The King of Curses

Chapter 232: First Arrival in the Netherworld
The wind blowing from the dark underground river in the distance was so sharp that it made the glass windows tremble like human skin. The atmosphere was tense, as if a quarrel and fight were about to break out on the boat.

Three guests who came from afar to visit the Ghost Market, a deacon of the Geomancer Association, and four curse masters confronted each other. Apart from the shivering woman lying in the arms of the middle-aged man, the rest were explosives that could ignite at any time.

Cen Dongsheng really didn't care. As long as he didn't meet a special-class curse master, there was no way he could lose. Even if this group of ignorant people attacked him together, the outcome would be the same.

But even those spell-binding masters who don't have his confidence are often troublemakers before they have heard of the opponent's reputation and before they have actually fought and seen the difference between them.

The paper people gathered together, surrounding them, staring at them with their red eyes.

Cen Dongsheng heard Jiang Yunmei's question, asking him if he wanted to help. The man asked them to be patient and wait and see.

There were other passengers on the train, but they had not come out yet. Others in the car had noticed the conflict, but none of them intended to intervene.

"Even if I don't know what's good for me, what can you do about it?"

The weasel sitting on the mandarin jacket and speaking human language was very arrogant. He stroked his beard and put on the attitude of a disdainful lord.

Zhou Ruian looked him up and down, but did not communicate with the weasel. He stared straight at the taciturn man, clasped his hands and bowed slightly.

"My dear guest, judging from your style, you are from the Northeastern 'Chu Ma Xian' lineage."

"You have good eyesight..."

"You are not some ordinary witch or sorcerer from a rural shrine, but a member of the 'Gathering of Ten Thousand Immortals'. Am I right?"

Although he was guessing, Zhou Ruian's tone was firm.

The weasel narrowed his eyes.

"So, you were sent by them to check on the situation in the ghost market. This transaction between two major organizations should be a topic for the top leaders to consider... As a deacon, it's not easy for me to stop it."

He gestured.

"You are welcome to do whatever you want from now on."

Everyone was silent. The other party had just finished saying the harsh words, but he turned around and chose to admit his mistake at the first moment.

"As for you, I see you are a guest from the A compartment. There may not be one guest who can buy a ticket for the A compartment every year or two. You can be said to be a distinguished guest among distinguished guests."

Zhou Ruian looked at Cen Dongsheng and breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's already our fault for letting you see the scene of this tragedy, how can we make it worse? You can go wherever you want. We will do our best to provide convenience and arrange personnel to guide and escort you. If you don't want to, we will immediately withdraw all personnel and ensure that we don't disturb you and your companions."

Compared with his attitude towards the people attending the Assembly of Ten Thousand Immortals, his attitude towards Cen Dongsheng was obviously more respectful.

Then...

The deacon of the Geomancer Association turned his gaze to the last person and remained silent.

"You, what do you want to do?"

The middle-aged man looked back at him warily.

Zhou Ruian looked him up and down with sharp eyes, as if assessing his identity and ability. After a long while, he spoke:
"My dear guest, you have come to this trading place for curse masters, and you even brought an ordinary person with you. This is not very polite. Why don't you let us take care of it?"

But this time, his attitude was no longer polite.

"By the way, let's talk about what happened on this train. I see you were the first person to discover the scene of the death?"

The middle-aged man laughed out of anger. The man opposite him was arrogant at first but respectful later, and he did not hide his desire to take advantage of others. The effect of angering people was really good.

"Ha, just because I'm not what you call a 'distinguished guest', nor do I come from any 'powerful force', I should be bullied by you?"

Zhou Ruian didn't answer, but the paper people around him stepped forward and grabbed the woman's shoulders.

"You want to threaten me with her?"

The veins on the middle-aged man's face were throbbing.

"No, don't, dear..."

The young woman who was holding his hand was roughly pulled away and looked at the man with pleading eyes.

"Help……!"

She cried out loudly with tears in her eyes.

"Assholes! How dare you?!"

A man who can tolerate having his woman taken away is not a man. The middle-aged man roared, and bloody murderous energy burst out of his body. After attaching to the white paper, it quickly burned and burned all the paper figures around it to ashes.

He stretched out his hand, wanting to save his woman, but was blocked by the blue Qi released by Zhou Ruian.

