CHAPTER 54: CHAPTER 37: BUTCHER (PART 3)

"Whoa—" Xu Yichao forcibly swallowed his curse.

Huang Zhongyu broke out in cold sweat and was just about to run when Sang Que’s blade was already at his throat.

"Don’t move!"

Zhao Lihong ran closer, and upon clearly seeing them, a scream burst from her throat, "You, you, aren’t you dead!?"

Just as Xu Yichao was still trying to figure out the situation, Sang Que’s eyes turned sharp, threw the flashlight at him, and dashed out wielding the Tang Blade.

Swish!

A silver flash caught Xu Yichao’s eye, and he instinctively shut them. When he reopened them, Sang Que had already sheathed the blade and was standing straight. Ashes fell from her left hand, and strange black runes appeared on the right hand’s Tang Blade.

Zhao Lihong’s eyes widened to the extreme, and her body split from the left shoulder to the right abdomen!

Xu Yichao and Huang Zhongyu were both scared pale, as a chilling wind blew in. Zhao Lihong disintegrated into a cloud of black ash, carried away by the eerie wind towards Sang Que.

Sang Que turned around and adjusted her baseball cap, her eyes cold and ruthless.

While Xu Yichao was still suspecting who the intruder was, Sang Que had already accurately identified and effortlessly dealt with it.

This reminded Xu Yichao of that morning when high school started, when the girl holding a pancake effortlessly flattened three men with one hand and foot, radiating impressive dominance!

Sang Que examined her right palm, furrowing her brow. She had thought this one was a ’big deal’, but it merely completed the Kun Trigram that had been gradually disappearing over the days, falling short of the Suicide Rope, a worthless thing!

Still, this thing was unique enough—when it hadn’t revealed flaws, it was indistinguishable from living people. Was it due to the village’s peculiar environment?

Thankfully, the Ghost Soldier Talisman wasn’t completely depleted in one go; the runes on the Tang Blade were still clear.

This indicates that the Ghost Soldier Talisman’s consumption level is based on the strength of the Evil Spirits. That Yin Child is indeed strong—Yan Daozi wounded her with a sword, which drained all the power of a Ghost Soldier Talisman.

Sang Que faintly anticipated that once she completely subdued the Yin Child, that power could be hers.

Looking up, Sang Que noticed Xu Yichao and Huang Zhongyu staring at her in shock, which brought a trickle of warmth to her heart, likely a sign that her Heart Lamp’s intensity increased again.

At that moment, an icy feeling erupted, dispersing the warmth in her heart. Sang Que’s body instantly went rigid with cold, and she hurriedly used the blade to steady herself, barely avoiding collapsing directly.

The completed trigram in her palm evaporated as if it was vanishing quickly. Sang Que held on, suppressing the struggling Yin Child within her. It must be that her Heart Lamp’s level was nearing the Yin Child’s, causing the Yin Child to feel threatened and start resisting.

"Sang Que?" Xu Yichao rushed over to inquire with concern.

Sang Que raised her hand, gesturing for him not to get closer, and took a few deep breaths. The icy feeling came and went quickly. As long as she remained absolutely clear-headed, the Yin Child wouldn’t possess her body.

She was determined: if she didn’t solve the Yin Child issue today, she would drown herself in coffee and refuse to sleep!

"I’m fine."

Sweat beaded on Sang Que’s forehead as she stood up straight again. The trigram in her palm was about to disappear—she needed to speed up her efforts to gather strength.

"How did you see that Zhao Lihong was off just now?" Xu Yichao asked curiously.

Sang Que raised her hand to point at her ear, then nodded towards Huang Zhongyu’s yellow hair with her chin.

Xu Yichao glanced at Huang Zhongyu and had an epiphany, "Oh! I get it, on the butcher’s table, there’s an ear, and this yellow-haired guy has both ears intact, but Zhao Lihong’s long hair covered it up so you couldn’t tell, and she must have been missing an ear! But aren’t you too confident? What if you misjudged?"

Sang Que raised the knife, "The blade isn’t sharpened; it won’t kill anyone."

In fact, there was another clue—the small door behind the butcher’s shop was half-open, indicating someone had gone out from there, making it more likely that Huang Zhongyu was alive.

