Of course, my biology teacher told me that there is absolutely no way a person could pop out of an asshole! What comes out of an asshole is either gas or waste…
Still, I asked ignorantly, “There has never been a person named Zuo Shan in the Ghost Sect. So, Uncle Zuo Shan, did you pop out of an asshole?”
“Hmph!”
Zuo Shan cursed, “Ye Guyi was blind and heartless—he wronged me! He expelled me from the sect, stripped me of my spiritual power, severed the tendons in my legs, and ruined my right hand so I could never hold the jade ruler or the compass again. I was condemned to never become a feng shui master in this lifetime. He definitely wouldn’t have recorded this. Long Youshui took my rightful place, and out of guilt, he wouldn’t have told you either.”
Only then did I realize Zuo Shan had been expelled from the sect. My grandfather had said that the Ghost Sect demanded kindness in its disciples’ hearts when selecting them.
Ye Guyi must have discovered Zuo Shan was no good and took drastic measures to cripple him.
But cutting the tendons and chopping off three fingers… Ye Guyi’s ruthlessness was something I could never match.
I sighed, “The first principle of the Ghost Sect is upholding heavenly justice and righteousness. You couldn’t hide your wickedness, and that alone disqualified you from leading the sect. All your words are just nonsense. Moreover, a master disciplining his disciple is perfectly justified. But you—you slander the Ghost Sect, curse your master—that’s disloyalty and unfiliality. As a senior, you plotted against your junior, showing no care for your kin—that’s inhumanity. You murdered an innocent shaman, treating lives like weeds, defying basic morality—that’s unrighteousness. A traitor like you, so disloyal, unfilial, inhuman, and unrighteous, should grovel before me, the Ghost Sect’s leader, and repent sincerely. Perhaps then I might consider taking you back…”
Zuo Shan’s face twisted in rage. Two spiders dropped from the eaves, darting straight for my face.
Zuo Shan roared, “You came alone, with no one to save you. Hand over the jade ruler and the manual, and I’ll grant you a whole corpse.”
I shot back, “An expelled disciple of the Ghost Sect, still unrepentant. Do you think our founder, Dong Lingzi, would spare you?”
I glared at Zuo Shan with furious eyes. It was only later that I learned the full story of Ye Guyi and his two disciples, Zuo Shan and Long Youshui, so I’ll digress briefly here.
In 1937, amid wartime chaos, Ye Guyi adopted the orphan Zuo Shan and taught him the Ghost Sect’s arts, intending him as his successor.
In 1957, Ye Guyi crippled the twenty-year-old Zuo Shan, severing his leg tendons and three fingers. Three years later, the seventy-year-old Ye Guyi passed the mantle to Long Youshui, whose fate lacked the water element. Zuo Shan vanished from the Central Plains. My grandfather assumed Zuo Shan was dead and never spoke of him—after all, Zuo Shan was a stain on the Ghost Sect’s legacy.
After his crippling, Zuo Shan endured immense suffering. His mobility impaired, he drifted from city to city, often bullied, until he reached the Yunnan-Guizhou region. There, a bug master surnamed Ruan captured him, turning him into a living “medicine base” for raising venomous insects. Subjected to unspeakable torment, he eventually fled to Thailand, where he became a monk and mastered the dark arts of ghost-raising and black magic, rising to prominence.
Despite his fame, he never forgot his abandonment—especially the years under Ruan’s captivity, when he lost his manhood to a monstrous spider, deepening his bitterness and twisted nature. Ironically, this made him a formidable eunuch practitioner, excelling in black magic far faster than ordinary sorcerers.
Most black magic practitioners were infertile.
Zuo Shan blamed my grandfather for all his misfortunes, believing himself the true heir of the Ghost Sect, wronged by Ye Guyi and Long Youshui.
Thus, my words about his disloyalty, unfiliality, inhumanity, and unrighteousness erased any mercy he might have had for me.
The two small spiders lunged, only to be crushed by my jade ruler. Sweat beaded on my forehead. Had the little monk not lied? Did Zuo Shan really command tens of thousands of venomous creatures—ten thousand for cooking, ten thousand for sleeping…?
At the mention of Dong Lingzi, Zuo Shan’s fury dimmed slightly. Suspicious, he eyed me. “Dong Lingzi appeared to you in a dream? You’d better not be lying!”
