NOVEL NEXT Chapter 220: Fireworks and Dog Food
"Confining ghosts and spirits..."
Xu Qing held the Dharma Seal for controlling ghosts, lost in thought.
Is it like a Pokéball?
In a short amount of time, images of the Eight Banners Marshal and his neighbor, the Troublesome Ghost King, flashed in Xu Qing's mind.
However, Xu Qing is not one to repay kindness with betrayal; the Eight Banners Marshal just showed him goodwill and gave him a paper lantern artifact for commanding troops, so how could he turn around and trap the marshal into the Dharma Seal?
After thinking it through, only the neighbor, the Troublesome Ghost King, fit his conditions better.
Yet navigating through the layers of the Ghost King Mausoleum to reach the main chamber of the Ghost King wasn't an easy task.
Xu Qing thought about it and decided to temporarily put the controlling ghost Dharma Seal away.
Right now, he had more urgent matters to attend to; the Ghost King Mausoleum wouldn't disappear, and his neighbor wouldn't suddenly move away. Xu Qing made up his mind and began sorting Li Heyi's remains.
Speaking of sorting remains, it was really corpse scavenging.
A Cloud Crawling Talisman, a few bottles of colorful, varied elixirs, and a transfer document from a passing Mage.
Besides this, there were the usual Celestial Master's Mansion swords and Dharma Artifacts, along with some worldly gold and silver treasures.
Xu Qing's skills in corpse scavenging were masterful; in no time, he extracted the remaining value from the Taoist's corpse before him, leaving not a single scrap.
He casually tossed the body into the Box Garden, opting not to spend time dealing with Liao Jinzhong's corpse. Right now, Feng Erye and Ji Ruinian were still anxiously fearing on the tower ship at the Baisha River Wharf, and his uncle and Xiao Willow Immortal were also uncertain.
Having delayed this much, if he didn't hurry to tie up loose ends, those two might encounter even more trouble.
Xu Qing didn't need to think; assassinating a Martial Arts Grandmaster, a third-ranking Chief Eunuch of the Internal Affairs Department, the Mirror Supervision Director... someone had to bear these charges. The Imperial Court wouldn't care whether he had the ability to accomplish these things; if the real culprit wasn't found, whoever was at the crime scene had to be the murderer!
The Ancient Yin River Dao was easy to enter but difficult to exit; although Li Heyi had opened a passage between the mortal world Baisha River and the Yin River, it was a one-way entrance.
Li Heyi was very cunning; from the moment he plotted to lure Xu Qing into the trap, he never planned to leave a way out.
Once the array for two-way communication between the Baisha River and the Yin River was established, if Xu Qing sensed something was wrong, he might turn around and escape to the mortal world, then what?
The Taoist was meticulous, his calculations were sharp, but he couldn't calculate that Xu Qing would be so familiar with the Yin River, even surpassing his understanding of the Eight Banners Marshal.
But is this really the case?
Only Xu Qing knew that sincerity was the most important among evil spirits.
He never understood the Eight Banners Marshal; it was the lingering obsessions of the dead he understood.
Truly, when it comes to understanding the dead, no other person in Jin Sect could surpass him.
After all, only the dead could truly understand the dead, and if not the dead, it must be someone who has encountered death, experiencing that sense of mutual sympathy.
Xu Qing, in his mediocrity, just happened to be a walking corpse lingering at the intersection of yin and yang.
However, this walking corpse has always had a strong sense of humanity, which is precisely what other ghosts and zombies lack.
Here, Xu Qing arrived at the tomb where the Twin Coffin was buried and turned back to his funeral shop.
At the counter, Xuan Yu, possessed by Sun Erniang, hadn't regained her composure when she heard Xu Qing speak:
"Xuan Yu, do you want to see fireworks?"
On that day, the funeral shop, normally open every day, surprisingly closed its doors and hung a sign saying temporarily closed.
...
At Baisha River Wharf, the two lighthouses to the east and west were brightly lit. Beneath the towers, a group of red-robed cavalry was holding torches, continuously patrolling the docks.
Previously, the huge waves of Baisha River completely scattered the Mirror Supervision official's ship, leaving the cavalry stationed onshore relying on the simplest method, using lanterns as beacons, guiding the scattered ships to land.
However, just as a ship near the river bank approached, the two lighthouses which acted as guides abruptly went dark, even the torches of the cavalrymen standing nearby mysteriously extinguished.
Some sharp-eared person claimed to hear a faint snap, like someone snapped their fingers, and then everything plunged into darkness.
The already fearful cavalry became even more terrified upon hearing this.
There's long been word around Linjiang of lantern ghosts; occasionally, every few years, the lanterns of a particular street would mysteriously extinguish and reignite, local Linjiang residents kept this taboo, and even children sang a rhyme, saying the lantern ghost arrives, King Yan smiles, one light one dark for one less year, ten lights ten darks for ten more years...
It was further said, a twist of a wick would have blue smoke linger, borrow life at third hour, vanish at fifth hour, playful kids should not blow out their candles, ten times burning out will age a decade more.
A group of cavalry didn't dare to breathe, yet the more they feared something, the more it seemed to happen.
One or two people, disbelieving in superstitions, took out sparks to reignite their torches.
And it was just then the eerie snapping sound in the damp cold river wind sounded again.
Torch flames flickered uncertainly, and even the nearby lighthouse followed suit.
Leading the nightwatcher decisively shouted, "Everyone throw your torches into the river, any who disobey will be subject to military punishment!"
Passing by the riverbank Xu Qing felt puzzled, he only acted impulsively, feeling annoyed at seeing the patrol cavalry hustle about, so he snapped his fingers, not expecting that these cavalrymen were careful enough to throw their torches into the water.