"Heavens above!"
Staring blankly at the courtyard gate, Qian Heng suddenly shuddered, wailed at the top of his lungs, and spun around to dash into the main hall. He scrambled into the right side room of the hall and curled up tight behind several chests!
Clang!
Behind him, another tall, gaunt figure wrapped in the scent of rouge plunged frantically into the right side room.
Though panicked, the figure had not forgotten to shut the door.
He even turned back to slide the bolt home!
A patch of light shone through the window opening, falling squarely on that pallid, rouge-smeared face.
In that dim light, this Li Yichun once again looked nothing like Li Yichun.
Not far from Qian Heng, Li Yichun curled up as well, hugging his arms.
Sickly sweet rouge perfume mingled with a heavy corpse stench, drifting in and out of Qian Heng's nostrils. Darkness swam across his vision, and he could not quell his pounding heart, beating violently against his ribs like a war drum!
An indescribable dread left his limbs limp and powerless!
Right then, a piercing operatic voice drifted from far outside the house.
The singing was mournful and chillingly bleak. Riding the whistling, icy wind, it seemed all the more sinister and horrific:
"Pity me, my three ethereal souls drifting and scattering,
"My seven corporeal souls grieving and lamenting.
"My lone spirit wafting and wandering...
"All scattering with the wind... scattering with the wind..."
...
"That song again..."
The sorrowful operatic voice snaked through the crack of the door into the left side room. As the singing reached her, Ding Ling's body could not help trembling, her mind thrown into disarray—an instinctive reaction like a deer freezing before a tiger, filling her with dread and rendering her incapable of any meaningful response.
Yet Zhou Yang, residing within her vessel, was hardly affected at all.
He recognized that this tune sung by the ghost outside the courtyard was the very same one he had heard when Ding Ling first saw a ghost in the mirror.
Could this ghost only repeat a few opera passages over and over?
Zhou Yang recalled that back then, after seeing the ghost in the mirror, the reason he and Ding Ling had been able to shatter the mirror serving as the medium and halt the ghost's onslaught was that he had summoned a surge of reckless courage to sing a different passage of opera.
Could that passage have been something unfamiliar to the ghost?
Unable to sing it, had it been momentarily startled into retreating?
Was that why Chang Dafeng wanted to use the method of Opera Spirit-Communion to sing Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister for the ghost—using a play unfamiliar to the ghost to break the deadlock and escape with their lives?
Was that also the root reason why Troupe Leader Chang had adamantly refused to go along with the ghost's pick of Three Defeats of the White Bone Demon during the ritual?!
Zhou Yang intuitively felt he had grasped the crux of the matter.
Yet in the very next instant, the mournful singing outside the courtyard abruptly shifted.
The female voice turned far more youthful, yet its momentum was imposing and fierce:
"With steel whip in hand I strike you down, strike you dead, you shameless cur—!"
Along with this abrupt change of opera excerpt, an array of traditional instruments began clamoring outside the walls!
The raucous music, sounding through the freezing night, felt all the more chilling and eerie!
"This female voice—"
When Zhou Yang heard that familiar line and the altered voice of the ghost outside, his heart gave a violent jolt!
The singing now issuing from the ghost outside was the exact operatic verse he had sung through Ding Ling's body when he shattered the mirror!
The voice belonged to Ding Ling, but the fierce momentum within it belonged to him!
The two were identical!
The ghost had flawlessly replicated the passage he had sung through Ding Ling's mouth!
Was it a ghost capable of copying any opera sung by others?!
Just as Zhou Yang's thoughts raced, Ding Ling suddenly moved—
Her body jerked. Stepping sideways into a bow stance, her left hand gripped her right wrist. Eyes wide and glaring straight ahead, she began singing in a tone identical to the ghostly voice outside:
"With steel whip in hand I strike you down, strike you dead, you shameless cur!"
A frigid, sinister aura radiated from her body.
Her skin gradually turned a ghastly blue-white!
Zhou Yang immediately noticed the change in Ding Ling—the opera sung by the ghost outside was directly influencing her!
The singing issuing from Ding Ling's mouth reeked of chilling ghostly energy!
Did this ghost kill through its singing—through its voice?!
"Wuu-aaah!"
A blurry silhouette lunged toward Ding Ling, seizing both her hands!
Faint ghostly weeping instantly emanated from the palms of Ding Ling's hands!
