Chapter 134 – Who You Gonna Call?

“Thanks for your business, young novitiate! Come back again!” A cheerful voice uttered from behind a hawk mask, completely at odds with the grim deal they had just concluded.

Ren nodded his gratitude. “And thank you for introducing me to Crow, Miss Hawk. I doubt I would have much wealth left if he hadn’t given me a discount on the metals.”

“Glad to help out a fellow plant cultivator! Your progress has brought me great pleasure! Besides, if you hadn’t come during a Night Parade, you would have been out of luck!”

'Luck, huh?’ Thought Ren as he looked around the special monthly market event called the Night Parade. While there were normally only two dozen or so participants on a regular black market night, the monthly gathering had brought out nearly 10 times that number. While in the grand scheme of things, 200 cultivators were not even worth calling a crowd in a city with millions, the significance lay in the illicit nature of their activities. Not that they were all criminals, just people who skirted the rules.

‘I’m not even breaking rules so much as avoiding the hassle of explaining myself to the Discipline Hall. It’s just that this task requires an unorthodox approach. Ren convinced himself.

Ren carefully avoided brushing against anyone as he navigated toward the exit. It was a moonless night, but a prismatic working of qi illuminated his surroundings marvelously. The beauty of the floating lights didn’t contrast the covert nature of the gathering and only added to the mild spectacle.

He spotted a familiar fox mask and made his way over to greet him. Fox was the one who had introduced him to the black market, but Ren had another motive this time than social graces.

"Greetings, Fox! How right you were! The Night Parade certainly has an unexpected beauty to it!” Ren said as he waved.

Somehow Fox identified him despite his blank novitiate’s mask and jovially replied, “My young patron! I see you’re well on your way to becoming a true member of our little group! Soon you’ll be picking out a mask of your own!”

They talked briefly, and Ren slowly shifted the topic to recent events before prompting Fox with what he really wanted to hear about.

"Ah, these past few months have been unexpectedly generous to me. Fewer failed transactions and only one… Ahem. I have fared remarkably well compared to past years. In fact, I even earned an entry permit to the annual event, the Night Parade of a 100 Demons. It’s very exclusive, so forgive me if I can’t share any more! Just know that our community rewards our own so you can always rise higher. Something to look forward to, young patron!”

Fox might have been trying to persuade Ren to participate more in the black market, but in doing so, he revealed something odd to Ren that he could guess the cause of. Ever since Ren had formed the connection, a portion of Fox’s karmic sin had been shuttled to Ren, lessening his karmic debt. Without that burden, Fox had clearly had an easier time achieving success.

Ren didn’t know how to feel about it as he left through the hidden pathway into an abandoned back alley. It felt a little distasteful, knowing he was helping someone who was accruing more karmic debt than merit live a life free of consequence. Fox may not be pure evil, but he could hardly be called a good man. Yet it was a core tenet of karma that there was a cause behind every effect. If Fox was having decreased misfortune, then there had to be some other hidden aspect he was sacrificing.

‘Let’s not act hastily and break this connection. His proximity alone makes him worth observing. It's impossible that the Karmic Strand absorbing sin can have no effect. Those who send merit are returned a higher order qi whenever I breakthrough, giving them a period of heightened fortune. There must be a consequence I’m not seeing for those who send sin!’

Having completed his nighttime excursion, Ren returned to the inn to rest. He had a long day ahead of him.

In the morning Ren gathered his tools and ingredients and rented a spirit forge to work in. As he worked, he arranged his findings from the past five days of investigations. Ever since he had accepted the unwanted task of capturing a murderous ghost or killer, he hadn’t wasted a moment.

It was the first time he had ever performed such a task and knew it would need his absolute focus. He began by gathering information on the victims. The mission had indicated that there were no connections between them, but if there truly weren’t any and they were chosen at random, then Ren could already be considered to have failed. In such circumstances, he could only patrol day and night and pray he happened upon the culprit during the act.

Ren chose to operate on the assumption that someone had missed something. He talked to relatives, friends, and neighbors of those who died in such mysterious conditions. At first, it did appear random, as the six victims varied in age, profession, cultivation, or any other measure, but something eventually leapt out at him.

Resentment. Every single one of the victims had suffered appallingly in the days leading to their gruesome deaths. A child whose parents died on a sect mission being driven out of his inherited home by a greedy aunt. A prostitute who was passed over by the one she loved, sweet promises of liberation heartlessly broken. An old cultivator beaten and humiliated by a young talent and denied justice. Ren had to work tirelessly to unearth these grievances, but once he knew which questions to ask, their stories were very similar. Each one died with a bellyful of resentment.

However, just identifying how they were chosen wasn’t enough as Ren struggled to uncover the next possible target. The thing about such deep resentment was that it was rarely shared with others, left to fester within oneself. Thus, two nights ago, on the 4th day of his investigation, Ren was informed of a 7th victim.

That failure had hit Ren particularly hard because he felt personally responsible. But it didn’t paralyze him. His path as a cultivator hadn’t been without such experiences, and he knew to channel his focus on what he could accomplish. He decided to take a more proactive approach. Bait. He would lure the culprit out of hiding by tempting them with what they most desired.

