Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 265 Mountain God
In the stable in the backyard, a coffin hangs.

The coffin was suspended in the air using the Dragon Clan's method of hanging coffins, and inside was a flying zombie, which could not touch the ground.

When Ran Qing and the other two encountered this before, they all retreated cautiously, not daring to disturb them.

But now, out of the blue, the black coffin hanging in the backyard has suddenly fallen down?
The dull, rumbling sound made everyone present jump.

The black cat that suddenly appeared on the roof beam disappeared after leaping over the eaves.

In a fleeting glance, Ran Qing saw that it was a shiny black tabby cat that looked incredibly strange.

Its eyes were an eerie, ghastly green, and its body was half rotten, half skeleton and half decaying flesh, making it look ugly and terrifying.

It seemed to appear out of thin air on the roof beam, yet it also seemed to have always been there. It appeared abruptly, jumped into the darkness, and then disappeared just as abruptly.

The rotting raccoon was nowhere to be found in the entire house.

After the dull thud of the coffin hitting the ground in the backyard, the backyard quickly returned to deathly silence. It was unknown whether the contents of the coffin had been awakened.

—If I wake up, will that flying zombie already be heading this way?

All sorts of unsettling thoughts made everyone at the ghost banquet look grim.

Long Zongshu hurriedly asked, "Can this ghost feast keep out zombies?"

The three of them, along with Xiao Mianhua, sat down at the ghost banquet. Their presence completely disappeared, making them undetectable by the earthly demons that appeared outside.

Therefore, those evil spirits can only linger outside the house.

What about the zombies...?

Ran Qing looked at the ghost on the main seat.

The ghostly figure, which appeared as a pale, dead face, stared intently at Ran Qing.

When Ran Qing looked at him, the dead face suddenly twisted and writh.

Immediately afterwards, a head, half of which was rotting, grew out from the neck of the dead man's face.

The head looked exactly like a dead person's face, but its eyes were empty and its expression was fierce and resentful, clearly the most common kind of vengeful ghost.

The rotting head that had been squeezed out struggled wildly, actually pushing the original head aside.

It let out a venomous growl at Ran Qing: "A spirit medium! Mo Baifeng's disciple!"

After the rotting head took over, it even caused the whole body to struggle, trying to stand up from the chair and pounce on Ran Qing.

That ferocious and menacing face looked like it wanted to devour anyone.

A chilling and malevolent aura rushed towards her, and Ran Qing felt a headache coming on: "...The ghostly side has emerged!"

The human side of this ghost was so easily driven away?
Or did he run away on his own?
Ran Qing suddenly had a bad feeling. This ghost had been maintaining its rationality, but now it was suddenly dominated by the vengeful side.

It looks as if it deliberately relinquished control... What's the point of it doing that?
Ran Qing was still thinking when a shrill cat meow suddenly came from in front of her.

The drawn-out, mournful meow sounded like the howling of a mating owl suddenly echoing through the woods on a spring night—eerie, unsettling, and sending chills down one's spine.

Ran Qing was stunned for a moment, and then he noticed a black, rotting raccoon standing quietly in front of him.

The raccoon's two bright green eyes were staring straight at him.

The two were so close that Ran Qing could even smell the strong stench emanating from the other.

Almost instinctively, Ran Qing's body suddenly stiffened, and she dared not make any movement.

—How did this cat appear?
It's like teleportation!
Ran Qing's body stiffened, and he dared not even move his lips. An instinctive intuition told him that making any noise or movement might bring disaster.

The eerie, cold stare lasted for several seconds before the black raccoon suddenly leaped up and landed directly on Ran Qing's shoulder.

Ran Qing felt a sudden weight on his shoulder; a heavy mass was pressing against his right shoulder. At close range, he could smell a strong stench of decay.

But when I glanced at it out of the corner of my eye, I found that my right shoulder was completely empty.

And then that putrid, eerie black cat reappeared in front of Mo Li.

The same eye contact, the same stalemate.

This time, from an observer's perspective, Ran Qing clearly saw the moment the raccoon jumped onto Mo Li's face, and the raccoon's figure seemed to turn into a puddle of dirty water and landed on Mo Li's face.

Then, the raccoon disappeared and appeared in front of Little Cotton...

Almost the same process was followed; the four living people present, and even Little Cotton, who was dressed in a dog skin and looked almost exactly like a dog, were all slapped in the face by this raccoon.

Finally, the tanuki appeared on the main seat.

It tilted its head back, staring at the ghostly figure before it. The two-headed demon roared angrily at it, showing no fear whatsoever. It was simply unable to move, bound by the power of the Ghost Feast.

It stared at the ghost's two heads for a long time, seemingly puzzled.

Finally, the raccoon leaped away and jumped outside the house.

As it left, Ran Qing felt a chill run through her body, and a strange pulling force came from her shoulder.

It felt like something inside my body was being carried away along with the raccoon.

After the raccoon disappeared, the ghostly figure sitting in the main seat changed again.

The rotting head of the vengeful ghost suddenly began to struggle, but the living head that it had easily pushed away earlier now forcefully pushed the rotting head of the vengeful ghost aside.

The rational side of the living person once again took over.

The ghostly figure stared at Ran Qing and the other two with a sinister look and sneered, "The Mountain God has come out. It seems you won't even last nine trials."

“Every time it comes out, it takes a part of you with it.”

"Most people can only last three times before the mountain god takes them away."

The ghost is gloating.

But as soon as it finished speaking, the phantom of Xiong Dacheng, who had been sitting still, suddenly shouted angrily.

"Shut the fuck up! What the hell are you talking about, you dead man?!"

Xiong Dacheng's phantom roared, stood up, and looked directly at Ran Qing: "We've drunk the wine and seen the heads... Master, what's next?"

"Do you want to keep looking at dead bodies? What part of the dead body do you want to see? I'll cut it off and show it to you."

Xiong Dacheng's phantom spoke rudely, interrupting the ghost's words.

This is the inherent power of the Ghost Feast, where the perpetrator who killed the evil spirits displays the body parts of the deceased one by one.

Each time a piece of corpse is displayed, the level is passed.

Once the nine trials are over, the vengeful ghost will fully reveal itself and will be packaged up by the perpetrator's phantom and delivered to Ran Qing.

This is the underlying logic of the Ghost Banquet.

The evil spirit is very powerful, but the person who kills it possesses a power that suppresses the evil spirit.

The Ghost Feast amplifies this suppressive power. Through the ritual of passing nine trials, it continuously amplifies the fear of death hidden in the ghost's memory, ultimately suppressing the evil spirit without any resistance.

But each time you pass a level, the vengeful ghost will launch a counterattack.

If you are not careful when passing through the level, you may be devoured by the vengeful ghost.

(End of this chapter)