“Stop at once!”
Miss Shen was incredibly quick, her monkey tail lashing in the air. A wave of villagers behind her were instantly sent flying. She only managed to grab two, while her other hand blocked the female ghost’s attack.
Zhou Qi’an genuinely felt that if Miss Shen had an exceptional toe, she might have been able to grab two more.
“Ahhh!”
Miss Shen couldn’t save all the villagers. Accompanied by a scream, a burst of blood mist appeared in the air.
The villagers’ bodies had long been different from ordinary people, akin to bursting bombs. The female ghost ate with relish, leaving a lingering fragrance. Zhou Qi’an, unable to dodge in time, was almost stabbed by a flying white bone.
Two more NPCs gone! And right under his nose.
Miss Shen’s expression turned cold.
No notification from the game meant that the appearance of this female ghost was within the rules.
Within the rules, even if you directly hit the game with a hoe, it would implicitly acknowledge your tilling of the soil.
“I don’t care who you are, or where you’re from,” Miss Shen warned coldly, “but are you sure you want to fight me to the death?”
As she uttered the word “death,” her gaze never left the mistress.
The village chief also approached at this moment, with strange candles floating in mid-air. The distorted priest behind him shifted, ready to appear at any moment.
Zhou Qi’an frowned slightly.
At this point, if the female ghost decided to retreat, he would be in trouble.
Unexpectedly, the female ghost stared at Miss Shen for two seconds. The similar zodiac structure made her fall into a memory: “You and that rabbit head, what was his name…”
Miss Shen said coldly: “Mr. Si, he’s my colleague.”
Since you’ve met Mr. Si, you should know that they are not to be trifled with.
“He used to guard my house.”
“…”
How powerful could a gatekeeper be? Mr. Si had even wailed about his car being stolen. The female ghost instantly concluded: not to be feared.
Then she charged directly at Miss Shen.
Zhou Qi’an’s mouth hung open.
He now felt that the female ghost was as brave as the villagers.
The air was thick with the scent of blood. Miss Shen, worthy of being a monkey, was incredibly fast. The female ghost, not to be outdone, moved blindingly fast.
Zhou Qi’an wasn’t sure who was injured exactly.
After two villagers died, the remaining villagers retreated.
New grudges and old hatred made the village chief target Zhou Qi’an, who was darting his eyes around. The tumor twisted and emerged from the back of his collar.
He turned his body, and the purplish-red mass faced forward.
Zhou Qi’an quickly lowered his eyes, glancing behind him. The crawling child had finally arrived. The little ghost’s nose twitched, sniffing the exceptionally fresh scent of blood.
“Your mom is catching fish for you.” Zhou Qi’an bent down and gently picked up the child, while his other hand took out the holy artifact.
The child, who had just bared his fangs, tightly shut his mouth.
He held the child in front of him and said, “Don’t look into the eyes of the thing opposite you, it will be dangerous.”
The little ghost was just malevolent, not stupid. It could feel an indescribable, different aura in front of it, accompanied by terrifying killing intent, and knew that what the other party said was mostly true.
But like a newborn calf that fears no tiger, it wasn’t scared, and demonstratively bared its sharp, moving teeth.
The scene was deadlocked.
One brought out the tumor on his back, the other held the little ghost in front of him.
Suddenly, Zhou Qi’an felt a small vibration.
It was the communication device.
Shen Zhiyi’s voice came intermittently from the other side, seemingly asking about the situation there.
Zhou Qi’an: “I’m doing great here. Everyone’s pretty brave.”
There were whooshing and crackling sounds from Shen Zhiyi’s end. Zhou Qi’an was imagining whether a player had thrown a small explosive device while the air was dry. Finally, two relatively clear words came through: “And you?”
“I’m babysitting,” Zhou Qi’an said without thinking.
“…”
On the other side, the corpse-raising ground.
As Zhou Qi’an had guessed, Ying Yu used a prop, but it wasn’t an explosive one.
Accidentally damaging other coffins would be tantamount to indirectly opening the second layer of coffins, triggering a death rule. The focus could only be on the Saintess’s coffin lid, and it couldn’t be an explosion, otherwise, the wooden stake would be blown away, and they would have to find it again.
What he used was an item called [Will-o’-the-Wisp].
As the name suggested, it could float in mid-air and ignite things on a person.
For the former Saintess, extinguishing this tiny flame was nothing. But now, the air was excessively dry. She was constantly absorbing moisture, trying to maintain her skin. Even so, much of her skin was still peeling off, revealing the terrifying marks of past sunburn.
