109-110

Chapter 109: Setting Up the Ritual

“Learn how to strike up a conversation like others do.”

“Do you even speak English? Go and talk to them!”

In the hotel room, Lin Jiuying stared at his disciple, his face full of frustration and disappointment.

Losing someone’s ancestor—such a big deal—even Ah Hao didn’t dare to lie to cover it up.

“Tell me, who did you manage to talk to all night?”

“Not a single person.”

Ah Hao shook his head, his face filled with misery.

“Master, it wasn’t intentional. I just stepped out for a bit, and somehow the corpse went missing.”

“The Soul-Calming Bell was still in the room and hadn’t been touched. There’s no way the corpse just grew legs and walked off by itself, right?”

Hearing Ah Hao’s explanation, Lin Jiuying frowned deeply.

“If the corpse did grow legs and walk off, you wouldn’t just be kneeling here for a scolding.”

In truth, Lin Jiuying found this incident puzzling.

The reason he entrusted the corpse to Ah Hao wasn’t because he believed his disciple was particularly capable, but because he trusted his own talismans.

With the talisman affixed, as long as Ah Hao didn’t foolishly remove it from the corpse’s forehead, the ancestor’s remains shouldn’t have been at risk.

Yet somehow, even under these foolproof circumstances, the corpse in Ah Hao’s room had disappeared.

Lin Jiuying had already begun forming a theory in his mind.

“Master Lin, you were right!”

His guess was quickly confirmed.

The door swung open, and Ah Sen walked in, his face brimming with excitement. “It was that white man from the auction. The hotel’s security footage caught him dragging the ancestor away!”

“It’s him!”

Before Lin Jiuying could respond, Ah Hao, who was kneeling nearby, jumped to his feet and gritted his teeth. “I knew it! That guy didn’t seem human or ghost—he’s definitely no good. He was trying to outbid us for the ancestor at the auction earlier.”

“If it weren’t for your carelessness, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to pull this off so easily!”

Lin Jiuying shot a sharp glare at the agitated Ah Hao before turning to Ah Sen. With an apologetic tone, he said, “Since it was my useless disciple who lost the ancestor, I will do everything in my power to retrieve the corpse. But before that, I’ll need you to prepare a few things for me.”

“Master Lin, just tell me what you need! As long as it helps us recover our ancestor, I’ll make it happen!”

Given the gravity of the situation, Ah Sen didn’t dare refuse and quickly agreed.

“Not much. Just a rooster at least five years old and…”

Lin Jiuying listed the items he needed for the ritual, then turned to Ah Hao. “I’ll deal with you later. For now, go prepare the items!”

“Yes, Master.”

Relieved that the immediate crisis seemed to be over, Ah Hao exhaled. But his curiosity soon got the better of him.

“Master, how are you planning to find the ancestor?”

As he changed into his ceremonial robe, Lin Jiuying replied, “By conducting a ritual.”

---

In the hotel room, before a hastily assembled altar, Lin Jiuying lit a stick of sandalwood incense. The wisps of smoke spiraled upward, filling the air.

He inserted three incense sticks into the altar and held up two talismans, chanting softly:

“Guided by mystic light, transcending distance, talismans connect, revealing hidden paths…”

With each word, Lin Jiuying moved in intricate steps, following the pattern of the Yin-Yang Bagua. His swift movements left afterimages, dazzling Ah Sen, who watched in awe.

“What kind of ritual is Master Lin performing?”

Unable to contain his curiosity, Ah Sen turned to Ah Hao.

“It’s just theatrics,” Ah Hao replied nonchalantly.

“Huh?”

Before Ah Sen could process Ah Hao’s words, Lin Jiuying’s ritual reached its climax. The talismans between his fingers ignited spontaneously, burning to ash.

Clapping his hands, Lin Jiuying said with a satisfied expression, “Warm-up complete.”

From his robes, he pulled out a paper crane folded from talisman paper and placed it on the compass on the altar. Forming a hand seal, he pointed at the crane.

A red light enveloped the crane, which began to flutter. After circling the altar a few times, it seemed to find a direction and flew toward the window.

“Follow it!”

Grabbing a peachwood sword and the compass, Lin Jiuying tossed the rooster to Ah Hao and dashed out of the room.

“The spirit crane will lead us to the corpse.”

---

Ignoring the puzzled stares of hotel guests, Lin Jiuying, dressed in his ceremonial robe, soon found himself on the streets of London.

He looked up and saw a faint red glow in the sky moving steadily forward.

Confirming the direction, he prepared to follow.

“Master!”

Ah Hao’s voice called from behind. Lin Jiuying turned to see Ah Sen pull up in a car, with Ah Hao holding the rooster out of the window.

“Let’s follow it by car,” Ah Hao suggested.

---

Inside a church, the corpse, having consumed two other cursed beings, grew more grotesque and sinister.

Its body, once stiff and upright, now moved with unnatural fluidity. Bloodlust gleamed in its eyes as it let out a terrifying roar, tearing a desiccated revenant corpse in half.

“Well done. Very well done.”

Watching this terrifying transformation, Narcis’s face lit up with excitement beneath his dark cloak.

“Now, it’s my turn.”

He pulled a sinister-looking voodoo doll from his robes. Made from human hair, the doll emanated a potent curse.

“Stop. Halt your movements. Stop…”

Narcis pointed the doll at the corpse and began chanting.

The raging corpse immediately froze, bound by an unseen force.

Relieved, Narcis smiled.

Then, he pulled out an even larger and uglier toad from his cloak.

