The white-furred monster stood on the water, his long arms extending past his knees hanging at his sides. His pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks as he stared fixedly at the shadow swimming beneath the surface.
The flood churned endlessly. Shen Liang shuttled through the water, the waves parting and closing on their own around him.
A sinister grin stretched across his face as he suddenly lunged out of the water. His long, bloated hands wrapped tightly around the white-furred monster's waist, his fingers digging deep into its body.
His legs extended from beneath the water, wrapping around the white-furred monster's ankles like water weeds. With a powerful twist, he dragged the creature down into the depths.
Water splashed in all directions.
Shen Liang tightened his limbs in the water, his grin widening even further, the venomous resentment in his eyes thick enough to overflow.
But the instant his arms tightened, he suddenly froze.
A certain scent wafted from the white-furred monster.
It was dusty, a mixture of plant fibers and soil, aged by the passage of time into a faint, musty odor.
It smelled like old paper pulp, or perhaps the residual ashes of burnt incense.
He seemed to have smelled this odor somewhere before.
Shen Liang's pupils contracted slightly, an indescribable wave of irritation suddenly surging in his heart.
In his mind, memories of his past life began to churn. Waves of venomous resentment that had long been suppressed welled up from the depths of his soul, carrying the stench of rotting silt.
He remembered the year he died. After the flood receded, his corpse had washed onto the downstream riverbank, bloated and unrecognizable.
It seemed someone had pulled him out, wrapped him in a tattered straw mat, and hastily buried him in the mass grave by the river.
When he was buried, someone had folded a few pieces of joss paper from yellow sheets, placed them on his grave, and set them alight.
The scent that drifted up as the paper burned was just like this—dusty, carrying the charred smell of burning plants, and a faint hint of earth.
Shen Liang's memories had long since blurred. He only remembered his soul floating in midair, looking down at his own grave, watching the pieces of joss paper curl in the fire, blacken, turn to ash, and scatter in the wind.
Those few sheets of joss paper were the only offering he had ever received in his life.
But...
Shen Liang's breathing suddenly grew rapid.
But he had been murdered.
Someone had broken his limbs, pushed him into the river, and drowned him.
After his death, his overwhelming resentment turned him into a water ghost. He became a local plague, dragging countless people down into the water to drown.
Who had recovered his body?
Who had wrapped him in the straw mat?
Who had burned the joss paper for him?
A violent wave of rage suddenly exploded in his chest. Like a flood bursting through a dam, it instantly swallowed his sanity.
His eyes turned blood-red, and he began to exert force with his hands.
Pinioned by Shen Liang's limbs, the white-furred monster could not move. Its bones popped and cracked, and a hint of confusion appeared in the single intact eye on its deformed face.
It did not understand why this ghostly thing wrapping around it had suddenly become so vicious.
Moving his hands from the white-furred monster's waist, Shen Liang gripped its shoulders. His ten pale, bloated fingers sank deep into its flesh, and he ripped outward with all his might.
Rip—
The white-furred monster's left arm was torn completely off.
White slime gushed from the stump, splashing all over Shen Liang's face, but he did not care in the slightest.
Opening his mouth, he let out a low roar. He tossed the severed arm into the water, and his hands gripped the white-furred monster's right arm.
Another tear.
The right arm was also ripped off.
The white-furred monster thrashed in the water, its remaining two legs kicking wildly, but Shen Liang's limbs wrapped around it like iron bands, making escape impossible.
Like a madman, Shen Liang vented the groundless resentment welling up from his heart.
He ripped off the white-furred monster's legs as well, then grabbed its face and shoved the deformed head deep into the water and silt, forcing bubbles to gurgle to the surface.
White slime erupted frantically from the white-furred monster's body, attempting to pollute Shen Liang, but he was completely beyond caring.
Using his hands, he crushed the white-furred monster's body piece by piece beneath the water. Watching the creature become increasingly unrecognizable, Shen Liang actually felt a bizarre, vengeful pleasure welling up within him.
The white-furred monster's body tumbled through the white water, bound by Shen Liang's ghost hands. More and more ghost hands reached up from the depths, wrapping around its severed limbs, its torso, and its neck, tightening their grip.
The white-furred monster's airway was completely blocked, rendering it unable to make a sound. The white slime inside its body squirted in all directions as Shen Liang's ghost hands wrung it dry.
But Shen Liang had no intention of killing it immediately.
