Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 410 Past
Ran Qing vigorously flipped through the old parchment book, wanting to see what this book of longevity said about the way to leave Moonlit City.

However, as the pages were turned and the book reached the fourth page, the contents changed once again.

Those writhing, eerie characters, like sharp needles, pierced Ran Qing's retina, causing his eyes to sting.

Page four, once again, became Li Hongye's death diary.

He blushed today.

Hehe...this guy is even cuter than I thought!

[He blushed as red as an apple just from accidentally touching his hand.]

[So honest and adorable!]

[Also, I have some good news today. Mom said that we don't need to worry about Ran Qing for now; we just need to maintain a good relationship with him.]

Anyway, he had long lost contact with Ran Jianfei. Although he knew where Ran Jianfei lived, it wasn't easy to cause trouble for Ran Jianfei with just an address.

The female corpse dressed in a wedding gown that Ran Jianfei refined was an ancient zombie passed down from the Ran family a hundred years ago, and it was extremely powerful.

My mom said that if we rashly go to their door, we might not be a match for Ran Jianfei.

This selfish and self-serving Ran Jianfei abandoned even his own mother and son; you can't expect to use Ran Qing to threaten or lure him.

We need to think of another way to deal with Ran Jianfei.

My mom said she's found help; a group of very capable people are willing to assist her.

If their plan succeeds, they won't even need to use Ran Qing; she and her hired help alone will be enough to deal with Ran Jianfei and avenge their father.

I was really happy when I heard this news.

After spending time with Ran Qing these past few days, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to bear hurting him.

He was so honest, kind, and strong, yet fate did not reward him with kindness.

If possible, I hope to become his true friend, not someone who hurts him.

Although I'm going to kill his father, at least he doesn't have any feelings for his father.

As for the helpers my mom found... I'm really curious, why would anyone be willing to help out of the blue?

My mom has been suppressing her feelings for too long these past few years; I've seen her wake up from nightmares several times.

Her father's tragic death has driven her nearly insane; under these circumstances, her judgment is likely to be flawed.

I need to find an opportunity to go with her to meet those people, to see who exactly is willing to help our family, and to see if they are reliable.

Revenge is important, but our family's safety and well-being are even more important.

To be honest, which might be considered disrespectful, I don't really care about my dad's grudges.

[Regarding the incident in Honghe Village ten years ago, Ran Jianfei was indeed cold-blooded and ruthless, and morally flawed, but from a rational perspective, it is difficult to criticize him harshly.]

The main problem is that my mom has become obsessed. She's too fixated on my dad's death, and if we don't find a way to help her resolve it, she really will go insane.

Over the years, she has had more and more nightmares and sleepwalking episodes. Whenever she is slightly tired or when she sees things that remind her of her father, she will definitely have a nightmare after falling asleep at night, dreaming of her deceased father, and then sleepwalking to get up. Medication is not effective.

[The last time she sleepwalked, she ran into the kitchen in the middle of the night, grabbed a cleaver, and started hacking around, smashing a lot of furniture in the house.]

When Dad tried to stop her, she slashed him...

Although my dad is a good person and doesn't blame her, I can't let her continue to go crazy like this.

This time, she was making too much noise chopping things, and my dad and I woke up in time to stop her. But what if she doesn't make as much noise next time?

What if next time she sleepwalks, instead of chopping things, she chops people up directly?

My father is very good to my mother and me. I should help my mother heal her emotional wounds so that she can let go of her past grievances and live a peaceful life with my father.

I hope the helper my mom found this time is really reliable and useful...

……

On the old, yellowed parchment, strange characters that seemed to writhe like centipedes kept crawling into Ran Qing's mind.

His brow throbbed with a sharp, needle-like pain, but his single eye remained fixed on the ghostly writing in the book, never looking away.

Even looking away or giving up reading makes him feel better.

But Ran Qing still forced herself to finish reading this page of the Book of Death.

After reading the last line of this page, Ran Qing, whose face was still as pale as paper, suddenly closed the book, took a deep breath, and temporarily stopped reading.

This page of the Book of Longevity does not describe how to escape the moon's glow.

Instead, it continues to narrate Li Hongye's diary from her own perspective.

—Yes, this looks exactly like a diary entry.

Moreover, the word choice, sentence structure, and tone of the diary are almost identical to those of the real Li Hongye.

Unlike the content told from Ran Qing's perspective and tone, which is obviously fake.

The ghost story diary written from Li Hongye's perspective really feels real...

