**Chapter 35: The Spirit of Zhongli**
May 1917, Shanggu City.
“Get lost, old man! Our family doesn’t keep idle people, especially gossiping ones like you!”
Accompanied by the scolding of the short and stout middle-aged woman, a figure was pushed out the back door of a residence.
It was an old man of considerable height, but his back was frighteningly hunched. His features were well-defined, but his complexion was waxy yellow with a hint of blue; his gray hair was disheveled, and he wore a faded navy blue long gown, appearing as frail as an opium addict.
The hands that pushed him out used much force, and he stumbled unsteadily for two or three steps before crashing heavily to the ground.
From afar, a rickshaw driver whizzed by, and the spinning wheels splashed mud and water, drenching the old man who hadn’t managed to get up in time.
His face, beard, and gown… were specked with mud, but he seemed unconcerned. After struggling to rise in pain, he dragged his nearly falling-apart old bones and lunged at the side door that was about to close.
“Aunt Wang, wait a minute!” he cried, clutching the still-open crack of the door with both hands, shouting at the middle-aged woman behind it, “The mistress wants to drive me away, I have no objections, after all, I said something I shouldn’t have, but you must help me persuade her not to…”
“Bang——!”
Before the old man could finish his sentence, the middle-aged woman behind the door pried his hands open and slammed the door shut.
Staring blankly at the closed side door, the old man fell silent for a few seconds, then strained his voice to shout out the unfinished words, “You mustn’t believe those braided soldiers’ nonsense, or else the family will be ruined…”
“Splash!”
A sudden bucket of cold water washed away the words “people dead” that he hadn’t had the chance to say, extinguishing the last glimmer of light in his eyes entirely.
As if saying goodbye, he gazed longingly at the nearly hundred-year-old mansion ahead, but what floated before his eyes was the thatched hut he had seen three hundred years ago when he first arrived in Tianjin, along with the plain-dressed, genuinely smiling woman in front of it.
“Lian Niang, I have already repaid your kindness… repaid it…”
Muttering to himself, the old man’s face was already wet with tears before he turned to leave, taking one last walk down the small alley he didn’t know how many times he had traversed, only to be stopped at the alley’s mouth by a man clad in black, with blond hair and blue eyes.
“Tsk tsk, in return for a meal, you’ve raised brilliant scholars, protected a family for three hundred years, only to be kicked out like an old dog in the end…”
Despite having a distinctly foreign appearance, the man spoke fluent Chinese.
“Ha, who would have thought one of the Five Deities would end up in this situation?”
“Who are you? What do you want?” The old man assessed the man, his expression numb. “If you want to devour me, be my guest! But don’t say I didn’t warn you, my powers have faded so much that I can’t even condense the core of urban legends anymore. You’ll gain nothing from consuming me.”
“Devour? No, no, no, you might be misunderstanding…” The man shook his head and reached into his clothing, feeling around. “I’m not here to hunt you; I’m here to offer you a clear path.”
“A clear path?” The old man’s brows furrowed as he looked at the ticket the man presented.
“Across the vast ocean, there’s a prosperous and powerful country,” the man explained. “Go there! Perhaps you will have a chance to regain your former powers.”
Pausing, he seemed to bolster the old man’s wavering resolve, adding, “Anyway, the grievances here are over; this land no longer holds anything worth your attachment, right? Why not take a chance?”
“Don’t worry, once you get there, we will help you.”
Hearing this, the old man hesitated for a moment but ultimately accepted the ticket from the man.
So, a few days later, he boarded the ship bound across the ocean, and under the guidance of the starlit sky, he reached the “New World”…
————
[File Number: M191705
Summary: Zhongli Spirit, Spirit Energy Fluctuation Level C
Content: The essence of Zhongli Central; this urban legend originated in the pre-Qin period, related to the rituals of the Five Deities.
Note: “Baihu Tongyi” records: “What are the Five Deities? They refer to the door, household, well, stove, and Zhongli.”
Zhongli Spirit often appears in the form of a kindly old man with white beard.
