Chapter 52: Taoist Priest Arc: I Will Always Wait Here for You to Return and See Me

Li Yan watched as the village chief breathed his last.

With an untamed roar of fury, he screamed, "You killed Uncle Village Chief! I'll make all of you pay with your lives!"

Hearing Li Yan's words, the villagers mocked him in unison, shouting, "You are the one who killed him! If you hadn't murdered our children first, and if he hadn't desperately tried to protect you, he never would have died. You are a monstrosity! You're the one who deserves to die!"

"Look at you, tied up like that. What could you possibly do now?"

"Stop wasting words on this monster! Burn him!"

The crowd gathered firewood and set it ablaze. Moments later, they prepared to hurl the burning logs at Li Yan to incinerate him.

Frowning deeply, Li Yan shut his eyes tight and clenched his fists.

He roared at the top of his lungs, "I want you all to die!"

The crowd merely took it for the impotent rage of a doomed man, believing that a bound Li Yan was completely powerless.

As soon as his roar subsided, the phrase *I want you all to die* echoed relentlessly inside his mind. His consciousness began to slip away, and tendrils of dark aura slowly manifested around his body.

The courtyard was soon engulfed in a shroud of black fog, throwing the villagers into absolute panic. They tried to flee, but the exit had vanished from sight. Scrambling frantically across the courtyard, they searched for Li Yan, hoping to beg for mercy.

Instead, they discovered that Li Yan had vanished from the wooden cross where he had been bound.

Silently, Li Yan materialized behind them, tapping them lightly on the shoulder.

Puzzled, they turned around.

What met their eyes was Li Yan, his pupils stained a bloody crimson, his body wreathed in black mist, smiling at them with a terrifying, wicked grin.

Terrified out of their wits, the villagers dropped to their knees, kowtowing ceaselessly. "Spare us! We know we were wrong!"

Li Yan found their pleas utterly laughable.

"Spare you? That's impossible. If I kill people, I bear the consequences—that doesn't matter. But you killed Uncle Village Chief. You deserve to die!"

With those muttered words, the black mist permeating the courtyard grew even denser.

Before long, the dark vapor began to burrow into the bodies of the villagers. They collapsed onto the ground in agonizing torment, shrieking in pain, until blood gushed from their seven orifices and they died.

By this point, Li Yan had completely lost his own consciousness. He felt an intoxicating rush of pleasure and laughed brightly.

Swiftly leaving the courtyard, he made his way into the village proper.

The dark aura enveloping him continued to spread relentlessly, and within moments, the entire village was choked with black fog. The villagers were pierced through their bodies by the swirling mist, and they too perished.

Having finished everything, Li Yan prepared to move on to other places.

Suddenly, an invisible force locked him firmly in place.

He struggled desperately against the restraint before turning his head to look back.

Standing behind him was an elderly man with a white beard, clad in purple Taoist robes, holding a bronze mirror in one hand and a coin sword in the other. The old man was relatively short, around 175 centimeters tall, somewhat plump, with dignified facial features.

His eyes wide with stern fury, the old man barked at Li Yan, "Come back with me. Stop harming innocent people."

With a blank expression, Li Yan replied coldly, "I don't know you. Why should I go with you?"

Just as the white-bearded elder was about to speak again, a villager crawled out from the debris.

Dragging himself to the old man's feet, the villager wept and pleaded desperately, "Master Li Shouhu, you're finally here! Please, save me! Kill this monstrosity!"

Hearing the villager's plea, Li Shouhu pulled him behind his back to shield him.

He then glared sternly at Li Yan and declared, "I will give you two choices now: either I beat you to death, or you come back with me and become my disciple."

In truth, Li Shouhu's words were not meant for Li Yan, but rather for the entity residing within his body.

Upon hearing this, Li Yan tilted his head, stared at him with a sinister smile, and remained silent.

Seeing this, Li Shouhu launched a direct attack against Li Yan, shouting as he struck, "If you do not withdraw this instant, I will destroy you!"

The entity inside Li Yan remained completely unfazed by the threat, and the black mist intensified.

