Chapter 147: Backpackers' Youth Hostel (7)

As the Heart-Sensing Sword blocked the overflowing ripples of rule-bound power, a human-like young girl slowly picked herself up from the ruins of the youth hostel. Her eyes remained tightly shut, as if she were still fast asleep, yet she rocked unsteadily on her feet as she walked toward Wu Zui.

All the crimson debris resulting from the shattered red ropes converged toward her, swallowed directly into her body. It did not take long for the red fragments scattered across the ground to be entirely consumed, and by then, the girl had reached the boundary of the sword barrier formed by the Heart-Sensing Sword.

Staring at the barrier before her, a trace of cautious hesitation flashed across her drowsy eyes. She then raised her right hand, covered her mouth to yawn, and exhaled a puff of breath straight at the sword barrier.

Clang!

The Heart-Sensing Sword, which had been spinning at a blinding speed, suddenly dropped to the ground with a crisp sound.

*Sword Spirit? Sword Spirit?* Wu Zui anxiously called out within his mind, but all that came back from the Heart-Sensing Sword was...

"Zzz... Zzz..."

*What the hell! She fell asleep!* Wu Zui could not help cursing silently in his heart.

With the sword spirit plunged into slumber, his Karma Flame physique instantly turned turbulent, tiny sparks of fire rapidly surging across the surface of his skin. Wu Zui's expression shifted, and he immediately bent down to reach for the fallen sword.

However, before his fingers could brush the hilt, he felt a sudden weight on his back, and his entire body was slammed straight to the ground as the human-like girl climbed directly onto his back.

Meanwhile, the turbulent Karma Flame physique within Wu Zui settled down immediately, falling silent alongside his dormant magnetics.

"I... am hungry!"

A voice resembling the sweet trill of a lark echoed beside Wu Zui's ear.

"What would you like to eat?"

Wu Zui could feel Xiao Ke'ai trembling even more violently in his arms. This was not out of fear, but rather the intrinsic pressure exerted by a higher life form upon a magnetic life form—something that magnetically sensitive beings perceived with acute clarity.

Suddenly, Xiao Ke'ai stopped trembling, having lost consciousness altogether.

At that moment, a pale, jade-white hand swept past Wu Zui's cheek, its index finger pointing toward the Heart-Sensing Sword on the ground as she spoke: "Inside!"

*Inside the space of the Heart-Sensing Sword? How does she know about that!*

Aside from the ghosts subdued by Wu Zui within the sword's internal space, the only other contents were the red crystals scattered across the main peaks of the Shennongjia mountains. Naturally, Wu Zui could not hand over his subdued spirits, so he produced a fist-sized red crystal in his palm instead.

"Nom!"

Before Wu Zui could even ask if this was what she wanted, the hand and the red crystal vanished simultaneously, followed immediately by the sound of chewing coming from behind his back.

A moment later, the owner of the voice seemed to have finished her meal.

"Sleepy."

A profoundly lazy voice drifted into Wu Zui's ear.

The moment he heard it, Wu Zui felt his neck tighten. Two arms wrapped around his shoulders, followed by two legs that crushed the ground as they locked securely around his waist. Finally, the soft sound of gentle snoring brushed against his ear.

"Zzz... Zzz..."

"...Unbelievable," Wu Zui thought.

He felt utterly helpless. Was he really being treated as a bed by someone? And worse yet, the kind where he was pinned flat to the ground.

However, as the girl on his back drifted back into slumber, the force that had pacified both his Karma Flame physique and his magnetics began to dissipate rapidly. Wu Zui straightened his body slightly, grabbed the Heart-Sensing Sword, and the weapon surged back into his body, quickly suppressing the restless Karma Flame.

Once the sword had subdued the flames, Wu Zui finally managed to crawl up from the ground. The sleeping girl remained clinging to his back like a koala bear.

Just as Wu Zui prepared to summon the Heart-Sensing Sword to have a thorough discussion about its unexpected nap, the sword spirit warned him: "The one on your back is a Seven-Star ghost cultivator walking the Dao of Silence. Be careful never to waken her."

*What is the Dao of Silence?*

*The Dao of Slumber and Annihilation. When cultivated to profound depths, it can even bring the flow of time to a standstill. Even though she is only at the Seven-Star rank right now, she can render the laws practiced by beings of lower realms entirely ineffective, causing the very energy within their bodies to cease functioning.*

"She's that powerful?!" Wu Zui muttered under his breath.

As he spoke, he gripped the Heart-Sensing Sword and raised it, intending to strike the girl on his back.

*Don't!*

Before the sword spirit could finish its warning, the blade struck the girl's body.

The karma flames had barely flickered across her skin when, before they could even spread, an inexplicable force rippled outward first. The Heart-Sensing Sword plunged back into dormancy once more, and both his magnetics and Karma Flame physique fell silent.

The flames on the girl's body instantly extinguished. She opened her eyes, leaned against Wu Zui's ear, and asked, "What are you doing?"

Looking at the extinguished flames, Wu Zui swallowed hard and stammered, "Nothing. Are you still hungry?"

"...Hungry!" The girl fell silent for a moment, seemingly consulting her stomach's current state.

"Please, help yourself!" Wu Zui produced another crystal and handed it over.

"Nom... You're not bad." The girl swallowed the crystal in a single bite, offering words of praise while chewing away.

"Thanks. May I ask your surname?"

