How did I, who just ascended to heaven, become an evil spirit?

According to the last green imp, the Queen Mother of the West actually rewarded Li Hu with a spot for ascension, ordering all the evil spirits in the world to hunt him down.

"Why is that?" Li Hu murmured. "Is it because I buried that statue of the Queen Mother of the West?"

"Or is it that my actions have offended that goddess in heaven?"

Li Hu asked his group of friends around him, puzzled, but no one could answer his question; they all remained silent.

After all, no one could say for sure about Bai Yujing, and no one had ever seen it. To them, it was a lofty and unfathomable existence.

Realizing the impending crisis, Li Hu revealed a piercing look, and his hand unconsciously went to the hilt of his sword.

Li Sujin silently took out a needle and thread and stitched up Li Hu's torn belly, one stitch at a time.

Looking at Li Hu's body, which was no longer human, she wiped away her tears from time to time, and forced herself to continue the acupuncture.

As she sewed, she blamed herself, saying, "It's my fault, it's all my fault."

"If I hadn't been so blinded by greed and brought that statue of a deity into my home to worship, would everything still be the same as before? Would you still be able to continue being your fake county magistrate, and would I still be my female doctor?"

"Madam, please don't say such things."

Yuan Sou comforted him, saying, "Heaven and earth are ruthless, treating all things like pigs and dogs. How can this be your responsibility?"

Everyone agreed and offered words of comfort to Li Hu and Yuan Sou.

This situation has reached its most critical moment, and everyone is aware of the danger.

From now on, I fear I won't have a single day of peace to enjoy.

"Yes, sister," Chi Yue interjected.

"Since Bai Yujing is not giving us face and wants to kill my brother, then we might as well kill Bai Yujing."

Chi Yue was filled with righteous indignation. She has always been straightforward and said whatever came to mind, and in one go she voiced everyone's thoughts.

Upon hearing this, Qi Yuehong nodded in approval, saying, "I've been doing this for a long time. Brother Li, do you finally understand me now?"

Li Hu nodded in agreement. The wound on his abdomen had been stitched up by Li Sujin. Because he had lost his internal organs, Li Hu's entire abdomen was shrunken and looked like a dried-up mummy.

"Gentlemen," Wong Tai Sin said, frowning as he analyzed the situation.

"Now all the evil spirits in the world probably know our location. It probably won't be long before the entire Qingyuan County is surrounded by evil spirits."

"I think we should flee for our lives as soon as possible to avoid implicating the people of Qingyuan County. We can discuss other matters after we've escaped with our lives."

That's how it should be.

Old Yuan cleared his throat, turned around and packed his luggage, saying to himself with a self-deprecating smile, "Truly, my life is like a horse galloping by, I can't rest for a moment."

Yuan Sou was also on the Queen Mother of the West's list of punishments, but he no longer had the timid look he used to have. He seemed to have become much more at ease, as if he had no worries about having too much debt.

Before long, the group was ready, and Li Hu was the first to rush out the door.

He planned to go to some remote and desolate places first, to get himself a hundred miles away from Qingyuan County.

But he had just stepped out of his own yard gate.

Li Hu then encountered a strange person.

The man stood about ten feet away from Li Hu's house, as if he was deliberately lying in wait there. He was dressed in a purple funeral shroud, his skin was deathly pale, and his face and lips were smeared with blush. There was also a large bump on his forehead.

When the group came out, a stiff yet festive smile suddenly appeared on the man's face.

The various inhuman characteristics indicate that the strange person in front of them is an evil spirit.

Li Hu realized the danger, but at the same time, he was also slightly alarmed.

He didn't know when the Queen Mother of the West issued this order to hunt him down. Logically speaking, the density of evil spirits in Dengzhou wasn't that high, and there was still some time before the most dangerous moment.

Why is it that as soon as I stepped out of my own house, evil spirits blocked the door?

Regardless, Li Hu now assumed that the evil spirits he encountered were all malicious, so he decided to fight his way out first and reached out to press his hand on the hilt of his sword.

At the same time, the gaunt male evil spirit dressed in funeral clothes launched an attack on Li Hu.

He knelt down and bowed deeply to Li Hu.

Boom!

The sound of its head hitting the ground was incredibly crisp.

Li Hu was also stunned. Who kneels down before a fight?

What does this mean? Li Hu became suspicious, and stopped moving the sword in his hand.

But at that moment, Li Hu felt as if he had been struck by lightning, and his knees felt as if they had been hit hard by a torch. He knelt down face to face with the person in the funeral clothes.

Not only Li Hu, but also the group of people behind him, all seemed to be out of control, and knelt down with a thud.

