At the same time, in the East District—
Zhou Hui hung up the phone, grabbed Zhang Shun, and shoved him in front of the Cursed Corpse. “Quick! Exorcise it! Now!”
Zhang Shun opened his eyes, coming face to face with the corpse’s murky, grayish-blue eyes. He was so terrified he almost pissed himself. “I-I-I don’t know how! Do I just chant some sutras or something?!”
“You’re a born Buddhist Bone, and you can’t even exorcise a hanging ghost?! Recite the Diamond Sutra twice and see if that works!”
Zhang Shun wanted to say, I was born this way! I never took a crash course in Buddhism! The Diamond Sutra… how did they chant it on TV again? Namo Amitabha, Om Mani Padme Hum…
Suddenly, the corpse opened its mouth, exposing its decaying gums, and blew a foul breath right into Zhang Shun’s face.
At first, Zhang Shun didn’t react, but a moment later his face began to sting. He screamed, scrambling backward and falling to the floor. “It moved! It moved! Aaahhh!”
The corpse’s stiff, putrid hand slowly and eerily raised itself, loosening the noose around its neck. With a thud, it fell to the ground, splashing a few drops of corpse fluid, then clumsily got up and staggered toward Zhang Shun.
“Aaaah! Zhou Hui! Zhou Hui!” Zhang Shun stumbled over the sofa, shoving the heavy leather couch towards the corpse with all his might. The corpse staggered, giving Zhang Shun a chance to glance back—only to see Zhou Hui had already retreated to the doorway, rummaging through a corner of the living room.
“What the hell are you looking for?! The corpse is up! It’s moving! Aaahhh!”
“Don’t disturb me! I’m looking for the key to dealing with a Cursed Corpse!” Zhou Hui didn’t even look back. A moment later, he finally pulled something out of a cabinet and said with satisfaction, “Good, good. I knew it—keeping the router in the bedroom is bad for your health.”
Zhang Shun took one look and immediately roared in fury: “The key to dealing with a cursed corpse is… RESTARTING THE ROUTER?!”
Zhou Hui flipped the router over to find the password, quickly connected his phone to the internet, and sneered, “You foolish mortal, I can’t be bothered to explain… but my data plan ran out this month. Damn China Mobile.”
Zhang Shun grabbed a chair and used it to fend off the corpse, but the corpse was incredibly strong. The chair legs started to creak dangerously as the corpse pressed Zhang Shun back step by step until he fell against a storage cabinet in the corner. The corpse tossed the chair aside and lunged, while Zhang Shun scrambled to Zhou Hui’s side. He peeked over to see Zhou Hui browsing the internet and nearly lost his mind: “You’re on TAOBAO buying black donkey hooves at a time like this?!”
“This neighborhood’s hard for deliveries to get into,” Zhou Hui replied. “Actually, I’m on our Heavenly Dao Intranet’s universal search engine. By the way, I’m a shareholder of this company… Ah, here it is.”
He clicked on a search result, opening a sub-entry under “Heavenly Dao Zhihu”:
“What emergency measures are there when encountering a Cursed Corpse?”
Zhou Hui read aloud, “The real danger of a Cursed Corpse isn’t their brute strength or their taste for human flesh—those are easy to handle. The real threat is their ability to curse and summon.”
Zhang Shun was pinned to the ground, using all his strength just to keep the corpse’s gaping maw from reaching his throat. He barely gasped out, “Easy to handle… then come HANDLE IT…!!”
“Don’t panic,” Zhou Hui continued reading, “The curse and summoning mean that the corpse acts as a ritual core, attracting vengeful spirits and malicious ghosts within a hundred-mile radius, leading to an indiscriminate massacre of nearby humans. In human history, Cursed Corpses were used as a method of underworld warfare, especially in ancient battles and the Asian front of World War II.”
Screams and wails echoed in the hallway, countless ghosts dragging their heavy footsteps, howling up the building floor by floor.
Zhou Hui mused, “This answer’s pretty accurate!”
Zhang Shun’s strength was failing, the corpse’s blood-dripping teeth inching closer, only three inches from his throat. He could only mentally curse all eighteen generations of Zhou Hui’s ancestors.
“The best method is to exorcise the corpse before it turns. Recommended: His Holiness the Phoenix King, repeatedly voted Heaven’s top exorcist for years, deeply skilled in this—economical and eco-friendly. If unable to contact the Phoenix King, try these emergency methods:
First, feed the Cursed Corpse large quantities of meat—it’ll mindlessly keep eating until it bursts.”