Feeling the constant vibrations against his skull from her chewing, Wu Zui could not shake the unsettling feeling that the ghost on his back might decide to take a bite out of him at any moment.

"Lai. I'm going to sleep now. Wake me if something happens!"

The girl patted Wu Zui's hair as if stroking a pet.

"Lai? Could you please get down first? Hello?"

"Zzz... Zzz..."

By this point, the girl had already drifted back into slumber. The surrounding Law of Silence gradually dissipated, and the magnetic energy within Wu Zui's body stirred back to life.

Staring at the two arms wrapped around his neck and the two fair legs locked around his waist, Wu Zui fell into deep contemplation. Figuring out how to get this girl—no, this ghost—off his back was now his most urgent priority.

Meanwhile, Xiao Ke'ai, whose tail had been pinned down by Lai's legs, slowly blinked her eyes open. After pulling her fluffy tail free, she quickly realized that something was tightly wrapped around Wu Zui's waist.

Climbing out from Wu Zui's embrace, Xiao Ke'ai poked her head up and immediately spotted Lai sleeping soundly on his back.

"Meow!"

Naturally sensing that this was a ghost, Xiao Ke'ai let out an angry cry, fighting through the oppressive aura that higher life forms exerted over her. She lunged out from Wu Zui's arms, her sharp claws striking toward Lai with the speed of a thunderbolt.

Bang!

Xiao Ke'ai was sent flying backward instantly.

This attack failed to wake Lai entirely and did not even trigger the Law of Silence. The autonomous defense of the resentment energy within Lai's body was more than enough to fling Xiao Ke'ai away.

"Meow..."

Landing hard on the ground, Xiao Ke'ai saw stars dancing before her eyes. She shook her head and unsteadily staggered to her feet.

"Ai'ai! Don't attack just yet!"

Wu Zui hurriedly scooped up the dazed Xiao Ke'ai and explained the ghost's unique situation to her. As he finished recounting the events, a small white slate was thrust directly into his face.

"I'm furious! And I'm not the kind of angry you can just easily coax! (ー`´ー)"

Wu Zui hurriedly stroked the fur on Xiao Ke'ai's back to soothe her. "Come on, don't be like that! How about we go get something delicious to eat?"

The small white slate was pulled back, only to be shoved firmly against Wu Zui's face once more.

"You've never given me a piggyback ride! (╯｀□′)╯~ ╧╧"

Looking at the blue fluff ball, which was little larger than a human infant, Wu Zui felt a headache coming on.

"Once you transform back, I'll carry you every single day. For now, let's find a way to get her down first!" Wu Zui decisively surrendered—he knew he was bound to lose this argument anyway.

The slate was withdrawn, and Xiao Ke'ai began to write upon it.

This time, instead of pressing it against his face, she held it upright.

"She isn't even wearing clothes! Master, harboring an underage girl is a one-way ticket to jail!"

After reading the message and watching Xiao Ke'ai pull back the slate before burrowing back into his arms, Wu Zui's face darkened as he argued, "Is that even the same thing?" Although Lai looked like a human maiden, in essence, she was a terrifying Seven-Star ghost!

"Meow!"

Instead of raising her slate, Xiao Ke'ai let out a soft cry and promptly fell asleep in Wu Zui's arms. The lingering Law of Silence emanating from Lai had inadvertently amplified Xiao Ke'ai's tendency toward sleepiness.

Feeling the rhythmic rise and fall of the two soft snores against his body, Wu Zui felt his entire world turning gray.

*Are they treating me like a real estate property now? Everyone's just squatting on my body.*

"Sigh..."

Wu Zui sighed deeply and began walking toward the youth hostel, determined to find some clothes for the girl on his back before someone genuinely misunderstood the situation just like Xiao Ke'ai suggested.

...

Before long, Lai—dressed in tattered garments—was carried on Wu Zui's back all the way back to his hotel. Under the strange, lingering glances of the receptionist at the front desk, Wu Zui felt thoroughly awkward from head to toe.

Once back in his room, Wu Zui grabbed Lai's wrists and peeled her away from his body. Staring at the sleeping figure, he fell into deep thought. Dealing with this ghost was a major problem, yet upon inspecting her, Wu Zui could not detect a single strand of karmic sin or evil qi.

Does this mean she's a benevolent ghost?

...Benevolent my foot! She's probably just slept her entire life and never had the chance to slaughter any living creatures. Judging from the red-rope ghost that had caught her in the crossfire of its attack and subsequently suffered immediate karmic backlash, Lai was clearly no pushover.

Ultimately, it was the Heart-Sensing Sword's spirit that offered a reasonable suggestion.

*Just keep her around for now! If you run into a ghost you can't defeat, wake her up. The overflowing silence will paralyze everything so no one can make a move. Consider her your ultimate trump card to save your life.*

Wu Zui rolled his eyes at the thought.

*What kind of person walks around carrying a nuclear deterrent on their back?*

Still, discarding her casually by the roadside was out of the question. Leaving aside whether Lai would hunt him down for abandoning her when she woke up, what if someone else picked her up and provoked her? If a Seven-Star ghost went berserk while Wuxiang and the other senior were absent, absolutely no one in Yanjing City could stop her.

*Fine, I'll keep her with me for now. When she wakes up again, I'll ask if she can shrink herself down. Carrying a load this big is exhausting!*

Thinking to himself, Wu Zui massaged his aching shoulders.