Then his torso suddenly collapsed to the ground, performing the exact same action as the evil spirit.

They kowtowed in greeting.

Bang bang bang.

The people kowtowed with such force that they almost broke their own heads.

"whee."

The evil spirit dressed in funeral clothes chuckled and then kowtowed again.

The evil spirit's upper body was extremely stiff, its entire body taut as if it were already dead, its movements completely unnatural. However, when it slammed its head onto the ground, it was incredibly ferocious.

It maintained its cheerful yet terrifying smile, which deepened each time it raised its head.

Li Hu finally understood what the big bump on the evil spirit's head was all about; it turned out to be a kowtowing ghost.

Every time the kowtowing ghost kowtowed, everyone uncontrollably kowtowed back at the same time. This force came from nowhere, and no matter how Li Hu mobilized his true energy, it was useless.

After kowtowing twice more, Chi Yue fainted, and Yan Yang suffered from a head injury with blood flowing from his forehead, his face contorted in pain.

Li Hu struggled to control the sword at his waist, sending it flying as he prepared to fight to the death.

Upon seeing this, the evil spirit abruptly stopped smiling, its expression becoming extremely stiff. Just before the flying sword was about to strike it, it suddenly kowtowed again.

Boom!

At the same moment, Li Hu's flying sword touched the ground with its tip, bending over as if it were bowing to him.

Li Hu was completely bewildered. Could this thing be some kind of concept-level evil spirit that makes everything that moves have to kowtow to him?

While Huang Daxian was kowtowing, he also secretly tossed some black beans around.

He summoned many little people by scattering beans, but like Li Hu's sword, they all met the same fate of having to kowtow.

Li Hu was truly at his wit's end. His forehead was also cut, and it seemed that there were some cracks in his skull. If this continued, he was afraid that his entire head would be smashed to pieces.

If another evil spirit were to appear at this moment, the group would likely have no chance of fighting back.

"Li Hu, when are you going to make a move? Why aren't you making a move yet!" Li Hu shouted, but the sword energy in the east remained completely still, as if the sword immortal Li Hu could no longer see the evil Li Hu as the sky darkened.

"Brother Li, if this continues, we're doomed," Qi Yuehong said anxiously.

Li Hu knew that it was better to rely on himself than on others, so he racked his brains to tell a lie in order to at least get out of his current predicament.

But just as he was about to use lies to weave a sword aura for himself...

Suddenly, a cold light flashed before Li Hu's eyes, and in a flash, a golden sword pierced through the neck of the kowtowing ghost.

"Brother, what's wrong with you?"

Zong Shanyue drew his sword, spraying out a large amount of grayish-brown blood, and walked out from behind the terrified, kowtowing ghost, standing in front of Li Hu and asking a question.

With the kowtowing ghost gone, the group relaxed and went limp.

I never expected that I would escape death as soon as I stepped out of the courtyard gate.

Li Hu stood up, clasped his hands in thanks, and said, "Thank you, sir, for saving my life."

"I have offended the Queen Mother of the West, and now all the evil spirits in the world probably want my life."

Immediately afterwards, Li Hu recounted his encounter with the Five Ghosts to Zong Shanyue.

Zong Shanyue immediately frowned: "This is outrageous!"

"Since the Queen Mother of the West is the chief deity of the Jade Capital, she should be impartial and fair in her dealings. How can she be so petty and narrow-minded, even treating the matter of ascension as a joke?"

Li Hu didn't know what to say. There were too many things to deal with at once, and he needed to sort them out one by one.

When they encountered the kowtowing ghost, the sword aura should have appeared in the critical moment, but it was delayed. Li Hu suspected that the sword immortal might also have encountered some danger.

So he reached out and took out the three copper coins, then returned to the courtyard to perform divination.

"If my brother is watching from heaven, is what those evil spirits said true?" Li Hu asked.

Then they scattered copper coins and waited for them to fall to the ground with a clatter.

The results were very messy, with no pure flowers or pure characters appearing.

Li Hu had a bad feeling, so he asked again, "Can you still descend the sword energy as promised?"

He then threw the water several more times, but the results remained chaotic, as if he had completely severed ties with the sword immortal Li Hu.

Li Hu was somewhat skeptical and asked one last time, "Which direction should I go?"

The coin landed, and to Li Hu's utter disappointment, it still showed a jumbled mess of characters.

Li Hu guessed that either some force had severed the connection between him and the Sword Immortal, or the Sword Immortal Li Hu was also in trouble and was too preoccupied to take care of himself.

No matter what, this result isn't very good.

"Brother, don't be impatient. I'll do the divination."

Seeing Li Hu scratching his head in frustration, Zong Shanyue laughed and took out three ordinary coins from his pocket, tossing them up six times.

