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

"Let me see how you die."

Li Bai laughed heartily, as if he didn't care at all.

This Shadow Cultivator is a rare unorthodox cultivator who uses all sorts of underhanded tricks. It's unclear how to counter him, and it's also unclear why Li Bai dares to be so arrogant.

Li Hu noticed something was wrong with his body, so he stretched out his hands and examined them carefully.

Suddenly, Li Hu noticed that his hands had become somewhat transparent, as if they were truly without substance, and had become translucent.

So Li Hu raised his hand and looked at the torchlight passing through his hand, reflecting mottled light prisms inside, crystal clear, with a somewhat bewitching beauty.

Li Hu was greatly alarmed. At this moment, Liang Er clasped his hands and said:

"My lord, there is no need to panic."

"This Shadow Cultivator's killing technique is colorless and formless, painless and itchless. When the time comes, you will disappear from this world, and you will not suffer any pain during this period."

Liang Er looked extremely confident, as if Li Hu's head was already in his grasp.

Having just witnessed this man easily defeat Duanmu Hai, Liang Er assumed that the man before him would at least put up some resistance. However, he simply stood there examining his own hands, and for a long time, he did not make any move to kill before his death.

This puzzled Liang Er.

"What are you doing?" Li Hei asked, somewhat puzzled, as he poked Li Bai.

"Shh, I'm thinking." Li Bai held up a finger to his lips, watching his body slowly disappear, seemingly lost in thought.

Zong Shanyue also noticed the commotion and immediately drew his sword. He was a hot-tempered person, but he usually focused on cultivation.

At this moment, his reddish-brown beard bristled with anger, and he shouted:

"You little thief, what tricks did you use on my sworn brother?!"

Zong Shanyue swung his sword and, before Liang Er could make a move, slashed at him, intending to cripple one of his legs.

With a whoosh, the longsword sliced ​​through the air and plunged into Liang Er's left thigh.

However, Zong Shanyue did not feel any resistance in his hand, as if his leg was not there at all.

"Liang knew long ago that there were many experts here."

Liang Er's voice suddenly came from behind Zong Shanyue, and Liang Er, who was standing in place, suddenly turned into a black shadow and disappeared. Zong Shanyue looked around and his scalp tingled.

"If I didn't have some means of self-protection, even if I had a hundred lives, I wouldn't dare to come here and bother you."

At this moment, there were still many civilians in the area where the fighting was taking place. Some of them sensed the danger and took cover, but most were oblivious and did not know what was happening.

What Zong Shanyue feared most was that Liang Er would use this dangerous method to capture one or two people to blackmail him.

I really don't know what to do.

Zong Shanyue listed all the methods he could use, only regretting that he hadn't brought more magical treasures with him before leaving the Ghost Slaying Division, otherwise he wouldn't have felt so powerless these past few days.

"Hey, I can't handle this kind of tactic," Li Hei muttered, nudging Li Bai with his elbow.

"If you don't think of something soon, we'll both disappear from this world."

Li Bai pursed his lips and muttered, "Okay."

After saying that, Li Bai vanished from the ground in an instant and suddenly appeared behind Liang Er.

"Your body may be fake, but your shadow must be real, right?" Li Bai suddenly said this out of the blue, and then, with lightning speed, he made tiger claws with both hands and suddenly plunged them into the head of Liang Er's shadow on the ground.

"Come on, be good."

Li Bai revealed a wicked smile, and with a sudden tug, the shadow of Liang Er on the ground was pulled up by him like a black film.

The shadow seemed to be pulling with some difficulty. Li Bai made large movements and made exaggerated comical expressions on his face. The shadow was being peeled off the ground little by little.

"You!" Liang Er panicked and hurriedly backed away upon seeing this.

But Li Bai didn't loosen his grip at all. His shadow was still attached to Liang Er's feet. With a sudden tug, he pulled Liang Er down to the ground.

Seeing this, Li Bai smiled, jumped onto Liang Er's back and stomped on it a few times, then began to pull at Liang Er's shadow with both hands and feet.

Judging from their posture, they were determined to tear Liang Er's shadow off completely.

Li Bai gritted his teeth. The shadow on the ground was like a sticky glue, stretched and deformed, gradually seemingly reaching its limit.

hiss-

Liang Er let out a bloodcurdling scream, as if his own limbs were being torn apart, but Li Bai had a dark, indistinct thing in his hand, which he held in his palm.

