The Hanged Ghost
Zheng Que hastily halted his steps, yet his body continued to rise uncontrollably.
Realizing something was wrong, he quickly crouched down, but the moment he exerted force from his waist, his feet, which had barely been touching the ground, swiftly lifted off instead of descending.
A jolt of alarm shot through Zheng Que. He looked down and immediately noticed that the sunlight from behind cast his shadow onto the courtyard wall ahead. On the shadow’s head, a hemp rope was conspicuously tied, firmly hanging from the tree.
His own shadow had been hanged!
Zheng Que’s pupils dilated abruptly. In the next moment an intense pain surged at his neck, and a suffocating sensation overwhelmed him, as if a sturdy rope had tightly cinched around his throat, relentlessly pulling him upward.
He suddenly understood why his body had been floating upward: it wasn’t that he had grown lighter, but that he had unknowingly been hanged by a Vengeful Spirit.
Snapping back to his senses, Zheng Que immediately reached toward his neck, but after several attempts his hands found nothing but empty air.
He calmed down at once, swiftly cut his palm, smeared the blood all over his hand, and reached for his neck once more.
This time he immediately grasped a coarse rope.
Zheng Que exerted all his strength with both hands, trying to snap it, but the rope proved unexpectedly resilient. Despite his Qi Refining Stage cultivation and repeated efforts, it only tightened further, showing no signs of breaking.
However, a cultivator’s vitality was remarkably tenacious. Even as his neck turned purplish and swollen from the strangulation and the suffocating sensation engulfed him, he still did not feel the chilling sense of impending death that had descended upon him the previous night.
The female hanged ghost was not as strong as last night’s Calling Ghost.
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind like lightning. While gripping the rope with both hands to alleviate the weight on his throat, Zheng Que quickly glanced toward the spot where the female hanged ghost’s shadow had been.
His gaze fell upon sparse tree shadows, swaying and casting mottled light. The now somewhat familiar silhouette of the female hanged ghost had vanished without a trace. Before him, only the shadow of the withered old tree lay weakly across the wall and ground, shifting and swaying with the wind.
Zheng Que was momentarily stunned but quickly regained his composure. Eyes sharp as lightning, he looked back at his own shadow.
His shadow was now stretched across the courtyard wall. Aside from the additional rope slowly hoisting its form, the shadow’s outline had inexplicably swollen, appearing unusually bloated, as if two figures were stacked together.
In the next instant Zheng Que felt a piercing chill spread across his back. A slender, graceful figure clung to him, and from its billowing wide sleeves a pair of bony, delicate arms shot out, viciously clamping around his neck.
Crack!
The female hanged ghost’s pale hands passed straight through his own protective grasp and seized his throat.
A sinister chill washed over him, instantly spreading throughout his entire body.
The color drained from Zheng Que’s face, replaced by a deathly pallor.
He immediately released one hand, ready to strike behind him, but at that moment something seemed to occur to him.
Without any hesitation, Zheng Que extended a fingernail and slashed fiercely across the dried blood scab from last night’s chest wound.
Fresh blood immediately gushed out, filling the air with a faint sweetly metallic scent.
Zheng Que mimicked his master’s earlier movements, swinging his arm and swiftly executing a complex hand seal.
The freshly spilled blood transformed in an instant into a living, mist-like substance, dispersing with remarkable agility. It spread out like a net, suddenly expanding and encircling, instantly enveloping both Zheng Que and the female Vengeful Spirit.
A cultivator’s spiritual blood brims with abundant Yang Qi, especially potent under daylight. Sensing danger, the female Vengeful Spirit seemed to momentarily forget about Zheng Que and immediately attempted to retreat into the shadows below.
Seizing the moment, Zheng Que gave her no chance to escape, his hands rapidly forming one hand seal after another.
As the seals shifted, the spiritual blood net trapping both human and ghost swiftly materialized into runes of varying sizes, hovering in mid-air and flickering in and out of visibility. Following a certain pattern they began flying into the female Vengeful Spirit’s body.
The moment the first spiritual blood rune branded into her form, the female Vengeful Spirit’s figure stiffened abruptly and the Yin Qi swirling around her instantly weakened.
Zheng Que immediately felt the rope around his neck loosen ever so slightly.
Not daring to let his guard down, he continued forming hand seals.
The spiritual blood net churned in the air, gathering and dispersing, yet leaving the female Vengeful Spirit no chance of escape. One by one the densely packed runes branded into her body.
On her originally white garments and disheveled long hair, eerie characters continuously surfaced. Her body thrashed violently, like fish hauled ashore, yet no matter how she struggled and tore at herself her movements grew increasingly uncontrollable.
Crack!
The rope constricting Zheng Que’s neck suddenly lost its strength and snapped apart.
Zheng Que landed back on the ground, the suffocating sensation vanishing without a trace. He could finally breathe normally.
His mind settled. The 【Ghost Taming Art】 was taking effect.
With this thought Zheng Que continued casting hand seals while looking upward.
Above, among the withered tree’s canopy, the slender graceful figure hung rigidly, devoid of any lightness. Runes of various sizes continued to emerge from her body, and the once-perilous Yin Qi had mostly dissipated. Now this female Vengeful Spirit exuded a sense of being on the brink of fading away.
As Zheng Que executed his final hand seal, all the runes fully branded into the female Vengeful Spirit’s body.
She immediately detached from the treetop, slowly descending before collapsing weakly to the ground, motionless.
Sunlight filtered through the withered canopy and illuminated her frail form, now flickering between solidity and illusion as if she might dissipate at any moment.
The blood seal had been successfully applied.
Thinking this, Zheng Que used his blood-stained finger to swiftly trace the bird-like, insect-like character onto his palm.
This was the final step of the 【Ghost Taming Art】: issuing the command.
The moment the character was completed, Zheng Que immediately raised his hand, pointed it at the female Vengeful Spirit and commanded, “Ha!”
The female Vengeful Spirit lay prone on the ground, showing no reaction.
Zheng Que froze in surprise and aimed his palm at her again. “Ha!”
Yet just as before the female Vengeful Spirit remained motionless, as if already dead.
Zheng Que couldn’t help but feel deeply puzzled. He had followed his master’s steps almost exactly — why was she showing no response at all?
Had he missed something along the way?
While pondering this, Daoist Qu’s indifferent voice suddenly reached his ears: “You’ve learned well.”
“However, your spiritual blood contains too much Yang Qi.”
“The Vengeful Spirit cannot withstand it during daylight.”
“This female hanged ghost cannot be preserved.”
“Try finding another one when night falls.”