61: Chapter 61 The Finishing Touch: The Walking Corpse of Yin Mountain in the Rainy Night

The first-floor main hall of the Funeral Shop.

The agarwood scent of pine soot ink intertwined with the chilly fragrance of Lycoris radiata, brewing a strong wine capable of making anyone lose their mind.

Leng Yue's deeply alluring voice still lingered in Lin Ye's ears. The striking elasticity and cool body temperature pressed against his back continuously battered his defense of sanity.

The air between them grew so thick it could form glistening threads.

Just as Lin Ye's breathing deepened, ready to turn around and make this ambiguity a reality—

"Ding-ling—!"

The old brass wind chime hanging above the glass door let out a shrill scream without warning.

This was definitely not the crisp chime of a gentle breeze passing through.

The brass chime sounded as though someone was strangling its throat and shaking it violently, producing a dry, grating noise.

Outside, the autumn rain beat down heavily, the curtain of rain resembling a thick gray bead curtain, sending splashes flying across the bluestone pavement of Taiping Old Street.

Lin Ye's gaze instantly turned cold.

He stopped his movements and straightened his back.

The laziness and passion that had previously surrounded him vanished in an instant.

Leng Yue also sensed the abnormality.

The hazy wateriness in her eyes instantly froze, and a cold vigilance flared up again in her deep red pupils.

She stepped back half a pace from Lin Ye's embrace, neatened her moon-white front-opening robe, and stood quietly beside the Eight Immortals table like a peerless blade sheathed in its scabbard.

"We have a guest. The Yin Qi is very heavy, smelling of earthy soil."

Leng Yue's voice was clear and cold, her eyes penetrating the rain curtain to lock firmly onto the end of the street outside.

Lin Ye grabbed a towel from the table to wipe off the ink on his hands, using the opportunity to draw the lightning-struck peach wood sword before him.

"Soaring Yin Qi in broad daylight... I'm afraid this guest comes with ill intent."

A few seconds later.

A scrawny, hunchbacked old man pushed open the glass door and walked in.

The old man wore a tattered black raincoat.

Rainwater dripped continuously onto the floor from the plastic edges.

The water droplets were a murky, pale yellow, and upon hitting the floor, they actually emitted a foul stench—a mix of sewer sludge and formalin.

He wore a wide bamboo hat with its brim pulled extremely low, hiding almost his entire face in shadow.

Only his exposed hands showed skin of a deathly ashen blue-black; his nails were long and blackened, and the crevices between his fingers were filled with dark red grime.

Lin Ye stood behind the counter, his eyes narrowing slightly as he secretly channeled Pure Yang Qi to his eyes.

Under the Qi Observation Technique, the old man lacked even a trace of living Yang fire.

Above his head hovered a black thread of baleful Qi.

This thread pierced through the roof, extending deep into the endless rain curtain outside Jiangzhou City.

A walking corpse controlled by evil magic!

"Boss, I want to buy something," the old man spoke.

His voice was dry and hoarse, lacking any emotional inflection.

"My shop deals in business for the dead. Joss paper, shroud clothes, wayfinding incense—we have it all. What does the honored customer need?"

Lin Ye remained unruffled, his tone indifferent.

The old man slowly raised his head. Beneath the bamboo hat, a pair of pupil-less eyeballs stared intently at Lin Ye.

"Buying paper effigies. I want a pair of boy and girl attendants."

As he spoke, he fished out two crumpled banknotes from his pocket and slapped them onto the glass counter.

Lin Ye lowered his eyes to glance at them.

They bore no resemblance whatsoever to RMB.

Printed across the two colorful slips of paper were the words "Bank of Heaven and Earth"—they were clearly hell money used for the dead!

Using hell money to buy items from a shop for the living was the most malicious provocation in the metaphysics world, known in jargon as "Life-Buying Money."