Seeing Ding Ling's movements grow increasingly stiff and twisted like a specter, Zhou Yang did not hesitate in the slightest and instantly employed Ghost Breath!
He opened the Ghost's Mouth only within Ding Ling's palms to keep her from suffering too great a toll from Ghost Breath.
A completely different yet equally icy breath wafted from Ding Ling's palms, instantly scattering the ghostly aura enwreathing her body into nothingness!
Ding Ling's face was faintly pale. The moment she regained her senses, her first words were, "Mister, the corpse stench is very heavy. It seems to be right around us!"
At that, she paused suddenly, sniffed hard, and her eyes went wide. Staring fixedly at the door, she said, "That corpse stench is right across from us!"
"Across from us?"
Looking at the pitch-black door, Zhou Yang made the connection at once.
Across from the left side room was naturally the right side room.
Following his plan, after the ghost knocked on the courtyard gate, Ding Ling had hurried into the main hall right behind Qian Heng and Li Yichun and hidden in this left side room.
Qian and Li were inside the right side room!
Li Yichun had turned into a ghost.
Ever since Li Yichun fled back to the opera troupe, there had been something off about him.
Yet most of the time he acted normal, making it easy to overlook those occasional lapses and assume he was merely frightened out of his wits by ghostly encounters.
Zhou Yang, however, had remained wary of him. Hearing Ding Ling's words now, his immediate thought was that Li Yichun had finally shown his true colors!
Ding Ling pressed her ear to the door, listening intently for any sound from the right side room.
Amidst the clashing gongs and drums, the right side room remained completely silent, without the slightest noise coming from within.
Such dead silence was inherently abnormal.
Even Ding Ling had been tainted by the ghost singing outside and had sung a few lines along with it.
Zhou Yang judged that the two in the right side room possessed Right Thought far inferior to Ding Ling's, so how could they not be contaminated by the aura of the ghost outside, remaining utterly soundless?
"Chang Dafeng didn't join in singing with the ghost outside either.
"Now that it's come to this... can he still keep all his methods hidden?"
Zhou Yang noticed another detail at that moment and immediately instructed Ding Ling to approach the side room's window.
The bamboo paper pasted over the window lattice was long rotted away. Without needing to poke a hole through it, she quietly straightened her waist, just enough to see what lay outside:
The candles in the courtyard were still burning, but their light was hemmed in by surrounding darkness, visibly precarious.
From the main hall's doorway all the way to the courtyard gate was pitch-black, as though ink had been spilled across it.
Yet the area around the courtyard gate and beyond the walls was brightly lit.
It looked like a rare, beautiful moonlit night.
The moon shone bright and clear.
The sounding of gongs and drums continued steadily outside the bright courtyard.
It was so lively out there, making one yearn to push open the courtyard gate, push aside the cold desolation filling this courtyard, and plunge into that bustling spectacle—to listen to a wonderful opera and join the grand festivities.
Thoughts surged through Ding Ling's mind.
She took a hurried look at the scene outside. Not spotting the troupe leader, she lowered her gaze and prepared to pull back her head, when suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a bloated, massive human figure standing in the middle of the courtyard, exuding an eerie aura.
Startled, she looked straight at the courtyard's center—
Yet where was any bloated, massive silhouette?
"It entered the main hall."
At that moment, Zhou Yang suddenly communicated his thought to Ding Ling.
Ding Ling had not seen where that bloated corpse manifestation went, but Zhou Yang saw clearly.
Also using the corner of Ding Ling's eye, he had seen the bloated corpse manifestation that once appeared behind Chang Dafeng make its way into the main hall.
This bloated corpse manifestation could only appear in the fleeting glance of one's peripheral vision, like an illusion.
Yet Zhou Yang was certain it truly existed.
Furthermore, he was convinced it was some method mastered by Chang Dafeng.
Could it be some kind of warding spirit cultivated from the Draft on Making Up Gods and Painting Ghosts?
Chang Dafeng was about to make his move...
Hardly had that thought crossed his mind when a heavy stomp of boot against the ground echoed from the main hall outside: "Thud!"
Immediately following, a fierce and commanding operatic chant rang out at the main hall's entrance:
"Obeying the heaven-shaking fire signal!
"Hasten to ready the gourd of ten thousand crows, crossbows and smoke beacons.
"Encircle the gate and courtyard!"
Chapter 27