Zhou Hui glanced at Zhang Shun and muttered to himself, “Hmm, doesn’t look like there’s enough meat on you.”
Zhang Shun gritted out, “Your… mother…!”
“Second, flee quickly and let the Cursed Corpse summon all the ghosts to slaughter everyone nearby. Afterward, the corpse will naturally rot away, taking three to five years, give or take.”
Zhou Hui opened the door and peeked into the hallway, then shut it with a grimace. “…Forget it. This place would be a ghost town in five years.”
Zhang Shun was clenching his teeth, corpse blood dripping down his neck. Zhou Hui casually grabbed the corpse’s hair, yanking its head up while continuing, “Third, if you have a consecrated Buddhist seal—note: must be a real one, not those fake 30 yuan for two ‘consecrated’ statuettes from Mount Emei—apply it to the corpse’s Three Fires, Five Peaks, and Seven Orifices, accompanied by the Peacock King’s mantra. Immediate effect.”
Zhou Hui paused, then cursed, “I don’t know that damned brat Maha’s mantra!”
Zhang Shun screamed, “I HAVE A SEAL! I HAVE A BUDDHIST SEAL! Just do it already—!!”
Zhou Hui grabbed Zhang Shun’s hand and slapped his palm onto the corpse’s rotting face. Zhang Shun immediately let out a scream that was a mix of disgust, fear, and pain.
At that moment, the front door burst open, shadows of countless ghosts flooding in, drawn by the corpse’s roar, all rushing toward Zhang Shun.
“AAAAAAHHHHHH—”
Golden light exploded from Zhang Shun’s palm, piercing straight through the corpse’s skull and enveloping every ghost in the blinding radiance of the Buddha’s light!
Zhang Shun’s scream abruptly stopped. A second later, the light vanished. The corpse’s headless body collapsed heavily to the floor.
The living room was spotless, the hallway empty, as if the chaos had all been a hallucination. Gasping for breath, Zhang Shun sat up and saw Zhou Hui nodding in satisfaction, giving a like on the Zhihu post.
“Not bad,” he said. “Heavenly Dao Zhihu has potential—my investment wasn’t wasted.”
“…” Zhang Shun looked at his bloodied palm, his mouth twitching. “I didn’t know I was this badass… Can I punch you now?”
“If you punch me, we won’t have time to save your brother. Don’t you love playing Little Tadpoles Looking for Their Brother?”
Zhang Shun: “…”
Zhou Hui said, “I don’t know what the ultimate goal behind all this is, but your brother must’ve uncovered something at the hospital, which is why the Fifth Division surrounded him. The team members aren’t a big deal, but the Fifth has a Living Buddha as their leader—if he’s defected too, that’s going to be tricky.”
As he headed for the door, Zhou Hui suddenly remembered something. He turned back and rummaged through the corpse, then muttered, “—Huh?”
Zhang Shun asked, “What is it?”
“This isn’t Yangjin Pingcuo,” Zhou Hui frowned. “Deputy Leader Yangjin was injured years ago—he had a scar on his chest. This corpse doesn’t.”
Indeed, under the corpse’s tattered clothes, the rotting chest flesh showed no sign of any major scars. The stench made Zhang Shun recoil a step. He asked, “What does that mean? The corpse’s a stand-in? Is that deputy leader also with the defectors?”
Zhou Hui stared blankly at the cursed corpse and muttered, “No wonder… I should’ve thought of this sooner…”
“Thought of what?” Zhang Shun asked.
“Yangjin Pingcuo can disguise himself,” Zhou Hui replied. “He disguised the corpse to look like himself, so that anyone who saw it would assume he was dead. With the secrets he knows about the Special Division and the cover of being a dead man, he could easily impersonate other internal personnel without raising suspicion… No wonder no one ever questioned ‘Yu Jingzhong’s’ behavior all this time.”
Zhang Shun hesitated. “But… you’re just assuming that what I saw was a fake Yu? Fang Pian’er said Yangjin Pingcuo got off the plane in Beijing with him!”
