If this development continues, I’ll have to make my move. I gotta think of a way to get rid of the ghost qi that is engulfing Luo Xin street area and defeat the underlings of Altar Master, then this area should become peaceful once again.

Song Shuhang looked at a huge cloud of ghost qi above his head and sighed softly.

After all, he was only a small cultivator in the First Stage Second Aperture Realm. He had never practiced any Buddhist or Daoist scriptures that would allow him to expel evil spirits and ghosts.

Even though he had eight strong evil-warding talismans in his possession right now, the effectiveness of these talismans was limited. Even if he used all of them in one go, he would not be able to eliminate all the ghost qi in the air that was currently engulfing the village.

Hence, he had to use them wisely and in the most effective way. In order to cleanse every corner of Luo Xin street area, the best thing to do was to destroy the source of the ghost qi, and look for the underlings of Altar Master and defeat them. The evil-warding talismans should be used against them when the time comes.

Once the main culprit controlling all these ghostly beings got eliminated and the sun was out, the ghost qi in this area would automatically disappear.

Alright, thinking about all this right now is useless —Song Shuhang, who did not even know the enemy’s whereabouts, could only quietly wait for them to appear before analyzing their power and strength.

If the enemy was weak—then kill!

If the enemy was strong—kill them too! He had the Lightning Palm, sword talismans, armor talismans, the ancient bronze ring, a disposable flying sword, and Doudou’s strand of dog fur. If he fully utilized them and displayed their combined power, defeating a couple of people stronger than him wouldn’t be a problem!

If it was really not possible… then at least he had the ‘Ten Thousand Mile Flying Escape Technique’, and could escape to Senior White’s side immediately. By then, no matter what the situation was, at least Senior White would be there to save the day.

As he was thinking, Tubo’s grandfather welcomed and invited Shuhang and friends into the house.

"Come in, everyone, I picked some waxberries recently. They are very sweet."

Tubo’s grandfather had already prepared a sumptuous breakfast. He wanted to greet Song Shuhang and company who drove all the way there to visit with a feast since they couldn’t eat anything on their journey there.

❄️❄️❄️

"Grandfather, when you called two days ago, you mentioned that there were some devious, strange things happening in this village. What happened?" Asked Tubo as he was eating. He was indeed worried about his grandfather.

His grandfather sighed softly. While the mysterious young lady wasn’t here, when Tubo mentioned this issue, he decided not to keep it bottled up and said, "There were a few strange things that happened here. Firstly, do you have any impression of the mountain road you took when you entered the village?"

Tubo nodded, his grandfather mentioned this before over the phone.

"Within five days, three traffic accidents happened on that mountain road," Tubo’s grandfather said solemnly. "They were not the kind where two vehicles collided. The driver was in a perfect state of mind—he was neither tired nor was he drunk, he just drove on and suddenly… the windshield hit a sharp-pointed object of some sort and completely cracked. Thereafter, the car got flipped over to the side of the road. And, the other two accidents were completely the same".

If they happened at the same time, perhaps one can consider that an accident. But they were three separate accidents that happened in the exact same fashion, so something was obviously wrong.

"Apart from this, about ten days ago, an odd epidemic occurred in the village." Tubo’s grandfather furrowed his brows and said, "A lot of elderly in the village experienced weakness in their entire body, and had no energy or vigor. All they want to do is sleep. Initially, there were only one or two of them that experienced this, but eventually, more and more people caught it. Now, a third of the elderly in this village have more or less have the same feeling of weakness in their body."

"Have they gone to the hospital for a checkup? It shouldn’t be contagious, right?" Tubo asked out of concern.

"This is the strange part—all the elderly who were affected went to the hospital and did a complete physical, but it all boiled down to one cause—they have tired themselves out too much. The doctor guaranteed that if they got more rest and ate more nutritious food, they would be fine. Additionally, only the elderly were affected—the younger population is entirely fine and unaffected," said Tubo’s grandfather. Even he himself had gotten more tired than usual these days, but he did not want to tell Tubo about it.

Song Shuhang nodded while stuffing waxberries into his mouth. The young people were fine because their bodies were still strong. The ghostly beings sent by the underlings of Altar Master absorbed ‘qi and blood’ from human beings, but they only did it in small quantities. Hence, young people were able to take it, but the elderly on the other hand would feel weak, strengthless, and sleepy.

"Next, there’s the case of the graveyard on the mountain behind our village." Tubo’s grandfather laughed bitterly and said, "The fella guarding the graveyard, Yellow Teeth, said that he saw a few ghost-like figures strolling around in the middle of the night. They frequently whizzed over ten meters up towards the sky and then disappeared without a trace."

The medium-sized public graveyard on the mountain top behind Luo Xin street area was the one that Yellow Teeth was guarding.

"Yellow Teeth doesn’t suffer from presbyopia, does he?" Scoffed Tubo. He didn’t seem to have a good impression of the guy nicknamed Yellow Teeth.

"Initially, I thought so too, but after that, a few people took turns to accompany him for two nights at the graveyard and likewise saw figures whizzing up into the sky and disappearing," Tubo’s grandfather sighed. If not for his old age, he would have personally gone to the graveyard with Yellow Teeth to see it for himself.

The graveyard? Song Shuhang’s interest got piqued. Could it be that that was the area where the underlings of Altar Master carried out their operations?

