Chapter 189 - 175: Return

At nine in the morning, the bus from Sanmen Town to Beiling City departed. Yin Zhen sat in the corner of the back row. Besides her, Guan Lan and Guan Xing were also on board. When Guan Xing got on the bus, she was holding a pennant—the kind worn on the backs of traditional opera performers. As soon as she saw Yin Zhen, she immediately hid the flag behind her back. Yin Zhen simply pulled her hat down over her face, crossed her arms, and went to sleep.

Her villain halo mentioned that villains were more likely to encounter the fortuitous encounters originally meant for the protagonist, but the villain’s plundering would accelerate the protagonist’s growth. Since she had taken the puppet power, it was perfectly normal for the system to compensate Guan Xing with an Item.

The bus started up and rumbled out of Sanmen Town, passing by the police cars continuously driving into the area. There was a traffic jam on the mountain road caused by a rockfall the night before. When the road finally cleared, Yin Zhen shifted uncomfortably in her sleep. She opened her eyes and saw Ye Mingzhe, the protagonist of the Autumn Tomb World, standing by the roadside making a phone call, his face covered in scratches from broken glass. The bus drove past quickly, and Ye Mingzhe didn’t even notice it.

After returning to Beiling City, Yin Zhen wasn’t in a hurry to deliver the goods to the incense master. She would go back, but not right now. Carrying Ding Yue’s ID card, Yin Zhen stayed in the city center for a few days. During this time, she met with Bai Qiang and listened to her recount the thrilling process of completing a mission in an old residential building.

Bai Qiang said she had encountered a perverted ghost who liked to stalk women who lived alone. Many women had been murdered, and her mission was to spend the night in the apartment of one of the victims. Bai Qiang spoke in a relaxed tone, mentioning that she had asked Doctor Cheng to perform a castration surgery on the perverted ghost. The surgery was very successful, and Doctor Cheng was very happy. Bai Qiang still had to go to work to maintain her Identity. The Abnormal Investigation Bureau was strictly investigating the staff at Beiling Mental Hospital because of Yin Zhen’s prison break, so Bai Qiang had to deal with them carefully.

With nothing to do, Yin Zhen spent her days practicing carving in a woodworking studio, turning the carving memories she had gained through resonance into her own Skills. It wasn’t easy to convert memories involving technique and practical operation into personal abilities. It still required a lot of practice and comprehension to truly master them. Under Yin Zhen’s continuous daily practice and contemplation, on August 22nd—the day of return to the Autumn Tomb World—she finally unlocked ’Basic Carving’ in the Skills column of her Character Card.

During this period, she also visited places in the city with urban legends about supernatural phenomena at night. She found a few very weak Fierce Ghosts to practice controlling, discovering that controlling ghosts was much harder than controlling humans. Just the backlash of supernatural power the moment the threads connected made her feel as if her body was slowly dying. The longer she controlled them, the stiffer her body became. This taboo power wasn’t something that reached maximum level just by swapping hands—she still had to practice!

In conclusion, swapping hands wasn’t Sealing Spirit; it was a direct plundering of the ghost’s Special abilities. She didn’t need to feed the hands with emotions, but the swap wasn’t without side effects. First was her body temperature, which was much lower than a normal person’s. She started to hate sunlight and disliked going out at noon, feeling sleepy during the day and energetic at night. There was always a faint corpse stench on her hands that couldn’t be removed. Her emotions became unstable; she was easily angered and prone to murderous intent.

Yin Zhen also found that ever since she replaced her hands with Chunhua’s, the rabbit plushie never appeared in front of her again. Was the incense master unable to locate her anymore?

At six in the evening on the day of return, Yin Zhen took the initiative to call the incense master. This number was the fixed number Qiao Yun used to contact him in the past. At 6:45 PM, with only fifteen minutes left until her return, the men sent by the incense master brought Yin Zhen back to the old mansion. She met the exact same incense master as last time.

"Where are the goods?" the incense master asked Yin Zhen, suppressing his anger.

Yin Zhen raised her hands. "Right here!"

The incense master stepped up to Yin Zhen in a few strides and grabbed her wrists to take a look, his entire body shuddering. "I told you to bring the goods back to me, not use them on yourself!"

Yin Zhen pulled out of his grip and said unhurriedly, "You said to ensure the goods never left my hands on the way back. They didn’t, did they?"

The incense master fell silent.

"Liu Hua was a mole from the Abnormal Investigation Bureau. I killed her," Yin Zhen confessed voluntarily.

The incense master wasn’t surprised by this. Yin Zhen sighed inwardly, thinking that he truly was an old fox with deep schemes.

"What about Zhang Hai?"

"Killed him too. It was convenient."

The incense master fell silent once more. Zhang Hai wasn’t a mole! How could killing him be "convenient"?!

The incense master felt dizzy. He wanted to raise a hand to his forehead but suddenly realized he had lost control of his body. Bloody silk threads shot out from Yin Zhen’s fingertips, controlling his limbs.

