Chapter 549

I took the tattered scroll from Han Duo's hand; the content that met my eyes shocked me, and a nameless anger surged up from my chest.

This is an evil art for cultivating living souls, called the Hundred Ghosts Resentment, or more suitably called the Hundred Spirit Children's Resentment. The so-called cultivation of living souls makes one constantly endure torment by vengeful spirits, with hellish illusions appearing in the mind, causing one to suffer day and night from the spirits' ravaging and howling near one's ears; one cannot bear the resentment, cannot endure this torment, and in the end is tormented alive into a Yin Sha Ghost Mother.

Especially, the ghosts tormenting you are without exception vengeful spirits born on the Ten Spirit Day, at the Ten Spirit 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, fear lies in the fact that if their past-life memories are not erased, the resentment from past lives plus present-life hatred intensifies. When a hundred ghosts gather, this resentment increases a hundredfold, finally invading a person's body and soul.

Those who receive the Hundred Ghosts Baptism have special physical requirements; those of pure yin more easily become ghost mothers, having absorbed countless children's resentment, 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 consume flesh and blood, as the essence and qi aid their cultivation. At the same time, the seven emotions and six desires—joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred—also reside in one's blood.

My pupils dilated, my whole body went cold, and I trembled. In my mind appeared the image of that bowl of sticky, bright red herbal medicine; yes, when I personally went to the Yao household, Yao Yirong held a bowl of that bright red substance that was 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 black.

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 countless infants bearing soaring resentment would crawl up from mountains of corpses and seas of blood, step by step approaching her.

"Go, Pangzi, let's go to the Yao household, quickly to the Yao household..." I was at a loss, my mind a blank. Yuan Qiu said on his deathbed 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 children died innocently, their brain marrow drained, their purpose merely to obtain that bowl containing the spirit bone marrow of the Hundred Ghosts Resentment.

………………

The moon was dark, the wind high, rain seemed imminent; looking from outside, the Yao family's ancient castle was utterly still, all lights extinguished, not a sound of clamor. Yet my heart was experiencing a suffocating spasm, the feeling of about to lose something, making me feel anguished to the point of wanting to die, making me want to shed tears until dry.

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

My face suddenly changed; I could no longer endure the torment of this unknown wait, I crawled from the wall toward the Yao residence, yet when my trouser leg was snagged and torn by the wall's sharp hook, a memory surged up in my mind with a ripping sound.

I vaguely recall that three years ago, it was also such a night. Following Red Grandmother's information, I came to the Yao household, and likewise climbed over this wall, but the large wolf dog that had howled and lunged at me three years ago was gone.

"Are you all right, Yirong!" As the memory surged, I instinctively touched my cheek. This was the spot where she had originally struck me.

I gazed toward the second floor, vaguely recalling that was Yao Yirong's room. Yet when I entered the Yao manor, all that remained was endless desolation, the Yao household's servants, one after another, collapsing silently to the ground. The bodies lay still in the hall, as if a ghost had wiped away their necks, with not a trace of resistance before death.

I hurried toward Yao Yirong's room, even if a corpse tripped my foot I paid no heed, but upon reaching the room where Yao Yirong slept, I found Yao Yirong nowhere to be seen. Only Yao Wenju, knees bent in the room, and upon Yao Wenju's chest a black bone spur pierced through—this is a soul‑targeting artifact; when it wounds a person, the soul is also taken away.

"Wen brother, how could this be? Yirong, where did Yirong go?" I gripped Yao Wenju's arm tightly, yet I knew Yao Wenju would not answer me again.

"Gulu, gulu..." As Pangzi helped the weeping me to my feet, I heard a faint noise coming from Yao Wenju's throat.

Pangzi and I crouched, staring in surprise at Yao Wenju; suddenly, for a moment, Yao Wenju's tightly closed eyes snapped open, flashing a sharp light.

Pangzi and I were startled, instinctively staggering back; before we could react, Yao Wenju's hand in that instant rested 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 Yao Wenju's hands had lost nine of their ten fingers; blood had pooled on the floor and was nearly drained.

"This is the Wu family's Borrowing Yang technique; the Wu family believe that body, hair, and the ten fingers connected to the heart all originate from the earth's essence. Within the Wu clan there exists a self‑harming‑a‑thousand, harming‑the‑enemy‑eight‑hundred forbidden art, using self‑mutilation as payment to forcibly erupt one's potential. But once this state passes, one often falls into a period of weakness, even seeing vitality and magical power rapidly dissipate." Pangzi stared at Yao Wenju, his tone also betraying palpitations.

Yao Wenju had become a blood‑soaked figure; 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, swallowed it; as the finger melted in his mouth, essence blood spread throughout his body, and Yao Wenju's face regained a hint of red.

"Hai Sheng, I beg you, please save Yirong—I have only this one sister, I beg you, please save her." Yao Wenju's tiger eyes brimmed with tears, full of pleading.

He tried to grab me, but his fingers were gone; his hands slipped across my body to the ground, and fresh blood gushed anew from the severed ends.

"Wen brother, quickly tell me where Yirong went, and where is Father—where did she go?" I supported Yao Wenju, tears spilling uncontrollably from my eyes.

Ten fingers, each able to endure only this brief moment—how did he manage it, how did he bear the pain of ten severed fingers piercing 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's face flushed red as he roared: "It was she who took Yirong; I should have realized long ago that Father was already on his deathbed three years ago, how could his wounds suddenly heal?"

"I hate myself, I deserve to die, not even knowing when my own father changed into someone else. I deserve to die, an evil tiger has lurked beside me all this time and I was completely unaware—I deserve to die, for failing to protect Yirong properly." Yao Wenju's tiger eyes welled with tears.

"Hai Sheng, I beg you, please save her, do not let Yirong become something that is neither human nor ghost." Though he knelt with both knees, his body bore the spirit of one who could uphold heaven, admirable and pitiable.

Although I knew Yao Wenju loved Yao Yirong deeply, and even that Yao Yirong's shrewish nature was spoiled into being by him, yet seeing Yao Wenju's shattered fingers shocked everyone's hearts deeply.

At this moment no one remained unmoved, no one ceased trembling; in these three lives and seven worlds, where people live for profit, where could one find such an elder brother?

"Wen brother, tell me where Yirong went! I will go rescue her, I will surely bring her back." I wept, not asking why his father did this, nor why Yao Wenju would say that was no longer his father.

Now I only want to know Yirong's whereabouts, only want to hurry and bring her back; I cannot wait a moment.

"She was taken……" Yao Wenju's chest rose and fell slowly, but just as he was about to reveal Yirong's whereabouts, his eyes suddenly widened. Immediately he bellowed at me, "Watch out!" 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, fresh blood splattering across my face.

"Damn……" After the shock, as Yao Wenju crashed to the ground, I could no longer restrain my grief and fury, swinging my fists fiercely at the figure emitting that scorching heat ahead.

It was that gray‑robed fellow who had split Yao Wenju's skull with his palm; if Yao Wenju had not pushed me away, I would have been the one dead.

I roared, throwing my whole strength into the attack; when my fist struck his body, a boom rang out. The gray‑robed man stood unmoved, while I staggered backward several steps.

After Pangzi steadied me, I looked down at the hand that had launched the attack—it was already a sheet of blood, several spots burnt and scorched, emitting a smell of charred flesh.

Meanwhile, the gray‑robed man before me had slowly turned around; in his hand he still held Yao Wenju's head, eyes wide open in death.