The sound of an iron chain scraping across the stone floor—*scrape... scrape... scrape...*—grew more frantic by the second, tearing through the stillness of the ruined ancestral shrine. Thick yin energy pressed down from above, making the flame inside the storm lantern sway violently and shrink until it was no bigger than a mung bean.
Cold sweat streamed down Lam An’s face. The clock had already struck **10:45 p.m.**
Through his ash-gray left eye, An was horrified to see black wisps rolling out from every crumbling brick wall, coalescing into dozens of apparitions clinging tightly to one another. Leading that army of Grudge Spirits was none other than the Grudge-Born Spirit. Its bloodstained white raincoat was now in tatters, and the wound caused by the windblown ginger powder on its featureless face was still smoking and reeking of burnt flesh.
“Where... where are the iron spikes...?” An frantically asked himself as both hands tore through layer after layer of dead leaves and weeds around the mouth of the pit.
His fingers were ripped open by shards of glass and sharp stones, fresh blood clinging to the freezing soil and rocks. But the ground beneath his feet seemed to have been compacted over the course of decades. There was no sign whatsoever of the three family-sealing spikes from years ago.
*Crack!*
The Grudge-Born Spirit took another step. Its withered hand, webbed with black threads, rose into the air, dragging a long, rusted iron chain that wrapped tightly around An’s ankle.
“Ugh...!”
An was yanked backward and slammed onto the tiled floor. The spirit-cold from the iron chain shot straight into his meridians, leaving the entire lower half of his body numb. The Grudge-Born Spirit slowly crawled onto An, its featureless face pressing close to his. Where a mouth should have been, a horizontal slit suddenly tore open, revealing two rows of black teeth embedded deep into one another.
*“It’s time... to give me back my eyes...”*
A stabbing pain ripped through An’s ash-gray left eye. He could clearly feel his eyeball being dragged outward by an invisible force!
At the brink of death, An’s right index finger, clawing through the dirt, suddenly struck something hard, sharp, and ice-cold buried beneath the roots of a small wild frangipani tree growing beside the pit.
An gripped the object tightly and pulled with all his strength.
It was an iron spike about fifteen centimeters long, deeply rusted with age. Strange spiral grooves had been carved along its shaft. **The first sealing spike!**
“Master Vu said... use the blood from my pinky!” The instruction flashed through his mind.
Without hesitation, An shoved his already wounded right pinky into his mouth and bit down hard. Dark red blood welled out. He smeared the hot, fresh blood across the rusted spike, then drove it straight into the Grudge-Born Spirit’s thigh!
*Sssssss...!*
A horrifying hiss rang out. The Grudge-Born Spirit shrieked in agony as the yin energy around its body erupted. The iron chain wrapped around An’s ankle snapped and fell to the floor. The spirit staggered back several meters, clutching the wound that was spitting green flames.
As the fresh blood from An’s finger soaked into the earth, his ash-gray left eye suddenly gave off a dim glow. Through that light, An saw that the other two spikes had not been thrown far away at all. They were lodged deep in two cracks in the brick wall behind the collapsed ancestral altar!
An sprang to his feet, grabbed the storm lantern, and staggered toward the wall.
*10:55 p.m.!*
The Grudge Spirits around him roared and howled. Realizing that An was about to complete the sealing ritual, they rushed toward him all at once like a dark storm. An pulled the last Soul-Calming Talisman from his brocade pouch and slapped it onto his chest to blunt their attacks, then desperately wrenched the two rusted spikes from the cracks in the wall.
All three sealing spikes were finally together!
An jumped down in front of the round pit, where a column of blood-soaked black energy was billowing violently into the air. Just as the clock struck **11 p.m. (the Hour of the Rat)**, a mild earthquake shook the entire ancestral shrine. The black clouds overhead twisted into a colossal funnel.
“The Lam family created the Blood Debt... Today, I, Lam An, will repay it with my blood!” An roared, coating all three spikes in the fresh blood from his pinky before driving them into the three corners of the pit’s mouth in a triangle!
*BOOM!*
Brilliant golden-red light burst from the three spikes and pierced through the column of black energy. The ground beneath An’s feet split open, creating a terrifying force that dragged the Grudge-Born Spirit and all the surrounding restless spirits deep into the earth.
Screams, pleas, and curses rang out violently, then grew quieter and quieter... until the mouth of the pit sealed completely.
The heavens and earth returned to their original stillness. The black clouds dispersed, revealing the bright moonlight of the full-moon night of Ghost Month shining down over the ancestral shrine’s courtyard.
An collapsed onto the damp ground, breathing in ragged gasps. Exhausted, he took off his sunglasses and looked at his reflection in a puddle of rainwater nearby.
The strange ash-gray left eye had vanished completely, returning to its original solid black.
But just as An sighed in relief and prepared to get up and leave the ancestral shrine, the phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated. A message from **Master Vu’s** number appeared on the screen:
“An... I couldn’t hold back the worshippers. There isn’t just one bronze chest... Run!”