Chapter 138: Misfortune is Contagious (Double Chapter)

None of Xu Ping and his companions recognized Zhou Bai. Due to the sudden appearance of a stranger and the recent casualties, the atmosphere instantly became tense.

The corpse was quickly carried away by one of them. Grief was inevitably etched on their faces, but it was promptly suppressed.

Zhou Bai ignored them. His Tyrannosaurus True Form exerted a sudden surge of strength and lunged toward the Ghost Mother, its wide-open bloody maw possessing terrifying bite force.

The Ghost Mother radiated piercing Yin energy. Unlike its encounter with Xu Ping's group earlier, it appeared even more wary of Zhou Bai. It directly untied its garments, revealing a skin entirely covered in human faces.

The Tyrannosaurus bit down directly onto the Ghost Mother. The creature showed no intention of dodging; under this attack, merely one of the human faces on its body vanished amidst shrill shrieks.

"Substitute death?"

Zhou Bai stepped back heavily, the ground fracturing under his weight, while his thick tail swung fiercely toward the Ghost Mother.

The entity still made no attempt to evade or block, its hands forming claws that left several bloody gashes on his body, causing yet another human face to shatter and disappear.

Those bloody gashes were far from ordinary, filled with extremely chaotic Yin energy that felt like countless ants burrowing into Zhou Bai's body from the wounds.

Unless he employed his own Yin energy, his demonic Qi alone would be unable to purge them in the short term.

However, they were currently in the Inner City. Should that True Soul realm expert be lurking in the shadows, he dared not expose his Yin energy.

Such bizarre abilities were indeed rather troublesome. Judging merely by visual estimation, the Ghost Mother possessed hundreds or even thousands of human faces on its body; it could grind Zhou Bai to death purely through trading injuries for injuries.

After a brief recuperation, Xu Ping and his group immediately joined the battle, yet they inadvertently treated Zhou Bai as an imagined enemy, holding nothing back in their attacks.

Influenced by these troublesome teammates, the situation on the battlefield instantly became chaotic and unpredictable.

Feeling deeply aggrieved and unable to waste too much time, Zhou Bai forcefully rammed Zhang Tie, who had transformed into a rhinoceros, sending him flying.

Then, catching them off guard, he wrapped his tail around the unconscious Jiang Xing, leaped powerfully into mid-air, reverted to a half-human, half-demon form, and bolted toward the outskirts of the city.

The Ghost Mother emitted a sharp screech, closely tailing Zhou Bai, the malice in its eyes enough to send chills down anyone's spine.

Xu Ping and the others hurriedly gave chase, but Zhou Bai's speed had already surged. Several demon-path divine abilities cooperated covertly, allowing him to traverse the dense urban area as if walking on flat ground.

To prevent the Ghost Mother from causing excessive casualties, he deliberately chose remote, sparsely populated areas.

Even so, it threw the urban district of Songdu into complete turmoil. Fortunately, it was daytime; even if injured by the Ghost Mother's formless Yin energy, the ambient Yang energy was sufficient to suppress the wounds.

Xu Ping chased for a moment before coming to a halt. His token suddenly received Wu Yifeng's divine thought, instructing them to prioritize rescuing the injured civilians.

Though extremely unwilling, he forcefully reined in his frustration and ordered his junior martial brothers and sisters to abandon the pursuit of the Ghost Mother's trail.

Only Wu Qinger's brows twitched as she bluntly remarked, "What is the meaning of this? Our bounty was just intercepted like this, Junior Sister Wang died because of it, and in the end, the credit has nothing to do with us."

Although Xu Ping felt somewhat resentful inside, he dared not show disrespect to his master. Unlike the other disciples, Wu Qinger was Wu Yifeng's daughter, so she could openly criticize without consequence.

"Master's arrangements have their own logic. Let us prioritize quelling the chaos within the city first."

Wu Qinger rolled her eyes at him, said nothing more, and sprinted briskly in the direction the Ghost Mother had taken, her footsteps light.

Pinching his temples with a mild headache, Xu Ping immediately reported the situation to Wu Yifeng and, upon receiving a reply, dismissed the matter entirely.

Within this short span of time, Zhou Bai had scaled several city walls and reached the outskirts, deliberately selecting a remote location devoid of mortals in the vicinity.

Along the way, he relied entirely on the advantage of his claws to scale the brick walls like a beast, pushing his half-demon, half-human form to its absolute limit.

Upon reaching the open ground, Zhou Bai hung Jiang Xing on a nearby tree branch. The Ghost Mother hovered not far away, staring fixedly at him while its Yin energy continuously billowed outward.

He had no idea how much longer Jiang Xing could serve as bait to attract this ghost entity. Once the threat of death became too great, it would likely flee instantly.

Given the Ghost Mother's abilities—capable of evading detection even by True Soul realm experts within Songdu—if it truly wished to conceal itself, Zhou Bai would be completely powerless to stop it.

