The situation allowed no time to think. After just saying a few words, Li Xinyi could hear the ghostly wind grow stronger. The old thatched house in the courtyard started to shake in the wind.
An extremely uncomfortable, chilly air gushed in.
Li Xinyi looked grave. Since a vengeful spirit survived on grievances in this world, its strength was also related to it. The strong momentum showed that this vengeful spirit had extreme grievances, and it might not be so easy to deal with.
Li Chu was calm as he looked at the gate of the courtyard.
'Here comes the protagonist.'
It was a girl, wearing a bright red dress, as if it was drenched in blood. Her hair dangled down, blocking her face from view.
The girl looked skinny and pitiful.
When the two came to the courtyard, Li Xinyi once again warned, "Do nothing unless I say so."
Li Chu nodded obediently.
He was more than happy to stand down and learn how professionals exorcise evil spirits. Anyhow, he still got the money.
"Brother killed me. Mother killed him. Father killed her. I killed Father."
The child's song echoed in the wind, although the girl did not open her mouth.
Li Xinyi was too careless and got tricked earlier. Now she was fully alert and would not give the vengeful spirit any opportunity.
She looked at the vengeful spirit in front of her with a hint of compassion in her eyes.
The illusion she experienced earlier should be everything the girl had gone through. This little girl was the biggest victim here.
But Li Xinyi also knew that she must not be soft-heartened.
No matter how sorry people were, once they became vengeful spirits, they no longer deserved any compassion.
Vengeful spirit would usually stay where it died. But this little girl's situation was a little unique. Her place of death was not far away from here, and her grievances were concentrated in this courtyard. So she would still come back here.
Anyone who walked past this place at night might become her victim.
Being soft on vengeful spirits was cruelty against more innocent people.
Li Xinyi looked even more resolute with this thought in mind.
A casual question suddenly came from the wind. "Do you have any family?"
It was the little girl asking.
Li Xinyi knew this vengeful spirit was choosing its target of vengeance.
It would not kill indiscriminately.
Just like the woman before, her grievances lay with men, so she only killed men. It seemed that the grievances of this little girl lay with her family.
You could not lie to a vengeful spirit as it could hear the genuine answer in your heart.
So Li Xinyi shook her head. "No."
Li Xinyi was an orphan and grew up in her mentor's place since she was a child. Her mentor and other students were her family in a sense. But in the mind of this little girl, this did not count.
The little girl turned to Li Chu, who was on the other side. "Do you have family?"
Li Chu paused, then replied, "None in this world."
"Oh."
The little girl in red responded, then turned around, as if she was about to leave.
The ghostly wind that had been screaming for a long time started to subside.
There was no target for her grievances here. She was leaving. It so happened that the two had no family members. The situation would have been different if any of them had said yes.
"We can't let her go!" Li Xinyi said.
This vengeful spirit was already powerful, and if she was allowed to leave, things might get out of control later.
Li Chu also had some understanding of grievances. He had tried to use words to defuse the woman's grievances at Xue's house the day before yesterday, although he failed.
Things might be simpler had the situation been the opposite.
His mind was racing, thinking of how to arouse her grievances and stop her from leaving based on her questions.
He let his thought ferment, only then he called out at the little girl with a gentle voice.
The little girl in red ignored him at first and continued to walk away, gradually fading into the darkness.
"Your mother is dead," said Li Chu again.
The little girl stopped dead in her tracks.
Li Chu knew it worked this time and continued. "You are an orphan."
The ghostly wind was back, the air temperature plummeting. The little girl turned around, her red dress fluttering.
Li Chu followed with one more sentence for good measure. "Your entire family is dead."
Those three sentences could not have been more offensive to the little girl.
They sounded so, but he was just telling the truth.
The fence in front of the little girl suddenly shattered with a loud bang.
Her grievances were ignited.
Li Xinyi glanced at Li Chu, unsure whether she should compliment him for doing a good job or blame him for talking too much. The vengeful spirit might have stayed this time, but it had also entered a state of rampage.
Thankfully, she had come prepared.
At the moment, looking at the red figure leaping towards the two of them, Li Xinyi
A green beam carrying a talisman pierced through the air and hit the vengeful spirit.
The vengeful spirit let out an agonized scream, her black hair fluttering randomly, but her face was not visible.
As she was hit, a massive shadow of the talisman appeared in the air. It was planted on her petite body, wrapping around her like a spider web.
It was not blood but a thick black mist that was leaking from her body.
"This talisman is named Liujia Suppression Talisman. It is to restrict her movement."
Li Xinyi caught her breath and explained it to Li Chu when she saw she had hit her target.
She then mimed her fingers into a sword gesture and followed up with another strike.
Bang!
"This talisman is called the Flame Talisman of Searing Sun. It burns ghosts with the fire of the sun."
Bang!
"This talisman is called Huangting Talisman of Dispelling Evil, which is specially designed to ward off evil spirits."
Bang!
"This talisman is called the Kuixing Talisman of Supremacy. It strangles and kills with celestial powers."
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Eighteen Sword-Riser Talismans pierced through the air like meteors, hitting the vengeful spirit in the air into a continuous burst of black mist, almost completely shrouding the vengeful spirit in red.
Li Chu was stunned, looking at Li Xinyi with admiration.
So gorgeous. So glitzy. So magnificent.
As the ghost was held in the air and beaten repeatedly, black mist was spraying everywhere. It was a scene full of visual impact.
