Taotie's eyes turned a sudden, violent crimson.
The images in his memory were too real—so real it felt as if he were living through them once again.
He could smell the blood, hear the sound of bones being crushed, and feel the pain of a stone knife slicing through flesh.
His breathing became heavy and ragged, and saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth onto the yellow sands of the Gobi desert.
The black ghost qi on Severed Thought surged, and dark red light began to seep from the cracks in the hammer’s head.
“Eat...”
Taotie's throat produced an indistinct sound, like the low growl of a beast.
“Eat... eat you...”
Wu Gou’s brow furrowed slightly.
He had long noticed that Taotie’s state was wrong.
From the beginning, the fat ghost’s attacks had fluctuated wildly. At their strongest, they could shake his Buddhist light barrier; at their weakest, they were inferior to those of a third-stage cultivator.
Moreover, Taotie’s eyes would turn blood-red from time to time, and his body would tremble as if he were enduring immense agony.
Wu Gou had initially assumed it was a side effect of Taotie suppressing his cultivation, but now it seemed things were far more complicated.
Taotie’s face had become completely distorted.
His round face was now exceptionally hideous. His eyes bulged, bloodshot and frantic, while his mouth hung wide open, drool streaming down. Strange noises continuously bubbled from his throat.
He gripped Severed Thought, the hammer’s head pointed at Wu Gou. The dark red light on the weapon grew thicker, looking as if it might actually drip blood.
“Die... you all must die...”
He lunged forward suddenly, his speed more than ten times faster than before.
Severed Thought traced a black arc through the air. He didn't hold back or pull his strikes; he was even more violent than if he were at full power.
Because at this moment, Taotie was no longer Taotie.
He was Zhao Daniu, the starved corpse shared and eaten by his neighbors. He was the vengeful ghost whose resentment would not dissipate, the evil spirit that devoured human marrow.
Wu Gou’s pupils constricted as golden Buddhist light condensed into a thick wall of light before him.
Severed Thought slammed into the wall with an earth-shattering boom.
The wall of light shuddered violently, and dense cracks spread across its surface.
Wu Gou was shaken back three steps, a trickle of blood escaping the corner of his mouth.
Taotie’s assault did not stop. He swung the hammer again and again, the cracks on the light wall growing more numerous and dense. It looked ready to shatter at any second.
Wu Gou let out a deep sigh and formed a hand seal before him.
“Oṃ.”
A mantra fell from Wu Gou’s lips, and the golden light transformed into a massive swastika symbol that collided with Taotie.
Taotie was sent flying, rolling a dozen times across the ground before coming to a halt.
But he quickly scrambled up, the ghost qi around him even more frenzied. He charged at Wu Gou once more, even faster and more ferocious than before.
Outside the light screen, below the high platform, the expressions of the Seven Evils changed.
“This is bad,” the chained ghost was the first to cry out. “The fat man’s old problem is flaring up again.”
Hong Xiu covered half her face with her fan, her brow tightly knit. “He’s been suppressed to the second symbiosis contract, so his mental state was already unstable. Now that he’s been triggered, I’m afraid he won’t be able to stop himself.”
Zhao Lie crossed his arms and said coldly, “If he hurts the candidate, Xuandu will grind him into dust.”
The tall, thin ghost said urgently, “Should we go in and help?”
The withered ghost shook his head. “The trial has already begun. Outsiders cannot interfere; those are the rules.”
The chained ghost stomped his feet in anxiety. “Then what do we do? Just watch? If Taotie really eats that little monk, our entire Xuandu Ghost Mansion will suffer for it!”
The Seven Evils were as anxious as ants on a hot griddle, but there was nothing they could do except watch helplessly.
Inside the screen, Taotie’s madness continued.
Like a beast that had lost its reason, he attacked Wu Gou relentlessly. Every strike was intended to kill, to skin and debone his opponent and devour him whole.
He was so hungry, and he was so full of hate.
Wu Gou had been pushed to the edge of the Gobi desert. The Buddhist light barrier behind him had long since shattered, his patchwork robe was torn in several places, and the blood on his lip had yet to dry.
He whispered a Buddhist invocation, then raised his right hand, pressing his index and middle fingers together as the power of his Wenchang destiny surged within him.
“Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajñā Pāramitā, perceived that all five skandhas are empty, and was saved from all suffering and distress...”
Empowered by the Wenchang proverbs, golden characters flew from Wu Gou’s lips, sinking one by one into Taotie’s forehead.
Taotie’s body began to shake violently. Indistinct roars tore from his throat, as if something within him was struggling to break free, only to be firmly locked down by the golden characters.
“Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form; form itself is emptiness, emptiness itself is form. So too are sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness...”
Wu Gou’s voice was steady and calm, each word like the tolling of a great bell within Taotie’s sea of consciousness.
Taotie’s eyes began to roll frantically. Within his bloodshot pupils, the crimson was slowly receding.
But soon, an even deeper and thicker red surged back up, as if something was fighting him for control over his body.
“It’s useless...”
A low voice emerged from Taotie’s throat—a layering of countless voices, hoarse, piercing, and filled with venomous resentment.
“You think chanting a few scriptures can deliver me?”
“Do you have any idea how many people I’ve eaten?”
“Do you know how those people screamed inside my stomach?”
Taotie’s mouth split open all the way to his ears, revealing a row of sharp teeth. Drool dripped from the gaps, hitting the yellow sand and releasing wisps of white smoke.
“They have been screaming for one hundred thousand years!”
“A full one hundred thousand years!”
“They begged me to let them go, begged me to give them a quick death, but I refused. I wanted them to die slowly. I wanted them to know what it feels like to be eaten!”
Wu Gou did not answer; he only chanted faster.
The golden characters multiplied, forming fine chains around Taotie that spread from his forehead to his limbs, then to his torso, eventually wrapping him entirely in a golden cocoon.
Taotie struggled a few times, but finding he couldn't break free, he simply stopped.
He grinned, revealing a bizarre smile.
“Little monk, do you know what it feels like to be eaten?”
Wu Gou’s brow furrowed slightly.
Taotie’s smile widened.
“Do you want to know?”
“I’ll show you.”
Before his voice had even faded, Taotie’s body suddenly exploded, turning into a cloud of dense black mist.
The mist churned like a living thing, opening a massive maw and swallowing Wu Gou whole.
Wu Gou felt his body falling.
Everything around him was pitch black. He could see nothing and hear nothing, save for a hair-raising chewing sound coming from all directions, as if countless mouths were masticating simultaneously.
After an unknown amount of time, light suddenly returned.
Wu Gou found himself standing in a desolate field.
The sky was a murky gray, and the sun hung at the horizon like a red-hot iron ball, radiating only a faint, weak heat. The air was thick with the smell of char and burning.
The crops had long since withered and died, leaving only parched, cracked earth. Occasionally, a few stalks of withered yellow grass shivered in the wind.
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