Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 271 The Patriarch's Concern
The thick fog gradually dissipated in the courtyard.

The courtyard, which had been shrouded in a chilling wind, gradually returned to calm.

Ran Qing, whose vision had been restored, saw herself standing alone in the courtyard, the house in her field of vision empty.

The flying zombie disappeared without a trace, taken away by the past masters of the spirit mediums.

The evil spirit wasn't taken away, but it had changed drastically.

The evil spirits of today are like monsters that have been chopped into pieces and then forcibly pieced together, with their eyeballs and fingers joined together, and their mouths and navels growing together.

This twisted, ugly monster lay sickly at Ran Qing's feet, a sight that sent chills down one's spine.

Its reason as a living being had completely vanished, and it could only utter weak, listless whimpers.

The malevolent and resentful nature of the vengeful ghost was smoothed out by the generations of masters who practiced spirit mediumship.

The only thing left is the spirit of the evil spirit, which can be taken back to make wine.

Looking at this courtyard and recalling the past masters of the spirit mediums that she had seen in the mist, Ran Qing felt as if she had been transported to another world.

"...Was it specially left for me?"

The lineage masters of the spirit medium dragged away the flying zombie, but this evil spirit was left to Ran Qing.

Although they had clearly become monsters, when summoned by the memorial tablets of past masters, they regained the rationality of living people and cared for their descendants.

In that thick fog, he not only saw his sixth aunt, but also the other ancestral masters of the spirit mediums.

There are men and women, old and young.

The spirits walking in the mist mostly had sinister and eccentric expressions, and seemed to be extremely difficult to get along with.

But these violent and terrifying spirit mediums all smiled and cared for him, showing him no malice whatsoever.

And look at this empty, safe house...

"The memorial tablets of past masters are extremely tempting."

Ran Qing murmured to herself, now understanding even more why Aunt Shen was so obsessed with the power of the ancestral tablet.

Using the ancestral tablet once only costs half a year of one's lifespan.

However, once the ancestral tablets of past masters are invoked, they are almost invincible and there is no problem that cannot be solved.

This mansion is home to flying zombies, a rational evil spirit, and many other earthly demons, making it a bizarre and dangerous place.

Not to mention Ran Qing, even that boastful but powerful corpse-driving Taoist priest was defeated here. For ordinary unorthodox cultivators, this place is a den of dragons and tigers.

But Ran Qing could easily crush the past and cleanse all the evil spirits in the ancestral graves by offering up the ancestral tablets of past masters, all while sacrificing only half a year of his lifespan.

It was so easy and effortless that it even gave people a sense of powerlessness.

That is—why didn't we use the memorial tablets of past masters earlier?
Ran Qing felt a chill run down her spine and quickly suppressed the feeling in her heart.

He had to constantly remind himself not to rely on the ancestral tablets of those who practiced spirit mediumship. Learning from his second aunt's experience, he didn't want to die suddenly at forty.

Ran Qing shook the bell for transporting corpses, and a paper figure walked in from the neighboring courtyard.

The paper figure took back Ran Qing's canvas bag, which contained Ran Qing's black sand jar.

Ran Qing stuffed the demon that had turned into an alien monster on the ground into the sand pot. Although the demon could no longer struggle, Ran Qing still used the red rope to wrap and seal the sand pot as usual.

Ran Qing walked into the house and woke up her three unconscious companions.

The arrival of the legendary masters of the Yin-Yang Path caused a tremendous spiritual shock to these three companions.

Mo Li and the others all fainted, their expressions filled with terror, as if they had seen something extremely frightening.

When Ran Qing shook them awake, the three of them screamed in terror for a while before finally waking up from that nightmare.

"...This is terrifying." "Are these the ancestral masters of the spirit mediums?"

"Ran Qing, I was so scared I peed my pants, waaaaaah..."

Little Cotton's body was still trembling, and there was a puddle of urine under her body.

Ran Qing was speechless.

"Let's go back first," Ran Qing helped the three of them up and led them back to the place where the Yin Altar had been opened earlier.

This is the Ghost Realm of Wujiang; staying here for too long will greatly deplete a person's vital energy. The vengeful ghost in the yin house has already been captured, and Ran Qing found an ancient ghost coin on its body. There's no point in lingering any longer.

The process of returning was simple; Ran Qing was already quite adept at traversing between the realms of Yin and Yang.

He easily led everyone back to the courtyard they had been in before.

In the bustling mansion filled with the stench of foxes, flowers bloomed in the courtyard.

The flowers were still alive, but they no longer seemed to pose any eeriness or threat.

They lay motionless in the middle of the yard, giving off a dull and lifeless feeling.

Ran Qing glanced at the flowers, said nothing, and left with her canvas bag on her back.

The canvas bag contained an earthenware jar, and inside the jar was a vengeful ghost.

As the four walked out of the fox den, the blooming flowers in the courtyard behind them quickly withered and decayed.

The woods outside the fox den suddenly opened up, and there was no longer any sense of gloom or eeriness.

The anomaly that once inhabited this big tree is now reduced to just that den of foxes.

Even the rotting raccoon hiding in the darkness seemed to have been taken away by the successive masters of the spirit medium.

When Ran Qing and the others left, they saw the rotting corpse of the raccoon standing stiffly in the center of the courtyard, like a stone statue, but it was motionless and had no breath.

In other words, after Ran Qing offered up the ancestral tablets of the spirit mediums, he directly purged the vengeful ghosts, flying zombies, and mountain god corpses from the courtyard...

Long Zongshu was somewhat shocked and murmured, "I've heard that the ancestral tablets of the spirit mediums are very powerful, but I didn't expect them to be this powerful..."

Mo Li swallowed hard and said, "If this were in a game, it would definitely be an ultimate move that requires five bars of energy to unleash..."

Although she was the daughter of a spirit medium, Aunt Liu never used the ancestral tablets of her ancestors, so this was clearly the first time Mo Li had witnessed the power of such a thing.

Ran Qing and the other three left the fox den, passed through the gloomy woods, and returned to the stone temple in the center of the woods.

The stone temple, covered in moss and ivy, is now seeing its outer walls rapidly wither.

The suppression of the evil spirit in the tree caused many of the anomalies inside and outside the stone temple to begin to recede.

After Ran Qing and the others stayed in the stone temple for a while, the scene outside the temple gate changed.

It was still a dark pine forest, but the eerie fox's mansion was nowhere to be seen.

The four of them returned to the world of the living.

In the pitch-black pine forest, many glowing eyes stared at this place from afar in the darkness.

Ran Qing frowned and looked over, only to see those glowing eyes retreating in panic, seemingly frightened by him.

Mo Li suddenly exclaimed, "There's someone at the door..."

The flashlight beam shone on the ground, revealing a pale-faced young man with his eyes closed lying outside the gate of the stone temple.

He looked as if his yang energy had been drained; although he was physically strong and had dark skin, his face and body were completely bloodless.

(End of this chapter)