Chapter 055: Voices from the Ancient Temple

After stretching my body, I moved as swiftly as the wind and, in the blink of an eye, arrived at the gates of the ancient temple.

The reason I insisted that Captain Cui shouldn’t come was, firstly, because of Yu Nie’s prediction about him. Secondly, the culprit behind this case was no ordinary person. If anything happened, Captain Cui and his team would be powerless to deal with it—only I was suited for the task. That was why I insisted on following Captain Cui in the first place.

Standing at the entrance, I did not step inside immediately. Instead, I took a talisman for dispelling evil from my pocket and held it between my fingers. "By the urgent decree of the law," I chanted. As soon as the incantation ended and my fingers gave a slight flick, the talisman burst into flames. I tossed it inside the temple doors.

By the faint light of the burning charm, I saw something chilling: the three corpses, which had been kneeling with hands clasped as if praying for their own souls, suddenly stood up in unison.

The fire of the talisman died out; the sinister wind ceased, and the coldness that had just gripped me faded.

To make sure I hadn’t imagined it, I pulled out the high-powered flashlight Captain Cui had given me.

Click.

I switched on the flashlight and shone it into the temple.

Its beam revealed everything before me. I swept the light around—the three corpses were gone, as was the head that had been on the offering table. All had vanished without a trace!

Impossible. The ancient temple had only one exit—the main gate. All the windows were sealed shut. Even if someone tried to steal or control the corpses, they couldn’t simply disappear into thin air.

Taking a deep breath, I put aside my doubts and stepped inside, shutting the temple’s heavy doors behind me with a resonant thud. Back pressed against the door, I let my eyes follow wherever the flashlight illuminated.

Inside, everything looked as it had during the day, except the three corpses and the severed head were missing.

I focused intently, searching every shadow. Suddenly, I felt an icy breath brush past my left earlobe.

Whooo... whooo...

A chill ran through my entire body. Instinctively, I stepped to the right, but before I could steady myself, it felt as if I’d bumped into something behind me.

I was sure there hadn’t been anything on either side of me.

Quickly, I aimed the flashlight to my left. Even though I had prepared myself mentally, the sight nearly made me scream.

It was a pale human face, eyes wide open in a deathly stare—the same head that had been on the far left of the offering table. Now, it was perched on a corpse—but backward. Its face was pressed against the corpse’s back!

It puckered its lips and blew cold breath against my ear.

Damn it!

Without thinking, I smashed the flashlight down on the corpse’s forehead.

“Aaah!” it shrieked, mouth gaping, lurching toward me in retreat.

I saw it clearly: though its hands reached out, trying to seize my throat, its head was still on backward.

“Three thousand Daoist arts bow to the Lord of Thunder; ten thousand heavenly thunders destroy all evil. I am Thor; Thor is me. By the urgent decree of the law!”

I bit my finger, drawing blood, and swiftly traced a charm in the air.

Hesitation had no place here—I struck the head squarely with my palm.

At the instant my hand made contact, the head flew off the corpse, rolling twice upon the ground before going still. The body collapsed stiffly beside it.

Breathing deeply, I barely had time to relax before an icy, corpse-like hand landed upon my shoulder.

A sinister gust swept from behind. I spun around, not caring what was there, and swung the flashlight down as hard as I could.

Thud.

The dull sound revealed another intact corpse, but this one’s head faced the right way.

My blow sent it staggering back. Before it could recover, I lunged forward, pressed a talisman to the crown of its head, and chanted.

The body shuddered violently. Its eyes rolled upward, then it toppled to the ground. The head bounced off its belly before rolling aside.

Meanwhile, the final corpse had used the chaos to fling open the temple doors.

It was trying to escape. At this rate, if it got outside, it would terrify the officers lying in ambush.

“Trying to run? Get back here!”

I grabbed its long hair, refusing to let go. Dragging it back, I struck the point where head and body met. As expected, all three corpses and their heads returned to their original forms, though no longer in their original places.

Having dealt with the three bodies, I stepped out of the ancient temple. Captain Cui was already waiting for me. “Who were you fighting in there? Why did I hear a woman screaming?”

I didn’t answer directly. Instead, I stepped aside and handed him the flashlight.

Captain Cui peered inside with suspicion. After surveying the scene, he stared at me with a strange expression, at a loss for words.

He swallowed nervously. “Weren’t these corpses supposed to be immobile?”

I nodded. “We can’t move them. But the one who performed the ritual can.”

After a pause, I continued, “The practitioner must have realized there was an ambush here and tried to move the corpses.”

“Move them?” Captain Cui still didn’t understand. “How? No one but us has approached the temple in days.”

I winked at Captain Cui. “The lotus tattoo—the spellcaster controlled the corpses through the lotus mark on their right shoulders.”

“It must be Yu Nie!” Captain Cui declared at once.

But doubt lingered in my heart. I pondered for a moment, then asked, “Officer, what do you think are the odds that a Buddhist monk would know the wild Maoshan arts?”

I pursed my lips and added, “And not just any monk—a highly revered one.”

Whatever Yu Nie’s true nature, he was undoubtedly a distinguished monk. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to perform such powerful rites at the station.

But how did such a high monk come to learn the forbidden Maoshan spells? And for what purpose—was it to gather resentment and harm others?

[End of Chapter 55: The Voice from the Ancient Temple]