The dark fog enveloped both Li Shouhu and the villager, while Li Yan's shadow split from one into two.

The secondary shadow detached itself completely from Li Yan's physical form and marched straight toward Li Shouhu. Once the shadow separated, Li Yan collapsed unconscious to the ground.

With a calm and composed demeanor, Li Shouhu observed the approaching shadow. This shadow was an evil ghost from the netherworld that had reincarnated by usurping Li Yan's mortal shell. Later, when Li Yan was humiliated and harbored wicked thoughts, the entity had allied with the curse dormant within him to manipulate Li Yan into attacking the villagers.

As the shadow lunged at him, Li Shouhu remained entirely unperturbed. He flashed the bronze mirror directly at the shadow, instantly causing it to recoil in excruciating agony. The shadow stumbled back several paces.

Catching a glimpse of the reflection in the bronze mirror by chance, Li Shouhu's expression shifted.

"This is bad. The evil ghost has bound its own fate to Li Yan's. If I destroy it outright, Li Yan will die as well. But if it remains inside Li Yan's body for too much longer, Li Yan will still die."

Quickly retrieving a yellow talisman paper, Li Shouhu pressed it against his lips and chanted an incantation at lightning speed.

The shadow slithered around Li Shouhu, taunting, "Old man, go ahead and kill me! If you kill me, he dies too."

Unflinching, Li Shouhu persevered until the incantation was complete.

With a swift motion, he grabbed the shadow and slapped the talisman firmly onto its body.

The shadow shrieked, desperately trying to claw the talisman away, but the moment its fingers touched the paper, it was violently repelled by a searing force.

Wracked with torment, the shadow wailed aloud.

After a long while, the shrieking finally subsided, and the entity lapsed into a deep slumber.

Seeing that the shadow was subdued and dormant, Li Shouhu guided it back inside Li Yan's body.

He then placed a stringent seal upon Li Yan. This seal would temporarily keep the sleeping evil ghost and the curse under control.

"Alas, I only wonder how many years this seal can hold this boy captive," Li Shouhu murmured with a sigh.

He roused Li Yan from unconsciousness and used his powers to resurrect every single villager who had perished.

When Li Yan saw that Uncle Village Chief had been brought back to life, he beamed with joy and bowed deeply to Li Shouhu. "Thank you! Uncle Village Chief and everyone else are alive again!"

With paternal fondness, Li Shouhu patted Li Yan on the head and said, "Go bid farewell to the village chief you love so much. You carry a curse and an evil ghost within you, so it is not safe for you to stay here. I am going to take you away with me to teach you how to master them. Once you have learned, you may return whenever you please."

Li Yan blinked in confusion, not entirely comprehending what Li Shouhu meant by "evil ghosts" and "curses." Yet, seeing the lingering terror in the eyes of the other villagers, he knew it was nothing good.

"If I go with you and learn this, I won't hurt them ever again, right?" Li Yan asked with utter sincerity.

Li Shouhu nodded gently and replied, "That is correct."

Receiving this reassuring confirmation, Li Yan walked over to Uncle Village Chief.

He dropped respectfully to his knees, kowtowed to the old chief, and said earnestly, "Uncle, thank you for raising me and teaching me all these years. Please take good care of yourself. Once I learn how to control myself so I don't hurt anyone, I'll come back to see you."

Though reluctant to part with him, the village chief nodded his consent for Li Yan to leave with Li Shouhu. After all, Li Shouhu was a renowned master, and traveling with him meant Li Yan would never be bullied.

The village chief waved his hand, signaling Li Yan to depart.

As Li Yan turned to walk toward Li Shouhu, the village chief grabbed his hand, pressed a handful of coins into his palm, and instructed him with tear-filled eyes, "You must study diligently under Master Shouhu and stay out of trouble, you hear me? I will always be right here, waiting for you to come back and visit me."

Weeping bitterly, Li Yan nodded before finally turning to leave with Li Shouhu.

They journeyed up into the mountains, where Li Yan became Li Shouhu's second disciple, joining his senior martial brother, Shifou.