When the shadow reached the intersection, I was still hesitating whether to follow it or not.

Suddenly, I heard some noises coming from Zhu Fengchun’s house. I turned and saw the candle had been relit in the room. Moreover, there was another shadow.

What’s going on? Why are there two shadows?

Soon after, I noticed that the shadow in the room was fake. There was no wisp of Yin energy around it. It seemed that Zhu Fengchun had deliberately impersonated the shadow.

I was curious, so I went there and straight off kicked the door open. At first glance, I spotted Zhu Fengchun pretending to be a ghost.

I turned the light on and glared at him.

Just as I had thought, the man had faked his death. He should have been frightened since I had exposed him, but he acted as though he had already known I would go there.

He smiled, but his eyes were serious as he looked at me. “If everything went according to the plan, your two friends must be dead by now. Hahaha…”

“What do you mean?” As I looked at Zhu Fengchun’s face, I was deeply worried about Li Mazi and Chief Liu.

But the shadow had just left, so it couldn’t catch up with the other two so quickly. I turned and yelled at Zhu Fengchun, “Who are you trying to scare?”

“Haha, yesterday, while you were digging up Li Tiansheng’s coffin, I took the souls of the two other victims there. They saw what you did,” Zhu Fengchun laughed and continued, “Do you think your friends can survive tonight if they guard the two graves?”

I was completely dumbfounded. It turned out he had deliberately shown us that scene last night. He wanted to make us dig the three graves so that the souls of the victims would think that we were trying to harm them!

They were ghosts that had been killed before their time. With this grudge, their resentful energy would help them become evil souls soon. Li Mazi and the others were in grave danger!

I hurried to call Li Mazi, but Zhu Fengchun tried to stop me.

“Damn you!” I punched him right in the face as I clenched my teeth.

The situation was now clear. Zhu Fengchun had joined hands with that spirit. He had made a scene to trick me into going to his house, giving the spirit a chance to run away.

I had no idea where the spirit had escaped to.

Anyway, calling Li Mazi and Chief Liu was more urgent. Zhu Fengchun seemed to be unafraid of pain. He clung onto me to prevent me from making the call.

I didn’t know how many times I had punched him already, but my hand ached, and his face looked like that of a pig. Still, he didn’t let go of me. He stuck onto me like a sticker. In the end, I had no choice but hit his nape to knock him out.

I then called Li Mazi. The line went through right away.

“How is it going?” asked Li Mazi.

“Li Mazi, listen up. Cancel the plan for tonight, right now! You and Chief Liu should return to the Police Bureau and wait for me there,” I replied with a stern voice.

“Hold on,” Li Mazi lowered his voice as if he were afraid that people could hear him. “Little Brother Zhang, I think something’s wrong with Chief Liu. Just a moment ago, he resolutely asked me to go to the Bronze Bird Terrace. I asked him why, but he didn’t answer. Do you think he…”

Li Mazi’s voice shivered. It seemed he had realized something.

“Are you sure?”

Li Mazi almost cried, “I’m sure!”

The Bronze Bird Terrace was the place Wang Zhuangzhuang—the second victim—had visited to take some photos before he was killed.

Chief Liu was certainly possessed by Wang Zhuangzhuang’s ghost. If it wanted to guide Chief Liu and Li Mazi to the Bronze Bird Terrace, there should be some clue in that place.

I gulped my saliva, making my tone firm and calm. “In that case, you should follow him. You have to pretend that you know nothing. I’ll also head to the Bronze Bird Terrace.”

“All right, hurry up!”

After talking, Li Mazi hung up.

I took a look at the fainted Zhu Fengchun, then searched for the Bronze Bird Terrace using the map application on my phone. The Bronze Bird Terrace site was on the North side of the Zhang River, less than five kilometers away from Wang Zhuangzhuang’s grave. I, on the other end, was close to twenty kilometers away from there.

As they were driving, despite the rough road, it would take them fifteen minutes at most to get there. I had no way to catch up with them.

I found some candles and joss sticks in Zhu Fengchun’s drawer and had an idea.

I opened the door and all the windows. Then, I lit up a candle on the floor and burned some joss sticks. I bit my finger till it bled and used my blood to draw a simple Eight Diagrams sketch around the candle. I then used a strip of red cloth with my blood smeared on it to tie my legs. After preparing everything, I closed my eyes and read a spell to beckon a spirit.

It was a spell grandpa had taught me. I could use my blood as an offering and use an ancient divination skill to control the wandering wild ghosts nearby for a short time. I could make them guide me to the place I wanted to go.

In ‘Water Margin,’ Dai Zong—the Magic Traveler—could travel five hundred miles away using this magic technique.

However, this spell was dangerous. If the caster didn’t have a strong cultivation base, the wandering ghosts he invited could wound him or even kill him. That was why I had never used it before. But as the situation was urgent, I decided to use it despite my hesitation.

