Chapter 329: Do You Dare Not Answer When I Call Your Name?

The masked ninja, originally two heads shorter than an ordinary man, suddenly swelled to over four meters tall, his face green and fanged, skin tinged a purplish-red, two thick bony horns piercing through his scalp—a classic ogre’s appearance.

But Feng Xue’s Dragon Tooth Soldiers were modeled after Mary’s mechanical puppets and Bigre’s intelligent little bats, their sentience and combat power surpassing ordinary Dao soldiers, and their strength alone rivaling fully armed heavy cavalry.

Though individually they couldn’t match the ogre-transformed assassin, when surrounding him, they still fought back and forth evenly.

As Feng Xue commanded his Dragon Tooth Soldiers to battle the ogre, atop a distant apartment building, several cultivators dressed in wildly different styles gathered to drink tea and sip wine.

Though giving juniors a chance to gain experience is an unspoken rule in the Central Plains cultivation world, when external forces are involved, it’s no longer just about training—arrangements regarding the Japanese conspiracy have already been made, so these idle elders simply watched from the sidelines.

Even though they were nearly a li away, Feng Xue’s battle was crystal clear to all the cultivators—but precisely because they saw it so clearly, none of them spoke a word.

“Oh? Already fighting? How’s that kid doing? Can you tell his origins yet?”

A voice tinged with childishness spoke with the tone of an old master; Bai Yi suddenly appeared from nowhere, snatched a teacup from the table, and poured herself a drink—only to notice no one answered, then realized something was off, immediately casting a distance-viewing spell toward Feng Xue’s alley.

“Hey! Bean-to-soldiers! That technique’s rare these days!” Bai Yi raised her eyebrows, muttering thoughtfully—bean-to-soldiers had existed since the end of the Han Dynasty, an ancient Daoist spell, but later, because certain Dao sects had joined the struggle for the dragon throne, it was feared by successive dynasties; even if passed down, no one dared use it openly, and it gradually faded into obscurity.

Yet even after she spoke, no one replied; Bai Yi found it deeply strange, finally unable to hold back:

“Why is everyone suddenly mute?”

“How to put it… never mind, look again at those Dao soldiers—use the Qi-seeing technique.”

Finally, an old man she knew spoke up; Bai Yi frowned:

“What could possibly be fishy… fishy… damn it! Where did that dragon qi come from? It feels odd, but it’s definitely dragon qi! Doesn’t he worship the Moon Goddess?”

“You didn’t see his thunder art? It’s insane! And that spirit ghost—I’ve never seen one so pure in my life!” said the relatively younger man, shaking his head; Bai Yi replied:

“Isn’t that spirit ghost the one the antique dealer sold him?”

“Who?” As soon as the words left his mouth, all eyes turned to the corner, fixing on the silent owner of Moyu Pavilion; the owner immediately said:

“Don’t look at me—I don’t know him. A month ago, Ninth Aunt introduced him to buy one spirit ghost; who knew he could feed it to this state in under a month? Sure, he said it had a big appetite, but even the hungriest can’t…”

“What? A month? I’ve raised my spirit ghost for nearly seventy years, and one raised for a month just beat it to a pulp! You’re telling me the one you sold me wasn’t defective?!”

Bai Yi’s temper flared instantly; the Moyu Pavilion owner winced:

“Don’t speak recklessly! I’ve always run a fair business—why don’t you look at yourself for the cause?”

“Quiet—the kid’s got a new trick!” Just as Bai Yi was about to summon her adopted daughter to observe someone else’s child, the older cultivator suddenly spoke.

Compared to bickering elders, young talent was clearly more worth watching; as attention shifted again, the green-faced, fanged ogre had finally crushed every Dragon Tooth Soldier into bean paste.

Though Feng Xue could summon ten more squads of such Dragon Tooth Soldiers at will, he didn’t want to torture himself with this “glutinous rice cake” tactic.

Watching the wounds the Dragon Tooth Soldiers had inflicted slowly heal on the ogre, Feng Xue calmly sidestepped its charge, tossed out a substitute paper doll, and through their mental link, Mo Ying immediately seized a brush and drew a spirit-invoking talisman on it; Feng Xue then pulled out a white jade gourd, caught the paper doll rolled into a scroll, and shoved it inside—

“You demon! I call your name—dare you not answer?!”

“What the hell?” Though far away, all present were seasoned veterans and had ways to discern exactly what Feng Xue had shouted—but precisely because they understood, they found the whole thing utterly absurd.

“Purple Gold Red Gourd? Yangzhi Jade Vase?” Journey to the West had once been studied as a Daoist scripture; all present had read it to some degree, and as they pondered what method this boy might use to achieve such a treasure’s soul-capturing effect—

The ogre suddenly collapsed like a deflated sack, its body ragged and boneless, but no one cared about the Japanese man’s fate—they had clearly seen: the jade gourd had truly sucked in the ghost!

“The ghost didn’t answer… oh, the kid shouted ‘dare you not answer’… ” Bai Yi clicked her tongue, growing more and more bewildered—why? Why did just not answering get it captured?

“If I’m not mistaken, that was… spirit-invocation?” After a brief hesitation, the Moyu Pavilion owner muttered uncertainly.

“Yes, it’s spirit-invocation—but can you forcibly summon one like this? And onto a paper doll?”

The Daoist in his robe glanced at the spirit-invoking talisman in his hand, suddenly questioning reality; the old Daoist, seeing this, mused:

“You can’t summon a true deity this way—but for hungry, wandering ghosts craving physical form, if they drop their resistance, they’ll cling on themselves; the paper doll is likely a substitute technique, transferring the summoned spirit or god onto the paper, while the gourd is merely symbolic—required for ritual, and also providing subsequent sealing power.”

“I roughly understand the principle—but who could possibly develop such a technique?! Even if you knew the full ritual, who’d dare?!” The youngest Daoist scratched his head, unable to fathom what mental state one must be in to invent a technique so absurd that a single misstep could surrender one’s body.

“Hmm, actually… it might be possible!” The old Daoist suddenly brightened, clapped his hands:

“If you first summon a powerful enough phantom spirit to inhabit your body, it can protect your spiritual core—even if you summon a second one, you won’t lose your physical form; the burden remains heavy, but now it’s developable…”

“Top-tier phantom spirit, powerful thunder art, strange dragon qi, and bean-to-soldiers—I think I know this kid’s lineage!”

(End of Chapter)