"Everyone."
"My father is currently in the second-floor bedroom." Teon continued. "Would you prefer to go up together, or one at a time?"
The moment he finished, the masters chimed in, eager to go along. No one wanted to be scooped. If that "malignant spirit" was dealt with by someone else first, wouldn't their entire trip be for nothing?
The ordinary guests were left in the first-floor to continue dining. Teon politely excused himself, then turned to lead the crowd of masters upstairs.
The group set off in a grand procession, over twenty strong. In their various outfits, it was like a Halloween parade.
Each one strode with head held high, full of swagger. As if the matter were already resolved. They had even begun discussing the distribution of the donations with the leading Master Bai.
Teon walked at the front, listening to the conversations behind him, the corner of his mouth twitching.
These people…If he didn't truly give a damn whether the fellow lived or died… He would have thrown every last one of them out already.
Yes, Lei Eugene—the man lying unconscious in the second-floor bedroom. His "father" in name. A complicated emotion flickered through Teon's eyes.
Whatever.
Let these clowns make their fuss. Better if they end up fussing him to death.
Ignoring Dax's sour expression, Ling sidled over to gossip: "Hey, what 'grave misfortune' is everyone talking about? I don't see anything wrong. Everything looks normal to me."
She glanced around—downstairs, well-dressed guests held champagne and chatted pleasantly. Some were wreathed in thick scent of blood, "juicy berries" with lives on their hands. Others were soaked in murky currents of desire, exuding a rotten sweetness.
Ling carefully tagged and catalogued their soul-marks. A brewer with standards, after all, should label her pickling ingredients and appetizers in advance.
Dax shot her a sideways look, his tone resigned: "You're walking 'grave misfortune' yourself. What would you be able to sense?"
"…"
"Don't you have a demon-revealing mirror in that crappy temple warehouse of yours? Why'd you leave it behind?"
Dax's expression froze in a peculiar way.
"That thing…" he hemmed and hawed, gaze drifting, "…I accidentally broke it. Last time."
Ling gave him a look that said "do I look stupid to you": "Something that important, and you didn't fix it?"
Dax's expression grew even more awkward: "The thing is… I was using official equipment for a side job, so… you know, bit hard to file for repairs."
"…"
"Fine." Ling decided not to press this depressing topic further. "So what's your plan tonight? Just so you know upfront—when we catch it, no killing. I need to ask some questions first."
"Killing?" Dax laughed like he'd heard the joke of the century. "As if I'd dare!"
His voice carried a note of teeth-grinding frustration: "Do you have any idea who that is? If I'm not mistaken, we're trying to 'catch' the senior disciple of Soran the Fox Immortal's den! And she's Soran's adopted daughter! Treasured like the apple of his eye! You could give me ten times the courage and I still wouldn't dare touch a hair on her head!"
He paused, then added: "You, on the other hand—let me warn you: you're representing our temple now. When you meet that young lady, be polite. Don't cause trouble for me."
Ling narrowed her eyes, looking at him with an expression that was almost a smile: "That doesn't add up, Boss Jiang."
"What doesn't?"
"When you were sweet-talking me before, you acted like 'I've got some connections with Soran,' all smooth and well-connected. Now you're this scared of one of his disciples?"
She tilted her head, voice innocent: "This 'connection' of yours… don't tell me you actually owe him something?"
Dax's shamelessness was on full display in this moment.
"Connections are connections," he said, face unchanging, heart untroubled. "Doesn't matter who owes whom. That's what friends are, right? Today I owe you a little, tomorrow you owe me a little… give and take, tit for tat…"
"So you do owe him."
"…I didn't say that."
"Sounds like you owe him quite a lot."
"I didn't say anything."
"The kind of debt you still can't pay off?"
"Shut up."
Ling couldn't be bothered to listen to him keep up the tough act. She asked directly: "So what are you actually planning to do here tonight? Since you don't dare offend that fox, why don't we just take out all these clowns, split their treasures eighty-twenty, and hand them over as a goodwill gesture?"
She shrugged, tone casual: "My sterling reputation's already been trashed at your place anyway, so whatever. If this fox is as cute as Mimi, I don't mind giving her a welcome gift."
"You—!"
Dax felt like he might not survive the night.
"You're going to be the death of me too!" he hissed. "I'm begging you, just play the sweet Celestial Maiden this once! Just once! Tonight you sit tight, don't interfere, don't touch a single person!"
He took a deep breath, trying to steady his voice: "Nothing can go wrong here. They can't hurt the fox, and the fox can't hurt them, understand? Otherwise—"
He paused, letting out a bitter laugh: "Our poor temple, every last one of us, will be in deep shit."
Ling looked at Dax.
This man was like a sandwich cookie. Above him, the Court's rules. Below, the mortal world's mess. Ahead, the shadow of a fox immortal bigshot. Behind, a roomful of "experts" who didn't know they were courting death. On his left, her—a walking disaster. On his right, a financial hole that could never be filled.
