Why is my anime art style so weird?

Ring ring!

A faint bell sound came from somewhere.

The sound was crisp and melodious, like a jade bead rolling into a porcelain plate.

Two people were carrying the corpse across the threshold. Zhao, the servant, was heavier on his side, so he turned his back to the mortuary and moved inside first.

"what!"

Li, the servant, suddenly cried out in surprise, threw away the corpse in his hand again, and stared intently at what was behind Zhao, the servant.

"You he……"

Zhao, the servant, was about to unleash a torrent of curses.

His cursing seemed to wake Li the servant, and fear instantly filled Li's face.

"It's come back to life!!"

Li, the servant, let out a pig-like scream and turned to run away.

Zhao, the servant, was puzzled and turned to look.

Inside the mortuary, the corpses slowly sat up, and the white cloths and straw mats covering them fell away, revealing headless corpses with their heads chopped off.

Zhao, the servant, instantly felt a chill run through his body.

Soon something even more terrifying happened.

The headless corpse he was holding began to writhe, as if trying to break free of his grasp.

"what!!"

Zhao, the servant, yelled and flipped the corpse to the ground, then ran wildly after Li, the servant.

The bell for summoning the spirit rang again.

The headless corpses marched out of the mortuary in neat rows, like an army, and quickly disappeared into the night...

Chapter 724 A Reclusive Master

Rumors about the headless corpse in the mortuary outside the city coming back to life quickly spread.

However, it remains just a rumor.

Firstly, most of the bodies stored in the mortuary belonged to outsiders whose identities could not be verified, so city dwellers didn't care much about them.

Secondly, the mortuary was located outside the city, and almost no one went to such an eerie place.

Therefore, the rumors quickly died down.

However, this rumor caught Xu Ming's attention.

Now, an eerie atmosphere permeated Picheng, so recently, he would sneak out to the vicinity of the White Gate Tower every few nights to investigate.

He witnessed firsthand that the talismans pasted on the door were becoming less and less effective, and the seal on the White Gate Tower would soon be lifted.

At such a sensitive time, any slight abnormality could be a clue.

After Xu Ming made many inquiries, he quickly found one of the servants, surnamed Li, who was said to have witnessed the corpses rising from the dead in the mortuary.

Li Zayi's family lived in a small alley. Their house was simply made of yellow earth with a thatched roof and a small courtyard.

Xu Ming looked around for a while and found that the families in the neighborhood didn't seem to be very well-off.

Xu Ming felt even more confident that he could extract information from the information.

Just as Xu Ming was about to push open the door and enter, a yamen runner dressed in official robes with a knife at his waist casually pushed open the gate and walked into Li's house.

"Li Yan, are you home?"

He walked along, shouting loudly.

"Ahem! So it's Lord Zhang. I'm ill and unable to come out to greet you. Please forgive me."

A coughing sound immediately came from inside the room.

The constable Zhang immediately stopped in his tracks, a clear look of disgust on his face.

"No need! I'm here on the orders of the head constable to inform you that, from now on, you and that scoundrel Zhao Yang are no longer required to work at the yamen."

Xu Ming's face showed a hint of surprise. What this person meant was that Li the servant had been fired by his superior.

"What?! How could this be! Cough cough!"

Upon agitation, Li the servant immediately began to cough violently.

The constable Zhang immediately covered his mouth and nose, took a large step back, and coldly said to the people inside the room:

"Hmph! You two weren't originally from the yamen. It was only because the head constable took pity on you that he gave you a chance to eat."

But you two are ungrateful and have not only abandoned your posts without cause, resulting in the theft of the corpse from the mortuary, but you have also falsely claimed that the corpse has been resurrected in an attempt to deceive your superiors.

The constable spared your case because you two had done some good. What more do you want now?

In his haste, Li, the servant in the room, disregarded his illness and began to explain while coughing.

"Zhao Yang and I witnessed it with our own eyes; the corpse in the mortuary suddenly sat up! Moreover, when we returned last night, we were possessed by evil spirits and immediately fell seriously ill. Why doesn't the constable show us any compassion?!"

