My master took a puff from his pipe as he spoke.
He appeared nonchalant and very relaxed.
Seeing my master like that, Daoist Master Tang gave him a disdainful look:
"Heh! You want to give me a chance?
I think you've smoked too much and are afraid you'll have a relapse during the fight!"
"Get lost, you're the one who's sick!"
My master's face darkened, and he shot back.
But Daoist Master Tang was unconcerned. He turned to Mo Ting and me:
"You two watch closely.
Today, I'll teach you how to catch ghosts!"
After speaking, Daoist Master Tang directly took down the peach wood broadsword from his back.
The broadsword was at least 1.5 meters long, a very large weapon.
It looked imposing, weighing at least thirty pounds.
Yet, Daoist Master Tang held it easily in one hand and swung it a few times as if it were child's play.
Setting aside Daoist Master Tang's cultivation,
just his wrist strength was something ordinary people couldn't match.
"Master, be careful!"
Mo Ting warned him.
But Daoist Master Tang was completely unfazed:
"It's a minor issue."
With that, he walked towards the old house haunted by the ghost.
My master, standing beside me, suddenly chuckled after hearing this:
"This idiot, calls it a minor issue. He'll have a taste of his own medicine later!"
After saying this, with a schadenfreude expression, he took another deep puff of smoke.
Looking at my master's expression, I had a bad premonition.
It was likely that Daoist Master Tang's ghost-catching endeavor wouldn't go smoothly...
As I thought this, Daoist Master Tang had already arrived in front of the three old houses.
He didn't go around kicking down doors to search.
Instead, he stood before the three old houses and directly shouted:
"Evil spirit, come out and face your death!"
As soon as his voice fell, the intermittent crying sounds vanished.
The next second, we saw from a distance.
At the entrance of the leftmost old house, black smoke suddenly billowed.
It was like a fire, with thick black smoke constantly pouring out.
The entire mountain gully suddenly became chilling.
The trees swayed with a rustling sound, which was particularly piercing.
The area where Daoist Master Tang stood was gradually engulfed by the black smoke.
His figure became increasingly blurry.
Mo Ting and I watched with wide eyes, feeling tense.
My master maintained his smiling, indifferent expression; the sudden changes in the surroundings didn't alter his emotions in the slightest.
Daoist Master Tang stood in front of the old house, quietly observing the thick black fog around him, remaining motionless.
After a few seconds, he suddenly spoke:
"All this flash and show! Appear!"
A low growl sounded. We saw from afar.
As Daoist Master Tang uttered the word "appear," he clearly held a yellow talisman in his hand.
The talisman was released and burned to ashes by a ball of talismanic fire.
The black smoke that had enveloped Daoist Master Tang instantly dispersed, radiating outwards from him.
Along with the dissipating black fog, a red phantom appeared opposite Daoist Master Tang.
The phantom was formed by the convergence and entwining of black energies from the surroundings.
As more black energy gathered, the red phantom became more solid.
In an instant, a woman in red, with a deathly pale face, appeared before us.
When Mo Ting and I saw the woman in red,
our pupils contracted sharply, our hearts pounded, and a look of dread flashed across our faces.
We immediately thought of the terrifying four words: "red-clothed ghost."
In the classification of malevolent spirits, besides looking at the eyes, one sometimes uses clothing color as a distinction.
White shirt, yellow page, red clothes,攝青 (She Qing), purple shadow.
And these red clothes ranked as the third most ferocious level among malevolent spirits, indicating their terrifying degree.
They often brought disaster to a region upon their appearance.
They were the fiercest among vengeful ghosts.
The headless malevolent spirit encountered last night, in the classification of vengeful ghosts, was at most a "yellow page" level.
In the face of a red-clothed vengeful ghost, it was merely a subordinate.
Mo Ting and I were shocked to the core.
We truly hadn't expected this female ghost to be the legendary red-clothed ghost.
No wonder Qing Dai said last night that there was another, fiercer female ghost. It seemed true.
I didn't know what expression Daoist Master Tang had, but looking at my master beside me,
he appeared quite excited, a smile on his face.
He even muttered to himself:
"Now this will be a good show..."
The red-clothed ghost that appeared didn't have pure black eyes, but pure white ones.
She looked up at Daoist Master Tang and spoke with an icy tone:
"Was it you who killed my husband?"
Her voice was not only cold but also filled with resentment.
Her pair of milky white eyes stared fixedly at Daoist Master Tang.
Threads of eerie black energy emanated from her entire body.
Even from a distance, we felt a chill in our hearts.
Especially looking at those milky white eyes, like dead fish eyes, it made our scalps tingle.
Daoist Master Tang let out a cold snort and replied in a deep voice:
"You reap what you sow. What if it was me who killed him?"
After speaking, Daoist Master Tang attacked preemptively.
He formed a sword finger with his left hand, swiftly drawing it across the sword's edge, thus "opening" the peach wood sword on the spot.
Then, he raised the sword and fiercely slashed towards the red-clothed female ghost.
The red-clothed female ghost's face suddenly contorted. She let out a roar at Daoist Master Tang:
"You killed my husband, so I will kill you!"
The sound was extremely piercing, echoing throughout the mountain gully.
With a flash of red, the red-clothed female ghost vanished before our eyes.
She reappeared instantly, her claw swiping towards Daoist Master Tang's face.
Daoist Master Tang, as Mo Ting's master, also possessed true cultivation.
With a sidestep, he dodged, and with a reverse sweep, brought his sword down.
With two "humming" sounds, the red-clothed female ghost's claw had actually shattered a large bluestone, half a person's height.
Simultaneously, she raised her claw and blocked Daoist Master Tang's sword strike.
Mo Ting and I were completely stunned.
This terrifying cultivation and disparity in strength.
We secretly felt fortunate that we hadn't encountered the red-clothed female ghost last night.
Otherwise, let alone escaping, we probably wouldn't have even had a chance to fight back, we would have been crushed to death by her...