Somehow, Li Xinyi had not killed this vengeful spirit after so long.
She must have her own reasons.
He knew little about it, and probably he could never understand it, too.
Unknown to him, Li Xinyi was also losing her patience. She had cast out all the eighteen Sword-Riser Talismans, yet the vengeful spirit had still not died.
Had it been an ordinary vengeful spirit, it would have died several times.
She had laid out the eighteen Sword-Riser Talismans just to be safe. At first, she thought she would only use seven or eight of them.
She got the talismans from the Imperial Administration Bureau, but she bought the Jade Amulet Sword with her own money, and it was not cheap either.
Little did she expect to exhaust all of them here.
Even more unexpectedly, the vengeful spirit was not dead yet.
The Sword-Riser Talisman Spirit Array was completed, and it was losing its control. The little girl fell to the ground in the center of the courtyard.
Judging by how weak she was, she was not far from death.
Li Xinyi could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
A dazzling silver light flashed with the flip of her wrist. A gleaming flying sword appeared and was suspended in the air in front of her chest. She reached to grab it at once.
She explained again when she saw Li Chu looking at her. "This is a flying sword bracelet. Magical artifacts that have been sacrificed can be turned into jewelry and carried on the body."
"Not bad."
It was the first time Li Chu complimented anyone. He really thought she was good. He felt it was cumbersome to carry an iron sword every time he went out.
Many places would bar a hideous-looking Daoist priest with a sharp blade from entering if it were not for his easy-going appearance.
Hearing that, Li Xinyi performed a beautiful form of sword move before walking up to Li Chu. "This sword is named Autumn Rain Begonia. It is the work of Mastersmith Mo in the city of sword casting. If it weren't for my mentor's relationship with him, I could not have bought it even if I had the money."
While speaking, she came in front of the vengeful spirit.
"Don't kill me!"
The little girl in red suddenly got up, going down to her knees, crying as she bowed to Li Xinyi. "I am so scared. Please don't kill me. I won't cause any trouble."
A sense of compassion rose within Li Xinyi when she saw the little girl's pitiful look. She held back her sword attack.
But she quickly fought back this sense of compassion. Letting this vengeful spirit to reincarnate was the most compassionate thing to do.
While she was hesitating for a moment, the little girl kneeling on the ground suddenly looked up, the black hair covering her face spread out to reveal her face.
BANG!
It shocked Li Xinyi greatly at seeing the little girl's face.
What was going with her face here?
The little girl's callow and young, but broken and rotten face looked like a smashed watermelon. Black blood vessels ran through her hideous skin and flesh. Something weird was creeping inside, looking terrifying.
'Something is not right!'
Li Xinyi suddenly came to her senses, realizing that it was an illusion.
The little girl's face was real, but no matter how scared Li Xinyi was, it would not have caused her mind to go blank.
This was a trick of the vengeful spirit.
She bit the tip of her tongue to wake herself up.
But it was still too late.
The little girl reached out her hands, her slender arms suddenly turning into a pair of five-foot-long greenish ghost claws, strangling Li Xinyi with force.
'Not good!'
The two words flashed across her mind in that moment of suffocation. She was still too careless! She did not expect that this vengeful spirit could still wield such power after being struck by eighteen Jade Amulet Swords.
She tried to fight back, but in this case, she could not gather her inner strength at all, nor could she fight back the strong ghost claws. The harder she struggled, the higher she was lifted from the ground.
This was not the strength a new dead vengeful spirit was supposed to possess. On the contrary, it was more like a ghost that had a hundred-year strength of self-cultivation.
She heard a gentle voice asking her just when she thought she was going to die in despair.
"Should I do something now, Miss Li,?"
Li Chu was standing under the eaves, watching the sudden change of event where Li Xinyi got tricked again.
She had repeatedly warned him not to act rashly. But he felt that if he did nothing, this beauty was going to die a martyr soon.
But he still had to ask for permission out of politeness.
There were only two words from her.
"Help… me…"
"All right."
Li Chu took a step forward, drew his sword and struck just like he had done for the millionth times.
If there was any difference from the past, it was probably the ghost had got someone in its hands this time. So he controlled his strength for fear of hurting Li Xinyi.
The tragedy of the midway pavilion must not be repeated.
A sword light flashed across the air uneventfully.
Probably the little girl in red had not noticed the sword attack. Her body crumpled the moment the sword light struck her.
She was reduced to ashes and vanished in the blink of an eye.
All trickeries lost their meaning in front of this sword.
Li Xinyi fell to the ground with a dull thud, catching her breath as she put her hand to her neck.
The sunken ghost handprints on her neck did not affect her thoughts. She quickly turned her head around to look at Li Chu in surprise.
Li Chu was retrieving his sword, as if only he had just done something not worth mentioning.
She could sense the power of this sword as she was also a swordsman. When the strong sword energy struck past by her ear just now, her soul trembled involuntarily.
It was a kind of strength that she could not describe with words.
"What is the name of this sword?" She asked in a trembling voice.
She felt that such powerful sword energy must not be a move that ordinary swordsmen could perform. It could even be a legendary taboo swordsmanship.
'Name?'
Li Chu blinked as he really had not thought of that.
But he felt obliged to answer when he saw the seriousness on Li Xinyi's face. She had told him the names of the many talismans just now, after all.
"This sword is called...