Free Web NovelChapter 118: Chapter 116: Yin Soldiers
"Where did the ghost script come from?" The mailing address is usually the place where the task begins, and Yang Xiao’s first task was in Fengmen Town.
"I don’t know, the address part was damaged."
After replying to this message, Yu Shu disappeared again. Beibei said she had contacted the technical department and asked Yu Shu to calm down and organize the information. The technical department would soon reach out to her, and they would assist in determining the background of the task based on the information provided by Yu Shu.
Yang Xiao privately messaged Beibei, "Is it possible for the ghost script to have a completely unreadable mailing address?"
"It is, but it’s rare," Beibei replied. "Usually, in such cases, we start with the content of the ghost script, like photos or some text descriptions to analyze the location where the task begins. We first determine the location and then look for clues."
"How accurate is this method?" This was what Yang Xiao was truly worried about.
"Not very accurate," Beibei was frank. "With modern scripts, it’s okay, but if it’s an ancient script, the time span is too big, and some useful information has long been worn away."
With such an incident occurring, there was certainly no mood to play games anymore. Yang Xiao thought for a moment, then typed "Xiba Ghost Bodhisattva" into the computer search bar. However, the search yielded a mess of irrelevant stuff, with no reference value.
As a secondary approach, Yang Xiao typed in just "Xiba," judging that it should be a place name, and indeed, this time he found some information.
Through sorting, there were no fewer than 30 places named Xiba within the country, including larger towns named Xiba, and smaller ones that were merely islets in the middle of lakes.
Yang Xiao recorded each of these locations and then turned his search to online forums, looking for any supernatural events or bizarre legends associated with these places.
Unfortunately, after more than an hour of searching, Yang Xiao found nothing but rumors without substance, and crucially, no information related to the Ghost Bodhisattva.
The next morning, right after breakfast, Beibei, Da Xiong, Xi Menxiu, and Zhuge Zhijie arrived at the office punctually at 7:30, as if they had agreed beforehand.
"Yu Shu is here, she’s communicating with the technical department," Beibei said.
Around 9 o’clock, Yu Shu finally showed up. She looked pale and had obviously not rested all night. "I have made everyone worried," Yu Shu wrote in her notebook.
"What do you mean?" Beibei pulled Yu Shu to sit down, and Xi Menxiu, keenly observant, brought over a cup of hot coffee for Yu Shu, "What exactly happened?"
"Did you see that ghost you mentioned yesterday?" Yang Xiao inquired.
"I saw it," Yu Shu wrote.
"What did it look like?"
"I don’t know, it had no head, but it seemed to be a man."
"A headless ghost?" Xi Menxiu couldn’t help but shudder, imagining the scene at the time must have been terrifying. If it were him, he might have been scared half to death. ƒгeewebnovёl.com
"Other than that, were there any other distinctive features?" Beibei pressed on, "Like, what was the ghost wearing, and was it holding anything in its hands?"
Yu Shu thought for a moment and wrote in her notebook: "The clothes were dirty, seemed like coarse cloth, and it was holding a small object in its hand. I didn’t see clearly what it was. I didn’t dare to get too close, but it didn’t look like a weapon."
"The behavior of the ghost?"
Hearing this question, Yu Shu’s eyes suddenly changed, as if remembering something very horrifying, "It was looking for something, moving slowly, but you could tell. First, it was the rice cooker, later it touched a volleyball."
"It was looking for its head," Yang Xiao immediately realized.
Yu Shu slowly nodded and wrote another line in her notebook, "That thing was groping around the room with its hands. Once, it almost touched my head."
Visualizing the scene as Yu Shu described, Yang Xiao couldn’t help but shiver. What if that thing had touched Yu Shu’s head? Would it have simply snatched it off to wear it on itself?
Since these features were too vague, Beibei shifted the inquiry to the content of the ghost script. According to Yu Shu, the script repeatedly mentioned a place named Xiba, describing the local people as wild and not respecting the power of the Imperial Court. Nearby, there were frequent incidents of bandits robbing merchants and committing murders. The Official Army had attempted several suppressions, but all ended in failure.
Rumors had it that the locals secretly worshiped evil spirits, gaining some strange powers. They moved without trace at night, had a thirst for blood, feared neither blade nor sword, and could tear through armor with their nails.
These bandits eventually grew so bold that they even dared to raid the relief silver provided by the Imperial Court. This outraged the powerful officials in the court, who dispatched a large army to eradicate them. After days of fierce battle, over ten thousand were beheaded, thoroughly eliminating the local bandit problem. The general who led the troops was promoted for his military exploits, rising rapidly through the ranks.
However, the peace did not last long. A few years later, the bandits re-emerged, more ruthless than before. This time they targeted small groups of the Official Army, killing without robbing, and the victims’ deaths were gruesome, their heads being chopped off and taken away. Despite multiple offenses, not a single survivor was left behind.
