Sitting by the window, they admired the deep mountain moonlight for a while. Seeing the night growing darker, the two lay down on the bed fully clothed together.
Of course, since it was a haunted house after all, the two could not do anything; they simply closed their eyes to rest their minds, preparing to spend the night.
The moon rose to the midpoint of the sky, and the night approached the zi hour.
Lu Zheng was smelling the fragrance of Liu Qingyan beside him, and their hands under the quilt were entwining playfully.
You pinch me, I pinch you, sometimes forming a circle, sometimes a twisted braid.
“Eh?”
Lu Zheng sniffed, suddenly catching a whiff of calming incense.
“Is this to help us fall into deep sleep quickly?” Lu Zheng could not help but look toward the door crack from which wisps of fragrant smoke drifted in. “Is the service in this haunted house so considerate?”
Liu Qingyan also sniffed and said softly, “It’s infused with a spiritual other force inside, making the sleep aid effect three times better; they’re afraid we won’t fall asleep fast enough!”
“So…” Lu Zheng’s eyes darted.
“Hm?”
Lu Zheng blinked, sensing another eerie aura permeating the room, accompanying the calming incense smoke, circulating and winding back and forth in the room, then all surging into the two people’s bodies together.
At this moment, the room’s yin energy was already heavy, and now it was thirty percent heavier.
Their hand gestures paused, then they gently clasped hands together, squeezing each other’s tightly. Without opening their eyes, they already understood each other’s thoughts.
Their breathing became steady, as if asleep.
The next moment, the yin energy in the room intensified by another thirty percent, and at the same time, the proprietor’s voice sounded.
“We’ve probably gone two months without a proper meal, right?”
“Almost two and a half months; more and more people are taking this mountain path, and we’re almost out of chances to strike.”
“It’s been so long since we absorbed yang energy or drank human blood; I’m dying of craving.”
These were the voices of the two waiters.
“Leave these two people’s brains to me; I like them steamed.”
A rough voice rang out, one Lu Zheng had not heard before.
“Don’t rush; take it easy. The whole head is yours,” the proprietor said.
Lu Zheng felt the yin energy gradually thickening, the chill drawing closer.
“Tsk tsk, who knows which family’s young master and delicate miss, hurrying along only to court death,” the proprietor laughed.
“What a coincidence; just right, only one group staying the night, perfect for our meal,” the waiter who had greeted them at the door laughed.
“Poor things, poor things.” The second waiter smacked his lips. “Better to let them die in their dreams, sparing them the pain.”
“Slurp!” The rough voice sounded. “Let me; one chop with the cleaver, heads roll clean off, quick and satisfying.”
“Nonsense!” the proprietor said. “Blood spraying everywhere, what a waste. Let me strangle them first; the blood’s still warm, better to drink.”
“This is good! This is good!” The waiter who had just pitied Lu Zheng and the other laughed. “Let them struggle more; the blood gets even hotter.”
“After this meal, who knows when the next one will be; we must savour it properly.”
“Yes, we can’t have caravans on this path disappearing too often, or we might attract some expert.”
“Enough talk, Proprietor; hurry up and do it. I’ve got the water boiling in the kitchen, just waiting for the heads to go in the pot,” the rough voice said. “After these two heads, there are still those dozen or so on the second floor.”
“Alright, alright; I’ll do it right…”
The proprietor’s voice suddenly halted, because he suddenly discovered that Lu Zheng and Liu Qingyan, lying on the bed, had both opened their eyes together.
“Why are they awake?” the first waiter asked in a daze.
The proprietor’s expression changed in an instant, and in a flash, his two arms suddenly elongated, like noodles, wrapping toward Lu Zheng and Liu Qingyan’s necks.
At the same time, the tall figure of nearly 1.9 meters behind the group, round-headed and round-bodied, a burly fat man, also erupted.
His body swelled even larger, height shooting up another section to over three meters; the inn room could not contain him, so he had to slightly hunch to stand.
Then, this giant corpse with bluish face and ferocious features, holding a half-meter cleaver in each hand, chopped down toward Lu Zheng and Liu Qingyan’s heads.
The two waiters also reacted, their entire bodies becoming slightly transparent in an instant, eyes turning pure black, faces pale, with streaks of blood marks appearing on their faces.
The next moment, the two ghosts blew out together, gusts of cold wind from their mouths sweeping the entire room, dropping the temperature by over ten degrees suddenly.
Lu Zheng and Liu Qingyan felt it most acutely, suddenly as if plunged into the icy snows of midwinter.
“One giant corpse, two fierce ghosts, and what is that one? Noodle corpse?” Lu Zheng quipped with slight doubt, making Liu Qingyan smile involuntarily.
Seeing Lu Zheng still had the leisure to joke and tease them, the four ghostly beings’ faces changed drastically, their attacks becoming even swifter.
“Supreme Ultimate, Three Pure Ones’ decree, freeze!”
“Ga?”
“Freeze! Freeze! Freeze!”
“Ga!”
In an instant, the four ghostly beings were frozen in place, unable to move.
The proprietor’s two arms were already a foot from the two people’s bodies, the giant corpse’s face ferocious, cleavers raised high, the two fierce ghosts maintaining their blowing pose, mouths agape, scarlet tongues half extended, looking like two horror dolls.
“That’s right; this is the proper way to use the binding spell,” Lu Zheng sat up, shaking his head with a sigh.
Damn it; every day fighting above level, battling demons and ghosts with hundreds of years of cultivation, making the binding spell seem ineffective, too embarrassing.
Today this was proper; apart from this proprietor seeming a bit powerful, the giant corpse and two fierce ghosts looked scary but were not actually strong, frozen solid, perfect!
No wonder Sun Wukong only used the binding spell on the weak, never when fighting demons of comparable strength.
“These four ghostly beings have quite the nerve; this shortcut is close by, only two hills from the official road, yet they dare to take lives,” Liu Qingyan said gravely.
“Didn’t you hear them? They only strike when there’s just one group of guests staying,” Lu Zheng said. “One group on a shortcut vanishing without trace is far too normal, especially since they act only every few months.”
Liu Qingyan nodded. “No wonder Luo Jin and the others have travelled for two years without noticing.”
Lu Zheng chuckled. “But if they hadn’t run into us travelling together, they wouldn’t have made it out this time.”
“It’s fortunate we thought these ghosts in the house weren’t harmful,” Liu Qingyan shook her head. “If there were other caravans tonight, and they didn’t act, we wouldn’t have intervened.”
Lu Zheng shrugged. “So things are wondrous like that; probably their luck ran out.”
Liu Qingyan nodded. “Indeed so.”
Lu Zheng looked at the four ghostly beings.
Under the binding spell, the four could not move a muscle, not even their eye pupils; like four wax figures.
“Dust to dust, earth to earth; you’re all dead people already, why linger in this world?”
Lu Zheng formed a spell with his hands.
“Supreme decree, true cloud demon-slaying, haste!”
Under the true cloud spell, the ghostly bodies dissipated.
First the two fierce ghosts dissolved, then the giant corpse turned to black water, finally the proprietor, struck by the true cloud spell into a patch of grey mist, soul extinguished, vanishing between heaven and earth.