The space he had to maneuver was probably about the width of a finger crack.
And his daily job was to dodge and weave within that crack, rob Peter to pay Paul, and pray he could muddle through another day in one piece.
A strange emotion suddenly welled up in Ling's chest.
Pity? Sorrow?
This old fart lived like this every single day?
She had existed for so long—seen countless souls struggling to survive, seen countless demons clinging to life.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
But she really hadn't expected that one day she'd feel sorry for a god.
They had barely reached the door of the second-floor master bedroom when the procession jammed up.
The masters all craned their necks, jostling to peer inside, afraid of missing something. Dax and Ling were deliberately or accidentally squeezed to the outer edge, like two nobodies who'd snuck onto the red carpet, only able to peek through the gaps between bodies.
When they finally squeezed in, they saw that the faster movers had already claimed the prime positions—artifacts laid out, poses struck, looking ready to get to work at any moment.
Ling stood on tiptoe to peer inside.
A man lay on a luxurious, opulent European-style bed. His face was darkened, his frame wasted away—he looked to be in his fifties, but his skeletal appearance made him seem closer to seventy.
Tubes ran from his body everywhere. A vital signs monitor stood nearby, its curves undulating weakly on the screen. His heartbeat was stable enough, but his body twitched occasionally, eyeballs rolling frantically beneath his lids, mouth mumbling something unintelligible—like someone trapped in a nightmare he could never wake from.
This was the younger Lei. The "successful man" who'd married a consortium heiress and used his wife's dowry to elevate the Leis to new heights. Now lying on this expensive bed, living worse than a stray dog.
By the window sat a woman. Her age was impossible to guess—maybe thirty, maybe forty, maybe fifty. That well-maintained ambiguity was itself a mark of wealth. She wore a perfectly tailored qipao in deep purple, embroidered with subtle dark patterns, only enhancing her elegant bearing.
But what drew the most attention was her hair.
Waist-length locks cascaded down like a waterfall, waves spreading across her chest. In the dim light, that hair actually shimmered with a soft luster, every strand smooth as if washed in milk.
The fastest to move was a short Taoist priest. He didn't even bother greeting the lady of the house.
He stood maybe five foot three, his robes clearly a size too big, sleeves long enough to use as mops. But this didn't slow his speed in claiming prime territory one bit—his agility made Ling wonder if he'd been a squirrel in a past life.
He fished a small brass bowl from the cloth pack on his back. The rim was barely bigger than a palm, the inner walls covered in dense talismanic script. With practiced movements, he filled it with clear water and carefully balanced it on Lei 's chest.
Then he pinched three bamboo chopsticks between his fingers.
The chopsticks looked ordinary enough, but under the light they gleamed with an oily sheen.
The short Taoist closed his eyes, lips moving as he murmured Lei 's birth data: "Year of Wood Ox, month of Earth Tiger, day of Water Monkey, hour of Metal Pig… Souls, return to thy home; Spirits, return to thy flesh."
His fingers loosened slightly.
"Duo!"
The three chopsticks dropped into the water—and stood upright.
They planted straight in the center of the bowl, as if an invisible hand held them in place. The water surface trembled faintly, refracting wavering shadows of light.
The surrounding masters let out a murmur of appreciation.
"Nice technique."
"Clearly the real deal."
"This 'chopsticks standing in the bowl'—you can't do that without twenty or thirty years of practice…"
A hint of modest satisfaction crossed the short Taoist's face. He was about to shift his finger positions, following the chopsticks' direction to perform the soul-summoning—
Yet he had no idea that this ancestral Soul-Searching Bowl he treasured so dearly had, on this unfortunate day, appeared at the wrong time, in the wrong place, before the wrong person.
The moment those chopsticks stood upright, Ling—nearly locked out and bored to tears—suddenly received an alert:
[ ?? Unauthorized broadcast request detectedNine Hells Soul-Destroyer · Supreme Gold Bowl_Pre-Activated_v2.0)]
[Request security level detected as extremely low. Activate shield to block signal? Y/N]
The dialog box was rimmed with golden cloud-seal patterns, but the progress bar in the center was spinning continuously:
[Search request:
Ling blinked: "Is everyone in the mortal world this trusting? Either the password's 0000 or you're broadcasting completely naked, just screaming on public frequencies?"
She glanced at the Taoist inside, whose face was already flushing slightly. "Well, if I don't play along it'd make me look rude… Since you're so eager to find him, let me help you find a few more, hehe…"
"Confirming response." Ling initiated a series of actions in her Spirit Platform.
"Generating Honey Pot (decoy node)…"
"Permission spoofing activated: Current node alias changed to — RED05_UID: 0x020F0930"
"Accessing system redundant trash bin: /dev/null/spaghetti_logs"
"If we're connecting, might as well open up the bandwidth, right?" The corner of Ling's mouth curved into a mischievous arc. Her fingertip slashed sharply. "Initiating 'multi-threaded concurrent response'—Let's give this naive little bowl a taste of the Court's garbage."
