Otherworldly Merchant

Yin energy was still swirling in the room just like during the day. Li Mazi was getting impatient. However, I had a feeling that something would happen tonight. 

To avoid alerting the Yin spirit, Li Mazi and I hid underneath the bed. Each of us kept a Yang Concealing Talisman. As the night grew darker, the surroundings quieted down. In the end, all I heard was He Kui snoring. 

I leaned over to check outside through the window. The sky was dark and there was no moonlight. I was more certain that the Yin spirit would come. 

However, as time ticked by, my presumption faded. At around 2:00 AM, the mass of Yin energy was still the same. I became a little weary. Li Mazi was fast asleep next to me under the bed. 

It seemed the Yin spirit wouldn’t come tonight. I woke Li Mazi up and crawled out of the bed. Li Mazi got up and mumbled, “Little Brother Zhang, I was having a good sleep. Why did you keep knocking on something?”

“I kept knocking on something?” I was perplexed. 

Li Mazi said, “Oh.”

Then, he pricked his ears and shook his head. “I heard the sound of a walking stick. I thought you were doing something…”

Before he finished, I muffled him. I laid flat on the ground and listened. Indeed, I heard a vague knocking sound. It sounded like someone was moving with a walking stick. 

The low noise came from the ground, though. But when I received a shovel from Li Mazi to open up the soil, the sound disappeared. I somehow managed to locate the noise. It was moving toward the door. I immediately grabbed the Sirius Whip and chased after it. 

Since I had to be close to the ground to capture the noise, after running for a while, I had to kneel to listen. When I rushed to the village entrance, I stuck my ear on the ground one more time. However, this time, I heard nothing. 

“You… You lost it?”

Li Mazi looked puzzled. I nodded reluctantly and brushed off the dirt and mud on my clothes. We returned to He Kui’s house together. 

On the way back, Li Mazi said in a low tone, “Little Brother Zhang, I have a feeling that He Kui’s father made that noise. What do you think?” 

I suddenly recognized that after his serious injuries from last time, this dude seemed to have become much smarter. 

“It should be him.” I nodded. 

Earlier today, I felt that his corpse wasn’t in his grave. What happened just now sort of confirmed my guess. Moreover, ghosts couldn’t move underground. He could be a walking corpse! 

When we returned to the house, I squatted by the basin to wash the dust off my face.

Then, I heard Li Mazi’s sudden scream. I turned and saw his dull face gazing at the ceiling. Subconsciously, I followed his line of sight. The Yin energy that lingered in the room was gone. 

“Uh… What happened? Did the grandfather erase all the Yin energy?” It took Li Mazi quite a long time to pull himself together. He looked perplexed. I didn’t know what had happened, either. However, it wasn’t a bad thing that the Yin energy was gone. 

I couldn’t sleep after this. Li Mazi and I crouched with our ears on the ground and listened. While the sky was getting brighter, a tiny walking noise came from the ground. I jolted up and shot Li Mazi a glance. 

He was surprised, but he soon got my idea. He laid down again to listen then pointed at the ground. 

I quietly tiptoed in the direction he was pointing at. A moment later, Li Mazi’s finger stopped moving. He lingered for a moment more. Then, he stood up and said, “He’s gone.”

I used the Emei Piercer to draw a circle on the ground. When I lifted my head to check the ceiling, Yin energy began to congregate and spin. 

“Do you want to dig it up?” pried Li Mazi. 

I thought then answered, “We should wait until the morning. It could be Mr. He, but the thing down there has profound Yin energy. We should unearth it in the morning.”

“You have a point. It seems he will come every night. We don’t need to worry about it running away.” Li Mazi agreed. It wasn’t broad daylight yet, so we took a short nap. 

I didn’t know how long I had slept until He Kui woke me up. He rubbed his hands, his face looking strange. “Master, I just went to my greenhouse. I found something strange!”

It turned out that after He Kui came back to this countryside village, he started to build and work at his family’s greenhouse to grow some out-of-season fruits. He frequently visited his greenhouse. However, these days, as his daughter was sick, he wasn’t in the mood to care about his vegetables. But yesterday, after I had saved his daughter, He Kui wanted to go to the greenhouse to pluck the wild grass. 

