The brawl inside the ancestral hall quickly escalated from two women pulling hair to two clans in armed combat.

  The spectating crowd was forced to split into factions. A burly man with a fierce, meaty face charged out from the Lin family side—the Lin girl's older brother, Lin Daqiang.

  Seeing his little sister's hair extension ripped off, he threw out "gentlemen don't hit women" rules. He rushed up, grabbed the bride's carefully styled updo, and swung her around like a dead dog.

  "Insolent!" Lin Daqiang spat, saliva spraying the other's face. "You egg-laying hen think you're hot shit? Sure, you breed for the village, but doesn't our Lin family have contributions too? Without my son out there day and night scouting heads and running business, bringing in all those lost travelers—where would you find so many fine studs?"

  The Gao family wasn't backing down either. Several old ghosts immediately shielded the bride. One even hoisted up the boy-girl twins she'd just birthed, holding them up like two death-immunity tokens.

  "You dare hit us?" the Gao elder shouted. Those two babies were purple-faced, neither crying nor fussing, emanating dense yin energy. "These are the divine seeds the Village Chief personally marked with vermillion! Go ahead, hit them! Damage the village's lifeline—let's see how many lives your Lin family will pay!"

  Lin's hand froze mid-air. He didn't dare bring it down after all.

  Just as both sides were deadlocked, ready to start another round of tearing—the two big red lanterns at the entrance suddenly went dark without warning.

  A gust of cold draft swept through, carrying the musty smell of ancient coffins.

  The Village Chief had arrived.

  The hall, noisy as a market moments ago, instantly fell so silent you could hear a pin drop. Everyone trembled with lowered heads, not daring to breathe.

  The newcomer slowly stepped over the threshold, face dark enough to drip water. What made every villager's heart stop—his birthmark was gone.

  The atmosphere instantly turned suffocating, as if the air itself had frozen. The villagers gasped, exchanging terrified glances—

  This village had an unwritten survival rule, all depending on that living flesh on the Chief's face.

  When that birthmark showed a thumb-sized verdant hue, that was the Chief's sage mode. He'd be like a friendly neighborhood committee uncle—villagers could joke and banter with him, even make unreasonable requests that he'd try to satisfy. Sometimes he'd even come to villagers' homes to help fix drafty windows.

  But once that thing started shrinking, becoming smaller and darker, trouble was brewing. He'd become sinister and irritable, like a different person. One or two unlucky souls would inevitably be punished by family law for speaking too loudly or stepping through the door left foot first—bedridden for months.

  Yet none of that compared to the terror of it disappearing completely.

  In the villagers' collective memory, a vanished birthmark meant only one thing—time for sacrifice.

  Nine out of ten households with children would mysteriously lose someone. Women who'd been barren for years, or bachelors who couldn't recruit people or find wives, would be thrown into the formation eye as barrier fuel. But they couldn't complain, because all of this was necessary sacrifice to protect the villagers.

  Thus, seeing the Chief's clean cheek, Gao—despite still having her hair pulled—was secretly gloating. She'd just delivered twins, and now she'd snagged a premium specimen. Her "top sales" position was rock solid.

  the Lin girl, on the other hand, was trembling like an autumn leaf. Fifteen years now, she'd gotten three or five conscripts, yet still nothing stirring in her belly. If not for her capable brother and nephew with their excellent business skills—and her brother's guarantee—the Chief had turned a blind eye, allowing the siblings to combine their performance reviews.

  The Chief's sinister gaze swept the room, lingering briefly on Lin and the newly snatched Teon, then coldly scraping past the Gao family holding their babies.

  No one dared speak.

  "Free time's over. Everyone gather in my backyard. Work begins."

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The Chief's voice wasn't loud, but it hammered every heart like iron.

  "Latecomers bear their own life or death."

  With that, he turned and left. The villagers exchanged glances, none daring to delay. They followed with families in tow. The previously hostile Gao and Lin families now tacitly fell silent, like prisoners marching to execution, forming a long line on the muddy path to the Chief's home.

  …

  Meanwhile, in the pitch-black forest.

  Ling piloted that unlucky groom's body, stumbling through the mud at full speed. Every footfall sent drilling pain from the broken bones straight to the skull—except it wasn't Ling's.

  "Huh? Did you fall down too? Your leg seems broken, doesn't work too well?" Ling panted while running.

  In her mind, the original owner's soul—squeezed into a corner—let out a pig-slaughtering wail: "AAAAHH!—FUCK!! You know it's broken and you're still fucking running?! You don't feel it but this granddaddy does!! If you're gonna possess someone at least take full responsibility and control everything! What the hell is dumping all the pain on me?!! Have you no public morals?!"

  "Oh, you know the drill pretty well. Clearly a veteran landlord." Ling was somewhat surprised—this guy's possession procedures were way too practiced.

