Free Web NovelChapter 425: Chapter 363: Sui Chengguo
At this moment, her face was only a few steps away from the screen, and the force of the impact at this instant was indescribable. What was more terrifying was that the dead feet pressed up against the back of the screen were slowly rising onto their tiptoes. First, one foot lifted, and soon both feet vanished from their original spot.
Her body stiffened uncontrollably, and Mi Shu didn’t dare to move a muscle. She could clearly hear the sound of fingernails scraping against wood coming from above her head.
Chilled to the bone, she could feel that she was being targeted by several pairs of resentful eyes. It was those ghosts behind the screen. They had climbed onto the screen and were now looking down at her from their elevated position. Cheng Cha had mentioned a similar situation to her. Last time, Cheng Cha had barely escaped.
She didn’t think she had Cheng Cha’s ability. Her heart was racing, and her consciousness was beginning to blur. This was not a good sign.
Could it be that after evading the demons of Du Family Village, she was going to die here?
But in the next second, the scraping sound from above suddenly disappeared, along with the malicious gaze that had been fixed on her. Before Mi Shu had time to feel any relief, she immediately started crawling in one direction, using both hands and feet. Her limbs were too weak to stand up, and naturally, she wasn’t crawling towards the door but under the bed, remembering that Cheng Cha had survived previously by hiding there.
A biting coldness spread, swiftly filling every corner of the room. Something new appeared in the inner chamber. Just as Mi Shu curled up and slid under the bed, a pair of legs dressed in red trousers appeared beside the bed. The sudden appearance of this scene paralyzed Mi Shu with fright, her mind going completely blank. freёwebnoѵel.com
Just before she passed out, she vaguely saw a silver ornament tied around the ankles of the legs, badly damaged and seemingly only half remaining.
...
"Drip."
"Drip."
"Drip."
Amidst the mist, Sui Chengguo walked alone on the village path, his feet on the slick bluestone slabs emitting a dull sound.
After a long walk, he hadn’t encountered a single person, just as the ghost impersonating Quan Doufeng had said—indeed, all lies can’t deceive people, except when nine parts are true, creating the most fatal deception.
With this thought, Sui Chengguo speculated that the stone steps in front of the ancestral hall’s gate would be a supremely difficult challenge. "Quan Doufeng" had said he was struck down after stepping on his shadow there and had blacked out. That didn’t sound like a lie to Sui Chengguo, who believed the reality was that Quan Doufeng had died at that very moment he fell.
Soon, the mist before Sui Chengguo’s eyes gradually dispersed. He saw the Blood Moon above, and after the fog, the courtyard of the ancestral hall shrouded in shadow, with two large White Lanterns hanging on either side of the gate, each bearing a blood-red "Mang" character. It all matched "Quan Doufeng’s" description exactly.
Sui Chengguo strode into the courtyard. The ground was covered with disorderly footprints that all led to the Mang Family ancestral hall. He stopped not far from the front gate, took a deep breath, and observed carefully. But after several minutes of scrutiny, he found nothing amiss. Holding the Soul-Attracting Incense, he cautiously approached, trying to use the direction of the drifting smoke to locate the hiding place of the Ghost Monk, but the incense smoke drifted straight upwards without any abnormalities.
The absence of abnormalities was the biggest problem of all. However, at that moment, Sui Chengguo was out of options, especially since he had already wasted too much time for various reasons.
Out of caution, he bypassed the stone steps in front of the gate from the side, taking a detour to approach the ancestral hall’s gate from another direction. As he drew nearer, the next second, the great doors of the ancestral hall slowly opened, and the interior was filled with people.
Not until he stepped inside did he encounter anything to alert him to danger, nor did he meet the Ghost Monk casting shadows.
Sui Chengguo breathed a sigh of relief, although unclear about the specific reasons, the outcome indicated that there was certainly something wrong with the stone steps outside the gate, and he had successfully avoided this first wave of danger.
Making his way past the Ghost Villagers, Sui Chengguo reached the stone platform in the depths of the ancestral hall, lined with Spiritual Tablets. Two tables were placed there, and one of them already had someone sitting at it.
This person was dressed in brown silk clothes, not the Mangjia Village Chief, but seemingly someone of status in the village. Sui Chengguo suddenly recalled what Yang Xiao and Tong Han had mentioned: the Ghost Village Chief had three similarly aged siblings from his own family, and this person was one of them.
Besides, beneath Sui Chengguo’s feet was a large pool of fresh blood. Judging from the amount of blood, this person was certainly in dire straits. It seemed that the second person for the task, Lu Youcheng, had died here.