But Zhang, the bailiff, wouldn't listen to his explanation at all.

"You'll have to explain this to the head constable yourself!"

After bluntly uttering those words, Zhang the constable turned and strode away, leaving Li the servant inside the room shouting that he was wronged.

Xu Ming took in everything, a thoughtful expression on his face.

They actually fired the person involved; there seems to be a lot of shady dealings involved.

Is the county government afraid of getting into trouble?

After all, throughout history, government offices have always been known for doing as little as possible to avoid mistakes, and for doing nothing to avoid making any mistakes.

Or perhaps there's more to the story... or someone is trying to hide something.

In any case, he made the right decision to come this time.

When Xu Ming entered the courtyard, he heard Li, the servant, sighing deeply inside the room.

Xu Ming walked directly into the room and saw a young man lying on the bed with a sickly appearance.

He was terrified when he saw a stranger break into his home.

"Who are you?"

Xu Ming did not answer immediately, but instead activated his spiritual vision to observe carefully.

Under the vision of the spirit, the black mist swirling around Li Zayi was immediately revealed.

These negative energies coiled around him like venomous snakes, constantly eroding his life.

Leaving him unattended will not kill him, but it will severely damage his vitality, which will manifest as a serious illness and make him weak and sickly.

Having seen this, Xu Ming already had a clear idea of ​​what was going on.

"I am a wandering Taoist priest. I have come here by chance and heard that there are many evil spirits in the mortuary outside the city, so I have come to find out more."

"you?"

Li, the servant, looked Xu Ming up and down, a look of suspicion on his face.

It's no wonder he was suspicious; Xu Ming looked far too young, and his strange attire completely lacked the otherworldly, ethereal air he had imagined a reclusive master to possess.

Instead, they resemble those fake Taoist priests on the overpass who hold up 'the immortal guides the way' flags but talk nonsense.

Xu Ming could see the suspicion in his eyes, but since Xu Ming had said that, he naturally had a way to dispel his doubts.

"Judging from your dark clouds and blackened forehead, you must have offended some evil spirits, which has caused this serious illness to develop."

I'll lend you a hand first.

As he spoke, Xu Ming took out his phone and, under Li Zayi's strange gaze, pretended to wave it around, muttering a few incantations that he himself didn't understand. Then he pointed the camera at Li Zayi and shouted.

"Shoot!"

Click!

With a soft sound, a purple-gold exorcising light immediately burst forth.

The negative energy emanating from Li Zayi was instantly purified.

He immediately felt a wave of relief wash over him, and the gloom and weakness he felt vanished instantly, restoring his vitality.

Li, the servant, suddenly jumped off the bed and immediately bowed down in reverence.

"Thank you so much, my benefactor!!"

As he spoke, he bowed deeply.

Xu Ming raised his hand in a gesture.

"Slaying demons and saving lives is the duty of us wandering cultivators."

The same words can have drastically different effects depending on the context.

Now, in Li's eyes, Xu Ming's image immediately became unfathomable.

That modern attire became a symbol of a reclusive master in his eyes.

In short, when Li Zayi looked at Xu Ming again, he immediately added several layers of filters to his own image.

This guy even insisted on becoming Xu Ming's apprentice.

Xu Ming tried to persuade him, but he kept telling him that he was not destined to cultivate Taoism and that he had already lost his virginity, so there was no possibility of him succeeding in Taoism again.

It took a lot of effort to dissuade Li from becoming an apprentice.

Once Li, the servant, had calmed down, Xu Ming seized the opportunity to speak again.

"Officer Li, could you please tell me about the mortuary outside the city?"

"Of course, of course! I will certainly answer all your questions to the best of my ability!"

Perhaps still clinging to a sliver of hope, or perhaps wanting to get something from Xu Ming, Li the servant was exceptionally attentive, recounting everything that had happened the previous night in great detail, as if pouring beans from a bamboo tube.

"A caravan from outside Xiapi... a headless corpse... a strange bell sound..."

Xu Ming's eyebrows furrowed involuntarily.