"Hiss—" Looking at his result, Zong Shanyue also gasped.

"The upper trigram is Qian (Heaven) and the lower trigram is Kun (Earth). Heaven and earth are closed off. This is the way of the wicked and is not conducive to the virtuous and upright."

"What do you mean?" Wong Tai Sin asked, leaning closer.

"This is the worst-case scenario among the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching," Zong Shanyue said, frowning.

"Do we still have a chance to survive?" Chi Yue asked, somewhat frightened.

"Of course, nothing is absolute. Even in the worst-case scenario, there is still a glimmer of hope." Zong Shanyue has now become the team's chief strategist, and his words affect everyone's morale.

"In that case, everyone needs to be on their toes."

"Don't panic, my dear brother. If you encounter any evil spirits, I'll be there to protect you!"

Zong Shanyue drew his gleaming golden sword and strode eastward. "Follow me. According to the divination, there may be a glimmer of hope in the east."

So Li Hu and the others followed behind Zong Shanyue, hurrying towards the east of the city.

It was still dark when many people in Qingyuan County realized this and came out of their homes, walking around the streets, looking around and whispering among themselves.

This strange celestial phenomenon has caused widespread panic.

Li Hu was very perceptive and could see the black aura on evil spirits that ordinary people couldn't see. He slowly noticed that a thick, dark color was gradually spreading across the sky around Qingyuan County.

Li Hu had never seen such dense black energy before.

That was because a large number of evil spirits were gathering from all directions around Qingyuan County. Li Hu didn't know how many there were, but he knew that if they were really surrounded, it would be a dead end.

It is said that evil spirits have some kind of resurrection mechanism, but Li Hu still doesn't know how to resurrect himself.

The group wandered through several city paths and alleyways.

Just as we were about to leave the bustling downtown area of ​​Qingyuan County, several bald monks suddenly emerged from the surrounding alleyways and blocked the road.

"Amitabha."

"You have destroyed our Ganyang Temple, blasphemed the Queen Mother of the West, and insulted the gods and Buddhas. We have been waiting here for a long time."

"I earnestly hope that you will turn back from your misfortune and ascend to paradise soon."

Those monks, dressed in robes and carrying staffs and knives, stood in twos and threes blocking the road, their eyes gloomy and showing no trace of what one would expect of a monk.

Li Hu vaguely remembered the faces of these people. They were the Bodhisattvas and Arhats from Ganyang Temple, many of whom were even seriously injured, a result of their last encounter.

Li Hu looked around and, not seeing the white-bearded abbot, sneered:

"Where is your abbot? If you want my life, you are not enough."

"The abbot is pedantic and cowardly, unwilling to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ascend to immortality. We have already sent him to see the Buddha." The leading monk, holding a blood-stained dagger, stepped out from the crowd.

"You keep going, I'll cover the rear." Huang Daxian realized something was wrong, so he turned and whispered to Li Hu.

Li Hu gave a deep "hmm," but still shook his head and said, "Their methods are unpredictable; you're probably no match for them."

"Then add me to the list," Qi Yuehong interjected.

"Their target is you. They will be too preoccupied with fighting us to fight back, as they are worried that other evil spirits will steal their credit."

"What the commander said makes sense. Tiger, you don't need to feel guilty," Yuan Sou comforted him.

Before the group could continue their conversation, the monks rushed forward, interrupting Yuan Sou.

"Not one of them will escape today! We monks will unleash a massacre!" Immediately, the monks chanted Buddhist mantras, and their entire bodies, including their clothes, turned golden, making them look like Arhats made of gold.

Golden symbols, resembling scriptures, kept floating from their mouths. Li Hu knew that if he were trapped by those things, he might really have no chance of escape.

Now we can't pin our hopes on the sword energy cutting us in half again.

Fortunately, this time the battle wasn't fought at Ganyang Temple, leaving Li Hu plenty of room to maneuver.

At full speed, Li Hu moved with incredible agility, leaving the scriptures unable to keep up with his pace and always three meters behind.

Gradually, Li Hu figured out the patterns of those scriptures. Without the abbot's command, these young monks' scriptures posed no trouble for Li Hu.

And so, the worry that had been hanging over me was finally put to rest.

Li Hu snorted coldly, created some distance, and then charged back into the group of monks, casually knocking down several Arhats as if they were nothing.

In the midst of the chaos, Li Hu suddenly remembered that Zong Shanyue seemed to be missing something, so he took out the bronze bell from his pocket and tossed it to him from a distance.

"I almost forgot about Master Zhou after our hasty parting last time," Li Hu laughed.

"Only when you hold this bell in your hand, sir, is that the sir I know and love!"