A flicker of fear crossed his eyes. He vaguely recalled Ye Guyi telling him that if the founder ever visited one’s dreams, it meant the founder deemed them worthy of inheriting the sect.
Yet Zuo Shan had waited a lifetime for such a dream that never came.
I nodded. “Dong Lingzi did visit me. I even burned a paper villa and ten paper women for him.”
Zuo Shan’s rage flared anew. A junior disciple like me, receiving the founder’s blessing? And burning ten women for him? Meanwhile, Zuo Shan had never known a woman’s touch—only the nightmare of spiders descending from cavern walls, his arms chained, screaming as a massive spider bit his manhood, leaving him writhing in agony for ten minutes before passing out.
Outside the cave, four stone statues stood watch, a robed man grinning wickedly, a small snake dangling from his ear…
“Damn it!” Zuo Shan snarled. At that moment, a crimson spider leaped from an oil jar, lunging at me. Behind me, a faint, whimpering cry echoed—Bai Yueming’s voice.
I couldn’t fathom why the mention of ten women had driven Zuo Shan to madness. Was he truly insane?
I would never understand the torment of losing one’s manhood to venom, the seven days and nights of excruciating pain that left scars deeper than flesh.
—
After Ye Guyi crippled him, Zuo Shan, broken and unwilling to face his master, wandered from the Central Plains. Captured multiple times by gangs exploiting the disabled for begging, he was eventually freed when the government cracked down on such practices. Drifting to Yunnan-Guizhou, he fell into the clutches of Ruan, who used him as live bait for venomous insects.
In the pitch-black caves, Zuo Shan endured relentless torture, nearly dying. Yet his will to survive was unshakable. Seizing an opportunity, he drove a sharpened nail through Ruan’s throat, killing him. Fashioning a crutch, he took Ruan’s deadliest spider and fled to Thailand, where an old black magic master took him in. The cruel art suited his nature, and he soon gained renown.
That spider became his infamous crimson horror, ranking third in Thailand’s black magic hierarchy, rivaled only by the royal sorcerer Menglachaweng Jera’s blood flea and the northern shaman A’lang’s two-headed ghost infant.
The crimson spider killed without a trace, its venom unmatched. The blood flea made men flee in terror, while the ghost infant’s evil was unparalleled. The three formed a dark triumvirate in Thailand’s underworld…
Few knew the crimson spider had cost Zuo Shan his manhood.
—
The spider’s attack was blindingly fast. I barely dodged, retreating twice. Against such a foe, only the brain-eating worm stood a chance.
I drew the jade ruler. Under its blue glow, the spider hesitated, sensing Zuo Shan’s fear. Yet its psychic pressure weighed on me like a mountain.
Bai Yueming’s cries grew louder. Realizing I’d been manipulated, my entire journey orchestrated by Zuo Shan, I gritted my teeth. “You set up Bai Yueming and Bai Jingren to lure me here, didn’t you? Quite the elaborate scheme.”
Zuo Shan’s eyes gleamed at the sight of the jade ruler. “Indeed. Once I learned of Long Youshui’s death and your succession, I began plotting. Turning Bai Jingren into a corpse, leading you to Yunnan with Huang’s ghost infant—all to bring you to Thailand. I’m too old to hunt you down myself. Don’t worry, my little pet’s bite will kill you quickly.”
I kept my guard up. “You’ve thought this through.”
Zuo Shan smirked. “And that female ghost leading you here? Perfect.”
I recited a silent incantation, the ruler’s glow intensifying. “So you lured me here, trapped me, then planned to ‘rescue’ me, earning my gratitude so I’d pass the sect to you?”
Zuo Shan nodded. “That was the plan. Now, you’ll learn the spider’s power.”
“But the ghost woman was innocent—why harm her?” I glanced at the spider eyeing my groin.
With a muttered command, the spider lunged again, too fast to evade. It scrambled up my back as I swung the ruler, avoiding my strikes.
Behind me, Bai Yueming’s wails grew desperate—starved not of milk, but blood.
The louder the ghost infant cried, the more frenzied the spider became. Dancing under the blue light, I barely kept it at bay, one hand wielding the ruler, the other guarding my crotch…
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