Chapter 277

Han Duo appears. Also maybe 'fragment' is not a name.

This is an evil art for cultivating living souls, called the Hundred Ghosts Grievance, or more suitably, the Hundred Spirit Children Grievance. Cultivating living souls means one constantly suffers the torment of vengeful spirits, with hellish visions appearing in the mind, making you endure day and night the ravaging and howling of vengeful spirits at your ears; you cannot bear the resentment, cannot endure this torment, and in the end you are tortured alive into a Yin Sha Ghost Mother.

Especially, the ghosts tormenting you are without exception vengeful spirits born on the Ten Spirits Day, at the Ten Spirits hour. From the moment of birth they possess unique wisdom; when they suffer an undeserved calamity, the resentment on their bodies is a hundred times stronger than that of ordinary dead.

Why children? Because children have just crossed the Yellow Springs Road and look back toward the nether path. Their spiritual awareness is slowly merging; a child's growth is a process of gradually discarding their past life and forgetting all gradual changes. Thus, the fear lies in their past memories not being erased—past‑life resentment plus present‑life hatred makes the resentment even stronger. When a hundred ghosts gather, this resentment increases a hundredfold, finally invading a person's body and soul.

Those who receive the Baptism of a Hundred Ghosts have very special physical requirements; those of pure yin more easily become ghost mothers, having absorbed the resentment of countless children, and the Yin Sha Ghost Mother is also called the ghost that eats ghosts.

The method for concocting this evil art had a page torn out, yet in the remaining corner I saw the words 'spirit blood marrow.' Those three words made my eyes involuntarily widen. Human blood contains innate and acquired essence and qi, which is why demons and monsters love to eat flesh and blood—the essence and qi aid their cultivation. At the same time, the seven emotions and six desires—joy, anger, sorrow, pleasure—also reside in one's blood.

My pupils dilated, my whole body went cold, and I trembled. In my mind appeared the bowl of sticky, bright red herbal medicine—yes, when I personally went to the Yao residence, Yao Yirong held a bowl of that vivid red substance that looked like sesame paste.

Yao Yirong often suffered headaches, sometimes so severe she forgot who she was, but I had never noticed that her face was full of exhaustion, her eye sockets completely blackened.

She was tormented by illness, or perhaps she simply refused to sleep; closing her eyes, countless ferocious infant souls would appear in her mind, and numerous infants bearing soaring resentment would crawl up from mountains of corpses and seas of blood, step by step approaching her.

"Come on, Pangzi, let's go to the Yao residence, hurry to the Yao residence..." I was at a loss, my mind a blank. Yuan Qiu, on his deathbed, had said that he and Ou Yaofeng came to the school for the sake of Yirong.

Perhaps the answer to all this can be found: over a hundred innocent children died horribly, their brain marrow drained, their purpose merely to obtain that bowl of spirit bone marrow containing the Hundred Ghosts Grievance.

…………

The moon was dark, the wind high, and a mountain rain loomed. Looking from outside the gate, the Yao family's ancient castle was utterly still, all lights extinguished, not a sound of clamor. Yet my heart was suffering spasms as if suffocating—a feeling of impending loss that made me feel anguish to the point of wanting to cry my eyes dry.

"Hai Sheng, the Yao residence is very quiet, aren't you overthinking it? Wait!" Pangzi was speaking when his face suddenly sank, he lowered his head to the ground and sniffed carefully; then Pangzi's face changed dramatically as he exclaimed, "What a strong smell of blood!"

My complexion changed abruptly; I could no longer endure the torment of this unknown waiting. I crawled from the wall toward the Yao residence, but when my pant leg was snagged and torn by the wall's sharp hook, a memory surged up with a ripping sound into my mind.

I vaguely recall that three years ago, on a night just like this, I followed Red Grandma's information to the Yao residence, climbing over this same wall, and the large wolfdog that had three years ago howled and lunged at me was gone.

"Are you alright, Yirong?" As the memories surged, I instinctively touched my own cheek—the spot where she had once struck me.

I glanced toward the second floor, vaguely remembering that was Yao Yirong's room. Yet when I entered the Yao manor, all that remained were the servants lying lifeless on the ground, one after another, silent and soundless. The bodies lay still in the hall, as if a ghost had wiped away their necks; they offered not the slightest resistance before death.

I hurried toward Yao Yirong's room, even stepping over a corpse that tripped my foot, yet I paid no heed. But when I reached the room where Yao Yirong slept, I found her nowhere to be found. Only Yao Wenju knelt on both knees in the room, and a black bone spur pierced through his heart—this is a soul‑targeting artifact; when it wounds a person, it also seizes their soul.