Upon closer inspection, the shadow in his hand was pitch black, devoid of any light, as if everything shining upon it had been absorbed, leaving only this extremely dark color.

Li Bai kneaded the shadow in his hand like dough, exclaiming, "Fun! Fun!"

Then he quickly somersaulted to Li Hu's side, slapped the shadow on the ground, and then shoved it hard at Li Hu's foot.

Li Hu suddenly became solid, and the extremely dark shadow slowly faded, becoming exactly the same as the original dappled shadow on the ground.

"Who, who are you? How could you..." At this moment, Liang Er gradually became transparent, his whole being filled with extreme terror.

"I'm too lazy to waste my breath on you." Li Bai rolled his eyes at him, tucked his hands into his sleeves, and turned his head away, seemingly having no extra feelings for this person who was about to disappear.

Liang Er crawled on the ground in terror. He knelt down in front of Li Hu, grabbing Li Hu's feet, as if trying to emulate Li Bai by tearing his shadow off to save his life.

Unfortunately, he tried to grab at the ground, but all he could find were dirt and handfuls of frozen, withered grass.

Seeing that this was not working, Liang Er's face showed bitterness, and his voice was tinged with sobs:

"My lord, spare me! I was bewitched, I was blinded by greed, I was a clown..."

Li Hu moved his foot away, took two steps back, and said in a deep voice, "If you had come two days earlier, I might have really fallen into your trap."

"It's a pity you weren't lucky; you had to wait until Li Bai emerged from the pass. Just accept the outcome."

Li Hu waved his hand and went back into the tent, leaving Liang Er, who had become semi-transparent, outside, too lazy to bother with him.

Liang Er looked around and saw that everyone who saw him had a look of disgust on their faces. He felt unwilling, but he resigned himself to his fate and lowered his head.

He knelt on the ground, his figure resembling a drop of ink in the ocean, slowly fading until it disappeared completely.

It wasn't until much later, when the people around touched him, that they dared to confirm that Liang Er had completely become transparent and disappeared, and that he was probably no longer alive.

Afterwards, everyone marveled at the event, and Li Hu was also quite surprised.

From this perspective, Li Hei was a martial artist, and Li Bai was a mere acrobat. With the two of them by his side, they could get all the work done, so they could be considered both scholars and warriors.

Nothing happened that night.

However, the frequent raids on Qingyuan County, and even attempts to take his life, were a real headache for Li Hu.

In a sense, Daheitian was also caused by Li Hu, so naturally Li Hu had to accept those who came begging for food.

However, among these people are often those who want to take his life, and Li Hu cannot even distinguish them well until the very last moment.

The Queen Mother of the West has truly presented Li Hu with a difficult problem.

Outside of Qingyuan County, people are probably freezing and starving to death every moment. Whenever Li Hu thinks of this, he gets a good scolding from Li Bai.

This is precisely a manifestation of his inner struggle.

But Li Hu was also helpless. He wasn't the kind of person with a strong sense of moral purity, but if even half of this calamity were attributed to him, it would be enough to keep him up at night.

On this day, Li Hu was sitting upright in his tent, reading the Spring and Autumn Annals.

In his extreme frustration, Li Hu caught a glimpse of his own shadow moving out of the corner of his eye.

I was sitting in a chair, leaning over the desk, in a relatively small posture.

But he found that his shadow stood up, connected only to his two feet. The shadow was flailing its arms and legs on the ground, struggling as if trying to pull its feet off Li Hu's feet.

The shadow seemed to have its own independent consciousness.

Li Hu instantly realized something was wrong, frowned, and stared intently at the shadow.

Splat!

Li Hu seemed to hear a tearing sound; the shadow had actually pulled out a foot using only its own strength!

The shadow seemed not to belong to me. I don't know if that's the reason. Anyway, it seemed disobedient. Suddenly, it pulled out its second leg and made a running motion on the ground. It then suddenly darted out of the tent!

broken!

Caught completely off guard, before Li Hu could even react, his figure turned semi-transparent again.

If this shadow isn't caught, it'll probably end up like Liang Er before.