As soon as I read the spell, the air began to circulate around me. Instantly, the place where I was standing became a vacuum. A cold wind rushed in from the outside, swirling around me.

Everything had happened in the blink of an eye. Before I could react, my legs felt quite light as they began to run without my control.

While running, I opened my eyes wide, looking at the scenery in front of me quickly moving past me. I stopped worrying when I had finally adapted to the situation. I was curious at the moment. What kind of spirit did I invite?

I really wanted to know, so I lowered my head a little bit to see. I was riding on a red shadow, which was moving at a tremendous speed.

The red shadow seemed to have sensed me looking at him. He turned and looked back at me.

It was a face full of maggots with a nose turned up high. His eyes were uneven in size. The bigger one was shimmering with green light, bulging like a ball. Although both eyes looked human, they were oozing blood.

The spirit eyed me, smiling at me. I tried not to vomit, gritting my teeth and nodding at him. Then, I closed my eyes, not daring to look at him a second time. After around five minutes, I felt that my body was slowly sinking. Then, both of my feet firmly landed on the ground.

When I opened my eyes, the spirit I had invited was gone, and the blood on the fabric stripe I had used to tie my legs had been sucked dry.

He seemed to be a nice spirit that had only enjoyed the blood and joss sticks I had offered. He meant no harm to me.

I didn’t have time to care much about that spirit. I turned and checked the place. Soon, I saw a majestic structure in front of me. The terrace was an imposing construction that faced the famous Zhang River.

Rumors said that Cao Cao had collected beauties in the country and kept them in the Bronze Bird Terrace. Moreover, he liked to gather with groups of literati to drink and make poems there. There was a famous verse that said: If the East wind didn’t favor General Zhou, the Bronze Bird Terrace would have kept the Qiao sisters locked.

Although the Bronze Bird Terrace in front of me had been rebuilt by later generations and the water of the Zhang River was frozen, I could still feel Cao Cao’s extravagance from those years.

I looked around and saw no cars. It seemed that Chief Liu and Li Mazi would get there in a few minutes. I stood up and attempted to run across the frozen Zhang River to reach the Bronze Bird Terrace.

However, right when I was about to step on the Bronze Bird Terrace, I heard a sigh come from the top.

The deep voice lingered in the cold night. Although it was just a sigh, I could feel the endless grief it carried.

Before I could move, the voice echoed again from the top of the terrace. “How could I, Cao Cao, be a traitor? Without my help, how could there be kings? How could there be emperors? Why does no one understand me?!”

The sigh grew until it became a yell.

I was shocked. It turned out that the person up there wasn’t a living person. He was the most controversial, historical figure in the era of the Three Kingdoms: Cao Cao—the Emperor Wu of Wei!

As I recalled that all of the victims were murdered next to the Bronze Bird Terrace, I finally understood. The spirit I had to deal with this time was Cao Cao.

No wonder the spirit looked so dark. In history, Cao Cao was famous for his dark skin color.

I remembered that the spirit had a sword, and he fled whenever he saw a mirror. With those details, I could confirm that this was indeed Cao Cao!

The sword in his hand was the Seven Star Sword. In the legend, the Seven Star Sword was forged from the mysterious iron left behind by Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, two legendary swordsmiths. It was a precious sword that could cut iron as if it was mud.

Cao Cao had tried to assassinate Dong Zhuo with this sword. However, when he reached Dong Zhuo’s bed, Dong Zhuo saw Cao Cao drawing the sword through the mirror by his bed. Cao Cao had a sudden idea and said that he wanted to offer Dong Zhuo the sword. Then, he hurried to flee the scene.

That moment of fright had haunted Cao Cao for the rest of his life. That was why his spirit was afraid of mirrors. And, as for why he would only kill people while they were asleep, I thought it was related to the poems where Cao Cao killed people in his dreams.

In the legend, after Cao Cao had become the Chancellor, in order to prevent assassination attempts on his person, he had deliberately lied and said that his sleep wasn’t too good. When someone came near him, he would kill that person. He had purposely killed a eunuch that had gone to tuck his blanket. From then on, no assassin was sent to murder Cao Cao at night.

After I organized my thoughts, I felt much at ease.

Cao Cao wasn’t a good person, but he was no villain, either. I thought his spirit wouldn’t just go on a rampage and kill people for no reason. The deceased must have done something bad.

Cao Cao was the type of man who would defeat the entire world rather than letting the world take him down. That was why he had chased after us all the way to the Police Bureau.

He was someone who could kidnap the emperor and control his vassals, keeping the nation under his control for half of his life. Why could the righteous aura of the Police Bureau stop him?

After I had cleared up my thoughts, I decided to go there and meet Cao Cao to ask him about his obsession. Then, I would try my best to help him solve it.

Cao Cao had always been a hero in my heart. I didn’t want to see his soul destroyed.