Chapter 47: Huang Ying's True Strength

After I applied these items to his forehead, his complexion improved somewhat.

"Thank you!" Stone said.

"Don't mention it!" Seeing that his color had returned a bit, I shifted my attention back to Qingguan Pond. No one should have been harvesting souls just now, so why had his soul been draining away? It seemed I would need to question him thoroughly about this later, or perhaps investigate it myself.

Standing beside the edge of Qingguan Pond, both Stone and I felt a sense of unease. Only Huang Ying remained as calm as usual.

The water was a dark, murky green, making it completely impossible to see what lay beneath the surface.

"Stone, can you see anything?"

Stone closed his eyes, then snapped them open. After a dozen seconds, he said, "There is a grave inside!"

"A grave?"

"Yes!"

"Huang Ying, do you sense anything?" Since Huang Ying was a ghost, she should be able to sense the presence of other spirits.

"This place is very strange. There is a ghost here, one stronger than I am!" Huang Ying said.

At this, I could no longer remain calm. Stronger than she was? If that were true, wouldn't I simply be walking to my own doom?

"Are you sure you aren't sensing it wrong?" I felt somewhat doubtful. Old Man Wu had only passed away a few years ago; how could his strength possibly surpass Huang Ying's? To exceed Huang Ying's power, a spirit would have to be at least a century old!

Huang Ying glanced at the water's surface and said, "No."

"There is someone in the water!" Just as panic was beginning to stir in my heart, Stone suddenly shouted loudly.

Even the surrounding villagers standing nearby heard him, and immediately began to murmur among themselves.

"Why on earth did they bring Stone here? He's just talking nonsense again!"

Hearing Stone's cry, I instantly turned around and yelled to the villagers, "All of you, leave quickly! It's dangerous here!"

If a century-old ghost emerged, only Huang Ying would be able to go toe-to-toe with it for a few rounds. Everyone else, including myself, was nothing more than an ant.

Yet, after I shouted, the villagers made no move to leave. They simply stood there watching us, the only change being that their chatter grew even more animated, as they naively believed that maintaining a certain distance guaranteed their safety.

There was nothing else I could do. If whatever resided within Qingguan Pond came up to harvest souls, no one here could stop it, and in doing so, it would only grow stronger.

I walked over to Huang Ying and said, "Take a tiny bit of their soul essence to force them to leave!"

Huang Ying understood and nodded. She stepped in front of me and closed her eyes.

Seeing Huang Ying move to the front, Stone kept his gaze fixed on her back.

The crowd gathered outside continued to gossip; they had come purely to watch the spectacle, entirely indifferent to the danger.

Huang Ying stood at the front, a gentle breeze stirring the hem of her dress with boundless grace. Yet, in the next second, an invisible aura of supreme dominance merged seamlessly with that gentleness.

At that exact moment, a wisp of white smoke drifted upward from the head of every single villager.

At last, they fell silent. Clutching their heads with both hands, they slumped down and squatted onto the ground.

I had experienced this process myself; the most agonizing part was not the aftermath of soul-extraction, but the extraction itself. To put it into perspective, it felt like having a gaping wound torn open on your hand, and then rubbing coarse sandpaper over both the raw, exposed flesh and the healing tissue afterward!

The process lasted only a few seconds before Huang Ying stopped. Instead of absorbing the extracted soul fragments for her own use, she simply allowed them to dissipate into the air.

Not a single person here realized that Huang Ying was the one taking their souls; they blamed the entire ordeal on malevolent spirits.

"Hurry up and leave! It is extremely dangerous here. If you don't go now, no one will be able to help you!" I shouted again.

This time, the effect was much better. Within a dozen seconds, the villagers gathered outside scattered in all directions. In the face of mortal peril, nothing else mattered.

Once they had left, the three of us gathered once more on the shore of Qingguan Pond.

"Stone, what did you see just now?"

"A person floating in the water, and a grave at the bottom of the pond! That person looks a lot like Old Man Wu." Stone said.

Upon hearing this, I immediately pulled out my phone and called my grandfather. Only he could handle a century-old ghost!

To my disappointment, however, grandfather did not answer the call.

Just as I was about to hit redial, Stone and Huang Ying spoke in unison, "He's coming up!"