“Why!” The Saintess’s false composure completely vanished. Her mouth became sunken, and there was a feeling of wanting to perish together: “Why are you helping the beasts in the village!”
Shen Zhiyi ended his communication with Zhou Qi’an and calmly offered her a plan: “Absorb the moisture from these living corpses, and you can hold on for a bit longer, fighting us to the end.”
This was a rather malicious suggestion.
Corpses nourished by death qi for years could transform at any time, becoming her reborn body. If she chose to absorb them completely, all her efforts would be ruined.
The female teacher looked at the Saintess, whose white robe was scorched by the phosphorescent fire, and suddenly said, “Yongxi Township has become a dead town, and the villagers of Fengshui Village are almost dead too. You deliberately left this remnant just to attract outsiders and get a chance to reincarnate.”
As she spoke, her voice gradually grew louder: “Why should we solve the problem? Didn’t you have the village chief trick us into coming here?”
The Saintess’s voice settled down again, her eyes seeming to melt, her black pupils diffused, looking terrifying:
“I just want to live… is that wrong?”
Bang!
A crisp cracking sound broke the conversation between the two sides.
While they were discussing life values, Ying Yu struck the coffin lid again.
This time, the coffin lid finally cracked open.
“Don’t mind me, you two continue talking.”
Ying Yu said indifferently. The wound on his shoulder had not yet fully healed. As he spoke, he fiercely kicked the cracked opening of the coffin.
Through the kicked-open hole, they could finally see what was inside.
It was a wooden stake almost as long as the coffin. Even in the relatively dark lower layer of the coffin, one could still glimpse the faint blood-red runes on it.
The previously processed holy water had been taken by Ying Yu. Kou Tuo, who had originally been somewhat displeased by this, swallowed hard upon seeing it: “Mr. Yu, he really is…”
True to his original intention.
Despite his thoughts, Kou Tuo accelerated to help.
Success or failure hinged on this one move.
The Saintess’s body suddenly elongated, her arm seemingly losing elasticity, flowing forward and downwards vertically.
Kou Tuo felt goosebumps rise on his skin. He clearly felt the air around him had become much more humid. That arm appeared alone at his feet, actually corroding and dissolving his foot tendons.
Xu Gui carried his large halberd to rescue the situation. The young girl was already exhausted, and the female teacher, ignoring her, went forward to help.
Anger can destroy reason.
The Saintess was desperate to stop Ying Yu, at all costs. She began to absorb the moisture from the surrounding living corpses. The gradually increasing power made the Saintess reveal a terrifying smile again: “I want to kill…”
Shen Zhiyi stood at a not-too-far, not-too-close distance: “Your husband is going to die.”
“?”
Shen Zhiyi merely stated the facts: “That female ghost just went out, what do you think will happen?”
Saying that, he used the communication device again to connect with Zhou Qi’an, broadcasting the sounds of the fight over there.
With the time he bought, the wooden stake finally saw the light of day again.
As the source of the curse, the wooden stake’s surface was covered with faint traces of water, like a condensed human figure. Even after so long, a strong sense of resentment could still be felt. The messy curse marks were etched on by fingernails, and black-red blood had long seeped into the internal wood splinters.
Ying Yu did not hesitate and immediately began sprinkling holy water.
The moment the incantation faded, the Saintess’s body swayed.
Shen Zhiyi: “You can’t stop him, but you can still prevent the priest’s death.”
The Saintess’s jaw was clenched tightly, almost grinding her teeth.
Finally, she still chose the priest, or rather, from the moment she began absorbing the living corpses and Ying Yu poured the holy water, she had no choice. Even if she stayed there, it would be useless.
Shen Zhiyi looked at the others: “Follow up.”
Just leave one person to remove the curse. If the Saintess rushed over, it might be detrimental to Zhou Qi’an.
Kou Tuo quickly stopped the bleeding, and the group maintained a not-too-far, not-too-close distance from the Saintess.
Midway, the Saintess turned her head once, like she was looking at an unshakeable parasite.
“Is it really okay?” the female teacher whispered.
The next second, the sound was drowned in chaos.
Ahead—
“Waaah!” The child’s shrill cry almost pierced their eardrums.
“Stop crying, your mom’s just hurt her hand. Miss Shen’s tail was almost bitten off, and she didn’t cry.”
Priest: “If you’re so brave, put the child down.”
“Nah, nah, nah, I’m faster than you. This child can kill candle ghosts. If you’re so brave, come and kill… I told you to stop crying… otherwise, want a villager to eat?”