The bowl in the Taoist's hands suddenly emitted a piercing whine. He had no clue that the previously slow-scrolling search interface instantly went berserk.
In Ling's field of vision, countless forged "Lei Yijun" tags flooded toward the Taoist's artifact interface like a dam bursting:
"Cute… he’s turning even redder now. Same as when he was giving Dax all that lip earlier." Ling watched with amusement.
The short Taoist was sweating buckets as he chanted, his heart pounding: The yin energy here really is too heavy—why can't I lock onto the soul?
Suddenly, a weight pulled at his hands!
The sensation was like an angler who'd been waiting all day when suddenly a hundred-pound leviathan bit the hook. The chopsticks instantly steadied like Mount Tai, even emitting a faint hum.
"Found it!"
The Taoist was overjoyed. He felt an enormous, terrifying pull from the other end of the chopsticks.
Such powerful pressure! Based on his years of experience, this was absolutely not the weight of a mere mortal soul.
So Master Bai was right after all—whatever the Leis had provoked was no ordinary thing!
But he felt no fear, only excitement. With spiritual fluctuations this strong, if I can subdue and refine it, won't my cultivation break through?
"Just a petty evil spirit with a big appetite!" He sneered, sinking his qi into his dantian, mobilizing all his true energy, trying to stabilize the connection and "drag" it out.
"Come—OUT!!"
He dramatically increased his spiritual power output.
Ling was silently cheering him on from outside the door: "Hang in there. Download progress is only at 0.01%."
But as the Taoist gambled and increased his true energy output, the signal Ling received grew stronger and stronger. She licked the corner of her lips and quietly opened the system backend—
Activating: — Spiritual Meridian Impedance Controller - Minimum Load Mode
Instantly, her meridians became like a massive pit opening to the abyss at the end of a nearly dried-up riverbed.
The short Taoist's true energy output, which had been somewhat rhythmic, hit this near-zero-resistance "energy black hole" and instantly spun out of control.
Ling even closed her eyes in comfort.
This feeling was like someone voluntarily holding a straw to her mouth, feeding her energy in an endless stream. Sure, this energy had a lot of impurities—tasted like flat soda—but the quantity made up for it.
"More." Ling crooked her finger slightly.
For the first time ever, he clicked on the system’s recommendation:
"BZZZZZZZ—!"
The rotation speed in the brass bowl instantly exceeded physical limits.
The short Taoist's complexion went from flushed to deathly pale, then from deathly pale to ashen gray.
He discovered in horror that his true energy wasn't being "output"—it was being "flood-released"!
Those three chopsticks had become three bottomless pits, ravenously devouring his spiritual power. He wanted to let go, but his palms seemed glued to the bowl—he couldn't shake them off!
This isn't right! This isn't soul-summoning!
This is draining my marrow!
"Fellow… practitioners… help me…"
The poor guy squeezed out these words through clenched teeth, legs shaking violently.
The people around him thought he'd reached a critical moment in his battle with the evil spirit and cheered him on:
"Master, what impressive skill!"
"Hold on! That evil thing is almost finished!"
I'M the one who's almost finished, you idiots! He screamed internally.
Finally—
Ling let out a satisfied burp and cut the connection.
"" A crisp snap.
The three bamboo chopsticks, having channeled overloaded traffic, exploded into bamboo fibers.
The water in the brass bowl, heated by high-speed friction, had become scalding hot, splashing out with a "whoosh."
"AAAHH—!!"
The short Taoist let out a wretched scream. Like someone had yanked out his spine, he collapsed into a heap on the ground, foaming at the mouth, hand still frozen in that grasping pose, twitching uncontrollably.
"Oh my!" Ling covered her mouth in mock surprise from the back of the crowd. " Did the master push too hard? How did he blow out his rear unit like that?"
Dax watched from the side, eyelid twitching.
Despite his ignorance of the mechanics, despite the lack of evidence, and despite having only known this creature for a mere two or three days—
he was a hundred percent certain. This had everything to do with the grinning freak standing right next to him!
He looked at the short Taoist lying on the ground like a dead dog, then at Ling, radiant and glowing—her skin even looked a shade brighter.
Dax silently shuffled a step away, one thought consuming his mind:
After this job is done, I'm definitely subscribing to FateCalc Pro.
At the same moment, Lei on the bed suddenly arched his back, neck tendons straining taut as bowstrings, eyeballs rolling frantically beneath his lids, as if something inside his skull was trying to smash its way out.
Yet the monitoring equipment beside the bed beeped along as usual—heart rate 72, blood oxygen 98, breathing as peaceful as a midday nap.
From his mouth came a muffled whimper, like someone with a gag trying desperately to scream for help. As if somewhere in an unknown abyss, he was shrieking soundlessly.