The two female ghosts were also startled when Lu Zheng suddenly appeared. They instinctively lashed out, one claw aiming for his face, the other for his chest.
“Jinque Heart Sword, slay!”
With his eyes as the source, twin swords unsheathed. Two gleaming longswords flashed through the mental domain and vanished into the space between the female ghosts’ brows.
“Puff! Puff!”
With two soft sounds, the female ghosts dissolved into wisps of pale smoke without even a chance to react, scattering completely.
The bride’s legs gave way and she began to collapse.
Lu Zheng raised a hand in the air to support her, then flicked his sleeve, casting a Pure Cloud Purification Spell to break the restraint binding her body.
“Ning-lang!”
The bride cried out in alarm and threw herself towards the scholar Ning, who had just climbed to his feet.
“Qianqian!”
The two embraced, gazing into each other’s eyes with boundless tenderness, as though they wished to imprint one another upon their very hearts.
“Ning? Qianqian? It can’t be…” Lu Zheng rubbed his chin, then thought of the bearded sword cultivator he had met earlier. “He also had a huge beard, but that fellow was surnamed Zhang.”
“Ning-lang, Qianqian is merely a ghost. You have a bright future ahead of you. How could you risk your life so lightly?”
“If the rest of my days must be spent without you, then all the splendour of this world would be no more than flowers in a mirror or moon on water, beautiful yet soulless. What use would it be?”
“Ning-lang!”
“Qianqian!”
“Ning-lang!”
“Qianqian!”
If he had not been wearing shoes, Lu Zheng reckoned he would have already gouged a three-bedroom flat out of the floorboards with his toes.
“You two lovebirds, enough with the sweet nothings. Get out of here first!”
“Young Master Ning, be careful. The Heart Sutra bamboo slips also affect Lady Qianqian!”
“Eh?”
Only then did Ning the scholar and Qianqian snap out of their reverie. Ning turned and realised that when the groom had flung him aside earlier, the bamboo slips had flown from his hand and now lay on the ground some distance away.
“This…”
Ning glanced at Lu Zheng, then at the battlefield beyond.
By now, ghostly creatures from the front courtyard had poured in. Several powerful ones were looking for openings to ambush Rong Song and the bearded man surnamed Zhang, while others, seeing the slips no longer in Ning’s grasp, bared ferocious grins and closed in on him.
As for Lu Zheng…
The passage from the main hall to the rear courtyard ran behind the back wall and turned a corner. Lu Zheng’s cultivation far surpassed everyone present, and he had struck without sound or trace.
Thus only Ning and Qianqian, who were off to one side near the rear door, had seen him. Neither human nor ghost had noticed anything else.
Rong Song and the man surnamed Zhang still believed Ning had rushed to the back, used the Buddhist slips to drive off the female ghosts, and rescued the bride.
“Our deepest thanks, sir, for coming to Qianqian’s aid. Ning Zhiqi shall never forget this great kindness!”
“I, Xiaoqian, also thank the young master. Thank you for saving my life!”
As Ning Zhiqi and Yi Xiaoqian spoke in unison, everyone finally realised another master had appeared and intervened so silently that none of them had sensed a thing.
Rong Song and the bearded man were overjoyed. The groom’s face, however, instantly darkened.
The others only knew help had arrived. He knew that someone able to slip past his senses, infiltrate the ghost manor unnoticed, and strike without him detecting it was utterly terrifying.
No ghost dared gamble that the stranger merely possessed some secret technique or peculiar artefact.
“Which shameless busybody is this? Just wait until I activate the manor’s grand array and grind you all to dust!”
The groom roared, took advantage of several ghosts tying down Rong Song and Zhang, broke free, and made for the front entrance of the hall.
He had taken only two steps when he looked up and saw Lu Zheng standing in the main doorway, regarding him with a half-smile.
Smack!
The groom slapped his forehead dramatically. “Ah, I forgot the array core is at the back.” He turned on his heel, shouting as he went, “Don’t go anywhere! Once I activate the array, we’ll settle this properly!”
“Brother Lu!”
Rong Song spotted Lu Zheng at once and laughed with delight. “With Brother Lu here, we have nothing to worry about.”
The bearded man glanced at Lu Zheng and asked Rong Song, “You know him?”
Rong Song smiled. “A disciple of White Cloud Temple. His cultivation is ten times mine.”
The bearded man took it as modesty. The groom, however, shuddered violently. Before he reached the rear door, yet another Lu Zheng stepped out from it.
Groom: ???
“A puppet technique? Creating fakes to deceive us?” Rong Song exclaimed in surprise, inwardly impressed.
The Lu Zheng at the rear door gave a slight smile. “A small trick, nothing worth mentioning.”
That casual tone utterly enraged the ghost. With a savage cry he lunged at the Lu Zheng blocking the rear, claws extended.
Nether Ghost Claws!
White Cloud Great Palm Seal!
A massive palm of white cloud, larger than a man, materialised out of thin air and slapped the groom full in the face.
Boom!
Ghostly qi scattered in all directions. The groom was sent flying back into the hall.
The dozens of ghosts who had been attacking Rong Song’s group and preparing to surround Ning Zhiqi simultaneously withdrew, turning to flee towards the outside of the hall.
Only to find yet another Lu Zheng blocking the main entrance.
Lu Zheng: (﹡ˆᴗˆ﹡)
All the ghosts: ╭(°A°`)╮
The thirty-odd ghosts who had been too timid to enter earlier saw the mightiest being within a hundred li, the groom himself, slapped flying with a single blow. With a collective whoosh they scattered like startled birds and beasts.
Some dissolved into black smoke and drifted away, others melted into the shadows and slunk off. Using every escape art they knew, they vanished from the ghost manor in the blink of an eye.
The ghosts who had shown ferocious faces to Rong Song’s group and even attacked were now trapped inside the main hall by Lu Zheng.
Some of them snarled hideously and shouted to each other, “Everyone attack together! Fight our way out!”
Others trembled in terror and begged for mercy. “Senior, hear us out! The master of Half-Hill Manor is immensely powerful. We were coerced! We had no choice!”
Unfortunately, the bride had clearly been coerced as well. The moment these ghosts chose to aid the tyrant and raise their hands against the living, their fate was sealed; they would not leave this courtyard alive.
“By the command of the Supreme, Flying Clouds Shatter Evil, swiftly!”
These were mere ghosts of a few decades’ cultivation, possessing neither magical treasures nor secret arts. They could barely hold their own against cultivators of similar level and had only managed to stall Rong Song and Zhang for a short while by swarming them. How could they possibly withstand Lu Zheng?
A few incantations later, half the ghosts in the hall were destroyed.
The remainder fled towards the rear, only to be cut down by Rong Song and Zhang until fewer than a handful remained. At the rear door they once more encountered Lu Zheng.
All the ghosts: (´°Δ°`)
“By the command of the Supreme, Flowing Clouds Slay Demons, break!”
“Aaahhh!!!”
In moments every ghost in the hall had vanished, some into black smoke, some into puddles of pus, some into heaps of crumbling bone.
Soon, apart from the female ghost Yi Xiaoqian, only the groom remained.
“Senior, listen to my explan—”
Boom!
Lu Zheng withdrew the thunder seal, blinked, and looked at the patch of black smoke now drifting in front of him. “What did you want to say? Speak up, I can’t hear you.”
