The chang ghost looked menacing and ferocious, yet Wu Youren was not rattled in the least, his gaze clear and steady.
In any battle, keeping a cool head was paramount.
As he ran backward, he methodically continued his attacks with throwing daggers, trying to pinpoint the opponent's weakness.
Three small daggers shot out in succession, all striking the brown smoke, yet the entity seemed largely unaffected.
Wu Youren didn't see this as a bad thing; in its own way, it revealed a weakness.
Namely, the creature wasn't particularly agile or clever—its intellect, after all, couldn't match what it had possessed in life.
So after dashing another dozen meters back, he decisively halted his retreat.
The strength of this chang ghost was likely around that of an apprentice knight, roughly on par with his own.
Rossi's earlier attacks against it had probably dealt some damage too; otherwise, it wouldn't have had such a hard time chasing him down.
Moreover, the chang ghost was essentially just a lingering spirit, which was why physical throwing daggers weren't very effective.
Looked at another way, its physical offensive capability shouldn't be very strong either; its threat lay primarily in illusions and spiritual attacks.
Just look at the cargo tricycle from before—it had vanished completely without a trace, nothing more than an illusion from the start!
The gravel and fallen rocks, on the other hand, had been real, presumably part of their scheme to trap passing travelers.
Spirits didn't fall under the narrow definition of Guizu, being more physical in nature, but a chang ghost was an exception.
However, if it wanted to harm Wu Youren on a spiritual level, it was still far from enough.
Getting past the biguijue would be no easy feat!
After coming to a stop, Wu Youren raised his hand, and a flash of blade light struck dead center against a piece of metal on the ground.
A crisp *ding* rang out, followed immediately by an endless barrage of *ding, ding, ding*.
The metal had burst apart, fracturing into over a dozen reed-fitted metal fragments.
Though the jarring metallic clamor wasn't especially loud, it was deeply irritating to the ear.
It felt as if a sudden bout of tinnitus had set in.
"What in the world...?" Rossi, who was locked in combat with the monkey-tiger, couldn't help baring his teeth in irritation.
He had firmly established the upper hand and was pressing the attack with everything he had.
The noise had no real bearing on his performance, but it made him feel an inexplicable surge of annoyance.
An instant later, another *ding* sounded, quickly cascading into countless more dings...
This was a countermeasure Wu Youren had prepared before setting out.
The principle was modeled after a music box, only without the casing; once triggered, it produced a sustained metallic ringing for a short duration.
It was entirely handmade, and naturally quite crude, with the reed fragments vibrating at varied frequencies, high and low.
The sheer discordance of the pitches actually amplified the effect—anyone who heard it felt miserable.
Wu Youren had crafted it purely on a whim.
In his reasoning, Guizu that existed as incorporeal spirits could be viewed as a kind of wave, and sound waves were also waves.
The frequency gap between the two had to be immense—night and day, beyond doubt.
Yet since both were waves, there was a chance of causing some degree of interference!
He had even specifically consulted the academy administrator, who confirmed that against Guizu, acoustic attacks were indeed an effective means of dealing damage.
However, anyone capable of executing an acoustic attack had to be at least a senior knight or possess a specialized talent in that field.
The administrator believed the efficacy of sound attacks came from the energy unleashed by the practitioner, having little to do with frequency interference.
Yet Wu Youren wasn't looking to kill anything with it; confirming it could cause interference was more than enough!
He triggered three metal pieces in rapid succession, and amid the relentless ringing, the brown smoke visibly faltered.
*That's enough!* Wu Youren raised his hand and flung another dagger.
The color of this dagger was slightly different—the silvery sheen carried a faint yellowish tinge, as if tainted by a dusting of rust.
Before the dagger even made contact with the brown smoke, it shattered instantly into countless tiny fragments.
He had controlled this through his inner breath; an apprentice knight possessed cultivation as well.
This method of control was rather difficult; Wu Youren's fine control wasn't particularly refined, so he could only detonate the dagger prematurely.
Even so, it was enough. The moment the flurry of shrapnel peppered the brown smoke, the chang ghost let out a prolonged screech.
The screech wasn't particularly loud, but it was laden with agonizing pain.
Hearing that sound, Wu Youren couldn't help recalling that rainy night—there had been so many similar screeches that night.
Amid its sustained screeching, the brown smoke began to thin.
Seizing the opening to press the kill, Wu Youren drew another yellowish dagger and hurled it forth.
This follow-up strike was impeccably timed. As fragments sprayed outward, the screeching cut off abruptly, and the brown smoke dissolved into nothingness!
"Ghost-dispelling powder?" a voice called out. It was Rossi, looking his way with saber in hand.
At Rossi's feet lay the corpse of a feline beast over three meters long, its head severed from its body.
"Yeah," Wu Youren nodded. The yellowish substance on the dagger was indeed ghost-dispelling powder, a medicine used to treat contamination from ghost qi.
The medicine's efficacy could only be called middling—it could expel minor incursions of ghost qi, but against anything stronger, it fell short.
Even so, ghost-dispelling powder remained exceedingly expensive.
"Look at Mr. Moneybags here!" Rossi couldn't help exclaiming.
He carried some on his person as well, but he was already a knight, whereas the kid was merely an apprentice knight.
"I only spent one silver dollar on it!" Wu Youren hastily clarified. He didn't want to be looked down upon, but he was even more averse to drawing undue attention.
