Chapter 346 - 13: An Even Scarier Guy

Duan Fei had the Little Daoist sit down and asked Cuihua to prepare some food to help them recover their strength. He also readied himself to detoxify and heal the two of them.

While Cuihua cooked, Duan Fei used his crowbar to smash the paper effigies that were harassing them. "Little Daoist," he asked, "who does this Daoist School of yours worship?"

"There’s no specific figure. We worship Heaven and Earth."

"Then who is the idol on the back mountain?"

"It used to be a ghost, but because it was too powerful, my master deified it and had it worshipped on the back mountain. That thing is incredibly strong. You don’t want to provoke it."

"It’s not that I want to, but the locations of your ingredients are just too bizarre."

"That was my master’s arrangement from when he was alive. He said that looking for ingredients would also raise the difficulty of cooking."

Duan Fei recalled the contents of the *Yingjie Chapter* and nodded.

Before long, the wolfberry tea Cuihua had prepared was ready.

After letting Little Fatty and the Little Daoist drink the tea to recover their strength, Duan Fei cast a [Rough Healing Technique] on them. Then, he took out the *Yingjie Chapter*, preparing to continue his research.

The *Yingjie Chapter* was like a repair manual, telling its reader how to fix something that was broken.

This time, Duan Fei discovered that new text had appeared at the end of the *Yingjie Chapter*. It seemed some mysterious force had influenced the book, allowing him to see it.

’Is it the Old Dao’s spirit?’

The Old Dao had left his notes there, explaining what he planned to do and his reasons for doing it.

"The changes in the world are growing more and more violent. It seems the time for my sacrifice has come. Because Spirituality is gone, the village beauty next door looks rougher and rougher.

Damn it! I was planning to go eight rounds with her tonight, but I lost all interest the moment I touched her.

My little apprentice has some talent, but he’s still too green. I’m afraid he won’t be able to keep all the ghouls and goblins in check after I’m gone. I really don’t know what to do.

The best way would be to use the Resurrection Technique, but that method is too dangerous...

Oh well, it’s better than letting the lineage die out. After all, if I die, my little apprentice will die too. If I come back, at least he’ll have a fighting chance.

It’s a bet."

Reading this, Duan Fei sighed.

He had thought the Old Dao must have had some ace up his sleeve to choose this path. He never expected it was just a gambler’s impulse. This gave Duan Fei a bad feeling about what was to come; their chances seemed slim.

He read on.

"The *Yingjie Chapter* is quite something. The greatest use of this art is to give form to the formless—to transform a heavenly tribulation into a human one, and a human tribulation into one of ghosts. So I just went ahead and designed a human-ghost tribulation and let outsiders help me pass it. My little apprentice is unreliable, after all. Better to rely on outsiders.

I’m a glutton, so the Evil Corpse I leave behind should be a glutton, too. It would be best to get a few people who can cook to help with the tribulation. That should raise the success rate.

And I need to add some difficulty for them. This will make the human tribulation more powerful, and the results after I pass it will be better. I’ve got it! I’ll just hide all the ingredients. That should do it, right?"

Duan Fei sighed again.

The Old Dao’s plan reminded him of the contrived setups in many horror games—the fuses that always break, the dolls torn to pieces, the book pages scattered everywhere...

When watching playthroughs of other games, he had often complained about how such games insisted on separating items that could have just been placed together, often hiding them in the most ridiculous places.

Who can explain to me why a fuse would be in a toilet bowl? And in the women’s restroom, no less.

Did some girl with nothing better to do bring a fuse with her to the bathroom, studying its electrical resistance while taking a dump?

Now he saw that such designs were just ways to artificially increase the difficulty. Maybe those game developers were also preparing to pass a tribulation, raising the "human tribulation" value for the players to set up for a big finale.

His rant over, Duan Fei read on.

"Oh crap. Before shedding my mortal coil, I should have told my little apprentice that the kitchen cleaver is really useful. With it, the Divine Spirit on the back mountain will obey his commands. But if my Evil Corpse gets it, the consequences will be unthinkable. Still, it’ll probably be fine, right?"

