Feng Tian and Kuang Feifan left the side room with their heads hanging low; the moment they finished recounting the matter of their Daoist Master, the old man promptly ushered them out.

"Let him have some quiet," Kuang Feifan murmured.

Feng Tian nodded, saying nothing.

The two found a tree near the back door and leaned against it, occasionally staring blankly at the room’s entrance.

Without the old Daoist Master's help, there was no chance of dealing with the two vengeful spirits trapped in that well.

While they were lost in thought, Kuang Feifan’s phone suddenly rang, startling them both badly.

Kuang Feifan hastily pulled out his phone to check the caller ID—it was an unknown number. He answered, and before he could speak, an anxious voice burst through the line: "Feifan, it's me..."

"Bai Ru?" Kuang Feifan was surprised and delighted, stumbling over his words for a moment. "Where... where are you?"

"I just got back from Hong Kong."

"Hong Kong? Where did you even go?" Kuang Feifan was momentarily stunned.

Bai Ru didn't answer directly: "Never mind that for now. We found Yi Shaoqing, but to save him, Gu Yi was injured. I... I need you guys to come back..."

Kuang Feifan hung up, his face ashen, staring blankly at Feng Tian.

Feng Tian's expression wasn't much better; he had heard everything clearly. A sudden turn of events gripped his heart, and even before the call ended, he knew Kuang Feifan would have to leave.

When Kuang Feifan looked at him, Feng Tian nodded with resignation. "Leave this to me."

"But... she needs us..." Kuang Feifan frowned, looking at him.

"By tomorrow afternoon, or the day after at the latest, I'll leave to find you all," Feng Tian said with a forced, casual shrug. "Anyway, it's good that you're leaving here. Truthfully, with one less of you among the nine targets, that formation definitely won't work."

Kuang Feifan stared at Feng Tian suspiciously for a long while, forcing himself to believe what Feng Tian said.

After gathering his things, Kuang Feifan prepared to leave the Daoist temple. The old Daoist Master hadn't emerged yet, but Feng Tian told him not to worry, adding that the journey back might be fraught with danger.

Kuang Feifan managed a bitter smile. He had known this all along, but the situation was caught in a contradiction. He had anticipated it the moment he decided to return for Bai Ru: he was the target of the Nine Revolutions Soul Return Formation. If he tried to leave, would the ghosts in that formation suddenly lose the will to track him?

Yet, he couldn't stay. Even if Feng Tian couldn't accompany him, hearing Bai Ru's voice made it impossible for him to remain in the temple, much less settle down with Feng Tian to deal with that murderous formation.

As Kuang Feifan turned to leave, Feng Tian suddenly called him back, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a string of prayer beads, which he handed over. "Use this for now. It’s not as potent as the rosary your wife gave you, but it might still be useful, help you ward off some ill fortune or something."

Kuang Feifan tilted his head to examine the dull, dark prayer beads in Feng Tian's hand. He couldn't tell the material; there were no decorative carvings—they were simple, crude, even ugly.

Feng Tian shook them lightly, irritable. "What? You don't trust it, or what?"

Kuang Feifan dared not speak the truth now. This was an emergency; there was no time for banter.

"Be extremely careful. It’s best not to travel after seven-thirty in the evening," Feng Tian warned him.

"Uh..."

Watching Kuang Feifan depart, Feng Tian sighed and turned back to the side room door. He gathered his energy and raised his voice. "Old Daoist Master, I have something to discuss."

After a noticeable pause, the side room door slowly creaked open...

Kuang Feifan exited the temple grounds. There were no direct routes home from here. Fortunately, he knew Wang Hai. He didn't dare ask Wang Hai to travel with him, but he could ask for help securing a vehicle—he didn't even dare hire a standard driver.

But truthfully, Kuang Feifan felt utterly exhausted, body and spirit drained. He hadn't rested properly in two days, but he couldn't risk it. The rosary on his wrist offered some protection, but others wouldn't have that advantage.

Kuang Feifan felt like a walking magnet for bad luck right now; ghosts could appear at any moment. If someone accompanied him and was dragged into trouble because of him, the sin would be immense.

Wang Hai was genuinely helpful and managed to find him a car, negotiating the fare with the owner. Kuang Feifan gritted his teeth and climbed in.

To ensure he could stay awake until home, he bought several cases of "Red Bull" and coffee, downing a few cans before driving. Wang Hai peered into the car, reminding him, "Drink less, or you might not find a restroom when you need one."

Although Feng Tian had advised him against traveling after 7:30 PM, Kuang Feifan’s mind was still reeling from Bai Ru’s earlier call. It was her. In his memory, she had never made a request of him before. At this moment, Kuang Feifan wasn't considering his own safety at all.

If he drove through the night, he could possibly see Bai Ru by noon tomorrow. Unfortunately, shortly after the car started moving, a common saying proved true: "When it rains, it pours."

A fine drizzle began, quickly escalating into a moderate rain, which soon turned into a downpour. Kuang Feifan looked through the window with a wry smile; it wasn't even night yet, but the sky was as dark as the bottom of a pot.

Clearly, fate had no intention of letting Kuang Feifan reach home smoothly.

