After a hearty meal, the sky had grown completely dark. Tonight, the sky was cloudless and a bright moon hung in the center, presenting a picture of utter peace and tranquility.
The Taoist priest wiped his mouth and began to set up the altar and perform rites. With a wave of his hand, the talisman paper inscribed with the eldest son's glabella blood suddenly stood upright, spun in mid-air, and burst into a ball of flame.
In an instant, the flames burned away, and the paper ash miraculously transformed into the shape of a little figure. Chanting incantations, the priest picked up the Bagua Mirror and adjusted its angle so that the moonlight reflected onto the little figure. The originally pitch-black figurine unexpectedly took on a somewhat jade-like luster.
Next, the priest put down the Bagua Mirror, formed hand seals with both hands, and shouted "Rise!" at the figurine. Like a living person, the figurine hopped off the altar and walked out the door.
The priest dropped a stack of talisman papers, instructing the eldest son to stay in the main hall with talismans pasted on all doors and windows. He warned that if he had not returned by the first crow of the rooster at dawn, the whole family should flee for their lives.
With that, he followed the little figure outside.
It was not yet the Hour of the Rat, and Shen Xuanrou had not yet awakened, when she suddenly felt an inexplicable surge of agitation in her heart.
In the nether realm of her senses, she perceived that the eldest son seemed to be showing signs of attempting to flee, so she immediately pursued him.
To her surprise, upon appearing, she saw no trace of the eldest son at all. Instead, she spotted a paper figure hopping along the edge of a field. Her heart instantly tightened as she thought to herself that she had run into a master.
Before she could figure out how to handle the situation, the priest jumped out. With a leisurely and unhurried demeanor, he calmly said, "The heavenly cycle turns, and retribution is unerring. You are fated to suffer this tribulation; why can't you let go of mortal ties and murder innocent lives?"
Shen Xuanrou smiled faintly, bowed to the priest, and said, "Why must the Taoist master bother to meddle in this monstrous blood feud?"
At this very moment, both sides were extremely tense, neither daring to tear off the mask first.
The Taoist priests and Buddhist monks hired by the household previously were all good-for-nothings. When had anyone ever used such brilliant methods to lure her out? Naturally, she did not dare to take him lightly.
Although the priest appeared bold, unrestrained, and unflappable, he was actually breaking out in cold sweat on the inside.
When he descended the mountain to hone his skills this time, he had already foreseen that a great opportunity awaited him here. But great opportunities are usually accompanied by great risks; he just hadn't expected the risk to be so enormous.
Shen Xuanrou's situation was extremely complicated. First of all, she had suffered a wrongful death, and a grievance was pent up in her corpse's chest. Her seven souls had not dispersed, and after absorbing the essence of water and moonlight in a Yin-gathering place, she was on the verge of turning into a White Jiang, leaping completely out of the Three Realms and Five Paths.
Subsequently, her soul received the universal salvation of the golden-bodied Buddha light of Ksitigarbha in the City of Wrongful Deaths, and she escaped back to the mortal world to borrow her own corpse for resurrection, achieving a nearly perfect fit.
In ordinary cases of returning to life by borrowing a corpse, people always borrowed ordinary bodies. Borrowing a zombie's body to return to life was practically unheard of.
The priest gave a light cough and said solemnly, "It is said that every debt has its debtor, and every grievance has its perpetrator. Since the eldest son of the household took your life, you may well take him away. Why injure the innocent as well? Aren't you afraid of incurring heavenly condemnation?"
Shen Xuanrou was extremely clever. Within a few exchanges, she roughly guessed that this priest's strength should be on par with her own. If either side made even a slight mistake, they both risked capsizing; otherwise, the priest wouldn't have sought her out just to lecture her with such grand principles.
Right then, she curled her lips into a smile and said, "If the eldest son of the household hadn't come, I would have fallen victim to the main branch's cruelty anyway and been forced into a ghost marriage."
