“Don't be afraid! It won't come to that!
“There has to be another way besides this one!
“You're still alive, there's still breath in you—we'll think of something!”
But Zhou Yang refused to give up.
In an instant he wrenched himself free of that abyss of despair, and instead raised his voice again and again, comforting Ding Ling.
Hearing his heartening words, Ding Ling suddenly gave a soft laugh.
“Actually, I was never afraid of dying in the first place.
“My father and my mother were both killed by ghosts, and in this world most people don't die well—most of them die at ghosts' hands, so I always figured that one day I'd probably end up the same way, dying at a ghost's hands.
“Once I'd already settled on that idea, the word ‘death’ didn't frighten me so much anymore.
“But right now I am afraid of dying—I have something to hope for now...
“Sir, if I die just like this, I think myself it's such a pity.
“I keep thinking that if I could see you once before I die, cook you a few meals, sew you a quilt, then even if I died the next day I wouldn't be afraid. And if I can't—then just let me look at you once from far away.
“If I could only look at you once, then dying the next moment, I would go willingly...”
Ding Ling's words sounded soft and gentle.
But as they fell into Zhou Yang's heart, they made him feel as though a mountain were pressing down inside him.
An unbearable aching fullness surged back and forth within him, and it was a long moment before he said, “It won't happen, it won't—neither of us is going to be killed by ghosts. We're still alive, so first think about how to live!
“How can you be alive and already thinking about dying?!
“Don't let your thoughts run wild. We'll both come through safe and sound—”
Before he finished, Ding Ling cut him off: “Sir, you should go.
“You treated me with kindness and loyalty, and stayed with me to the very end.
“I can't drag you down to die with me.
“Go, sir. I won't blame you.
“From the bottom of my heart, I'm glad that you get to live...”
Go?
Hearing Ding Ling's words, Zhou Yang was briefly dazed.
He could indeed leave whenever he wanted to.
But even if he left, where could he go?
Back to Guancun, and his chances of survival would still be slim.
If today, upon meeting a difficulty, he turned his head and walked away, and tomorrow, upon meeting a death trap, he turned around and fled—fleeing on like this, when would it ever end?
How could he avoid everything?
With so many ghosts in this world, how could they allow him to escape every single time?
And when there was nowhere left to flee to, what then?
Shut his eyes, shiver, wet his pants, and wait to be killed?!
That was not the life he wanted!
That was not the life he ought to live!
He was willing to be born on some ordinary day and to meet death just as ordinarily—but he could not wait for death in trembling fear. If he could not have a life like the former, then his death must be a thunderous one!
He would die a glorious, earth-shaking death!
A single thought shone in Zhou Yang's heart and mind, brilliant as a diamond.
He suddenly smiled. “I won't go.
“Ding Ling, either the two of us break through this trial together, or the two of us die together.
“Other than that, there's no second road.”
“Sir...” Ding Ling was grieved and glad at once.
“Chang Dafeng had the ghost Daole pressed onto your face. Though you've been invaded by ghost rhythm, you're not dead after all—he didn't take your life on the spot. He must have some design of his own!
“Let's see what his design is!” Zhou Yang spoke again.
In the flow of his thoughts there was a stillness like ice.
As he spoke, a yin wind blew the ‘ghost Daole’ off Ding Ling's face.
Through Ding Ling's eyes, Zhou Yang met Chang Dafeng's gaze.
The instant their eyes met, Chang Dafeng seemed to be pricked by something in that gaze; a moment later he shifted his eyes away, then suddenly narrowed them and looked back at him.
An expectant smile showed on Chang Dafeng's rotted face.
“Ding Ling, have you ever heard a legend?
“It says that when two ghosts appear in the same stretch of land, and entangle with each other so they cannot be pulled apart, the energy of the Eight Doors in that land—‘Open, Rest, Life, Harm, Scene, Death, Block, Fright’—will change.
“At that moment, the Death Door, originally open, will seal shut.
“The Life Door, which could never be opened, will open...
“And those who died at the hands of the two ghosts may be brought back to life through the Life Door!”
The light in Chang Dafeng's eyes burned hot, and two lines of murky tears ran down from the corners of them.
“This method of saving the dead through the Life Door—people call it ‘Crossing the Yin Body’!
“Ding Ling, I miss my senior apprentice so much. He died for my sake; I cannot leave him unsaved.
“You have no parents in this world, no ties to hold you, and you're a woman besides—a man like me is bullied to the bone in this world; how much worse for a woman? Your days from here on have nothing left to live for anyway.
“I've been thinking—why don't you just help me fulfill it? Help me and my senior apprentice...”
For the first time, Zhou Yang read in Chang Dafeng's eyes a bashful expectation, like a young girl's when she longs to see the one she loves.
He was under the ghost Daole's control and originally had no way to open his mouth and respond to Chang Dafeng's words.
But just then Chang Dafeng seemed to be stirred by some emotion showing in his eyes, and suddenly waved a hand—
The ghost Daole was still stuck to Ding Ling's face, but Zhou Yang, now controlling Ding Ling's body, could speak.
He sneered again and again. “That legend—I've never heard it, you old bastard!
“But I know this much: you'll never pull it off!
“You'll be the death of me, and I'll certainly turn into a fierce ghost, and torment you every day, killing you over and over again!”
Even as he spoke, Zhou Yang joined his thoughts with Ding Ling's and suddenly set Ghost Breath in motion!
“Wuuuuaaahhhh!”
Ghost's Mouth after Ghost's Mouth opened all over Ding Ling's body, vying with one another, recklessly sucking in and spewing out currents of air and loosing shrill ghostly wails!
In the next instant, the Right Thought of the two of them combined, already beyond the Limit, abruptly released an uncanny ripple!
Layer upon layer of hand seals pushed outward for an instant, then clenched tight into fists and pulled inward!
The great light point sank out of sight within Ding Ling's body!
The ripple light point condensed from the Right Thought of the two of them, beyond the Limit, actually covered every Ghost's Mouth on Ding Ling's body—and those Ghost's Mouths, controlled and driven by Zhou Yang's thoughts, gave voice: “Om... Marici-mang... Svaha...”
“Om... Marici-mang... Svaha...”
Zhou Yang chanted directly through the Ghost's Mouths that very mantra from the Scripture of Preserving Life that Qian Heng had used to turn himself into a ghost!
The instant that mantra was chanted out, his mind went suddenly hazy. He caught the smell of dust in his nostrils, and following that dusty smell, he seemed to see again, in that pitch-black room, a deity statue covered by a black cloth.
Everything in the room was still and quiet.
Yet at that moment, the black cloth over the deity statue's head was lifted at one corner.
Before he could see what was hidden beneath the lifted cloth, the hazy vision in his mind was shattered by Chang Dafeng's shrill scream: “You actually think that chanting a passage of the Scripture of Preserving Life can turn you into a ghost?!
“You have no ritual!
“Who taught you Ghost Breath? When did you learn it right under my nose, and I knew nothing at all?!”
Amid Chang Dafeng's hoarse howling, the Ghost's Mouths on Ding Ling's body, suppressed by the ghost rhythm given off by the ghost Daole, all closed in an instant.
Chapter 60