Chapter 36

Do no wrong, and you need not fear the ghost at your door.

This was the truth Wu Wang had always lived by.

For instance, he himself would quicken his pace every time he climbed the stairs and heard the cat downstairs meowing mournfully, after he had secretly shaved its head one night.

Afraid the neighbor would find out it was him.

Not because he feared being held accountable.

Mainly because he feared the neighbor might shave the top of his own cat’s head too—and if his second sister found out, she’d scold him all night.

Similarly, since Yin Yuan Village must choose a Yin Yuan Sacred Maiden each year, yet never speaks a word about where the previous one went.

Wu Wang believed this was a wrong deed.

The fates of those Sacred Maidens were mostly grim.

Yet despite this, every household in the village paid no mind, continuing annually to hold the Yin Yuan Grand Sacrifice, proving they knew full well they were eating blood-soaked buns—and still devoured them with relish.

What magic could this Yin Yuan Great God possibly possess?

To deceive an entire village into such blind devotion?

He would start with the village chief.

“Village Chief! Think of a solution! That thing has thrown the village into panic—everyone even dares not trust their own bedmates!” Uncle Li knelt before the ancestral hall, banging his head on the ground in plea.

Behind him stood a dense crowd of villagers, exchanging uneasy glances filled with suspicion.

After all, what had happened before was too bizarre.

Now they saw everyone as potentially fake.

Even the village chief’s grandson was among the crowd demanding justice, his face swollen and bruised, his head covered in lumps—making it hard not to laugh.

Moments later, the ancestral hall door opened.

An old man with white hair, face lined with wrinkles, hunched over so badly he appeared half a head shorter than normal, slowly emerged, leaning on a dark red staff topped with a snake’s head.

Yet strangely, though the temperature was warm, he was wrapped in a thick cotton-padded coat, wore a windproof hat on his head, and had full-fingered thermal gloves—like a man bracing for bitter winter.

The surrounding villagers felt nothing amiss; they simply gazed at him with hopeful eyes.

“Hmm… I understand the matter. So that disobedient grandson was behind this. Go about your business—I’ll handle it with the Yin Yuan Great God.” The old chief’s voice was hoarse, like a gong with a hole punched through it.

With that, he thumped his snake-headed staff on the ground.

Thump-thump-thump—

The next instant, the once-noisy villagers fell utterly silent.

They exchanged glances, thanked the old chief, and left the ancestral hall to resume their tasks.

Not a single person raised any objection.

Wu Wang, disguised as a child among the crowd, was taken aback.

The villagers’ trust in the old chief bordered on blind obedience.

Even when faced with something they deemed terrifyingly strange, if the old chief said he could fix it, no one doubted him.

But it didn’t matter.

His goal had never been them.

Wu Wang had understood this from the start.

“When the villagers come to you with problems, who do you turn to when you have problems? Let me see what this Yin Yuan Great God is really about!” Wu Wang thought.

His figure slowly detached from the crowd.

Just before the ancestral hall door closed again, Wu Wang’s slender form shot inside with a whisper.

From afar, he saw the old chief’s hunched back, staff in hand, slowly moving inward; he quietly followed, keeping his distance.

He was still in child form—light, small, and hard to notice.

The Yin Yuan Village ancestral hall was large.

Inside was a courtyard-like structure; before the main hall stood a massive incense burner, where thick coils of white smoke rose from burning incense.

Following the old chief along a red-wood corridor, Wu Wang saw numerous rooms on either side filled with tablets of various sizes.

Each bore the name of a deceased person.

Strangely, only the names appeared—no birth dates, no familial relations, nothing else.

And every single one bore the surname Zhang.

This was information Wu Wang had gathered earlier while impersonating others, from the mouths of naive children.

Yin Yuan Village was dominated by the Zhang surname.

This surname made up over half the village’s population.

Reaching the outer door of the main hall,

Wu Wang saw that what was enshrined there were dozens of gory human skins!

Hung directly opposite the main hall’s entrance, about ten of them, peeled with perfect precision—no seams, no stitching, as if the corpses beneath had simply evaporated.

The hollow eye sockets stared outward; though devoid of eyeballs, Wu Wang still felt a creeping sense of being watched.

Crack-crack-crack—

Suddenly, a strange sound came from within the hall.

More precisely, from the old chief himself.

He knelt before the row of skins, writhing and contorting—especially his hunched back, which bulged outward like a hatching egg breaking through its membrane, arching into an exaggerated curve.

His bones cracked with a chilling sound; Wu Wang raised an eyebrow.

“Is this some kind of alien giving birth? Shouldn’t it burst open from the abdomen? Why the hell is it molting?” Wu Wang muttered inwardly.

Rip—

The skin finally stretched to its limit and tore open.

Then came the horrifying sight—

From the old chief’s ruptured body crawled out a gaunt, skeletal thing.

Though humanoid, its skin clung tightly to the bones, revealing no trace of flesh or muscle; Wu Wang found it impossible to classify it as alive.

It resembled nothing so much as a skeleton.

Wait a minute…

Wasn’t there a side quest about eliminating the ghost inside the ancestral hall?

Holy shit—the old chief himself is the ghost!

Wu Wang’s heart jolted.

If this thing truly was a ghost, there was no way he could now rush out and kill it by force.

At least, not by himself.

So far, even the student-toucher ghosts in Gaoshan Middle School had seemed beyond what any player could defeat head-on—let alone this suspected boss.

If any player could brute-force their way through this dungeon, Wu Wang would call him—Big Muscle!

“Hehehe… you hiding there… why not come out and meet the old woman?” The skeleton emitted a hoarse voice, as if a millennium-old phlegm clogged its throat.

Its entire head rotated one hundred eighty degrees, staring toward the back—toward the doorway.

A small figure timidly stepped out, voice trembling: “C…Chief Grandpa… you scared me…”

Seeing the child’s innocent face, eyes welling with frightened tears,

The skeleton’s voice softened slightly: “Ah, it’s little Zhang Mahzi’s brat… this isn’t a place for children. Go home quickly.”

The child turned to leave.

But the instant his gaze shifted away, the skeleton ghost glided behind him and drove a long, bony finger straight down onto the crown of his skull.

The skeleton’s face twisted with greed.

“Such tender, succulent flesh…”

Whoosh—

In an instant, the child dropped low and sidestepped.

Simultaneously, he braced one hand on the ground, kicked his legs high into the air, and slammed them into the skeleton’s most vulnerable spot.

“Strike the balls first—win rate doubles!”

Wu Wang kicked, then used the recoil to flip upright.

Then he realized the tragic truth—

“Damn it, you don’t even have any!”

The skeleton’s lower body was completely empty—he felt nothing to crush.

It seemed the only colors it could see in the rainbow were red, orange, yellow, green, and cyan.

Because it had no blue or purple.