Li Bai suddenly poked his head out from behind Li Hu, revealing a ferocious expression of annoyance and anger. He then leaped up and chased after him.

Li Hu followed behind, watching Li Bai's actions from a distance. In the entire Qingyuan County, probably only Li Bai had the ability to capture shadows.

The shadow darted across the ground, seemingly able to easily grow larger or smaller. The entire ground and the surrounding tents, supplies, weeds, and other objects were two-dimensional spaces to him, and he played hide-and-seek with Li Bai within this space.

Sometimes, Li Bai would see the dark outline of that shadow outside the tent, but when he reached out to grab it, he would find that the shadow was actually on the other side.

By the time Li Bai tore open the tent, the shadow had already vanished.

The good news was that the commotion alerted everyone in the camp, and they all stopped what they were doing to help Li Hu search for the dark figure.

In an instant, the entire camp was filled with shouts and noises. Those who saw the shadowy figure immediately started banging and making noise to guide Li Bai to the scene.

However, that shadow was too cunning; it could change size.

When it shrinks, it can condense into a small black shadow about the size of a palm, hidden in some corner, requiring a lot of searching to find.

The good news is that if the shadow wants to move, it must transform back into human form to escape, which makes the process of capturing the shadow full of deception and trickery.

Often, when Li Bai was searching for the shadow that had just disappeared, the shadow would suddenly transform into a human figure behind him and slip away in his blind spot.

The shadow seemed to have no particular goal; it simply didn't want to stay under Li Hu's feet. It also seemed to have no sense of direction when it ran away, as if it was unfamiliar with the terrain of the camp and didn't know where to break through.

After a chaotic chase, Li Bai finally pounced like a hungry tiger, grabbing the shadow that had shrunk before it could grow back to its original size.

At this moment, Li Bai suddenly exerted force with both hands, pulled it up from the ground, and then pounced on Li Hu's feet, kneading it like putty onto the soles of Li Hu's feet.

Finally, just before Li Hu was about to disappear, he managed to put it back on.

At this moment, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, speculating that the county magistrate might be possessed by some evil spirit. The people of Qingyuan County then offered various suggestions, proposing folk remedies used to appease the spirit.

For example, using children's urine mixed with incense ash, holding an egg by the bedside to call back the soul, or placing three chopsticks upright in a bowl at the doorway, etc.

Li Hu rejected all these unreliable methods, after all, he was an evil spirit himself, and these folk exorcism methods were pure superstition to him.

Li Hu himself knew whether the exorcism was effective or not.

After driving away a group of people who offered suggestions with a smile, Li Hu still went to Zong Shanyue.

"Does the magistrate have any ideas? If this shadow escapes again in the future, we can't guarantee that we can catch it every time," Li Hu asked anxiously.

"Um..." Zong Shanyue stammered, tapping his head as if he had a headache.

"There's nothing we can do," Zong Shanyue sighed.

However, he still offered a suggestion, pondering for a moment, "Brother, if you are willing, you can come with me to the capital. My Ghost Suppression Division should have the means to solve this."

"However, the journey to the capital is long, and if this shadow escapes along the way, we cannot guarantee that we can catch it every time."

Li Hu nodded, then shook his head: "Then let's forget about it."

"I'll stay here in Qingyuan and see if the shadowy figure changes anything in the next few days."

"He's been on me for two days now. If I could have escaped earlier, I wouldn't have had to wait until today. I think there might be a pattern to this."

"Let's wait a little longer. If I unfortunately die, the day should be dawning by then. That wouldn't be such a bad thing," Li Hu murmured.

"My dear brother..."

Zong Shanyue opened his mouth slightly, as if he wanted to say something more, but in the end all his worries turned into a sigh. He really didn't know how to comfort him.

Li Hu returned to his tent and sat upright for several more days, continuing to read the Spring and Autumn Annals.

Sure enough, there was a pattern to the shadow's escape.

Almost every three hours, they would try it on Li Hu's feet, without fail.

Fortunately, Li Hu and Li Bai had been on guard recently, so capturing it wasn't too difficult. However, the shadow seemed to have a memory, learning from each time it was captured and remembering where there were convenient hiding places, making it increasingly cunning.

This forced Li Hu to tidy up the things around him and make the tent more organized. Back and forth, he managed to prevent the shadow from really getting away.