Unexpectedly, when he got there, he found his big greenhouse completely clean. There was not a single blade of wild grass. 

It looked like someone had helped him take care of his greenhouse. Fortunately, the greenhouses in this village were all equipped with cameras to prevent thieves. He Kui went to check the CCTV. He wanted to see who had secretly helped him. However, the CCTV video showed that nobody had entered his greenhouse. 

“Little Brother Zhang, I think it’s Mr. He,” Li Mazi blurted after He Kui told us the story. 

“What do you mean?”

I then told He Kui about what had happened last night. 

Yesterday I had thought that it was the stomping noise of the walking stick, but it seemed to have been created by a hoe.

It was the heart of a parent. Although Mr. He had passed away, he was still worried about his son. He Kui’s eyes turned red. “What should I do now?”

“He Kui, I think your father is now a walking corpse. Otherwise, a dead body can’t move like that. Anyway, he doesn’t mean harm to you. However, the Yin energy that has affected the little girl seems to have something to do with a hoe.”

I analyzed the situation. The old man had come to take the hoe underground. It was also the time when the vortex of Yin energy in the room disappeared. When he returned it in the morning, the Yin energy also returned. I needed to unearth that hoe to see how it had such strong Yin energy. 

After listening to me, He Kui became hesitant. “Can you solve this without hurting my father?”

From my impression, he really cared about his father. I could say he was a filial son. I nodded. “If your late father doesn’t mean harm, we can talk him out of it. Don’t worry.”

He Kui looked better after I confirmed that. “Do you want to dig the floor now?”

“Yeah, let’s do it now. As there’s lots of sunlight right now, we won’t need to labor much!”

I went to open the window and put some more talismans around the spot on the ground I had circled, before asking He Kui to start digging. 

Li Mazi grabbed a shovel and helped He Kui dig the soil. However, they didn’t make fast progress. This room was too old. Perhaps before Mr. He had built his house here, he had dumped a lot of debris to strengthen the foundation. 

While they were digging the hole, I asked He Kui’s wife to fetch me a bucket of ashes. Every time they dug deeper, I sprinkled a layer of ashes. That was how I could save them from exerting more strength. 

As they began to dig deeper and deeper, they didn’t hit broken bricks anymore. Now, only black mud came up. 

I squatted by the hole and pinched some mud, and brought it to my nose to take a sniff. It smelled of cast iron! 

It seemed the hoe was down there. He Kui and Li Mazi were sweating hard. I told them to stop and come up as I was afraid that they would be affected by the Yin energy. I jumped into the hole and started digging myself. At first, I didn’t feel that it would take a lot of energy. However, when I thrust my shovel into the soil for the third time, a strong force pulled my shovel downward. I couldn’t lift it anymore. It seemed that thing had started to pull back and forth with me. 

“Li Mazi, sprinkle the ashes on me!” I screamed, then read the Sacred Text of Daoism. At the same time, Li Mazi poured all the ashes that remained, half of a bucket full, on me. I choked, but my body felt much lighter. 

Seizing the opportunity, I tried my best to dig more. I heard a low clang and recognized that I had hit something made of iron in the soil. I hurriedly shoveled around the thing and got it eventually. 

As I’d expected, it was a rusty hoe. There was a dark stain on it. From my experience, I could tell that it was dried blood. 

I asked Li Mazi to take the hoe to the yard. I checked the ceiling one more time and indeed, the Yin energy swirling above our heads started to disperse. I seized the chance and relocated some furniture in the house to change the geomancy of the place. Soon, all the Yin energy vanished. I could feel the auspicious energy starting to congregate in the house. 

After He Kui discovered that the Yin energy had vanished, he picked up the shovel to fill up the hole. I stopped him with a smile. “Your father will come again to fetch his hoe.”

“I understand.” He nodded with brimming red eyes. 

I patted his shoulder and asked him to come to the yard. “Have you ever seen this hoe?”