Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 286 I set out a table of dishes
A new young spirit medium has been born...

This matter seemed to cause more fear and unease among the others present than the elderly and powerful spirit medium, Aunt Liu.

Ran Qing, witnessing this reaction, was not surprised.

He was aware of this.

The lineage of the Yin Walkers is extremely unique, as they are the only living people who directly confront the Evil Lord and are constantly watched by his gaze.

Even within the Yin-Yang School, those who practice Yin-Yang cultivation are shrouded in a strange and mysterious aura in the eyes of other unorthodox practitioners.

The book "Witchcraft and Spiritual Arts" repeatedly warns that one must be cautious in using the power of the evil lord and avoid making deals with him if one's cultivation is insufficient, otherwise there is a risk of losing one's soul.

The so-called loss of soul refers to the possession of one's body by an evil master, or the direct loss of mind, resulting in terrifying madness.

Ironically, those who wander into the underworld after going mad are dozens of times more troublesome and terrifying than when they are rational and clear-headed, because they can bear more of the evil master's power.

This risk is most likely to occur when a person practicing spirit mediumship has just opened their altar and their spiritual cultivation is insufficient.

Aunt Liu is indeed formidable, but at least she's a living, breathing person who can communicate.

And a young spirit medium who has never been seen by anyone and whose background is unknown... who knows when he might go mad.

More importantly, the method of using spirits to make wine by wandering spirits is equally effective if the souls of other unorthodox practitioners are used in the process.

It even seems that refining the soul of a heretical cultivator would be more effective...

For various reasons, unorthodox practitioners of Yin-Yang Taoism have always kept their distance from the lineage of Yin-Yang practitioners.

People are wary of older spirit mediums and afraid of younger ones. Most of the time, spirit mediums are solitary, like Aunt Liu.

The kind of person who has friends wherever she goes is an anomaly among those who walk the path of the dead.

After Ran Jianfei finished speaking, the figure in the mist remained unmoved.

But then, the last face Ran Qing recognized spoke.

A middle-aged man dressed in luxurious fabrics, clearly worth a lot of money, spoke with a non-local accent: "Sixth Sister Mo has indeed passed away. I gave her a knife on credit before, but I couldn't change her fate."

This interesting-looking out-of-towner was the knife seller who had previously visited the cement house on Gongyuan Road.

He made no disguise and looked exactly the same as Ran Qing had seen before.

After the man selling knives on credit finished speaking, everyone looked at him.

"...the knife seller."

Someone whispered.

Someone was watching silently.

But the knife seller revealed his identity and wasn't worried that others would remember him.

As a knife seller operating on credit in the Yin-Yang world, it's fair to say that everyone present was a potential customer.

The atmosphere in the mist became somewhat deathly still. Among the left-hand cultivators living in Zangke, no one was unaware of the name of Mo Baifeng, the Sixth Sister of the Inner Dao.

Upon hearing the news of Aunt Liu's sudden death, these people reacted in completely different ways. Some sighed softly, some shook their heads and lamented, some sneered disdainfully, and some breathed a long sigh of relief…

Amidst the fog, the myriad aspects of human nature are revealed.

At that moment, the blurry figure in the mist that had been silent and motionless suddenly stirred.

It turned its head and looked at the people beside the coffin.

Everyone who saw this figure felt a chill run down their spine and sensed a strange pressure.

Ran Qing even felt a bit uneasy, as if she had returned to her junior high school days and was being stared at and questioned by her strict homeroom teacher.

The corpse-driving Taoist priest Liu Fang reacted the most violently. The old Taoist priest shouted, "What are you looking at? Everyone's here, aren't we going to start? There's only one empty chair left, are you making us all wait?"

In the mist, the blurry figure stared at the corpse-driving Taoist. Everyone then heard a child's clear, childlike voice coming from within the mist.

"...The problem is not that there are too few people, but that there are too many."

It was clearly the figure of a tall adult, but the voice in the mist was childlike and clear, like that of a three-year-old.

He said, "I set out a table of dishes, but two tables of guests have come... Oh well, since you're here, come in together."

The figure in the mist clapped his hands, and after the crisp applause rang out, Ran Qing and the others saw one grand master chair after another jump out from the ruins not far away.

Thirteen armchairs in total jumped one after another to a spot not far from Ran Qing and the others, forming a circle in the ruins.

Then, blurry figures emerged from the ruins of the house leading to room 444.

These figures were shrouded in a dark and eerie aura of death, making it almost impossible to discern their features or shapes, or even whether they were living people or vengeful ghosts.

There were thirteen of them in total, and they all walked to the thirteen grand master chairs in the ruins and sat down.

This scene really looks like two banquet tables.

A large banquet table was set up, with a smaller one next to it.

The two sides are not far apart, yet they are clearly distinct.

The thirteen figures were eerie and sinister, giving Ran Qing an extremely unsettling feeling, as if she were seeing thirteen corpses.

But what caught Ran Qing's attention the most was the tall and burly figure of one of the men.

Although black mist floated and swirled around him, obscuring his face, his physique, gait, and the large cleaver he carried... this was clearly Xiong Dacheng, the ghost-raising man!

Ran Qing's heart skipped a beat, and she stared intently at the thirteen people sitting in a circle next door.

Could these thirteen people be the ones who raise ghosts? Are they the ones who scatter copper coins everywhere to raise ghosts and set up altars for ghosts?
Ran Qing stared at the thirteen people. After the thirteen dark figures took their seats, they all looked at Ran Qing and the others next door.

But these figures shrouded in black mist remained silent, merely watching indifferently from the side, from the mysterious summoner who appeared and disappeared in the fog. Despite being participants in the Dharma assembly, these thirteen figures moved in unison, coldly looking down upon the assembled figures.

They don't seem to be here to attend the Dharma assembly and show their support; they look more like they're here to cause trouble and disrupt the event.

A sense of danger permeated the air.

Although the two sides were complete strangers, at this moment, the two completely different people sitting at the table seemed to have formed a tacit consensus of hostility.

The childlike voice from the mist spoke again, its tone still clear and crisp.

"...There are almost enough people. Fellow practitioners are willing to support us, and even the neighbors next door have come to join in the fun."

"Let the Dharma assembly begin tonight."

"If we delay any longer, we'll miss the auspicious time."

As the childish voice finished speaking, the figure in the mist began to approach.

As they got closer, everyone's eyes widened.

The tall figures in the mist were actually two.

One in front and one behind, a tall figure pushed a wheelchair, his eyes glazed over, and he was actually a wooden figure with stiff movements.

On the wheelchair pushed by the wooden figure sat an old and weary figure.

He had white hair, a face full of wrinkles, atrophied muscles, and was extremely thin; he looked to be at least eighty or ninety years old.

But his voice was childlike and clear.

His gaze swept across the crowd, and he said, "But please leave before the ceremony begins, Master Shou."

"This is a grand gathering of people from the Xuanmen sect. Master Shou is not a member of our Xuanmen sect, so please do not linger."

(End of this chapter)