After the ghost-hunting master descended the mountain, his fame spread throughout the capital.

Jiang Dusheng raised his left hand, and the Buddhist prayer beads on his wrist naturally fell down.

She twirled the prayer beads in her left hand, infusing her fingertips with spiritual energy, her eyes slightly closed.

A solemn and majestic mantra flowed from her lips, each syllable striking the void:

"Om Mani Padme Hum..."

As she chanted the mantra, the prayer beads on her wrist suddenly shone with a golden light. The light was not dazzling, but it carried a vast and righteous energy that purified the universe.

The light emanated from her, rippling outwards like waves on water.

The glaring red silk quickly faded and turned to ashes.

The red debris on the ground vanished without a trace; the distorted suona sound abruptly stopped.

The festive facade that the entire village had been forcibly draped in was stripped away layer by layer, instantly revealing its true nature.

It was still that desolate, dilapidated path, with lifeless, tightly closed abandoned houses on both sides.

The moment the illusion dissipated, a figure appeared not far ahead at the edge of the fading golden light.

It was a figure with an elusive form, wearing a loose, ill-fitting dark red robe.

Its face was shrouded in mist, obscuring its features.

Sometimes revealing a rugged masculine silhouette, sometimes twisting into a feminine, alluring line, the voice remaining high-pitched and effeminate, carrying the annoyance of having its magic broken:

"Fine! Very well! Since you've broken through the Joyful Realm, and you still refuse to leave..."

Its body churned violently with yin energy. It extended its ghostly claws, pointing directly at Jiang Dusheng, and said chillingly, "Then stay here forever, as your master's last sacrifice!"

As soon as it finished speaking, its body suddenly swayed and transformed into dozens of dark red ghostly figures that were indistinguishable from real ones. They rushed towards Jiang Dusheng from different directions with mournful ghostly howls.

Where the ghostly figure passed, a cold wind howled, a thin layer of white frost condensed on the ground, and the air seemed to freeze.

Jiang Dusheng opened his eyes, his clear pupils reflecting the countless ghostly figures, showing no sign of panic.

She wrapped the prayer beads back around her left wrist, maintaining a faint, protective golden light that warded off evil, while her right hand quietly grasped the bone flute.

"Noisy." She spoke lightly, holding the bone flute to her lips. "A mere gatekeeper spirit dares to speak so arrogantly."

The bluish-white light emanating from the bone flute pierced the most solidified ghostly figure, and a shrill, inhuman howl tore apart the village's deathly silence.

The ghostly figure, neither male nor female, twisted violently, and dozens of phantoms around it flickered and nearly collapsed.

Seeing this, Jiang Dusheng pushed off the ground with his toes and rushed straight towards the dissipating dark red ghostly figure.

She deftly twirled the bone flute in her right hand, ceasing to play, and instead channeled the remaining evil-dispelling sound waves and her own spiritual power into the flute, as if grasping an invisible short sword, and thrust it sharply at the dissipating ghostly figure.

"what!"

The dark red ghostly figure let out a mournful wail before exploding into a chaotic mass of yin energy.

One particularly dim red light attempted to escape into the depths of the village, but was dispersed by Jiang Dusheng using his bone flute.

Jiang Dusheng put away the bone flute expressionlessly.

Having dealt with the obstacle, she continued on her way, following the increasingly intense guidance of the earring, towards the deepest part of the village.

The chill in the air was no longer just a matter of low temperature; it was a bone-chilling cold.

The lighting became eerie; although it wasn't completely night yet, the place seemed to be soaked in ink, with only an ominous dark red faintly visible in the distance.

After turning a corner of an alley almost completely overgrown with weeds, a relatively open threshing ground suddenly appeared before us.

At this moment, the place has been transformed into a chilling wedding hall.

In the very center was a high hall made up of an offering table and a grand master's chair that had been moved from somewhere.

The chair was covered with silk cloth, but it had several large holes, revealing the blackened and moldy cotton inside.

There were no memorial tablets on the offering table, but instead several incomplete clay heads with eerie blush painted on them. The eyes of the heads were dotted with scarlet cinnabar, and they stared blankly ahead.

On both sides, seats for guests were densely packed together.

Those were paper figures made of rough bamboo strips and yellow paper.

The paper figures, dressed in simple, painted clothes, included both men and women, and all wore exaggerated, eerie smiles. Their eyes, drawn with ink dots, stared straight at the people in front of them.

They sat stiffly on the decaying benches, silent and still, yet swaying slightly in the gusts of cold wind, making a rustling sound like paper rubbing together, as if they were whispering secrets.

The earring, made of warm jade, trembled violently at this moment, and the desire for help almost burst out of its body.

Just then, a whirlwind suddenly rose up in the center of the open space.

Amidst the sound of the wind, the woman's heart-wrenching cries grew louder and louder, one after another seeping out.

It wasn't the sound of one person crying; upon closer listening, it seemed as if nine different voices were wailing and sobbing simultaneously.

Guided by the swirling whirlwind and the cries, Jiang Dusheng's gaze suddenly fixed on the ground in the very center of the wedding hall.

There, a complex pattern is faintly emerging through the swirling dust.

The design exudes an intense, nauseating aura of blood and resentment.

The pattern's lines are twisted, with nine thick blood lines extending from the central vortex, like chains, each connecting to a human figure outline.

The nine silhouettes could be vaguely discerned to be the figures of a woman.

They were kneeling, lying on their backs, or curled up, all of them tightly bound by blood vessels, displaying extreme pain.

"What a vicious Nine Yin Soul-Locking Sacrifice Array!" Jiang Dusheng's eyes instantly turned to ice, his chest churning with rage.

Using the souls of nine innocent women as sacrifices is an act that defies all reason and morality.

Without further hesitation, she let out a clear shout, channeling her spiritual power into her voice, which resounded like thunder in the eerie wedding hall:

"You wretched creature! Get out here!"

As if in response to her, the whirlwind in the air suddenly stopped, and all the flying debris fell to the ground with a clatter.

The cries of the nine women's spirits also abruptly ceased.

In front of the wedding hall, a figure slowly solidified and appeared before the main seat.

It was a man, dressed in a wedding robe embroidered with dark gold dragon and phoenix patterns, and wearing a red gold hair crown.

However, his face was lifeless, as pale as fine bone china, and under the glow of the eerie green ghost fire around him, it shone with an inhuman cold light.

What's even more bizarre is that when this vengeful groom appeared, he wasn't alone.

In his lap sat a woman.

The woman wore a bright red wedding dress that matched the groom's auspicious attire. The phoenix and bird pattern embroidered with gold and silver threads shimmered eerily under the blood-red light.

She wore a heavy phoenix crown adorned with pearls and jade, the tassels of which obscured most of her face, revealing only a pointed, pale chin and lips painted bright red like blood.

Jiang Dusheng's spiritual senses detected that the woman in the wedding dress was neither a physical entity nor a complete soul, but rather a lingering image infused with a specific obsession.

The ghost's gaze slowly shifted to Jiang Dusheng's face.

He didn't speak, but the temperature in the wedding hall seemed to drop even further, and the smiles on the faces of the paper guests seemed even more exaggerated and eerie.