He kept it alive, letting it suffocate bit by bit, forcing it to feel the water pouring into its lungs, to experience the agony of being bound, constricted, and ground to dust piece by piece.
In the white-furred monster's single eye, the pupil began to dilate. Its struggles grew weaker and weaker.
Crouched at the bottom of the water, Shen Liang watched it die bit by bit.
He watched the white-furred monster's body twitch and spasm in the water, heard the gurgling from its throat, and saw the last trace of light fade from its eye.
Within his blood-red eyes, a morbid, twisted madness churned.
Meanwhile, the water level rose rapidly, and vortexes spun across the surface, their edges frothing with grayish-white foam.
The surviving white beasts were sucked into the whirlpools, seized by the ghost hands from the depths, dragged underwater, drowned, crushed, and ground into white debris.
Shen Liang's ghost hands reached up from below, dense and countless.
He shoved the beasts underwater, forcing them to suffocate, to struggle, and to die in absolute despair.
The white foam on the surface multiplied, the waves surged higher, and the vortexes spun faster.
Standing at the bottom of the water amidst the pile of white debris, Shen Liang looked up at the light above the surface. A bizarre smile stretched across his gaunt face.
He felt good.
Exceptionally good.
He felt as though the beast trapped in his heart for a hundred thousand years was bursting out of its cage, roaring, howling, and pouring out all the accumulated resentment, hatred, and pain of those hundred thousand years.
The white-furred monster was dead.
His dead water was back under his control. The white pollution receded, and the turbid, yellowish-brown hue welled up from the depths once more, burying the white debris.
The flood rushed uncontrollably toward Wu Gou and the others.
On the other side, Taotie had already finished his battle.
Braving the white torrent, his massive body rampaged through the waves, scattering the beasts in the water as he charged straight toward Lou-Metal Dog.
Lou-Metal Dog stood on a boulder half-submerged in the water, his white canine ears pricked up and his white tail swishing behind him.
He watched Taotie charge forward and opened his mouth in a cruel smile.
Taotie swung the Severed Thought warhammer head-on, slamming it onto Lou-Metal Dog's head.
Thud—
A dull thud echoed, as if striking a cracked bell.
Lou-Metal Dog's body split open from the crown of his head, his entire form instantly crushed into a meat patty.
Reaching out, Taotie scooped up Lou-Metal Dog and squeezed him in his grip. A sinister grin spread across his fat, bloated face as he prepared to stuff the dog into his mouth.
Then, he suddenly paused.
As if remembering something, Taotie abruptly turned his head. His bell-like eyes looked toward Wu Gou, and the fierce, malevolent expression on his face instantly shifted to one of innocence and longing.
“Master...”
“Can I...?”
Wu Gou nodded slightly.
“Eat.”
“This is not his true form.”
Hearing this, Taotie was overjoyed. Without another word, he stuffed Lou-Metal Dog into his mouth and swallowed him whole without even chewing.
Then, he picked up the white debris on the ground and stuffed it into his mouth piece by piece, crunching on them like roasted beans.
“Hungry... so hungry.”
He mumbled incoherently, his mouth smeared with white slime and debris. He continued to gather and eat, his table manners utterly atrocious.
On the other side, Plague Rat stood on a tree root protruding from the water, his brow furrowed deeply enough to crush a fly as he watched the rising floodwaters.
“Holy shit, why is the water still rising?”
He looked up toward Shen Liang and saw only countless ghost hands frantically clawing at the surface of the turbid torrent.
“What's wrong with that dead ghost?”
Wu Gou sat on his lotus platform, glancing toward the water, his brow also furrowing slightly.
The lotus platform of human hands tossed on the water, buffeted by waves of turbid water that rocked it from side to side.
Wu Gou closed his eyes. The flesh lotus on his back trembled slightly. The umbilical-cord-like tentacle pierced into Shen Liang's head slowly tightened, then pulled back sharply, disconnecting from the crown of Shen Liang's head.
The instant the tentacle was withdrawn, the sound of rushing water subsided.
The momentum of the flood instantly collapsed. The water level began to recede, the high waves flattened, and the vortexes gradually settled.
Shen Liang's roars drifted up from the depths, hoarse, twisted, and laden with intense hostility.
Wu Gou opened his eyes and glanced at Taotie. “Bring him over.”
Hearing his Master's command, Taotie did not dare delay. He stuffed the last handful of white debris into his mouth, patted his hands, and strode through the water toward Shen Liang.
