and the other end answered quickly.

Indeed, the factory was owned by Master Li.

Mrs. Li was also aware of the stele behind the factory.

It had stood there since before the site was chosen, left unmaintained; it was said to date from the late Qing dynasty, with little cultural value, and could have been easily demolished.

But Master Li noticed that the inscription seemed to recount the deeds of a child prodigy, and thought keeping the stele was a good omen.

Over the past two years, as Li Xu entered high school, Master Li even placed an incense burner before the prodigy stele and often burned incense there, praying for Li Xu to get into a good university.

“The characters on the stele are completely faded—how many could he possibly have read? Could he have only recognized the words ‘child prodigy’?”

Chu Tianshu shook his head and chuckled, “To burn incense before such an unknown object—Master Li is quite bold.”

Teacher Qiao said, “He probably doesn’t truly believe in such things, nor does he understand taboos—he’s just trying his luck, and ended up hitting a rotten date.”

Teacher Qiao paused, then added, “Since we’ve confirmed the location, why not call a digger to knock over the stele and dig up the bones to expose them to the sun? When I was with your grandfather, we once handled it this way—it was the easiest.”

After passing his prime, Chu’s grandfather believed the best way to exorcise spirits was to never even meet them face to face.

Once you made contact, there was always some risk.

“The situation is different—this spirit possessing Master Li still retains some thought. If you don’t strike hard before digging up his grave, you’ll only deepen his resentment and trigger an explosion. If the digger operator gets hurt, it’ll be impossible to contain.”

Chu Tianshu explained briefly, then stood up and got out of the car.

“Teacher Qiao, stay here—I’ll go take a look.”

He walked through the woods toward the open ground.

Although the open ground was piled with trash, the area two or three meters around the stele had been deliberately cleared, with several sheets of iron laid flat around its base to create a relatively tidy space.

A golden ornamental incense burner, the size of a clay pot, sat directly in front of the stele, filled with accumulated incense ash and burnt sticks.

Chu Tianshu crouched down, pinched a handful of ash, examined its color, and pried at the burner’s interior with his fingers—the top layer was mostly fresh ash.

Burning incense so frequently is like a person begging a ghost for favor—no wonder this spirit, despite having little power, could possess Master Li even during daylight hours.

Looking at the stele’s inscriptions, most were faded and illegible; clearly erected in the late Qing, yet already severely weathered.

Only the first few paragraphs were relatively legible.

“From childhood, he mastered the classics; at seven, he composed poetry; the village hailed him as a child prodigy; as he grew, he went to take the exams...”

Master Li must have judged from this that the stele commemorated a child prodigy.

After all, aside from praise, other circumstances involving a child prodigy rarely warranted a stele.

Unfortunately, Master Li had encountered one who was anything but ordinary.

Chu Tianshu pressed his fingers against the stele and, from the perspective of a spirit-medium, examined the inscription.

He analyzed the original strokes and flow across the weathered, grayish stone surface.

Reading the full text, he could see it was written by a scholarly family of the late Qing, whose fortunes had declined, who placed all hope on their child prodigy—only for the boy to fail repeatedly, never even passing the provincial exam.

His family forbade him distraction, insisting only on relentless study; by his forties, he had failed in scholarship and accomplished nothing else, grown gaunt and hollow, and died in despair.

“...Yet after twenty years of torment in the examination halls, he never earned even a single scholar’s robe. Your father urged you day and night, beating you with rods, hurling curses without end, hoping you would strive to become worthy...”

“But your stubbornness only worsened; you squandered your youth, and finally died suddenly of madness...”

“To fail to enter officialdom and repay the Qing Emperor’s grace is disloyal; to fail to dress in silk and care for your parents is unfilial; to fail to be recorded in county annals and bring glory to your village is unjust...”

“Such a disloyal, unfilial, unjust, and unbrotherly wretch dares to escape death by suicide? I now carve this stone as a warning to future generations...”

This inscription was fully seventy percent a condemnation—insulting the useless scholar buried beneath it.

The one who erected it was the scholar’s own father, who had spent his life scolding him, and even after death, continued to curse him.

He had turned a curse-stone into his son’s tombstone.

“No wonder the resentment runs so deep.”

Chu Tianshu stood up. “Master Li’s high expectations and oppressive education for his son—no doubt reminded you of your own father.”

“You’re a pitiful soul.”

“But after possessing Master Li, you didn’t seek to punish the father—you targeted Li Xu!”

Chu Tianshu’s gaze dropped to the ground.

“You won’t punish a father who resembles your own—you instead urge him to harm his son even more.”

“You can’t even identify the right target for revenge. As a ghost, you’re still this weak—then what good are you as a ghost?!”

As soon as he finished speaking, the surroundings fell silent.

The insect chirps in the woods suddenly ceased—these little creatures were always especially sensitive to certain things.

Moments later, a gurgling sound rose from underground, like boiling water.

Black smoke surged upward along the stele, thickening from thin wisps into clumps like cotton.

Spirits with lingering thought are always easy to bait.

Chu Tianshu wore a shirt and long pants, with a denim jacket over them; his expression unchanged, he reached into his jacket pocket.

Leaving the corpse’s remains and rising to the surface—this state makes you vulnerable. Give you a few more hard strikes, then bring in the digger, and it’ll be fine.

HUUUU!

Cold wind stirred; black mist curled around the stele, while white mist rose from the ground.

Around the forest soil, as if a curtain had been lifted, a layer of white mist drifted upward.

Chu Tianshu’s expression changed slightly; he looked up.

The stele had been no more than ten meters from the factory.

Now he could no longer see the factory—only a thick, silk-like white fog.

Without turning, he knew the woods and the car behind him had also been cut off.

Above, the sky was equally blanketed in white, as if vast sheets of cloth had been deliberately drawn to enclose this patch of ground.

Only the objects within the clearing remained clear.

“This is... an overflow zone?!”

A needle-point gleam flashed in Chu Tianshu’s eyes, expanding slightly as he fixed his gaze on the stele ahead, his body lowering, poised to strike.

“Hah! So this kind of thing actually happens!”

(End of Chapter)