Although Lu Youcheng couldn’t compare to Yang Xiao and Cheng Cha, he wasn’t a complete fool. His death must have been due to a great danger that didn’t allow him time to escape. After all, based on previous experiences with such tasks, as long as the Soul-Attracting Incense remained lit, one’s life was somewhat secured—of course, provided that one didn’t make any fatal mistakes. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
He didn’t rush to sit down; Sui Chengguo continued to observe patiently. He noticed that many sheets of paper filled with copied scriptures were scattered messily on the ground near his wooden table. These must have been left by Lu Youcheng, and what attracted the most attention was that many of the characters on them were bright red—written with blood.
Analyzing the disordered handwriting on some of the sheets, Lu Youcheng’s mind had become disturbed towards the end, as if he was being chased, and he clearly suffered tremendous psychological pressure.
In contrast, the tables belonging to the village chief’s kin were spotless. The papers on his table were stacked neatly, the brush hung dry and tidy under the rack, showing no signs of use, not even a drop of ink on the table surface.
The only thing that somewhat caught Sui Chengguo’s attention was a piece of paper placed alone at the corner of the desk, which, although clean, had wrinkled edges.
Sui Chengguo looked around but was unable to find any previously used sheets of paper near the other’s table, which was very strange and immediately raised his alertness.
No longer hesitating, Sui Chengguo walked to his own table and sat down. However, just as he was inserting the Soul-Attracting Incense into the incense burner, he suddenly heard a Buddhist chant—low and hoarse—from the Ghost Villagers below. Soon after, many Ghost Villagers seemed to awaken at the same time, shaking their heads and chanting scriptures.
This sudden scene truly made Sui Chengguo’s heart clench, and the next second, the sound of flipping pages came from behind him—the task of copying scriptures had begun.
Just like Lu Youcheng’s encounter, he found and confirmed the identity of the Ghost Monk in an even shorter amount of time, also noticing a pattern of the ghost gradually closing in.
Before long, Sui Chengguo also faced the dilemma of running out of ink, but differently, he eyed the dagger. He immediately thought of the large pool of blood on the ground and suspected Lu Youcheng’s death had something to do with this dagger.
Bleeding oneself among so many ghosts was not a good idea. Lu Youcheng did it, and as a result, he didn’t survive.
Sui Chengguo decided to take a risky move; he didn’t cut himself to bleed, instead, he used his saliva to continue writing bit by bit. The cost was a significantly slower pace, and at the same time, his brain spun rapidly. The situation was straightforward to assess—he was competing against the ghost behind him, but what they were competing in, he didn’t know, and that was critical.
He briefly estimated the stack of Sutra Papers on his table and realized that even if he could copy at breakneck speed, it would be impossible to finish before the incense burned out, not to mention he had to leave enough time to return to the ancestral home. In other words, the competition certainly wasn’t about who finished copying the scriptures on the table first.
If it wasn’t about time, then it must be about quantity. In other words, whoever copied the most scriptures in the same amount of time would win.
Having analyzed this, Sui Chengguo was convinced that he had found the answer, but now a new problem emerged. Why were the Sutra Papers that Lu Youcheng had used left behind while the ones the ghost used disappeared?
Moreover, the brush in his hand had clearly been used before—he could still smell blood on it—but the brush on the ghost’s table showed no signs of use. Why was that? It was forgivable for the Sutra Papers to disappear, but changing brushes between the two competitions made no sense.
The ghost’s table was also exceptionally clean and tidy. Could it be that the ghost managed to find time to clean the table between the two competitions?
Under all these abnormal appearances, a hidden unknown truth must have been lurking. After careful analysis, Sui Chengguo came to a startling speculation: the ghost behind him might not write a single word tonight. Its purpose was merely to exert pressure on him, causing him to be thrown into chaos and errors, eventually leading to his own doom.
The increasingly rapid page-turning sounds behind him further corroborated this point—it was almost one page every minute and a half. If true, the other’s copying speed far exceeded his limitation, and there was no chance of winning in such a competition for anyone.
Thinking this, Sui Chengguo slowed down his writing, carefully making each stroke. If his guess was correct, he would surely be the winner as long as he lasted until the end.
After all, the ghost hadn’t written a single word. It was merely picking up papers and shaking them, creating a false impression of having copied page after page—this was the origin of that single crumpled sheet with not a word written on it.
That’s right, it must be so!
At that moment, Sui Chengguo felt both tense and fortunate. Tense because this was a gamble, and if his guess was wrong, he was sitting like a duck waiting to be shot, and fortunate because he was the last of the three. Quan Doufeng had helped him avoid the risk at the front steps, and Lu Youdao had used his life to help him avoid the pitfall of the dagger, also giving him the chance to analyze the ghost’s table for comparison.
Even if he survived, this wasn’t a victory of his alone; he stepped on the blood of the two previous victims to obtain this rare opportunity.
But no matter what, as long as he won tonight, the curse would be broken, and he, along with his brothers waiting in the ancestral home, would survive and return to their world.
"I must win..."
