Chapter 273: Death

"Too small..." The waiter's trembling voice instantly cast a bizarre atmosphere over the entire room.

Overwhelmed with fear, he didn't even bother to tie his belt. He dropped to his knees, frantically kowtowing around the room.

"Oh, Ghost Grandfather! I truly didn't want to say it, he forced me to! Your grudges have a source, and your debts have an owner, please don't steal my life root!"

"If my life root is stolen by you, you'll be reborn! But I won't be able to reincarnate and will become a lonely ghost!"

His words startled Gao Zhijian, who instantly covered his groin with both hands in horror. At the same time, Li Huowang instinctively looked down.

"Has this so-called 'life root stealing ghost' actually arrived?" Li Huowang, his face grim, quickly scanned the entire room again.

With Li Huowang's current keen perception, he would surely sense if something was truly watching him in the room.

But he didn't detect any other presence, which meant one of two things: either the ghost was deliberately avoiding looking at him, or the entity had no eyes at all.

"An unseen malevolence? Is it like the one from the eighteenth day of the twelfth lunar month again?" Facing this sudden, unknown enemy, Li Huowang dared not be careless.

In this cursed place, Li Huowang didn't believe that a malevolence capable of harming an entire region would only slowly steal people's life roots.

Unnoticed by anyone else in the room, Li Huowang's colored phantom body and invisible physical body silently shifted apart, and his right hand gripped the hilt of the sword behind him.

The atmosphere in the room grew increasingly oppressive. Just as Li Huowang focused all his attention on the empty surroundings,

the waiter, who had been prostrate on the floor, suddenly stood up and bolted towards the nearby doorway.

"Can this thing possess people too?!"

As Li Huowang instinctively raised his sword to strike the waiter's back, Gao Zhijian, standing nearby, lifted the stone slab from his chest and, with a resounding clang, blocked Li Huowang's sword.

In that brief moment, the waiter had already rushed out the door.

Li Huowang's murderous gaze instantly shifted from the waiter to Gao Zhijian.

"Is this entity that troublesome? Has it already taken over Gao Zhijian's body?"

Gao Zhijian, still holding the stone slab, saw Li Huowang's menacing eyes fixed on him and frantically waved his hands. "I... I... it's... it's me. I... I... I'm Zhijian."

However, Li Huowang didn't fully trust him at that moment. Staring at Gao Zhijian's simple face, he said, "You say it's you? Actions speak louder than words. Gao Zhijian would never block my sword! Who exactly are you?"

"Li... Li... Senior Brother Li, that person wasn't... wasn't... wasn't possessed by the malevolence!"

"If he wasn't possessed, why did he suddenly run?"

Li Huowang looked at Gao Zhijian's clear eyes, quickly thought for a moment, and then pointed his sword towards the outside. "Alright, if you say you're the real Gao Zhijian, then put that Heavenly Book aside, go first, and find that waiter."

The other man's sudden action was very strange. Regardless of whether he was possessed, Li Huowang needed to understand what was going on.

After Gao Zhijian threw all his belongings inside the room, he exited under Li Huowang's watch to search for the waiter who had suddenly fled.

Finding him was simple: he had just peed his pants from fright because of Li Huowang, so they just needed to follow the trail of urine on the ground.

The urine trail didn't go far, looping around inside the inn. Li Huowang eventually found the waiter, who wasn't wearing pants, hanging from a beam in the inn's kitchen.

A coarse hemp rope was looped around his neck, suspending him. His entire body swayed slightly from side to side, accompanied by creaking sounds.

A half-eaten winter melon lying askew on the floor suggested he had done this himself.

Having been hanged, the waiter's tongue was grotesquely long, his face a purplish-black. He stared fixedly at Li Huowang, a horrifying sight.

"He... he... he..." Gao Zhijian, utterly shocked, pointed a trembling finger at the dangling waiter, momentarily speechless.

A man who was fine moments ago had suddenly hanged himself; it was far too sudden.

Li Huowang observed the waiter's eyes, filled with fear and despair, and how his hand was still tightly gripping his groin. He then turned to Gao Zhijian.

"You were right, he wasn't controlled by the malevolence. To avoid never being reborn after death, this fellow decided to reincarnate while his 'life root' was still intact."

Ultimately, it wasn't the 'life root stealing ghost' that killed him, but his own fear.

Li Huowang, sword in hand, slowly walked in circles within the kitchen, searching for the so-called ghost.

He had encountered many malevolent entities before, but never had he felt so utterly helpless.

Someone had died, and he hadn't even seen the entity.

Li Huowang's gaze dropped to the waiter's groin, noting it was quite small.

"Daoist, what do we do now? We don't even know where this thing is. You're in deep trouble now!" The monk looked very flustered, as if genuinely worried for Li Huowang.

Li Huowang glanced at him and said in a low voice, "Don't panic. Since that thing spreads through speech, it's currently only targeting me and Gao Zhijian. Everyone else is safe for now. And as for my body, it's far too early for it to shrink me to death. As for Gao Zhijian... Gao Zhijian will also be fine."

"Li... Li... Senior Brother Li, wha... wha... what do we do?"

Even the usually slow-witted Gao Zhijian seemed a little panicked now. He pulled open his pants and nervously reached in, clutching himself, terrified that 'it' might suddenly shrink into his belly and disappear.

Standing still, Li Huowang surveyed his surroundings. The kitchen, which should have been perfectly normal, now appeared terrifying in his eyes. Chili peppers, choppers, cutting boards, firewood – behind every item seemed to lurk danger.

Li Huowang pulled open his pants and looked inside, immediately letting out a sigh of relief. For now, there was no change.

It seemed this "shrinking yang" wasn't an instant process but a gradual one, meaning he still had time to find a solution.

"Don't panic. As long as we understand the origin of this thing and its weaknesses, we'll definitely be able to resolve this!" Li Huowang sheathed his long sword behind him and turned to head back towards the inn.

"Gao Zhijian, you stay here and keep watch! Tell everyone else to stay put and not run around. Don't tell anyone about this. I'm going to figure out how to expose whatever is hiding!"

"Daoist, where are you going?" the monk, half-stuck in the wall, asked doubtfully.

"Since we now know that everyone in Pixian is also a victim, they are on our side. In that case, there's no need to hide anything. To deal with that entity, I need the Pixian magistrate's help!"