Chapter 34: Two Holy Mothers Fallen from the Heavens

All nine infant spirits had been thoroughly exorcised, yet the wailing of ghosts within the hospital showed no signs of fading. This indicated that something else in the hospital was still directing the spirits.

Ye Huan looked up and said, "The formation core controlling the ghosts must be on the rooftop."

"Head to the backyard where the bodies are buried! How is your agility? Never mind, I'll go down first and catch you." As I spoke, I lunged toward the corridor window, shielding my face with my arms, and threw myself through the glass. The old-fashioned wooden frame, though stripped of most of its panes, still caused me to stumble slightly upon impact.

Hospital nurseries are usually on higher floors to prevent infant abduction; this one was on the third floor. For me, the distance was negligible, but I was worried about Ye Huan. Before my feet even touched the ground, I saw Ye Huan standing below, his blade drawn to guard the spot where I would land. Ye Huan’s agility was superior to mine; he had jumped down before me and had already secured the area.

As I landed, I tapped Ye Huan on the shoulder and said, "Let's move!" We sprinted toward the burial site. When I caught sight of the freshly piled mounds of earth in the distance, I paused. "There’s someone nearby!"

As my gaze shifted to a crossroads near the hospital, I saw a young man and woman emerging. They appeared to be practitioners of the mystical arts, though their faces lacked the seasoned composure of true veterans, replaced instead by an arrogance that felt out of place.

The moment I made contact with them, the temperature around me plummeted. In my peripheral vision, a woman appeared, kneeling on the ground while cradling a child. Although she wore a white dress, it was caked in mud, as if she had just been pulled from a swamp. Mud dripped from her hair and body, yet the swaddling cloth in her arms remained spotlessly clean. It looked as though she had sacrificed everything to protect the infant within, preventing even a speck of dirt from touching the child.

The woman in white held the lifeless infant up with both hands, looking at me with desperate hope, and asked in a hoarse voice, "Tell me, can he still live?"

A quick scan of her surroundings revealed a dark shadow crouched near a corner—a wild cat, waiting to pounce. I sent a telepathic message to Ye Huan: "Can you catch that cat-ghost? I want it alive."

As Ye Huan gave a slight nod, the woman in white, unable to restrain herself, shrieked, "Tell me, can he still live?"

Before I could respond, the girl who had approached from the distance shouted impatiently, her fists clenched, "Say he can live! Say it, hurry up and say he can live!" She acted as if she would have jumped forward to pry my mouth open and speak for me if I refused.

Ye Huan’s eyes turned icy as he looked at the girl. A soul-suppressing bell hung from her waist, confirming she was indeed a practitioner. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of the craft knew that the woman was a "Life-Begging Ghost."

Such spirits typically appear near rivers or in snow, clutching a deceased infant and asking passersby, "Can this child still live?" Whether out of pity or greed, if a passerby answers "He can live," their own life force is drained and poured into the infant, potentially bringing the child back to life.

Life-Begging Ghosts are extremely rare and dangerous. The mother must have died before the child, and she must have recovered the body. When they beg for life, they are often volatile; if a traveler refuses to speak, the ghost is prone to violent outbursts. This particular ghost was already on the verge of becoming a malevolent spirit.

Why was that girl, fully aware that answering would cost me my own lifespan, so insistent on forcing me to speak?

Remaining calm, I clutched two daggers, guarding against the ghost while keeping a wary eye on the pair. In those few seconds, the ghost’s pale, bloodless face withered further; her skin clung to her skull like parchment, her eye sockets turned hollow and black, and her eyes burned a deep, blood-red. She screamed, "Tell me, can he live?"

The girl stomped her foot and cried, "Say he can live! Hurry up!"

I looked coldly at the ghost. "He cannot be saved!"

As the words left my lips, the child in her arms—its face previously a deathly cyan—turned a waxy yellow, and its features began to blur and collapse. Within seconds, the child dissolved into a heap of yellow mud, spilling from the swaddle onto the ground.

The ghost stared blankly at the empty cloth and the mud, then let out a piercing shriek. She lunged into the air, her claws raking toward my face.

My "Yellow Springs" gaze flared wide. The ghost’s momentum faltered, and I unleashed my blade, "Falling Snow," which pierced straight through her brow. The phosphorescent dagger traveled three feet before boomeranging back into my hand. By then, the ghost had already dissipated into shimmering light.

My "Shadow-Passing Swallow-Return" maneuver took only seconds, but Ye Huan was faster. As the ghost lunged, the black cat hidden in the shadows shot toward me like an arrow. Ye Huan didn't move his feet; he simply pressed his thumb against the guard of his Miao saber and flicked. The blade flew from its scabbard, hovering horizontally in front of the cat-ghost.

Ye Huan surged forward, following his blade, and landed behind the cat-ghost. With a seamless motion, he collided with the spirit, the blade clattered to the ground, and the cat-ghost tumbled. Ye Huan whipped out a palm-sized bag, scooped up the cat-ghost as it fell, and cinched the drawstring tight, trapping the creature inside.

I had been monitoring the man and woman the entire time, but they hadn't reacted at all while we dealt with the spirits. What were they here for?

As I pondered this, the girl rushed over. "You have no humanity! The ghost was begging you so pitifully; what would it have cost you to just say he could live?" she demanded. "The baby was so young—he hadn't even seen the world before he died. You had the power to help—why wouldn't you?"

I didn't know how to respond. I turned to Ye Huan, who coldly remarked, "You're insane."

"Who are you talking to!" The girl glared at us as if we had committed some heinous crime, desperate to "deliver justice."

The man stepped forward. "I am Tang Qu of the Ice City Tang Clan, and this is my younger sister, Tang Yu. Don't you think you two owe us your names?"