Chapter 1 So What's the Situation?

Xing Hechou, a Special Affairs Bureau field operative, woodenly gripped his halberd, staring blankly with Wanli Fengdao at Li Ang and the female ghost, who were chatting happily without any sign of a fight.

The female ghost was named Chai Cuiqiao, born into a family of officials. Her grandfather had served as the Vice Minister of Public Works, her father was currently a Secretary in the Ministry of War, and her uncles all held official positions. The Chai family was considered a prominent power in the capital city of Nanjing.

Unfortunately, Chai Cuiqiao's birth mother had been a famous courtesan in the Qinhuai River district. After becoming pregnant and being bought back into the Chai family, she could only lower herself and endure the bullying and pressure from the legal wife. The evil servants loyal to the legal wife also gave Chai Cuiqiao and her mother a hard time, trying every means to make things difficult for them.

For over a decade, Chai Cuiqiao and her mother experienced the coldness of human relationships and grew accustomed to the filth and corruption within the wealthy households. Although Chai Cuiqiao longed to escape this gilded cage, she was powerless to do so.

When she reached the age for marriage, through matchmakers, the Chai family, with the thought of making the best use of everything, betrothed Chai Cuiqiao, born to a concubine, to the second son of a wealthy salt merchant in Nanjing, in exchange for a large dowry.

Chai Cuiqiao had thought of following her husband wherever he went, even if she couldn't live the poetic and idyllic life of immortals in the storybooks. She would just support her husband and raise her children, honestly becoming a wealthy family's wife.

Who knew that the second young master of the Jia salt merchant family actually had a penchant for short sleeves (homosexuality) and a fondness for Longyang (male love). He only loved men. He had played too wildly before marriage, resulting in an inability to perform sexually. Even on the night of their wedding, the second young master of the Jia family went through a secret passage in the bridal chamber to sleep with a delicate and pretty boy.

Three months passed. Chai Cuiqiao in the inner courtyard watched helplessly as her nominal husband either went out to mingle with "pure and talented scholars" or frolicked with frail concubines in the inner courtyard. He didn't even say a word to her on ordinary days, nor did they ever meet.

Although the Chen salt merchant family had taken Chai Cuiqiao into their family to get in with the Chai family, and the Chai family also needed a front man to earn profits for them, both sides were just taking what they needed.

But they still had to give birth to a son or daughter to make the benefits more secure.

The pressure in the household came one after another. Chai Cuiqiao's mother also mentioned it several times. Chai Cuiqiao, unable to express her suffering, occasionally heard her close friends talk about the rumored effectiveness of seeking children at Guhan Temple. She kept it in mind, and under great helplessness, one day she actually took her maidservants and followers to Guhan Temple to worship Buddha.

To seek children at Guhan Temple, female believers had to kneel in front of the Guanyin statue for an entire night. Chai Cuiqiao, who had her maidservants and followers waiting outside the temple, was concentrating on worshiping Buddha when she saw the wooden board under the Arhat seat open, and a group of monks with lewd smiles drilled out.

The Chai lady grew up in the inner courtyard, and had read too many stories of infatuated men and resentful women. She actually resisted to the death, and resolutely crashed her head against the pillar, dying on the spot.

The monks, panicked at the sight of blood, went all the way and took out blades, cutting Chai Cuiqiao's body into sections in front of the statue of Sakyamuni Buddha, burying them in the back mountain of Guhan Temple, and lying to the family members who came to look for her, claiming that Chai Cuiqiao had never visited Guhan Temple.

The family members could not find her and reported to the government. The monks who kicked the iron plate of the Chai family were imprisoned and enjoyed a taste of sandalwood punishment.

Unable to endure the hardship, the monks exposed all the inside stories of Guhan Temple during interrogation, in front of the elders and folks outside the county government.

The scandal spread like wildfire. In the county and Nanjing, in families where women had gone to Guhan Temple to seek children, the husbands laughed and wrote letters of divorce, the wives covered their faces and fled back to their mothers' homes, the babies who had just been born were directly pressed into copper basins and thrown into wells to drown, and the older children were simply kicked out and sent to childless farmers' homes.

Many wealthy and powerful families who had once successfully sought children and donated money could not swallow this anger. They mobilized their connections and asked the county magistrate to throw all the monks of Guhan Temple into the dungeon for execution in the fall, and all the monastic property and Buddhist fields were confiscated and sold to the local powerful figures at a low price.