Closing the *Yingjie Chapter*, Duan Fei said to the other three, "Wait here. I’ll be right back. By the way, is there anything flammable around? I need to borrow it."

"You..." Cuihua looked at Duan Fei, confused.

"Oh, it’s nothing. Just going down the mountain to burn a body, destroy the evidence. We can eat when I get back, so don’t rush."

"Get back here! What are you going to do to my master’s body?!" the Little Daoist yelled in a panic.

"Don’t stop me. A piece of trash like that doesn’t deserve to be the master of a piece of trash like you."

"Hey, don’t insult two people at once!"

After finally managing to stop Duan Fei and understanding why he was so angry, the Little Daoist calmed down and asked, "So, can we scatter the ashes in the latrine pit?"

"You two, calm down. The Evil Corpse probably doesn’t know about the cleaver. Our odds are pretty good."

Little Fatty had just finished his comforting words when he saw the Divine Spirit—caped, with a green face and protruding fangs—emerge from the back mountain and start heading downhill.

Down below, the Evil Corpse’s head was back on its shoulders. A wide smile stretched across its face as it held the cleaver, welcoming the arrival of the Divine Spirit.

Turning his head, Little Fatty said to the other two, "How about we find a pack of wild dogs, starve them for three days, and then let them at the ashes?"

The Divine Spirit walked slowly down the mountain. Just as it was about to leave the Daoist Temple, it was stopped by a shimmering barrier.

This barrier was a local ward, binding the Divine Spirit and preventing it from leaving the mountain to join the Evil Corpse.

Seeing this, Little Fatty knew the situation was hopeless. He could only look at Duan Fei and ask, "Is there anything else? What else did that damn Old Dao write?"

Duan Fei took out the book and read for a moment. "That’s it," he said. "Besides leaving a bunch of messes for us to clean up, that Old Dao didn’t write anything else."

"What do we do now?"

"We find eggs and make egg-fried rice," the Little Daoist said. "As long as we can satisfy the Evil Corpse’s appetite, its power will decrease. It’s thanks to Duan Fei’s two dishes that its strength was reduced enough for us to escape."

"Alright. Let’s go."

Leaving Little Fatty to stand guard, Duan Fei gave his usual instructions before heading to the back mountain with the Little Daoist to find the legendary eggs.

The moment he stepped onto the back mountain, the Little Daoist felt something was wrong.

The Divine Spirit was gone, and the various Evil Spirits it had been suppressing were now becoming active.

These Evil Spirits used various objects as conduits to influence the Little Daoist.

The influence permeated his senses. His sight, hearing, smell, and touch were all affected by these ghostly things, becoming unreliable.

His master had once said that the world was undergoing a great change. The Spirituality in all things was fading, and gods were degenerating into demons, reverting to a savage state of eating flesh and drinking blood, preying on humanity.

After all, humans were the head of all creation, the spirit of nature itself. Their bodies contained the strongest Spirituality.

This was especially true for Daoist cultivators like them, whose Spirituality was a cut above the rest, making them the most tempting prize for such creatures.

When the Old Dao was alive, these creatures hadn’t dared to cause trouble, terrified that he would destroy them.

But now the Old Dao was gone, and he himself was outside the Daoist Temple. All manner of ghouls and goblins began to materialize, closing in from all sides.

’To these things,’ he thought, ’I must look like a gourmet meal delivered right to their doorstep.’

Drawing his Money Sword, the Little Daoist prepared for a major fight, only to see Duan Fei turn his head. "From the look on your face... did something come out to play?"

"Yes."

"Next time, just call out their coordinates. I’ll go beat them up."

"Um... that bamboo stalk over there..."

Before his voice had even faded, the bamboo stalk crashed to the ground. The spirit possessing it let out a wretched scream, then turned to smoke and vanished without a trace.

Staring at Duan Fei’s impassive face, the Little Daoist suddenly wasn’t sure who was more terrifying.