Once the money was accepted, it was equivalent to signing a life-and-death contract; the seller's lifespan would be forcibly borrowed by the baleful Qi on the hell money.

"The customer's money isn't the right currency."

Lin Ye sneered, not even touching the two slips of hell paper with his fingertips.

"Besides, the paper effigies in my shop are only framed and covered in colored paper; we never draw their eyes. If you buy them back, they probably won't be of any use."

There was a taboo in the paper effigy craft: paper figures may have eyes drawn, but their pupils are never dotted.

Once the pupils were dotted, the paper figure gained a spiritual shell, making it extremely easy for lonely ghosts and stray spirits to possess it and cause trouble.

The old man split his dry lips, revealing two rows of blackened teeth:

"No matter. My master said that coming to Taiping Street today is precisely to make these paper effigies open their eyes and take a good look at the secrets of this shop for him."

As his words fell, the dagger was revealed once the map was unrolled!

This walking corpse was clearly a scout sent by the evil cultivators of the Yinshan Sect. Taking advantage of the overwhelming Yin Qi on a rainy day, he had come to test Lin Ye's true strength.

Last night, the Hundred Ghosts Soul-Devouring Formation on the cruise ship had been shattered by Lin Ye's bolt of heavenly thunder, so the other party had obviously traced the Qi here.

Faint light flickered on his retina, and the system's mechanical voice, carrying a trace of gloating, sounded crisply in his mind.

"Ding! "My Lord, Please Behave Yourself" System prompt: Detected an evil cultivator of the Yinshan Sect executing [Thousand-Li Walking Corpse Technique] to provoke you at your doorstep. The opponent is attempting to test your depth using Life-Buying Money. Host, please adjust your attitude within three minutes and launch a counterattack!"

The light screen popped open, and three options floated before his eyes:

[Option A: Shrinking Turtle — Pretend not to understand the other party's secret jargon, wave your hands repeatedly claiming you are just an ordinary person selling paper, and drive the walking corpse out of the shop.]

[Reward: Obtain the title [Oscar-Level Coward]. Consequence: The Yinshan Sect will regard you as a useless wimp who looks tough but is weak inside, and will dispatch a large number of malevolent spirits tonight to raze the Funeral Shop to the ground.]

[Option B: Turn Their Strength Against Them, Remote Spell Combat — Turn their scheme to your advantage by accepting this deal. Use the pine soot ink newly ground by Leng Yue together with the essence blood of your Pure Yang Dao Body to forcibly dot the paper effigies' eyes. Draw talismans and set up a trap so this walking corpse carries your Pure Yang Thunder Fire straight back to its lair, blowing up that caster's dog face!]

[Reward: Husband points +300, Talisman Attainment significantly increased.]

[Option C: Release the Dog — Shout "Wife, save me!" and let Leng Yue directly incinerate this walking corpse into ashes with Red Lotus Karmic Fire.]

[Reward: Freeloader Experience +50. Consequence: The walking corpse is destroyed, but the caster remains completely unharmed and cuts the karmic line. You lose an excellent opportunity to reverse-track the enemy, further worsening your disadvantage of being exposed while the enemy stays in the dark.]

Lin Ye's eyes brightened.

This system finally did something human.

Option B's response strategy was completely after his own heart.

Dealing with mice hiding in the gutters playing with evil sorcery, destroying a scout directly was meaningless; following the line to give them a hard slap across the face was the true domineering way.

"I choose B."

Lin Ye gave his answer in his heart.

Far from being enraged, he swept the two slips of hell money on the counter into a drawer with one swipe, the corner of his mouth curving into an arrogant arc.

"Since your master insists on having these paper figures open their eyes, I, Lin, will accept this order."

Lin Ye turned and walked toward a corner of the shop, pulling out a pair of vividly crafted boy and girl effigies from a pile of colorful stock.

The paper figures had eerie rouge painted on their cheeks, while two deathly white blanks remained at the eyes.

