Chapter 340: Fen Wu

“As far as I know, Zhao You is a gentle ghost,” Fen Wu said, exhaling a wisp of smoke.

Ning Zhe nodded, acknowledging his words.

Zhao You was indeed gentle; the rules for avoiding misfortune were simple and clear—even if violated, death did not come immediately, but only after at least three consecutive breaches of taboos.

Compared to Te Rang, who died at the sight of light; Wu Tong, who forced purchases; and Chu Deng Gui, who bullied the weak and feared the strong—Zhao You was truly harmless.

Fen Wu pulled out his phone and checked the time: September 10, 2018, 10:13 PM.

“Zhao You vanished from Hejia Village on June 6 this year—that is, only three months and a few days have passed since you first mastered Him.”

Fen Wu put down his phone. “In such a short time, even the most violent malevolent ghosts show no signs of flaws so quickly, let alone Zhao You, whose nature is gentle.”

Ning Zhe said nothing, listening in silence.

“Yet just two months after Zhao You disappeared from Hejia Village, you rushed from Yunzhou to Chenyu Valley Prison, attempting to master a new anomaly to compensate for your own flaw—the relic of Yu Ziqian.”

“Zhao You’s gentle nature clearly did not drive you to this act—it was another ghost within you,” Fen Wu observed Ning Zhe’s expressionless face and ventured, “Tai Yi?”

According to Fen Wu’s knowledge, the second ghost on Yu Ziqian possessed the ability to extreme and radicalize human emotions and thoughts—what kind of ghost’s flaw required such power to compensate? What was the core rule of Tai Yi?

The information revealed by “Tai Yi” was too scarce for him to deduce anything.

Ning Zhe listened quietly to Fen Wu’s words, refraining from voicing his own opinion.

After all, who knew if this Fen Wu was truly Fen Wu? Was he a remotely controlled puppet, or another Yan Yukuan brainwashed into believing he was Fen Wu? There was no evidence to prove anything.

Seeing Ning Zhe remain silent, Fen Wu shook his head, seemingly disappointed.

He continued: “Based on all current evidence, I can confirm your core rule is not Zhao You, but the wandering ghost that strayed into Hejia Village. The anomaly you later mastered in Chenyu Valley Prison was not meant to compensate for Zhao You’s flaw—it was meant to compensate for ‘Tai Yi.’”

If this were true, then this “Tai Yi” was indeed an extraordinarily terrifying malevolent ghost—within just two months, it had driven Ning Zhe to the brink of desperate risk.

“What exactly are you trying to say?” Ning Zhe finally spoke, his tone edged with impatience.

“What I’m saying is—you don’t need Zhao You at all,” Fen Wu said bluntly. “A towering building rises from the ground. Ascenders generally base their entire system on the first anomaly they master, gradually building a chain of interlocking rules by filling their flaws. That foundation, the original starting point, is called the ascender’s ‘core rule.’”

“Your core rule is not Zhao You—it is Tai Yi.”

“You chose Tai Yi as the starting point of your rule chain, not Zhao You.”

“Therefore, even if the Gambler forcibly stripped Zhao You from you, it had no effect on the balance of your internal rule chain—because Zhao You was never integrated into your system to begin with. He was merely a solitary, rootless wandering soul outside your structure.”

Here, Fen Wu finally revealed his true intent: “If that’s the case, why not hand over this wandering soul to me?”

After all, it’s something you don’t need.

“Of course, I won’t let you give it up for free,” Fen Wu added quickly. “In exchange, I’ll give you another ghost as compensation—I’ll owe you a favor. We don’t need to keep scheming against each other, fighting to the death. After today, you walk your path of ascension, I’ll walk mine. Having another ally never hurts. What’s the harm?”

“What’s the name of that ghost?” Ning Zhe asked. “What can it do?”

Seeing Ning Zhe’s attitude soften, Fen Wu’s lips curled into a smile. “You’ve already met her. You’ve already experienced her function firsthand—her utility is certainly no less than Zhao You’s.”

“That ghost resides in my daughter Bai Zhi. Her name is—Tai Su.”

“Tai Su…” Ning Zhe’s gaze drifted slightly, lost in thought.

“What do you say?” Fen Wu smiled, urging. “Just nod, and she’s yours.”

“Sounds good,” Ning Zhe smiled too. Seeing this, Fen Wu’s face lit up. “Excellent! Then I’ll have you leave the opera house right now? Once I have Zhao You, I’ll immediately arrange for Bai Zhi to be brought to you.”

“I’ve actually considered accepting your offer…” Ning Zhe shook his head, sighing. “But I see not even a trace of sincerity in your business dealings.”

“Oh? What do you mean?” Fen Wu’s eyes turned sharp and playful. “Where do you see a lack of sincerity?”

Ning Zhe raised a hand and pointed to his temple. “From here.”

Fen Wu frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Of course you don’t—because you’re not Fen Wu,” Ning Zhe snatched the cigarette from his hand, tossed it to the ground, crushed it underfoot, left the viewing platform, and returned to the room.

Ignoring the man’s shouts behind him, Ning Zhe walked straight to the sofa’s rear, where the gambling table’s game continued.

“Fen Wu is a swindler. He already took Yu Ziqian’s deposit, yet still sent Te Rang to Bishuiwan Manor to kill for him. He has no sense of contract—dealing with him is like bargaining with a tiger.”

“Bai Zhi… Tai Su. Your offer seems sincere, but if I took the bait, I’d simply become another fish in your net.”

Ning Zhe sneered at Fen Wu’s credibility.

Because from start to finish, Fen Wu never mentioned the most critical, yet easiest-to-overlook question.

“—I probably have a Tai Sui worm in my head too.”

Recalling his experiences after the Bishuiwan Manor incident, Te Rang was mastered by Feng Yu. Desperate and near death, Yu Ziqian went mad, spending vast sums to hire Tu Yu’s aid in sealing off Taoyuan City, launching indiscriminate manhunts against all survivors of the Bishuiwan Manor incident.

On the highway to Taoyuan City with Bai Zhi, Ning Zhe encountered a group of gas station employees, brainwashed by Yu Ziqian, obsessed with killing Bai Zhi.

Later, Feng Yushu recalled that in the hospital, she also encountered many medical staff and family members who went berserk the moment they saw her, wanting to kill her.

All of them had been branded with thought stamps.

Jue Yuan’s rule could extreme and radicalize human emotions and thoughts, turning them into absolute, unbreakable thought stamps.

In other words, Jue Yuan could only intensify preexisting thoughts—it could not implant entirely new ones.

“Then where did the gas station employees get the idea to ‘kill Bai Zhi’?”

“Where did the hospital staff’s desire to ‘kill Feng Yushu’ originally come from?”

Though lacking definitive proof, Ning Zhe already had his answer: “Fen Wu.”

The original scenario was a collaboration between Fen Wu and Yu Ziqian.

Fen Wu used his memory-altering ability to implant thoughts that didn’t originally belong to people; Yu Ziqian then used Jue Yuan to solidify those thoughts into unshakable thought stamps.

“And in Taoyuan City’s hospital, I too was branded with a thought stamp.”

The content of that stamp: [I must kill Ning Zhe].

Recalling the scene, Ning Zhe’s thoughts grew clearer. Though he had quickly switched to his identity as a Ecological Park security guard to absorb the stamp, the fact that Yu Ziqian did it meant he believed it would succeed.

“That means my memories had already begun being altered by Fen Wu since then…”

(End of Chapter)