In particular, this diary contains stories about Li Hongye's family and the relationship between her mother and stepfather.

And the matter of Li Hongye's mother sleepwalking...

Ran Qing once heard Li Hongye mention in a casual conversation that her mother sleepwalked.

That time, Li Hongye spoke with a bitter smile and a worried expression about how her mother had chopped up a lot of the furniture in the house while sleepwalking.

Ran Qing didn't pay much attention to it at the time. Although she thought it was scary to sleepwalk and chop things, it was just sleepwalking after all.

Li Hongye also said that her mother's sleepwalking was a long-standing problem, so it was not surprising.

But now, seeing the death diary in this book of posthumous honors, reading the self-narration from Li Hongye's perspective, and recalling what Li Hongye had mentioned in casual conversation about her mother's sleepwalking...

He had to admit that this death diary, told from Li Hongye's perspective, was both too logical and too deceptive.

It's just like the real Li Hongye's diary!

The book explores the relationship between Li Hongye's stepfather and mother, Li Hongye's worries about her mother's illness, her gratitude towards her stepfather, her indifference to her father's death, her attitude towards Ran Qing, and her wariness and fear of the ghost keeper...

These intricate details create a truly realistic feel.

If there really is a diary written by Li Hongye during her lifetime, then this diary entry seems more plausible.

Ran Qing is more willing to believe that Li Hongye was not so cruel and evil at the beginning.

Staring at the Yin Shou Book in his hand, Ran Qing rested for a long while with a gloomy expression.

Finally, he took a deep breath, opened the Book of Longevity once more, and continued reading the fifth page.

Unsurprisingly, the content on the fifth page reverted to Ran Qing's first-person perspective.

However, the eerie ghost texts that wriggle like centipedes are filled with information that is clearly sinister and malicious, and have almost no credibility.

It's completely different from the realism of Li Hongye's first-person perspective.

[...The method to escape the moon's glow is actually not difficult.]

Li Hongye is busy nurturing and refining the ghost king's corpse into a blood corpse. She is currently powerless to stop us from leaving.

Therefore, she could only bewitch and lure those ancient Luo ghost soldiers to block the entrance to the Yin Altar.

However, these ancient demon soldiers could only block the Yin Altar, but not other places.

[Those who follow the Yin lineage can travel through the Wujiang Ghost Realm.] [I can bring Mo Lizongshu and the others into the Wujiang Ghost Realm and leave from the underworld.]

When returning from the underworld to the mortal realm, one is not limited to returning to the underworld altar.

For those who practice the Yin path, returning to the Yin altar is the safest and smoothest option.

[But as long as I can prepare a beacon in advance and send it out of Moonlit City, then after I lead people into the Wujiang Ghost Realm, I can leave Moonlit City directly from the Wujiang Ghost Realm and avoid those terrifying ancient evil spirits.]

……

The fifth page of the Book of Yin Shou details the escape plan.

However, Ran Qing, who was a practitioner of spirit mediumship, had already read through the entire book "Witchcraft and Ghostly Arts" despite having only been a beginner for a very short time.

Upon seeing this plan, he immediately let out a cold laugh.

"The plan is a good plan, but the mortality rate is a bit high."

This plan is indeed feasible, and highly feasible.

But could they escape Moonlit City by transferring through the Ghost Realm of Wujiang?
Once Ran Qing and his companions enter the Wujiang Ghost Realm, let's not even mention how many evil spirits roam within it, or how much the impending collapse of the Ancient Luo Kingdom has affected the underworld.

The very act of him leading a group of living people into the underworld was fraught with danger.

If the Yin Shou Shu is indeed a trap set by eerie evil spirits, then it is common knowledge that more than 90% of the evil spirits in Zangke are hiding in the Wujiang Ghost Realm.

When Ran Qing and the others were in the mortal realm, it was very difficult for those evil spirits to harm Ran Qing.

In this chaotic and critical moment, Ran Qing led several living people into the Wujiang Ghost Realm. What if evil spirits really surrounded them...?

Ran Qing coldly finished reading the ghost story of the night, and closed the book without the slightest hesitation.

He took a deep breath and muttered, "...This trap is too obvious. Anyone with a little intelligence can see that there's something wrong with it."

But as she spoke, a hint of worry flashed in Ran Qing's eyes.

The traps in the Book of Longevity are too obvious, and the evil spirits behind the book make no attempt to conceal their malice.

