Chapter 140 - 132 Half-Man, Half-Ghost

Chapter 140: Chapter 132 Half-Man, Half-GhostThe front door of the Old Painting Pavilion was a rolling door, and the back door was a wooden door, the kind with a latch. There was a window by the door, but a piece of glass had already broken before the shop owner, Li Lingzhang, died, and the broken part remained. Zhou Xuan reached a hand in, sliding the sturdy door latch aside and opened the back door. As the latch was moved, there was a slight rubbing sound with the wooden groove, not loud, but the Taoist in green robes, who was soundly asleep in the painting, heard the noise and suddenly opened his eyes. "What was that sound?" A third of the scroll was unrolled, resembling a cobra rising from the side. The Taoist’s eyes darted around, and suddenly, he saw a shadow. By the moonlight, he saw clearly that it was the young guest who had been flipping through books in the bookstore all afternoon. *How could it be him?* "How could it be him?" Zhou Xuan had the same question. As soon as he entered, he saw a scroll like a cobra. The head of the image was the Taoist in green robes from the afternoon, making the scene unbelievably eerie. Lv Mingkun almost threw his Bamboo Leaf Blade at the painting. Zhou Xuan lit the kerosene lamp in the room, walked to the scroll, grabbed the scroll shaft, and unfurled it, asking the Taoist inside, "Boss, you’re quite something, hiding in a painting?" "Young man, don’t start touching things, or I’ll report you to the authorities for forced entry!" *Ha?* *The old man had a sense of the law?* "You’re squatting in Li Lingzhang’s shop and want to report me?" "Ah, you know Little Lingzhang?" "Come out, let’s have a good chat." Lv Mingkun gripped the Bamboo Leaf Blade. "I hope you’ll cooperate; otherwise..." Zhou Xuan moved the kerosene lamp closer to the scroll and said, "I’ll burn this painting." "Young man, this painting is my home. Burning down a home is a grave sin. You can’t walk further down the path of heavy sin... Just let go first." The Taoist in green robes asked Zhou Xuan to release his grip. "Why should I?" Zhou Xuan asked. Feeling very aggrieved, the Taoist said, "I already said this painting is my home. Your hand is pressing down on the entrance. I can’t open the door to come out!" "Then come out." Zhou Xuan placed the scroll on the table, thinking with him and Lv Mingkun watching, how could a painting possibly escape? Suddenly, the scroll floated to the wall, gently hung there, and the long scroll unfurled as the Taoist stepped out of the painting. The painting instantly became empty, leaving only faint ripples. "Gentlemen, I think there might be a bit of a misunderstanding between us." The Taoist gestured slightly with his hands. "What are you doing in Li Lingzhang’s shop?" Zhou Xuan wasn’t interested in pointless chatter with the Taoist and got straight to the point. "I need to correct you; this shop was opened by Li Lingzhang, but... I have a deep connection with the Li family." The Taoist pointed at the scroll and said, "I was inside the painting. This painting was bought by Little Lingzhang’s great-grandfather. Generations of his family were watched over by me as they grew up. Take Little Lingzhang, for example; when he was a child and got spanked for peeing on the bed like drawing a map, I was there watching. I almost couldn’t hold back my laughter." The Taoist had already begun to form a connection with Li Lingzhang, but Lv Mingkun was drawn by the two lines of text on the scroll. "Heavenly Master Mansion on Hidden Dragon Mountain, Dragon Seeking Grandmaster..." "Those were titles from my past, not worth mentioning... really not worth mentioning." "Is that your name?" Lv Mingkun asked the Taoist. "I have never changed my name. My surname is Yun, given name Ziliang, Daoist name—Ru Yun Mountain Man." When Yun Ziliang mentioned his name, he showed a bit of pride. "Are you speaking nonsense again?" Lv Mingkun pierced through Yun Ziliang’s lie and said, "Most Dragon Seeking Heavenly Masters come from Zhao Family’s Mountain Valley; what does Hidden Dragon Mountain have to do with it?" "Tch, Dragon Seeking Heavenly Masters from Zhao Family’s Mountain Valley hold a compass and perform acupoint searches everywhere, merely following the wisdom of predecessors. What’s the skill in that? Only our spiritual lineage of Hidden Dragon Mountain can be considered the genuine Dragon Seeking Heavenly Masters! But the world believed in the acupoint searching sect, and Hidden Dragon Mountain gradually faded away. Moreover, the people of Hidden Dragon Mountain were all indifferent and uninterested in fame or profit, so over time, the mountain’s name became obscure." Yun Ziliang became more enthusiastic as he chatted, pouring himself a cup of tea. He held the teapot, sucking in with "slurp" sounds, and the sound of water came from the teapot, truly like drinking, but the spout of the teapot was at least two feet away from his mouth. "Are you human or ghost?" Zhou Xuan finally spoke. From Yun Ziliang’s drinking actions, it seemed like this was the way "walking ghosts" drank. Ghosts have no physical bodies. When they eat or drink, it’s all about the "flavor." A dish placed on the table would hardly be touched while the ghost gorges itself, but once the ghost finishes, picking up food with chopsticks would result in food that’s devoid of flavor, as the taste has been entirely consumed by the ghost. But to say Yun Ziliang was a ghost, he could hold a physical object like a teapot. "Young man, you are insightful; your questions are sharp." Yun Ziliang said, "I am half human, half ghost. I have a body but lack a complete soul, flesh and blood yet lost the yang energy." "So your purpose in staying in this bookstore is?" "It’s not that I want to stay here, but there’s no way I can leave. This painting is hanging in the shop. I can’t stay too far from it and can only roam around its vicinity, precisely encompassing East Market Street." After finishing, Yun Ziliang sat on a chair and sighed, "Now