“What is that?”

Hu Ma now had skills and courage, but in the wilderness, in the dead of night, seeing such strange and eerie paper figures still made him feel a shiver down his spine.

This seemed to be an instinct, sometimes not related to ability.

However, someone with ability recovered quickly. He slightly calmed his breath, suppressed the sudden panic, grasped the hilt of his knife, and asked in a low voice.

“The evil spirit’s ghost servants have arrived.”

Zhang A’gu waited for the two paper figures to float back into the woods before answering in a low voice, “Looks like there’s a big evil spirit nearby. It smelled our living qi and sent out little ghosts to lure people.”

“I set up a fragrance array, so they can’t find us and can only keep wandering around here.”

Hu Ma’s heart sank slightly, and he understood what she meant.

The first time he saw those two servants, they looked like two people. If ordinary people were here, they would probably see two servants holding lanterns, and since it had just rained, the surroundings were damp and cold, and everyone was tired, their minds wouldn’t be clear.

Maybe they would follow those two servants in a daze to drink hot soup.

Of course, once they entered the woods, who would drink whom was hard to say.

He had been reminded by Zhang A’gu, and the first time he saw them, they were people, but he was on guard, and the second time he saw them, they became paper figures.

Hu Ma said, “What do we do now?”

Zhang A’gu watched the paper figure servants and the little light they held disappear into the forest, then turned around and gently rubbed Hu Ma’s eyes with her finger.

Hu Ma let her finger press on his eyes. He could feel her rough fingertips, which meant she usually did a lot of farm work, but after wiping his eyelids, she left something behind, slightly moist, and his eyes felt a chill.

Just as he was about to ask what it was, Zhang A’gu had already lowered her hand and held his arm.

Hu Ma immediately understood and looked into the distance again.

This time, he couldn’t even see the paper figure servants. He only saw two balls of ghost fire floating out of the forest.

They rose and fell, paused and stopped, wandering outside the forest.

He could vaguely hear the sound of a woman in the mountain wind: “Passing… travelers…”

It seemed that these two balls of ghost fire were the real entities. Whether it was the two servants he saw before, or the two paper figures he saw after calming down, they were all transformations of the evil spirit.

They did indeed, as Zhang A’gu said, keep floating out of the forest and circling around, as if they knew there were living people here, but couldn’t find them. They were getting more and more anxious, circling around like a whirlwind.

“What I rubbed on you was coffin bottom mud, which allows you to see the true appearance of evil spirits.”

Zhang A’gu took advantage of the fact that they were floating a little further away and said to Hu Ma, “Keep an eye on the people behind us and don’t let them make any noise.”

“Coffin bottom mud?”

Hu Ma carefully touched his eyes with his hand, feeling a little disgusted, and then said, “This stuff lets you see them?”

“Coffin bottom mud, pomelo leaves, and bull tears can all let people see them.”

Zhang A’gu, who had gotten used to Hu Ma’s love of asking questions along the way, explained in a low voice, “The incense array I burned prevents evil spirits from seeing us.”

“……”

Hu Ma looked forward and saw that Zhang A’gu had already burned four or five bundles of incense, which were scattered around. The smoke from the incense floated up, and the red dots were even more obvious in the night, but the two balls of ghost fire couldn’t see them.

They floated back and forth, sometimes even touching the smoke from the incense, and then drifted away.

“Incense array?”

While watching, Hu Ma memorized the number and arrangement of these incense sticks, and then turned his head to look at the coachman and the shop assistants behind him.

These people were really lucky. They were still sleeping soundly at this moment, and didn’t know they were experiencing this bizarre and strange event.

The donkey was awake, though, with its tail clamped tightly between its legs.

Steward Zhou was also awake now, leaning against the wall. Although he was old, he was sensible. Although he was startled, he didn’t make any noise.

In the dark night, they couldn’t see each other clearly, and he gestured to Hu Ma, indicating that he wanted to help.

“I wonder what kind of evil spirit is in this forest, how does it compare to Red Lantern Niangniang…”

Hu Ma observed the people behind him, in case they suddenly woke up and made noise, alarming the evil spirits, which would be a disaster. He needed to be ready to knock them unconscious at any time.

But he couldn’t help but be curious about those two balls of ghost fire. According to Zhang A’gu, these were just little ghosts sent out to find living people, which meant that the one in the forest was the real man-eating evil spirit…

But with his eyesight, he couldn’t tell how powerful this evil spirit was.

So what? Should he look for a suitable opportunity to deal with it?

Thinking this, he looked at Zhang A’gu, but saw that she was just staring at the incense array in front of her. Sometimes the incense burned slowly, and sometimes it burned quickly.

But she just watched attentively, holding a fire starter in one hand and reaching into her bundle with the other. Whenever a stick of incense was about to burn out, she would replace it in time, so the incense array always existed, and the ghost fire outside kept wandering.

Now, after enduring for about half an hour, the two balls of ghost fire became more and more anxious, and suddenly burst with a “poof.”

