Chapter 96: Different Paths, Different Cultivation Techniques

By the time this meal was over, Wang Daoling was so enraged his belly nearly burst.

“Master, the young lord values them so highly, he doesn’t put you in his eyes at all.”

And then, after the two little novices returned, they kept poking at exactly the one sore spot, adding fuel to the fire.

“Hmph! Nothing but a scrap of body-cultivation, and he dares call himself an immortal master. If this were a thousand years ago, he wouldn’t even be fit to use the immortal gates.” Wang Daoling said.

“Master is a disciple of the Orthodox Path?” one of the novices asked, tossing another spark onto the blaze.

“Of course. Your master is a disciple of the Human Sect. With a body of authentic orthodox mystic arts, I uphold righteousness and drive away evil, and the Great Way lies within sight.” When Wang Daoling bragged, he did not even blush.

To be honest, Wang Daoling was not truly a disciple of the Human Sect at all. He had merely obtained a Human Sect cultivation method by chance. For the first two hundred years, he had kept it carefully hidden, terrified that the owner of the lost scripture would come looking for him. Two hundred years passed, and no one came to reclaim it, so he gradually grew bolder. Moreover, as a bloodline descendant of the ancient beast Golden Toad, he was born knowing the prestige of the Human Sect’s name. After five hundred years of cultivation, he had taken human form and called himself a disciple of the Human Sect; since no one had ever come to trouble him over that either, he had grown even more brazen.

“But Master, you always speak of the Human Sect. Why have we never even heard its name?” the novice on the left asked.

“The Human Sect is an ancient and noble lineage, the orthodox inheritance of sages. Why would the sages remain wandering in the mortal world? Of course they are in the Immortal Realm.” Wang Daoling said with complete confidence, as though he had truly seen it himself.

“But Master, the senior uncles are glorious in the Immortal Realm, while Master is here in the mortal world... wouldn’t that bring shame to the sect?”

A critical hit. A true critical hit.

What had Wang Daoling endured years of hard cultivation for? Why had he, a demon, not hesitated to slay monsters and exorcise evil? Of course it was for glory.

To practice the Human Sect’s methods, Wang Daoling had imitated humans in countless ways. In some respects, such as loving wealth and lust, he was more human than humans themselves.

“Hmph! A mere mortal dares steal my merit. Watch your master perform the rite now, refine paper into ghosts, and frighten that mortal into submission, then seize the credit from that Jiang fellow!”

After all, Wang Daoling was of the orthodox mystic school. Even in stealing credit, he had no thought of murder. He only meant to scare Shen Shi into surrendering on his own, and then take away the merit that should have gone to Jiang Biaotou and the others.

Only, because they were both using Human Sect methods, refining paper into ghosts, and Shen Shi had already encountered this sort of thing once before, the moment the paper ghosts entered the manor he discovered them. Not only Shen Shi, but Fourteen also noticed.

“Young Master,” Fourteen reminded him.

“Is it over there?” Shen Shi asked, pointing toward Orchid Nunnery.

Fourteen shook her head. “I do not know. Is it Sister Eight?”

She could not be certain. The art of refining paper into ghosts was one that the sisters all knew. She could not guarantee this was not Sister Eight’s newest trick for frightening people. Her eighth sister had often scared the young master before; using ghosts to frighten others was not impossible.

Because it was a technique from the same lineage, it was hard to tell at a glance, and the two “ghosts” had already begun their performance.

One azure fiend said, “He’s still pointing. Pointing at nothing. He can’t even see us.”

“That’s better, isn’t it? It means he has spiritual sensitivity. He’ll taste sweeter that way,” said another scarlet demon.

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s eat this scholar right now. Same as always: you take the head, I take the feet. Half each.”

The two fiends discussed, right in front of Shen Shi, exactly how they meant to devour him alive, showing no restraint at all. The more one listened, the more it sounded like “someone’s” prank.

“You little things ran into my home and started discussing how to eat me. Is that really proper? Aren’t you showing a bit too little respect for me, Shen? At least I am a cultivator.” Shen Shi did not look at them. His eyes were searching for Sister Eight instead. If this really was her prank, she ought to be hiding somewhere, secretly enjoying the spectacle.

His eyes opened, and he saw qi.

“Oh no, the scholar heard us. What now?”

“What else? Eat him, of course. Are we supposed to be polite?”

“Good. Then let’s eat him now.”

With sinister laughter, the two fiends lifted off the ground and flew through the air toward Shen Shi, baring claws and fangs as though they truly meant to devour him whole.

“I’m standing right here. Go on and eat me. If I take one step back, I lose.” Shen Shi laughed.

In his eyes, there were no two fiends at all. The so-called ghosts were merely talismans transformed by spells; their bodies were condensed from spiritual energy. And those red-and-azure colors—didn’t they resemble some onmyoji’s blue and red evil spirits? Shen Shi did not know whether the blue and red fiends of the East were actually supposed to look like this, but he could not help thinking of the classic gesture of the red fiend slapping its backside. He even had the strange impression that it might clap its backside at any moment.

In other words, with such ugly fiends before him, Shen Shi felt no fear whatsoever. Instead, he wanted to laugh.

“Young Master, quickly, hurry and run! This servant will block them for you. If they are to eat anyone, let them eat me first.”

Shen Shi found the two ghosts amusing rather than frightening, but he was not the only one here. Fourteen was here too, as was Xihou, who had stayed at the Shen household to recover from her injuries. When Xihou saw the two fiends rushing at them, her face turned deathly pale, yet from somewhere she found the courage not to flee. Instead, she charged out of the room and threw herself in front of them.

She actually meant to use her own body to shield the two man-eating fiends.

Shen Shi froze for a moment, and at once his heart was moved. Even if the ghosts were fake, this feeling was real. He smiled gently and pulled Xihou into his arms.

“You foolish woman, what are you doing? There are no evil ghosts here, only some low-grade sleight-of-hand tricks. It was my mistake—I forgot to warn you. After all, you’re different from us. You cannot see through Daoist illusions, and I made you worry for nothing.”

He had found it all familiar and amusing, yet had forgotten that the people of this age were not like him. Feeling a little ashamed, he thought it over and then reached out with a grasp into empty air, seizing directly at the ghosts’ spiritual energy.

The moment Shen Shi’s true qi met the two ghosts’ spiritual energy, two flashes of golden light flared. The huge, bloated ghostly bodies vanished in an instant, and two talismans drifted down, only to be caught in Shen Shi’s hand.

On them were written the words: five taels, Great Song Treasury Issue.

“Young Master, these are promissory notes?” Fourteen cried out in surprise.

“They are indeed promissory notes.” Shen Shi examined them and asked, “Fourteen, does your Sister Eight like to use banknotes in her spells?”

“No. Though Sister Eight can make use of incense-and-faith power, banknotes carry the force of gold and silver. Though they are a form of wish-power, they fall under the domain of the God of Wealth, and Sister Eight cannot work magic with them.”

“I thought as much. Among your sisters, does anyone serve as the God of Wealth?”

“None, Young Master. The God of Wealth is not the Dragon King; we would never dare pretend to be him.” Fourteen thought it over, but could not think of any sister so fearless.

“I thought as much.” Shen Shi nodded.

Wealth was not exactly a law of nature, but it was not something fox spirits could casually meddle with either. After all, the God of Wealth had formidable backing, whether it was Zhao Gongming or the Buddhist Child of Good Fortune. Shen Shi knew that in the future there would be Cao Guojiu, but setting aside when that might be, there was no need for him to use such a spell to frighten himself.