Chapter 38: The Demon Transformation Revisited

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Having come to believe that Wu Chang truly could communicate with the resentful dead, and having made up his mind, Liu Wu confessed everything that had happened.

It all traced back to two and a half years earlier, to the dark-skinned foreign monk who had allowed the evil spirit to escape.

The brothers had once crossed hands with that monk. His entire body was built like iron, impervious to blades and spears, and possessed of tremendous strength. Even against the two of them together, he had easily kept them under control.

Yet such a powerful man had been effortlessly slain by the monster right before their eyes.

From that moment on, the brothers understood one thing: human strength had its limits.

To defeat monsters, they had to become beings who surpassed ordinary mortals.

Although the brothers had failed to find the stone-gargoyle mask, more than a year earlier, while hunting a fierce tiger deep in the mountains, they had come across a cultivation manual.

The Ghost-Taming Art.

This technique could refine a living person into a ghost-servant for the practitioner to command.

The stronger the dead, the stronger the ghost-servant.

Thus, they attacked outsiders like Wu Chang, bound them, and dragged them into the Ghost-Cry Forest to interrogate them about their cultivation techniques.

If their victims could not produce a technique, or if the technique was inferior to the Ghost-Taming Art, the brothers would cruelly kill them and bury them beneath the trees of the forest.

Before burying the bodies, they would extract a drop of blood from each victim's heart and fuse it into a ritual artifact. That allowed them to command the ghost-servant formed from the victim.

The ritual artifact was a mask divided vertically into two halves, like a taiji symbol. Liu Wei and Liu Wu each possessed one half.

As long as they wore the mask, they could freely enter and leave the Ghost-Cry Forest and command the ghost-servants within.

"Where is the cultivation manual you found?" Wu Chang asked.

They had already confessed so much; one more detail made little difference. Liu Wu answered honestly:

"My elder brother and I each carry half of it. Mine is in my clothes right now."

Wu Chang took the half-book from Liu Wu's chest. He glanced at it once, then wore the expression of an old man staring at his phone on the subway.

Pointing at the pages filled with incantations that looked like ghostly scrawls, he asked in disbelief, "You can actually understand this thing?"

He felt as though his intelligence had been insulted. If the book had contained even a few more illustrations, he might have believed Liu Wu a little.

Liu Wu said, "We couldn't understand it at first either. But after steeping that tiger's heart in wine, my elder brother and I suddenly became able to read it."

Good grief. Was a tiger's heart some kind of decoding card?

Even if Liu Wu had wanted to deceive him, he could hardly have invented a lie so absurd, so Wu Chang temporarily accepted it as the truth.

Even so, several questions remained unexplained.

He continued, "Then why did you send the ghost-servants to attack Liu Ning?"

Liu Wu replied, "According to the book, the cultivation art can only reach perfection when the two halves of the mask are united. To fuse the halves, we need a powerful primary ghost capable of bearing the complete ritual artifact. Our original target was the evil spirit in the village."

"The evil spirit is at its weakest right now. If we hold the Year-End Exorcism Festival ahead of schedule, we can take advantage of the opportunity to devour it. But if we delay another month, the evil spirit will have fully recovered, and the ghost-servants will find it difficult to defeat."

"Uncle Shan kept obstructing the early celebration of the festival. We had to find a way to make him step aside."

Wu Chang asked curiously, "If the evil spirit can be eliminated once and for all, Liu Shan might not have disagreed. Did you never consider discussing it with him?"

Liu Wu shook his head. "The art cannot be shared with a sixth person. Besides, the mask created by the technique consists of only two halves."

What a compelling reason.

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Wu Chang looked Liu Wu up and down. "Judging by the way you look, you were preparing to leave. What were you going to do?"

A trace of embarrassment appeared on Liu Wu's face. "To perfect the cultivation art, we need a powerful primary ghost. It could be the evil spirit, or it could be you."

"My elder brother is softhearted and concerned about the village. He wants to wait until after the Year-End Exorcism Festival before taking action. I'm worried that too many variables may arise, so I was preparing to act in secret on my own."

Wu Chang glanced at the sky. Since it was getting late, he hastened his questioning.

"What exactly is the evil spirit?"

"I cannot describe it clearly. Once you see the heart of the Year-End Exorcism Festival with your own eyes, you will understand."

Regarding his greatest secret, Liu Wu had concealed nothing. Yet whenever the evil spirit was mentioned, his words became evasive.

"I have told you everything I should. Now you should fulfill your promise."

Wu Chang removed Liu Wu's mask and patted him on the shoulder, speaking softly.

