Chapter 148: Entrusting the Treasure at White Dragon Temple

The disappearance of the Drifter Youth Hostel sent massive shockwaves across China. In particular, the viewers who had been watching the live broadcast of the ghost attacks directly understood the sheer terror of that entity by looking at the names on the reward ranking list whose color had turned gray, indicating their deaths.

Without even needing to meet face-to-face, using merely a mobile phone as a medium, that ghost had killed hundreds of thousands of people in less than an hour. Those who survived had already uninstalled the Ghost-Sight app, and quite a few even swore never to use a mobile phone again.

The cruelty of ghosts is something one must experience firsthand to truly understand how terrifying it is to face them.

All at once, numerous live-streaming platforms were forcibly shut down.

While many wealthy individuals banned electronic products in their homes, they simultaneously began recruiting Awakened bodyguards on a massive scale, prioritizing those with experience in spirit investigation. This unexpectedly provided a means of livelihood for many suddenly unemployed streamers.

Wu Zui, having resolved the incident at the Drifter Youth Hostel, received a hefty sum of points from the Paranormal Investigation Bureau. As a hard currency with greater liquidity than physical money, Wu Zui could now head to the Bureau to exchange them for plenty of new equipment and replenish his arsenal.

Having finished his shower and meal, Wu Zui looked at Lai, which had already usurped his bed, and felt a throbbing pain in his temples. Lai had curled itself up into a tight ball. Normally, this would occupy a minimal amount of surface area, but unfortunately, it had curled up along with the mattress!

[Had I known this earlier, I should have thrown it onto the floor after dressing it.]

Wu Zui looked at the hard wooden planks stripped of their mattress and carefully lay down upon them. Right beside him was Lai, now transformed into a massive lump. As for the sofa, it had already been commandeered by Xiao Ke'ai, who fell asleep the moment Wu Zui stepped into the shower.

The wind tonight was bitterly cold.

Lacking a blanket, Wu Zui felt he might actually catch a cold.

The next day, in the dead of night.

Thud—

The mattress suddenly bounced back, slamming right onto Wu Zui's body.

This jolted Wu Zui, who had barely been in a deep sleep, wide awake. Immediately afterward, he felt a heavy weight press down on him as the waking Lai directly mounted his chest.

Soon enough, Wu Zui heard that painfully familiar phrase.

"Hungry..."

With a face full of pain, Wu Zui managed to poke his head out from under the mattress, only to see Lai opening its mouth wide and looking at him with a begging-for-food expression.

[What an absolute living ancestor!]

Rubbing his bruised nose, Wu Zui retrieved a red crystal from the spatial storage within the Inquiring Heart Sword and handed it to Lai.

"Nom..."

Seeing that Lai was about to finish the crystal and already drifting off into a drowsy state again, Wu Zui quickly produced another one and handed it over, promptly asking, "Lai, can you make yourself smaller? A Seven-Star entity should be able to control its own body size by now, right?"

"Nom... Smaller?... Troublesome..."

Lai made a rare, strenuous effort to think, likely because it didn't want to lose Wu Zui as a long-term, high-quality meal ticket. After all, crystals condensed from the blood of Heavenly Dao consciousness were immensely beneficial for its advancement, and such items were not easy to come by.

Slowly, Lai's body began to shrink, eventually turning into a humanoid figure only the size of a palm, resembling a doll. This was the absolute limit of what it could achieve.

"Able?"

A voice echoed directly in Wu Zui's mind—this was mental communication from Lai.

"Yes, that's fine." Wu Zui nodded and said.

At that exact moment, Xiao Ke'ai walked in with a small white board balanced on her head, yawning as if she hadn't gotten enough sleep.

"Master, I'm hungry! Where is the big feast you promised?"

That was what was written on the small white board.

Lai looked at Xiao Ke'ai's fluffy body, its eyes instantly lighting up with greedy brilliance.

Given Lai's current size, Commander Cat's body was precisely a bed of the most suitable proportions. The blue fur on top looked soft just by gazing at it. Lying upon it would surely be more comfortable than any mattress.

The next instant, Lai's body vanished. Xiao Ke'ai felt a slight weight settle onto her back, followed immediately by the sound of snoring.

"..." Wu Zui.

"Meow! (Are you bullying me?!)"

Xiao Ke'ai let out a yowl, then executed a rolling flip, slamming her back fiercely against the floor.

Thud—

A palm-sized humanoid crater appeared on the hotel floor. Despite the floor caving in, Lai showed no signs of waking up, and Xiao Ke'ai could still hear its steady snoring.

Xiao Ke'ai wailed again, her body instantly turning ethereal as she hurled herself against the wall. Lai was carried along with her into the wall, and both of them vanished right into the masonry.

"Meow... Meow!"

Xiao Ke'ai's body re-solidified, and she began jumping up and down in a rage. Lai clung to her like a piece of dog-skin plaster; once stuck to her, it simply couldn't be torn off. Yet she could do nothing more than vent her anger with furious cries, utterly helpless against Lai.

Slap—

In its sleep, Lai dealt a light pat to Xiao Ke'ai's back, causing all the fur on Commander Cat's body to instantly stand on end. The blue fur bristled like steel needles, making Xiao Ke'ai look instantly a size fatter.

"Keep it down!"

Lai mumbled in its sleep, then gave a tug on the blue fur.

"Meow!"

Looking utterly dejected, Xiao Ke'ai slumped onto the floor. She couldn't shake it off, nor could she run away. Moreover, she had been suppressed by Lai's life-rank and turned into its personal bed. Xiao Ke'ai was filled with grief.

