Cursed Warding Spirit

"Ding Ling, come back!" A furious roar suddenly burst through Ding Ling's mind! As the sinister, terrifying voice rang out, Ding Ling's warding spirit manifested involuntarily behind her. The purplish-red corpse spots on the slender, frail, long-haired phantom's ankles flared outward, blanketing its pale, ghastly skin in a single instant. Immediately following, the warding spirit flung its arms wide, and ten fingers tipped with sharp, blackish-green nails clamped straight around Ding Ling's neck! "Come back!" Its wild hair thrashing in the air, the warding spirit let out a piercing shriek! Yet the sound that tore from its mouth was Chang Dafeng's voice! "Hah!" Zhou Yang had long been on guard against Chang Dafeng playing underhanded tricks. Seeing the warding spirit turn on her, he let out a cold bark and seized control of Ding Ling's physical body in a flash. He spread both arms as well— Rows upon rows of Ghost's Mouths sprouted across her arms! "*Wuu-aaaaagh...*" Ghostly wails instantly surged like a tide! Zhou Yang reached both arms back behind her head, his hands seizing the warding spirit's hands that were clamped around Ding Ling's neck! Warding spirits were ethereal, incorporeal beings, devoid of physical substance. Anyone with weaker Right Thought could catch only fleeting glimpses of their shadows. To grasp them with flesh-and-blood hands required extraordinarily potent Right Thought. Empowered by the current boost of Ghost Breath, Zhou Yang did not even need to pool his Right Thought with Ding Ling's. Relying solely on his own seven wisps, he could use Ding Ling's mortal hands to seize the warding spirit by the wrists! The instant those hands bristling with Ghost's Mouths took hold of the warding spirit, the Ghost Breath surging in and out of the mouths seemed to sprout eyes, locking onto their target. Wisps of Ghost Breath burrowed directly into the warding spirit's silhouette, causing its phantom form to condense and solidify considerably in the blink of an eye! As its form grew more solid, the purplish-red corpse spots covering its skin began to recede! Within a few breaths, the spots retreated down to the ankles and continued to shrink, looking as though they would soon be wiped away completely! Chang Dafeng, who had laid this sorcery suppression upon Ding Ling, remained completely oblivious. He commanded Ding Ling's warding spirit to screech once more: "Ding Ling, come back! "If you won't come back, then die!" *Buzz!* The moment the shriek fell, the hair on Ding Ling's warding spirit abruptly exploded outward! Tresses blasted in all directions, dancing wildly to reveal the ghostly face hidden beneath! Pale and gaunt. Slender brows and almond eyes. When Zhou Yang turned and caught sight of the face on Ding Ling's warding spirit, shock rooted him to the spot! —The warding spirit's features were identical to Ding Ling's! Not the slightest difference! Why would this warding spirit bear the exact same face as Ding Ling? Even Chang Dafeng's warding spirit had not been modeled after his own appearance! Furthermore, this warding spirit's abilities bore an uncanny resemblance to those of the opera ghost! The ghost rhythm left by the opera ghost on the names of Qian and Li, the two dead men, had long since mingled with Ding Ling's fingertip blood, turned into the intestines spilling from the false abdomen, and been devoured in a frenzy by the gathered ghosts—and Ding Ling's warding spirit had been one of them. The abilities it manifested should not have resembled the power shown by the opera ghost! Yet that was precisely how it was... Ding Ling, the warding spirit, the opera ghost... Zhou Yang faintly sensed something. Yet the notion was so preposterous that he simply could not bring himself to believe it. Just then, the warding spirit's hair tumbled back down, concealing its face once more. Not a single trace of the purplish-red blotches remained on its ankles. Zhou Yang closed the Ghost's Mouths scattered across Ding Ling's body one after another, his expression solemn. Sensing the shift in his emotions, Ding Ling asked somewhat nervously, "Is something wrong, sir?" "The sorcery-suppression curse Chang Dafeng left on you has been purged clean. "It won't trouble you anymore." Zhou Yang shook his head, though his mind remained unsettled, disturbed by the thought that had suddenly sprung up. He took a deep breath and simply asked Ding Ling, "Your warding spirit's appearance... "Why does it look so much like you? "No, not just like you... "It's identical..." "Ah, the face you saw on the warding spirit looks like mine?" Ding Ling asked in surprise. "But when I look at it, it has a different face, not mine at all..." "Oh?" Zhou Yang's brow twitched. "Then what does the warding spirit look like to you?" "It has the face of a man!" Ding Ling replied with certainty. Then she hesitated, faltering slightly. "I... I only saw that person in a dream, and I don't even know if such a face really exists in this world. "Anyway, the warding spirit doesn't look like me at all! "Could it be that the warding spirit looks different to everyone who sees it?" "That is possible." Zhou Yang nodded. He turned toward the slender ghost shadow beside him and reached out, parting the hair that draped before its face. Ding Ling held her breath alongside him, only to find that beneath the hair lay a complete blank. The warding spirit's face had no facial features whatsoever! "Strange, truly strange..." Zhou