I hurriedly shoved my phone into my pocket and immediately drew a Bagua diagram on the ground using ancient copper coins. Over top of it, I dropped a double dose of spiritual fluid mixed with fresh blood. My opponent this time was a century-old spirit; the slightest carelessness would result in complete destruction. This wasn't that old woman from the city—if this entity gave a full-strength pull, I would likely turn into a corpse on the spot!

"He didn't come up, he went back down." Stone shouted again.

I felt a surge of confusion. Remembering the scene inside Old Man Wu's house, why would a century-old ghost try to flee upon seeing us? And why was he lingering at the bottom of the water and refusing to come up now? Logically speaking, given his century-old "cultivation," he should have been fearless, utterly unlike this behavior.

It seemed I was beginning to understand something.

It must be the effect of Qingguan Pond. The last time I came here, I noticed the heavy Yin energy surrounding the place, and if the ambient energy outside was this intense, needless to say, the bottom of the pond would be off the charts. Huang Ying's misjudgment must have been caused by sensing the overwhelming Yin energy of the pond itself. Perhaps, from Old Man Wu's perspective, Huang Ying standing by the shore of Qingguan Pond appeared to be a thousand-year-old ghost.

What I needed to do now was flush him out. The method I used last time to force the corpse out from the bottom of the pond should work to force him out as well.

I arranged the array according to the previous pattern, asked Huang Ying to coordinate with me from above the water, and instructed Stone to keep a constant watch on Old Man Wu's movements.

I refused to believe that the three of us working together couldn't deal with a ghost that had only been dead a few years.

Huang Ying was the strongest among us, followed by me, and then Stone. Each of us took up our respective roles.

Once everything was prepared, muttered incantations moved across my lips, and the operation began.

The clear qi above the water slowly dissipated. In this environment, our abilities would be suppressed, while only Huang Ying would remain unaffected, her power surging instead.

This time, the effect was remarkably swift. After only a short while, the dark color on the surface of the water began to fade.

"He's coming up!" Stone yelled.

A few seconds later, Old Man Wu appeared in our line of sight.

He was still wearing that stiff, crust-covered garment, his feet bare.

It was now certain that Old Man Wu was the entity residing within Qingguan Pond. But why had he managed to survive in this state? Could it be the same condition as that old woman who tried to steal my soul?

No matter—that was irrelevant to me. My only objective was to subdue him, as he had already murdered five innocent people.

Therefore, the moment he appeared, I immediately readied my carpenter's ink marker, glutinous rice, and everything else at my disposal.

Just as I was about to make my move, Old Man Wu spoke: "I was driven to my death by my descendants. They refused to bury me and threw me into the water instead."

Very well, another domestic tragedy. Much like that old hag, people driven to their deaths by their own family members carried immense resentment and easily transformed into vengeful spirits.

With three "experts" on our side, I had no misgivings, so I paused and asked him, "Why are you in this state?"

His physical body was still intact. Ordinarily, the combination of hanging and drowning should have killed him thoroughly enough to prevent a semi-corpse state, and there was no refrigeration equipment here like the one at Li Yun's house to preserve a corpse.

Looking at Old Man Wu's serene face, I had expected him to answer me. But the very second I finished speaking, his expression suddenly twisted into something ferocious. Before I could take any precautions, my spiritual defense was breached.

I instinctively reached out to retaliate.

Before my hand could even reach my pocket, Huang Ying materialized directly behind Old Man Wu.

Her hair, draped over her shoulders, whipped upward in the wind, and her black dress fluttered gently.

"Go to hell!" Hearing Huang Ying utter such an imposing command for the first time felt profoundly satisfying; even the loss of a portion of my soul was worth it.

Huang Ying spread her arms wide, and her body actually drifted into the air.

Her eyes locked fiercely onto Old Man Wu. In the next instant, she closed them, and wisps of white smoke began to billow from Old Man Wu's entire body.

Those wisps of smoke were precisely Old Man Wu's soul essence.

As his soul was stripped away, Old Man Wu showed no expression of pain, but his physical body slowly began to turn pitch black.

All of the drifting white smoke poured straight into Huang Ying's body. Within mere seconds, the smoke ceased, and Old Man Wu's entire body turned pitch-black before finally collapsing backward onto the ground.

In less than ten seconds from start to finish—was this the true extent of Huang Ying's power?

There had been no earth-shattering battle, no grand spectacle, but despite that, Huang Ying's might was unmistakably laid bare. Ten seconds, it had taken a mere ten seconds, and she had only closed her eyes for a moment!