Chapter 81 - 78: Solid Meat

Words : 1440 Updated : Sep 17th, 2025

Chapter 81: Chapter 78: Solid Meat"The boiler room?" Zhou Lingyi inquired. "Mm." Zhou Xuan recalled the feeling at that time, "The Zhou Family’s Troupe courtyard was filled with wandering souls. I often heard ghostly cries, yet the boiler room was particularly quiet, devoid of any strange noises. When I passed by in the afternoon, I wondered if the fire was too strong there, scaring off the wandering souls." "I shook the Cow Bell there just now, couldn’t make anything of it... As for the fire being too strong for the ghostly presences to dare approach, there is that possibility. I’ll go check it out again." Zhou Xuan had a strong sense of perception. When he pointed out something amiss, Zhou Lingyi dared not be careless. "Shall we go take a look together?" Zhou Xuan suggested, and after a moment’s thought, Zhou Lingyi agreed. ... The Bright Moon shed light, a cold wind stirred, and the Zhou Family’s Troupe was chilly at night. Zhou Xuan pulled up his collar, moving closer to the fire. Zhou Lingyi stood in the boiler room, holding the Cow Bell. The clapper trembled gently yet never touched the bell wall to produce a crisp sound. "There’s something ghostly in the boiler room." Zhou Lingyi pointed to the Cow Bell and explained that this bell was a Magic Artifact. When the bell stopped but the clapper moved on its own, it indicated the presence of a ghostly presence nearby. The more malevolent the ghostly aura, the more the clapper would shake. At that moment, the clapper’s light movement indicated a presence nearby, but it was relatively mild, similar to other areas in the inner and outer courtyards. "Is there?" Zhou Xuan spread his perception, closing his eyes to feel. "Oooohh." He truly heard ghostly cries and said doubtfully, "In the afternoon, it wasn’t there. Did I mishear?" "You shouldn’t have misheard." Zhou Lingyi had great confidence in her brother’s Blood Well Spirit. Zhou Xuan looked around but didn’t see Lao Ma, so he walked behind the boiler room to Lao Ma’s dormitory and saw Yuan Buyu drinking rice wine. Yuan Buyu sat in a rocking chair, with two pieces of floral blue cloth spread out on the table to his left. Golden-yellow tobacco threads were piled on top of the two blue cloths like small hills. "Lao Yuan, what are you doing here?" Zhou Xuan asked Yuan Buyu. "Drinking and gambling on tobacco," Yuan Buyu’s pile of tobacco was noticeably higher, and he chuckled, saying, "Lao Ma’s luck is terrible today. Keeps losing..." He changed his expression to a smug one, touching the tobacco, "Ah, won so much tobacco, when will I ever finish smoking it all?" "Cut it out, where’s Lao Ma?" "In the room next door, his ancestral tablet got knocked over by a rat, and he’s fixing it right now." Yuan Buyu downed another cup of wine. In the Zhou Family’s Troupe, many masters liked to set up wooden shrines in the dormitory corners to worship gods, ancestors, or Buddha. Lao Ma had cleared out the storeroom next to his dorm and turned it into his shrine room, offering an ancestral tablet. "Thud! Thud!" Zhou Xuan heard the muffled sound of hammering and followed it to find Lao Ma hammering nails into the tablet with a wooden mallet. The tablet, like the walnut he’d been playing with, had many patches nailed into it. Hearing someone approaching, Lao Ma glanced up and, seeing Zhou Xuan, continued hammering without lowering his head. "Damn it, Zhou Family’s Troupe has good food; even the rats are fat as cats, knocking my ancestral tablet over several times, look how they broke it." Zhou Xuan ignored Lao Ma’s complaint. He didn’t retract his perception but carefully sensed for a while, then stepped outside, gesturing to his sister. Zhou Lingyi walked over, and Zhou Xuan whispered in her ear, "Sis, I figured it out; wherever Lao Ma is, there’s no ghostly presence." In the afternoon, Lao Ma was beside the boiler, which was why Zhou Xuan felt the boiler room was ’quiet.’ "Mm." Zhou Lingyi twirled her finger, releasing a red thread that crawled onto Lao Ma. Instantly, a strong corpse stench traveled along the red thread. "The smell of a corpse?" Zhou Lingyi frowned. Zhou Xuan took out his gavel, intending to act against Lao Ma but was stopped by Zhou Lingyi. "Seems like an eater of solid meat." Before she finished speaking, Zhou Lingyi floated to Lao Ma’s side, spread her forefinger and thumb, and pinched Lao Ma’s cheek. Lao Ma was forced to open his mouth wide, and the kerosene lamp illuminated the two sharp fangs in his molars. "His molars are jagged, indeed an eater of solid meat." Zhou Lingyi activated the red thread, letting its tip burrow into Lao Ma’s flesh. Whether Lao Ma was a normal person, a ghostly presence, a spirit monster, or of any Dao Level would be revealed under the red thread’s investigation. But quickly, Zhou Lingyi shook her head. In her view, Lao Ma was just an ordinary eater of ’solid meat,’ with no hint of Dao Level. Lao Ma, drilled by the red thread, felt extreme pain, and his cries were indescribable. Had Zhou Lingyi not been holding his mouth, his cries of pain could have woken all the apprentices in the outer courtyard dormitory. Yuan Buyu heard the commotion, came out, and seeing Lao Ma suffering, asked, "What’s going on?" "Nothing, just checking to make sure Lao Ma is okay," Zhou Lingyi released Lao Ma. "Pain, pain, pain." Lao Ma sweated profusely from his forehead, his lips twitching. Yuan Buyu, friendly with Lao Ma, supported him and asked, "Is there some misunderstanding between you?" "No... no misunderstanding." Lao Ma weakly said to Zhou Lingyi, "I used to watch graves for people, was scared at night, ate solid meat... but now, I’ve just about quit." "What? You motherfucker, you’ve eaten solid meat?" Hearing this, Yuan Buyu reacted as if his tail had been stepped on, reversing his earlier concern, tossed Lao Ma aside, packed the tobacco, and returned to his room, cursing while stomping, "Damn it, unlucky, got to wash up! Unlucky!" "Sorry, Master Ma..." Zhou Lingyi lifted the Cow Bell and headed toward the inner courtyard. "Sis, what’s solid meat?" Zhou Xuan asked. "A slang from grave-robbing circles, it means corpse meat," Zhou Lingyi said. "Grave watchers, those who guard tombs, inevitably deal with ghostly presences, but most are ordinary people with no means to fend off the ghostly. Some, truly afraid of being haunted, eat solid meat, so that eventually the corpse smell on them becomes strong, and their human scent fades. Ghostly presences then mistake them for peers and leave them alone. If they eat too much solid meat, they can develop a heavy corpse aura, and ordinary ghosts will dare not approach them." Zhou Xuan nodded. So that was why the boiler room was so quiet. Thinking back to Lao Ma’s bone trinkets and rings, don’t tell me they’re all... "Unlucky, damn it." Zhou Xuan, like Lao Yuan, stomped and complained! Once the siblings walked away, Lao Ma struggled to stand up. The pain lingered as he reset the ancestral tablet, stumbled to the rocking chair by the boiler, covered himself with a tattered blanket, and fell into a deep sleep. Meanwhile, on the boiler room’s red brick wall, a shadow crept up. She had received Zhou Lingyi’s instruction to keep a secret watch on Lao Ma. ... "Sis, if your method can find out Lao Ma is just an unlucky ordinary person, couldn’t you use it to check everyone in the troupe and find the ghost?" Before returning to his room, Zhou Xuan suggested to Zhou Lingyi. "My red thread causes immense pain to people. If I did this to everyone, the Zhou Family’s Troupe would become a human hell! Moreover, checking a few more people would make it impossible to hide the commotion. If there’s indeed a ghost, it would take advantage of the chaos to escape, ending with nothing to show for our efforts." Zhou Lingyi gently pushed Zhou Xuan, saying, "Go back and sleep, it’s been a long night." "Mhm." Zhou Xuan entered the room. Zhou Lingyi returned indoors and took out the Iron Lock Tattoo Box. This was the real task for tonight. "Her brother’s heart incense had already burned six inches. The Ten Fingers’ final sacrifice tonight might help him burn another inch or two, bringing him closer to lighting the second incense. By the second incense, the pain from the Blood Well’s side effects should be relieved..."

Chapter 81 - 78: Solid Meat

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