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When Lou Ming finally regained his lost soul, Chen Yu was long gone from the study. His phone suddenly rang in the empty study. It was a video call from his mother, but Lou Ming did not seem to hear it.
He was slumped in his chair with his mouth still seemingly tingling with the sensation of Chen Yu’s tongue licking through. Every time he recalled it, he felt drained of energy.
Miss, you’re playing with fire. Did you know that?
Lou Ming couldn’t bear to close his eyes. His heart thumped violently in his paralyzed body, and it seemed that every pump was urging him to do something he had been trying to stop himself from doing.
“Knock, knock!”
He Qi knocked at the door and waited for a while without hearing Lou Ming reply. He frowned slightly in doubt. He knocked on the door again after a while, and then Lou Ming let him in.
“Young Master.” He Qi pushed the door and entered.
“What is it?” Lou Ming maintained the same position as before without moving, without even turning his head to look at He Qi.
“Madam just called you, but you didn’t answer,” He Qi said.
Lou Ming was stunned. He reached for the mobile phone on the table and found that there were two missed calls from his mother. He’d been sitting for a long time, but didn’t hear it.
“I know, go out.”
“Yes.”
After He Qi left, Lou Ming adjusted his emotions, and only then began to call Madam Lou back.
Chen Yu ran happily in the streets of the capital with a body brimming with evil qi. If someone with opened Yin Yang eyes were to look at this time, he would have seen a bouncing female hopping vampire in the distance, oozing with suffocating bloody red evil qi.
The Nian Beast would appear at 11 p.m to 1 a.m., which meant the transition period from the old to the new. It would turn into countless clones and disperse into the world, devouring the world’s filthy aura. On ordinary days, these filthy auras were scattered in the air, and people couldn’t feel them at all. However, at the hour the Nian Beast appeared, these filthy auras, which were extremely weak on ordinary days, would continue to gather like snowballs, roll bigger and bigger, and finally gather in front of the Nian Beast to be swallowed.
But in the period these foul aura reached the Nian Beast, these small clusters of foul qi amassed in the air were a great tonic for the malevolent ghosts.
Therefore, after New Year’s Eve every year, while the New Year was in full swing, it was also accompanied by the growth of some malevolent ghosts. So much so that during every New Year’s Eve, the Metaphysics Network would conduct major exorcisms. Chen Yu calculated. One malevolent ghost was equivalent to a point. Although there was no charge for exorcising ghosts today, if she caught a hundred of them, she could be promoted to Class A and would be qualified to take on millions-worth of tasks.
Thinking of the A-level quests hanging on the Metaphysics Network that she could see but couldn’t accept, Chen Yu suddenly became bottomlessly proud. Today, no one could stop her from leveling up.
Chen Yu clenched her fists and reached out to stop a cab and headed for the suburbs. It was because the places where the Nian Beast clones appeared were mostly sparsely populated mountains and forests. The filthy aura would move in the process of condensation. Most of the formed evil aura masses would be scattered within five miles around the Nian Beast, so most malevolent ghosts gathered there.
Therefore… it was a wise choice to celebrate the New Year at home during the New Year’s eve, because it was easy to run into ghosts if you wandered around on this day.
Behind the cab in which Chen Yu was riding, a small black car followed closely behind.
Today was New Year’s Eve, and considering that there would be too many malevolent ghosts outside, Lou Ming especially sent two assistants to follow Chen Yu with Evil Repelling Talismans in fear that she’d have an accident.
“I really can’t figure it out,” Cheng Peng remarked while following the taxi in front of him.
“Can’t figure out what?” Tian Fei asked while giving He Qi a report on Chen Yu’s whereabouts.
“If Young Master wants to protect Miss Chen Yu, why do we have to sneak around?” Cheng Peng had been chewing over this question. Wouldn’t it be better if they protected her close if their Young Master wanted to protect her? Moreover, they had a car. It would be more convenient for Miss Chen to go out wherever she wanted than taking a taxi, right?
“Because…” Tian Fei replied profoundly, “Like is reckless, and love is restraint.”
Cheng Peng looked askance at Tian Fei and said in disgust, “You’d better watch less of those sentimental nonsense movies.”
When the car arrived in the suburbs, it was close to eleven thirty. It would soon be the early morning. Although filthy auras had not yet started to gather in the air, almost without deliberately looking, you could spot a few fluttering ghosts in the gloomy woods.
