The blind Daoist priest held his peach wood sword, its tip pointed directly at the bride in a wedding dress, “Are you a demon or a ghost?!”

The bride in a crimson wedding dress lightly twirled her umbrella handle, standing alone on the distant mountain path, giving off a sense of lonely isolation. She had traveled a long way, her skirt already covered in mud. Strangely, she hadn’t used any demonic arts to condense the formless mountain miasma into garments that wouldn’t gather dust. Her vibrant red wedding dress was clearly made of genuine silk brocade, perhaps even crafted by a tailor from the shops below the mountain.

The female ghost first wiped downwards, peeling off her entire facial skin. Then, she slowly raised her hand again, re-covering her face with a pale, colorless visage, like those beautiful unmarried women from the towns below. Young and pretty, if not for her sickly complexion, she would have been no different from an ordinary mortal woman. So close at hand, even the blind Daoist couldn’t sense any demonic aura emanating from her.

Such a greatly cultivated demon, walking among human cities, would actually be unhindered. As long as they didn’t actively approach the City God Pavilion or the Temples of Literature and War, they wouldn’t attract suppression from worldly powers. Of course, this was on the premise that these powerful demons were willing to restrain their aura, suppress their instinct to kill, and not bring disaster to the world.

The female ghost tugged at the corners of her mouth, yet without moving her lips, her voice arose,

“Daoist priest is single-mindedly intent on slaying demons and vanquishing evil, accumulating boundless merits. Thus, I have come. I am even more eager to witness the Daoist priest’s so-called Five Thunders Righteous Method.”

The old Daoist priest was increasingly shocked. The inverted compass in his sleeve, with a total of four layers inside and out, specifically targeted monsters, spirits, yin-matter ghosts, and mountain and water deities, was spinning madly. Except for the spirit layer, the other three layers were all spinning violently, indicating that this being before him had a complex identity, most likely a powerful demon who had cultivated successfully in life, transformed into a fierce ghost that wreaked havoc after death, but before completely falling into the evil path, had already possessed the qualifications to advance to a mountain and water deity.

The blind Daoist inwardly lamented, this was more troublesome and difficult to deal with than that cunning mountain spirit of Three Branches Mountain! The old Daoist tried his best to maintain a composed expression, so as not to let the female ghost detect his inner fear. He slowly sheathed the peach wood sword, holding it upside down to show his goodwill, and said loudly with a smile: “Although this young lady has a mighty demon aura, possessing the aura of sitting in a region of heaven-penetrating power, what is commendable is that I, with my mind’s eye, observe that there is very little killing intent on the young lady’s body, and not many sins. Even if there are some lingering grievances, they are residues from many years ago, not worth mentioning. I am a humble mountain hermit, and I can be considered half the same kind as this young lady. Like a flood washed away the Dragon King Temple, disturbing the young lady’s cultivation, my apologies, my apologies.”

The bride in the wedding dress, who had been looking up at the oiled paper umbrella, suddenly withdrew her gaze, staring fixedly at the wandering old Daoist who was proficient in thunder techniques. This time, she spoke directly, “Young lady? Can’t you see my attire? Call me Madam!”

The last four words were almost roared out by the bride in the wedding dress.

In an instant, torrential rain poured down, and mountain winds howled.

With a *snap*,

The female ghost closed her oiled paper umbrella, holding it in one hand, and gently stroking the umbrella surface with the other, gently wiping away the rain. But looking at the faces of the master and his two disciples, she twisted her expression, “As expected, a blind man, an old blind man! You can observe phenomena with your mind’s eye, right? I’ll just take you back to my mansion and let you, the ill-intentioned Taoist, know what it means to be stabbed in the heart.”

The old Daoist tried to ease the atmosphere, sighing, “Madam, why must you be so aggressive? Isn’t there room for negotiation?”

The female ghost began to walk slowly forward, step by step into the mud of the path, holding the umbrella in one hand, and lifting her dress with the other, revealing a pair of wet, dirty embroidered shoes, smiling, “Poor Daoist skills, daring to be ill-intentioned, it’s good to die, it’s good to die, to save him from delaying my husband’s studies in the future, delaying him from taking the imperial examinations…”

Speaking to the end, the female ghost whispered softly, her eyes gentle. Those fragmented words, as if whispered, were completely obscured by the wind and rain.

The blind Daoist sneered, “This Madam, is she really going to fight me to the death?”

Seeing that it was a situation of endless hostility, the old Daoist, who had traveled around for decades, having walked through half of Treasure Bottle Continent, was not someone who was afraid of trouble. He shouted, “Little cripple, as long as you can join hands with me to repel the enemy this time, I promise you, Little Jiu’er won’t have to hand over the talisman spring for a whole year.”

The lame boy nodded, reached out and grasped the soul-calling banner with the words “Subdue Demons and Exorcise Ghosts, Eliminate Evil and Defend the Dao,” and said in a deep voice, “Okay.”

The blind old man stepped heavily on the ground, both hands making the Daoist magic sword gesture, and quickly recited a series of sword incantations, ending with “Hurry, hurry as the law commands.”

The soul-calling banner that was stuck in the ground suddenly, and the banner surface that was originally wrapped together, became as if it were fluttering in the wind, rustling. The top eight characters turned pale white, like eight soldiers in silver armor, began to listen to military orders, running on the banner surface, arranging troops and formations.

Then, the four characters “Subdue Demons and Exorcise Ghosts” along the banner surface, wooden pole, the lame boy’s arm, shoulder, all the way swiftly shifted, and finally flowed into the boy’s four orifices.

The boy’s eyes instantly turned pure white, and with each breath, black smoke billowed from his seven orifices.

The lame boy clenched his fists, roared to the sky, black smoke rolling all over his body, and raindrops the size of soybeans were instantly vaporized into steam near his head.

Compared to the female ghost with her restrained yin energy, the lame boy was obviously more like a yin-matter ghost that chose people to devour.

The bride in the wedding dress had been sizing up the round-faced little girl. When the boy began to run wildly towards her, she looked at the relieved blind old Daoist, and said indifferently: “You are too disappointing, you can’t even be considered a heretical path, just an unranked crooked path. A thief calling ‘stop thief!’, you shouldn’t die, you should wish you were dead.”

The lame boy came before the female ghost in an instant, leaped high, and swept his leg towards the latter’s head.

The bride in the wedding dress neither dodged nor blocked, always pinching her dress with two fingers of one hand, with a graceful posture, moving straight forward.