Chapter 494: The Human Trap

In the darkness.

A woman with a twisted neck and blood all over her face ran toward them.

When she was only two or three meters away from Wu Xian, she leapt high into the air, pouncing like a beast, her mouth gaping wide as her cheeks tore open from within.

Shu! A spear over three meters long materialized automatically in Wu Xian’s loosely clenched hands.

The spear was ancient in design, consisting only of a long wooden shaft and a sharp tip as thick as the shaft itself; Wu Xian stood on its end while gripping it firmly with both hands.

The twisted-neck woman had no time to dodge—she slammed straight into the spear, her body easily pierced and impaled upon it.

This Macedonian spear was a divine artifact empowered by the faith of countless people, possessing the power to pierce through all things; ordinary wandering spirits struck by it should die instantly.

Yet the woman hung from the spear, clawing frantically, her blood streaming down the wooden shaft.

The feel of this blood.

Slippery, warm, with only a faint metallic tang—not the foul stench of many malevolent spirits, but like the blood of a normal human.

Shi Ji flicked his finger, and something entered the woman’s mouth.

But the woman showed no reaction; instead, she glared savagely at Shi Ji and spat a mouthful of blood at him.

Shi Ji’s expression flickered with surprise.

After the blood splashed past, he spun around and drew a ritual knife engraved with inscriptions from his official credential, executing a clean overhead slash.

Pata.

The woman’s head fell to the ground; her body finally went still.

Though Shi Ji looked somewhat foolish and untrustworthy, he was a Lotus Favored One who had survived multiple Fudi, and his true strength was far from what he appeared to be.

He stared sternly at Wu Xian: “Be careful. Something’s odd.”

Wu Xian nodded: “Yeah, it’s strange.”

In the real world, Favored Ones cannot voluntarily reveal Fudi information to ordinary people, nor can they use Divine Blessing abilities in front of them.

But this restriction applies only when no malevolent spirits are present.

Once malevolent spirits appear, Favored Ones have the right to use Divine Blessing abilities for self-defense, and any ordinary person who witnesses such abilities will have their memories erased by the City God afterward.

Wu Xian turned the spear and sliced lightly, breaking open the gate.

Then he pulled out a playing card and temporarily stored the Macedonian spear—it was over three meters long and awkward to carry into a room.

After the gate opened, two unbound people rushed out, gasping for fresh air; the middle-aged man pulled several stacks of cash from his bag and eagerly tried to hand them to Wu Xian and Shi Ji.

“I’m Wang Deyuan. Thank you so much—you saved my life. Please, take this money.”

But this time,

Wu Xian felt no urge to accept.

He walked into the stinking room, stepped over the corpses crawling with maggots, and moved to the back.

There was a third captive—unlike the other two, he was bound and had tape over his mouth; since Wu Xian and Shi Ji arrived, he had been struggling violently.

Wu Xian peeled off the tape from the man’s mouth.

The man stopped struggling and shouted urgently at Wu Xian.

“Don’t bother with me—those two outside, and the woman just now—they’re all in cahoots!”

Wu Xian spun around sharply.

He saw Wang Deyuan and the young man moving.

Both their faces twisted into savage grins, blood spurting from their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

Wang Deyuan opened his arms to embrace Shi Ji, while the young man drew a buffalo-horn dagger from his lower back and lunged for Shi Ji’s throat.

But Shi Ji was ready. His slightly chubby body dropped nimbly, dodging the dagger and Wang Deyuan’s embrace, then rolled sideways in a drunken donkey’s flip to escape between them.

When the roll ended,

Shi Ji waved his hand toward the two charging at him, and a stream of yellow gas erupted forth.

Wang Deyuan and the young man moved normally through the gas, but their vision was obscured by its density; Shi Ji charged forward and cleanly severed both their heads with the ritual knife.

While Wu Xian watched,

The bound man quietly rose, preparing to attack Wu Xian—only to find Wu Xian’s hand already behind his back, clutching a playing card.

The card ignited without fire; Wu Xian’s fingertip now held a single clear droplet of water.

Go! The droplet shot out, striking the man’s chin—apparently with no effect.

But the next second,

A violent spray of mist erupted from the man’s chin; the droplet shattered his skin, cracked his jawbone, and surged upward, ripping open his entire skull!

This was the Water-Drills-Stone Spell: it concentrated the force of water dripping on a single point for years or even decades into a single droplet’s explosion.

The man’s head was now half gone; his body swayed and collapsed to the ground.

Wu Xian turned back to the corpse, his face thoughtful.

“Brother Xian, what are these things?”

“I don’t know.”

Before Shi Ji cut off the woman’s head, he had thrown a yellow pill into her mouth; for a normal malevolent spirit, this pill would induce a poisoning-like reaction.

But the woman’s reaction was unnervingly mild—less than eating a sour candy. This meant whatever they were facing was completely immune to impure forces.

If the woman was immune, then Wang Deyuan and the other two, who had also swallowed the yellow pill, could not be cleared of suspicion.

So after opening the door, Wu Xian and Shi Ji had been watching all three closely.

But they couldn’t confirm their true nature—if these three were merely innocent bystanders caught up in this? So they decided to observe their reactions first.

They were so impatient that they struck the instant Wu Xian entered the room, with no patience for the perfect moment.

“These things—they came for us.”

“From the sabotage of the car tires outside Jinmu Building, to the woman’s taxi, to these three prisoners in this cell—this wasn’t random. It was a deliberate trap laid for Favored Ones.”

“But what’s their goal?”

Wu Xian was puzzling over this

When clapping echoed from afar.

A man in a taxi driver’s uniform walked over—it was Zhao Licheng, the first missing person, the immoral Old Zhao!

Zhao Licheng spoke coldly: “I didn’t expect even this elaborate trap would fail to kill even one of you. Looks like Favored Ones are just as troublesome in this world as they are in the Fudi.”

Behind Zhao Licheng stood over a dozen others.

Men and women, fat and thin, some holding baseball bats, others wielding large cleavers—all with vicious expressions, none showing any sign of malevolence; clearly, they were the same type as the previous three.

Seeing Zhao Licheng seemed approachable, Wu Xian asked curiously:

“That woman just now—what kind of malevolent spirit is she? So weak, yet she didn’t die from the divine spear, and she’s immune to the yellow pill...”

“Malevolent spirit?”

Zhao Licheng’s fist clenched, veins bulging on his forehead as he glared at Wu Xian with fury.

“We’re not that kind of thing—we’re human!”

(End of Chapter)