Chapter Three: A Hundred Ghosts Walk the Night – The Blade of Dali Temple

"DONG—!!"
The gong sound exploded like thunder in the narrow second-floor corridor. It didn't enter through the ears but drilled straight into the spine, shaking Shen Zhui's blood as if it were about to flow backward in his veins.
The grayish-green hands pouring in through the doorway had long, pitch-black nails that glinted with a metallic coldness under the dim light of the green lantern. Those hands didn't look like they belonged to the living—more like severed limbs freshly dug from grave soil, still damp and reeking of rotting flesh.
The moment the gong sounded, Shen Zhui pressed the tip of his tongue hard against his upper palate, forcing himself out of the dizziness. His long blade, Baipi, slid from its sheath, cutting a cold arc of light through the darkness—like a crescent moon sweeping across the room.
"Thud, thud, thud!"
Several muffled sounds rang out. The first three pairs of severed hands reaching through the doorway were sliced clean off. But what spilled from the stumps wasn't red blood—it was a thick, ink-black, foul liquid that hissed and corroded the wooden floor where it splattered. The severed hands fell to the ground and, like a lizard's detached tail, kept twitching and clawing wildly at the floorboards.
"Living-stake ghosts…" Shen Zhui's eyes turned icy cold, a killing intent rising in his chest. "Filling pits with live men, turning resentment into power—the beast behind this deserves to be boiled in the Dali Temple's oil cauldron."
The night watchman tilted his neck, that protruding eye spinning wildly on his patchwork human-skin face, fixed on Shen Zhui. The white-bone gong mallet in his hand rose again, his movements stiff as a marionette, yet carrying an undeniable rhythm of death.
"Death Row… Magistrate Shen Zhui…" The watchman's voice was like gravel squeezed from deep within the earth. "The list… leave it… your life… leave it…"
"You want the list? Come down to my prison, and I'll burn it for you myself!"
Shen Zhui exploded into motion. He didn't retreat—instead, he charged straight toward the eerie bronze gong. Each step he took cracked the wooden floorboards beneath him. He shook the Soul-Calming Bell with his left hand and recited the Death Row's spirit-suppression chant:
"Heaven's law has spirit; the great prison has no door. The living stop here; the dead return to dust!"
"DING-LING-LING—!!"
This time, the Soul-Calming Bell didn't just hum—it let out a piercing, bell-like ring that carried the weight of a temple's morning chime. The sound wave turned into an invisible force that pushed back the madly clawing grayish-green hands, and some of the weaker shadows dissolved directly into puddles of black water under the bell's resonance.
The watchman's movement faltered. His gong trembled.
Shen Zhui seized that split-second opening. His long blade shot straight for the watchman's patched, tattered neck. The edge hadn't even arrived when the fierce wind from the blade had already sliced open the human skin on the watchman's face.
But just before the blade could bite into flesh, the walls on both sides of the corridor began to writhe like rotting meat. Countless pale faces squeezed out from the walls—old and young, male and female. Their eyes were hollow, their mouths stretched wide in silent screams.
These were the "living stakes" buried beneath the sewers. Their resentment had been exploited by the inn's master, and now they formed a flesh-and-blood shield in front of Shen Zhui.
"Shen Zhui… save me… I don't want to die in that pit…"
Among those pale faces, he saw Old Sixth's face. His head was covered in blood, his hands reaching for Shen Zhui's ankles.
Shen Zhui's body froze mid-lunge. No matter how ironclad his will, seeing that familiar face made his blade deviate by an inch.
The watchman seized the chance—the gong mallet smashed down!
"DONG—!!"
This time, Shen Zhui couldn't dodge. The impact hit his chest like a thousand-pound boulder. He grunted, slammed hard into the wall, shattering the pale faces behind him. A sweetness rose in his throat, and a trickle of blood ran down the corner of his mouth, dripping onto the Soul-Calming Bell in his hand.
Blood touched the bell. The originally bronze surface faintly glowed with a dark red.
"Shen Zhui, here, no one can save you." Ajiao's voice echoed again, though her figure was nowhere to be seen. Her voice reverberated through the corridor, carrying a pitying mockery. "This inn is a living grave. Every step you take is a step into the pit."
Shen Zhui propped himself up on his long blade and stood, wiping the blood from his lips. He could feel the floor beneath him softening, as if the building itself was turning into a giant organ, trying to digest him.
"The Qian room… window crevice…"
The Dali Temple Minister's last words echoed in Shen Zhui's mind. He had no time to tangle with these living-stake ghosts. He had to break through.
"You want my life? This Dali Temple uniform of mine—you can't chew through it!"
Shen Zhui tore open his left sleeve, revealing a tattoo on his forearm—a fierce Bi'an (a mythical prison beast) head, the guardian spirit of the Dali Temple. He smeared the blood from his palm onto the tattoo, and in that instant, his muscles swelled grotesquely. A molten-hot current surged through his limbs.
This was a forbidden technique of the Death Row: Bi'an Possession—burning one's own blood essence for a burst of explosive power.
"Clear the way for me!"
Shen Zhui's long blade swept horizontally. This time, the blade was wrapped in a faint, flame-like killing aura. The living-stake ghosts that blocked his path let out bloodcurdling screams the moment they touched that aura, dissolving like snow in the morning sun.
He turned into a black lightning bolt, weaving madly through the narrow corridor. The watchman tried to strike his gong again; Shen Zhui flung his left hand—the Soul-Calming Bell flew like a hidden weapon, hitting the bronze gong square in the center.
"BANG—!"
The gong shattered. The bell flew back. The watchman let out an inhuman howl, and his whole body collapsed like a sack of sand.
Shen Zhui didn't stop. He sprinted toward the end of the corridor, guided by the hexagram positions in his memory.
"Kun, Zhen, Kan, Gen… found it. Qian position!"
He kicked open a blackened door. This room was even smaller than the north room. There was no bed, only an altar hung with long strips of white prayer flags. This wasn't a guest room at all—it was the array eye of this "living grave."
In the center of the room lay a pitch-black coffin, its lid not fully closed, leaving a crack.
Shen Zhui didn't look at the coffin. His gaze locked onto the window.
The window of the Qian room faced due north—toward the imperial palace.
He rushed to the window and dug his fingers into the rough wooden crevice. The wood was slick with moss and a sticky, mucous-like secretion.
Just as his fingertip touched a stiff paper corner—
"BAM!!"
The coffin lid exploded with a loud crack.
A monstrous hand covered in long red hair shot out from the coffin, grabbing Shen Zhui's shoulder with crushing force. The strength nearly shattered his shoulder blade.
Shen Zhui clenched his teeth. His left hand clamped down on the yellowed list; his right hand pulled out a short dagger from his waist and stabbed fiercely into the red-haired hand.
"The Death Row investigates—the living step aside, the dead submit!"
With a roar, using the thrust of his dagger for leverage, Shen Zhui crashed through the window of the Qian room, clutching the list, and leaped from the second floor into the night.
Behind him came the innkeeper's enraged, hollow roar, and a flood of countless black shadows pouring out of the building.
Shen Zhui slammed hard into the rain-soaked mud. Pain shot through his chest, but he held the paper close to his body.
The rain kept falling. In the distance, the night patrol's drumbeat drifted faintly through the city.
Shen Zhui raised his head and looked at the "Place of Return" inn, lying in the darkness like a giant beast. He knew this was only the beginning. The names on that list—those were the real cancers buried deep in the bones of the Great Jing Dynasty.
He staggered to his feet, tucked the list into his inner pocket, and disappeared into the rain-soaked night.