Li Yichun had turned into a ghost!
The thought pierced Qian Heng's mind in an instant!
Beads of sweat crowded Qian Heng's forehead, soaking him through. The night wind swept past, cutting through him until he felt frozen inside and out!
A fierce instinct for survival urged him to leap to his feet and flee the ritual, but right then, Chang Dafeng hastily tossed aside his sieve and hurried over in a few quick strides, dropping cross-legged right beside Qian Heng's other side!
With their backs facing outward, the four encircled the five play tablets, forming a complete ring.
Chang Dafeng suddenly thrust his right fist toward the center of the circle, his thumb cocked upward.
While Qian Heng was still in a daze, Chang Dafeng delivered a sharp backhand across his left cheek. A crisp crack rang out, loud and jarring in the dead silence of the night!
"Hurry up!
"What are you having fits for!"
The troupe leader's low shout snapped Qian Heng back to his senses.
He dared not hesitate any longer. Extending a hand, he grasped Chang Dafeng's raised thumb, then cocked his own thumb upward as well.
Afterward, Qian Heng stole a glance toward Li Yichun out of the corner of his eye.
A moment earlier, Li Yichun had seemed the spitting image of a ghost, yet now his expression was entirely normal. He too reached out and gripped Qian Heng's raised thumb. The faint warmth of his palm told Qian Heng that everything he had seen before had likely been nothing more than a momentary hallucination!
Li Yichun was normal.
Qian Heng had simply been spooked by the man's earlier words, letting his imagination run wild.
At that moment, Ding Ling was the last to reach out, seizing Li Yichun's raised thumb.
The four fists were linked by their upright thumbs, held vertically above the five play tablets—to Zhou Yang, the setup looked more and more like a game of spirit-writing.
"The ghost selects the play; my hands see it through.
"I take a ghost's body, selecting the play on the ghost's behalf.
"Distinguished guests seated in the hall, this act is guaranteed to please you, guaranteed to delight you..."
Chang Dafeng lowered his eyelids and began muttering under his breath.
His face was cloaked in darkness, looking as though he were possessed by a spirit.
The other three joined in, muttering in faint, drifting voices:
"The ghost selects the play; my hands see it through...
"Distinguished guests seated in the hall, this act is guaranteed to please you, guaranteed to delight you..."
The world was pitch-black.
The darkness was a grave, and the four of them were buried within its mound.
The nearby lamplight could not dispel even a sliver of the surrounding dark.
The dim flame flickered with the wind, seeming all the more mournful and chilly.
The sound of their chanting drifted in the breeze, like the murmurs of wronged ghosts.
Amid the low murmurs, their joined fists began to sway gently—an unseen force was tugging at the 'pen' formed by their hands, guiding it slowly toward one of the play tablets.
Through Ding Ling's eyes, Zhou Yang saw the vermilion characters written on that tablet:
*Three Defeats of the White Bone Demon*.
Did Chang Dafeng intend to have the troupe stage this play?
As the thought crossed his mind, Zhou Yang's gaze swept over the faces of the people present.
Qian Heng looked deeply troubled, unable to conceal the anxiety and dread between his brows.
Ever since he had dropped the stone and returned to the troupe alone, his state had seemed peculiar to Zhou Yang.
He looked very much like a bird startled by the mere twang of a bow.
Yet what was the 'bow' that had frightened him?
Li Yichun's expression, on the other hand, was normal.
He seemed relatively calm at the moment.
It was hard to reconcile him with the person who had been screaming earlier as if frightened out of his wits.
Yet that person earlier had truly been Li Yichun.
The one here now, however, might not be...
Zhou Yang finally looked toward Chang Dafeng—and when he saw the sheen of sweat on Chang Dafeng's face, his pupils constricted!
Chang Dafeng's fist was at the very bottom. Right now, blue veins bulged on the back of his hand, and his fist trembled slightly!
Zhou Yang had initially assumed the troupe leader wanted the troupe to perform *Three Defeats of the White Bone Demon*, but taking in Chang Dafeng's expression and the strain in his hand, Zhou Yang suddenly understood:
*The one trying to select Three Defeats of the White Bone Demon isn't Chang Dafeng—it's someone else!*
The force pulling everyone's fists toward the *Three Defeats of the White Bone Demon* tablet did not come from Chang Dafeng!
On the contrary, Chang Dafeng was fighting that force, desperately trying to drag their fists—this 'pen' selecting the play on the ghost's behalf—back toward a different tablet!