"Since none of them are good people, let's make a clean break of it and kill them all to restore innocence and justice to the human world."
"Impudent!"
With a loud shout, the priest pinched a sword seal and roared angrily, "It is clearly you who have tasted blood and cannot stop, making excuses for yourself! If you surrender immediately and return to the mountain with me to practice the Tao, I can still help your soul achieve transcendence and settle this lifetime's karmic entanglements sooner!"
Later, Shen Xuanrou told me that at first she simply wanted revenge, but after accidentally tasting blood, she indeed had a huge craving for human blood during that period.
Things having reached this point, there was no need to continue talking.
Therefore, Shen Xuanrou said nothing more, merely replying with a request for the Taoist master to bestow his guidance.
The battle did not last long. Right from the start, the priest pulled out all the stops, throwing his trump-card magic treasures at Shen Xuanrou regardless of the consequences.
Although most of the moves could not inflict heavy damage on Shen Xuanrou, she was likewise unable to strike down the priest, and the two sides fell into a stalemate for a time.
Actually, this was favorable to the priest. As long as he held Shen Xuanrou off until the rooster crowed at dawn, Shen Xuanrou would naturally have nowhere to escape and could only perish in ashes under the sun.
Shen Xuanrou understood this point as well, but she had no other choice. She could only rely on the strength of her physical body to launch continuous attacks. After a long while, she was actually the first to stop.
Panting heavily, yet without a single drop of sweat falling from his brow, the priest laughed heartily and said, "Keep fighting! Why did you stop?"
Shen Xuanrou said, "The Taoist master's magical arts are exquisite, and your understanding of Buddhist principles is equally profound. If we keep fighting like this, in another two hours I will be defeated. Why waste the effort?"
"It's just a pity that such an enlightened master of the Tao has lent his strength to evildoers. It's truly lamentable. In this murky, turbid world, this humble girl really doesn't want to come back in her next life."
Hearing this, the priest actually put away his sword, placed the Bagua Mirror aside, sat down, and said that everything in the world has a fixed number.
You obtained fortune and could have taken your grand revenge to be safely reincarnated, but because of your greed for flesh and blood, you involved innocent people. That was how I calculated that fate had bestowed an opportunity, and that was why I came here.
Shen Xuanrou asked, "Since matters have come to this, does the Taoist master have a solution? If you do, what is this opportunity you speak of? This humble girl will gladly hand it over."
Calculating with his fingers, the priest replied that he had already seen through this opportunity; it was none other than Shen Xuanrou's corpse.
The eldest son was originally supposed to fall to the bottom of the river and drown before long. Because of this disruption, he was naturally on tenterhooks all day and dared not go out, so that drowning incident naturally came to nothing.
Her corpse had been dragged by wild dogs into a Yin-gathering place and had already turned into a White Jiang, having tasted human flesh and blood. If she were given transcendence while her corpse was left behind, it would inevitably plague the region in the future.
However, it would be a great pity to simply destroy the corpse, so he wished to take it back to the mountain and tend to it properly. It would also make a rare and precious magical artifact to guard the mountain gates.
Having heard the priest out, Shen Xuanrou asked, "You speak with honeyed words, but how am I to know whether you are tricking me?"
The priest snorted and said, "If you don't believe me, I will make a wager with you."
Give me a personal token of yours. I will take it back to report the task accomplished, claiming that I have already granted you transcendence and that this matter is settled, after which I shall wander the world at leisure.
Within ten days, you must not harm any human life, nor may you reveal your tracks; you must simply wait in peace. If the eldest son does not drown during this period, you may dispose of all nineteen members of the household as you please, and I will commit suicide before your grave to atone for my sin.
If the eldest son dies within ten days, your corpse shall henceforth belong to my mountain gate. I will erect a burial mound for you and help you attain transcendence. Put aside all your grievances; in this lifetime, you shall have nothing more to do with the mortal world.
Do you dare to take this wager or not?