Yang clicked his tongue. After all this commotion, the wild thought that had sprung up in his heart quietly drifted away. ... "Ding Ling! "If you won't come back, then die!" Chang Dafeng's eyes were bloodshot, his voice rising shrill and furious! The Bloated Aspect standing beside him clamped its swollen hands even tighter around its own throat, looking as though it meant to snap its neck and twist its head clean off its shoulders! Correspondingly, Ding Ling, who was bound by its sorcery-suppressing curse, would be choked to death by her own warding spirit! Even so, Chang Dafeng could sense that Ding Ling's resistance had not weakened at all; if anything, it was growing stronger—she would rather die than return! "Vile wench! "Useless cunt!" Chang Dafeng's face flushed crimson as he spewed curses! Yet even as insults poured from his mouth, he suddenly flicked his hand, and the Bloated Aspect beside him instantly lowered its arms. —At the critical juncture, he had commanded the Bloated Aspect to release its grip. He had not actually cursed Ding Ling to death. Because of this, he failed to notice that the sorcery-suppressing corpse water the Bloated Aspect had left on Ding Ling's warding spirit had already been wiped completely clean. "You're just a little slip of a girl. Why must your bones be so hard?" Chang Dafeng's expression softened, and he muttered under his breath. Unsure of what memory had surfaced, he suddenly chuckled twice, then rose from the wooden bed, gathered his belongings, and left the courtyard to head down the slope just as the eastern sky paled with the belly of a fish. ... "This Ghost Breath will remain on your skin. "Making it open its mouths is easy, but making it close them is hard. "Give it careful thought and figure out how to shut these Ghost's Mouths on your body. Only when you can lock them will you truly have mastered Ghost Breath..." Zhou Yang's thoughts flowed into Ding Ling's awareness. At this moment, however, Ding Ling had no spare attention for the thoughts he was imparting. Pitch-black Ghost's Mouths covered her entire body, exhaling chaotic, disordered breaths—wholly unlike the terrifying ghostly wails Zhou Yang could summon when he took control of her frame. After opening the Ghost's Mouths on Ding Ling's body, Zhou Yang had returned control to her, leaving her to comprehend and work out how to shut them on her own. Strictly speaking, having led her this far by teaching her how to open Ghost Breath, there was no reason not to teach her the application of the 'breath lock.' The crucial issue, however, was that if he taught her the breath lock he had devised, while it would allow her to close the mouths effortlessly, it would also give him absolute leverage over her. Were that the case, with a single thought, he could open the Ghost's Mouths all over Ding Ling's body at will. He could even force them to overload her mortal flesh. Her life and death would rest entirely in his hands. —That was precisely what Afu had intended to do to Zhou Yang with Ghost Breath back then. Zhou Yang considered his cooperation with Ding Ling to be built entirely on mutual trust. If he resorted to such tricks, it would inevitably undermine the foundation of their alliance, and he would never do such a thing. Furthermore, if Ding Ling could master a breath lock of her own, Zhou Yang wanted to see whether he could take a rubbing of it through the knife-credit ledger, and what kind of enhancement it might bring to his own Ghost Breath. Ding Ling's lips trembled, cold sweat soaking her back. Her eyes went wide, terror plain upon her face. Her reaction was identical to Zhou Yang's own when he had been forced to unlock Ghost Breath for the first time. "What are you seeing, Ding Ling?" Zhou Yang asked, his heart stirring. "A... a skin-peeling ghost... "Sir, this breathing technique is too terrifying... "Having the warding spirit is enough for me. Can I... can I please not learn this breath?" Ding Ling responded instinctively, the fear flooding her mind so palpable that even Zhou Yang felt it acutely. She was already a woman of considerable courage. Having faced hardship time and again, she had always dared to confront challenges and try for herself. Yet now, the moment she saw the silhouette of that skin-peeling ghost, she shrank back immediately! And the skin-peeling ghost she was seeing was the very same entity Zhou Yang had encountered when he first touched Ghost Breath. Knowing this was the critical moment for her, he spoke up at once: "Treat it as an illusion. Do not fear it. "When enemies cross paths on a narrow road, the brave prevail!" "It *is* real! How can I not be afraid? "Sir, it's turning into me—" Ding Ling's mind was in turmoil. She had always trusted Zhou Yang implicitly, yet now, amid absolute terror, she was actually contradicting him! Zhou Yang had watched with his own eyes as Ding Ling created her warding spirit and unlocked the external Opening Door. He had assumed she was past the greatest hurdle and that mastering Ghost Breath—which had already been channeled through her body multiple times—would pose no difficulty. Never had he imagined that the greatest obstacle before Ding Ling was not the first door of the Draft of Playing Gods and Painting Ghosts at all! It was Ghost Breath itself! Could that skin-peeling ghost truly be even more terrifying than the opera ghost? Enough to frighten Ding Ling to such an extent?! Why hadn't he felt anything like that back then?