On one side, there was a raging bloody flame, on the other side, there was a shimmering water light. After a few rounds of fists and feet fighting, the middle-aged man quickly fell into a disadvantage.

Cen Dongsheng and the spell master from the Ten Thousand Immortals Assembly stood by and watched with their arms folded.

These two are both experts in the outside world and are fully qualified to become core members of a large organization. However, in his eyes, they are both second-class curse masters who can be easily dispatched.

Even among the B-class, there is a clear gap in strength between "B-1" and "B-2". For example, now, the middle-aged man is struggling to hold on, but Zhou Ruian can easily suppress his opponent and use other spells to encircle the battlefield between the two and control the aftermath within a certain range so as not to affect the spectators and the train.

"That's enough! That's enough."

As Zhou Ruian spoke, he grabbed with his right hand, and blue energy gushed out from his palm like a whirlpool tornado, emitting a powerful gravitational force, and the shivering woman hiding in the corner was grabbed by him.

"mean!"

"Humph, just surrender. I won't use force against you two."

This deacon of the Geomancer Association already had the upper hand in terms of strength, and now he was holding a hostage without any sense of shame. It was only a matter of time before the middle-aged man surrendered...

But at this moment, something strange happened.

The woman caught by Zhou Ruian suddenly "flattened" at a speed visible to the naked eye.

This was obviously not done by Zhou Ruian. At the moment he was stunned, the middle-aged man suddenly jumped out of the circle, and the blood-red true energy burning on his body suddenly jumped up several inches, much stronger than before.

"Can you two lend a hand? I will reward you handsomely in the future!"

His gaze turned to the two people watching the show nearby, as if he had placed his hopes on outsiders, but both Cen Dongsheng and the spirit medium were indifferent at this moment.

Seeing this, the middle-aged man sighed and threw a comb out of his hand. Cen Dongsheng saw with his sharp eyes that this comb was exactly the same as the one wrapped around the dead man's hair.

"It's really you!"

Zhou Ruian let out a low growl, but his body froze, as if nailed to the spot, with his hair standing on end, attracted by the comb in mid-air.

At the same time, the woman who was crying and screaming became flat, like a spread-out blanket, and rolled towards Zhou Ruian.

It turned out that the woman was not a living person at all. No wonder her life breath was so weak. "She" was just a piece of human skin left. She was trained by the middle-aged man, but she could cry, laugh and make sounds.

The woman's skin completely wrapped Zhou Ruian, and the uneven surface was wriggling like a monster's stomach, trying to digest and swallow the person inside.

If nothing unexpected happened, the dead man kneeling on the ground was killed by this trick. After killing the person, the middle-aged man inflated the human skin to disguise the appearance of a living person...

But Zhou Ruian claimed to be a deacon, and his status and strength were much higher than those of the deceased.

The human skin could not restrain him. Cracks appeared on the squirming skin, and lake blue light shone through them. Seeing this, the middle-aged man no longer hesitated. He took back the forbidden comb with a wave of his hand, and at the same time, he jumped up and bumped to the side. With a "pop", the window that had a big hole in it shattered layer by layer. His figure disappeared in the dark underground river like a dragonfly skimming the water.

After a few breaths, the human skin, without the control of its owner, could no longer hold on, and after letting out a wail, it turned into fragments all over the sky.

Zhou Ruian jumped down and locked his eyes on the target.

"I'm sorry, you two. I have to leave first!"

He then jumped out of the window, forming seals with his hands in the process, which quickly caused ripples on the surface of the lake. He rode the waves on one foot and chased after them like flying.

……

After the two of them disappeared, the two remaining spell-binding masters looked at each other, and the weasel bared his teeth, as if he wanted to laugh.

But before it could open its mouth, the little head was grabbed by someone.

The person who had remained silent finally spoke.

His voice was steady as he commented:

“It’s all about the world.”

Cen Dongsheng glanced at him and said.

"What do you think of the actions of this deacon of the Geomancer Association?"

"He who bullies the weak and fears the strong will never amount to anything. It's just... it seems like he's pretending to be doing this for us to see, but I don't understand why he's putting on this show.

"Who's left?"

"A murderer with many tricks and lack of strength, so he is not to be feared."

Cen Dongsheng nodded.

His views were basically similar. They seemed to be caught up in a struggle between two forces. On one side was the Geomancer Association, and on the other side were people who specialized in setting traps to kill members of the Geomancer Association.