---

End of Chapter

*Chapter 110: Evil Upon Evil *

"Master, the paper crane has stopped moving!"

Driving the car, they chased the paper crane flying in the sky.

Before long, Ah Hao saw the paper crane, which had been guiding them, suddenly stop and start circling in the air.

"Master Lin, there are police officers ahead," Ah Sen, sitting in the driver’s seat, said as he noticed police cars at the intersection. He quickly turned to Lin Jiuying sitting beside him.

"Could it be that they found my ancestor's corpse and mistook it for a murder case?"

Thinking of this possibility, Ah Sen's expression turned anxious.

"That’s possible."

Glancing at the compass in his hand, Lin Jiuying's eyebrows furrowed slightly. He couldn't dismiss Ah Sen’s assumption outright. After all, to ordinary people, a corpse imbued with Yin energy and a regular corpse were indistinguishable. If someone had mistakenly identified the Yin corpse as an ordinary body, it wouldn’t be surprising.

However, Lin Jiuying distinctly remembered that the hotel surveillance showed the Yin corpse being taken away by a strange white man. How could this be?

"Why are we hesitating? If your ancestor gets taken by those foreign cops, it'll be a huge problem!"

Among the three of them, apart from Ah Sen, Ah Hao was the most concerned about the Yin corpse. After all, the entire situation stemmed from his negligence.

So, without hesitation, Ah Hao immediately ran toward the area where the police cars were parked.

When they arrived at the crime scene, their expectations were shattered. The Yin corpse was nowhere to be found. Instead, a few twisted, bloody bodies of Black men lay silently in a corner of the street.

"Hey, you there! What are you doing here? This is a murder scene. Stay back if you're not involved!"

Noticing the three approaching, especially Lin Jiuying in his Taoist robe, a London police officer standing by the crime scene tape quickly shooed them away.

"Master, could it be...?"

Ah Hao glanced at the corpses in the corner from afar, his face turning grim.

If these men had died because of the Yin corpse, wouldn’t he be indirectly responsible for their deaths?

"Humans don’t harm ghosts unless provoked, and ghosts don’t harm humans without reason."

Frowning, Lin Jiuying scanned the mangled bodies in the alley. Looking at his guilt-stricken disciple, he said softly, "Besides, it’s not certain these people were killed by the Yin corpse."

"Master, you mean...?"

Ah Hao immediately looked up, puzzled.

"The talisman paper keeps the Yin corpse in check. Unless there’s severe bloodshed, it wouldn’t go on a rampage like this. Furthermore, judging by these people's injuries, although gruesome, their bodies still bled. This differs greatly from how a Yin corpse typically attacks."

With just a few observations, Lin Jiuying deduced that the deaths were not caused by the Yin corpse.

He then glanced up at the paper crane still circling overhead and continued, "That said, while these people weren’t directly killed by the Yin corpse, their deaths are undoubtedly connected to it. If my guess is correct, they likely died at the hands of the person who took the Yin corpse."

Looking at the mutilated bodies, Lin Jiuying’s expression grew graver.

Internally, he became more vigilant about the intentions of the strange white man who had taken the Yin corpse. There was no way the man's motives were as simple as they seemed.

Recalling the events at the auction house, Lin Jiuying began to suspect that the man might be working under a hidden mastermind. Their ultimate goal likely revolved around the Yin corpse of the Deng family’s ancestor.

"Ah Hao, take off your clothes!"

With this thought, Lin Jiuying didn’t hesitate. He began unfastening the buttons of his own Taoist robe while instructing his disciple.

"Huh?"

Ah Hao was stunned. He stared at his master, now hurriedly stripping, with an awkward expression. "Master, I’ve always respected you like a father figure. But... isn’t this a bit inappropriate, especially with so many people watching—even if we’re abroad?"

"What nonsense are you spouting?!"

Seeing his disciple’s hesitation, Lin Jiuying looked puzzled but continued undressing until only a bright red undergarment was left.

"So Master Lin has this kind of taste, huh?"

Ah Sen, watching the scene unfold, couldn’t help but think this while subtly stepping to the side.

---

Meanwhile, in an unknown church in London,

Nassis tightly bound a red cord around a voodoo doll in his hand, muttering an eerie chant as he used a pale bone needle to pierce the doll’s limbs.

After binding the doll, Nassis looked up at the Yin corpse struggling yet unable to move in the center of the altar. A sinister smile spread across his dark face.

Placing the doll aside, he picked up a toad and bit off its head.

Splat!  

The headless toad twitched violently in Nassis’s hand.

"...It will obey my command... bow to my will..."

Dancing around a fire pit in a strange ritual, Nassis chewed on the toad’s head. Black blood oozed from his mouth, staining it completely. Yet, he showed no reaction and continued his bizarre dance around the Yin corpse.

This time, Nassis’s dance lasted longer than any of his previous rituals. By the time he stopped, he was panting heavily.

Without hesitation, he closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and stuffed the twitching lower half of the toad into his mouth, chewing noisily. The sound of his chewing echoed throughout the church.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Nassis stopped, spit out a pitch-black bead, and gazed at it with an exhausted yet ecstatic expression.

Approaching the Yin corpse, he held up the bead.

Sensing its sinister aura, the Yin corpse, restrained by the voodoo doll, began to struggle violently, opening its mouth to snap at Nassis’s hand.

Smiling darkly, Nassis shoved the bead into the Yin corpse’s eager mouth without hesitation.

"Now, obey my commands. Obey me. You are my servant. Follow my orders. Now..."

---