The Chai family was a famous clan, and the Jia family was also a local gentry. In order not to bring shame to the family, they insisted that Chai Cuiqiao had not been to Guhan Temple, but had strayed into the dense forest and disappeared on the way. They didn't even collect Chai Cuiqiao's remains, lest they would make the ancestors in heaven unhappy when they went down to the ancestral grave.

Chai Cuiqiao's mother died of grief. Chai Cuiqiao suffered injustice, was abandoned by her family, and her body could not be buried. The resentment and anger accumulated and did not dissipate for a long time, eventually cultivating into a vengeful ghost, lingering in the sky above Guhan Temple.

Some local hooligans and gangsters with ulterior motives wanted to go to Guhan Temple to make a profit and collect some valuable Buddha statues, gold paint, and Buddhist instruments. All of them were killed by Chai Cuiqiao and cut into pieces, scattered in the forest outside the temple.

The government sent people to investigate, but they were also frightened by the haunting earthbound spirit and fled in panic.

Over time, the rumors of Guhan Temple being haunted spread wider and wider, enough to stop children from crying at night. Whether local villagers or passing merchants, no one dared to approach the temple half a step.

And Li Ang and others were the only visitors who had stepped into this place in the past six months.

Li Ang cupped his hands and said very sincerely, "Although the five of us are bandits, we are also familiar with honor and disgrace, and the core values of socialist society.

"Miss Chai's heroic deeds of unyielding integrity have moved us and we admire you very much. If you have any unfulfilled wishes, just tell us."

"..." Wanli Fengdao, who was gripping his sword hilt tightly, changed his expression. He had almost died at the hands of this fierce ghost just now, but listening to Li Ang's tone, it seemed like he wanted to shake hands and make peace with the other party, meaning to coexist peacefully?

He secretly gave Xing Hechou a look, and pointed almost imperceptibly at the ghastly white bones under his feet, the meaning of the eye contact was very obvious,

"We've collected the ghost's bones, it would be better to just burn them. Not only can we solve the worries of these seven days, but we can also directly earn a reward of experience points, saving us from having too many dreams at night."

Xing Hechou shook his head silently, and thought to himself, "Things may not be that simple.

"The task given by the system is to survive for seven days. Originally, it was to let us struggle to survive under the fierce ghost's life-threatening attacks until the time limit. In other words, the system originally believed that the strength of our entire team was difficult to compete with this fierce ghost.

"Although Wanli Fengdao slashed Chai Cuiqiao's vengeful spirit with a sword in front of the Daxiong Hall just now, injuring her shoulder, but now it seems that her injury has fully recovered.

"Not only are our trump cards not fully revealed, but Chai Cuiqiao has also hidden some of her strength, only limited by the fact that we found her remains, she had no choice but to come forward to cooperate.

"If the negotiations break down and we fight directly, we may be able to win, but how many people can survive is always a problem..."

After making up his mind, Xing Hechou gave Wanli Fengdao a look back, signaling him to be calm and wait and see how Li Ang would handle it.

Chai Cuiqiao looked at the crowd with flickering eyes, especially glancing at Wanli Fengdao, who had a gloomy face, before gracefully giving a salute to Li Ang and saying softly, "Humans and ghosts travel different paths, I dare not make any requests..."

"Humans know the terror of ghosts, but ghosts know the poison of the human heart. Hell is empty, and monsters roam the world."

Li Ang waved his hand quite boldly, ignoring the avoidance of men and women and the distinction between humans and ghosts, directly grasping Chai Cuiqiao's cold hand, "Miss Chai, in my eyes, is truly a heroine, more like a living person than those hypocritical gentlemen who are full of benevolence, righteousness, and morality."

"Then... I'll say it?"

"Please, feel free to speak."

Chai Cuiqiao performed a great salute, saying sadly, "Although the many lecherous monks of Guhan Temple have been executed, the chief culprit has not been eliminated.

"The abbot of Guhan Temple, Daozhi, is a demon in disguise! He faked his death and escaped the government's pursuit, turning from a monk into a Taoist, named after the Crown, and still roams the world!

"Seven days later, the evil monk will host a banquet for the mountain demons in Guhan Temple, please, sir, uphold justice for me!"