"I promised to spare you, and I will keep my word. But as for convincing them to spare you, you will have to find a way yourself."

With that, he gripped the mask and walked toward the edge of the forest.

Without the mask's protection, Liu Wu felt the temperature around him plummet. Realizing what was about to happen, he panicked and shouted, "Wait, you—"

Before he could finish, his tongue suddenly burst apart. The words he meant to say became a miserable, muffled whimper.

The entire forest erupted with wind. The howling sounded like crying and laughter at once, horribly sinister.

Half an hour later, the half-mask in Wu Chang's hand stirred. Now that it had become ownerless, it revealed its attributes panel.

[Item Name: Demon Transformation—Human Face (Black).]

[Item Type: Dungeon Item.]

[Item Rank: D.]

[Item Skill: Ghost-Taming.]

[By offering one's vital energy and essence-blood as a sacrifice, one may control the ghost-servants refined within the mask.]

[Item Description: Unite with Demon Transformation—Human Face (White) to unlock the item's combined skill.]

Demon Transformation?

Wu Chang stared at the prefix in the mask's name, and his expression gradually became strange.

He remembered that the ritual artifact which transformed the people of Chen Family Village into mist demons had also been called Demon Transformation.

The ritual artifact Liu Wei and Liu Wu had always used was Demon Transformation. Yet when Liu Wu described its abilities, he only knew that combining the two halves would fuse the artifact and grant its wielder the artifact's power. He did not know that the wielder would transform into a monster.

Had he deliberately concealed that fact, or did he genuinely know nothing about it?

Perhaps Liu Wei would give him the answer.

Wu Chang put on the mask. The pale red stains of blood scattered throughout the forest transformed into flesh-and-blood ghost-servants, each one a mangled mass.

The ghost-servants gathered around him with faces full of yearning, whispering just as they had when he first encountered them:

"Help me..."

"Set me free..."

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"Save my soul..."

Now that he had discovered the true body of the resentful-thought collective, he could clearly read their blood-red final message.

It was exactly what the crimson flesh-ball had screamed at the end.

[Give it back!]

They wanted to reclaim the blood taken from their hearts, escape their forms as ghost-servants, and regain their freedom.

Wu Chang removed the mask and said softly, "Wait a little longer. The time is not yet right."

At present, he possessed only half the mask. The other half was still in Liu Wei's hands.

Heaven knew whether throwing this half to the ghost-servants would free half of them or cause them all to lose control.

Besides, keeping this half-mask in his possession would prove useful in the future.

After burying Liu Wu, whose appearance had been blurred beyond recognition, in the Ghost-Cry Forest, Wu Chang cleaned up the scene and made certain that no traces remained. Then he returned to Spring-Arrival Mountain.

The mountain keeper was sitting on a meditation cushion, grinning foolishly at Old Man Spring Locust.

When he saw Wu Chang return, the mountain keeper immediately stood and took half a roasted chicken, laid on a piece of bark, from beneath the offering table.

Wu Chang patted him on the head. "It's all yours."

"Things will be somewhat chaotic over the next few days. Hide yourself well, and do not go into the village again. If you run into trouble, have your friend come find me."

Seeing that the mountain keeper nodded as though he understood, Wu Chang left some more food behind and turned away.

As the sun set, darkness gradually descended. Torches and lanterns were lit throughout Locust Valley Village.

Liu Shan summoned several of the village stewards and was preparing to discuss how they should arrange the Year-End Exorcism Festival when Liu Jinfu came hurrying over and said anxiously:

"Uncle Shan, Hero Wu has returned!"

Everyone present grew solemn. Something had indeed gone wrong in Chen Family Village; even someone with Wu Chang's abilities had struggled to make it through.

Liu Shan was the first to ask, "What happened? Did Hero Wu encounter danger on the way? Do not open the village gates just yet. Make absolutely certain that no monster is following behind him."

Liu Jinfu shook his head. "No, Hero Wu brought the palace lantern back!"

"What?!"

Five minutes later, everyone followed Liu Jinfu to the watchtower at the village entrance.

From that high vantage point, they looked into the distance and saw a bright, dazzling crimson light racing along the pitch-black mountain road.

Wherever the light reached, darkness and monsters alike retreated, not daring to approach even a fraction closer.

Everyone present burst into cheers, their faces filled with excitement and exhilaration, as though the one coming to shatter the night were truly a celestial star lord descending from the heavens.

Only Liu Wei wore an uncertain expression amid the crowd, his smile strained.

Hero Wu had returned so quickly. Surely Brother Wu had not had time to run into him.

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