"No... reveals divine power..." His lips barely moved as Yang Guigold whispered hoarsely.
From the complexity of his eyes, it's clear that he's far more than just awake.
The impression he gives me is that it's all about recent things that should be known, not just someone waking up because everything before he started eating was a blank, treating me as a stranger.
"I need to get back the soul-binding talisman, you don't know a lot of things." Yang Guijin shook his head.
"Mhm." I nodded in agreement, answering, "Quite true, I don't know much."
"But the symbol allowed so many souls to enter your head, causing you to act erratically for over a decade until you became sane, isn't that good?" I said again.
Pain and a heavy sense of guilt flashed across Yang Guijin's eyes.
"They died while mapping the way. If mapping leads to death, my father and I promised, death has its destination; like fallen leaves, there's a root; like souls, there's a resting place. The soul-binding talisman comes from Mr. Qin."
"I'm not the one doing the mapping, but the team's strategist, so I bear the responsibility for carrying souls."
"I wasn't entirely mad because of them." Yang Guijin's breathing became even heavier as he tried to squeeze past.
Old Gong silently appeared on Yang Guijin's right shoulder and belched again.
He ground his teeth before saying, "Too late, Lord Gong has filled his belly."
Yang Guijin's face changed greatly. He reached out with a sudden movement and grabbed old Gong's head, and old Gong didn't dodge. Yang Guijin shook his head forcefully, as if he were holding a jar and trying to pour out the contents inside.
Old Gong's head was kept from shaking by Yang Guijin's action, and although he didn't get angry, he just kept burping.
After shaking for a while, Yang Guijin slumped incredibly, stumbled back two steps, and sat down hard on the ground.
He let go of his hand, and old Gong's head rolled two circles, righting itself in front of him before he belched again.
Yang Guijin had red eyesockets and was trembling uncontrollably, yet he appeared incredibly defeated.
Yan Ying still felt uneasy and looked at me.
My brows furrowed.
Died while mapping the way...
Lord Qin gave the talisman...
That means the woman ghost from before wasn't an evil ghost, right?
She was just angry and resentful because Yang Guijin and my parents failed to fulfill their promise.
If that's the case, it's understandable why the ghost would target me...
She said Yang Guijin was lying to ghosts, and it indeed was true.
He had eaten her using a spirit-devouring technique, making the previous incident equivalent to killing the ox after it finished grinding.
"Spirit-devouring technique... cannot be reversed... Totoro is a minor entity formed by a single wandering soul, devoured and torn apart by different souls, leaving nothing to spit out. She is already equivalent to her soul and spirit scattered..." Yan Ying's expression was complex.
Yang Guijin's face was as pale as death, exuding a sense of despair.
However, Laogong kept dry-throwing up. Soon, he vomited out a piece of bloodstained scalp.
The blood vessels beneath the scalp kept moving ceaselessly, like tentacles, crawling toward Yang Guijin.
Yang Guijin's despair turned into overwhelming joy.
But at this moment, Laogong vomited again, and an arm emerged from his mouth. The fingers immediately touched the scalp, and the blood vessels below writhed even more ferociously, but they could not move an inch.
"Soul-binding is no problem, but cultivating one's own soul is a big problem." Laogong spoke softly.
"No, not like that. The soul-binding is to the symbol, inscribed on the top of our heads, that's the method Mr. Qin suggested... after so much time and so many actions... we've all been doing it this way."
"I carried as many as six fragments of souls at most..."
"It's all because of that damned Taoist..."
"Transcendence cultivator..." A trace of hatred flashed across Yang Guijin's eyes.
Hearing the word "Transcendence," I felt a slight heaviness in my heart.
Indeed, there had been a conflict between Yang Guijin and the Temple of Transcendence!
No, then it would be my parents and the Temple of Transcendence that had a conflict!
"We originally found the Corpse of Gao Tiantao, as per Mr. Qin's prompt instruction beforehand, we were supposed to leave from the tomb passage of Gao Tian Temple."
"However, the twin monks at Gao Tian Temple actually brought in the Transcendence cultivator..."
"The twin monks were originally collaborating with us, but they wanted to kill by proxy and switched sides at the last moment. The cultivator struck me with a talisman, causing my soul to shatter and almost leave my body. The soul-binding talisman then absorbed my soul."
"I was still alive, but some of my soul returned and this confusion resulted in my hazy consciousness..."
"The Transcendence cultivator failed to succeed and was injured by the corpse held by Mu Ye. He fled in disgrace."
"The twin monks were afraid of our retaliation and also retreated."
"I barely made it back to Jin Yang, almost on the brink of death... Brother Mu Ye and his sister-in-law knew that the mission was only partially successful, and nine-tenths of it had failed. The manpower accumulated over the years was exhausted, and I was crippled. They told me they would retire from the business and left..."
"Before my consciousness completely faded, I had already heard about the tragedy of the Luo family..."
Yang Guijin's words poured out, revealing many things.
My heartbeats accelerated instantly.
What struck me even more was that what they had obtained was not just a real corpse, but the corpse of Gao Tiantao himself!
Gao Tiantao...
I suddenly turned my head and looked at the towering statue.
The two faces of the statue still glared at me with a sly expression, and though it was just a stone carving, it remained freezing cold.
"Is that really Gao Tiantao?" I asked.
"Yes, it is Gao Tiantao's statue... a place where souls are hidden." Yang Guijin replied in a complex manner.
"What is 'Corpse Separation'?"
"Did you bring his bones back to Jin Yang?"
"Who did my parents encounter and where did they go?"
I asked three more questions in a row.
For a moment, Yang Guijin remained silent, always lowering his head with a bitter expression.
"Corpse Separation... it's a way of dying..."
"Gao Tiantao's corpse was not brought back to Jin Yang."
"As for who harmed your parents, Xu Yang was one of them, as well as various Daoists. However, they concealed themselves very deeply. As for where they actually went, I don't know. But I... know where they are from, Gao Tiantao's corpse could be their key to return."
Yang Guijin looked up, took a deep breath as if forcing himself to stay calm, but did not continue speaking.
"His gaze locked onto the scalp being held down by Wei Youming, he muttered in a hoarse voice, "Return me the soul-binding talisman. The Daoist's talisman was only effective once back then. By separating me from the soul-binding talisman when you removed it from my body, I woke up fully, and now that it has left my body, it won't cause any harm to me."
Laogong showed no reaction.
I knew that Laogong would only release his grip if I spoke.
After a moment of thought, I walked over to the scalp, crouched down, and picked it up.
Wei Youming's arm did not prevent me, and Laogong kept a close eye on the scalp.
The blood vessels on the scalp instantly dispersed and seemed to tightly wrap around my fingers.
I faintly heard the sound of a person's wailing, and the coldness of this scalp felt more like something that had taken up residence.
Indeed, apart from the blood vessels entangling me, it had not caused any damage to me at all.
Without any ghostly presence here, can a single person's soul create any waves?
I handed the scalp back to Yang Guijin.
Yang Guijin couldn't naturally put it back on his head, so he carefully wrapped it around his hand, and the thin blood vessels gave people a feeling of disgust. They would feel scared even looking at it closely.
