Chapter Thirty-Nine: No Nonsense

Huff... huff... huff...

Cars raced across the bridge above Chen Jin’s head, but none seemed to notice the two electric scooters parked where he and his companion stood. There was not a single sound of brakes.

“You must die!” The man in black spoke, his voice like a wailing ghost.

“You talk too much.” Chen Jin, having sent his message, wasted no more words.

He charged straight at the man in black.

Iron Body!

Chen Jin cast a spell upon himself, enveloping his whole body in a thin, transparent membrane, as if covered in a layer of iron. The membrane did not hinder his movements in the slightest.

Boom...

An explosion erupted, and a mass of green, viscous fire surged up from beneath Chen Jin's running feet. The stickiness was excessive—his feet were glued fast. The Iron Body spell proved utterly useless against it; a sharp, piercing pain shot up from his soles, flooding his mind.

The green fire went straight through the membrane and Chen Jin’s shoes, burrowing into his body.

“I’ll keep talking,” the man in black replied.

In this world, there were never fools, and this man was no fool either.

“You will die by its hand.” He raised his finger, pointing upward toward the underside of the bridge.

Chen Jin didn’t look up. His focus remained solely on his opponent.

Thud...

Something heavy and hard struck Chen Jin’s forehead—no, another followed, again aimed at his head.

It was the two electric scooters belonging to Chen Jin and Lin Qing.

But Chen Jin was unharmed; the Iron Body spell rendered him immune to such casual attacks.

What truly worried him was the green fire beneath his feet, its broccoli-like flames causing pain so intense it felt as though nails were driven into his heart.

Worse still, it wasn’t a one-off blow; it hammered at him relentlessly, each strike pounding with a rhythmic force.

“Remarkable—you’re not dead. Seems you’re no novice,” the man in black observed with surprise.

He had evidently assumed Chen Jin was a newcomer to cultivation and attacked in such a simple manner. Yet Chen Jin remained standing, prompting a hint of suspicion—and, perhaps, a touch of excitement—in his tone.

This one's a lunatic, Chen Jin thought.

“How about this?” The man in black formed an orchid seal with his fingers and pushed it toward Chen Jin from afar.

Whoosh...

The flames beneath Chen Jin’s feet surged higher, no longer just binding his legs but spreading over his entire body.

“Damn you!” Chen Jin cursed, and a streak of light shot from his palm.

In a blink, it pierced the man in black’s throat, returned without a drop of blood to Chen Jin’s hand.

The man in black clutched his neck and collapsed.

The green fire slowly extinguished from Chen Jin’s body.

The tide of battle turned in an instant, all within a single curse from Chen Jin.

His face pale, Chen Jin shook out his legs and rubbed his chest, relaxing the burned, aching muscles, then slowly approached his fallen foe.

As he walked, he summoned the streak of light to hover beside him—a handleless sword blade, the Tiger Fang flying sword.

He advanced with Tiger Fang in front, its point aimed at the man in black.

The man in black twitched on the ground; the black cloth at his throat was soaked in blood, stained a deep purple-black.

Chen Jin looked on, feeling neither pity nor sympathy—only madness, and a touch of stupidity.

The flying sword sliced through the man’s body again, cutting away the cloth over his head.

With a snap, the elastic black garment burst open, revealing the face beneath.

It was a youth, his appearance vaguely familiar to Chen Jin.

“You must be surnamed Huang, too,” Chen Jin said.

Chen Jin could already imagine a melodramatic story unfolding.

The man in black said nothing, only coughed blood and convulsed.

The previous strike seemed to have severed his carotid artery.

Blood pooled around him, a wide stain—survival was unlikely.

“I... lived... longer... than him!” The man in black uttered his final words, weak but filled with wild frenzy.

In Chen Jin’s eyes, black and white mist began to pour from the convulsing man’s body—black from his head, white from his limbs, chest, and abdomen.

These vapors coalesced into a ghostly soul: three souls at the crown, seven spirits in the organs and limbs, forming a ghost, the origin of the Yin spirit. Ancient cultivation up to the Soul Gathering stage meant uniting soul and spirit into a Yin god.

A ghost’s presence in the mortal world was limited, generally seven days, at most forty-nine days before descending to the underworld. If the soul was not strong enough, it would dissolve into nature; if strong, it could become a ghost—either evil or divine. Cultivators who died and became ghosts were usually powerful, traditionally captured directly by underworld officers. Ordinary ghosts would be gradually pulled down by the underworld’s gravity.

Whether the underworld existed in modern times was unclear, but as the man in black was a cultivator, he would certainly linger in the mortal world.

Chen Jin had no means to deal with a ghost—not yet, at least.

It wasn’t as simple as drawing a talisman, using boy’s urine, or tongue blood; these could only harm ghosts who had absorbed foul energy, since these items were of yang nature and foul energy was yin, belonging to the human realm. Ghosts themselves did not count as human realm entities—they belonged to the underworld, another dimension. Foul energy, however, could be absorbed by ghosts; once absorbed, the ghost became a human realm entity, susceptible to yang harm.

That was Chen Jin’s understanding, based on ancient texts in Xinyang’s memories, which he had translated and adapted to modern terms.

Thus, without foul energy, the ghost of the man in black was beyond Chen Jin’s reach, and likewise, it could not harm him. Perhaps it could not even perceive Chen Jin—or rather, its soul was strong enough to see him, but powerless to affect him.

Nonetheless, Chen Jin had committed murder, in the modern day.

But he felt no panic. He surveyed his surroundings—the city’s outskirts, fields on all sides, no cameras, and at dusk, darkness nearly complete, no one in sight. Chen Jin decided to dispose of the body.

Of course, he would not leave it here.

He had also sent his location to the group chat.

If someone arrived and found he had killed the man in black, his days of playing the fool would be over.

So Chen Jin first disabled real-time location sharing, then stripped the man in black, hoisted his body, and made his way toward Baibu Creek nearby.

...