But Kuang Feifan didn't hesitate for a second. He turned on the headlights, pressed the accelerator, and pushed forward. He was truly staking his life to see Bai Ru sooner.

He had checked the map earlier: two routes home. The main road hugged the mountains, taking a half-circle, while the smaller road cut straight between two mountains, saving two hours.

Arriving at the fork, Kuang Feifan hesitated. The rain hadn't stopped, so after a moment's consideration, he chose the main road.

However, Kuang Feifan was unaware that regardless of whether he took the long road or the short one, danger lurked everywhere.

He pulled the car over and chugged down another can of coffee. Looking out the window, he vaguely heard the wind roaring low. Besides his own car, there wasn't so much as a shadow of another vehicle on the road—only the wind mixed with rain battering the windshield, creating a maddening noise.

Whether it was his imagination or not, he felt waves of bone-chilling cold inside the car. He pulled his jacket tighter and stretched his neck. His entire body ached as if pricked by countless fine needles.

Subconsciously, he supported his neck with his hand to twist it. As he turned his head, his eyes snapped wide open. In a sudden flash, as his gaze swept over the rearview mirror, he saw a pale, distorted human face pressed against the outside of his rear windshield.

Instantly, a cold dread washed over him. Amidst the sound of wind and rain outside, he thought he could faintly hear a mournful wail.

"Damn it..." Kuang Feifan forced himself to swallow. It was just a glimpse, and now, despite wanting to look closer in the rearview mirror, his heart faltered. He realized he was actually afraid to look again.

Was it just an illusion?

Steel his nerves, Kuang Feifan turned to look in the mirror. In those few short minutes, he actually heard the stiff, grinding sound of his own neck bones. Through the mirror, there was nothing but rainwater.

Nobody.

But Kuang Feifan felt no sense of relief. The electronic clock on the dashboard showed it was now 7:40.

Feng Tian had been proven right again.

As if confirming his thought, a faint, lingering sigh sounded clearly right beside his ear.

He instinctively looked up and around. In the weak light cast by the streetlamps lining the road, he saw a woman in red standing beneath a tree not far ahead on the roadside.

Her long, wavy hair obscured the sides of her face, allowing only a glimpse of chalk-white skin and lips stained a deep, purplish red, slightly curved upward as if smiling. Her age was impossible to determine. One hand hung by her side; the other was slowly waving toward him, as if beckoning him to join her.

Kuang Feifan’s heart lurched, and he clenched his fists involuntarily. He was seeing a ghost.

Although it wasn't the dead of night yet, it was clearly raining, yet the woman in red showed no signs of being wet—her hair and clothes hung perfectly still in the wind and rain.

In Kuang Feifan’s eyes, the woman’s smile was utterly malicious. This was not a woman; she was the Harbinger of Death itself.

What shocked Kuang Feifan most was that his body suddenly refused to obey him. His hand reached out and opened the car door, and he began to shuffle stiffly toward the woman.

The most frustrating thing for Kuang Feifan was that even though he was consciously moving toward the woman—the female ghost—he couldn't break free of the control. The hand the ghost waved seemed to be beckoning his soul.

As he neared the ghost, Kuang Feifan felt a mixture of anger, urgency, and helplessness. The only part of him he seemed able to control was his eyes; he desperately darted them around, searching for anything that could combat a ghost.

When his gaze dropped to his arms hanging limply at his sides, he nearly choked with anger. He was wearing Feng Tian's string of prayer beads on his wrist! Yet, up to this point, that thing seemed to have had absolutely no effect.

As Kuang Feifan drew closer, the ghost's smile seemed to deepen.

It was said that one fears a ghost’s smile more than its cries. Kuang Feifan’s body was unresponsive, his mouth sealed shut, leaving him only to curse Feng Tian internally for giving him useless trinkets.

Just as Kuang Feifan was about to reach the ghost, the dark string of beads on his hand suddenly tightened violently. The grip was so sudden, so intense, it felt like it was about to snap his wrist. This shock caused Kuang Feifan to yell out reflexively—he actually couldn't hold back.

However, the searing pain instantly broke the spell. His body regained control. Without thinking, he raised the hand wearing the beads and swung it toward the ghost.

In his entire life, Kuang Feifan had never struck a woman. But there’s a first time for everything; even if this wasn't a human woman, she was clearly female in form.

Perhaps due to the beads’ influence, as the slap landed, Kuang Feifan felt his hand strike something like a handful of wet mud. Yet, with this single slap, the woman in red was sent flying backward, vanishing instantly into thin air.

Kuang Feifan shook his wrist fiercely, grinding his teeth. The sensation of that slap was nauseating, and the pain in his wrist lingered. After a moment, he regained his composure, feeling a fresh wave of post-terror. He had just skirted death again. He concluded that Feng Tian’s beads were indeed less potent than the ones Bai Ru possessed, and they seemed to require close contact to work—most importantly, he probably had to strike the ghost directly.

Kuang Feifan let out a long breath and looked around. There seemed to be nothing else there besides the cold, slanting rain.

But the moment he turned to head back to the car, the atmosphere around him shifted abruptly.