Chapter Thirty-Five: The True Female Ghost

As events unfolded to this point, an overwhelming tension seized me. I knew with chilling clarity that what I was about to witness would be those matters revealed by Luo Xiu through the funeral script in Zuodao Yin’s attic.

Yet, what Luo Xiu told us back then wasn’t the true account. Her real aim was merely to use Wang Feiyang and me to dig up that coffin behind the hill. As for why she did so, I suspected that soon, I might uncover the answer.

I struggled to calm myself, forcing composure. I reminded myself incessantly that everything before my eyes had already transpired twenty years ago, and no matter what happened, I was but an observer—utterly powerless to change a thing.

Grandfather, after hearing this, turned to Zuodao Yin, who had already produced a battered flat bowl and four copper coins, and began casting a divination based on the infant’s features.

Suddenly, Zuodao Yin’s hand trembled, and his expression darkened dramatically. “True Dragon, your grandson was doomed before his birth, just as this Taoist nun said. Now born with the Nine Yin fate, I fear he won’t live past a hundred days!”

Grandfather’s face fell at once; he looked as if his soul had fled, muttering again and again that it was impossible, absolutely impossible.

Watching Grandfather’s anguish, my heart felt pierced by countless needles. At that moment, the Taoist nun spoke abruptly, “I possess a secret art that can change this child's fate. However, the method is somewhat cruel...”

Before she could finish, Grandfather suddenly seized her, as desperately as a drowning man grasping the last straw. “What secret art? As long as it can change my grandson’s fate, no matter what you ask of Wu Zhenlong, I will do it!”

“The Underworld Forbidden Art!”

Almost simultaneously, both I and the Taoist nun uttered these words. My scalp tingled with dread. So it was Grandfather who used the Underworld Forbidden Art to alter my fate, and that forbidden technique originated from this woman—the very one who killed my parents and more than three hundred villagers of East Gate Village, the cause of my innate Nine Yin fate.

Now I understood: the Taoist nun wanted to use the Underworld Forbidden Art to change my fate only to seize another chance at my Nine Yin fate and complete her unfinished “Blood Sacrifice to the Underworld.”

Yet, I still couldn't fathom why she would orchestrate such cruelty within the reservoir. What was her true motive?

At that moment, a dizzy spell overtook me, and everything before my eyes grew ephemeral and blurred. My heart trembled; I hadn’t expected to be dragged back to reality at such a crucial juncture.

It felt like surfacing from deep water, gasping for breath. I saw Lu Li and Wang Feiyang standing at the doorway, battling a dozen corpses.

Seeing me awake, Wang Feiyang retreated immediately to my side and asked if I was all right.

I shook my head, explaining that I’d awakened just as things reached their most critical moment. Then I asked Wang Feiyang if they could hold out much longer.

Lu Li, wielding a long sword, severed a corpse’s arm, then pulled out a yellow talisman, recited a spell, and slapped it onto the corpse’s forehead. Instantly, the corpse froze and toppled to the ground.

“Brother Wu, you’d better hurry. I feel my Dao energy is running low. At most, I can last ten more minutes!”

“Ten minutes?” After a brief thought, I strode toward the coffin in the main hall, climbed inside without hesitation.

Once inside, my vision shifted again, and I found myself in the main hall of my family’s coffin shop on White Street.

Outside my family’s door stood several familiar faces—my grandfather, Zuodao Yin the diviner, Luo Xiu the medium, Wang Bilin the paper craftsman, and Old Lady Chen from the shroud shop.

They seemed to be discussing something, and the mood was far from pleasant. Luo Xiu and Wang Bilin were especially agitated, ending in a heated argument with my grandfather.

Just then, a baby’s cry echoed from upstairs. My grandfather declared, “No matter what, I, Wu, will save my grandson,” and rushed upstairs.

I saw Wang Bilin, furious, smashing cups in the coffin shop, muttering “sinful, sinful” under his breath.

A thunderclap startled me. I instinctively glanced outside—wild winds raged, as though countless demons howled in the sky. When I turned back, the scene shifted again.

Now, I stood behind White Street, at the rear hill—the very place where Wang Feiyang and I had dug up the coffin.

A blood-red coffin lay quietly there. Beside it stood a paper-made spirit house, a paper sedan, and two paper figures—a man and a woman.

Grandfather, robed in Daoist attire, held an ancient sheepskin book. I could clearly see the three blood-red characters on its cover: “Underworld Book!”

After chanting a strange incantation from the Underworld Book, Grandfather slowly opened the blood-red coffin and lifted me out, dressed in burial clothes.

Next to him, Zuodao Yin and Luo Xiu guarded a disheveled woman, seemingly unconscious. Old Lady Chen unhesitatingly dressed her in a new burial shroud, signaling Zuodao Yin and Luo Xiu to place her inside the coffin.

That woman could only be Yang Li of the Purple Star fate. This scene matched Luo Xiu’s account in Zuodao Yin’s attic, but what happened next diverged sharply from her story.

Luo Xiu had told us Yang Li was buried alive, later returning as a vengeful ghost. But what I saw now proved otherwise.

Yang Li was never placed in the coffin. As she was about to be, the Taoist nun appeared suddenly—not in Daoist robes, but wearing a red turtleneck sweater and flared jeans!

“So the female ghost isn’t Yang Li, but this Taoist nun?”

My mind exploded. I had never imagined that, twenty years later, the ghost haunting us would be the Taoist nun—the true culprit behind the deaths of three hundred villagers in East Gate Village. I didn’t yet understand why she had become a vengeful ghost, but what I witnessed next brought clarity, revealing Luo Xiu’s real purpose in manipulating us to dig up the coffin.

The Taoist nun appeared without warning and attacked Grandfather and the others, charging first at Wang Bilin. Before anyone could react, Wang Bilin was dead at her hands.

My heart jolted. No wonder, when Wang Feiyang awoke, he said my grandfather had dragged the Wang family into trouble. That meant Wang Bilin died because he helped change my fate, and he must have opposed using the Underworld Forbidden Art in the coffin shop. But Grandfather’s stubbornness led to Wang Bilin’s demise.

Grandfather and Zuodao Yin rushed at the Taoist nun, faces contorted with rage. “What are you doing?” they demanded.

The Taoist nun sneered, “Coffin Wu Zhenlong, Diviner Zuodao Yin, I know your abilities. That’s why I didn’t dare touch you back in East Gate Village. But now, all of you have coveted my Underworld Book. Do you know? This book is not for just anyone to read, hahahaha!”

“What do you mean?” Zuodao Yin’s brows furrowed in astonishment and confusion.

“You want to steal my grandson’s Nine Yin fate?” Grandfather suddenly caught on, trembling all over. “Was it you who killed my son, daughter-in-law, and all those three hundred villagers in East Gate Village?”

The Taoist nun gave no answer, launching an attack on them. As they tried to resist, they found themselves shrouded in black mist, each clutching their head and screaming in agony.