Huang Ran didn't have time to pay attention to me. He caught the blood trickling down into a small porcelain vial. Fortunately, he needed only a little blood. After a small amount had flowed into the vial, Huang Ran stuck his index finger into the bottle and began stirring.
As he stirred, a strong fishy smell rose from the vial. Sun Fatty gagged and stared at the vial in Huang Ran's hand. "Old Huang, no offense, but what is that? It smells like corpse oil. Weren't you planning to smear that stuff on the tips of the crossbow bolts, have Lazi shoot them, and poison that spirit?"
"You guessed wrong," Huang Ran said, pulling his finger out, which was covered with bluish-green mucus. He brought it up to his nose and sniffed. I'd smelled corpse oil before—based on that experience, this smell was tolerable—but Huang Ran's action made Sun Fatty gag again. Huang Ran glanced at the deputy director and said, "Our Committee has a saying: the scariest things are the ones you can't see. As long as your eyes can see them, there's always a way to deal with them…"
As he finished, Huang Ran closed his eyes and lightly smeared the mucus on his eyelids. When he opened them again, his gaze had fixed on the spirit by the doorway opposite us. Confirming the spirit's position, he casually handed the porcelain vial to Sun Fatty. "Want some?"
Sun Fatty took it, flicked a bit with his pinky, frowned at the mucus on his fingertip, and asked, "Not to be a pain, but if you accidentally get this in your eyes, won't you go blind?" Despite his words, he hesitated only briefly before carefully smearing the mucus on his own eyelids.
When Sun Fatty reopened his eyes, he focused on the spirit just like Huang Ran. Then he glanced at Huang Ran and said, "Old Huang, how does the Religious Affairs Commission put it again? 'If your eyes can see it, there's a way to fight it.' Seeing it is half the battle; now you just need to deal with it. Aren't you going to show us some tricks? I'm just saying—you're not planning to stall until Yang Xiao gets here and leave the dirty work to him, are you?"
Huang Ran gave a dry chuckle. "If the enemy doesn't move, I don't…" Before he finished, the spirit suddenly let out a long howl. Then it dropped to all fours and opened its mouth, howling sharply toward us again. The shrill sound was beyond piercing—an icy chill rose, and I shivered involuntarily. In that instant, Huang Ran suddenly shoved me aside and pulled Sun Fatty and Li Qimu to the ground.
Just as I was pushed away, a bone-chilling cold swept past me. It didn't hit me directly, but it was enough to make my whole body tremble. Behind where I had been standing, a wooden wall began to smoke. The entire wall turned yellow, then blackened. Though it didn't catch fire, it soon started to carbonize and finally collapsed.
How could cold air cause that? There was no time to ponder. Huang Ran shouted, "Shoot it! Don't let it form!"
While he spoke, I fired a crossbow bolt at the spirit. As before, just before the bolt could strike, the spirit dissolved into smoke and vanished.
As the spirit evaporated, Huang Ran sprang to his feet. Despite his bulky frame, he moved swiftly. Before the spirit could reform, Huang Ran was already at the chapel's doorway, pulling out bolts lodged in the walls and window frames, then sprinting back. When he returned, the spirit had reformed. Huang Ran handed me a bolt. "Wait until it fully forms, then hit it hard."
While Huang Ran was collecting the bolts, Sun Fatty smeared the remaining mucus on Li Qimu's eyelids. But when Li Qimu opened his eyes again, he still looked confused. It seemed Huang Ran's mysterious mucus didn't work on everyone.
As the spirit almost fully reformed into humanoid shape, I didn't hesitate and fired another bolt, dispersing it again. Sun Fatty stared at the mist and said to Huang Ran, "Old Huang, you're really just stalling for Yang Xiao to come back, huh? Like that time in the Tomb of the Transcendent Beast. You're the legal representative of the Religious Affairs Commission, yet you hide like this—it's not fitting your position. Seriously, you should man up once in a while."
Huang Ran watched the mist too. Before the spirit could fully form, he retorted to Sun Fatty, "Sun Desheng, getting rid of evil influences takes skill. My abilities may not be much, but compared to you, I'm at least ten or twenty times better. Also, it depends on formations and talismans. We didn't come to Las Vegas just to chase spirits—this is already a decent result. Besides, if that shadowy figure hadn't tangled with us earlier, we'd already have the Heavenly Principle Diagram back at the hotel. This spirit can only operate around here—it can't track us into the city."
Sun Fatty squinted at Huang Ran. "So, what now?"
Without a trace of embarrassment, Huang Ran answered as if it were obvious: "Wait for Yang Xiao to come back."
No sooner had he spoken than a head suddenly popped out of the hole where the shadowy figure escaped. The sudden appearance startled us—it wasn't white-haired, so it wasn't Yang Xiao. I quickly shifted my crossbow aim and barely avoided shooting at that head by mistake. Looking closer, it wasn't the shadow figure but Meng Qiqi, who should have been guarding the chapel's entrance.
