Evil spirits should be killed
The next day, Wu Zi and Xu Yi bid farewell to the villagers and set off again.
They traveled through many different villages, ate many dishes and snacks that Xu Yi had never eaten in his lifetime, and gradually the two of them forgot about the existence of the vengeful ghost Xu Yi.
That evening, they arrived at a not-so-bustling village, hoping to find a family to stay the night, but after knocking on several houses, no one answered... Even if the houses were brightly lit and filled with laughter and conversation, no one would open the door for them...
"What's going on?" Xu Yi asked, puzzled. "We can hear them talking, so they must be able to hear us too. Why won't they open the door?"
Wu Zi looked up at the dark clouds in the sky: "There must be a mass grave nearby, which is why they've developed the habit of not opening the door."
"A mass grave?" Xu Yi looked up like Wu Zi, but couldn't see anything unusual. "How did you figure that out?"
"Didn't you notice that it's darker here?" Wu Zi rolled his eyes.
"It is a bit dark, but it's normal for it to be dark after the sun goes down," Xu Yi said matter-of-factly.
"What I mean is, the sky here is darker than it would be in other places..."
Xu Yi was a little confused. Was there really a standard for how dark it got? But she still nodded blankly and replied, "Oh."
Wu Zi naturally knew that Xu Yi genuinely didn't understand, but these differences were hard to explain in a short time, so he suggested, "I don't think these villagers will open the door for us. Let's look for another place to stay!"
Xu Yi understood, nodded, and followed Wu Zi to search. In the end, they actually found a dilapidated temple.
They had just lit the fire when they heard a knock at the door. Xu Yi looked up and saw a man dressed as a scholar standing in front of the wide-open temple gate. The man stood in the middle of the gate, his hand still on the door, still knocking. Xu Yi was really puzzled and asked, "Isn't the door open?"
Then I vaguely felt something was wrong. If the door was open and the man was standing in the middle of the open door, how did he knock on the door?
At this moment, Xu Yi hadn't thought of anything else; she was only wondering, "Why did you knock on the door?"
Then she saw the man at the door make two more knocking motions in the air. His hands were tapping on the air, but Wu Zi and Xu Yi both heard the clear knocking sounds. Xu Yi was now frightened. She quickly stood up and moved closer to Wu Zi, stammering, "Wu...Wu Zi, Wu Zi..."
Wu Zi stepped forward, successfully blocking the male ghost, before turning to Xu to explain, "He's a ghost, just like you."
"Ghost...ghost?" Xu Yi was even more frightened and hid behind Wu Zi again until her body was completely covered by Wu Zi's figure before she stopped.
She heard Wu Zi ask the male ghost at the door, "Speak, what is the matter with your knocking?"
"Can you... help me find the body?" The man's blank voice drifted into the distance.
“Corpse…corpse…” Xu Yi repeated, his body trembling, when he heard Wu Zi say, “Let’s go in and talk.”
"What?" Xu Yi exclaimed, "Are we letting him in?" Xu Yi was already looking around for a place to hide, but Wu Zi tapped her on the head: "You're a ghost, and he's a ghost too, what are you afraid of, Xu Yi?"
Xu Yi touched the spot on his head where he had been hit, and said indignantly, "He's a ghost..." He then leaned closer to Wu Zi and whispered, "He's a ghost..." He looked at Wu Zi with an expression that said, "Why aren't you afraid?"
Wu Zi rolled his eyes: "Yeah, he's a ghost, and you're a ghost too. What's the difference?"
“Of course it’s different…” Xu Yi answered casually, but couldn’t figure out what was different for a long time. She could only watch silently as Wu Zi invited the male ghost into the house, and then she drifted like the wind to the back of the broken Buddha statue, looking at the male ghost with a timid expression.
Unexpectedly, the male ghost was very polite. He entered the house, bowed formally to Wu Zi and Xu Yi, and then said, "Thank you both. In my previous life, I encountered government soldiers suppressing bandits. I was mistaken for an accomplice and killed, and my body was dumped in this mass grave. Because my body was not buried, I cannot be reincarnated. That is why I have come here to ask for your help."
"Does one not get reincarnation until their body is buried? Then why haven't I been reincarnated even after I was buried?" Xu Yi looked at Wu Zi.
Unexpectedly, Wu Zi only vaguely said, "You're different..." Then he turned to the male ghost and asked, "You knocked on the doors of other villagers before, so they were afraid to open them, right?"
"Yes." The male ghost nodded.
"Ah? So it's because of you..." Xu Yi looked at the male ghost, about to question him, but fearing he would fly into a rage, she weakly murmured, "That's why we couldn't stay overnight..."
Unexpectedly, the male ghost bowed apologetically, saying, "I'm so sorry, Miss. I've been here for quite some time now, and I'm indeed in a bit of a hurry..."
Wu Zi waved his hand dismissively: "It's nothing, it's to be expected. You probably sensed where your body is."
This meant that he had agreed to help the male ghost find the body. The male ghost was overjoyed and kept thanking him: "Thank you, brother, thank you, brother. I... I can roughly sense some directions. If you don't mind, let's set off now?"
“Okay,” Wu Zi nodded naturally, then turned to Xu Yi and asked, “Do you want to come along?”