His words abruptly ceased. Zhou Qi’an seemed to sense something, and the moment he turned his head, he put away the holy artifact.
The players, each suffering from varying degrees of blood loss, were instinctively drawn by the greater commotion. In the sky, the female ghost and Miss Shen were fighting each other.
Kou Tuo felt a flash of golden light. When he looked closer, he missed a crucial moment.
Zhou Qi’an had changed to a different staff. Seeing Shen Zhiyi, he waved the child at him: “Here.”
At first glance, the scene was eerily heartwarming.
As for the Saintess, the moment she appeared, the priest’s first reaction was to lower his head.
He used the forbidden knowledge of an ancient book to “resurrect” his beloved, but it was like the most terrifying curse; the price paid far exceeded imagination.
Untouchable, unwatchable.
While the priest lowered his head and the Saintess was silent, Zhou Qi’an quickly moved closer to his teammates. His teammates retreated even faster.
The ghost child in Zhou Qi’an’s arms was too terrifying! It could contend with the village children.
No, it was even worse.
“Where’s Ying Yu?” Zhou Qi’an asked Shen Zhiyi, who was the only one not moving.
Shen Zhiyi said blandly: “Sprinkling water.”
It could only be holy water.
Zhou Qi’an looked up at the sky upon hearing this. The entire sky was much bluer than before, and this blueness was still increasing. The [Clear Waters and Blue Skies] mentioned in the system prompt indeed required a buffer time.
He immediately shouted towards the sky: “The village water is about to return to normal, go collect the water first!”
Having devoured two villagers before, the female ghost wasn’t actually at a loss. She came for the water, and when she sensed that the moisture in the air had indeed changed, she prepared to withdraw.
Miss Shen also didn’t prolong the fight. In a one-on-one, the female ghost was certainly not her match, but if she fought to the death, there might be no NPCs left.
Jumping down from mid-air, the fur on her tail bristled. She glared fiercely at Zhou Qi’an.
The female ghost walked out with the other party, so it must have been this man’s doing. Miss Shen stared intensely at his face, as if to imprint the youth’s hateful features into her mind.
Zhou Qi’an took a breath and said to Shen Zhiyi, “You abducted the child, Xu Gui blew up the altar, and finally the staff resented me?”
Shen Zhiyi extended a slender hand and lifted the child by the collar of its clothes from the other’s arms.
The little ghost instinctively shivered.
It didn’t know why it was shaking, but this person’s aura was a bit like… like the evil deity statue at home!
Without giving the little ghost a chance to speak, Shen Zhiyi directly threw it towards the female ghost.
Back with its mother, the child quickly climbed up her trouser leg and whispered something in the female ghost’s ear. The mistress of the manor frowned and gave Shen Zhiyi a deep look.
A moment later, she no longer paid attention to Shen Zhiyi and walked away with the little ghost, following the trickling sound. After witnessing their companions being killed firsthand, none of the villagers dared to stop them.
Zhou Qi’an watched the female ghost leave, curious about how she would draw water. Would she use the wind to lift it?
The cursed water source, within the mutated Liangye Manor, might be able to retain some of its energy.
The sky became even clearer blue. Time slowly passed, and the entire hollow area was unusually quiet.
The priest didn’t make another move. Although he dared not look at the Saintess, he could feel her life force rapidly fading, and turbid sewage appeared on his purplish-red deformed face.
It looked like he was crying.
The terrified villagers, as if waking from a trance, exclaimed in horror, “Her, her skin!”
The evaporating woman frightened them.
The Saintess, however, was now surprisingly calm, merely staring at the retreating backs of the fleeing villagers, a hint of resentment flashing in her eyes. With the curse gone, she would evaporate again. As for Shen Zhiyi tricking her out, she no longer had the energy to pursue it.
The sky became even clearer blue, and the mechanical voice, like a sweet rain, descended into the players’ ears:
[Final Main Quest – Exorcism Completed]
The moment the system prompt appeared, it meant that the settlement was about to begin.
The players breathed a sigh of relief. During the settlement period, they would automatically be immune to death rules and demons. Miss Shen, worried about the safety of the remaining villagers, did not wait to pick them up, but busied herself with tracking the mistress.
According to the work plan, after the instance ended, she would help these villagers evolve into true ghosts, and Fengshui Village would be completely upgraded to a four-and-a-half-star instance.
This time, absolutely no more NPCs would be lost!
On the spot, the priest put away the surrounding candles, otherwise it would accelerate the Saintess’s evaporation.
He suddenly laughed like a madman.
A shadow approached him. The priest knew it was Zhou Qi’an walking towards him.