Tubo’s grandfather went on to tell seven, eight more stories of other strange happenings.

It was exactly because there were so many strange happenings occurring at the same time that even an old person like Tubo’s grandfather who had always believed in the logic of ‘science is power, trust only science and reject superstitions’ started feeling uneasy and could tell that something was fishy.

Li Yangde listened quietly and could only sigh at the end of his speech. If there had been so many things happening around him, he too would have suspected that ghosts indeed exist.

"Grandfather, should we prepare some black dog’s blood?" Tubo asked jokingly. [1]

Tubo’s grandfather lightly hit him with his chopsticks, saying, "Don’t spout nonsense. I just feel very uneasy and want you to accompany me, that’s all."

Tubo laughed cheekily.

After filling up their tummies, they drank some tea and started chatting.

Tubo’s grandfather was very good at holding conversations. Whenever he was around, one didn’t have to worry about awkward silence in conversations.

After chatting for a bit, Song Shuhang stretched his body and smiled, saying, "Grandfather, I am going out for a stroll to warm my body. After driving for five hours, my body still feels a bit stiff."

"Do you want me to accompany you?" Tubo asked mindlessly.

Song Shuhang pointed to his leg and laughed without saying a word.

Yangde burst out laughing.

❄️❄️❄️

After leaving Tubo’s grandfather’s house, Song Shuhang first went back to his car and retrieved a long item in a wrapping from his bag, putting it on his back.

Inside it was the saber Broken Tyrant.

Thereafter, his gaze fell on a ghost lingering above Tubo’s house. It was a newly formed ghost, still transparent and not even enough to be considered a low-level ghost soldier. It was at most a wandering soul.

It kept roaming in front of Tubo’s grandfather’s house, but did not enter. It obviously wanted to lure Song Shuhang out.

After Song Shuhang went out, the ghost started to roam in front of him… till it was 100 meters away, when it stopped to wait for Song Shuhang.

It wants to lure me over? Song Shuhang thought.

He put his hands into pockets. With an evil-warding talisman in his left hand, and an armor talisman in his right, he followed behind the ghost without taking his hands out of the pockets.

Walking and walking, the ghost finally stopped at the top of a normal-looking three-story building. The door was left unlatched—it was obviously waiting for Song Shuhang to enter.

Song Shuhang went up to the door and lightly pushed it open before entering.

There was nobody inside, just a fixed-line telephone on speaker mode.

"Hehe, you’ve come. It was you who killed the ghost soldier in front of the village, right?" Said a fake robotic male voice from the telephone.

Song Shuhang furrowed his brows. The other party seemed pretty careful and wary.

"And you are the person controlling the ghost soldier, right?" Song Shuhang said in a deep voice, attempting to get more information from the other person.

"Hehe, that ghost soldier was indeed under our control. Except that we did not think that a righteous Daoist cultivator like you would come. But fortunately, your power and abilities are not as great as we thought," said the man on the telephone.

Song Shuhang scoffed— are they disappointed that I’m only a First Stage Second Aperture Cultivator?

"Back to business, let’s forget about the foolish ghost soldier you got rid of previously. However, let us give you a piece of advice—don’t do anything over the next couple of days in this village and quietly leave after that… let’s just mind our own business! Otherwise, if you offend us, we will activate all the ghost spirits around and cause the people in this village to die from depletion of qi and blood. By then, how many ghost spirits will you be able to block alone?" The man said, his voice getting deeper.

"Are you threatening me?" Asked Song Shuhang calmly.

"Hehe, you can say that. We did not really plan to kill anyone, after all the modern era is different from olden times—massacring an entire village is something we do not wanna do. All we want is to quietly absorb two days worth of qi and blood and then leave this place. We just have to get along peacefully for two days, wouldn’t it be great?" The man on the telephone said in a cold voice. "Don’t force us to kill anyone. Just because we don’t wanna kill anyone doesn’t mean we won’t!"

"Hehe," laughed Song Shuhang.

Suddenly, he took a huge step and smashed the telephone on the counter with all his might.

"Bang..."

The telephone got smashed into smithereens, and a plume of black fog emerged from it.

It was just a ghost.

From the start, there wasn’t any man talking to him via loudspeaker mode—it was just a ghost being hiding within the phone, talking with Song Shuhang.

It wasn’t an underling of Altar Master.

"Next time when you’re pretending to make a call… please at least make sure the telephone line is plugged in, ok? Just because you are stupid, don’t assume that everyone is as stupid as you." Song Shuhang turned around and punched the black fog-like ghost.

"Damn, I actually got found out by you." That cloud of black fog transformed, and ultimately took on the appearance of a man wearing a black armor. It was the same black armor as the one worn by the ghost soldier in front of the village, except that the ghost in front of him was a ghost general.

A ghost general—was the equivalent of a cultivator in the Second Stage Realm. Additionally, they were different from ghost soldiers. Ghost generals have already recovered most of their memories prior to death, hence they had a certain level of intelligence.

The ghost general raised its hand and a huge shield appeared on its arm, blocking Song Shuhang’s punch.

"Bang…"

Song Shuhang retreated a step while the ghost general was sent flying upon impact.

It wasn’t because Song Shuhang’s punch was that powerful. Just like the ghost general Ku You, which the underlings of Altar Master had secretly brought along into the metro, this ghost general was in its weak stage right now.