Immediately afterwards, a gust of strange wind suddenly blew in the forest.

The wind blew the trees crooked, and the grass, trees, and gravel rustled. The incense in front of them was brightly lit.

Then, something seemed to be slowly flowing out of the forest.

In the dark night, Hu Ma widened his eyes, but couldn’t see what it was, or whether there was anything real at all. But he could feel something coming out of the forest, squeezing through the trees little by little, as if there were sinister eyes scanning them.

“Is the big evil spirit in the forest impatient and came out to take a look itself?”

Without Zhang A’gu’s explanation, Hu Ma understood what had happened and quickly looked back.

He saw that the coachman and two shop assistants who were sleeping soundly were also exposed to this gust of yin wind, which made them feel uncomfortable.

Two of them turned over, and changed from sleeping squeezed together to sleeping head to toe.

Another one swayed slightly, looking like he was about to wake up. Hu Ma quickly raised the hilt of the knife in his hand, ready to knock him on the forehead.

But Steward Zhou quickly waved his hand, and then reached out a hand, as if pressing on a certain position on this person’s neck. The person who was about to wake up fell asleep again.

Hu Ma had a higher opinion of him. This Steward Zhou, who came from the performing arts world, also had some tricks up his sleeve.

But when he turned his head to look again, he felt his heart sink again. He saw that the thing in the forest had come out, and the incense in front of Zhang A’gu was burning rapidly at the same time. So many incense sticks were burning out quickly at the same time, and there was no way to add them in time.

He hurriedly released the hand holding the knife, picked up the mahogany sword, and prepared to take action.

But Zhang A’gu also looked at the incense array in front of her that was about to run out, and instead of continuing to add incense, she sat silently, slowly holding something in both hands, pressed it against her forehead, and silently chanted something.

Hu Ma felt a sudden chilling sensation around him.

The last incense mist that burned out didn’t dissipate in the night wind, but gathered in one place and filled the area in front of them.

It was like an ethereal, translucent curtain, blocking the evil spirit in the forest from the others.

Hu Ma didn’t dare to make a sound, for fear of affecting Zhang A’gu’s spellcasting.

He watched as the evil spirit that came out of the forest moved slowly around them. After looking at them for a long time, it finally quietly retracted its breath and slowly floated back into the forest. The surrounding temperature gradually rose, and the chilling coldness that had made people feel cold disappeared.

Zhang A’gu also slowly released her clenched hands, put away the things in her hands, and re-added to the incense array.

The fierce battle that Hu Ma had imagined didn’t happen. Zhang A’gu just stayed awake all night, constantly staring at the movements in the forest, and the thing in the forest didn’t appear again, seemingly because it couldn’t find anyone.

Until time passed by bit by bit, and they had vaguely survived the deepest part of the night, and a little light appeared in the east, everyone felt a sigh of relief.

“Is it okay now?”

It was at this time that Hu Ma finally asked Zhang A’gu in a normal voice.

“Yes.”

Zhang A’gu said, “It can’t find us, so it went back. We were very lucky to have escaped this calamity with the help of the incense array.”

“So this is what it’s like for a ghost walker to travel the world?”

Hu Ma was a little curious. If it were a Shousui Ren (Night Watcher), they would probably have to fight with real knives and guns in this situation.

Of course, Shousui Ren themselves can refine life into death, so they can avoid this situation.

“Evil spirits that can drive little ghosts and transform into illusions to lure living people are generally very powerful.”

Zhang A’gu was a little embarrassed and explained, “It was also late at night just now, and we might not be able to beat it if we fought it.”

“Besides, there are many people around us. It wouldn’t be worth it if it hurt anyone.”

“……”

Hu Ma thought about it and felt that Zhang A’gu’s approach was truly stable and reliable.

After waiting patiently for a while, until dawn broke, the shop assistants and coachmen also woke up, stretched their waists, and complained, “It’s really uncomfortable to sleep in this cave. It’s raining again, and my rheumatism is about to flare up.”

“But it’s thanks to following the capable A’gu. Otherwise, just sleeping in the wild at night would have cost us half our lives. Now we can sleep peacefully for one night.”

“I can brag about it when I go back to see my old buddies.”

“……”

“You guys slept peacefully all night, but you don’t know that A’gu helped guard you all night…”

Hu Ma found it funny in his heart, but there was no need to say it to scare them.

He also hadn’t slept all night, but he could handle it, so he got up to pick up firewood, make a fire to bake dry food, and ate. While he was paying attention, he saw Zhang A’gu not getting up to catch up on sleep, but taking out red cloth strips from her bundle and tying them to the surrounding trees in conspicuous positions.

Hu Ma brought dry food over for her to eat and said, “What is this for, A’gu?”

“To remind passersby…”

Zhang A’gu said, “There is a powerful evil spirit here that eats people. Don’t stay here.”

“Alas, the world is in chaos now, and we can’t keep up with all the work.”

“I heard my mother say that in the past, when they encountered such things, they would investigate the other party’s background, either to make it behave or to get rid of it.”

(End of this chapter)