that Little Lingzhang is dead, I’m all alone with no one to talk to. It’s lonely." "How do you know Li Lingzhang is dead?" Zhou Xuan asked. "I already told you I’m a Dragon Seeking Grandmaster. Though I don’t deal in divination and fortune-telling, I can still calculate the simplest of predictions." Zhou Xuan, wanting to verify Yun Ziliang’s words, directly interrogated, "What’s Li Lingzhang’s grandfather’s name?" "Li Yuhua." "Father’s name?" "Li Xiuyi." "What does Li Lingzhang love to eat?" "He likes many things, but he can’t afford them. So he drinks porridge in the morning, stews potatoes for lunch, and buys a couple of buns from the street for dinner almost every day." Yun Ziliang answered smoothly, all correct and matching Li Lingzhang’s memories. "Why didn’t you ever reveal your presence to Li Lingzhang?" Zhou Xuan asked again. "Can I just reveal it casually?" Yun Ziliang said, "The Li family doesn’t understand the Dao of yin-yang or worship God by walking in the shadows. If they found out their painting housed a person, what if they got excited and burned it?" *Well,* *it turned out that Yun Ziliang truly was a "half-human half-ghost" squatting in the painting. It still had no relation to the tattoo experience.* "You two are not ordinary people. I could see that when you entered the shop. One is a Blood Well Spirit Communicator, and the other deals with corpses daily, either a corpse speaker or a corpse chaser. You two came to the bookstore for a specific purpose, and if I’m not mistaken, you haven’t found what you’re looking for yet." Yun Ziliang’s words were soft but full of power. "You misjudged. I’m not a Blood Well Spirit Communicator." Zhou Xuan’s eyes squinted into a line, denying with his mouth but acknowledging the Taoist’s capabilities in his heart. "Whether I was mistaken, you know in your heart." Yun Ziliang gently caressed his beard and said methodically, "Walking in the shadows and worshipping God depends on incense and constitution. After day and night practice, the body undergoes certain changes. For example, Blood Well Spirit Communicators control light and dark consciousness, and their perception is strong. Yet, the two consciousnesses are so powerful that the center of the brow becomes broader than an average person’s, while for our brother here, spending day and night with corpses, inevitably inhaling cadaverous energy, causes a sinister bone to grow behind the neck. This bone doesn’t greatly affect your life but influences your posture, always making you bow a bit, giving off a feeling of humility." Lv Mingkun was impressed by Yun Ziliang’s abundance of knowledge and keen observation. He inquired, "Old Mountain Man, those things you mentioned, are they knowledge from the Mysterious Sect’s ’Mokugyoku’ branch?" "Mokugyoku, like acupoint searching for dragons, consists mainly of those with unrefined skills. Many principles are clear at a glance. They massage here and there with their hands, like scrubbing in a bathhouse, disgusting. I look down on them!" "..." Zhou Xuan, Lv Mingkun. Zhou Xuan could see that Yun Ziliang was truly arrogant, but he genuinely had skills. "Lao Yun, do you understand about Blood Well?" Zhou Xuan, being naturally sociable, felt a connection with Yun Ziliang and even changed the way he addressed him. "Of course I do, though others once understood it better." "How long ago?" "More than sixty years ago on the night of the Laba Festival," Yun Ziliang replied. Zhou Xuan had previously heard from Yuan Buyu about how, sixty-four years ago on the Laba Night, Blood Well appeared in the dreams of many ghosts and divine people, causing many across the nation to die in that dream. "Had I not hidden in the painting, I likely would have been devoured by Blood Well." Yun Ziliang sighed, "In that great dream, those who understood the Blood Well were almost wiped out. All ancient texts about the Blood Well self-immolated that day, and those who remained knew nothing about it. They had to begin researching Blood Well anew." "In fact, Blood Well didn’t first appear sixty-four years ago. It’s ancient, at least older than the subsequent gods and alien ghosts..." Zhou Xuan and Lv Mingkun were both incredibly shocked to hear that the history of Blood Well was so ancient?! "Do you have any evidence that the Blood Well is older than the gods and alien ghosts?" "No evidence. I also read this in ancient texts, but they burned away, leaving no proof to corroborate, Based on the scattered fragments I remembered, the Blood Well contains a chaotic realm, and its intent is consumption. Of those swallowed, besides the so-called ghosts and divine people... in reality, it also devoured many unknowns, including gods, alien ghosts, and other unknowables walking the earth. Because it consumed countless prized items, Blood Well had extravagant treasures within it in motion, Several hundred years ago, there was a class of people skilled in the art of fishing, opening the Blood Well, using living people as bait to fish within for those treasures..." "Those were many years ago, just casual talk. By the way, what do you seek in this bookstore?" Yun Ziliang asked Zhou Xuan. Zhou Xuan didn’t disclose. He was shocked by Yun Ziliang’s speech, and amidst his astonishment, he even suspected Yun Ziliang might be another alien ghost similar to a "human turtle." "You suspect me?" Yun Ziliang continued, "Understandable, my statements are quite mysterious. The current people lack substantial knowledge of the Jing Country’s former history and suffer from significant deficiency and distortion, so disbelief is understandable." "You claim the history is distorted and deficient? For example?" Zhou Xuan asked again. "Well, for instance—the Ancient Buddha’s head was stolen by a monster with a goat’s head and a human body. This widely accepted narrative is fabricated; from birth to disappearance, the Ancient Buddha never had a head." Zhou Xuan, Lv Mingkun: "..." ps: The second update is also here. Thanks for your support, brothers. Love you all. Mwah.