Chapter 2: The Ghost Gate Returns & the Bloodbath at the Abandoned Shrine
At the break of dawn, the Imperial Capital lay submerged in a dense fog, cold and thick as porridge.
The East City branch of the Nightwalker Bureau stood tucked away against a section of the city wall, its architecture resembling a colossal beast crouched in the darkness. The gray stone walls were mottled with moss, while two black stone Pixiu statues bared their fangs and brandished their claws before the main gate, radiating such a sinister killing intent that passersby had to go around them.
Qin Yan dragged his heavy feet up the stone steps. The blood on his leather armor had dried into blackened clots, and the stench of the graveyard still clung tightly to him. His face was pale as paper, but his eyes burned with a cruel, silent flame.
“Who goes there...? Oh! Qin Yan?!”
The two gate guards had been yawning away when they saw Qin Yan’s figure and bulged their eyes as though they’d seen a ghost. They rubbed their eyes several times, unable to believe what stood before them.
“What’s wrong? Disappointed to see me come back alive?” Qin Yan curled his lip, his voice hoarse and cold.
“No... no, that’s not it... We heard you disappeared while patrolling Nine Currents Alley yesterday. The Hundred-Household Commander even sent people to look for you. We thought you’d been eaten by a demon...” one of the guards stammered.
Qin Yan couldn’t be bothered to answer. He shoved the two guards aside and dragged his feet straight into the courtyard. Along the way, the eyes of his fellow Black-Clad Envoys fell on him with every shade of emotion: shock, curiosity, and even disdainful disgust. In this place called the Nightwalker Bureau, a Black-Clad Envoy’s life was worth less than weeds. If one died, someone else would take their place. If one survived and returned carrying the filthy stench of death, it only brought others more bad luck.
Ignoring the whispers, Qin Yan went straight to the main hall, where the Hundred-Household Commander held council. He wanted to witness firsthand the performance of the man impersonating Commander Zhao.
Inside the main hall, flickering candlelight illuminated a middle-aged man standing with his arms crossed before a sand table. He had a square face, a neatly trimmed mustache, and wore a black official robe edged in red—exactly like the corpse Qin Yan had seen in the graveyard.
At the sound of approaching footsteps, the man turned around. The instant he saw Qin Yan, “Commander Zhao’s” pupils contracted. A flash of terror and disbelief streaked across his face and vanished just as quickly, but Qin Yan caught it with the keen senses of his Netherworld Eye in its dormant state.
“Qin Yan? You’re... still alive?” Commander Zhao quickly recovered his imposing expression, adding a touch of false concern. “That’s wonderful! Last night, I heard that you’d encountered a malignant spirit, and I was about to dispatch a team to support you. Are you badly hurt?”
Support me? More like sending people to confirm whether I was really dead!
Qin Yan sneered inwardly, but outwardly he lowered his head in salute, playing the part of a loyal foot soldier to perfection. “Thank you for your concern, Commander. This subordinate has a strong constitution. I was only knocked unconscious by the evil energy and fortunately managed to crawl back here. It’s just that... I let that malignant spirit escape.”
“It doesn’t matter. Staying alive is what counts.” Commander Zhao stepped forward and struck Qin Yan hard on the shoulder with his large hand. The force was immense, as though he were testing whether Qin Yan’s tendons and bones had truly been crippled. Qin Yan deliberately staggered half a step backward, clutching his chest and coughing violently, putting on an appearance of utter frailty.
Contempt and viciousness flashed through Commander Zhao’s eyes. He withdrew his hand and sighed. “Your injuries don’t look minor. I had intended to let you rest, but unfortunately, the East City branch is desperately short on manpower. The case at the abandoned shrine south of the city has dragged on for seven days. More than a dozen commoners have disappeared, and even the two Black-Clad Envoys sent to investigate have vanished without a trace. Our superiors are applying tremendous pressure.”
Commander Zhao paused for a beat, then bored his gaze into Qin Yan. “You’re the most experienced among the Black-Clad Envoys. I’m entrusting this important responsibility to you. Go to the abandoned shrine and investigate this afternoon. If you solve the case, I’ll promote you to Chief Banner Officer.”
Qin Yan lowered his head to hide his grim smile. The most experienced? He just wanted to borrow someone else’s knife to kill me—to send me to my death a second time.
“This subordinate obeys. I won’t let you down.”