He walked up to Shen Liang, bent down, and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, hoisting him out of the water like a wet chick.
Shen Liang was still struggling, his slender limbs thrashing wildly in the water, his gaunt, twisted face and blood-red eyes filled with pure rage.
“Let me go! Let me go!”
Taotie ignored him completely, delivering a gusty slap that left Shen Liang dazed. He then carried him back to Wu Gou, set him on the ground, and pinned his ankles down with a massive foot.
Wu Gou stepped down from the lotus platform, walked over to Shen Liang, crouched down, and gently pressed his right index finger against the space between Shen Liang's brows.
Golden Buddhist light overflowed from his fingertip, rapidly spreading across Shen Liang's forehead.
Shen Liang's body froze instantly.
In his blood-red pupils, the violent rage began to recede.
The Buddhist light flowed through his spiritual consciousness, warm and gentle, soothing his churning emotions bit by bit.
Shen Liang's eyelids drooped, and his body went limp. Slumping from beneath Taotie's foot, he collapsed onto the ground, dissolving into a puddle of water.
Wu Gou withdrew his hand, draped his monk robe back over his shoulders, and slowly stood up.
Plague Rat hopped down from the tree root and walked over to Shen Liang. He stared down at his pale face, then at his whitened limbs, his brow furrowed tightly.
“Dammit, has that bastard Lou-Metal Dog gotten stronger again?”
Rubbing the gray debris on his hands, he continued to curse, “Why are there so many small fry this time?”
Plague Rat squatted down and poked Shen Liang's cheek. “Did this brother get infected by that dumb dog?”
“He acted just like a mad dog... Is he still salvageable?”
Splayed on the ground, Shen Liang's eyelids twitched, and his mouth parted slightly, blowing bubbles in the puddle of water.
“...I'm fine.”
“I'm fine.”
“Not infected...”
“Pollution of that level... can't cause... any real damage to my ghost body...”
Hearing this, Plague Rat looked disapproving. “Don't push yourself.”
He reached out and poked Shen Liang's arm.
“Look at your limbs—they're completely white, like bloated tofu. How is that fine?”
Shen Liang was too tired to explain.
With his cultivation at the Void-Returning stage, once he returned to the Great Emperor's Palace, he could easily suppress white pollution of this level.
He no longer had the energy to speak.
Now that the violent rage had subsided, his body felt completely hollowed out. His mind was a blank void, and even moving a finger felt exhausting.
He simply closed his eyes and fell silent.
Yet, a massive doubt lingered in Shen Liang's mind.
Why had he suddenly lost control?
Even now, just recalling the scent he had smelled on the white-furred monster made him struggle to hold back a surge of rage that wanted to drown the entire world.
What on earth was wrong with him?
Wu Gou asked Shen Liang, “Why did you go so wild? Did the enemy use some sort of mind-control technique?”
Shen Liang immediately poked his head out from the water, forced a smile, and said, “No, Master.”
“That white-furred monster's abilities should only consist of water control and white pollution.”
“When my dead water turned white at the beginning, it was likely just a temporary seizure of control. He doesn't possess any mind-control abilities.”
Shen Liang's perception was very clear.
That violent rage had surged from the depths of his own heart. There had been no external interference; it was purely his own emotions churning.
Having cultivated in the ghost mansion for a hundred thousand years, he knew that the true experts of mind control and illusion among the Seven Evils was Hong Xiu, who specialized in the Path of Extreme Emotions.
His relationship with Hong Xiu wasn't bad either, since both of them had been former subjects of Southern Tang when they were alive.
Shen Liang had observed Hong Xiu's techniques many times and had even experienced them firsthand. He still vividly remembered that feeling of helplessness—being controlled, deluded, and forced to act against his own instincts.
But right now, his soul-body was perfectly clean.
Aside from the white pollution clinging to his surface, there was no trace of any residual spell within him.
Shen Liang did not believe that a white-furred monster with a cultivation only around the eighth-stage Siming, and who wasn't even fully lucid, could possess a mind-control technique so advanced that it surpassed Hong Xiu's—or so subtle that even his own Void-Returning stage cultivation could not detect it.
Moreover, he had not been deluded at the time.
He had simply felt a surge of rage from within. The hatred from his past life, the resentment from after his death—he had willingly wanted to vent it, to destroy, to release all his malice.
He was, after all, an evil ghost who had plagued the world for a hundred thousand years. What kindness did he have to speak of?
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