I Can’t Be Sword God

Chapter 34

The Rampaging Li Xinyi

The deceased was a scholar and his mother in Yuhang Town.

The scholar’s surname was Huang. The family used to be wealthy but declined afterward. He and his mother had lived together.

The mother and son had died a horrible death. Both of them had their internal organs taken out. They were gruesome murders. The Yin Qi was so intense that a Vengeful Spirit was thought to be the culprit.

But would such a family have anything to do with Meixiang?

After a visit, Zhou Dafu found out that Huang Sheng had always been a filial and obedient son. But he had a quarrel with his mother the day before yesterday.

A curious neighbor had intentionally or unintentionally overheard the quarrel. Huang Sheng wanted to marry a girl, but this girl was a prostitute. His mother was dead against the idea and even threatened to kill herself should he do that.

He had come to The House of Blossoming Spring again and asked for Hongzhi, the trembling servant girl.

Hongzhi recalled it carefully, saying that Meixiang knew a scholar, but she had always met with the scholar secretly. Their communication did not go through any servant girls. So the servant girl knew little about it.

Meixiang had mentioned it to her only occasionally, saying that the scholar was handsome, nice, and trustworthy. At first, she had got along with him as an ordinary girl. Later, she confessed she was a prostitute, but the scholar did not show the slightest disdain.

The day before yesterday, the servant girl went to Wang Longqi and Zhao Liangcai requesting a meeting. But they all had refused. So Meixiang went again in person. When she came back, her expression looked terrible.

Come to think of it, things might indeed have something to do with Huang Sheng.

Just that Meixiang had said nothing bad about Huang Sheng before, so the servant girl did not think of him.

Zhou Dafu rubbed his chin in thought.

“Meixiang was a busy woman. On the surface, she was Young Master Wang’s lover, but at the same time, she secretly hooked up with Young Master Zhao. As if that was not enough, she was also having a relationship with an honest guy. She was like ‘

a wily hare with three burrows

‘,” said Zhou Dafu.

“What does ‘

a wily hare with three burrows

‘ mean?” asked Zhao Liangcai.

“Are you stupid? The meaning is literal,” said Wang Longqi snappishly.

Zhao Liangcai nodded in agreement.

Indeed.

“In other words, Meixiang first went to Wang and was rejected. Later, she went to Zhao and got rejected too. At last, she went to talk to the scholar, but she didn’t expect Huang Sheng’s mother to oppose their marriage. It was likely that the result was also not good either,” said Li Xinyi. “So she was resentful, and the ghost behind her appeared to bewitch her, causing her to kill herself and transform into a Vengeful Spirit. But why did she want to vent her anger on Huang Sheng?”

She looked at Wang Longqi and Zhao Liangcai with an unfriendly expression, as if she was trying to saying, “Why the ones who died were not the two of you?”

Obviously, among these three men, only Huang Sheng was the most innocent.

But it turned out that Meixiang hated him most.

Wang Longqi and Zhao Liangcai forced a smile in unison before quickly leaving.

Thanks to an honest guy, they could escape this time.

They had better slip away now.

“Perhaps she always thought she had many safety nets, but she didn’t expect all these men to turn her down. She suddenly found herself having nowhere to go. Huang Sheng’s refusal was the last straw that crushed her.” Zhou Dafu sighed again. “Who have we the honest people provoked?”

Li Xinyi and Li Chu scoffed silently in their minds.

…

After arriving at Huang’s house, a wave of anger rose within Li Chu all of a sudden.

This was the second time he experienced such emotion since he came to this world.

The Huang family was poor. The mother and son lived in a small corner of Yuhang Town, where the poor lived. His mother had raised Huang Sheng single-handedly.

Huang Sheng had been studying very hard.

He might realize his long-cherished dream if he were to take part in the imperial exam next year.

It was a pity that he met the beautiful Meixiang and ended up dead.

With Meixiang’s appearance, even if she did not marry Huang Sheng, she still had many choices. If she waited for herself to calm down, she would never have caused such a tragedy.

But when she was targeted by a ghost at the height of her anger and bewitched, she had lost the opportunity to turn back.

The case might look a mess, but it could all be boiled down to the ghost, which should be solely to blame.

Who would not have negative emotions such as resentment and anger several times in life? How terrible would the world be if every resentment led to such a deal?

“Is there any way to perceive the grievances in people?” asked Li Chu.

His idea was that as long as he could perceive grievances, he could know where those ghosts would appear, and so he could lie in wait.

Li Xinyi thought for a while and said, “There is a profound way of Energy Spotting method in the Daoist school, it would allow you to see the Qi energy between heaven and the earth. But those are the secret techniques of the Daoist sects, such as Baiyujing and Qingyanggong. There are no such magical powers in the Imperial Administration Bureau.”

She was silent for a moment before she continued, “But after attaining Shenhe realm, a cultivator can expand his Mind Perception, and his perceptual ability will be enhanced. For a cultivator with a powerful Mind Perception, it could easily cover the entire Yuhang Town. In that case, as soon as the ghosts appear, they will be discovered. When this is over, I will report back to the bureau and ask a master to preside here. We must eliminate these ghosts.”