He said to the Saintess, “Just hold on a little longer, just a little.”
That empty check was about to be cashed.
The cool mountain breeze seemed to wrap around Zhou Qi’an, casting a shadow denser than a normal person’s.
Although a bit unreliable in daily life, Zhou Qi’an was a man who kept his promises. Since he had taken the wealth that the village chief had once hidden from the priest, he would, as agreed, personally “deliver” the other party after achieving victory.
“Lend me a weapon that can chop and shovel,” Zhou Qi’an said to Xu Gui.
Xu Gui’s eyelid twitched. He knew what Zhou Qi’an wanted to do and felt it was a bit redundant.
Anyway, the mission was already completed. What if he didn’t fulfill his agreement with the priest?
The priest seemed to understand Xu Gui’s thoughts, lifting his terrifying purplish-red eyelids to look over. Xu Gui still dared not meet his gaze, and to divert the priest’s murderous stare, he lent out his large halberd.
Zhou Qi’an held it in his hand, weighing it.
Xu Gui reminded him, “Specialized high-level weapons can only function effectively in their owner’s hands.”
An outsider holding it could at most demonstrate pure physical strength.
Zhou Qi’an nodded: “That’s enough.”
The system prompt continued:
[Final Main Quest – Exorcism Completed]
[Four-star Instance Fengshui Village Cleared]
[Clearance Reward: 10,000 points have been issued to your inventory]
[You gained 11,200 experience points in this game. Do you wish to use all of them for personal evolution?]
“Yes,” Zhou Qi’an said, multitasking.
The halberd had horizontal blades on both sides. Compared to a direct thrust, its horizontal strike offered a wider damage area.
At this moment, the sky was clear as jade. Under such soft light, the crescent-shaped blade had a gentle, flowing quality.
The village chief trembled. He yearned for death to end his current suffering, but Zhou Qi’an slowly raised the halberd, invisibly intensifying the torment.
The deformed tumor, on the contrary, seemed to find its long-sought holy light in the blade’s reflection. He had also prayed devoutly in the church countless times, but the Lord had never listened, not even once looking at his faithful.
Otherwise, why such a coincidence? His wife returned to her hometown every year without incident, but such a tragedy occurred precisely when he returned due to a family member’s illness.
“Lord… is the devil…” The tumor’s mouth intermittently uttered a few words. It looked up at Zhou Qi’an, seeing twisted benevolence and cruelty in this lean body: “You are too.”
Like an executioner, the next moment Zhou Qi’an gripped the long shaft with both hands and brought it down heavily.
Unlike hunting ghosts in everyday life, which was often a last resort, this time he was the primary surgeon.
Zhou Qi’an was actually somewhat surprised. When the blade fell, he felt no psychological burden at all, as if he had been accustomed to killing a long time ago.
The expected scene of spurting blood did not occur.
The purplish-red tumor and the village chief’s body simply separated completely, like ripe fruit naturally falling to the ground. The moment the mass peeled away, the membrane that enveloped its body began to recede, and the head and torso rapidly grew.
The village chief collapsed to the ground, closing his eyes as if finally relieved.
The deformed tumor gradually transformed into the priest’s former appearance. He extended a still-growing hand and grimly pried open the village chief’s eyelids.
The village chief gasped painfully: “No, no…”
His pupils froze in terror. In his dying moments, the priest was still staring at him.
When the village chief fell, Zhou Qi’an stepped back a bit, to avoid being splashed with dust.
The mass was growing. The growing priest looked even more terrifying. He suddenly rushed towards Zhou Qi’an at high speed.
The other players instinctively retreated a step. Damn it, was he going to try to kill them all?
Zhou Qi’an was also about to retreat when the priest’s eerie voice, like a venomous snake, slithered into his ear: “That person’s shadow is alive.”
Shadow, alive?
Zhou Qi’an’s body trembled slightly.
The Saintess had evaporated to barely more than bones. The priest didn’t have the patience to wait for his body to fully form and simply carried her on his back.
Without another word, the priest bolted towards the distant village.
Zhou Qi’an remained rooted to the spot, the priest’s words still echoing in his mind.
A figure appeared behind him at some point. Shen Zhiyi’s voice was soft and gentle: “What did he just say?”
Despite the gentle voice, Zhou Qi’an couldn’t help but swallow. The priest hadn’t named anyone, but he subconsciously glanced at Shen Zhiyi’s shadow.
Under the clear blue sky, this shadow seemed no different from an ordinary person’s. Perhaps influenced by the priest’s words, after staring for a while, he actually felt a sense of life from a shadow.