"What are you trying to do?!"

Yin Zhen took a step forward, stared into his eyes, and unleashed her Spiritual Resonance without hesitation. She didn’t have the patience to play a game of cat-and-mouse!

In an instant, memory fragments surfaced in Yin Zhen’s mind. The incense master in front of her wasn’t a real person, but the consciousness possessing it was his own. Her S-Class Blood Source Resonance could still resonate some memories from it. However, these memories were incredibly chaotic. At first glance, it seemed like the memories of different people were all mixed together. Yin Zhen couldn’t distinguish them for the moment, but she recklessly read them like crazy, storing everything away to slowly analyze and examine later.

"You’re courting death!" Sensing something was wrong, the incense master shouted furiously. Two Papermen appeared out of thin air behind Yin Zhen, pinning her shoulders down from the left and right.

He grabbed Yin Zhen by the neck. He didn’t use much force, merely pulling outward, but Yin Zhen immediately felt as if her soul was being forcibly ripped from her body.

"Reload save!"

Darkness instantly consumed her entire vision. In the blink of an eye, Yin Zhen found herself back outside, right before she had entered the old mansion. She felt top-heavy and uncontrollably ran to the nearby bushes to throw up. She retched a few times before she felt a little better, but the dizziness persisted. Her body felt extremely heavy and exhausted.

After resting for five or six minutes, Yin Zhen recovered enough to follow the man leading the way into the old mansion, meeting the incense master once again.

"Where are the goods?" the incense master looked at Yin Zhen and asked the exact same question. But this time, before Yin Zhen could answer, he noticed something was wrong with her. "Was your soul extracted?"

"Ye Mingzhe," Yin Zhen shifted the blame with a gloomy face, raising her hands. "The goods you wanted."

The incense master looked at Yin Zhen’s replaced hands in surprise. He wasn’t furious like before. Instead, he mentally filled in the blanks with a thrilling and dangerous drama, even feeling fortunate and gratified that Yin Zhen had managed to survive and bring the Items back under such circumstances.

After pondering for a moment, he suddenly said, "You’ve worked hard. Since these hands have already merged with you, I’ll let you use them for now."

[Copper Card Event ’Gold Medal Boxer’ completed. Rewarding...]

Yin Zhen ignored the system, listening to the incense master continue.

"When some people who are naturally gifted with a certain skill die with immense resentment, if a Yin burial site is chosen and properly treated, their skill will turn into their lethal power. This kind of power is known as a ’taboo.’ It is very difficult to completely extract and seal it. The right time, the right place, and the right people are all indispensable.

"Such things are very rare. They don’t bring the side effects of Sealing Spirit, yet they can grant you immense Strength. That brat from the Ye Family also possesses a taboo power. You probably didn’t know, did you? Just like you, he is someone born without emotions."

Yin Zhen’s heart clenched. She hadn’t expected Qiao Yun and Ye Mingzhe to share this kind of ’fate’.

"If you are willing to stay with the Temple Worshippers’ Association, I can tell you about my grudge against the Ye Family. You can obtain even more taboo powers like this one."

[Triggered Golden Event Card ’Master and Apprentice’. This event involves the main plot of the Autumn Tomb World. The Player is advised to choose carefully whether to accept it. Once started, subsequent events cannot be refused. If failed, the Player will lose their Villain Card. The final reward after all events are completed is 100,000 words and Luminous Prop x1.]

[Friendly Reminder: Although this old geezer is no good, just like you, you will receive an epic power-up if you study hard under him.]

The incense master looked at Yin Zhen expectantly. He knew Qiao Yun well; she couldn’t tolerate failure. Having suffered a setback at Ye Mingzhe’s hands, she would never be satisfied until she killed him. This was a good opportunity to make her obedient. Some things required her active cooperation.

The system was also waiting for Yin Zhen’s answer, waiting for her greedy desire for more and greater Strength.

Yin Zhen curled her lips into a smile. "Not interested!"

She rejected the incense master, and she rejected the system.

The incense master froze, and the system crashed.

Yin Zhen admitted her own greed. She also liked her current hands, but she liked them not just because they possessed immense Strength, but also because of Chunhua’s will. Even knowing she would die, Chunhua insisted on being the one pulling the strings at the very last moment. Now, Yin Zhen similarly refused to be manipulated by the system anymore. She wanted to pull her own strings and decide her own actions.

[Triggered Exclusive Black Gold Event Card ’Stubborn Mule’. They think you’ve got guts and have decided to take a bet on how long it will take for you to get yourself killed.]

[Since you refuse to be controlled by the system, you naturally wouldn’t want to be a pawn for the old geezer in front of you. If you can kill him during your next transmigration, you will win a Mysterious Gift Package.]

[Now, take your Stubborn Mule Card and roll back to your own world.]

[Countdown finished. Time in this world is frozen.]

[Welcome back.]