Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 72: Masters of All Ages
In the thick fog of the Wujiang ghost world, the man who was kicked away weakly climbed up from the shadows.

Looking at the ferocious young man in front of him, his face showed a variety of expressions. Obviously, he did not expect that the mask would be so terrifying.

"As expected of a ghost walker, just by awakening his spirit, his wings are already so strong..."

The man murmured.

He finally realized that the boy in front of him was no longer a child who could be manipulated and controlled by him.

After a long silence, Ran Jianfei sneered and said, "You can let me go, but give me back my wife's body! I want to go back to the village and find out who refined her. This is something only I can do."

"You hate me, but at least you have to help me with this matter. It will be good for you too!"

"If you want to be a ghost walker, you can't carry a corpse to open an altar."

"And even if you learn the witchcraft of ghosts, you won't be able to find out the truth. I am an expert in corpse refining!"

"Give me the body, and I'll leave immediately and never bother you again!"

The middle-aged man put forward the conditions indifferently.

He couldn't take his son away, so he had to settle for the next best thing.

Ran Qing stared at the man silently, not wanting to hand his mother's body to him.

But thinking of my mother's tragic and painful death, and my Sixth Aunt's complete ignorance of Feng Shui and corpse-refining techniques...

Ran Qing's eyes dimmed.

He looked at the middle-aged man and asked, "How can I give it to you?"

Until now, he had only seen his mother's body once, on the night Li Hongye came.

I haven't seen him since then.

The middle-aged man walked up and said expressionlessly, "The last time you saw your mother was when she was about to die."

"When you let me grab your neck and start suffocating you, she should appear."

The middle-aged man looked at Ran Qing expressionlessly: "If you are worried, you can take your broken mask and put it on anytime when you feel something is wrong."

"But no matter how cruel I am, Ran Jianfei, I would never strangle my own son to death with my own hands."

The father and son looked at each other.

After a few seconds of silence, Ran Qing grabbed the Nuo opera mask with one hand and relaxed his body: "Come on."

The middle-aged man's thick fingers instantly pinched his neck.

In an instant, Ran Qing felt a black screen in front of his eyes, and a feeling of suffocation and stuffiness suddenly surged up.

He subconsciously widened his eyes and stared at the man in front of him.

But he found that the man was not looking at him, but nervously looking up at the top of Ran Qing's head, as if he was expecting and fearing something.

Influenced by the middle-aged man, Ran Qing subconsciously raised his head, widened his eyes, and stared blankly at the top of his head.

The feeling of suffocation continued to surge up, and Ran Qing felt that his chest was so heavy that it seemed like it was about to explode.

The strong feeling of suffocation even made his vision begin to go black and his ears began to buzz.

And the flocs that Ran Qing had been expecting and which kept peeling off from his vision finally appeared.

The moon shines on the bus station in the mist, and the outer walls are rapidly falling off.

The old street lamps in the fog were also rapidly shedding strange flocs.

Along with these constantly falling flocs, spreading and overgrown plants continue to emerge from under the falling walls, between the floors, and inside the street lights.

In the blink of an eye, the environment within a ten-meter radius of Ran Qing changed.

It is no longer the ghost town shrouded in fog, but a strange, old, mottled ruin overgrown with vegetation.

And in this strange ruin, the body of a woman with a painful death and a hideous expression was hanging silently on the street lamp above Ran Qing's head.

The middle-aged man subconsciously let go of his son, raised his head and stared blankly at his wife who was dying in pain.

He was so selfish that tears appeared in his eyes at this moment.

"Axia..."

……

…………

In the mist, a thin paper raft slowly floated over.

The middle-aged woman, looking exhausted, lay weakly on the paper raft, barely breathing.

The boy looked extremely excited when he saw the paper raft.

The moment the paper raft reached the shore, he hurriedly helped the weak Aunt Liu off the boat.

"Sixth Aunt!" A smile appeared on Ran Qing's face.

Although Sixth Aunt's confidence made him believe that she would not be dragged away by those pale ghosts. After all, Sixth Aunt had not yet passed on her legacy to him, so she would definitely not sacrifice herself to cover her retreat.

But when he actually saw Aunt Liu, the heavy stone in his heart finally fell to the ground.

Ran Qing tightly grasped Sixth Aunt's skinny, claw-like hand, not afraid at all of this long-dead woman.

Aunt Liu looked around tiredly and asked, "Is your father gone?"

In the thick fog, there was nothingness.

Aunt Six was not surprised by Ran Jianfei's departure.

She sat down weakly on the ground and murmured, "If he's willing to leave, he must have taken your mother's body with him, right?"

Ran Qing nodded: "He took it away and said he would never bother me again..."

Ran Qing looked at Aunt Liu worriedly and murmured, "Let's go, Aunt Liu, let's go home."

He tried to bring Aunt Liu back.

But the woman sitting paralyzed on the ground grinned and shook her head.

"Sixth Auntie won't go back, kid. This will be her home from now on."

"Actually, Sixth Aunt has been dead for a long time. She's been holding on because she's still obsessed. Thinking about it now, it's such a pity..."

The middle-aged woman's rough, withered fingers tightly grasped the boy's hand. She murmured, "If only Aunt Six hadn't been so fierce when she met you..."