"Wen ge, how could this be? Yirong—where did Yirong go?" I shook Yao Wenju's arm desperately, but I knew he would never answer me again.

"Gurgle, gurgle..." As Pangzi helped lift my weeping self, I heard a faint noise coming from Yao Wenju's neck.

Pangzi and I crouched, staring in astonishment at Yao Wenju; in an instant his barely closed eyes snapped open, flashing with a sharp light.

We both jumped back, staggering under natural reflex; before we could react, Yao Wenju's hand in that moment landed on my shoulder.

"Save… save Yirong," Yao Wenju's voice was hoarse, veins bulging, his face flushed crimson. Only then did I notice that both of his hands had lost nine of their ten fingers. Blood had pooled on the ground and was nearly drained.

"This is the Wu family's Borrowing Yang; they believe the body, hair, skin, and ten fingers connected to the heart all originate from the earth's essence condensed. Within the Wu family there is a forbidden technique of self‑harming a thousand to wound the enemy eight hundred—using self‑mutilation as the price to forcibly unleash one's potential. But once this state passes, one often falls into a period of weakness, and even vitality and magical power can vanish extremely quickly." Pangzi stared fixedly at Yao Wenju, his tone also betraying palpitation.

Yao Wenju had become a blood‑soaked man—his body, his clothes, and the ground around him were covered in bloodstains.

At that moment, Yao Wenju suddenly shoved his last finger into his mouth, bit down hard, and swallowed it; as the finger melted in his mouth, essence‑blood spread throughout his body, and his face flushed red again.

"Hai Sheng, I beg you, please save Yirong—I have only this one sister; I beg you, save her." Tears welled in Yao Wenju's tiger eyes, full of pleading.

He tried to grab me, but his fingers were gone; his hands slipped across my body and fell to the ground, and then a fresh gush of blood poured from the severed stumps.

"Wen ge, quickly tell me where Yirong went, and where is my uncle—where did she go?" I supported Yao Wenju, and the tears in my eyes burst forth uncontrollably.

Ten fingers, each able to endure only this brief moment—how did he manage it, how did he bear the pain of ten fingers severed from the heart? And Yirong—where did she go? How did the Yao household become like this overnight?

"He is not my father, not my father!" Yao Wenju roared, face flushed red: "It was she who took Yirong away; I should have realized long ago that my father was already at death's door three years ago—how could his wounds suddenly heal?"

"I hate myself; I deserve to die, not even knowing my own father had been replaced. I deserve to die—an evil tiger has lurked beside me for so long and I was completely unaware; I deserve to die for failing to protect Yirong properly." Tears spilled from Yao Wenju's tiger eyes.

"Hai Sheng, I beg you, definitely save her—don't let Yirong become something that is neither human nor ghost." Though he knelt with both knees, his body bore the spirit of one who stands heaven‑high, admirable and pitiable.

Although I knew Yao Wenju doted on Yao Yirong, and that her shrewish nature was entirely his indulgence, the sight of his severed fingers shocked everyone's hearts deeply.

At this moment, no one remained unmoved, no one ceased trembling. In this life of three existences and seven worlds, where in this world of profit‑seeking could one find such an elder brother?

"Wen ge, tell me where Yirong went! I will go rescue her and surely bring her back." I wept, without asking why his father had done this, or why Yao Wenju would say that was no longer his father.

All I want now is to know Yirong's whereabouts, to hurry and rescue her—I cannot wait even a moment.

"She was taken…" Yao Wenju's chest rose and fell slowly, but just as he was about to reveal Yirong's location, his eyes suddenly widened. He then shouted at me, "Be careful!" and shoved me hard away.

A scorching breath seemed to rush at me from behind; in the nick of time, before I could think further, Yao Wenju's head flew sideways, blood splattering across my face.

"You bastard..." After the shock, as Yao Wenju crashed to the ground, I could no longer hold back my grief and anger, swinging my fists fiercely at the figure ahead emitting that scorching aura.

It was that gray‑robed fellow ahead who split Yao Wenju's skull with his hand—if Yao Wenju hadn't pushed me aside, I would have been the one dead.

I roared, attacking him with all my strength; when my fist struck his body, a boom rang out. The gray‑robed man stood unmoved, while I staggered backward several steps.

When Pangzi helped me up, I lowered my gaze to the hand that had launched the attack—it was a mass of blood‑red, several spots burnt and scorched, giving off a smell of charred flesh.

Meanwhile, the gray‑robed figure before me had slowly turned around, still holding in his hand Yao Wenju's head, eyes open in death..