Legends say that it not only blesses homes with peace and prosperity in trivial matters but also records the precise d*ath times of every household member it protects. When someone is about to d*e, and the underworld comes to collect the soul, Zhongli Spirit will stop them, meticulously examine the documents, and confirm their accuracy before allowing them to pass, thus preventing urban legends from impersonating and harming lives.
Such a kind and responsible deity, Zhongli Spirit was once an important object of worship for the people of Z Country, but with the passage of time, its powers gradually waned and were eventually replaced by the later emerging urban legend—the Land God. By the early Qing Dynasty, it had rarely been mentioned, with only a small number of people in Hunan and Yunnan still worshiping it.
In the early twentieth century, Zhongli Spirit briefly appeared in Shanggu City before disappearing from within Z Country, once thought to have completely perished until at the end of the twentieth century, a Siye Association Operative encountered it on the street while on a mission in Free City.
The reason for Zhongli Spirit’s appearance in M Country: unknown.
……]
After leaving Vivienne’s apartment, Luxianbei walked along the road to Zhongli Spirit’s residence while recalling the information provided by the Wordless Book regarding the Zhongli Spirit. Once he had recalled all the main details, he couldn’t help but complain, “Xiao Hua, what do you think that guy is after?”
“Staying in Z Country would allow him to live quietly until he fades away unnoticed, right? Coming to this d*mn place, isn’t that just suffering? It can’t be that he woke up to some nonsense like ‘The air in M Country is sweet!’ or something, right?”
As he spoke, Luxianbei took a deep breath.
The pungent smell, mixed with filth, rotting food, and some unknown chemical gas, surged into his nostrils, hitting him like a punch from a muscular man from the inside, giving him the impression that he had been struck.
“Cough cough cough, this™ stink is too much, cough cough!”
Upon reaching the destination and walking down the narrow staircase that led to the subway station, he glanced at Zhongli Spirit’s residence, and his eyelid twitched.
He thought Vivienne’s apartment was one of the most worn-down in Free City, but he hadn’t expected to find something even more dilapidated underground…
The long corridor was lit by yellow voice-activated lights, and a series of tightly closed doors lined both sides of the hallway.
Buckets filled with sewage, mountains of black garbage bags, carts full of cardboard… all sorts of messy things piled together, making the already narrow corridor feel particularly cramped, and the pungent smell was even more intense here than at the entrance.
Seeing such a wretched environment, Luxianbei instinctively wanted to escape this godforsaken place.
However, driven by the Z Country people’s traditional view of “since we’ve come, we might as well stay,” he ultimately pinched his nose, enduring the nausea, and walked through what seemed like a giant rat hole to reach Zhongli Spirit’s residence, knocking on the wooden door riddled with small cracks.
“Knock knock——!”
After just two knocks, the sound abruptly stopped.
Standing in place, watching the wooden door open slightly with the knocking, Luxianbei furrowed his brows.
“Not home? How can someone leave without locking the door? Have they fallen into such dire straits that even thieves have nothing to steal?”
The moment the wooden door opened slightly with the knock, he expanded his spirit awareness and didn’t detect any presence of energy fluctuation above D level nearby, meaning Zhongli Spirit was not home.
Hearing Luxianbei’s words, Nanling Yaohua quickly wrote in her notebook and handed it to him.
[Since the person we’re looking for isn’t home, shall we hurry and leave?]
Though she couldn’t smell it, the visible “filth” was already at a level that was hard for her to endure.
“Hmm.” Luxianbei nodded. “I was thinking the same; let’s go!”
With that, he turned around, but just as he was about to leave, a familiar stench cut through the barriers of the pungent air, quietly invading his nostrils.
It was the smell of rotting corpses.
Turning around, he looked again at the wooden door with its fine cracks, now slightly ajar, as if suddenly infused with some kind of special magic, compelling him to explore further.
“Wait a minute, Xiao Hua, I think we should go in and take a look?”
Upon hearing this, Nanling Yaohua shook her head, seemingly in strong objection, and raised her notebook.
[I’m not going in; you go in. I’ll wait for you outside!]
After looking at the notes in the notebook, Luxianbei sighed silently. “Fine.”