"A dose of that stuff runs at least a hundred silver dollars, doesn't it?" Rossi clearly didn't believe him—he had bought it more than once himself.
"Yeah," Wu Youren nodded, not bothering to elaborate.
What else could he say? *Thanks to group buying?*
He couldn't afford ghost-dispelling powder at all, but he hadn't been able to resist lingering near the display to see if an opportunity presented itself.
Before long, an opportunity did arise: a second martial artist who couldn't afford it showed up—notably, a female one!
He had stepped forward to suggest that since she couldn't afford a whole dose alone, she could round up a few companions to pool their funds.
The female martial artist had claimed she couldn't bear the embarrassment, to which he countered: *Is your pride more important, or the person you're trying to save?*
She took the advice readily, calling over a few sisters for a group buy.
He then picked out the kindest-looking woman in the group and used one silver dollar to buy a tiny pinch from her share.
All he needed was a light coat on his weapons; there was no reason to buy in bulk.
"There are people who use it like that," Rossi conceded with a slight nod. "Though it's only effective against the lowest-tier Guizu."
Wu Youren nodded at that. "Yeah, and only when they're already weakened... The two ghost-vanquishing bullets you fired into it earlier dealt some heavy damage."
Now that the danger had passed, handing out flattery and pleasantries was all that mattered; the rest was irrelevant.
For instance, earlier, before Wu Youren landed his final blow, Rossi had already slain the monkey-tiger.
The distance between them was less than a hundred meters; Rossi easily could have rushed over to assist.
Yet Rossi had stood by, watching, seemingly waiting to see what trump cards he held.
Wu Youren took no offense; Rossi was under no obligation to bail him out.
And Rossi had indeed thought that way: in his view, he could intervene at any second, so why not take the chance to gauge what this kid was made of?
Hearing Wu Youren's praise, he remarked, "Actually, if you sprinkle a ring of it around yourself, it wouldn't even be able to get close."
"That makes sense," Wu Youren said with a smile and a nod, offering no further comment.
Sprinkling a ring of it around oneself worked, sure, but on that rainy night, the guards at Hostage Manor hadn't laid down a perimeter of ghost-dispelling powder either!
Cost dictated everything, not to mention that ghost-dispelling powder was drastically less effective against higher-tier Guizu.
He radiated a faint, subtle detachment, though Rossi didn't really pick up on it.
Rossi moved on to a question he was far more curious about. "Those metal pieces of yours just now—what was that about?"
"Just an experiment," Wu Youren replied, not intending to reveal much, though his smile remained perfectly natural. "It only works against low-tier Guizu, and not every time."
"Well, it's definitely an earache," Rossi nodded. "Why is it that everything you use is low-tier tricks?"
"I'm only an apprentice knight," Wu Youren spread his hands. "High-tier techniques... even setting aside whether I have any, how would I temper myself relying on them?"
"There's truth to that." Rossi agreed completely. His own family was moderately well-off, but not influential enough to breeze him into Red Pine.
In the course of his personal growth, he had endured basically every hardship one was meant to face.
So the reasoning of tempering oneself resonated with him well. "How did you spot that they were off in the first place?"
This was the question he wanted to ask most of all—as a full knight, he hadn't noticed anything amiss with them.
"We can talk about that on the road," Wu Youren said, pointing up toward the sky. "Pack things up and get moving first?"
"There's nothing good on a monkey-tiger anyway," Rossi curled his lip in distaste. "Only a few sinews are useful, and the head can fetch a bit of cash."
Wu Youren begged to differ. "I heard the meat is edible too."
"It tastes awful," Rossi answered, his expression turning solemn as he asked pointedly, "Who told you it was edible?"
*Do you have any idea how rarely I even get to see meat?* Wu Youren was rendered speechless.
Still, seeing the man so serious, he didn't push the matter. "All right, then. I forget who mentioned it in passing."
"The main issue is that it could be tainted by ghost qi..." Rossi's gravity was entirely justified.
With remarkable dexterity, Rossi quickly stripped out four monkey-tiger sinews—one thick and three thin.
He doused the rest of the monkey-tiger's carcass in oil and set it ablaze. "Things like this might carry lingering malice. You can't just leave them lying around."
*What a hassle to dispose of!* Wu Youren sighed softly. "Hardly worth the trouble!"
"Still a profit," Rossi replied casually. "Monkey-tiger sinew counts as an extraordinary material, even if the payout isn't huge."
"Doesn't that make slaying Guizu fairly profitable, then?" Wu Youren swung his leg onto the tricycle. "How did the ghost blight ever get this out of hand?"
"Plenty of times you lose money too," Rossi tossed out, thinking to himself: *You're asking me, but who am I supposed to ask?*
As they continued their journey, Rossi once again asked how the youth from Jin had managed to see through the spirit's disguise.
Wu Youren smiled and claimed it was his innate gift—an unusually sharp sixth sense.
It was precisely because of this that he had dared to venture out alone to investigate Guizu activity.
Right now, he was in genuinely high spirits, because... his cultivation had grown once again.
Back then, when he noticed something wrong with the helmeted rider, it had been because he felt the biguijue grow faintly warm.
At the same time, his intuition had given him a subtle nudge that something wasn't right with the pair.
After the battle concluded, he confirmed his advancement.
Probably because he had uncovered the monkey-tiger, the experience points granted this time were particularly generous—exceeding the sum of the previous two occasions combined.
Chapter 22