  Touching on a sore subject, the young man's soul was nearly crying, cursing: "Goddammit, fortune teller said I'm just born a 'hot commodity'—this lifetime's doomed. Everyone passing by wants to come in and rest…"

  Before he finished, a beast-like murderous wind suddenly flashed through the darkness.

  A rigid black shadow burst from behind a tree—shockingly fast, bringing mud and rotting stench, like a rabid dog. It slammed the young man's half-crippled body to the ground.

  "Fuck—"

  Ling's back of head smashed hard into the mud. Stars instantly exploded across her vision.

  It was the driver, Jin. He'd spotted the noisy tail.

  That vacant face loomed close, eyes clouded and lifeless, mouth slightly agape, revealing yellowed teeth inside. No expression whatsoever—just thick drool constantly dribbling from the corners of his mouth.

  "Get off—" Ling tried to kick, but found this body had no strength at all.

  The two grappled in the mud.

  Jin's strength was terrifying. Both hands clamped around Ling's neck in a death grip, fingernails digging deep into flesh. Ling desperately pried at his fingers, but it was like bending rusted iron bars—not a budge.

  Without the Celestial Maiden body's assistance, hand-to-hand combat really wasn't her forte.

  Before, she'd always been a lazy swallow-whole hunter—open mouth, gulp it down, slowly digest. She'd never needed this primitive, savage brawling.

  In just a few moves, this body was pinned down by the pain-immune puppet.

  Jin's face pressed closer and closer, mouth gaping wider, like he was about to bite straight through her throat. The rotting stench sprayed in her face, nauseating.

  Ling struggled desperately but felt her strength draining fast. Her chest felt crushed by a boulder, breathing harder and harder, vision starting to go black—

  Just as they were deadlocked—

  The low shrubs behind Jin suddenly exploded with leaves.

  A wild-haired female ghost lunged out!

  Actions spoke louder than words.

  She opened her cavernous mouth wide, lips splitting to her ears, revealing two rows of sharp fangs—and savagely bit down on Jin's soul.

  "AWOOO—!"

  Jin let out an inhuman scream. His entire body went rigid. He went limp, collapsing onto Ling, motionless.

  His soul was being forcibly ripped out—the female ghost bit into his neck, dragging out a bloated, writhing, inhuman mass. She shook her head violently like a beast tearing prey, ripping off a huge chunk of that soul.

  "SPLORCH!"

  A muffled sound, like bursting open a long-fermented septic tank. An overwhelming sulfurous stench mixed with industrial wastewater instantly splattered all over the female ghost. The "karmic garbage" accumulated in Jin's soul depths—belonging to him or not, countless fears and greeds rotted into sludge.

  "AHHH—!" The female ghost screamed in agony. The filth nearly dissolved her spirit form. She collapsed to the ground, twitching on the verge of death.

  Ling watched with lingering fear, stomach churning. Though this was her favorite raw material, what she ate in the Abyss was fully fermented delicacies—after all, there's a fundamental difference between rotten eggs and century eggs. Good thing she'd thought Jin was too dirty to possess earlier. Getting this stuff splashed on you was no different from being doused with a bucket of chocolate-flavored shit.

  Seizing the moment, Ling's eyes were quick and hands quicker. She snatched her Pouch from Jin's pants pocket. The instant her fingertips touched that familiar rough texture, her heart finally settled halfway. Treasure bag in hand, the world is mine.

  But Jin's soul, along with that black "garbage," didn't dissipate. Instead they wrapped around each other, rapidly spreading across the ground. The once-dense grass was swallowed by this black mud, hissing with corrosion.

  In the blink of an eye, the spot became a swamp radiating deadly attraction. Jin's soul reassembled at the swamp's center, but he was no longer human-shaped—he'd fused with the garbage. Impossible to tell if the garbage had grown Jin's soul, or if the soul had rotted into garbage.

  "Damn, nothing really dies completely here? What the hell kind of place is this…"

  The female ghost lay on the ground, sobbing pitifully. Her ghost energy was corroded full of holes as she writhed in agony.

  "Please… kill me… send me out…" she begged. She'd had enough of this undying torture.

  Ling crouched down: "I can send you off, but I never do losing deals. Tell me—where's the exit from this hellhole?"

  The female ghost struggled to raise her head, eyes unfocused, breath fading: "Kill… kill that Village Chief…"

  Ling raised an eyebrow, stood up, and dusted off her hands: "Fine, no problem. I'll come back to deliver you after I'm done."

  With that, she turned and left—movements crisp and decisive—hurrying back to reclaim her body and save Teon, who was about to become a breeding stallion in that ancestral hall.

  The wind howled past. She didn't hear the female ghost use her last bit of strength to urgently but weakly finish her sentence:

  "…that… birthmark."

  Ling's figure had already vanished into the darkness.

  The female ghost lying on the ground closed her eyes in despair.

  Dammit, how can someone be this impatient! Let people finish talking!