Who was trying to pick *Three Defeats of the White Bone Demon*?
The force guiding their fists did not originate from any of the four.
It came from outside the circle—Zhou Yang realized in a flash!
Right then, Ding Ling called out to Zhou Yang in her mind: "Master Zhou!"
Her thoughts were tense.
"Yes?" Zhou Yang's mental reply, by contrast, remained steady.
"I smell that corpse stench again."
"Where?"
"Behind us."
At those words, Zhou Yang's heart tightened!
They had reached the critical moment of selecting the play; he could not have Ding Ling turn around to look at whatever was behind them.
Fortunately, Ding Ling added a few more words that allowed Zhou Yang to steady his composure: "Though the smell is still faint. It should still be some distance away from us... Master, what should we do?"
"What should we do?" Zhou Yang kept his response calm and collected, knowing he could not let his own anxiety leak to Ding Ling at such a moment. "First, get through this step of having the ghost select the play.
"Ding Ling, keep an eye on Troupe Leader Chang's wrist. Whichever way he pulls, you push in that same direction."
"Understood!" Ding Ling agreed crisply.
Zhou Yang did not know why Chang Dafeng was so determined to contest that unknown force, but deep down he knew that giving in to the ghost's will and picking *Three Defeats of the White Bone Demon* would likely bring far greater disaster.
Following Chang Dafeng might not be safe either, but it was at least the lesser of two evils.
The shadows of the four overlapped beneath the lamp.
Their fists formed a vertical line, wobbling as they drew closer to the tablet for *Three Defeats of the White Bone Demon*.
Chang Dafeng's face was dark as iron, slick with sweat.
Each time he jerked his wrist to exert force, he managed to hold their fists suspended in midair for an extra breath.
Yet that brief stall ultimately could not alter the direction in which their fists were moving.
By now, Qian Heng had squeezed his eyes shut, muttering incessantly: "The ghost selects the play; my hands see it through.
"I take a ghost's body, selecting the play on the ghost's behalf.
"Distinguished guests seated in the hall, this act is guaranteed to please you, guaranteed to delight you..."
He could distinctly feel two forces tugging his fist in opposite directions. The mutual strain pulled his nerves tighter and tighter.
Just then, another force entered the struggle—
Ding Ling's fist gripped Li Yichun's thumb tightly. Sensing the direction in which Chang Dafeng's wrist was straining, she followed Zhou Yang's instructions and pushed her fist that way as well.
The two forces combined, instantly breaking the deadlock between Chang Dafeng and the mysterious pull!
The four fists wavered in midair for an instant, then plunged directly toward another tablet:
*Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister*!
*Chang Dafeng wants to perform this play?*
*He plays Zhong Kui, and Ding Ling plays Zhong Kui's sister?*
The moment he saw that tablet, the thought flashed through Zhou Yang's mind!
Right then, the unknown force tugging at their fists suddenly swelled and surged!
In a heartbeat, that pulling force turned into a violent yank, dragging their four joined fists straight back toward the tablet for *Three Defeats of the White Bone Demon*!
The two forces clashed in an instant, neither yielding an inch!
At this critical juncture, an aura that made Zhou Yang's hair stand on end drifted past on the wind and settled behind Chang Dafeng.
With a swift glance out of the corner of his eye, Zhou Yang saw a bloated figure standing quietly behind Chang Dafeng.
A bloated corpse manifestation, swollen into the giant aspect of decomposition, had appeared behind him.
The instant that bloated corpse manifestation appeared, the strength in Chang Dafeng's wrist surged violently. Dragging the fists of the other three along, he pushed back hard against that unknown force, finally crashing into the tablet for *Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister*!
His fist collided with it, and the tablet abruptly toppled onto the white sand!
"Yee-hee-hee-hee—!"
A burst of laughter like fingernails scraping across glass ripped through everyone's ears!
Drops of fresh blood splattered onto the tablet bearing the words *Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister*, smearing the characters upon it.
Blood was welling out from between the fingers of their four joined fists, dripping steadily downward!
Chang Dafeng had exerted immense strength to secure his wish and select *Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister*, but in the violent struggle between the two titanic forces, his thumb, along with those of Li Yichun and Qian Heng, had been fractured and crushed into a bloody mess!
All around, sharp hisses of agony sounded in unison.
Ding Ling calmly withdrew her hand and quietly wiped her bloodstained palm.
And when Zhou Yang looked behind Chang Dafeng once more, the terrifying, bloated manifestation was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 25