“Nothing, just thanking me for helping him deliver.”
Zhou Qi’an’s expression remained unchanged as he calmly listened to the mechanical voice announcing:
[Calf (Advanced Evolution State): Calf strong, very strong.]
[Thigh (Intermediate Evolution State): Normal people don’t understand why your calves and thighs evolve so slowly, just as they don’t know how fast you are.]
[Heart (Five-star Fish Eye Dormant State): Still closed for business.]
Avoiding Shen Zhiyi’s gaze, Zhou Qi’an returned the halberd to Xu Gui: “Here.”
The latter hesitated: “You’ve really offended Miss Shen to death.” Then he added, “It doesn’t seem to have much impact anyway.”
In any case, the staff would certainly attribute the appearance of the female ghost to Zhou Qi’an.
As for the identity and origin of the female ghost and the child, none of the players present were curious. They would be curious about missions, curious about instances, but uniquely not curious about a ghost.
Who knew if it would attract some unclean things.
“Help me ahhh—”
A sharp wail came from the distant village, reverberating through the valley and reaching the players’ ears as an echo.
The female teacher shivered: “Let’s go back a little later.”
One female ghost, one little ghost, and now a priest. She dared not imagine what Fengshui Village looked like now.
Xu Gui rubbed his chin. He hadn’t even had time to shave his stubble this morning.
He habitually spoke in a disguised voice: “It’s the priest massacring the village. Let him massacre it, anyway, there were no living people in this village to begin with.”
The unscraped village chief barely counted as half a person, but from the moment he was parasitized by the priest, he was doomed.
“But Miss Shen is in the village, I wonder if she can save the villagers.”
Zhou Qi’an’s eyes darkened upon hearing these words.
Miss Shen’s active efforts to save NPCs throughout the instance reminded him of the Minotaur in the skyscraper instance who specifically drove two cars, wanting to take away the remaining ghosts in the building.
None of it was with his permission, how could that be allowed?
“Since they’ve become ghosts, they might as well die cleanly,” Zhou Qi’an muttered.
The group stood there face to face for a few minutes. Zhou Qi’an received another system prompt:
[Due to your introduction of high-quality water resources,]
[The Manor Mistress’s favorability towards you has increased to 1.]
He said, “Let’s go.”
The mistress had gotten what she wanted, and the bloody farce in the village should be ending soon.
Zhou Qi’an took one last look at the sky above the corpse-raising ground, seeing nothing in particular. However, when passing through the hollow later, the number of terrifying, dense black dots seemed to have decreased significantly.
The curse was gone, and everything in Fengshui Village was returning to normal.
No, it was this entire land returning to normal.
Fengshui Village no longer existed.
The journey back was smooth, but the cold air filling the atmosphere made people shiver easily. The young girl seemed very afraid of seeing horrifying scenes and walked at the very back of the group.
Zhou Qi’an comforted her: “That little ghost eats everything; there won’t be any skeletal remains left.”
The scene must have been very harmonious.
“…”
Indeed, along a stretch of road near the village, other than the slightly red color of the soil, the imagined scene of corpses strewn across the fields did not appear.
Zhou Qi’an: “Quickly tell me, thank you, little ghost.”
The others were still looking around in shock, confirming that the village was empty of any monsters, and both the priest and the mistress were gone. Various paper money from the morning’s funeral were scattered on the ground, occasionally blown by the wind, dancing in the air, a particularly ironic sight.
“The demise of Fengshui Village, whose fault… Miss Shen.”
If Miss Shen hadn’t gone looking for the children in the mountains, Fengshui Village would have retained a spark of hope, as well as those villagers who fled to Yongxi Township. He and Shen Zhiyi clearly tried their best to help the other party preserve their living forces.
But…
Thinking of this, Zhou Qi’an sighed deeply. When he looked up again, his gaze was forlorn. He couldn’t carry this.
“Let Miss Shen reflect on it.”
The surrounding players looked at him in shock, because they realized Zhou Qi’an was genuinely regretting it. This person actually brainwashed himself, and succeeded!
No one dared to turn their head to look at Miss Shen’s expression, imagining her face was probably more terrifying than the priest’s right now.
On the other side, Shen Zhiyi was silent for a moment. Qi’an’s self-brainwashing ability was almost surpassing the efficiency of his dream hypnosis.
Author’s Note:
Zhou Qi’an looks at Kou Tuo: I think you’re right, we all need to reflect, everyone should reflect.
Kou Tuo: Damn it, don’t share the guilt with us!