Chen Yu scanned the surroundings, picked a wood with the weakest Yin Qi and walked there. Generally, Celestial Masters, who exorcised ghosts, would pick a place where the Yin Qi was the densest, because the malevolent ghosts there were more dangerous. However, Chen Yu’s goal today was to try to exorcise a hundred ghosts. The quantity was paramount, while quality wasn’t.
Chen Yu walked into the woods and looked at the ghosts that thought they were hiding among the branches and announced loudly, “First, let me introduce myself. I am a ghost exorcist. I will start exorcising in a while. If there are any of you who don’t want to disappear in a smoke, leave here within five minutes.”
After Chen Yu’s introduction, tranquility was restored in the woods again. Except for the rustling of leaves with the blowing wind, there was no other sound. Chen Yu didn’t rush them to respond. She just raised her hand and took out her phone, planning to fight a five-minute landlord first. If these ghosts still refused to leave after five minutes, then she could only attack indiscriminately.
“Sha-sha-sha-sha…”
Chen Yu’s words still played a role. Some timid ghosts who didn’t want to die flew away, while the rest waited in place with a fluke mentality
Five minutes passed. Chen Yu put her phone away and moved around a bit. With her body shrouded in evil qi, she started exorcising.
Previously, Chen Yu exorcised relying on talismans and spiritual power, but today, she was going to exorcise relying on the evil qi she absorbed from Lou Ming. Spiritual power could purify the evil aura of ghosts when exorcising. If the resentment of malevolent ghosts weren’t deep, they could even transcend and be redeemed through spiritual power. However, using evil qi to exorcise could annihilate a malevolent ghost. It was also for this reason that Chen Yu gave warning before taking action.
The malevolent ghosts finally discovered Chen Yu’s power and ran away, but in just 20 minutes, she wiped out almost 30 malevolent ghosts.
“Hoo!”
A gust of wind seemingly blew by. Chen Yu found that the hostility and resentment drifting in the air after the malevolent ghosts were dispersed immediately began to gather little by little. She followed the direction the balls were advancing and perceived a magical force. That was…that was where the Nian Beast was.
Chen Yu lowered her head to examine her evil qi, but found that the evil qi she absorbed from Lou Ming remained motionless under the powerful purification power of the Nian Beast. It only consumed some of the evil qi she had absorbed from exorcising just now.
“So it really didn’t work.” She initially thought that the evil qi that was transferred to her body could be purified. It turned out that it was also useless.
“Malevolent ghost, watch my sword.” While Chen Yu was in a daze, a stern mantra suddenly erupted. Immediately after, a peach wooden sword heavily slashed Chen Yu’s shoulders. Some of the evil qi in Chen Yu’s body shook and dissipated.
Chen Yu frowned in pain. She followed the source of the peach wooden sword and looked at the visitor. When she saw a teenager of about 15 or 16 years old, she rendered speechless: “What are you doing?”
“I’m Qin Guanhai, the 15th descendant of the Qin family. Malevolent ghost, die,” the young man replied, raising his peach wooden sword and slashed at Chen Yu once more. Chen Yu couldn’t bear it and kicked him.
“Ah!” Qin Guanhai shouted miserably as he flew backwards.
“Little Junior Brother,” an anxious voice came from outside the woods, then a young man around 27 or 28 ran over in a hurry.
“Senior Brother, this malevolent ghost is so powerful. Quickly collect her,” Qin Guanhai shouted. He covered his stomach, where Chen Yu kicked, and pointed toward her.
The young man was horrified when he noticed the evil qi around Chen Yu. He muttered inwardly: What a malevolent ghost with a heavy evil qi. Then Chen Yu suddenly turned around. After a while, the young man bowed to Chen Yu deeply and said, “Fellow Daoist, please excuse us.”
Fellow Daoist? Qin Guanhai looked at Chen Yu incredulously.
“Your junior brother’s vision is poor, so don’t let him wander around,” Chen Yu couldn’t help but warn.
“Sorry, my junior brother may have misunderstood because he saw that Fellow Daoist was covered in evil qi.” In fact, the young man himself was curious about Chen Yu’s evil qi that was so dense that it was more terrifying than the malevolent ghosts around.