Two months had passed since Jin Shu and company left Black Mountain City. They had completed a quarter of their journey and reached the edge of the Qi Dynasty. Their traveling speed had slowed down slightly as they were currently visiting all the villages and settlements not too far off their intended path in the hopes of finding a Runesmith who knew of the Concealment Rune to fix Su Bing's mask.

So far, they hadn't been able to find a single Runesmith, let alone someone who knew of the Concealment Rune. This wasn't unexpected, as they were only at the edge of the Qi Dynasty, and the Jin family was the most prominent Runesmithing family in the Qi Dynasty. Even they had no record of the Concealment Rune. Not to mention that Runesmiths were incredibly rare. Although there weren't any limits on who could become a Runesmith, other than the need to be at the Qi Gathering Realm, Runesmithing Methods had been monopolized by the three major sects, making it difficult for those unrelated to the major sects to acquire the knowledge needed to become a Runesmith.

They were currently stopped beside a small creek below a mountain path, filling their water bottles before they climbed over the mountain.

Su Bing approached Jin Shu with a troubled look. "Jin Shu, I'm sorry for slowing our journey down, and thank you for trying to help me fix my father's mask."

Jin Shu stood up and turned to look at Su Bing. He opened his mouth to say something, but as he stared at Su Bing, he gradually forgot what he was about to say, slowly losing himself in her enchanting beauty.

When Su Bing noticed the lost look that was slowly appearing in Jin Shu's eyes, she hurriedly placed a veil over her face. As soon as the veil covered her face, her enchanting presence disappeared. With the veil on, her presence seemed to become so minuscule that if you were to look away from her, it seemed as if she would vanish like dust into the wind. "Ah! I'm sorry, I forgot I removed my veil."

After the incident with the bandits about a month ago, Su Bing had to keep her face covered with a veil so that only her eyes were visible; otherwise, she would draw too much attention. Her beautiful face seemed to have some kind of enchanting power, where if one stared at her for too long, they would lose their minds and be unable to think of anything but her. However, when she put a veil on, it was as if the opposite happened, and if you didn't focus on her, you seemed to forget she existed in front of you.

As the veil covered Su Bing's face, Jin Shu snapped back to reality. "Uh...? What did you say, Su Bing?"

Tears started to form at the edge of Su Bing's eyes as she choked out another apology. "Sniff! I'm sorry I've been causing nothing but trouble!"

Jin Shu patted her on the head. "It's okay, you're not causing me any trouble. Uh... sorry... I didn't mean to..." He pulled his hand back awkwardly.

Su Bing looked up at him, tears still at the corners of her eyes. However, she said happily, "Um, I don't mind. You can pat—ah! No! I..."

They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment before a splashing noise sounded next to them and water splashed on their feet.

Splash!

"Yay! Yin'er caught a fish! Daddy, look! Yin'er got a big fish!"

Yin'er was standing in the middle of the creek with a fish under her front paws.

Jin Shu coughed awkwardly and looked away from Su Bing. "Let the fish go, Yin'er; we have to climb this mountain before it gets dark."

Yin'er pouted. "But Yin'er wants to eat fish!"

"You can have fish tomorrow. If we climb this mountain today, look, there's a lake a day's travel over this mountain." Jin Shu pulled a map out of his backpack and pointed to a lake just over the mountain.

Yin'er let the fish go and cheered happily. "Yay! Yin'er wants to eat lots of fish tomorrow!"

Jin Shu picked Yin'er up and placed her on his shoulders, then began to step towards the path that led up the mountain.

---

After a few hours of climbing up the mountain path, they had reached the summit. As they looked down from the summit of the mountain, expecting to see a forest below and a lake in the distance, they were slightly surprised to instead see a village below the mountain where the map showed a forest.

"That's strange; there shouldn't be a village here, at least not according to the map." Jin Shu pulled the map out from his pack and double-checked it to make sure they were on the correct path.

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"Maybe it's a new village," Su Bing commented.

Jin Shu looked at the bottom of the map where the date the map was created was located. It was only two years old. "Hmm... the map's only two years old, and this village looks far older than that."

The village, while not looking abandoned, seemed to be in a state of disrepair. Some of the roofs had patched holes, and the wooden fence surrounding the village looked to be rotting. If this village was only two years old, then the homes and fence should still look relatively new, even if they were damaged.

"Hmm... well, we have to restock on some supplies, and I'd like to sleep with a roof over my head for once. So I think it's a good thing that we found this village here," Su Bing replied gladly.

They continued walking down the mountain path towards the village. As they reached the gate set in the fence of the village, they noticed that there was no one guarding the gates.

"Why is no one watching the gates? Usually, even if there is no one to watch the gates, they would at least shut the gates so that animals can't wander in, right?" Su Bing asked Jin Shu with a slight hint of uneasiness in her voice.

"I'm not sure; it could be that something happened that caused the guard to leave in a hurry?" Jin Shu said without much conviction.