"Ah!!!" Huang Zhongyu suddenly screamed behind Sang Que.

Sang Que turned around and saw a moving, sturdy man in black rubber suspenders, his neck half-broken, wielding a narrow and sharp pig-killing knife, standing at the far end of the street with his face shrouded in darkness.

"Uncle Fatty!"

Xu Yichao immediately recognized the figure in the distance as Fatty Li, who had been dead for ten years. Xu Yichao vividly remembered how Fatty Li would give him pork cracklings and chuckle at him when he was a child.

Sang Que held the blade horizontally before her, sensing a powerful pressure similar to that which Yan Daozi had given her from the Skinning Master.

This Butcher definitely possessed the strength of a second-layer elite Evil Spirit; the pig-killing knife he wielded felt extremely dangerous to her.

Sang Que took down the Hunting Bow, raised it, and shot an arrow directly, which pierced the Butcher’s thigh, pinning it to the ground and vibrating.

It’s a soul, not a corpse.

The Butcher raised the pig-killing knife and charged at the three of them. Xu Yichao and Huang Zhongyu simultaneously ran behind Sang Que, hoping she’d cut down the Butcher with one stroke.

At this moment, a gust of eerie wind picked up the scattered Netherworld banknotes at the entrance of the paper shop and blew towards the Butcher. Amidst the flowing blue mist, two papermen in burial clothes suddenly appeared, blocking the Butcher’s path.

"Holy crap! Are you a Mao Mountain Taoist with paperman techniques?"

Xu Yichao exclaimed in surprise, completely unaware that his ’wife’ was protecting him.

The Butcher, raging, swung his knife, and in an instant, the heads of the two papermen flew into the air, sliced apart along with the surrounding swirling Netherworld banknotes.

Witnessing this, Sang Que turned and ran without hesitation.

Xu Yichao: ???

Huang Zhongyu: !!!

A chill blew over Xu Yichao’s neck, making him shiver involuntarily, and he jolted forward to catch up with Sang Que.

"Wait for me!" Huang Zhongyu followed closely behind.

Sang Que sprinted down another street. Initially, they tried going to Xu Shufen’s courtyard, but ended up circling back; now they had to see if the other street could lead them out of the Ghost Wall’s area.

She initially had two plans—one was to charge with the blade, as it had a Ghost Soldier Talisman, which might deal with the Butcher.

The other was to use another Ghost Soldier Talisman, attach it to an arrow, and take down the Butcher from a distance.

Luckily, Xu Yichao’s paperman wife acted first, allowing her to witness the Butcher’s knife’s prowess—it could slash anything in its path out of nowhere. If she went alone, she might not even get close before losing her head, and the arrow might not even make it to the Butcher intact.

The Ghost Soldier Talisman could kill Evil Spirits, but it relied on a weapon as a medium and had to contact the Evil Spirit to be effective, which was a major drawback.

She only brought five of the talismans and couldn’t waste them.

After running for about five minutes and sensing the Butcher was no longer pursuing, Sang Que gradually slowed down, turned on the flashlight, and inspected the surroundings.

There was a faint glow ahead; as she moved closer, she saw another circle of bricks with three plates of offerings, and the nearby red candle had only a bit left, flickering in the eerie wind.

"This is the July Photography Studio in Back Street."

Xu Yichao, out of breath, ran over with his phone held up, surprisingly still holding onto the fruits without dropping them.

Before long, Huang Zhongyu caught up, and upon seeing the photography studio with a somewhat European style along the street, he immediately dashed over, shouting as he did.

"Little Miao! Da Kui! Where are you?"

Huang Zhongyu’s voice echoed through the silent, dark street. The two glass doors of the photography studio stood wide open, with wind blowing in, the faint sound of wind chimes emerging from within.

At the entrance of the photography studio, there was even an overturned phone tripod.

Huang Zhongyu picked up the phone clamped on it, and upon seeing the screen, screamed and tossed it away.

The phone slid to a stop at Sang Que’s feet, and the cracked screen displayed a photo.

A cute girl with cat ear hairbands pouted and made a peace sign, while a burly man with a crowbar grinned with his teeth bared, their heads cozily close together.

But...

Behind them, on the tightly closed glass door of the July Photography Studio, were pressed many pale, bluish faces of children!