With that, he pushed open the door and cautiously leaned half of his body inside.
Then, after just one glance, he quickly retreated, holding onto the door frame, and gagged violently.
“YUE——YUE——!”
Seeing Luxianbei like this, Nanling Yaohua tilted her head, floated to the crack of the door, and imitated him, leaning half of her body inside; after just one glance, she also retreated, holding onto the door frame and gagging in turn.
Inside that one-bedroom basement rental, a dirty sofa, whose original color was unrecognizable, sat in the center of the living room, where an old man, dressed in a white vest and striped shorts, was sitting on his back, gripping a handgun with his right hand, the barrel inserted into his mouth.
A mixture of brain matter and bl**d was splattered across the yellowing wall behind him.
The intense stench filled the entire room, as if it had soaked into the walls, becoming part of it.
The old man appeared to have been dead for a long time…
His body had swollen abnormally, with skin turning blue and shiny; several spots where rats had bitten through burst open, spilling rancid pus onto the floor.
After leaving the corpse, the pus seemed to retain a kind of vitality, spreading outwards in a manner reminiscent of a continuously twisting and growing mycelium, spreading a distance, resembling a giant skirt chewed to shreds by worms, sprawled beside the body, imparting an air of eerie mystery to the grotesque corpse.
After gagging together for a few minutes, Nanling Yaohua resentfully lifted the notebook with writing in front of Luxianbei.
[Why didn’t you tell me it was so disgusting inside?]
Need I ask? Of course, it was because I had to suffer; I couldn’t let myself suffer alone! Luxianbei thought bitterly and replied with a blank expression, “I was busy throwing up and didn’t have time.”
Nanling Yaohua, “……”
————
It took Luxianbei nearly half an hour to adapt to the uncomfortable sights and smells in the room before finally entering and confirming the identity of the deceased.
The deceased was indeed Zhongli Spirit, who had died by gunshot s*icide with a revolver modified by alchemy; there were two shells on the ground marked with the number “#45.”
Luxianbei had seen in the materials from the Wordless Book that this was a common spell-fixed b*llet in the spirit energy circles of M Country, with “#45” representing the standard spell of the Night Alliance.
After confirming Zhongli Spirit’s cause of d*ath, he carefully searched the not-so-large single-room apartment and found no remnant spirit energy fluctuations outside of Zhongli Spirit, but he did discover an odd detail.
The electrical appliances, daily necessities, and clothing in Zhongli Spirit’s home all seemingly came from the same company called “Ariel,” even the food in the refrigerator that had not been finished was marked with the same trademark.
That trademark consisted of two equilateral triangles, red and yellow, stacked together corner to corner, with an eye encircled by wings drawn in the center.
This “Ariel” company’s monopoly had penetrated to such depths; hadn’t anyone intervened? Luxianbei thought secretly.
What was even more puzzling to him was that, theoretically, as an urban legend, Zhongli Spirit wouldn’t need to resort to a method like s*icide by gunshot, which only humans would use… He could think of more than five ways an urban legend could end its own existence.
[Have we almost finished investigating? When do we leave?]
Seeing Luxianbei standing emotionless in the living room, unwilling to leave for a long time, Nanling Yaohua, unable to bear it anymore, handed him the notebook with writing in it.
“Not yet!” Luxianbei looked at Nanling Yaohua and said, “Something feels off. I’m going to check again.”
[Check again? What to look for?] Nanling Yaohua wrote another line in her notebook.
After reading what was written, Luxianbei shrugged and pointed to his eyes.
Though the standard investigative procedure was complete, he was not just any Siye Association Operative!
He had a pair of special eyes.
Gathering his focus, he activated the North Spirit Seal, pouring the fervent spirit energy into his eyes. Along with a wave of intense burning pain spreading from the inside out across his eyeballs, the images in his field of vision seemed to catch fire, turning crimson.
A few seconds later, as the red hue in his vision faded, Luxianbei’s pupils suddenly trembled.
He saw an astonishing scene.
He witnessed a tall figure holding a revolver pointed at Zhongli Spirit, and that figure was the missing Golden Toad Boy, Yu Yinchuan…