"Yin'er doesn't like this place; it smells bad." Yin'er sniffed the air and recoiled in disgust.

"Let's just grab some supplies and leave," Su Bing suggested.

They walked up to the open gates and stepped into the strange village.

SLAM!

"Aah!"

"Eek!"

Yin'er and Su Bing yelped as a loud sound came from behind them as they entered the village. Jin Shu glanced behind at where the village gates should have been; however, in their place was a solid white wall of fog instead.

Yin'er dove into Jin Shu's robe to hide after hearing the loud sound, and Su Bing looked back to see what had caused the noise. When she saw the wall of fog, she shivered and stammeringly asked, "W-w-what's going o-on, w-w-w-where did t-t-this fog come f-from?" Su Bing grabbed ahold of Jin Shu's sleeve tightly.

Swoosh! Woo! Aah!

A cold wind whipped up suddenly that seemed to carry with it the sounds of crying and screaming.

Su Bing quickly hid behind Jin Shu when she heard the sound of the wind. "T-there's not a-any g-g-g-g-ghost here, i-is there?"

Jin Shu reached into his robes, and after shifting Yin'er—who was hiding inside his robes with her eyes tightly shut and shivering slightly—out of the way, he pulled his pistol out. "I don't know, but something is definitely very wrong here."

Creak!

A door to a house a few feet away slowly creaked open. However, nothing and no one stepped out.

"Let's try t-to go b-back the way w-we came from," Su Bing, still hiding behind Jin Shu, said.

"I don't think that's a good idea; the fog is so thick that we might get lost and separated. Not to mention, we don't know if there's anything in the fog that might attack us." Jin Shu felt it was safer to stay out of the fog, as it gave him goosebumps when he looked at it. As a soldier in his past life, he had a strong sense for danger, and that sense usually came in the form of goosebumps.

Swoosh! Aaaah!

The wind came again, this time without the sound of crying; instead, the screaming sound became louder.

"Let's get to the other side of the village; there should be a gate that we can use to leave from there." Jin Shu slowly stepped forward towards the opposite side of the village.

As they walked across the village, they couldn't find any signs of other people or even animals. The only thing to accompany them was the sounds of the wind and creaking doors.

Creak! Bang!

"Eek!" A door creaked and collapsed suddenly, causing Su Bing to scream and hug Jin Shu tightly from behind.

Jin Shu pried her hands off himself and pulled her in front of him to look her in the eyes, which had tears flowing out of them. "Su Bing, everything is okay, it was just an old door collapsing."

"Waa! But what if there are g-g-g-ghosts!?" she cried with tears flowing from her eyes.

Jin Shu raised his left hand, which glowed red, and said, "Look, even if there are ghosts here, I can deal with them. Don't forget, I have the Phoenix Claw Technique, which is suited for dealing with ghosts and ghouls."

Seeing his glowing hand, Su Bing calmed down enough for her tears to stop. However, she was still shivering slightly.

---

A few minutes passed as they reached the center of the village. There was a dry well in the middle of an open area at the center of the village, with a wind blowing from inside the well that sounded like hundreds of people screaming and crying.

Woooo! Aaaah!

Slightly transparent, grey-colored figures with blood flowing from their empty eye sockets floated out from inside the well—ghosts.

Yin'er poked her head out of Jin Shu's robes and asked, "Daddy, why are those people see-through?"

"Eek! Ghosts!" Su Bing screamed in fear.

Jin Shu formed a claw with his left hand and thrust it forward toward the ghosts. A red, phoenix-shaped claw made of Qi burst out of his hand and quickly collided with the ghosts floating out from the well, incinerating them.

"Woooo!"

Suddenly, hundreds of ghosts burst out of the well, filling up the surroundings.

"Eeeek!"

Thud!

Su Bing screamed, then passed out after seeing the hundreds of creepy ghosts burst from the well.

"Shit!" Jin Shu cursed as he turned to see Su Bing collapsed on the ground. He placed his pistol back in his robes and used both hands to form phoenix claws, incinerating tens of ghosts at a time. However, more kept floating out of the well. Jin Shu didn't know if there was a limit to how many ghosts were going to come from the well, but he did know that there was a limit to his Qi, and the Phoenix Claw Technique used a lot of it.

"Fuck! We're going to have to run! Su Bing! Wake up!" Jin Shu shouted, trying to wake Su Bing; however, she was passed out cold.

Jin Shu formed two more phoenix claws, sending them into the horde of ghosts, then leaned down and picked Su Bing up, hauling her over his left shoulder. He formed one more claw with his right hand and cleared a small path through the ghosts. He quickly ran while carrying Su Bing on his shoulder.

---

"Haa... shit!" Jin Shu was running through the village with a passed-out girl on his shoulder and hundreds of ghosts chasing closely behind.

"How the hell do you get out of this damned place!?" Jin Shu yelled.

Suddenly, the hundreds of ghosts behind him started laughing creepily.

"Jejeje! You can't leave! Jejejee!"