Chapter 19

There are no named entities besides possibly numbers.

Fortunately, the three still had a breath left, and with everyone pounding their chests and blowing air, we managed to snatch these three back from King Yama's hands.

Fatty and the Sutra for Crossing Over the Dead.

Brother Hai Sheng, Xiao Mengxue, and I, plus an aunt.

I was drenched and feeling awful; without thinking I blurted out 'okay'. After all that commotion, I'd guess many students were scared stiff—I no longer had the mood to stay. Even the teacher leading us, whose mental fortitude wasn't weak, was frightened pale by this little incident.

Fatty, Mengxue, and an aunt.

Mengxue's aunt lives in the nearby village; she said her aunt knew she was coming today, prepared a lavish dinner, and even let Mengxue bring a few classmates along to eat, for a lively gathering.

The three walked along the village path, laughing and joking, feeling the fresh naturalness unlike the city's bustle.

There are no city skyscrapers, no endless streams of cars—just a long-lost tranquility. Strolling along the country lane, we hear the crisp, pleasant bird songs from the books, watch the carp in the fish pond stirring the stream, step on the stone slab path, and feel the rare leisure and ease.

Right now I am utterly immersed in the rich rural charm, eyes closed, I take a deep breath, feeling the fragrant air mixed with the earth.

"Puff... " another barely audible pfft sound came so suddenly, mixed with... a foul stench.

"Damn... fatty Pangzi, you farted again" I coughed a few times, forced myself to exhale, damn it, I felt the fresh air, yet I ended up inhaling Pangzi's fart.

Fatty and dantian.

... boasting without blinking, farting is farting, what's with dragging in foul qi?

Ignoring Pangzi, who was narcissistically admiring himself nearby, I pulled Mengxue and we strode off.

"Wait for me!" Pangzi shouted from behind and chased after us.

"Hey... what's up ahead?" As we walked, we suddenly saw the path ahead crowded with people, and we could hear crying coming from within.

We hadn't yet figured out what was happening when Mengxue suddenly shouted "Aunt!" and rushed into the crowd.

After we pushed through the onlookers, we saw an old woman on the ground clutching a small child and wailing, while Mengxue anxiously called out, "Aunt Mei, cousin," and similar things.

Pangzi and I rushed over and asked Mengxue what happened. She said she didn't know either; earlier she had seen a crowd gathered outside her aunt's door, worried something had occurred, and when she ran over she found her aunt hugging her little cousin and crying on the ground.

Aunt Mei and Guanyin.

It was only because of Aunt Mei's remark that Pangzi and I noticed the child she was holding.

Upon closer look, we were startled—the child's eyes were open but blank, devoid of any liveliness; even seeing his mother weep, he showed no reaction, clearly he had lost his soul.

Soul loss often happens in children, because their pure spirits easily encounter unclean things and are easily frightened by them. Mild cases cause fever and crying; severe cases become like idiots, only giggling and drooling, showing no reaction even if you hit or scold them. Although this resembles idiocy, it doesn't necessarily mean they've become idiots. If the soul hasn't been away long, it can be recalled by some methods and still return. Conversely, the longer the soul is away, the longer it is lost in Yangjian; once it dissipates, it can never be retrieved.

"How... " I furtively poked Pangzi beside me.

Pangzi frowned solemnly and said: "His face is dark as soot, the yin-sand elemental light is at the hall of impression, the three fires are dim, danger abounds—this is surely a hellish walking corpse."

Pangzi's words made my heart skip a beat, and I tensed up.

Pangzi and I each have our strengths; his arts are slightly inferior to mine, but he has followed QingSongShu to master divination and physiognomy. Although I too have studied physiognomy under QingSongShu, I am far behind him in both.

From what he said, it seems Mengxue's cousin may not have simply lost her soul; she likely provoked some spiritual entity.

Pangzi gave me a look; I understood and nodded, then ran to a place unseen. I raised my hands to my forehead, formed hand seals, stomped three times: "Heaven's divine light, earth's divine light, open the eyes before me, the spell to open the eyes, ……"

This is the incantation for opening the spiritual eye; after cultivating the spiritual eye, one can use the incantation to open the eye, and upon opening it, by the method of observing mirrors, one can see the forms entwined with hysteria patients and discern what kind of spiritual entity they are.

But when I returned to that spot and looked at the child, I found no spiritual entity possessing him, no spiritual form visible; only some grayish mist on his body and some tiny footprints, which seemed to be those of some animal.

I leaned close to Pangzi's ear and quietly told him two words: "Encountered evil."

Laypeople think that ghost possession and hitting a ghost are both cases of encountering evil, but in fact the two are completely different; ghost possession is the true encountering evil, because due to the relation of the spiritual body on the body, more or less, the patient will exhibit some abnormal movements. This kind does not require any Daoist; a discerning person can see it at a glance. But hitting a ghost requires someone with Dao cultivation to know, because when you hit a ghost, the ghost is not necessarily on you; perhaps the ghost causes you to be hit by a car and die, and you never even see the ghost's face, let alone know what it looks like.

So, I only need to say these two words, and I believe Pangzi will also be able to judge what's going on.

"Can you tell from the traces what kind of spiritual body it is?" Pangzi asked in a low voice.

I pondered for a moment and told him that, based on the traces, I could only determine that this was not the work of a wandering ghost, but of a wild immortal who had opened their Spiritual Aperture.

Wild Immortal, Out Horse Immortal, incense, and divine rank.

The second type feeds on human vitality, human souls and essence-blood to enhance its own cultivation, or it burrows into a corpse's belly, using the human body as armor to cultivate. We generally do not call this kind of wild immortal an immortal; instead, based on its true form, we add the two words "spirit monster" after it.

Now I am judging from the claw marks on this child's body that it is the work of a wild immortal, but as for matters concerning wild immortals, I have only heard about them and have never actually encountered one. Not to mention what the true form of this wild immortal is, why it lured away the child's soul, where the child's soul now is, or whether it was eaten—I know nothing about any of it.

Uncle Ming, Guanyin Bodhisattva, suckling pig, and peanut oil.

Guanyin Bodhisattva.

We wanted to ask Uncle Ming for the full story, but he was so anxious, only thinking about preparing things for the memorial, his mind entirely on little Yu, this child, that he had no time to attend to us.

Later, we told Meng Xue the truth; Meng Xue seized a relative and asked, and only then did that relative reveal the whole story to us..