Arriving at this location and acutely sensing the absence of the True Soul realm expert's surveillance, he immediately activated his Yin-Yang Eyes.

Aside from the Ghost Mother before him, Zhou Bai also detected a True Body realm Yin energy heading rapidly toward his direction from within Songdu, though whose it was remained unknown.

He knew he had to finish the battle swiftly, so he immediately transformed into the Skeleton True Form. Ghost-path cultivation was far superior to that of a newly advanced True Body demon-path practitioner.

Upon shifting into the Skeleton True Form, his oppressive aura immediately suppressed the Ghost Mother.

The Ghost Mother was a peak evil ghost possessing a modicum of sentience, and realizing the situation, it opted to cut its losses and flee.

Before it could react, however, a spine of white bones lashed out from Zhou Bai's hand, binding the Ghost Mother's body in an instant.

Eager to conclude the fight quickly, he cast aside further considerations, driving his Yin energy to its absolute limit. Immediately following that, more than a dozen chains shot forth from his eye sockets, which burned with nether flames.

The chains pierced straight through the Ghost Mother's body, effectively neutralizing its substitute-death ability before it could be deployed.

The Ghost-Devouring divine ability was far more miraculous than Zhou Bai had anticipated—truly worthy of being born from the fusion of two distinct divine abilities.

This also proved that as long as more homologous divine abilities could be combined, the power of heterogeneous divine abilities would correspondingly rise, offering paths beyond mere ascension.

The upper and lower jaws of Zhou Bai's skull parted widely, the interior turning pitch black as a powerful suction force suddenly erupted.

The Ghost Mother resisted desperately, but under the constraint of the chains, it was pulled inward inch by inch. However, because its cultivation level was comparable to Zhou Bai's true body, the process was excruciatingly slow.

After a rough estimation, Zhou Bai frowned—it would take at least the better part of an hour to swallow the Ghost Mother, and what variables might arise during that time remained entirely unknown.

With that thought, he cast aside all hesitation and summoned the Ghost Tree, its countless roots wrapping around the Ghost Mother in unison.

The commotion caused by this was already somewhat substantial, forcing him to simultaneously command the Salted Fish to emit a dense white fog to prevent outsiders from detecting the unfolding events.

"Swallow me already!!!!"

The Ghost Mother emitted one final, despairing shriek before being drawn entirely into the black hole-like maw.

Zhou Bai promptly restored his physical form. Before he could even recall the Ghost Tree and the Salted Fish into his Dantian, he suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood and blacked out, collapsing.

The Salted Fish shrank into a white snake and slid into his sleeve, while the Ghost Tree wrapped its roots around Zhou Bai, plunging underground with him and vanishing completely.

When Wu Qinger arrived, the area was left in utter devastation, yet all traces of both the human and the ghost had vanished.

Three days later, Songdu had long since returned to normalcy. Although Xu Ping and his companions continued searching the city for clues regarding Zhou Bai, not a single trace remained.

In the end, only Wu Qinger refused to give up, attempting to trace his identity through the Underworld Bureau records, yet no one recognized the name Bai Long.

Her sole discovery was a few patches of blood found outside the city, within which a faint trace of Yin energy was detected. Since this Bai Long had clearly awakened demon-path divine abilities, why would Yin energy be present?

However, since the person had vanished, that pool of blood could easily have belonged to someone else or been contaminated by Yin energy post-mortem, offering no direct leads.

As for Zhou Bai himself, he lacked the energy to concern himself with these matters. He was currently suffering in silence; the butterfly effect triggered by the Ghost-Devouring divine ability had almost caused him to perish on the spot.

Ghost-Devouring, as the name implied, involved swallowing a ghost entity into the stomach, after which it would be sealed within the Dantian by chains and gradually eroded by Yin energy, thereby substantially increasing the total volume of Yin energy.

Yet Zhou Bai's Dantian was bizarre beyond measure, and with divine abilities already residing within it, none of them accepted the ingested Ghost Mother.

Consequently, the Ghost Mother was sealed away within the Dantian's micro-world.

That micro-world was merely in its nascent stage, barely capable of housing the most ordinary spiritual materials, let alone an evil ghost whose cultivation was on par with Zhou Bai's actual body.

The moment the Ghost Mother entered the Dantian micro-world, even while bound, the mere leakage of its aura caused the micro-world to begin collapsing, instantly inflicting heavy trauma upon Zhou Bai, whose life was inextricably linked to it.

At that critical juncture, the Great Treasure Glazed Medicine emitted Buddhist light, suppressing the entire Dantian while sealing the Ghost Mother within its central island. Yet, as long as the entity remained uneradicated, Zhou Bai would continue to suffer its repercussions.

At present, he was not only unable to mobilize his Yin or demonic Qi, but even his human-path divine abilities had slipped out of control. Fortunately, he had previously deployed his two natal artifacts, preventing him from regressing entirely into a mortal.

Driven to desperation, Zhou Bai had no choice but to attempt prematurely integrating his Buddhist-path divine ability into the Dantian micro-world. Regrettably, progress was excruciatingly slow, and on several occasions, he nearly suffered a deviation in his cultivation.

