Chapter Twenty-One: Killing the Faithless Man
After listening to what he said, Jingwu looked at his face and did some divination, confirming that he was indeed being haunted by a ghost.
She looked up at the sky and nodded when she saw that it was still early.
“I’ll go back with you and see what’s going on.”
Upon hearing this, Zhou Ying finally felt relieved and nodded repeatedly, "Thank you, Master, thank you, Master."
Jingwu didn't say anything more to him, so he stood up and went to Chen's steamed bun shop to give Chen Er some instructions.
That way, if my uncle comes back early, he'll know where I am and won't worry.
After she finished speaking, she walked out, looked at Yue Huai who had stood up, tilted her head, and then heard the boy speak.
"I'll go with you."
Jingwu felt surprised, but did not stop him.
So the two of them went to Zhou Ying's house together.
Zhou Ying lived nearby; she walked out of South Street and arrived in no time.
Jingwu stood at the entrance of the courtyard, looking at the house surrounded by yin energy, his brows furrowing slightly.
The yin energy is so heavy.
As Zhou Ying opened the door, she said, "We bought this courtyard because it was cheap, thinking that there were enough rooms for the children. Who would have thought we'd encounter something like this?"
Jingwu frowned slightly and followed him into the house, immediately noticing the chill in the room.
Was this house this cool when you bought it?
"Yes, I was happy at the time, thinking that the house would be warm in winter and cool in summer, but it turns out it's cold in winter too."
Upon hearing this, Jingwu's lips twitched. Looking at the person in front of him, he said, "Didn't you ever think that this house is so cool because there's a ghost inside?"
Upon hearing this, Zhou Ying's expression immediately froze, and she looked extremely distressed, as if she was about to cry.
After a while, he finally spoke, saying, "How could I have imagined this?"
Jingwu didn't respond to that. He looked around and then looked toward the place in the room with the strongest yin energy. There he saw Yue Huai squatting in that corner, staring at the wall, seemingly studying something.
Just as she was about to speak, a woman with disheveled hair rushed out, carrying a kitchen knife.
He rushed straight at Zhou Ying, repeatedly shouting, "I'll kill you, you heartless bastard! I'll kill you, you heartless bastard!"
Everyone inside was startled. Jingwu immediately stepped forward, restrained the woman's hands, and snatched the kitchen knife away.
Yue Huai quickly formed hand seals, conjuring a spiritual rope that bound her tightly.
Jing Wu frowned, about to speak, when he heard Zhou Ying speak from beside him.
"Master, this is my wife. Look, this is how things have been these past few days. She keeps grabbing a kitchen knife and trying to rush at me to kill me, calling me a heartless man. But heaven and earth bear witness! Since we married, I have never been unfaithful. How could I be a heartless man?"
Jingwu watched as the woman's face turned deathly pale, and she kept muttering that she wanted to kill the unfaithful man.
She looked at the other soul inside, her eyes narrowed, and she shouted sternly.
"You have been dead for a hundred years, why do you still linger in the human world to harm people?"
The woman cackled, her high-pitched voice ringing out.
"I only gave them a small gift as a greeting, and they can't even take it seriously."
The woman's eyes darted around before settling on Zhou Ying: "Their family has taken over my house and is even cursing at me. It's completely unreasonable."
Hearing his wife speak in a tone he had never heard before, Zhou Ying hurriedly said, "I didn't take it over. I bought it from the original owner, and I still have the deed."
Upon hearing this, Jingwu frowned slightly: "You are already a ghost, separated from the living and the dead. It's normal for ordinary people to be frightened. Besides, a hundred years have passed, and this house has changed hands several times. He who bought this house is now its owner."
The woman was stunned for a moment upon hearing this, then said, "If you want me to leave and be reincarnated, fine. But you have to fulfill one of my wishes."
"What?"
"Help me find Zhou Li's descendants. I want them to personally take my body out of the wall and bury it, and kneel before my grave and kowtow to me."
Upon hearing this, Jingwu and Yue Huai followed her gaze to the corner of the wall, their brows furrowing deeply.
No wonder that area had the heaviest yin energy; it turns out her body was there.
"If you help me accomplish this, I will go to the underworld to be reincarnated. Otherwise, I will stay here and not leave."
As soon as she finished speaking, the woman's eyes rolled back, and her body suddenly went limp.
