Chapter 32: The Red Pencil

Looking at the concrete pillar suddenly appearing before my eyes, instantly sealing the fierce and malevolent Painted Skin Ghost, I was also stunned.
Was it solved that easily?

And the talismans pasted on the concrete pillar, unlike the apricot-yellow Daoist talismans, were square-shaped talismans with red backgrounds and white characters.
They covered the entire pillar, looking less like something meant to suppress evil and more like sacrificial pillars, filled with an ominous aura.

“Bixian, if possible, try to capture it alive.
The ten thousand paper gold we promised earlier will all be burned for you.” Mo Qingyan quickly added, not forgetting to help me restore my original body.

The pencil only moved twice, without beginning to write, when the concrete pillar suddenly made strange noises: “Crack!Crack!”

We stared intently and saw cracks appearing on the concrete pillar.
The Painted Skin Ghost was actually forcefully breaking free from the resentful spirits’ binds.
Through the expanding cracks, its malevolent eyes could be seen.

“Bixian, Bixian, that’s enough for today!” Mo Qingyan cried out hastily.
As soon as her voice fell, the feeling of our hands being stuck to the pencil disappeared, and Xiao Qing and I released our grip.

“Boom!” The stone pillar exploded, sending debris smashing many Dharma artifacts and props in the Supernatural Events Department to the ground, leaving the scene in ruins.

“Heh heh, you can’t escape.” The Painted Skin Ghost laughed as it looked at me.
Its voice was like something from the Nine Netherworld Hells; just hearing it made me feel as if I had fallen into an ice abyss.

The Painted Skin Ghost lunged at me again.
This time, the female ghost also flickered and disappeared.
The next moment, the Painted Skin Ghost was abruptly hoisted up, its neck stretched out, as if an invisible rope had caught its neck.

But the Painted Skin Ghost showed no expression of pain or suffocation.
It even continued to smile at me, simultaneously reaching for the invisible rope and snapping it with a gentle tug.

“Ah!” The two resentful spirits screamed as they were flung out, their spiritual bodies hitting the wall and disappearing again.
I had thought that given their gruesome and terrifying deaths, they should possess considerable strength, but unexpectedly, they were so weak.
It seemed neither was a match for the Painted Skin Ghost.

By the time the Painted Skin Ghost reached me, my legs had turned to jelly; I couldn’t even run.
Xiao Qing tried to rush over to save me, but was forced back by a terrifying layer of ominous aura.
The Painted Skin Ghost turned to look at Xiao Qing and said, “After I eat him first, I’ll peel your skin off.”

At this moment, the most mysterious weasel finally made its move, or rather, it didn’t really ‘move,’ but merely stood beside me, its eyes emitting a crimson light.

Illuminated by that light, the Painted Skin Ghost’s movements eerily ceased.
Even its eyes, filled with hatred and malice, became hazy and unfocused.
It was actually being controlled by the weasel.

Was this considered capturing the Painted Skin Ghost alive?
Mo Qingyan and Ou Zhiqin approached it cautiously.
Seeing that it truly wasn’t moving, Mo Qingyan said, “We need to figure out a way to peel its skin off intact, return it to Luo Xiao, and then eliminate it.”

Just as we all thought we had it secure, the Painted Skin Ghost’s head eerily tilted to one side.
I saw the weasel’s head also tilt sideways, as if it had been twisted.

Immediately after, the Painted Skin Ghost’s limbs began to move, its actions clumsy and stiff, like it was performing a zombie dance or robot dance, but with rusted joints.

And the weasel’s limbs were also continuously twisting along with it.
This was clearly not something it wanted to do; it was merely being controlled in reverse by the Painted Skin Ghost.

“No good!
This Painted Skin Ghost can forcefully break free!” Mo Qingyan exclaimed.
The other two resentful spirits also lunged forward, trying to forcefully possess the Painted Skin Ghost.

I watched helplessly as my face split in half, revealing the ghastly skull head draped with strips of flesh.
It grinned maliciously at me.
It seemed to be using my skin as a substitute to block the Bixian’s various eerie moves.

Seeing that it was about to completely break free, Mo Qingyan suddenly, I don’t know how, gathered her courage and resolve.
She grabbed the red pencil and stabbed it towards the Painted Skin Ghost’s skull.

I had noticed before that this pencil was quite long; the part extending beyond her grip was like a dagger.
Now, Mo Qingyan held it in a reverse grip, putting all her strength into stabbing the Painted Skin Ghost.

The Painted Skin Ghost was protected by a layer of ominous aura.
Just now, Xiao Qing had been blown away by this very layer of ominous aura.
Only the Bixian, being spirits themselves, could ignore the aura’s influence.
However, when the red pencil jabbed into the ominous aura, a red light flashed, and the pencil tip actually forced its way through the aura.

The Painted Skin Ghost had just been grinning maliciously at Mo Qingyan’s overestimation of herself, never expecting its own ominous aura protection to be so easily pierced.
It instinctively turned its head to dodge, but it was too late; the pencil tip pierced into its eye socket.

“Argh!!!Damn it!!”

The Painted Skin Ghost shrieked wretchedly.
Mo Qingyan was like someone who had punctured a blood bag filled with plasma; large amounts of foul blood sprayed out from the Painted Skin Ghost’s eye, drenching the floor.

The Painted Skin Ghost dared not linger; it immediately turned and fled outside, leaving a trail of bloodstains.
I hadn’t expected the red pencil’s power to be so immense, actually piercing the Painted Skin Ghost’s skull in one strike and inflicting such massive damage.

That red pencil should also be a Dharma artifact, yet it was completely different from any Dharma artifacts I had seen before.
The Dharma artifacts I had previously seen had spiritual light flowing through them, making one feel comfortable and close to them, whereas this pencil seemed like it had been pulled from a pool of blood, absorbing countless curses.

The two resentful spirits immediately threw all decorum aside, sprawling on the ground and beginning to lick up the foul blood left by the Painted Skin Ghost.
Clearly, this defiled blood was a good thing.
I also noticed that the foul blood on the red pencil had already been absorbed clean by the pencil body.

I turned my head to look for the weasel, but unexpectedly, it was gone.
It truly appeared and disappeared like a ghost.
I guessed it had been reverse-controlled by the Painted Skin Ghost and likely suffered some minor injuries, which was why it fled immediately after the Painted Skin Ghost was repelled.

Watching the foul blood on the ground rapidly disappear, followed by even the blood on the Painted Skin Ghost’s escape route fading away layer by layer, Ou Zhiqin and Mo Qingyan exchanged glances.

“Bixian, Bixian, are you still here?” Mo Qingyan asked.

“No, they’ve all gone.” I said, sitting on the ground, unable to stand up for a while.
But I had personally watched the two resentful spirits chase and lick up the bloodstains left by the Painted Skin Ghost.

Hearing this, Mo Qingyan finally dared to put on her glasses.
Looking at the now chaotic Supernatural Events Department, she sighed, “Time to clean up again.”

“Thank you, Senior Sister Mo.
If you hadn’t repelled the Painted Skin Ghost, I would have been dead.” I sincerely thanked her.
Although Mo Qingyan’s desperate strike at the last moment was also to save herself, it was a fact that she had repelled the Painted Skin Ghost.

“What’s there to thank me for?
This was entirely the Bixian’s credit, and this pencil left by the senior student is strong enough.
All I did was poke the Painted Skin Ghost.
Anyone else could have done the same.” Mo Qingyan said.