As soon as the Plague Rat left, the refugees on the deck finally felt as though they could breathe again.
Some could no longer hold back and wailed aloud, filled with both lingering fear and despair, while others began to curse the hypocrisy and cruelty of White Jade City.
There were also those who stared in terror at the bag of meat jerky the Plague Rat had left behind, desperately trying to keep their distance.
"That... what is that? Could it be human meat?"
"We’re all just sacrifices. What do you think? It’s definitely nothing good! Throw it away!"
Qin Kuan gave a bitter smile and spoke to the frantic crowd, "Stop arguing and stop guessing. Just do as that... Lord Auspice said."
He looked around at his shaken companions, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "We are all homeless refugees. White Jade City is a man-eating den of demons; we can never go back.
"That lord just now... though his methods were ruthless, he did indeed save us. He possesses great supernatural powers; perhaps he really is watching us from the shadows. If we don’t follow his orders, what else can we do? Wait to die on this river?"
His words caused the crowd to gradually fall silent. Reality was cruel; they had long since run out of options.
Qin Kuan picked up a piece of meat jerky, examined it closely, and smelled it. Aside from an enticing aroma, there was nothing unusual.
Gritting his teeth, he was the first to tear off a small piece and put it in his mouth. After chewing a few times, a long-lost flavor of meat flooded his taste buds.
"It’s normal meat. Not poisoned. Everyone, share some and recover your strength."
He handed the meat jerky to the person next to him, then called out to several other fishermen, "Brothers, lend a hand! Let's get the boat moving and head to the Fengdao County docks! Whether we live or die depends on this journey!"
...
On the other side, Chen Zhou dove back to the bottom of the river.
The silt was murky, and the aquatic plants swayed like the hair of ghosts.
Soon, he saw those paper figures standing in the silt again. They remained in their stiff poses, faces painted with exaggerated rouge, wearing eerie smiles.
Compared to last time, however, their numbers were noticeably thinner, as if their power had been dispersed or consumed.
Chen Zhou did not linger. With a thought, his Ghost Domain acted like an invisible millstone. Wherever it passed, those paper figures shattered one after another.
His goal was clear: he headed straight for the core where death energy and ghost qi were most concentrated—the direction of the submerged shrine.
As the distance closed, the silhouette of the building gradually became clear in the dim underwater light.
This time, Chen Zhou saw it more clearly. It wasn't a brick-and-stone shrine at all, but a building meticulously crafted from various colors of paper!
It had vermilion pillars, blue roof tiles, and even painted doors and windows. The colors were so vivid they were jarringly bright in the dark river depths.
The shrine's doors were wide open, as if inviting visitors. Above the doorframe hung a plaque with three large characters written in thick ink.
Zhenjiang Shrine.
Chen Zhou tried to envelop this paper-crafted shrine with his Ghost Domain, but he found himself hitting an invisible barrier. The power of the Ghost Domain could not contain it from the outside, nor could it penetrate those thin paper walls to peer at the interior.
A sense of repulsion born of instinct welled up, as if there were natural domain boundaries between evil spirits.
'Umbral Grade... but the aura is very strange.'
Chen Zhou sensed the energy fluctuations emitted by the shrine, confirming its grade as an evil spirit was equivalent to his own before his sacrifice. However, the nature of its power was more mixed. The ghostly yin energy permeating the river surface originated from this very paper shrine.
Without hesitation, Chen Zhou stepped directly into the open paper-crafted gate.
The moment he entered, the surrounding environment changed abruptly.
The cold river water and murky silt vanished instantly. Above his head, there even appeared a bright sun that provided not a shred of warmth.
The sensation under his feet became that of solid bluestone pavement. The surrounding buildings transformed from illusory paper into real wood and stone structures. People bustled about, creating a scene of a temple at the peak of its prosperity.
An elderly man with a kind face, dressed in ancient clothing, walked up to him. He bowed and cupped his hands with a formulaic smile. "Dear pilgrim, have you come to offer incense and pray for blessings?"
Chen Zhou looked the old man over but did not answer. He expanded his Ghost Domain once more, and invisible shackles firmly imprisoned the old man where he stood.
The kind smile on the old man's face didn't change at all. He continued to repeat like a broken record, "Pilgrim, have you come to offer incense and pray for blessings?"
'A puppet?'
Chen Zhou understood. It seemed these were puppets controlled by the evil spirit, similar to his own Bone Ghost Servants.
The Ghost Domain expanded to its limit inside the shrine. Death energy erupted from his body, instantly dispersing the death energy maintaining the old man's movements.
The old man's form blurred and slowly dissipated.
At almost the same moment, every pilgrim moving inside and outside the shrine froze. Then, every single head turned toward Chen Zhou at various distorted angles simultaneously.
Hundreds upon thousands of faces—men, women, old, and young—all with different expressions, opened their mouths at once to speak in unison: "Pilgrim, please offer incense."
As the words fell, these people began to move with stiff strides, slowly swarming toward Chen Zhou from all directions.
Having gauged the shrine’s depth, Chen Zhou went all out.
The Ghost Domain contracted, and the death energy around Chen Zhou exploded violently. The moment the swarming people came into contact with the shockwave of death energy, they collapsed, reverting into colorful paper scraps that danced in the air.
The entire scene of the prosperous temple peeled away like a fading painting, revealing once more the dark backdrop of the river silt and the solitary paper-crafted shrine.
In the center of the shrine sat a blurry statue.
Under the continuous influence of Chen Zhou's death energy, the disguise on the statue's surface gradually fell away, revealing its true form.
It was not a deity at all, but a suit of armor folded and pieced together from thick paper!
The armor was tightly bound by several thick black iron chains. The chains were covered in a dense layer of yellow talismans.
The cold, thick ghost qi was constantly leaking from the gaps between these talismans, slowly seeping into the armor, appearing to be in the process of merging with it.
'As expected, it is bound here.' Chen Zhou confirmed his previous suspicion.
This was not something the City Lord’s Manor of White Jade City could achieve; it was definitely the handiwork of the White Jade Sword Sect.
'Feeding an evil spirit with the flesh and souls of mortals, then imprisoning it with talismans and chains... what exactly does the sword sect intend to gain from this creature?'
Chen Zhou had no immediate lead. He summoned a Bone Ghost Servant. The skeleton extended its bony palm and grabbed the chains.
The death energy and the spiritual light of the talismans on the chains clashed violently, creating a sizzling sound. The skeleton then increased its strength and gave a sudden, powerful tug!
Crack!
The chains snapped. The talismans instantly lost their luster, becoming dull and lifeless.
Having lost its restraints, the paper armor seemed to come alive. It began to vibrate violently, emitting an even more frenzied ghost qi and death energy as if it wanted to counterattack.
But Chen Zhou directly used even more powerful death energy, suppressing it like a falling mountain, pinning the entire paper shrine and the armor down firmly.
In less than a moment, all the anomalies vanished, and the frenzied aura calmed.
In its place, only a palm-sized piece of white paper cutout remained, its edges slightly scorched. The silhouette of the cutout faintly resembled a miniature shrine.
Evil spirits are immortal and indestructible. This was merely one of its manifested forms being temporarily defeated. Given enough time, it could revive and rebuild the Zhenjiang Shrine.
But Chen Zhou simply picked up the paper cutout, unconcerned.
He would just sacrifice it next month. Reviving? Not a chance!
Rate on N.U.