Seeing Miss Meng, I quickly aimed the crossbow at the slowly forming spirit again. At almost the same time, Huang Ran and Sun Fatty both asked her, "How did you get in here?"
"Seriously, are you guys blind or what? Didn't I just come in through this hole?" Meng Qiqi rolled her eyes at the two of them. Her gaze swept along the direction I was aiming my crossbow and she said, "What is it? Why can't I see anything? You said there's a formation set up by Yang Xiao at the door—when did Yang Xiao get here? And have you got the Heavenly Principle Diagram yet?"
"That's a long story. We'll explain when we have time. For now, let's get down to business." Sun Fatty pulled out Huang Ran's little porcelain vial from his pocket and said to Meng Qiqi, "No offense, Miss Meng, but do you mind putting on some eye shadow?"
Meng Qiqi was more perceptive than Sun Fatty and me. The moment she saw the vial, she immediately recognized what it was. She glanced at Huang Ran, who showed no reaction. After a brief hesitation, she let Sun Fatty smear the sticky liquid on her eyelids.
It seemed only those with the Heavenly Eye could make this mucus effective. When Meng Qiqi opened her eyes again, it was just as I dispersed the spirit once more. The scene shocked her, and she instinctively stepped back, saying, "This is the spirit? Huang Fatty, haven't you dealt with spirits before? Even if it's tricky, something at this level shouldn't be a problem for you. So what are you still waiting for?"
No sooner had she spoken than Sun Fatty squinted at Huang Ran and imitated Miss Meng's tone, "Yeah, Huang Fatty, what are you waiting for?"
I learned later that right after Sun Fatty warned about the formation at the door, Meng Qiqi had been circling nearby. She grew up in this city. Although, due to religious tradition, she had never personally visited this church, she had heard that similar desert buildings had food storage cellars because of the hot air. Some buildings even had a second entrance to the cellar for easier transport.
After circling the church, Miss Meng finally found the entrance to the cellar. The door was already open for who knows how long, and inside was nothing special. When she reached the bottom, she saw the humanoid-shaped hole in the ceiling above.
Back to the scene now: after the spirit at the door was scattered, it took a long time to reform. Several faint mists neither condensed nor dissipated but drifted in place. The four of us (excluding Li Qimu) kept our eyes fixed on the mists, but they showed no signs of solidifying—in fact, they grew thinner, slowly dissipating outward. Originally nearly transparent, now it was even harder to see.
Huang Ran seemed unprepared for this situation and stared blankly at the thinning mist. It wasn't until Sun Fatty spoke that he snapped out of it: "I'm not kidding, Old Huang, if you don't act soon, you'll lose your chance." For a moment, I didn't understand—wouldn't it be better not to act and just wait for the problem to resolve?
While Sun Fatty was babbling nonsense, the mist thinned more and more until it vanished without a trace. Huang Ran turned to me and shouted, "Can you still see it?" His voice trembled slightly, as if disaster were imminent. I looked around wide-eyed but couldn't see any trace of the spirit.
At that moment, Meng Qiqi said, "Huang Fatty, what's going on? It's just a spirit, right?" As she spoke, Sun Fatty glanced sideways at Huang Ran, then suddenly grabbed me, pulling me close and retreating to the corner with Li Qimu. I didn't understand what Sun Fatty was thinking, but judging by his unusually serious expression, something was about to happen.
No sooner had we moved to the corner than an inexplicable chill swept over us. I'd felt this before. Turning around, I saw several strands of mist rising from the wall behind us. Almost instantly, the mist condensed into humanoid form again. The spirit appeared from the wall almost pressed against the three of us. Although I held the crossbow, the distance was far too close. No matter which angle I fired from, I risked hitting Sun Fatty or Li Qimu behind.
Just as I prepared to drop the crossbow and draw my short sword, the spirit paused in front of Li Qimu. It seemed Li Qimu sensed something. His eyes stared blankly at the spirit, as if seeing it but also not really present.
Huang Ran noticed the spirit too and shouted at us, "What are you spacing out for? Where's your short sword? Draw it and hit it!" I had half-drawn my sword when Sun Fatty suddenly came over and grabbed my arm holding the sword. He pulled me back a step, staring at the trembling Li Qimu, and said, "Wait a moment before making a move. I'm telling you, Lazi, this is getting more interesting…"
Sun Fatty pulled me away and looked at Huang Ran. "Old Huang, aren't you going to introduce this properly?"
Huang Ran swallowed and said, "I'll explain later…" Before Sun Fatty could reply, there was a "thud," and Li Qimu fainted to the ground. The spirit stared at him for a while longer before dissolving again into mist right before my eyes.
This time, being closer, I saw clearly as the spirit's mist slowly dispersed into the air. The atmosphere around me seemed to grow heavy. Huang Ran glanced at where the spirit had vanished, clenched his teeth, and leapt down into the humanoid hole where the shadowy figure had disappeared.