Xu Yi didn't really want to go, but she was even more afraid of being alone, so she quickly ran over and grabbed Wu Zi's sleeve, nodding, "I...I want to go..."
And so, the three of them—oh, two ghosts and one person—began walking towards the mass grave…
As Xu Yi walked, she heard strange noises all the way. Some sounded like fighting, some like arguing, and some like playing... It was noisy and chaotic. Xu Yi asked Wu Zi, "Wu Zi, have you heard anything?"
Wu Zi shook his head: "No, can you hear me?"
“Yes,” Xu Yi nodded, “There are a lot of people, some are laughing, some are making a fuss, and some are arguing and fighting…”
“Don’t pay them any mind,” Wu Zi patted Xu Yi’s hand, which was gripping his sleeve, reassuringly. “We’ll go back once we find the body.”
Xu Yi and Wu Zi followed the male ghost ahead, walking further and further into the desolate and remote area. When they reached a deserted clearing, the male ghost bowed to them and said, "This is the place. Well then, thank you for your trouble."
Wu Zi nodded, and he and Xu Yi began digging. They had only dug less than a meter when suddenly many ghostly figures dressed as bandits sprang out from around them. They fired arrows made of ghostly energy at Wu Zi. Although Wu Zi saw them, he only managed to dodge a few deadly arrows. Two of them grazed his thighs, and Wu Zi cried out in pain and immediately knelt on the ground.
This scene stunned Xu Yi. She quickly went over to help Wu Zi up, but Wu Zi waved his hand and pulled Xu Yi behind him. He took out a magic weapon and held it in front of the two of them to block the other ghostly arrows. Xu Yi watched as the male ghost walked up to one of the leaders and said boastfully, "Boss, that woman is also a ghost. Take care of the man, and leave the woman for the brothers to enjoy before eating her."
Realizing something, Xu Yi angrily said, "You weren't killed by mistake? You were with them?"
"Heh... How could the soldiers have killed someone by mistake? Are all the officers stupid?" The male ghost sneered, then grinned and mocked, "But you guys are the stupid ones, you believe whatever I say..." He then laughed exaggeratedly.
Xu Yi looked at the male ghost's mocking and ugly face, and anger surged forth... even causing ghostly energy to emanate from her body. Wu Zi quickly stopped her: "Xu Yi, you mustn't..."
With Wu Zi's exclamation, Xu Yi's resentment dissipated by more than half. She looked at Wu Zi and cried, "But... but how could they bully you like this?"
Wu Zi took a moment to rub Xu Yi's head, comforting her, "They ambushed me, I didn't expect that's why I got injured. It's alright, just stay quiet and watch me take them all down..." He then used Xu Yi's hand to support himself as he stood up... Seeing Wu Zi's legs trembling slightly from the pain, the Ghost Mountain bandits sneered, "How arrogant... Hahaha..."
Wu Zi ignored them, simply tossing the magical artifact in his arms upwards. The mirror-like artifact hovered above the bandits' heads. Then, he chanted an incantation, and the peach wood sword in his arms flew out, instantly embedding itself at the bandits' feet...
The other bandits didn't react much, but their leader noticed something amiss: "Oh no, this is a formation! Run!" Hearing their leader's voice, the bandits scattered in different directions. However, a circular formation pattern lit up around the peach wood sword on the ground, working in conjunction with the mirror in the sky to directly trap the ghosts within the formation...
Seeing that they couldn't escape, the bandits all begged Wu Zi for mercy: "Master, spare our lives! Master, spare our lives..."
"Hmph... evil spirits must be killed..." After saying that, he began to chant incantations. As Wu Zi chanted, the mirror above his head spun faster and faster, and streams of red energy transformed into extremely fine needles, which fell densely towards the bandits. Each time those needles pierced through a bandit, they would corrode the bandit's ghostly body. With screams, the bandits were gradually and completely killed.
Only the male ghost scholar lying down and the leader ghost kneeling on the ground remained in the formation.
Both ghosts were reduced to mere transparent outlines, as if they would vanish in the next second... Wu Zi manipulated two long needles to slash across the thighs of the two ghosts. The two ghosts screamed in pain, and the leader ghost immediately knelt down on both knees, while the male ghost scholar on the ground trembled in pain but could not move an inch at all...
“You pay homage to me with ghost arrows, so I pay homage to you with long needles… How about enjoying this fruit?” Wu Zi mocked. “Originally, if you hadn’t done evil, there would have been a possibility of reincarnation, but since you are so unrepentant, then… there’s no need for reincarnation.”
After Wu Zi finished speaking, he began chanting incantations again. Countless red needles gathered again in front of the mirror, gradually corroding the two ghosts until they dissipated into the air.
Xu Yi looked at the mirror that Wu Zi had put into his arms, and involuntarily took two steps back, asking tremblingly, "This red needle... can kill ghosts?"
Wu Zi naturally knew what Xu Yi was afraid of, so he explained, "Don't be afraid. Magic artifacts are just tools. The important thing is how to use them..." He patted Xu Yi's head and said, "For evil spirits, we will naturally kill and exterminate them; for you, we will only surround and trap you."
"So, I'm different from other ghosts, right?" Xu Yi asked Wu Zi, eager to know the answer.
“Of course,” Wu Zi nodded, “you are different from them.”
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