Unfortunately for Ren, resentment wasn't easy to mimic with traditional ingredients, and his research led him to a strange pill recipe. He had discovered it attached to a heart cultivation method where the cultivator resisted resentment to temper their heart. Even without buying the heart cultivation technique, he could access the pill recipe that created temporary resentment simply because it was obsolete without the accompanying method.

To obtain the ingredients as quickly as possible and without creating a fuss, Ren had entered the black market with a plan in mind. And now he was in the final stages. His hands moved assuredly, and the qi flowed smoothly to carve the necessary channels. He might not have worked with the special metal he had bought from his new black market contact, Crow, but classes he had taken had already hammered the theoretical knowledge into him.

He beheld the 13 glimmering rods he had forged with a certain amount of satisfaction.

“Soon!” he muttered under his breath.

The crumbling walls of the ruined building did absolutely nothing to keep out the chilly evening breeze, but it did keep out the worst of the rain. Beggars often sheltered there, and that night was no different. Five shivering bodies huddled close in restless sleep, but one sat apart. This slovenly figure had a haunted look on his face, eyes staring at nothing in particular but brimming with unshed tears. Choked sobs were barely heard over the sound of the water dripping from the leaking roof.

A compassionate hand came to a rest on the beggar’s shoulder, prompting him to look up slowly. A man knelt before him with an intense look on his face. His mouth opened, but the words that emerged sounded oddly dissonant.

“The world is unfair. The weak are ruthlessly trampled under the strong. I sensed your pain, brother, and came to help. Tell me what troubles you, and I will redress this wrong.”

The beggar began speaking softly, his voice catching as shoulders heaved. “We came upon a rare 100-year herb. It was enough to change both our destinies yet… How could he?” His quivering voice rose higher. “My sworn brother! He betrayed me! Crippled me! Robbed me!” By the end he was nearly screaming, yet not one of the other sleeping figures stirred.”

The kneeling man’s hand tightened on the beggar's shoulder. “Such sorrow! So much loss and fear!” He breathed in deeply, ecstasy twisting his kindly face into a hungry rictus. “Such delectable rage!” His form flickered as he leaned in. Its features resembled now a man in unbearable anguish, tears of black blood pouring down its ghastly face.

Instead of reacting with fear, the beggar shouted, “Seal!” 8 rods slammed down, surrounding the ghost as the beggar leapt away. The vengeful ghost tried to cling to its escaping prey, but its claw burned, and it was forced to let go.

The illusion surrounding them shattered. There was no one else there but the ghost and Ren, as the appearance of a haggard beggar vanished, as did the five sleeping figures.

Ren felt a rush of success. “It worked! I caught it!” The illusion and entrapping array he had set up had worked perfectly! “Hoo! I’m glad I waited until I confirmed it was a ghost! How frightening?! I couldn’t decipher its true nature until it revealed itself!”

He had consumed the prepared pill after sunset, which made him exude a sense of deep resentment enhanced by qi as if from a leaking and crippled dantian, which also fit the story he had concocted. Then he settled into his illusion formation to wait and spring the trap. He was just glad he could act well enough to fool the culprit.

He addressed the ghost with a smirk. “Now you can’t harm anyone anymore! This Blue Sky Yang cage I made with my own hands is designed to contain spirits!” Despite his words and his relaxed appearance, he kept his guard up. And just as he had hoped for, he caught a hint of qi moving with his divine sense.

Suddenly he twisted wildly as only a body cultivator could, moving to dodge. His hand clamped down on a slender wrist holding a blade with a crushing grip, and he hurled the shadowy figure into the cage with the ghost. He mobilized his qi and silently released the second half of the trap. Five more rods slammed down, pinning the figure. The new additions to the complex array inverted the qi alignment in that portion. The Yellow Earth Yin Cage completed the dual attribute trapping array he had set up, capturing both the true culprit, a demonic cultivator, and the ghost he had been nurturing.

Ren had long suspected that a mere ghost couldn’t evade capture for so long nor could so many victims emerge all at once with similar stories of grievances without someone acting behind the scenes. The demonic cultivator had completely concealed its presence to the point where he couldn’t sense it when it faced him. His two-stage trap targeted both their weaknesses, but he first had to act out a charade to fool the cultivator.

Sighing in relief, he looked toward the vengeful ghost, which had been fed with six kills, itself the first victim. In such close proximity, and with its master sealed, Ren’s instincts once urged him to erase the ghost from existence. The sense that it didn’t belong here came from deep within.

He froze at its expression, which had thus far been twisted with anguish, but now a small smile lifted the corners of its mouth. His vision flickered, and he saw a familiar tattered thread of karma knotted at its core and one end leading toward its master. But before his eyes, the knot was loosening, the thread regaining a brighter gleam of gold.

He hesitated and then took a firm step forward. “It’s over. I’ll be handing him over to the Discipline Hall, and they will decide his fate.” Ren’s words rang with finality. He clasped his hands in a salute and gently said, “Be at peace now.”

The knot unravelled completely, and the ghost faded even as the pinned cultivator screamed in pain and anger before coughing up blood from the backlash. But Ren was too busy to notice as he felt a surge of karmic merit flare inside his dantian.

And Ren knew his breakthrough was at hand.