Although he was not afraid of trouble, he was not idle enough to cause trouble, so he did not intervene in the battle just now.

Moreover, compared to those two people, Cen Dongsheng was more concerned about this curse master who cultivated the horse fairy, or in other words, the person behind him——

"Were you sent by Zhang Shidao?"

Cen Dongsheng did not hide anything and went straight to the point.

"...The leader asked us to reach a cooperation with the Geomancer Association. Now it seems that this matter will have to be postponed."

The other party did not hide anything.

"I can tell from your expression that you know me."

"...Yes, I know you." He replied in a deep voice, "You are...the champion of the Heroic Soul Arena. Everyone in the Ten Thousand Immortals' Assembly is eager to defeat you one day and wash away the shame of being trampled underfoot by outsiders."

"Then you want to try?"

Cen Dongsheng laughed.

"I don't want to fight you here. Besides, I am no match for you."

The man lowered his head slightly and chose to give in.

"That's fine. If you're okay, I'll leave first."

"Please."

……

It was not until the tall young man disappeared for a while that he finally let go of his worries, took off his hand covering the weasel's mouth, and apologized:
"Xianjia, please forgive my intrusion. I was afraid that your words might offend the other party."

"Humph, you're so rude, brat... I'm not stupid, what good would it do to mess with a monster like that?"

*
Cen Dongsheng and his companions boarded the small black-sailed boat.

There was no one on the boat. After they got on board, it began to drift automatically towards its destination. Several ferrymen with bamboo poles wandered nearby, like guards or tour guides, keeping a respectful distance.

He chatted with his teammates about what had just happened, but no conclusion was reached yet.

Nothing else happened afterwards, and they quickly arrived at the core area of ​​the Shanyin Ghost Market and abandoned the ship and went ashore.

Several people who claimed to be from the "Ghost Market Operator" came over and said they could provide tour guide and bodyguard services to these distinguished guests, but Cen Dongsheng declined all their offers. He only asked for a distribution map of the trading areas in the Ghost Market.

"Let me see, this place should be called..."

He raised his head and looked at the gloomy streets ahead.

"Yinqi Lane, also known as the 'Dark Street', is the largest free trade area in the ghost market. All vendors are certified curse masters. There are no rules except that murder and robbery are prohibited. The operator does not care about fraud and does not charge any handling fees. This place is a mixed bag, with most of the goods being Western goods. What is tested is your eyesight."

Several rows of rotten shelves are inserted diagonally between the stalactites. Next to the vendors there is often a wooden stake with a faded sign nailed on it with the store name written crookedly, or simply without anything written on it. Prayer flags made of thousands of yellow talismans are interwoven into a net on the dome above.

Several deep alleys are winding and complex, with people and ghosts coming and going, which can definitely be described as "lively".

"In addition to the dark street, there is also the 'Tianbao Pavilion', which is the largest shop opened by the operator. These two places together concentrate more than 90% of the trade in the Shanyin Ghost Market. I plan to go to the Tianbao Pavilion first to check the situation. What do you plan to do?"

"Actually, I've wanted to say this for a long time..."

Jiang Yunmei laughed. Although the laughter was strange, it naturally became adorable when it came from a beauty of her level.

"Teacher Cen, the experience of you bringing me to the ghost market really resembles the plot in the online novels I read before."

“Uh, really…?”

"——So, the next step is the 'protagonist picking up the spoils' part, right!"

She clapped her hands together, her eyes sparkling.

"Let's go find a shop that no one visits. It may seem like there's garbage everywhere, but it actually hides a magical artifact that only I can see through..."

"…Are you dreaming, Senior?"

Song Yutang showed a sympathetic expression.

Cen Dongsheng really wanted to join in the complaints, but he quickly realized that this might really be possible.

There are all kinds of strange curses and forbidden objects. It is not uncommon to see "self-hiding magical objects". Some even avoid people.

And among the people he knows, who could possibly see the hidden secrets? Who else but Jiang Yunmei, who possesses the "clairvoyance"?
"I think so!"

As soon as Cen Dongsheng said this, he saw Jiang Yunmei nodded excitedly, grabbed the wrist of her companion, and walked towards the dark street.

"Did you hear that? Teacher Cen thinks I can do it. Let's go and take a look over there!"

"Master, you..."

"Go ahead, it's good to broaden your horizons."

(End of this chapter)