“This impersonation plan must’ve been in motion for a while. They took advantage of my trip out of the capital to switch Yangjin Pingcuo with Yu Jingzhong. Then they disguised someone else as Yangjin Pingcuo and stationed him in H City. That way, even if someone noticed subtle changes in ‘Yu Jingzhong,’ they wouldn’t suspect impersonation. Once they returned to Beijing, the fake Yangjin Pingcuo was no longer useful. Naturally, the fewer people who knew, the better. So the Fifth Division killed the fake, turned him into a cursed corpse, and left it here so everyone would believe that Deputy Leader Yangjin was dead.”
Zhou Hui paused, then added, “When I got back to Beijing and discovered that Yu Jingzhong had sent people to assassinate Fang Pian’er, I felt something was off about Old Yu. That’s when I had your brother start investigating secretly, just in case. And to cover for your brother’s sudden disappearance, I even slapped a green hat on my own head, saying he left after an argument to go to Fan Luo—damn it, my head’s practically a lush green prairie now. How the hell am I supposed to face people after this?”
Zhang Shun struggled to argue, “Wait, wait… isn’t it way too easy to impersonate someone in National Security? Even if they look alike, with Yu Jingzhong’s complex background, how could they keep it hidden?”
Instead of answering, Zhou Hui shot back, “Do you know why I trust you?”
“Because I’m reliable?” Zhang Shun looked dumbfounded.
“Bullshit. If you were reliable, pigs could climb trees.” Zhou Hui replied ruthlessly, “It’s precisely because someone like Yu Jingzhong could be replaced so easily that it proves the depth of the conspiracy. There must be some incredibly powerful force behind all this, pulling the strings from a very high position. Who knows how many people have already been compromised? And you—an outsider with a clean background, low intelligence, and no political value whatsoever—are the only one I can trust. Got it?!”
“…” Zhang Shun was so crushed by this brutal blow that he didn’t even retort. He didn’t pick up a stool leg to smash Zhou Hui’s face, either. He just stood there, lips trembling, face pale.
“Zhou… Zhou Hui,” he stammered, “with these people going through such lengths… what exactly… what do they want to do?”
“Hell if I know. I’m still figuring it out,” Zhou Hui snapped. “What’s wrong with you?”
Zhang Shun hesitantly rolled up his sleeve, revealing an arm with a band-aid.
“That fake… the fake Yu Jingzhong took a tube of my blood earlier today. Said it was to save Yan Lanyu…”
The room fell silent. Zhou Hui stared hard at Zhang Shun’s arm, as if it had turned into a juicy, glistening piece of braised pork elbow.
“Little brother-in-law,” Zhou Hui said, unusually tender, “if it weren’t for your brother’s sake, I’d want to yank your intestines out through your throat right now.”
__
Internal Hospital of the Military Commission, ICU Hall
Chu He stepped forward, a wind blade swirling around him as his robe sleeves fluttered. He slammed his silver spear hard against the ground and bellowed,
“Where is the Fifth Division’s Shenwan Tiansi?!”
His voice cut like a blade through the air, triggering violent ripples. Several members of the Fifth Division who struggled to get up suddenly bled from their ears and collapsed with shrieks of pain.
“So… it really is Phoenix Group’s Fourth Leader. This must be the legendary Heavenly Dao manifestation,” gasped Bagna, slumped against a toppled centrifuge, blood dripping from his mouth. Every word made him cough up more bloody spit. “But even if you kill us all today, it’s useless. The Fifth Division has long since—”
“Why?” Chu He cut him off.
Bagna paused, then laughed hoarsely through blood. “Why? How could someone like you understand why? Why is it that someone like Old Zhou, who plays with the world as his toy, gets to represent the supreme Heavenly Dao? Why is it that you people, steeped in worldliness and without the slightest devotion to Buddha, get to live for centuries, even millennia, and still draw countless believers to your side?”
“Slaughter! Debauchery! Lies! Greed! Since you chose to indulge in the filth of the mortal world, why are you still granted the supreme status of the Heavenly Dao and eternal life? If the world is this unjust, then someone must step forward to change it. And you dare ask why?!”
Chu He fell silent for a moment, then softly said, “But how do you know… that your Huang Sect of Tibetan Esotericism is the true Dharma?”
Bagna stabbed his blade into the ground and forced himself up, roaring, “We sincerely devote ourselves to the three secret Vajras of body, speech, and mind, following the highest Yoga Tantra. We do not recognize your authority! Everything you possess comes from demons, and karmic debts must always be repaid. What’s wrong with that?!”