With no other options, he put cultivation aside and focused entirely on helping the Stray Dog Gang develop. The shops they had acquired were now fully prepared.

Zhou Bai purchased several large jars at the gang's gathering place and, utilizing the formulas obtained from the brewing divine ability, concocted five distinct fine wines. Moving forward, these establishments would specialize in the liquor trade.

However, the liquor industry was inherently lucrative; without substantial means, surviving unscathed was difficult. The Stray Dog Gang could not rely solely on Zhou Bai, but rather on Butcher Zhang and Green Bull.

Both had successfully awakened their divine abilities and, under Zhou Bai's recommendation, joined the Underworld Bureau.

Wu Yifeng had also learned of this development and even dispatched Zhang Tie to attempt to recruit the Stray Dog Gang, but both Butcher Zhang and Green Bull politely declined.

Though slightly regretful, Wu Yifeng thought nothing of it. After all, his own disciples were already giving him enough headaches, and the fact that these individuals managed to join the Underworld Bureau on their own suggested they had their own connections.

Zhou Bai estimated that over the next few months to half a year, the gifted children within the Stray Dog Gang would begin awakening in succession.

Since Songdu was ultimately not his territory, he would have to wait until he was ready to return to Hangzhou in Yangzhou, at which point he would take this group of people with him to prevent others from snatching them away.

For the current Zhou Bai, time was truly running short. He needed to eliminate Wu Wu in the short term, evacuate the children before mass awakenings occurred, and furthermore, Wen Meng was already beginning to press him from the Hangzhou side.

The paramount issue, however, was resolving the flaw in his Dantian first. Given sufficient time, he would have preferred to wait for the Great Treasure Glazed Medicine to produce another lotus seed before attempting a more radical approach.

Having no alternative, Zhou Bai decided to first head in the direction of his clone while slowly attempting to manage the problem.

He had Butcher Zhang construct a heavily reinforced iron-wood carriage within the city. Sitting inside it himself, pulled by a lean horse, he could conveniently conceal the Ghost Tree and the Salted Fish, which could not be put away.

With everything prepared, he first secretly returned to the Inner City.

Jiang Xing, having escaped death, had recovered his divine ability, but his personality had grown increasingly erratic. Not only was he prone to anger, but he had also become profoundly reclusive, unwilling to speak with anyone—not even his master, Wu Yifeng.

He spent his days secluded in an empty room for cultivation. Perhaps because cracks had formed in his Niwan Palace when he consumed the Ghost Child Fruit, the mental suggestion planted by Zhou Bai proved far more effective than anticipated.

Normally, such suggestions would have zero impact on True Body realm cultivators, but Jiang Xing proved even more susceptible than Wang Yuanfang, particularly regarding the so-called Three Laws of Robotics, which were deeply etched into his mind.

Zhou Bai easily arrived outside Jiang Xing's dwelling and peered inside to find the lights still brightly burning.

He had actually been using the Salted Fish to secretly observe the other party, which once again yielded a juicy piece of gossip.

A few days prior, Jiang Xing had run into Senior Sister Wu Qinger. Because she furrowed her brows, he blurted out:

"Why does it smell so foul? Junior Brother, did you go eat shit?"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Xing turned around and walked away with his body moving beyond his control, subsequently locking himself inside the county office's latrine for a long time. With the interior shielded by a soundproofing spiritual array, one could only imagine what he experienced during that time.

"Dust to dust, earth to earth, grievances have their heads and debts have their masters. Everything is Song Fang's fault anyway; you've always held a grudge against him, so it has nothing to do with me. Let's just pretend none of this ever happened."

Zhou Bai muttered to himself. Being an artifact-path divine ability, he could channel it through the Ghost Tree; with a single thought, Jiang Xing closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Sneaking into the room, he glanced at several dolls on the desk bearing Song Fang's name, bristling with stuck-in needles, and could not help the twitch of his eye.

"Good thing we aren't close."

Muttering under his breath, Zhou Bai pressed his finger against Jiang Xing's glabella, causing a drop of black blood to trickle out.

It was immediately absorbed by the branches and leaves extended by the Ghost Tree, after which a new type of divine ability appeared on the foliage, and the Corrosive Skin divine ability was retrieved.

Zhou Bai genuinely felt this unlucky kid was too miserable, so the crystallized divine ability was extracted only symbolically, leaving the majority behind for the other party.

While vastly inferior to possessing dual divine abilities, with some effort, Jiang Xing might even manage to ascend to the True Soul realm in his lifetime.

Moreover, he needn't worry about Jiang Xing seeking revenge; the implanted suggestion would not fade away, and he seized the opportunity to plant several more.

Most of them caused Jiang Xing to subconsciously overlook him, while any negative emotions directed at Zhou Bai were instantly redirected to Song Fang. Since the latter was a temple master's disciple, he could afford the extra debt.