When Aunt Liu was alive, she must have experienced a similar situation and saw through the malicious trap in the Yin Shou Book at a glance.

But at the very last moment, Sixth Aunt still fell into the trap of the Book of Death...

So, will the evil spirit behind Ran Qing's Yin Shou Book also use a similar open scheme to force Ran Qing to step into a trap?

If they want to continue, how will they force Ran Qing to comply?
Ran Qing racked her brains, trying to put herself in the shoes of an evil spirit and figure out what she should do if she were forced to flee to the underworld.

But after thinking hard for a long time, he couldn't think of any way to force himself to give in.

Finally, Ran Qing shook her head expressionlessly and said, "...Forget it, we'll deal with whatever comes our way. We'll see when the time comes."

He felt a little worried, but not particularly nervous or afraid.

As a practitioner of spirit mediumship, he is almost on par with Aunt Liu.

Although Ran Qing was inferior to Aunt Liu in terms of experience and strength, she had a huge advantage at this time.

Those are the ten ghost eyes on his arm...

Each of these ten ghost eyes can quickly heal Ran Qing's physical wounds; as long as he doesn't die immediately, they can heal him swiftly.

This is equivalent to the sheep god giving him ten lives.

Many of the forbidden and evil spells in "Witchcraft and Spiritual Arts" require the sacrifice of oneself to complete.

Ordinary people who practice spirit possession need to consider many things before using forbidden and evil magic.

But now Ran Qing has enough confidence that if he is really driven to the brink of madness, he will not hesitate to use the forbidden evil arts in "Witchcraft and Ghost Arts".

As long as you don't die on the spot, even missing limbs can be healed!

After resting, Ran Qing opened the Book of Yin and Yang once again and read the ghost text on the next page.

The eerie text that burrowed into her mind like a centipede revealed the girl's thoughts.

The ghostly text on this page is Li Hongye's death diary.

The girl recounts her experience of attending a ghost-raising ceremony in an apartment building with her mother, where she saw an incredibly mysterious and terrifying ghost, as well as an altar dedicated to that ghost...

[...This group of ghost keepers set up altars for ghosts all over Zangke, hoping to help this ancient ghost from thousands of years ago complete some kind of ritual.]

They also plan to distribute an ancient coin, but I'm not yet clear on the purpose of their efforts to nurture and preserve that coin.

My mother trusted them completely and became one of them; the ghost even accepted my mother's offerings.

But I don't have a good impression of these weird guys.

That ghost was very strange; it was an ancient, malevolent demon from thousands of years ago. I wonder how it came to be.

But the strangest thing is... this ghost isn't scary.

It's not scary at all; in fact, it's quite honest, speaks convincingly, and has a strange charm that makes people want to obey it.

As a ghost, it harbored no resentment or cruelty; instead, it was eerily calm and gentle.

It welcomed its mother's arrival.

They were also very friendly to me.

But for some reason, the friendlier this ghost was, the more afraid I became.

I had a gut feeling that this ghost would kill us all.

It is plotting some enormous conspiracy, a conspiracy that is absolutely beyond imagination.

I should probably advise my mom to get away from these ghost breeders; they're too dangerous.

They kept ghosts in that elevator building, turning the entire building into a ghost town, and also used the elevator building to attract many mountain monsters and evil spirits to linger.

Those ghost breeders were even researching how to tame the old hag and the old man to help them...

This is just the beginning; the preparations have already devastated the entire building. To create something like this in the city center is utterly reckless and disregards human life.

I don't even want to think about how many people in Moonlit City would die if this elevator building went out of control and the evil spirits inside escaped.

[But this terrifying thing is only in the preparation stage...]

No! I must persuade Mom to leave these ghost breeders; she can't get involved with these dangerous people!

……

The book of death continues to recount the story in Li Hongye's voice.

The detailed account and logical narration made Ran Qing's face turn gloomy.

So far, he has not found any flaws in Li Hongye's death diary.

This diary, written from Li Hongye's perspective, is so deceptive that it seems as if it were written by Li Hongye herself!
Not only is Li Hongye's psychological state described very well, but even her experiences and her family's story are written very reasonably.

He took a deep breath and, without pausing, turned directly to the next page.

But he skipped the part about that night from his own perspective and went straight to Li Hongye's part.

The eerie, centipede-like characters continued to burrow into the brain.

But the very first sentence of Li Hongye's diary on this page pierced Ran Qing's eyes like a needle.

[...Mom is angry]

(End of this chapter)