Taoist Chapter Sixty-Seven: Is the Rakshasa Ghost Dead?

Even so, Li Yan chose not to retreat.

He caught the pouncing female ghost directly and then burned her soul to ashes using a Soul-Burning Talisman.

The female ghost shrieked in agony, but Li Yan completely ignored her screams.

He watched with a beaming smile as she was gradually swallowed by the flames, finally dissolving into a wisp of pale smoke.

With the female ghost disposed of, Li Yan's mood improved considerably.

He hurried over to where his senior brother lay on the ground and gave him a careful physical examination, finding that his body was in no serious condition.

He was merely exhausted from having been possessed for so long.

"My poor senior brother, getting possessed at the drop of a hat. With a constitution like that, he really is one of a kind."

Li Yan hoisted his senior brother onto his back and laid him out on the heated brick kang inside the house.

"Just sleep soundly here, Senior Brother. I'm going to track down that other fierce ghost in red. When you wake up, everything will be over!"

Li Yan cast a protective barrier over his sleeping senior brother.

This would ensure to the greatest possible extent that his unconscious senior brother would not be possessed by anything else again.

Having done all this, Li Yan stepped straight out of the house.

He shut the door securely and drew numerous talismans across its surface.

To ensure nothing went wrong, he began searching the courtyard anew.

By this time, the fog in the courtyard was growing denser, and Li Yan could no longer make out the Rakshasa ghost's silhouette.

Yet he remained entirely unfazed.

Calmly pulling out his geomantic compass, he began searching the area.

To his surprise, however, the compass malfunctioned at this very moment.

Li Yan sighed helplessly. "Sigh, even the compass lets me down at a crucial moment. Could that Rakshasa ghost have already bolted?"

He rubbed his temples in frustration, wondering what on earth was going on.

"The fog is too thick; I can't see a thing. I need to find a way to thin this fog out."

After a moment of thought, Li Yan actually came up with a good plan.

He rapidly formed hand seals, then used his finger to draw circles in the courtyard, chanting incantations as he drew.

Accompanied by his spell, the fog actually began to part right where he was drawing circles.

The entire process of clearing the fog lasted for five minutes.

The courtyard returned to its previous state.

Li Yan smiled happily.

Yet that was when the eerie anomaly occurred.

Although the courtyard had cleared, there was still no sign of the red-robed fierce ghost.

"Could it have run off too?"

Thinking this, Li Yan began a carpet search.

He approached the vicinity of the water vat and discovered the Rakshasa ghost lying nearby.

Its body was covered in countless wounds, soaked in blood.

Li Yan shook his head in disbelief. "It can't possibly be dead just like that, can it?"

With trembling hands, he reached out to check the Rakshasa ghost's breath.

Though ghosts are dead, they still retain a breath.

Death is sometimes merely another form of living.

Li Yan's hand lingered over the Rakshasa ghost's nose for a full fifteen minutes, yet he detected no breath at all.

The Rakshasa ghost was thoroughly and completely dead.

Li Yan felt a pang in his heart as if pierced by a needle; how could it have died when he had only gone inside for a brief moment?

He sighed, then formed hand seals and cast a Memory Retrospection spell on the Rakshasa ghost.

He needed to see how it had died.

Was it killed by the red-robed fierce ghost, or was there human foul play?

Li Yan's Memory Retrospection spell succeeded swiftly.

The memories of the Rakshasa ghost just before its death surfaced.

After Li Yan went indoors, the Rakshasa ghost had not chosen to escape; instead, it dutifully continued searching for the red-robed fierce ghost right here.

Yet it still found nothing.

It intended to go inside and explain the situation to Li Yan.

However, it was repelled by the talismans on the door.

It had no choice but to call out for Li Yan to come outside from the outside.

For some reason, though, Li Yan acted as though he heard nothing at all.

He never came out.

The Rakshasa ghost had to resume its search.

As it walked near the water vat, it suddenly spotted the red-robed fierce ghost.

A battle broke out between them.

The red-robed fierce ghost beat the Rakshasa ghost to within an inch of its life.

Yet she did not kill the Rakshasa ghost outright.

Seizing the opportunity, the Rakshasa ghost counterattacked, but the disparity in their power was vast.

Though it managed to pin the red-robed fierce ghost to the ground as well, it had sustained heavy injuries.

It was reaching its breaking point.

Right at that moment, a fat man appeared, clad in a black Taoist robe, wearing a floral hat, with yellow hair, blue eyes, and a height of 190 centimeters.

He held a very long, thick silver needle in his hand.

As soon as he appeared, he subdued the Rakshasa ghost instantly, then used that silver needle to repeatedly pierce its body.

The Rakshasa ghost screamed in agony over and over again.

Yet upon hearing the screams, the fat man seemed to grow increasingly excited, stabbing with mounting fervor.

The pinpricks and wounds on the Rakshasa ghost's body multiplied, bleeding like a river.

It began to beg frantically for mercy, pleading with the fat man to spare it.

The fat man, however, completely ignored its pleas.

The Rakshasa ghost was tortured to death by the fat man bit by bit with the silver needle.

Its death was exceptionally tragic, and its mournful wails echoed endlessly.

After the Rakshasa ghost died, the fat man suddenly spoke.

"I know you can use Memory Retrospection, and you will definitely see this segment."

"I want these words to be heard by you."

"You killed my favorite red-robed fierce ghost, and the Rakshasa ghost's death is merely a small gift for you."

"When you discover how it died, you will realize there is an even grander gift waiting for you."

"If you are fortunate enough to still be alive, I will appear and kill you."

Seeing this, Li Yan felt a surge of burning anger.

Yet amid his anger, he also found the person looking remarkably familiar.

He pondered carefully, and memory soon surfaced.

"This is the very guy who conspired with Wang Wei to murder Li Xi earlier. No wonder he looked so familiar to me."

"Still, what does he mean by that 'grand gift'?"

Li Yan scratched his head, completely baffled.

Yet his right eyelid had already begun to twitch.

As the saying goes: a twitching left eye brings wealth, while a twitching right eye brings disaster.

Li Yan had a strong premonition that something bad was about to happen.

He observed his surroundings meticulously.

For the moment, he detected nothing amiss.

However, since the man had left behind such a warning, it stood to reason that something ought to be abnormal.

Could he have just been messing with him?

He couldn't possibly be that idle.

Inspecting the area closer still, Li Yan finally spotted the anomaly.

The placement of the objects in this courtyard had changed compared to before.

The water vat, which originally stood right in the center, had now shifted to the left.

An empty coffin that had previously rested in the courtyard was now gone.

The mourning hall had vanished as well.

Even the relative positions of the surrounding buildings had altered.

The place looked considerably more dilapidated.

A terrifying possibility crossed Li Yan's mind, and he hastily raised his head to look at the moon in the sky.

The moon hanging in the heavens appeared in an eerie, inverted position.

The clouds were hanging upside down as well.