Upon seeing this, Zhou Ying immediately stepped forward to help his wife up and placed her on a chair. He then looked at the two of them with a mournful face and said, "Master, please help me! I spent all my savings on this house!"
Jingwu listened to these words without saying a word, looking at the female ghost floating in mid-air, wearing a blue gauze dress stained with blood, with a few scattered pearl flowers hanging on her messy hair.
His delicate face was completely bloodless, and his eyes were bloodshot.
Jingwu asked, "Who is Zhou Li?"
"He is my husband." As if she had realized something, the female ghost's yin energy surged, and the temperature in the room suddenly dropped.
Seeing that her yin energy was surging and she was about to lose her mind and become a vengeful ghost, Jingwu immediately began to chant the Heart-Cleansing Mantra.
A refreshing and pleasant sound rang out, reaching the ears of everyone in the room.
The female ghost gradually calmed down. She took a deep breath and looked at the person in front of her: "As long as you accomplish this, I will leave the human world immediately."
Jingwu and Yuehuai could see the female ghost, but Zhou Ying couldn't see anything. He only felt that after the master spoke a few words to the air, the temperature in the room suddenly dropped several degrees, making him shiver.
The female ghost quickly disappeared. Jing Wu frowned slightly, caught a glimpse of her aura, and quickly began to calculate.
This ghost's name was Qin Huachan. She was born into a farming family a hundred years ago. Her parents often made a living by selling tofu on the street. She helped her parents sell tofu to earn money from a young age. After growing up, she married Zhou Li, her childhood sweetheart. After marriage, she gave birth to two sons, and the family lived happily together by selling tofu.
Their tofu business flourished, and they quickly amassed a large sum of money. The couple decided to use this money to buy a house with a yard near South Street.
However, his good fortune didn't last long. After acquiring wealth, Zhou Li began frequenting brothels. Before long, he set his sights on a courtesan and insisted on taking her as his concubine.
Qin Huachan tried to persuade him several times to no avail, and fearing it would damage the harmony between the couple, she went along with him.
But the courtesan was unwilling to be inferior, and kept stirring up trouble and whispering in his ear.
The couple's relationship deteriorated until, in the end, Zhou Li was so blinded by greed that he wanted to support a courtesan as his concubine.
Qin Huachan naturally objected, and even threatened that if he dared to do so, she would take her son and divorce him and return to her parents' home.
The two had a heated argument, and in a moment of rage, Zhou Li picked up a vase and smashed it to Qin Huachan's death.
He was worried about being held accountable by the Qin family, and also about being convicted by the government.
Just when he was at his wit's end, the courtesan gave him an idea.
The two hid her body inside the wall, and then had a courtesan dress up in Qin Huachan's clothes. In broad daylight, she and a man ran out of the city, their faces covered, to create the illusion that Qin Huachan had eloped with her lover.
This incident caused quite a stir. When the Qin family found out, they felt they had failed in raising their daughter and were ashamed of their son-in-law. They didn't pursue the matter further, nor did they take back the thriving tofu shop.
After Qin Huachan died, she refused to go to the underworld. She watched as her husband made a courtesan his legal wife. Because the courtesan was infertile, he made her two young children call her "mother." She was furious and her resentment grew deeper and deeper.
She wanted to retaliate, but being a recently deceased ghost, her abilities were limited; she could only create something in the house to scare them.
Not long after, Zhou Li and the courtesan were so frightened that they moved away.
Qin Huachan wanted to follow, but for some reason she couldn't step out of the house.
So they stayed there. After a hundred years, when someone moved in, they were scared away.
After recalling this memory, Jingwu's expression turned somewhat somber.
She turned to Zhou Ying and asked, "Are all the things in this house new? Is anything that was left over from before?"
"Ah, we basically threw away all the old things after we moved in," Zhou Ying said truthfully. "Oh, right, there's a painting in the study that my wife said was very beautiful, so we've kept it."
Upon hearing this, Jingwu immediately asked him to lead him to the study. When he saw the painting, he reached out to touch it and began to perform divination.
The original owner's aura was very faint, but she still managed to calculate it from that faint aura.
Jingwu looked at the results of his divination, chanted a teleportation spell, and disappeared from the room.
As soon as Yue Huai watched her disappear, he immediately cast a teleportation spell and followed her.
Only Zhou Ying and his unconscious wife remained.
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