Chapter 30 Demons

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So, what exactly is the situation now?

Special Affairs Bureau field agent Xing Hechou, with a wooden expression, clenched his long halberd, as he and the equally stupefied Wanli Fengdao watched Li Ang chatting merrily with the female ghost, with no sign of coming to blows.

The ghost's name was Chai Cuiqiao, born into a family of nobility, scholarly and esteemed. Her grandfather once served as the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Works, her father currently a Secondary Minister in the Ministry of War, and various uncles and aunts holding official positions as well. The Chai family was also considered a powerful elite in Nanjing City, the secondary capital.

Regrettably, Chai Cuiqiao's birth mother, once a famous courtesan on the Qinhuai River, was bought out of her contract upon falling pregnant and forced into a life of subservience in the Chai household. Subjected to the tyranny of the principal wife and scorn of the servants loyal to her, Chai Cuiqiao and her mother never saw a kind face, enduring every manner of purposeful difficulty and adversity.

For over a decade, Chai Cuiqiao and her mother tasted the fickleness of human relationships and grew accustomed to the dirt and filth within the walls of grand households. Despite her desire to escape this gilded cage, Chai Cuiqiao was powerless to do so.

When she came of age for marriage, following the matchmaker's recommendation and in the spirit of making the most out of available resources, the Chai family betrothed the daughter born of a concubine, Chai Cuiqiao, to the second son of a wealthy salt merchant Jia in Nanjing City, in exchange for a hefty dowry.

Chai Cuiqiao had hoped to adapt to her husband's ways, reconciling herself to a life devoid of the poetic and divine romance of fairy tales. She intended to dutifully look after her husband and children and live honestly as a rich man's wife.

However, to her shock, Jia's second son harbored a preference for male liaisons and was known for his homosexual pursuits. He had indulged too fiercely prior to marriage, resulting in certain incapacities. Even on the wedding night, the groom spent the evening with a handsome page in his study, accessed through a secret passage from the marital chamber.

Three months passed, and Chai Cuiqiao witnessed, with wide-open eyes, her nominal husband either frolicking with "refined scholars" or romping with delicate boys at home, hardly exchanging a word with her, let alone meeting face to face.

Although the salt merchant Chen's family had married Chai Cuiqiao into their clan with the intention of connecting to her influential family, and the Chai family needed a puppet to generate profits, the arrangement was one of convenience for both parties.

However, there was still a need for the birth of a son or a daughter to solidify the relationship.

Faced with mounting pressure at home, Chai Cuiqiao's mother mentioned several times her sufferings that could not be spoken. Chai Cuiqiao, having heard from friends about the Solitary Cold Temple's reputation for granting children to those who prayed, kept it in mind, and one day, in a state of desperation, she went to the temple to pray, accompanied by her maids and attendants.

To pray for a child at the Solitary Cold Temple, female devotees need to kneel before the statue of Guanyin for an entire night. While Chai Cuiqiao was earnestly praying, assisted by attendants waiting outside the temple, she saw a group of monks with lecherous smiles emerging from beneath the Arhat statues.

Miss Chai, reared in the sheltered confines of the women's quarters, had read too many novels filled with sentimental romances and tragic lovers and vowed to resist to the death. In an act of extreme chastity, she collided headfirst with a pillar and died on the spot.

The monks, panicked at the sight of blood, took it upon themselves to cut Chai's lifeless body into pieces right before the Shakyamuni Buddha Statue, buried her behind the mountain of the Lonely Cold Temple, and lied to her family who came inquiring, claiming Chai Cuiqiao had never visited the temple.

Unable to find her, her family reported to the authorities. The monks, who crossed paths with the powerful Chai family, were locked in prison and subjected to the brutal sandalwood punishment.

The weak-willed monks, under interrogation and in front of all the local gentry, exposed the temple's dark secrets.

The scandal spread from one to many, in the county and throughout Nanjing City. In families where women had visited the temple to pray for a child, husbands wrote repudiation letters with a laugh, wives fled back to their parents in shame, newborn children were drowned in copper basins or wells, slightly older children were thrust out the door and sent to childless farmer households.

The wealthy families who had successfully prayed for children at the temple and donated money and goods couldn't stomach the disgrace. They leveraged their connections, prompting the county officials to imprison all monks in the temple; they were to be executed after autumn, and all temple property and land were confiscated and sold at low prices to local notables.

