Jian Huaishuang did not act immediately.
He suppressed his entire aura. His paper armor turned back into white paper, wrapping around him before melting into the shadows of the courtyard wall.
His gaze was locked firmly on the man and the ghost in the courtyard, wanting to see exactly what the knocking ghost was waiting for.
Time passed second by second.
Just as Jian Huaishuang’s patience was nearing its limit, a wisp of black smoke unexpectedly emerged from the crown of the bronze-colored corpse’s head.
This was no ordinary smoke, but a vengeful soul condensed from the purest resentment, fear, and unwillingness.
The vengeful soul’s face was identical to the deceased, but its features were twisted together in extreme agony.
It opened its mouth in a silent scream, appearing as if it wanted to escape the body that had turned into a bronze statue, yet it remained bound above the corpse, unable to break free.
It looked like a world-famous painting.
The moment the vengeful soul was completely forced out of the body, the knocking ghost, which had been standing still for a long time, finally moved.
The mouth at the center of its face—sewn together from countless flesh scraps—opened, forming a bottomless black vortex.
The vengeful soul could not put up even a shred of resistance before being swallowed whole.
After devouring the soul, the aura on the knocking ghost rapidly withdrew. Its eyes, patched together from different eyeballs, took on an absolutely programmed deadness.
Having finished its meal, the knocking ghost showed no interest in the half-dead mortal inside the house or the foul-smelling bronze corpse in the courtyard.
It turned around, ignored the obstruction of the courtyard wall, and phased through it, heading straight in a fixed direction.
Its goal was so clear and its movements so decisive that it resembled a postman who, having completed a delivery, had to return to the post office immediately to report.
'What is the meaning of this?'
Jian Huaishuang’s icy voice rang out in the darkness.
The knocking ghost clearly possessed the ability to phase through walls, so why bother knocking before killing?
Wouldn't it be easier to just phase inside to kill and take the soul?
Furthermore, the appearance of the dead man was very strange. Ordinary victims of ghosts usually had bruised, purple complexions, yet he had never seen one whose entire body turned to bronze.
Filled with doubt, Jian Huaishuang moved, silently following the retreating knocking ghost while maintaining a steady distance.
The white paper formed from his paper armor effectively isolated all his aura, making him resemble an assassin.
The knocking ghost’s mode of travel was extremely mechanical. It ignored the terrain and did not distinguish between roads; it crossed mountains and rivers as they came, always maintaining a straight line.
Jian Huaishuang followed it all the way. He could clearly feel that as they progressed, the cold resentment in the air became increasingly dense.
The ground here took on a sickly black-gray hue. Vegetation was withered, birds were absent, and even the wind carried the stench of rotting corpses.
Finally, after passing through a withered forest, his field of vision suddenly opened up.
The silhouette of a massive city appeared ahead. That was the county seat of Kushi County—Kushi City.
It was also a place Jian Huaishuang had never visited.
While knocking ghosts ran rampant throughout Kushi County, he had never heard of the county seat being haunted.
From a distance, Kushi City looked no different from an ordinary human city. However, Jian Huaishuang’s heart sank.
It was too quiet.
A county seat capable of holding tens of thousands of people should never be this deathly silent, even in the middle of the night.
There was no sound of a watchman’s clapper, no barking dogs, and not even a single flicker of lamplight from an ordinary household.
The entire city was like a giant tomb, crouching silently upon the dark earth.
Jian Huaishuang slowed his pace, suppressing his aura to the absolute limit. Using the terrain for cover, he slowly crept toward the city gates.
As he got closer, Jian Huaishuang could even see blurred shadows floating around the city walls.
Those were malice ghosts!
They were specters condensed from the heaven-reaching resentment of those who died violent deaths, a hundred times more ferocious than ordinary vengeful souls!
They moved in groups of three to five, like ghostly hounds wandering aimlessly outside the city walls.
Atop the gate tower, several guards dressed in soldier’s armor stood motionless with halberds in hand, like statues.
Their standing posture was impeccably standard, but it carried an indescribable stiffness and oddity.
Within Jian Huaishuang’s special perception for evil spirits—which was comparable to divine sense—these guards possessed no aura of a living person.
There were no heartbeats and no breathing; there was only the fluctuation of spiritual power carrying the scent of decay.
Clearly, they were corpses refined through secret methods.
This scene caused Jian Huaishuang to almost instantly think of that place he would never forget.
White Jade City.
The same guards defending the city, the same shroud of endless ghostly energy, and the same transformation of an entire city into an isolated cage.
This place was clearly a replica of White Jade City—a slaughterhouse on a larger scale and with even more eerie methods.
No wonder... no wonder the knocking ghost headed straight back here after collecting the soul.
It seemed the mastermind behind the creation and control of the knocking ghosts was one and the same as this Kushi Ghost City!
At that moment, the knocking ghost he was tracking reached the city gate.
The corpse guards seemed to sense something, for they all turned their necks simultaneously to look at the knocking ghost. Within their hollow sockets, two points of eerie green netherflame flickered.
With a 'creak,' the heavy city gate was slowly pushed open just enough for one person to pass.
The knocking ghost walked straight in, and the gate closed immediately behind it, sealing perfectly.
There was no communication throughout the entire process.
Once the gate was closed, the corpse guards turned their heads back, resuming their eternal statue-like poses as if everything that just happened had been an illusion.
Jian Huaishuang lurked silently in the darkness, his chest heaving violently.
Anger, horror, and a deep sense of helplessness nearly swallowed his reason.
The tragedy of White Jade City was still vivid in his mind.
He had once thought that was the pinnacle of human tragedy.
But the scene before him told him that what White Jade had done was child’s play compared to the mastermind of Kushi City!
That was an entire county seat!
The commandery governor, the county magistrate, the garrison generals, and the tens of thousands of innocent citizens... were they dead or alive now?
Had they all been refined into corpse puppets, or were they being raised like cattle to become materials for those strange vengeful souls?
A more terrifying thought surfaced in his mind.
Kushi County fell under the jurisdiction of the Cangzhou Commandery. Could the commandery truly be ignorant of such a massive anomaly?
Or... had they already been infiltrated, or were they even accomplices?
Jian Huaishuang did not dare think further.
He forced himself to calm down and carefully observed the defenses of Kushi City.
Upon the city walls, talismans faintly shimmered, indicating the presence of a formidable city-protecting array.
Hundreds of malice ghosts patrolled outside, and corpse guards with strength comparable to third-stage cultivators stood watch at the gates.
The defenses were as solid as an iron bucket. With his strength alone, attempting to infiltrate was an almost impossible task.
Moreover, the mastermind who controlled all of this—possessing unfathomable strength—was surely hidden within the city.
Acting rashly would not only save no one but would also get him killed.
'I must return and report to the Lord immediately.'
Jian Huaishuang made the most rational judgment.
The situation before him had far exceeded the scope of what one person could handle.
This was no longer a simple matter of slaying demons; it involved a massive conspiracy capable of subverting the entire Kushi County and perhaps even spreading further.
He took a long look at the dead city crouching like a giant beast in the darkness, engraving the route, energy fluctuations, and all observed details into his mind.
Then, he turned around and transformed into a shadow that blended into the night, racing back toward the teleportation light screen at Shikan Village.
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