Cyber Ghosts

Chapter 96 A Book?
“What I just said is only a possibility. Never mind. Liu Shuai, you have been thinking about it for a while. Maybe we should show it instead of talking about it. Let me make a demonstration for you,” Zhang Quan thought for a moment, then said to Qili, “stand up.”

“OK.” Qili didn’t understand what Zhang Quan was going to do, but he still stood up and faced him.

Zhang Quan waved his hand, and Hao Ning suddenly felt that the air had become dry. When he looked at Zhang Quan, he noticed that a small droplet of water suddenly appeared in his hand. The water droplet was more like a “water dot” formed by white mist. The mist that formed this small droplet of water became thicker and thicker, eventually turning into a ball of mist the size of a fist. The small ball kept changing its size and was surrounded by smoke while floating above Zhang Quan’s hand, which looked somewhat amazing. Before Hao Ning could ask Liu Shuai what it was, Zhang Quan had already taken out a pen from his pocket, opened it up and clicked on the mist, causing it to turn black gradually. When the mist got completely black, Zhang Quan threw the “water ball” towards Qili, and it exploded in front of Qili with a “Pa” sound.

“Shit!” Qili was staring at the water ball and thought that it was funny, but he never thought that Zhang Quan would throw the water ball over to him. When the water ball flew in front of his eyes and exploded before he could dodge it, Qili reached out his hand. Then he realized that it was water and he couldn’t block it. He should have dodged it, however, when he instantly lowered his head to check if his clothes were wet, he found the water mist seem to be incorporeal. It penetrated through him, leaving no water stain at all. He then looked at the few people in front of him, who were all looking behind him, so he also turned his head in curiosity and saw a black ‘shadow’ on the wall behind him. It was more of a watermark than a shadow. The watermark was shaped like a person. Qili took a close look and found that it was his appearance when he yelled “Shit!”, just a little black.

“What is this?” Hao Ning looked at the black figure on the wall. He could vaguely guess that this figure was related to Qili, but he did not know why Zhang Quan did this.

“It’s called the Soul Imprint.” Liu Shuai explained to Hao Ning, ” a way of seeing the soul without taking it away from the body. It’s just like what people do when they discover the stone tablet works of some famous calligraphers. They would use paper and ink to imprint the calligraphy work, instead of taking the whole stone tablet away.”

Liu Shuai looked at Zhang Quan and spoke to Hao Ning in a low voice, “this technique is relatively rare, and its usage is very complicated. I never expected him to use it this way.”

“Soul Imprint?” Hao Ning understood a little, but he still had some questions, so he asked Zhang Quan, “so you’re saying that you used this method to let us see Qili’s soul…” For a moment, Hao Ning didn’t know how to describe it.

“Just call it the Soul Projection.” Zhang Quan thought for a while and said, “you are funny. No one ever asked what it is. Usually, they look at it.”

“Um, guys,” Qili looked at the imprint on the wall and heard them discussing it, but he had no idea what they were talking about, so he asked his superior who was closed to him, “what’s going on?”

“Don’t say anything. Just listen. I’ll explain it to you later.” Liu Shuai didn’t want to explain to this little clown right now. After he stopped Qili from speaking, he looked at Hao Ning as if he was waiting for Hao Ning to ask.

“All right, I think I understand it,” Hao Ning looked at Liu Shuai and sighed, “what’s good about this technique? Do you want us to see the Qili’s soul photo sticker after all the efforts? ”

“Look at Qili’s right hand.” Liu Shuai pointed to the wall.

“Eh?” Hearing Liu Shuai’s words, Hao Ning could not help but look more carefully.

The figure on the wall was remarkably lifelike, with five fingers of the left hand visible, but the forearm of the right hand was entirely not the shape of a hand, but instead a rectangle. The reason why Hao Ning did not notice it earlier was that the rectangle looked too much like a phone. He thought that Qili was holding a phone when he was imprinted. However, now he remembered Qili had put his phone in his pocket and had nothing in his right hand. Moreover, this was a Soul Imprint, not an X-ray photo. How could it print out the figure of a phone?

“What’s wrong with your hand?” Hao Ning turned his head and asked Qili.

Qili was also carefully looking at the imprint on the wall. Hearing Hao Ning’s question, he shook his head, “nothing, but why was my phone imprinted on the wall?”

