My Disciple Wants to Tease Me Every Day - Chapter 46

: There’s a Legend in the North Sea
The alleys to the north of the town were empty and decrepit. Wooden doors set in crumbling walls creaked under their own weight. When a gust of wind blew, windows would clatter open and closed, faint clacks spilling through the air.

There were no signs of life. Overgrown and decaying, it seemed as if it had been very long since anyone had lived there.

Di Jiufeng stretched out her neck to look around, then turned to Ning Guang and asked, “It’s already in this state, do you think there’s still anyone here?”

Ning Guang nodded. She spoke, her brows furrowed, “There is one, in the third house to our left. Not entirely a human but not entirely a ghost, it’s very strange, but we can go take a look.” Taking Di Jiufeng’s hand, she walked into the alley.

Hand in hand with her, Di Jiufeng did not feel cold even as the sea wind blew.

Following in Ning Guang’s footsteps, she walked to the entrance of the house. Before she could raise her hand to knock, she heard a voice as coarse as sawing wood speak from inside. “No need to knock, come right in, no need for courtesy in a little place like this.”

This was a house seated in the West, facing the North, the feng shui was horrible. It would not see the light any time of the year, gloomy and cold.

It was not a great thing to say, but truly, this did not seem like a living person’s residence. On the contrary, the decor and arrangement was a bit like that of a tomb.

As soon as she stepped inside the courtyard, Ning Guang felt the yin energy hit her full in the face. Her demonic cultivation stirred into motion, raring to devour this wisp of energy. She furrowed her brow and tugged on Di Jiufeng’s hand, pulling her behind herself. “Be careful, there is something strange about this place.”

The courtyard was very small. They arrived at the main house within three steps.

The door was not closed very tight, a crack still left open. The scent of rot dissipated out from this crack.

Ning Guang released her demonic cultivation. Just as she was about to investigate the inside of the house, a pair of hands like chicken claws pulled open the door.

“You!” Seeing the person standing behind the door, Di Jiufeng retreated into the courtyard, pulling Ning Guang with her. Her face was a bit pale, unsettled shock in her eyes. “Are you a human or a ghost?!”

The old man behind the door looked not much different from a malicious ghost. Half of his face had peeled away. His eyes, nose, and mouth tilted out of place, and there was a large dent sunk into his skull, haphazardly sewn back together with black thread. This was already frightening enough, but none of it as much as the flies and maggots writing by his left ear.

This was not a living person. How could a living person be infected by maggots?

Seeing them warily retreat into the courtyard, the old man smiled and swatted his ear, tossing the insects onto the ground. He did not get angry, only pulled a pipe out from his lapels and stuck it into his mouth to take a drag. “Don’t be afraid, I am a living corpse, I can neither overpower a living person nor defeat a corpse.” He took two hard drags, then breathed out. His half-dead face looked much gentler in the winding smoke.

“No one has come here in many years. The ones who did before came for Gui Hun island, you must be here for the same.”

The old man violently sucked on his cigar. After a while, the acrid scent filled the entire courtyard. Coughing, Di Jiufeng nodded. However, the old man, like he had seen nothing, stayed standing still in the burning scent of smoke. His twisted flesh showed endless amounts of worry and terror.

“If you two want to go to Gui Hun island, it’s not impossible. But, she can go, and you can not.”

Pointing at Di Jiufeng, the old man shook his head and repeated, “You are human. The only thing living humans can find on Gui Hun island is death. This old man is a corpse herder and a living corpse, and though I left half my head there, I kept hold of my life. But you are not the same. Young miss, you can not go to that island!”

This old man was a living corpse, Ning Guang had seen it. In addition, he had no spiritual energy in his body.

Seeing him walk over, though Ning Guang and Di Jiufeng were on alert, they did not retreat any further.

“I used to be a corpse herder. I lost focus for a moment, and was infected by yin energy. I would have died, but luckily, an alchemist used acupuncture to seal my soul so that I could live on in this half-dead, half-living state for a hundred years.”

He pushed back his loose hair to show the end of the acupuncture needle to Ning Guang and Di Jiufeng.

The old man continued, “At first, I still looked human, and if you passed me on the street, you wouldn’t be able to tell. But three years ago, I went to Gui Hun island. Though the island is full of dangers, it also holds countless rare plants, and legends say that the descendant of the king of medicine lives there.

I did not go to the island searching for treasure. At the time, I was raising a child I took in as a grandson. He had fallen seriously ill, his life dangling by a thread, and other than the legendary descendant of the king of medicine, no one could save him.”

“But…”

The old man sighed, then trembled. His face lost its color, terror and shame weaving together in his eyes, full and about to overflow. “I was overconfident in my resilience, and I had learned how to sail, so I thought Gui Hun island was within my reach. My overconfidence meant that my grandson died without a whole body to bury, and I ended up in this state, neither human nor ghost…”

Ning Guang furrowed her brow and asked, impatient, “Then did you step foot onto Gui Hun island or not?”

Old man Zhang nodded. “En, I did step foot on the island. But as soon as I made land, I was attacked by a swarm of things wrapped in dense fog. I did not see exactly what they looked like, I only saw that they were very large, their claws were very sharp, and, that they would only chase living people…”

For some reason, old man Zhang’s eyes fell on Ning Gaung’s face, suspicious.