The Chai family, a distinguished lineage, and the Jia family, local gentry, wanting to avoid family disgrace, insisted that Chai Cuiqiao never went to the Solitary Cold Temple and vanished into the dense woods mid-journey. They even refused to claim her remains, to not disturb their ancestors' rest in the family mausoleum.

Heartbroken by the loss, Chai Cuiqiao's mother died in anguish. Chai Cuiqiao herself, wrongfully accused and abandoned by her family, her body left unburied, harbored resentment and anger that lingered and coalesced over time into a vengeful fierce ghost haunting the skies above the Lonely Cold Temple.

Local hooligans with malicious intentions, thinking to ransack the temple for valuable Buddha statues and Buddhist artifacts, were all killed by Chai Cuiqiao, their bodies chopped into pieces and scattered in the woods outside the temple.

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The county government sent people to check, but they, too, were scared off by the mischief of the earthbound spirits, hastily withdrawing.

Over time, the rumors of Solitary Cold Temple being haunted spread wider and wider, which could even stop children from crying at night. Neither the local villagers nor the passing merchants dared to come within half a step of the temple.

Li Ang and his people were the only group that had set foot in this place in the past six months.

Li Ang clasped his hands together, speaking very earnestly, "Although the five of us are mountain bandits, we have studied the eight honors and eight shames, the core values of socialist ideology.

The heroic deeds of Miss Chai's chastity and unyielding spirit have moved us profoundly, and we greatly admire you. If you have any unfulfilled wishes, just instruct us."

"...." Wanli Fengdao's face changed as he clutched the sword hilt tightly. He had almost died at the hands of this fierce ghost just a moment ago, but listening to Li Ang, it seemed as if he wanted to propose a truce, to live in peace with the ghost?

He stealthily exchanged a glance with Xing Hechou, his fingers subtly pointing to the chilling white bones beneath their feet, the meaning of their eye contact was quite clear,

"We have already collected the ghost's bones, why not just burn them directly with a fire? Not only could we solve our problem for the next seven days, but we could also earn a hefty experience point reward directly, better than risking more nightmares."

Xing Hechou silently shook his head, thinking to himself, "Things are probably not that simple.

The task given by the system is to survive seven days, which originally intended for us to struggle to stay alive under the fierce ghost's wrath until the time limit. That is to say, the system originally believed that our whole team's strength, would have great difficulty contending with this fierce ghost.

Although just now, in front of Daxiong Bao Hall, Wanli Fengdao struck Miss Chai Cuiqiao's resentful spirit with his sword, injuring her shoulder, it seems her wound has completely healed now.

Not only have we not revealed all our trump cards, Chai Cuiqiao has also hidden part of her strength, and only because we found her remains was she forced to show herself and cooperate.

If the talks break down and we resort to burning her remains, we might win, but how many of us would survive is still a question....."

Having made up his mind, Xing Hechou returned a look to Wanli Fengdao, signaling him to be patient and to see what Li Ang would come up with.

Chai Cuiqiao's eyes flickered uncertainly as she looked at everyone, particularly casting a few glances at Wanli Fengdao, who had a gloomy face, before she gracefully bowed to Li Ang, softly saying, "There's a great divide between the living and ghosts, and I, a meager woman, dare not ask for anything...."

"Humans fear ghosts for their terror, ghosts understand the venom in human hearts, hell lies empty, while malicious spirits roam the world."

Li Ang swung his arm boldly, regardless of the taboos between men and women, or the difference between the living and the dead, and directly grasped Chai Cuiqiao's cold hand, "Miss Chai, in my eyes, is truly a heroine among women, more alive than those hypocrites who mouth nothing but benevolence and righteousness."

"Then... may I speak?"

"Feel free to speak."

Chai Cuiqiao gave a deep bow, and said with immense sorrow, "Although the many lecherous monks of the Solitary Cold Temple have been put to death, the mastermind remains at large,

Master Taozhi of Solitary Cold Temple, disguised as a demon, faked his death to escape the government's pursuit, turned from monk to layman, and now goes by the name Wang Guan, still at large in this world!

Seven days from now, that evil monk will host a feast for the mountain demons at Solitary Cold Temple. I beg you, sir, to uphold justice for me!"