This old man is acting strangely.
I stopped arguing and simply pointed to his wooden comb and asked:
"Grandpa, how much is your wooden comb?"
This wooden comb must have some history, but it shouldn't be priced exorbitantly.
If he wants money, Luo Tianhe has plenty. If he wants ghost money, that's even simpler; we can burn it for him.
He could even burn some beautiful women, servants, villas, and sports cars for them.
Prices are even lower now.
Anyway, I think the chances of this old man being alive are extremely low, so it's not impossible for him to make such a request.
If all else fails, we can offer him some incense.
People eat well, and ghosts enjoy it. Maybe this old man is so thin that he's been hungry for a long time and was only gone for two sticks of incense.
The old man squinted, seemingly with a smile, and then uttered two words:
"Not for sale!"
If you're not going to sell, why are you setting up a stall?!
I cursed inwardly, but I knew the old man must have other conditions.
Sure enough, he extended two thin, bony fingers.
My pupils suddenly contracted; there seemed to be fresh seaweed under his fingernails.
As far as I know, the moat in the west of the city has long since dried up.
Although I had expected that the old man wasn't human, the fact that he was a water ghost who had been dead for who knows how many years still made me feel immense pressure.
"Exchange it for a small, lively item you own, preferably something close to you that's been around for a while and has absorbed your personal energy."
This request is rather odd, a personal item that seems to be on fire?
I touched my body and realized that besides the lightning sword and the three-edged bone needle, which I couldn't part with, there didn't seem to be anything else that would fit the bill.
Luo Tianhe and Li Huai also subconsciously touched their pockets.
They didn't have much, so naturally they couldn't take anything out.
I frowned, sensing that the old man was making things difficult for us.
After all, the small items that have become tainted with anger are the kind that you carry around with you, and are basically things you use frequently to guard the house.
How could I possibly just casually replace it with a comb of unknown origin?
The old man seemed to sense my predicament, and grinned, revealing his yellow teeth:
"You don't have any? Or you're just reluctant to give it? Then you can exchange it for your friend's breath!"
He pointed at Li Huai, who immediately shrank back in fright, wondering what the old man meant.
"No way!" I immediately refused. Li Huai's fate was special, and this old man was also very strange. Who knew what we would do with his energy?
"That's difficult then." The old man withdrew his hand, tucking it into his sleeve, looking helpless. "This comb, though worn, is an old artifact with a history; it can't be traded for something common..."
The old man seemed to know we wanted this.
To be honest, if we hadn't met Zhou Wenxiu, we wouldn't have wanted this wooden comb at all.
After all, while there are indeed many ghosts with long hair,
But if you had the ability to hold her down and comb her hair, you could have already helped her pass on to the afterlife.
So this thing is actually quite useless.
Luo Tianhe, who was standing to the side, became interested and asked, "Grandpa, what's the origin of this thing?"
The old man raised his chin, gesturing for us to look at the comb: "Can you tell? It's made of peach wood, old peach wood, not ordinary peach wood. It's from a mass grave, it's grown there, it's absorbed all the yin energy and resentment of the dead, and it's made from a yin-yang peach that blooms every year!"
"This wooden comb has a name called the 'Ghost-Clearing Comb.' It can't comb the hair of a living person; instead, it will tangle it. But it can be used to comb the hair of certain non-human beings..."
He paused, a glint of shrewdness flashing in his cloudy eyes, and looked at me with a half-smile:
"It can temporarily clear away the tangled resentment within them, making them reveal a glimpse of their true nature or speak the truth. Of course, it may also enrage them, dragging the person combing their hair into that mess as well."
This thing is even more useless than I imagined. Emotions can have side effects. If I anger her, I'll have to have a fight with her.
But to be honest, I really want this thing.
If Zhou Wenxiu attacks us, it would be a good opportunity for us to kill her.
The main problem is that she looks like a living person right now, so it's impossible for us to do anything to her.
What if she really is reincarnated, and is a real person? Wouldn't we have just killed someone for no reason?
"Would this comb be useful against something pieced together from different body parts?" I asked in a low voice.
The old man glanced at me with interest: "The more intricately the knot is pieced together, the more tightly the resentment clings to it, like a tangled mess. On the surface it looks like a ball of yarn, but inside it's already knotted into a tight knot. The Netherworld Comb is specifically for untangling these knots, but..."
As he said this, a warning glint appeared in his eyes:
"Don't blame me for not telling you in advance. If I'm honest with you, you might see more than what you want to see, and you might even unleash things you can't handle. Besides, the pieced-together thing isn't even complete. If you mess it up too much, it might fall apart! At that time, the backup plan left by the person who pieced it together, or the remnants of the original vengeful spirits in those corpses, will all erupt. Who knows what kind of trouble will happen?"
These words sent a chill down my spine; the risk was extremely high.
"So? Want to switch or not?" The old man looked at me leisurely, as if he had me figured out.
But I will never hand over the triangular bone needle and the lightning sword, no matter what.
For a moment, we were caught in a dilemma.
"Fine, fine, since you treasure it so much, I don't want your things anymore. Tell me, who told you to come here to find grave soil and chicken throat bones, or rather, what are you planning to use these two things to deal with?"
When the old man suddenly started asking us questions, I immediately became alert.
There's no such thing as a free lunch, and the thing in front of me isn't a person. Accepting his gift is tantamount to accepting his karma.
Therefore, I would prefer an equivalent exchange.
"No one guided me; it's just a folk remedy I heard from the older generation," I said vaguely. "As for what it's for, it's just for dealing with unclean things, nothing special."
The old man scoffed, clearly not believing me, but he didn't press the matter.
I stared at the comb, really not wanting to give up this readily available opportunity, but the cost was unknown and the risk was extremely high.
The old man's origins were suspicious; the algae under his fingernails reminded me of some legends about water ghosts and river gods.
Those things, still harboring resentment, will come ashore at specific places and times, looking no different from living people, and can even be active during the day.
But they always carry a fishy smell and water stains on their bodies, and there may be algae and silt from the bottom of the water under their fingernails.
They mingle among the crowds, sometimes even engaging in small businesses, all in an effort to find substitutes or collect the yang energy and vitality of living people.
And this old man is definitely one hundred percent it.
He collects a little of our yang energy. It doesn't matter if he gets angry or not, just don't think about using us as scapegoats.
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