At this point, Wu Zui picked up Xiao Ke'ai, smoothed down the bristled fur on her back, and said, "Let's go to White Dragon Temple and look for Masters Jingqing and Wuxiang. If they've returned, they should be able to get Lai off you."

Neither of them knew at this moment that Wuxiang and Jingqing had already perished.

"Meow~"

Xiao Ke'ai chirped in response and leaped into Wu Zui's arms. Reduced to a mere mount and plunged into deep despair, she didn't even bother to pull out her signature white board to bicker with Wu Zui.

...

Soon, Wu Zui was holding Xiao Ke'ai as he arrived at White Dragon Temple.

Two people had been waiting by the gates of the temple for quite some time.

"Jake Chen? Shadow-Sneak? Did you guys become monks? When did this happen?" Seeing the Chen siblings sporting identical shiny bald heads and wearing monk robes, Wu Zui asked with extreme astonishment. One had to remember that these two used to be elders of the World-Purifying Sect who had countless blood debts on their hands!

"Masters Wuxiang and Jingqing instructed us to wait here for Benefactor Wu today and hand these two items over to you." Jake Chen and Shadow-Sneak produced a small golden bell and a tiny drum. The bell and drum were currently less than a finger in width, appearing exceptionally delicate and miniature.

These were precisely the treasures Wuxiang and the other had used back then to help Wu Zui treat his mental pollution. Wu Zui, who had listened to the morning bells and evening drums for a full year, was intimately familiar with them.

"When will the two masters return?"

Wu Zui took the two items and asked Jake Chen.

"Before leaving, the two masters left these words: *'This departure is a one-way journey. The answers Benefactor wishes to know will naturally be revealed by these bell and drum.'* We shall take our leave now!" With that, Jake Chen departed, taking Shadow-Sneak with him.

Wu Zui stared at the departing backs of Jake Chen and Shadow-Sneak, feeling completely baffled. He then looked down at the bell and drum resting in his palm like children's toys. With a slight lapse in concentration, an intuitive flash of inspiration struck Wu Zui, and he flicked his finger against the golden bell.

As psychic energy infused into it...

Duang—

Dong—

Along with the striking chime of the bell, the resonant beat of the drum followed closely behind.

A message jointly left behind by Wuxiang and Jingqing transformed into images and emerged within Wu Zui's sea of consciousness.

"Little friend Wu, when you see this message, Jingqing and I should have already merged into the Dao and departed. You need not feel sorrow for our departure; this is the inescapable duty of our two lineages.

As early as the reign of King Wen, a Nine-Realm powerhouse used divination on future generations and deduced that our human race would face a great calamity in this era, specifically leaving behind numerous countermeasures to cope with it. However, as time flowed on, a vast number of these contingency plans vanished in the long river of history.

Now, the two of us merging into the Dao to disrupt the operation of the Heavenly Dao should buy some time. We hope little friend will make preparations early..."

In the residual message, the two recounted their inherited mission as well as the grim situation currently facing humanity. Once Wuxiang and Jingqing finished recounting, their lingering projections began to shatter rapidly.

Wu Zui looked at the bell and drum in his hands. According to the explanations of Wuxiang and Jingqing, these artifacts had been passed down since ancient times and possessed unfathomable and mysterious powers. Aside from the two inheritors, Wuxiang and Jingqing, currently only Wu Zui—who had been purified by the simultaneous chiming of the bell and drum for an entire year—was capable of driving them.

Bolstered by the final blessings of Wuxiang and Jingqing before their departure, once infused with energy, each of these artifacts could guard a region, preventing ghosts below the Seven-Star level from entering. If both the bell and drum were brought together, they could sustain themselves for a long time even within the domain field of a Seven-Star ghost.

They were rare and precious treasures indeed.

As for the "merging into the Dao" mentioned by Wuxiang and Jingqing, it meant forcibly integrating the laws they had cultivated into the operating rules of the Heavenly Dao, paying the price of being barred from reincarnation in order to disrupt the Heavenly Dao.

While it sounded simple, in reality, besides requiring a cultivation level of Seven-Star or above, each cultivation path only offered a single opportunity for integration. That is to say, after a Buddhist cultivator merged into the Dao to disrupt the operation of the Heavenly Dao, that particular path of cultivation would be cursed by the Heavenly Dao consciousness, ensuring no other living being could ever practice that method again, cutting off that lineage entirely.

Watching the projections completely vanish, Wu Zui couldn't help but raise his head to look at the sky and mutter inwardly: *'May the two masters rest in peace on your journey!'*

Following that, Wu Zui tied the golden bell around Commander Cat's neck, while the tiny drum was fastened to his own wrist. At this moment, Lai, resting on Xiao Ke'ai's back, seemed to sense something, and a miniature black domain field enveloped it.

From a distance, it looked as though an extra black hemisphere had grown on Commander Cat's back, and the pressure on the level of life that Lai had previously exerted on Xiao Ke'ai also rapidly vanished. Wu Zui tested it afterward, but he still couldn't pull Lai off Xiao Ke'ai's body.

Feeling the oppressive weight vanish, Xiao Ke'ai leaped up excitedly, and a small white board popped up alongside her.

"Master, it's so much lighter! Where did that big bald monk go? When he comes over, I must have him pry this thing off my back and give it a thorough beating!" Xiao Ke'ai wrote with ferocious cuteness.

"The two masters are no longer here."

Wu Zui said with a heavy heart.

Xiao Ke'ai immediately sensed that something was amiss. This "not here" didn't sound like they had merely gone out, did it?

The small white board was hoisted up once more.

"Master, did something happen to the big monk?"

Xiao Ke'ai asked with a look of disbelief.