Chapter 146 Blood Ginseng

I could clearly feel a vast horde of Yin monkeys surging rapidly outside my house.

The instinctive craving, combined with the extreme weakness and immediate sensation in my soul after the Three Souls Life-Sealing Technique unlocked the seal of the Heavenly Soul, came rushing in with overwhelming force.

I turned and pointed in a certain direction with my finger.

"Over there. Break through the illusion, and we can get in."

With that said, I dared not linger in the courtyard, for I feared I might not be able to resist devouring the souls of my father and Aunt Hui.

Turning around, I stepped straight out of the courtyard and stood at the threshold of my home.

In the distance, a Yin monkey had already charged over!

This Yin monkey appeared far more terrifying. Its entire body was covered in black hair, looking precisely like a hairy savage.

My heart shook with shock. This creature actually bore the appearance of a villager!

"Li Dagen!"

I shouted in utter disbelief and alarm.

Yet he did not pause in the slightest. His eyes were filled with greed and madness as he lunged straight at me. Beneath him, a thin, elongated blood vessel writhed and swayed constantly like a snake, as if searching for an opportunity to pierce into my body.

My heart grew cold.

This could not possibly be Li Dagen.

As early as the time of Funeral Liu, he had already slaughtered all the villagers.

He had even used the corpses of a thousand villagers to set up a formation against us back then.

In the end, Funeral Liu and the evil ghost died at my hands.

However, those corpses and souls had not been completely annihilated.

The fact that the Yin monkeys were devouring the souls of my father and Aunt Hui meant that both the dead and the living were targets for the Yin monkeys.

Realizing this in an instant, I watched coldly as Li Dagen approached.

With a flick of my talisman brush, I instantly traced the Character of Conflict. Li Dagen, transformed from the Yin monkey, let out a miserable shriek as a massive wound appeared on his chest.

Without a moment's hesitation, I whipped out the Thousand-Yin Rope in my other hand, noosed it around his neck, and jerked him fiercely forward!

This movement was executed with extreme fluidity. Back by the banks of the Yin Dragon River, I had already devoured countless ghosts and captured a fair number of them.

This Yin monkey was dragged right before my face, and with a ferocious intake of breath, I shattered his physical form.

In that very last fleeting moment, I seemed to catch a trace of relief on his face.

It was as if, at the moment of his soul's dispersion, Li Dagen had recovered the sanity that had been devoured by the Yin monkey.

My soul experienced a momentary sense of fulfillment.

Yet it was merely a fraction of a trace.

In the brief span of these moments, along the distant village path, a massive swarm of Yin monkeys came flooding over like a tide.

A flash of ruthlessness crossed my heart. There was no escaping now, at least not for the moment.

Shi Changsheng had gone to seize my body, and by now he had likely reached his destination. I could only hope that Zhang Changneng was more vigilant than Li Yue and Wang Erjun, and that he would discover Shi Changsheng's true nature.

Right now, my mother's Three Corpses God, my father's soul, and Aunt Hui's soul were all here.

The Yin monkeys were merely the vanguard of that monster.

He was going to wake up soon. Perhaps this was my chance—to seize the opportunity and kill him before he woke up.

My mother's Three Corpses God seemed to know certain secrets.

Since she was going to borrow a corpse to return to life, I could take this moment to eliminate these Yin monkeys, which would also weaken that monster's power.

Thinking of this, I strode forward. I dipped my talisman brush fully into my soul's blood and drew the Character of Quake out of thin air.

A purplish-red God-Quaking Talisman suddenly materialized in front of me and shot like an arrow toward the swarm of Yin monkeys.

Roughly one-tenth of my soul's power was visibly drained away.

The God-Quaking Talisman landed right before the horde of Yin monkeys.

A flash of purple halo swept across the area, and at least dozens of villager-shaped Yin monkeys shattered into nothingness.

Another few dozen Yin monkeys were wounded as well.

Without stopping, I charged directly into the midst of the Yin monkey horde!

The next moment, I was among them. The Thousand-Yin Rope snared one instantly. Dragging him close, I inhaled deeply and swallowed his soul dry in a single breath.

The neighboring Yin monkeys lunged forward as well, only to dissolve into mists of vapor right before me.

The depletion caused by the God-Quaking Talisman was effortlessly replenished.

With my Heavenly Soul now complete, the sense of weakness it had generated gradually faded away.

Fierce though the Yin monkeys were, they were as vulnerable as paper before the Character of Quake.

I grew increasingly aware of the immense power of these talismans. I hadn't even used the Character of Death yet.

Merely the Character of Quake, the Character of Fusion, and the Character of Conflict were already enough to render me virtually unrivaled when facing ghosts.