After returning to his shabby sleeping quarters, Qin Yan immediately bolted the door. He threw off his bloodstained leather armor and poured cold water over himself to clear his head. The wound on his chest had closed thanks to the System’s energy during the fusion, but it had left behind a hideous scar.
He closed his eyes and reached out to the System in his sea of consciousness.
The shop interface of the Yin-Yang Judge System appeared hazily. With the ten Judge Points he had just earned from the Corpse-Eating Demon, he couldn’t afford any powerful weapons or heaven-defying martial techniques.
Only the “Talismans” branch of the current catalog was lit up. Qin Yan skimmed through it once and stopped at an item priced at exactly ten points: [Evil-Sealing Talisman].
[System confirmation: Ten Judge Points consumed. Exchange successful. Evil-Sealing Talisman x1.]
A bright yellow talisman appeared in Qin Yan’s palm. Vivid red cinnabar formed graceful yet potent strokes, gathering at the center into a prominent character: “Seal.”
Qin Yan rubbed the talisman between his fingers. The memories transmitted from the System into his mind allowed him to understand the origins and structure of this miniature magic formation. The character “Seal” had originally been formed from the Metal radical, signifying metal, blades, and swords, combined with the character True, meaning truth and origin. Together, they implied using the unyielding power of a magical artifact to suppress every illusion and deceitful malignant spirit, forcing them to reveal their true forms before the light of truth. If he only stuck this talisman onto a malignant spirit, it would pin the target down for two seconds, nullifying all illusion abilities.
Two seconds in a life-or-death battle were enough for him to split his opponent’s skull in half with the Soul-Slaying Blade.
“The murders at the abandoned shrine... human skinning... more than a dozen people missing...” Qin Yan muttered as he tucked the Evil-Sealing Talisman securely into his sleeve. He took out his black saber and polished it, his eyes razor-sharp.
Whatever ghost or god awaited him at the abandoned shrine, today he would use their blood to level up.
At twilight, the sun hung on the horizon like a suspended drop of blood.
The abandoned shrine lay hidden in a gloomy bamboo forest south of the Imperial Capital. It had originally been a place of worship for the Earth God, but after years of war and turmoil, the incense had long since gone out, and the place had become a ruin. Broken roof tiles covered the ground, spiderwebs stretched everywhere, and the bamboo stalks scraped against one another in the wind, making a creaking sound like a hanged man struggling for breath.
Qin Yan stood before the shrine gate as bone-chilling air slipped through the hem of his robe. The silence was unnatural; there wasn’t a birdcall or insect chirp anywhere.
He drew a deep breath, closed his eyes, then abruptly opened them.
[Netherworld Eye—Activated!]
Qin Yan’s pupils instantly turned pitch-black, and the world in his eyes once again split into black and white.
The scene before him made him suck in a sharp breath. The abandoned shrine was far from empty, unlike what ordinary eyes could see. Along every wall and beneath the cracked brick floor, dense yin energy churned and flowed like water. Worse still, hundreds of thin, blood-red threads stretched from the headless, broken-armed Buddha and god statues on the altar.
Those bloody threads crisscrossed like a massive spiderweb, burrowing deep into the earth beneath the shrine. They throbbed weakly, seemingly transmitting a dense, resentful energy to nourish some hideous creature sleeping below.
“The resentment is overwhelming... This isn’t a wandering malignant spirit. Someone deliberately set up a formation to nourish a demon!” Qin Yan gritted his teeth.
At that very moment, the day’s last ray of sunlight went out. The sky plunged instantly into darkness.
Boom!
The shrine’s rotten doors suddenly slammed shut with violent force, sending clouds of dust billowing into the air. The space around Qin Yan began to twist, and the temperature dropped to freezing. The decaying wooden walls gradually vanished, replaced by a blood-red space filled with strips of red silk hanging suspended in the air.
He had stepped into a Demon Domain—a perfect realm created by great calamity demons.
Hee hee hee... ha ha ha...
From all directions came the shrill, deranged laughter of women. The sound shifted from far to near, sometimes whispering coyly and coquettishly beside his ear, other times shrieking in grief so piercing it seemed to tear his eardrums apart.
“Officer... why have you come to this desolate place in the dead of night to seek me out?”
A sultry voice sounded from behind Qin Yan. An icy, pallid hand with bright red fingernails slowly crept onto his shoulder, breathing waves of frigid death energy against the nape of his neck.