The Imperial Court was enraged and dispatched a large army to investigate, but even after scouring the villages and forests near Xiba, the soldiers found no trace of the murderous bandits, and eerily, they didn’t even find any signs that people had ever lived there.
Because nearly every household in the villages around Xiba was in league with the bandits, almost the entire population had been slaughtered in the last purge, which meant these villages were deserted and uninhabited.
After nightfall, the encamped commander received an urgent report from his subordinates saying a small unit involved in the day’s search had gone missing.
At daybreak, they found the unit in a mountain stream, but everyone was dead, their deaths were horrific, and their heads had been chopped off and taken away.
Strangely, this was not the direction the unit was supposed to march in; it was as if some mysterious force had lured them here.
For three days in a row, as soon as night fell, people would disappear, and their bodies wouldn’t be found until the next morning. Panic spread within the troops, and whispered rumors circulated that it was the vengeful spirits of the bandits, who had been killed, coming back for revenge—only that could explain it.
Obviously, the commander couldn’t report the truth to the Imperial Court, so he ordered people to seek out experts of the unknown from nearby prefectures to investigate. Yu Shu and five others were luckily chosen for this task, which was also Yu Shu’s identity in the Nightmare World.
"The mission involves only six people; it seems it shouldn’t be too difficult," Xi Menxiu said, relaxing somewhat.
But Beibei wasn’t as optimistic, frowning slightly, "That’s not necessarily the case. The number of people doesn’t determine the difficulty of the mission."
"There’s a message!" The sudden voice of Zhuge Zhijie caught everyone’s attention.
They gathered around as Zhuge Zhijie sat at the desk, opening a folder on the screen; he had been quiet earlier because he was waiting for this message.
The folder, sent by the tech department, had a title that invigorated everyone when opened.
Code: Dragon Head Mountain Yin Soldiers’ Cave Incident
Supernatural Event Level: Level B
Threat Degree: Medium Level
Handling Result: Isolation (Sealing)
"No wonder we identified the location so quickly; others must have received this ghost script before!" Da Xiong couldn’t help but exclaim.
The information provided by the tech department was quite detailed, spanning over a dozen pages. According to the records, three years earlier, an Angel Envoy belonging to the United Federation had received this ghost script, albeit it had a different name then—Nine-Eyed Flesh Buddha.
The content of the script provided by that Angel Envoy, as well as the descriptions of the headless ghost and other information matched what Yu Shu had seen almost exactly. The tech department determined that they both had encountered the same Nightmare task.
"That Angel Envoy received the ghost script three years ago and now Yu Shu has received it, so..." Yang Xiao’s eyes held a complex look as he turned to Beibei.
"The Angel Envoy died during the Nightmare task," Beibei stated bluntly. "And not just him, everyone who participated in that task with him died too, which is why the ghost script continued."
In the days since joining the investigation team, Yang Xiao had also gained a deeper understanding of the ghost scripts; each ghost script represented a real supernatural event. If someone survived the Nightmare task and acquired the Resentful Eye, it marked the end of that supernatural event, and correspondingly, the ghost script would disappear.
Unless the original owner of the Resentful Eye died, leaving it ownerless, to return to the Nightmare World, then over a long evolution, a new ghost script might emerge. The Drama Robe that Yang Xiao possessed came about in this way, after the fall of an unknown powerful being.
Zhuge Zhijie scrolled down with the mouse, relevant details emerging one by one. "Look, according to the information left by that Angel Envoy before his disappearance, he observed more closely than Yu Shu. He confirmed that the headless ghost that suddenly appeared in his home was a man, holding a small piece of armor fragment."
"Armor?" Yang Xiao instinctively thought of the Official Army that had gone to suppress the bandits.
"With an armor fragment in hand, clothed in coarse fabric, his head chopped off, I think the identity of this ghost is probably one of those bandits. They were exterminated by the Official Army, heads taken, their grievances not dissipating, transformed into Fierce Ghosts lingering in their former territories, attacking the passing Official Army," analyzed Beibei.
"The Angel Envoy of the United Federation was rather unlucky. Before his death, he sent the information he gathered to the tech department of the Federation. But it was only after he entered the Nightmare World that the tech department pinpointed the specific location, and they couldn’t actually help him," Zhuge Zhijie silently mourned for the unfortunate envoy.
However, the Angel Envoy did make a contribution. After this incident, the United Federation compiled information about ghost scripts and archived it for future reference.
The mouse continued to scroll down, bringing up a series of photos—of a mountain, steep mountain paths, dense trees, mist shrouding the mountain. Then, an eerie cave mouth appeared, shaped like a gourd, pitch black inside.
At the sight of the cave mouth, Yu Shu’s emotions fluctuated. She gripped her binder tightly, quickly writing, "This is it, I’ve seen this cave mouth in the ghost script!"
Zhuge Zhijie took a deep breath, "It seems there’s no mistake. Your mission location is here. This mountain is Dragon Head Mountain, and the cave you see is set in a very secluded spot near the summit. The locals never go near it; they call it Yin Soldiers’ Cave."
