Volume One, Chapter 100: Xing Le’s Thoughts

The Soul-Snatching Bell kept struggling, though to Chi Xingwan it was nothing more than a mantis trying to stop a cart. Still, it gave her some trouble.

Leaving aside everything else, just prying it loose had taken quite a bit of effort. By the time Chi Xingwan finally hauled the Soul-Snatching Bell out completely, her arms were already a little sore.

Jin Feng and the other two ran outside the castle just in time to see Chi Xingwan descending on her sword.

“Holy hell! So that’s the legendary sword flight? Amazing!” Jin Feng’s expression was wildly exaggerated.

Xue Cheng was equally stunned. “I heard sword flight demands incredibly precise control over one’s spiritual power, and you need a huge reserve of it to pull it off. There aren’t many spirit masters in the world who can do it.”

Chu Fangfei looked at her in worship. “Exactly. My sister’s a super high-grade spirit master. Sword flight is nothing to her.”

Jin Feng knocked her on the head. “What are you so smug about? It’s not you flying the sword.”

Chi Xingwan gave a light cough to cut them off. “I’ve pulled out the mastermind behind this. When will the Association people get here?”

The three of them looked at the Soul-Snatching Bell in her hand and felt the sinister aura coming off it. All at once, they shivered uncontrollably.

“This creepy thing did all that?” Chu Fangfei asked.

Chi Xingwan nodded. “That’s right. Do you remember the fox-faced, human-bodied statue we found in Jili Town? They came from the same maker.”

“Damn, that’s definitely a bad thing,” Jin Feng said.

Xue Cheng hadn’t taken part in the Jili Town mission, but the matter wasn’t a secret. Especially since a meteorite jade had appeared there at the time, he had heard about it as well.

Just then, Xue Cheng’s phone rang. Seeing the caller ID, he let out a breath of relief. “The Association’s reinforcements are here. I’ll go meet them at the gate.”

Very soon, Xue Cheng brought over more than a dozen people, including Zhu Meng, the head of the Spirit Master Association in Qinghu Province.

As soon as Zhu Meng saw Chi Xingwan, she immediately reached out to greet her. “A pleasure to meet you, Consultant Chi. I’m Zhu Meng, the person in charge of Qinghu Province.”

Chi Xingwan shook her hand. “Hello, Fellow Daoist Zhu. We’ll be relying on you from here.”

Zhu Meng looked both flustered and honored. “How could you say we’re relying on me? This is what I should be doing. Let alone the fact that Qinghu Province has suffered two major incidents in a row; that’s my responsibility.”

Chi Xingwan shook her head. “It happened suddenly, Fellow Daoist Zhu. You don’t need to blame yourself too much.”

Setting aside the ancient tomb matter for the moment, it really had been a sudden incident. And when it happened, Zhu Meng had been abroad, exchanging views with the foreign Spirit Master Association while helping organize the conference.

Afterward, she had rushed back to the country to deal with the tomb incident. Before she had even had two days to catch her breath, the amusement park disaster happened.

And this time, the amusement park incident was clearly far more terrifying than the tomb.

Zhu Meng’s heart gave a jolt. “I heard there were several hundred dead?”

Xue Cheng hurriedly said, “Not that many. I estimated it, and it was less than a hundred.”

Chi Xingwan disagreed. “We still can’t be certain. After all, aside from the amusement park staff, we don’t know how many visitors died at its hands.”

The Soul-Snatching Bell selected visitors by lottery to enter the castle for a meal. During the meal, it was choosing prey. Those it favored were drugged and sent to the basement to have their souls taken.

Within the following month, those visitors would die for one reason or another.

And those it did not favor were the lucky ones. Not only did they keep their lives, they also got a lavish meal out of it.

The amusement park had existed for over ten years, with lottery events held every week. Even if the Soul-Snatching Bell selected only one visitor a month, over the course of more than a decade the number would still be considerable.

Zhu Meng leaned against the wall and took a deep breath, feeling chilled to the bone.

“In any case, let’s handle the current situation first. Dawn is almost here. Before then, seal off the amusement park, or the next batch of visitors will be arriving soon.”

With the Soul-Snatching Bell captured, the spirits of the amusement park’s staff had probably scattered and fled. Ghost officers would come to collect them, so Chi Xingwan wasn’t worried. But visitors who had already bought tickets would begin arriving one after another after daybreak.

“Consultant Chi, you’re right. We’ve already notified the Special Operations Unit. They’ll come assist with the handling,” Zhu Meng said.

Chu Fangfei quietly explained in Chi Xingwan’s ear.

The Special Operations Unit was the department that served as the interface between the government and the Spirit Master Association. Although the people in it were not spirit masters, they all knew about the world of mystical cultivation. When something happened that the Association could not conceal on its own, it would seek support from the Special Operations Unit.

Half an hour later, the Special Operations Unit arrived. Seeing the scene, everyone drew in a sharp breath, and several of them, like Chu Fangfei, were sick all over the place.

The leader, Captain Yang, asked, “What do you need us to help with?”

As expected of someone in charge of an entire province, Zhu Meng had already sorted out her thoughts in just half an hour.

She said to Captain Yang, “Two things. First, we need to identify the identities of the amusement park staff. Second, we need to find as many of the visitors harmed over the past ten-plus years as possible.”

“The workload is enormous. Captain Yang, thank you for your hard work.”

Captain Yang recalled the scene he had just seen in the staff dormitory and swallowed nervously, still shaken. The bodies in that building had all been handled by the Spirit Master Association itself.

“We’re the ones who should be thanking you. You’re the ones who’ve had it hardest. We’ll investigate as quickly as possible and cooperate to the best of our ability.”

Fish-belly white had already spread across the horizon. It would be dawn any moment now.

By rights, Chi Xingwan and the other two were not spirit masters of Qinghu Province, nor were they part of this mission, so they could leave right away.

But Jin Feng decided to stay and help, which also gave Xue Cheng some company.

Chu Fangfei had originally wanted to stay too, but thinking of Xing Le, who was still waiting for her, she decided to leave with Chi Xingwan.

Back on Eternal Night Street, Chi Xingwan could clearly feel the agitation in the air.

In just a few hours, news of what had happened at the Qinghu Province amusement park had already spread through Eternal Night Street, and the Tower had issued several tasks, urgently summoning spirit masters to help.

Even the disciples of Thousand Springs Temple had come down the mountain, intending to join in. After all, with such a major boss already eliminated, missions that did not involve fighting and slaughter were rare indeed.

Chi Xingwan and Chu Fangfei went all the way to the Tower, where Xing Le was waiting for them in the reception room on the second floor.

As soon as the two entered, Xing Le said, “I heard about the amusement park.”

Chi Xingwan sat down and said, “You were caught up in it because of that amusement park. Now the problem has been solved. All that’s left is the cleanup, and the mastermind has already been eliminated. You don’t need to worry.”

Xing Le lowered her eyes. “What about those victims like me... what happened to them?”

“They’re all dead,” Chi Xingwan said without hiding it, speaking plainly. “Because you’re a spirit master, your own spiritual power protected you at the instant it happened.”

So Xing Le should be the only survivor of the amusement park incident.

Xing Le bit her lip, looking very upset. After a long while, she finally made up her mind and said, “I heard the cleanup work at the amusement park isn’t dangerous. I’m a spirit master now too, so I want... I want to take part in this mission.”