She had been very on guard the whole time, yet another murder case happened. This frustrated her a lot.

“Yeah.” Li Chu nodded lightly, still deep in thought.

What Li Xinyi said made him feel a little sense of crisis.

Probably more than that.

He had to find a way to improve his perceptual ability.

His eyesight and ears were good, but he lacked the so-called Mind Perception of orthodox cultivators.

Was he not sort of blind and deaf compared with those cultivators whose Mind Perception covered the entire town?

Correspondingly, those beings—spiritual creatures, demons, ghosts, and monsters—with advanced cultivation attainment must also have unique perceptions and supernatural powers to survive such struggles.

The image of him walking on the road, and a flying sword pierced through his body from hundreds of miles away, even before he knew what happened, terrified him.

…

In the evening, Li Xinyi started to arrange the magic formation.

She frowned as she laid the formation with extreme delicacy, complexity, and cumbersomeness.

Yellow talismans, ritual swords, copper beads, silver bullets, jade slips, golden cables, red ropes—there were dozens of materials for implements that Li Chu had never seen. Overlapped, there was no pure land under the surface in a radius of tens of yards.

When Li Chu asked her what she was going to do, a fire burned in her eyes. “Rebuild the Imperial Administration Bureau’s reputation.”

He did not understand Li Xinyi’s meaning until Meixiang’s vengeful spirit appeared.

That night, a curvaceous and soft shadow appeared outside Huang’s house.

Even though she had killed the mother and son of the Huang family, she was still filled with grievances and remembered to come here to find the person she hated.

She saw Li Chu, who was waiting here.

“Will you marry me?” she asked.

The voice is ethereal and clear, and it sounded pretty pleasant.

“Enraged her.” Li Xinyi commanded calmly.

“I am not going to marry you,” so replied Li Chu.

“Why?” The Vengeful Spirit’s long hair stood on end, and her clothes fluttered at the burst of resentful energy. “Because you think I am dirty?”

“Of course,” said Li Chu.

The Vengeful Spirit’s clothes bulged, and her eyes were scarlet and scary.

“Look, she is desperate,” said Li Chu again.

The vengeful spirit could not bear it anymore.

BANG——

Then the rampage.

But it was not the Vengeful Spirit but Li Xinyi who went on a rampage.

She made a hand gesture and paused.

Under the Vengeful Spirit appeared a golden formation of intricate and intertwined sword Qi.

Gorgeous, luxurious, and grand.

“Jiugong Great Plum Blossom Sword Formation!” Li Xinyi shouted as she gestured with her fingers.

Countless sharp sword Qi suddenly burst into one place with a loud noise.

A plum-shaped golden light wrapped Meixiang in it. Her fate was unknown.

If the power of this formation was anything to go by, she was ninety-nine percent dead.

But Li Xinyi did not care. She flipped her finger gesture and shouted, “Copper-Thunder Silver-Lightning Formation!”

BANG——

The copper pellets and silver bullets she buried in the ground were all valuable thunder pellets and electric beads, which possessed powerful restraint and were lethal against ghosts.

It was unspeakably gorgeous, as if a huge firework was rising into the sky.

Li Chu thought that had she laid a formation like this last night, that Botchling might not have escaped.

But this was not all.

There was no sign of Meixiang in the thunder and fire, but Li Xinyi still activated another formation to whip the corpse.

“Golden Gate Sacred Binding Formation!”

Immediately, the shadow of a golden gate appeared out of nowhere and smashed into the center of the open space. There were a dozen shadows of thick red chain wrapped around it, whipping around, looking for the shadow of the ghost, trying to pull it into the golden gate.

But there was nothing.

The poor vengeful spirit of Meixiang had long since vanished. Not even her ashes could be found.

BANG——

It was not until a long while that the dazzling light and shadow in this area disappeared.

By this time, many people staying nearby had come out and seen the shocking light and shadow in the air. Some began to kneel and worship, thinking that it was a miracle.

Li Chu was in shock, too.

It was indeed loud and impressive.

Li Xinyi clapped her hands with satisfaction and glanced into the distance with delight.

Having made such a big fuss, she was almost tearful but was worth it as long as there were enough people who saw it.

Previous exorcism failures were absolutely unacceptable to her, especially last night when she had asked Li Chu for help in front of so many people in The House of Blossoming Spring.

How could she keep her reputation again if things leaked out?

So she needed to pull off something to show off her ability.

She glanced at Li Chu and found that Li Chu was also looking at her. She could not help giggling in her mind, thinking that the young Daoist must be seeing her in a new light now.

The Imperial Administration Bureau had lived up to its reputation as an immortal sect, where even a rookie disciple could pull off such a feat.

Li Xinyi turned her head around with a bashful expression. Then confidence came back to her again.

She could not deny that Young Daoist Li was handsome. But as an immortal sect disciple, she needed to let the people in Yuhang Town know that it was the Imperial Administration Bureau, not Deyun Monastery, the go-to place for exorcism.

1. Chinese proverb. It refers to a sly individual who has more than one plan to fall back on.