Wang Chengwang's gaze flickered slightly. He took the hint right away—being the master's sole personal disciple naturally meant that Ergou was held in high regard. Passing down the technique and having Ergou handle everything with full authority naturally meant the master would not intervene personally, leaving matters entirely in Ergou's hands.
Still, with the mysterious master watching from the sidelines, he would surely step in if anything went wrong.
When it came down to it, Wang Chengwang had no real choice. It was a matter of treating a dead horse as if it were alive; he had to take any chance he could get.
After a moment of thought, Wang Chengwang nodded in agreement.
He led Chu Qiguang to Wang Cailiang's wing. The servants pushed the doors open to reveal Wang Cailiang slumped listlessly in an armchair, his face etched with dejection. It was obvious that the bizarre affliction had tormented him terribly.
At the sound of the opening door, Wang Cailiang turned his head slightly. He looked at Ergou with confusion, unable to understand why his father had brought such a person here.
After all, in appearance Chu Qiguang was still Zhou Ergou, an ordinary Wang Family Village peasant—the sort of NPC in a video game that players wouldn't even bother talking to.
After listening to Wang Chengwang's introduction, Wang Cailiang grew even more dismissive.
Over the past few days, the shamans and sorceresses hired by his father had treated him again and again, feeding him piles of talisman water and incense ashes, yet his illness showed no sign of improving.
Now his father had even brought in a native peasant like Zhou Ergou and actually bought into the fellow's nonsense. Impatience flared across his face immediately.
"Father, you're turning to anyone out of desperation! How can you believe just anybody?" Wang Cailiang pointed at Ergou. "You even dragged in an illiterate villager! What, is he going to feed me cow dung or boy's urine?"
Hearing this, Wang Chengwang immediately put on his stern fatherly airs and scolded him, "Haven't I told you before never to judge a person by their appearance? Though Worthy Nephew Zhou is younger than you, he has apprenticed under a great master. Not only does he know the origin of your strange affliction, but he also has the means to cure it..."
Chu Qiguang could tell the moment Wang Cailiang opened his mouth that he was the spoiled son of a landlord. A seventeen-year-old was already prone to being headstrong and resisting his elders' advice, not to mention that Chu Qiguang's current appearance could hardly inspire confidence.
Realizing that the more Wang Chengwang spoke, the less cooperative Wang Cailiang would become, Chu Qiguang caught Wang Chengwang's arm and said with a smile, "Master Wang overpraises me. Administering treatment requires a quiet environment. Please step outside and wait for a moment."
Once his father had been persuaded to leave, Wang Cailiang sized Chu Qiguang up coldly. "My father is worried about me, so he's burning incense at every temple he sees right now. You can fool him, but you can't fool me! Go back to wherever you came from while you still can, before I have you dragged off to the county yamen and charged with spreading demonic lies and inciting unrest in the village..."
With a soft thud, before Wang Cailiang could finish, a palm strike knocked him unconscious to the floor.
Qiao Zhi withdrew his paw, gave it a lick, and stepped out from behind him. "Talks too much damn nonsense."
***
Wang Cailiang had been living under tremendous pressure over the past few days.
Every night, he had maidservants light candles all throughout his room and pages keep watch outside the door before he could barely fall asleep.
Yet the wind outside the window, the servants' footsteps, the chirping of insects in the courtyard, the barking of village dogs in the distance—the slightest disturbance would startle him awake in an instant.
Then he would scramble up to check whether the doors and windows were properly shut, and whether the pages were still outside.
He would even thoroughly search beneath the bed, under the table, and inside the wardrobe.
Even so, late each night, the memory of being attacked by the dog ghost would resurface in his mind, jolting him awake from nightmares.
The fear was less acute during the day, but whenever he thought about how his future might be ruined—or worse, how disaster might engulf his entire family—deep waves of despair surged in his chest.
He began lashing out at the servants and maidservants in fits of rage, spewing curses and driving out with clubs those shamans and sorceresses who did nothing but swindle food, drink, and money while failing to cure him.
And right now, he groggily woke up. Finding himself lying in bed, he sat up in bewilderment, trying to recall what had just happened.
"Was it that villager?"
He scrambled out of bed and looked over, only to see Zhou Ergou sitting in the armchair. He jumped up at once and pointed at him. "What did you do?!"
Chu Qiguang said unhurriedly, "Check your back. I have temporarily suppressed the canine poison inside you. But if you want a complete cure, this alone isn't enough; it could still flare up again..."
Wang Cailiang didn't hear a word of what came after. Reaching around to feel his back, he discovered that the black animal fur that had grown there had truly receded by more than half. He felt refreshed and comfortable, invigorated once more.
Looking down at the shed fur scattered across the floor, he blurted out in pleasant surprise, "Cured?!"
Chu Qiguang explained, "You were bitten by that dog ghost and infected with canine poison.
"The so-called dog ghost is born from vicious dogs that harbor deep resentment upon being killed, thus transforming into ghosts. They take pleasure in seeking vengeance against those who killed them in life, injecting canine poison into their bodies and watching them slowly turn into dogs, relishing their agonizing torment until the dog ghost finally possesses them in an attempt to return to the mortal realm."
Wang Cailiang's attitude had completely changed. With utmost politeness, he said, "I have heard of dog ghosts before, but no one has ever explained them in such detail."
The dog ghost was no fabrication made up on the spot by Chu Qiguang; it was a ghost that genuinely existed in this world.
For their operation against the Wang family, Chu Qiguang and Qiao Zhi had made meticulous preparations.
First, he had Qiao Zhi dispatch a dog to bite Wang Cailiang in advance and bring back a sample of his blood. Qiao Zhi analyzed it and found that rat blood was best suited to stimulate Wang Cailiang's bloodline.
Then, Qiao Zhi sneaked into the Wang estate and performed the Heavenly Demon Foundation Establishment Method, triggering the demonization anomalies that made fur grow on Wang Cailiang. Chu Qiguang had also conferred with Qiao Zhi to single out the dog ghost as a creature known to cause similar symptoms.
After arriving at the Wang estate, Qiao Zhi performed the Heavenly Demon Foundation Establishment Method once more, temporarily suppressing Wang Cailiang's demonization symptoms.
Now, as Chu Qiguang laid out this explanation of the dog ghost, Wang Cailiang connected the dots with his own experience and was thoroughly convinced.
Chu Qiguang frightened him further, adding, "If I hadn't neutralized part of the canine poison for you today, the animal fur across your body would only have grown thicker until it covered you entirely. You would have grown more and more like a dog until your sea of consciousness turned into chaos. You would have truly believed you were a dog, never to be human again, and that dog ghost would have taken over your body.
"Young Master Wang, do you think I might still have a chance... to cure you?"
Chapter 20