A chilling chill filled the air, and ghostly figures loomed in the surrounding mist. Eerie, hunched black shadows slowly crawled through the mist on the shore, silently encircling the living beings on the shore.

Ran Qing's expression changed slightly: "Sixth Aunt..."

He subconsciously grabbed the evil ghost mask, but he didn't expect that a terrifying thing would appear in the fog.

These were definitely not wandering ghosts; they gave Ran Qing an extremely sinister feeling.

But Aunt Six behind him smiled weakly and shook her head: "Don't be afraid, kid, they are my elders, including my master, they are here to pick me up."

Aunt Liu stared at the dark shadows in the fog, at the terrifying monsters emitting a cold and ominous aura, and her expression was a little dazed and nostalgic.

"It's been twenty years, and my master is here to pick me up..."

"Back then I said I wouldn't follow the same path. I didn't expect that I'd end up like that miserable old woman..."

Aunt Liu muttered as she grabbed Ran Qing tightly and pulled the boy behind her.

Her voice gradually became hoarse, and she murmured in a low tone.

"I hid the things in the box under the bed."

"What my master wrote, what I wrote...it's all there."

"Just follow my instructions..."

Sixth Aunt's words made Ran Qing's face change drastically.

"Sixth Aunt!"

He said anxiously: "If you don't come back with me, how are you going to pass on your skills to me?"

He thought Sixth Aunt would at least teach him until he had learned all the skills before leaving, but...

In the mist, fine black hairs gradually appeared on the middle-aged woman's dark face.

Her ears became long and thin, her teeth became sharp, and her eyes became creepy.

She stared straight at Ran Qing, baring her jagged fangs, and said with a low laugh, "It's okay, kid. You're so smart, you should be able to learn it by following my instructions."

"If you really can't learn it, don't worry about it. Just learn as much as you can..."

Aunt Six smiled strangely and sinisterly.

In the surging fog, a hunchbacked, black monster with sharp fangs slowly walked out.

It stared straight at the woman on the shore and stretched out its hand.

The moment he saw this familiar monster, Ran Qing was so frightened that his whole body turned cold.

A changeling...or rather, a terrifying monster that is suspected to be a changeling!

It was almost identical to a witch, with a hunched body, gnarled muscles, and a blanket of black hair. The only difference was that this monster's face was painted with brightly colored, strange patterns, like a living ghost.

Ran Qing looked at Sixth Aunt in disbelief.

The flesh and blood of the Yin-walkers are a delicious meal for monsters.

The flesh and blood of the changeling is also a delicious delicacy for monsters...

Could it be that the crossbow woman is a person who has transformed from a ghost?
When Ran Qing saw some black hair growing on Aunt Six's face, she reached out to the witch in a trance.

"Master..."

Aunt Liu called out in a murmured voice with a hint of tears in her voice.

At this moment, Aunt Liu was no longer the rude, mean and sloppy village woman.

Instead, she acts like a fragile and helpless little girl in front of her elders.

The strange witch walked out of the fog and stared at Ran Qing with her sinister eyes.

Afterwards, it actually ignored Ran Qing, the living ghost walker, and instead grinned and stretched out its claws towards Aunt Liu who was undergoing a transformation.

Ran Qing suddenly grabbed Aunt Liu and refused to let go.

"No! Sixth Aunt! You haven't passed on your legacy yet! You haven't told me what you're going to do! You can't leave!"

"Didn't you use the Yin Shou Shu as the price to fulfill your last wish? You haven't done anything yet, and your last wish hasn't been fulfilled yet!"

Ran Qing was extremely anxious and tried to stop Aunt Liu from leaving.

He clutched the demon mask tightly, facing the dark shadow slowly approaching in the fog alone.

Ran Qing's shouting finally helped Aunt Liu regain some consciousness.

She was stunned for a moment, then she tilted her head and looked at the young man beside her.

The black hair on Aunt Liu's face gradually shrank back, and she looked like a living person again.

But those dead fish-like eyes were still cloudy and dull.

She looked at Ran Qing quietly for a long time, as if she was thinking.

And those strange black shadows in the fog did not approach, but wandered quietly in the fog waiting.

Finally, Aunt Liu pulled Ran Qing to her side, sighed, and said, "I don't have much time left... baby."

"You've also seen that the ghost walkers of our lineage often have a tragic end..."

Aunt Liu wanted to persuade Ran Qing to reconsider.

From the first time they met, she was mean and harsh, but she always tried to persuade Ran Qing to give up, not wanting the young man to go down this dangerous path.

But Ran Qing shook her head and interrupted her: "Sixth Aunt, if I give up and only think about myself, then what's the difference between me and that man?"

Ran Qing said, kneeling directly in front of Aunt Six, kowtowed heavily: "Master! Please pass on your legacy to me! Let this disciple help you fulfill all your wishes!"

"Whatever you haven't completed or want to do, just tell me and I'll do it!"

Ran Qing did not give the woman any chance to persuade him. Without saying anything, he knelt down in the fog and kowtowed hard.

His forehead slammed hard on the cold concrete floor, making a thud-thud-thud sound.

In the surrounding fog, the wandering shadows and the changelings saw this scene and burst into sharp laughter.

The woman stared blankly at the young man's abrupt act of becoming his disciple and was stunned for a long time.

Finally, she sat up straight, smiled, and calmly accepted the boy's worship...

(End of this chapter)