“…” Chu He sighed faintly, almost imperceptibly. “Another one fooled by Heavenly Dao’s fake propaganda…”
“You wanted to see our leader, didn’t you?” Bagna pointed his blade behind Chu He and sneered, “With us, you can still talk about your hypocritical vow of non-killing. But if it’s him—Shenwan Tiansi—do you still have that confidence?”
—Chu He turned around.
A youth dressed in dark blue Tibetan robes stood silently at the ICU hall entrance, almost blending into the surrounding darkness.
In his hand, he held a Vajra Pestle, inlaid with multicolored gemstones reflecting a dazzling, eerie light. It embodied the Smiling Buddha, Angry Buddha, and Scolding Buddha all in one.
“…Tiansi,” Chu He narrowed his eyes, asking, “even you’ve joined this scheme?”
Shenwan Tiansi’s face was expressionless. The next second, he shot forward like a phantom, swinging his Vajra Pestle lightning-fast toward Chu He’s neck!
Chu He swiftly stepped back, raising his spear to block. With a deafening CLANG that nearly shattered eardrums, the pestle and spear collided, scattering a shower of sparks.
Ordinary Vajra Pestles come in sizes of five, eight, or twenty finger-lengths. But Shenwan Tiansi’s pestle was connected to a staff, making it almost as long as Chu He’s Phoenix Spear. Unlike the spear, which was light and sharp, the pestle was immensely heavy, its swings bringing terrifying gusts. In just ten strikes, Chu He was forced back into a corner.
He twisted aside, narrowly dodging the oncoming force. With a sharp whoosh, the pestle grazed his hair and smashed into the wall, carving a trench over two meters long!
“Old Wu!” Chu He roared.
With a reverse grip, he thrust his spear and sent Shenwan Tiansi flying backward, then lunged forward with an arrow-step, the spear tip aimed directly at the youth’s throat—
But under the cold gleam of the spear, Shenwan Tiansi didn’t dodge at all. The spear’s tip reflected his vacant, dazed face.
Chu He’s pupils dilated instantly, his voice filled with disbelief:
“…You turned your own division leader into a puppet?!”
The next second, Shenwan Tiansi grabbed the spear tip barehanded, neither dodging nor caring about the flames instantly igniting in his palm, and smashed his staff into Chu He, sending him flying!
Bang! Chu He slammed into the wall and bounced back. In a flash, he swung his spear in a broad arc — with a metallic clang, the floor trembled as he blocked the oncoming Vajra staff!
Shenwan Tiansi’s arm, which had just grasped the blade, was now charred and blackened, but his expression didn’t change, as if he felt no pain at all. Chu He gasped and frowned, while Bagna’s cold, broken laughter echoed from not far behind:
“If we dared to do this, of course we have powerful backing… The Heavenly Dao is unjust, so naturally, we turned to those who can offer us justice. As you people say, our leader Shenwan was ‘not of the same path,’ so this is the end he deserves.”
—Turned to those who can offer justice?
A flicker of confusion crossed Chu He’s mind. Then, with a sudden forceful twist of his wrist, he pushed Shenwan Tiansi back several steps and swept his spear across his chest, striking him hard enough to send blood spraying from his mouth as he was thrown back. But the next moment, Shenwan Tiansi staggered to his feet again, his chest bones grotesquely collapsed, and he slammed his Vajra staff into the ground with a heavy thud.
—Now that Chu He realized Shenwan Tiansi was being controlled, he couldn’t afford to hit too hard. But Shenwan Tiansi had no such restraints. The moment the Vajra staff struck the ground, a black whirlwind erupted, radiating from the staff like a vortex. The fierce wind blades slashed like hundreds of lightning bolts, carving over a dozen bloody gashes into Chu He in a blink!
Chu He darted backward. His robe hem, sleeves, and waist were all slashed open, and blood streaked long trails across the floor. As he steadied himself against the wall to catch his breath, Shenwan Tiansi struck the ground again — the wind blades whipped in from all sides, and his whole body lunged forward, airborne.
His dark blue robe billowed like a silent, deadly bird of prey, and the heavy Vajra staff crashed down in front of Chu He!
Enraged, Chu He grabbed his spear — emerald flames ignited along the silver shaft, so hot that the wall behind him crackled and popped. The blazing spear swept a brilliant arc through the air and struck Shenwan Tiansi hard!
