The Grudge-Born Spirit blasted a stream of freezing yin energy straight into Lam An’s face, leaving his entire body feeling frozen solid. Its bony hand, crisscrossed with black thread stitches, was only a few inches from his left eye. In that life-or-death moment, Master Vu’s warning flashed through An’s mind like a streak of light.
Without the slightest hesitation, An reached into his brocade cloth bag, grabbed a large handful of wind ginger powder mixed with Soul-Sealing Talisman ash, and flung it straight at the Grudge-Born Spirit’s featureless, flattened face.
*Hiss... hiss!*
A crackling explosion rang out like fresh meat dropped into a pan of hot oil. Black smoke billowed upward, accompanied by a sharp, agonized shriek from the Grudge-Born Spirit—so piercing it seemed to tear through flesh and brain. It staggered back several steps, clutching its face as it smoked violently.
Seizing the opportunity, An summoned every ounce of strength he had, passed through the shadowy figure, and sprinted for his life toward the stone bridge leading into Co Bai Village.
He ran while trembling, fumbling a lighter from his pocket. His thumb struck it several times before a blue flame flared to life. An hurriedly lifted the glass cover of the storm lantern and relit the wick. Though the yellow flame wavered, it blazed back to life, casting a protective halo around him.
*Flick... flick... flick...*
An stepped across the end of the stone bridge. The instant his foot touched the territory of Co Bai Village, the oppressive sensation lingering at his back suddenly eased noticeably. The boundary of the ancient stone bridge was like an invisible spiritual wall, blocking some of the surging grudge energy beyond the dike.
Co Bai Village was terrifyingly still on Ghost Festival night. The single-story houses with moss-covered tile roofs stood shuttered, each front porch displaying either a dim red lantern or a yellow talisman meant to ward off evil. Not a single dog barked. Not a soul passed by. Only the night wind slipped through the gaps between the bricks with a *whistling* sound.
An put his sunglasses back on and pulled the old map Master Vu had already drawn from his backpack.
The Lam family’s ancestral shrine stood at the end of Dong Hamlet, bordering the village’s ancient cemetery.
After passing through a maze of winding brick-paved alleys, An stopped before an overgrown vacant lot. At its center stood an old five-bay house, half its tiled roof collapsed. Cracked brick walls and tangled vines completely embraced the structure. This was the Lam family’s ancestral shrine—the place that had been abandoned for more than seventy years.
An stepped through the ruined brick gate, his feet crunching over broken tiles. *Crack, crack.* Suddenly, his ash-gray left eye began twitching violently, each spasm urgent and painful.
Through his sunglasses, An saw a pillar of blood-soaked black wisps rising from the decaying brick courtyard of the ancestral shrine, spiraling straight into the night sky...
The pillar of black energy was rising from the exact spot where the old stone beam had been—the place where his grandfather had dug up the curse-sealed bronze chest.
An approached and brushed aside the dense weeds. Under the storm lantern’s light, a sunken patch of earth appeared. In its center was a round hole roughly half a meter across, pitch-black like the mouth of an ancient bottomless well.
Just then, the watch on An’s wrist gave a soft *beep... beep...*, signaling that it was 10:30 P.M.
Only thirty minutes remained until the Hour of the Rat—the moment when the gates of the Underworld opened widest and the three-generation curse reached its peak.
An knelt beside the edge of the hole and searched for the three iron nails that had been thrown away years ago, following Master Vu’s instructions. But amid the dense grass and jumble of dirt and stones, finding three iron nails that had rusted for seventy years was like searching for a needle in a haystack!
*Clink... scrape...*
From behind the collapsed wall of the ancestral shrine came the horrifying sound of iron chains scraping across stone. This time, there was more than one Grudge-Born Spirit. Dozens of ashen shadows from the nearby cemetery were crawling across the ground, heading straight for An...