Setting the paper figures side by side in front of the Eight Immortals table, Lin Ye stepped over to where he had just taught Leng Yue to grind ink.

In the Duan inkstone, the jet-black pine soot ink emitted a faint, subtle ink fragrance.

Lin Ye picked up a wolf-hair purple-tip brush, but rather than rushing to dip it in ink, he bit his left index finger open.

A drop of Pure Yang origin true blood, shimmering with a faint golden light, dripped precisely into the inkstone.

"Sizzle!"

The originally calm ink churned instantly like boiling oil meeting water.

The extreme rigidity and intensity of the Pure Yang True Blood fused perfectly with the softness of the pine soot ink, and a faint crimson-gold halo rippled on the surface of the ink.

Standing to the side, Leng Yue immediately understood Lin Ye's intention.

Instead of interrupting, she quietly restrained her Hanba Qi to the extreme, avoiding any disturbance to the energy field of Lin Ye's spellcasting.

Lin Ye pressed his wrist down, the tip of his brush soaked with the crimson-gold ink blended with Pure Yang True Blood.

He strode up to the boy paper figure, his mouth rapidly chanting the Zhuyou Sect secret eye-dotting incantation recorded in the Primary Talisman Compilation:

"First stroke dots open the Heaven Gate eyes, second stroke dots open the Earth Door gate!"

"Third stroke dots open the Netherworld road, reversing Yin and Yang to borrow the Dharma Body!"

As his words fell, Lin Ye raised his brush and brought it down.

Two dots of crimson-gold ink landed heavily on the boy paper figure's eye sockets.

Immediately after, his body pivoted swiftly, and the purple-tip brush dropped two dots on the girl paper figure's eyes just the same.

The moment the eye-dotting was completed—

The pair of paper figures shuddered unnaturally, their rouge-cheeked faces seeming to come alive.

From those freshly drawn eyes seeped a spine-chilling aura of a living person, staring intently at the hunchbacked walking corpse standing at the door.

But he wasn't done yet!

Lin Ye didn't give the opponent any time to react at all.

With a flick of his brush, he used the chests and abdomens of the paper figures as canvases, unreservedly sketching the array runes of the Lightning Summoning Talisman onto the colored paper.

With the final stroke finished, violent Pure Yang True Qi was completely sealed inside the thin hulls of the paper effigies.

"Take them."

Lin Ye pushed the heavy pair of paper effigies in front of the old man, his voice bone-chillingly cold.

"Go back and tell your master that to buy goods from Taiping Old Street, one must pay the price. Tell him to wash his neck clean and prepare to receive this big gift."

The scrawny old man stiffly extended his dark blue hands and held the pair of paper effigies.

In his murky whites of the eyes, there seemed to flicker a trace of doubt and dread belonging to the caster himself.

Incapable of complex thought, the walking corpse's instinct upon receiving the goods drove it to turn around, dragging its dripping raincoat as it staggered back into the heavy rain outside.

Watching the walking corpse leave, Lin Ye casually tossed the purple-tip brush into the brush-washing basin.

"Husband, the Yin Qi on that walking corpse is extremely heavy. Sealing Pure Yang Thunder Fire into the paper effigies and letting it carry them away—aren't you afraid it will explode along the way and harm the innocent?"

Leng Yue stepped forward and handed over a clean dry towel.

Lin Ye took the towel to wipe his hands, sneering repeatedly.

"I call this giving them a taste of their own medicine. This array is named [Child-Mother Linked Thunder]."

"That walking corpse is merely a marionette on strings. To control it, the caster must have set up an altar in their lair, keeping their Qi connected. The moment this walking corpse steps within ten paces of the altar and senses that source Yin Qi, the thunder fire inside the paper figures will instantly detonate."

Lin Ye pulled out a chair and sat down, picking up the long-cooled tea and drinking it down in one gulp.

"To dare use hell money to disgust me, today I'll let him see what precise strike and home delivery really mean."