Boom!
Chu He had aimed for Shenwan Tiansi’s arm — even a direct hit would only break it, not kill him. But at the last moment, Shenwan Tiansi shrank his body and instead took the blow with his shoulder, the bone inside cracking audibly.
The sound of the break was so crisp it made one’s scalp tingle, yet he seemed completely numb to pain, grabbing the blazing spear shaft with his hand.
Chu He shouted hoarsely, “Old Wu! Let go!”
But before the words fully left his mouth, Shenwan Tiansi’s entire arm was already scorched. At that moment, Bagna pulled a package from his chest and threw it toward Shenwan Tiansi:
“Catch!”
Shenwan Tiansi caught it, and Chu He’s face changed when he saw what it was —
It was a small blood bag.
Shenwan Tiansi tore it open with his teeth and sprayed the blood onto the Vajra staff. Instantly, crackling currents spiraled up the staff like a dragon cloaked in lightning, bursting into dazzling white light at the tip, where the three-faced Buddha was carved.
Chu He exclaimed in shock, “—Buddha’s blood?!”
In that critical moment, he tried to retreat, but Shenwan Tiansi still held his Phoenix Spear in a death grip with his charred hand. Chu He had no choice but to let go, yet it was already too late.
The Vajra staff swung horizontally, slamming into Chu He’s side and launching him like a cannonball!
Boom!
He smashed through an entire wall without slowing, crashing through two or three more before finally landing amidst the rubble with an earth-shaking crash.
For several long seconds, Chu He could barely move. His ears buzzed deafeningly, muting all sound. His vision was blurry, blood running from his temple, pooling at his chin, and soaking his shredded white clothes.
“No wonder you’re known as the most handsome Fourth Leader of the Phoenix Group…” Bagna’s blurred figure approached, sneering coldly, “Even in such a sorry state, people still can’t help but think that. What a pity.”
Chu He forced his eyes shut, then reopened them after several seconds, his blurry vision barely focusing on the dust-laden ceiling.
“That Buddha’s blood was supposed to be entirely for the final purpose… What a shame that half had to be wasted now,” Bagna mused. Then he added, “—But it doesn’t matter. Soon there’ll be more Buddha’s blood to help us achieve our ultimate goal.”
He crouched down and sneered, “Such a memorable moment. Any last thoughts?”
“…I was just thinking…” Chu He swallowed the blood in his throat and rasped, “Our Zhang Shun really is a master at screwing his brother over… I should’ve seen it coming…”
From Bagna’s confused expression, it was clear he didn’t understand the reference, but that didn’t matter anymore. He sneered and stood back, while footsteps approached from not far away — Shenwan Tiansi, gripping the Vajra staff, stepped forward.
Half his body was charred, black blood dripped from his eyes, and his chest was sunken in. Standing close, he assumed a grotesquely twisted posture, raising his Vajra staff like the god of death, ready to strike down—
At that moment, Chu He raised his hand and pulled out his hair tie.
His long hair cascaded down instantly, and in the same moment, the hair tie transformed into a massive, pure cyan longbow in a flash of light. Chu He nocked an arrow, aimed, and rasped:
“—Wake up, Tiansi.”
With that, the arrow shot like a meteor, striking Shenwan Tiansi and flinging him across the room, BOOM! pinning him hard into the ceiling!
As the floor trembled violently, Chu He spat a mouthful of blood. For several seconds, he nearly lost consciousness, the longbow slipping from his hand and clattering to the floor.
—In that haze of delirium, distant memories surged up, drowning his mind like a rising tide. He recalled the last time he used that bow, thousands of years ago, on the battlefield of the Nine Heavens during the Great War of Gods and Demons. He stood on the ramparts, bow drawn, aiming at a demon general flying in at breakneck speed — but all eleven arrows in his rapid volley had been expertly dodged.
When the last arrow was still on the string, that person had descended from the sky, grabbed the arrowhead with a bloodied hand like a steel claw.
Before Chu He could even draw his blade, that person had knelt on one knee, impossibly handsome, with a chilling gleam in his eyes, and said:
“Please don’t move…”
“I’m not here to fight. I’m here… to propose to you.”
“…Zhou Hui,” Chu He thought vaguely, “if you don’t get here soon… you’re really gonna have to find the kid a stepmother…”