He looked her over for a while, his expression growing more and more terrified. In the end, he fell backwards, his feet unsteady, but managed to avoid falling to the floor by grabbing onto the door.

“No doubt, no doubt, I swore this young miss was strange, you are clearly a living person, but look just like a dead one! No doubt, you are the same, you are just the same as the monsters on that island!” He tried to slam the door, but Ning Guang held it open before he could.

She was a cultivator, she was much stronger than ordinary people. She shattered the door and dragged out the old man Zhang hiding behind it.

She snatched up old man Zhang by the neck, the grey smoke surrounding her surging in mighty waves, wrapping her entire person within them.

“The monsters you speak of, did they look like this?”

Her ice-cold voice pierced through the grey fog. When her words fell upon old man Zhang’s ears, they were as horrible as the roars of those monsters, and he could not resist trembling in fright. His body sank down like a steel weight, and if Ning Guang had not been holding him up by the neck, he would have sat right down onto the floor.

“Go away! Go away! Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I didn’t mean to offend you, I didn’t want treasure, I just wanted to save my grandson!” He shook violently, his loose hair waving in a cloud with his trembles.

Hearing this, a thought suddenly came to Di Jiufeng’s mind.

She hurriedly grabbed Ning Guang’s arm and had her put old man Zhang down.

“Ning Guang, those monsters he speaks of…”

“Must be people who cultivate the demonic path like me.”

Like she had thought of something, Ning Guang hurriedly interrupted Di Jiufeng. Her voice carried a hint of bewilderment, difficult to detect. “They cultivated the demonic path in life, so after they died, it was easy for resentful spirits to possess their bodies. Malicious ghosts like to consume life energy, so they only attack living people. A-Feng, Gui Hun island is too dangerous, why don’t you stay here. I can take Qing Yu.”

But Di Jiufeng shook her head. A thought still lingered in her mind, so she had not yet discovered Ning Guang’s abnormal behavior. “No, I think it’s not as simple as possession by resentful spirits. Let’s go together, I want to take a look.”

As Ning Guang’s demonic cultivation grew by the day, the ancient witch’s power would also be slowly roused into motion.

The lost treasure lands was the place where Ning Guang had discovered her identity as the ancient witch. Because it was too sudden, she was not able to cover it up properly, so when her spiritual body appeared, everyone was shocked. Ning Guang was discovered as the reincarnation of the ancient witch, and after that the relentless pursuit was like a maggot in the foot and the attempts to kill her never ended. Even when she was on the way to recovering her original body, countless people had placed obstacles in her path, attempting to smother her before she could spread her wings.

A dark sky with no sun was not even an adequate description for those experiences. Di Jiufeng did not want them to happen again.

She thought of old man Zhang’s words again––if she had not guessed wrong, this trip to Gui Hun island would be an excellent opportunity to avoid disaster.

“Elder, do not panic, she is not one of those monsters, she will not kill you.” Di Jiufeng walked over and softened her voice, carefully placating him until old man Zhang stopped trembling. Di Jiufeng continued, “Elder, can you think again, those monsters you encountered that day, were they all very tall, and did they have six fingers on their left hands?”

Old man Zhang panted, and sucked violently on his pipe. When the roiling smoke poured into his lungs, he finally managed to get a hold of the fear in his heart.

Old man Zhang sat stunned on the floor, his brows knit together. “I went at night, it was too dark, and I could only see clumps and clumps of dense fog. They truly were very tall, probably around two meters, but as for the left hands, I did not see. They were too fast, I got half my head torn off as soon as I stepped foot on shore.

Old man Zhang was very afraid, so afraid that his body would shake with the mere mention of Gui Hun island.

But he was willing to take Ning Guang and Di Jiufeng there, not for anything else, but just to recover his grandson’s body. It had been over ten years, and his flesh should have turned to ash, his bones might even be gone, but old man Zhang wanted to go look. Because he still felt guilt, ashamed that he had only fled and watched his grandson be torn apart before his eyes.

Old man Zhang agreed to be the navigator, but Ning Guang did not immediately agree.

She pulled Di Jiufeng aside to a secluded place, and pressed Qing Yu to the ground with her foot. She ground down with some force, until all his petals were spread flat, then took Qing Yu back into Shen City.

“Why would you know what the monsters on Gui Hun island look like?”

After Qing Yu had been shut away, Ning Guang reached out to press Di Jiufeng against the wall. “A-Feng, I think you are hiding something from me.”

Di Jiufeng did not resist. She leaned back on the wall and looked at Ning Guang, her eyes gentle. “I am not hiding anything, I just do not know how to explain. As for the monsters on Gui Hun island, it was a guess. Old man Zhang just said that the monsters had demonic energy, and Gui Hun island is located on the North Sea. Ning Guang, there’s a legend in the North Sea, have you read the Shenzhou Records? Do you know the legend about the North Sea?

Notes:

This chapter was translated by Lily.
The best feng shui direction for a front door is towards the South or East, facing the North is often a bad direction. The seating direction can be the direction of any back or side doors, I found less conclusive info about that, but I’m guessing West is a bad direction for a back door.
赶尸, or “corpse herding”, is a tradition of the Miao ethnic group in China, one of the three major witchcraft techniques of the Xiangxi region. It involved returning corpses to their hometowns so their spirits could be properly put to rest. This article talks about it more if you are interested: https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2014/05/the-real-walking-dead/