This swarm of Yin monkeys was completely decimated in no time.

My soul swelled to a state of absolute fullness.

Exhaling a breath of stale air, I stood in place, continuing to wait for new Yin monkeys to arrive.

My soul's intuition told me clearly that countless more Yin monkeys lurked in the surroundings.

Aside from those that had devoured the villagers' souls, there were many that had consumed the souls of people who had died in the past, and even Yin monkeys that had never consumed a soul at all.

Their number was far, far beyond a thousand.

Suddenly, a strange feeling washed over me.

When I first laid eyes on the Character of Quake back then, was this not the very limit of what Shi Changsheng faced when confronting the evil ghosts and zombies of an entire village?

A grand and heroic sentiment stirred within my heart. So what if I died here?

If killing that monster allowed my mother, my father, and Aunt Hui to escape safely, what did it matter if I lost my life?

Yet precisely at this moment, the Yin monkeys stopped approaching.

They formed a bizarre encirclement. Starting from in front of me, they bypassed my entire house, seemed to circle around to the old house in the back, and completely enclosed my home within their perimeter.

Frowning, I took a step forward, and the Yin monkeys retreated in unison.

When I ran forward quickly, they scrambled backward just as fast.

I could not match their speed. Earlier, I had taken the initiative with the God-Quaking Talisman, catching them off guard so I could close the distance.

Now that they had begun to fear me, things were likely not going to unfold in the direction I desired.

Abandoning my advance, I retreated back to the doorway of my house. The Yin monkeys began to close the encirclement once more, as if they had figured out my speed.

That distance was just beyond what I could cover instantly with all my strength; even if I used the God-Quaking Talisman, they would have time to react and dodge it.

My expression turned ashen to the extreme.

Glancing back into the courtyard, my heart suffered a sudden, suffocating squeeze.

For my mother was standing soundly right there in the courtyard.

Not the Three Corpses God, nor a mere corpse!

The Three Corpses God had entered the physical body! Although the corpse was not breathing at the moment, it sent a tremor running through my heart.

"Mother."

My voice trembled as I uttered the word.

The next moment, my mother beckoned to me with a wave of her hand. "Never mind them, child. Come inside."

Instantly, I felt that her voice was completely indistinguishable from that of my actual mother.

For a moment, I fell into a trance. The Three Corpses God was merely a part of my mother; how could she be as cruel as Li Cangshui had claimed? At most, her temperament had simply become decisive and prone to sudden extremes of anger and joy.

Perhaps a person's Three Corpses God truly was a collection of various negative emotions.

Once the Three Corpses were severed, the true self became incomparably clear and pure.

And how many negative emotions could a person like my mother possibly possess?

Wasn't this still the very same her?

In my daze, I walked straight into the courtyard.

I came up to my mother.

She raised her hand and gently stroked my face.

Then, with a flick of her hand outward, a few golden threads suddenly materialized beneath our feet.

These threads instantly began to spread outward.

To my astonishment, they not only spread across the entire courtyard, but also wound around my feet, slowly beginning to bind my soul.

I wanted to break free, but my mother leaned in and kissed my forehead.

Fearing that I might startle her, I remained still.

Within that very blink of an eye, the golden threads tightly bound my entire body.

From my mother's lips, a few icy words suddenly spilled forth. "Truly a child, truly so starved of a mother's love. A mere few words were enough to trick you."

"The original body truly held a winning hand. Do you know what kind of entity resides within you?"

Stunned, I asked with extreme anxiety, "Mother, what are you saying?"

A cold sneer crept onto the corner of my mother's lips. "I am no mother of yours. You are far too naive."

As her words fell, a dagger suddenly appeared in her hand.

"The seven-root ginseng is indeed useful, but its true function is purification. You wanted to purify me and let the original body return to life, but you no longer have the chance."

"The golden threads upon your body form the Heavenly Guardian Body-Protecting Formation, capable of warding off ten thousand ghosts. Even if a ghost manages to enter, its physical form will be thoroughly bound."

"Did you ever imagine you would die at the hands of your own biological mother?"

"Let me teach you yet another lesson: how to truly resurrect the Soul-Nourishing Corpse and the Three Corpses God."

As she spoke, the dagger plunged into the flesh of my wrist!

With a faint shattering sound, I found myself unable to even control my soul's illusory form.

Soul blood suddenly gushed out.

"With the blood of one's own child, nourish the flesh-and-blood ginseng."

The dagger then carved a piece of flesh directly from my mother's own palm, letting it drop straight onto the ground!

Yet this action inexplicably stirred a sense of familiar dread within me.