“How could a Soul Imprint print a phone!” Zhang Quan shook his head, “your right hand is not a phone. It’s a book.”

“A book?” Qili opened his palm and looked, “I wasn’t holding a book on my hand?”

“He doesn’t mean you were holding a book,” Liu Shuai rubbed his head. He had probably never seen someone more stupid than Zhang Quan, “he means that your right hand is a book!”

“What? Hehe, brother, what are you talking about?” Qili felt that Liu Shuai was joking.

“Liu Shuai,” Hao Ning seemed to understand a little as he asked tentatively, “do you mean that the right hand of Qili’s soul has turned into a book?”

“Yes,” Liu Shuai nodded, and then looked at the imprint on the wall, “but to be exact, it did not turn into a book, but —”

Liu Shuai did not dare to continue.

“Coward.” Zhang Quan shook his head. “Young man, you should be braver.” After he finished speaking, he walked forward and pointed at Qili’s right hand on the wall as if he was giving a presentation, “your colleague’s right arm, of course, the right arm of his soul, seemed to be cut off by someone and it was grafted into a book or the soul of a book — —”

“Damn!” Hao Ning’s eyes widened as he looked at Zhang Quan who was dressed in his overalls talking, then he looked at Liu Shuai and Zhou Yuan who were nodding their heads, “is there such technique? Souls can be cut off?”

“Don’t interrupt. I used to think that was impossible, “Liu Shuai sighed as he looked at the imprint on the wall, then turned to ask Zhang Quan, “you taught me the theory of three souls and seven spirits and the theory of Yin-Yang. However, I’ve never heard of a theory of soul cutting.”

“That the theory did not exist does not mean that it does not exist now.” Zhang Quan blinked his eyes, “In the past, there was no such thing as stealing the power of the Immortal Granting Decree and create new gods, right?” As he spoke, he looked at Zhou Yuan who blushed and lowered his head in embarrassment.

“Uh,” Liu Shuai choked and waved his hand. “Don’t say irrelevant things. Just tell us what you know.”

“You brat…” Zhang Quan shook his head as he looked at Liu Shuai and then laughed. “Fine. No records said that external forces could cut souls until I met your colleague.”

“Excuse me,” Hao Ning said as he interrupted Zhang Quan once again, “you said that there were no records saying that external forces could cut souls. Do you mean that non-external forces can cut souls?”

“You got it. You are smarter than him.” Zhang Quan pointed at Liu Shuai and chuckled, while Liu Shuai deliberately looked at the wall to ignore Zhang Quan. “According to the records in the past, souls can only be cut off under certain circumstances by their own subjective will. For example, if a person’s hand is broken, his soul will also subconsciously think that the hand is broken after a long period of adaptation. After the person dies, the hand of the soul will not exist. However, this situation is not absolute. It happened more to ancient eunuchs. ”

“Eunuchs?” The few of them asked curiously. Liu Shuai also turned his head to look at Zhang Quan. It was apparent that Zhang Quan did not teach him these things back then.

“Yes,” Zhang Quan looked at the crowd triumphantly, “you all have heard that many eunuchs must have someone bury themselves with their ‘treasures’ after they died, right? The truth is that in their decades of life, their souls subconsciously believed that they were completely separated from their dicks, so after they died, their souls were also incomplete. What do you think the nether world was for? Do they only do the second-hand intermediary job of the soul’s reincarnation? ”

“Poor people!” Qili sighed. “They can’t even be complete after they died.”

“You should feel pity of yourself instead.” Zhang Quan looked at Qili and sneered. Without waiting for Qili to ask, he continued, “Apart from the fact that one’s subjective consciousness cuts his soul, there has never been another case in which a soul can be cut. On the one hand, this is not a common phenomenon; on the other hand, no one has done any research on this.”

“No one has done any research on this?” Hao Ning seemed to have caught onto something, but he could not figure it out for a moment.

“That’s right,” Zhang Quan continued to speak while shaking his head after he heard Hao Ning. “It’s just like how ancient Chinese medicine’s theory has always been about Yin-Yang, Five Elements, and the coordination of the whole human body. It doesn’t go in the direction of anatomy. Even though some novels mentioned the idea of performing a craniotomy on Cao Cao’s head, they didn’t represent the mainstream.”