137: Chapter 137 Paper Soul Substitution Technique

When Ms. Jiang got out of the car, she completely lacked the calm, poised, and daring demeanor she usually displayed in front of the camera.

Her face was as pale as paper, and her wavy curls clung messily to her cheeks.

She was still clutching a young man's arm tightly, almost dragging him halfway into the entrance of the Funeral Shop.

The young man was her personal cameraman, Little Chen.

Little Chen was currently in an extremely terrible state.

His eyes were rolled back, his lips were dark blue, and his entire body was shaking violently as if he had malaria.

A rattling, near-death 'gurgling' sound came from his throat.

“Master Lin! Boss Lin! Help! Please save Little Chen!”

The moment Ms. Jiang rushed into the hall, her legs gave out, and she fell to her knees on the carpet.

Ignoring her dirty clothes, she clung tightly to Lin Ye's thigh, looking up as tears mixed with rainwater poured down, her voice filled with intense fear and hysteria.

Leng Yue frowned slightly and took a step forward, wanting to kick away this woman who dared to touch Lin Ye.

Lin Ye raised his hand to stop Leng Yue, his gaze falling on the cameraman, Little Chen.

“Stop crying first.”

Lin Ye's voice was calm and powerful, instantly soothing Ms. Jiang's panic slightly.

“Pull open his collar.”

With trembling hands, Ms. Jiang unzipped Little Chen's windbreaker, revealing a gray T-shirt soaked in cold sweat.

As Lin Ye walked up to Little Chen, a bone-chilling, sinister coldness instantly rushed over him.

This coldness was different from Frost Star's pure, ultimate ice-cold energy.

It carried an earthy stench and the smell of rotting corpses.

Lin Ye extended two fingers and placed them on the carotid artery on the side of Little Chen's neck.

His pulse was already extremely weak, and every three seconds, there was a bizarre pause, as if something was tightly squeezing the blood flow inside his vessels.

“Fatty, bring me my needle case.”

Lin Ye called out without turning his head.

Two seconds later, Fatty Wang handed a leather needle case into Lin Ye's hand.

Lin Ye pulled out a three-inch-long silver needle and quickly passed it through the flame of the nearby ever-burning lamp.

Then, without hesitation, he pricked it into the Dazhui acupoint on the back of Little Chen's neck.

“Sizzle!”

The moment the silver needle pierced the flesh, it made a sound like water droplets falling into boiling oil.

Little Chen suddenly convulsed, his tightly closed mouth flew open, and he spat out a mouthful of thick, black mucus.

The mucus landed on the clean wooden floor, wriggling twice like a living thing, emitting a pungent, burnt smell like scorched cotton fabric.

Lin Ye quickly pulled out the silver needle.

The originally bright silver needle had now turned pitch-black as ink.

A layer of eerie red powder was also clinging to the tip of the needle.

And at the Dazhui acupoint on the back of Little Chen's neck, as the black blood drained, a mark slowly emerged.

It was a purplish-black handprint.

But under the gaze of Lin Ye's Pure Yang Eyes, that handprint appeared to be pieced together from hundreds of densely packed human teeth marks!

It was as if countless invisible mouths had bitten down hard on his neck at the same time, sucking dry his Yang energy and leaving a sinister curse in this spot.

Ayugu, who had run out of the backyard after catching the scent, changed her expression slightly upon seeing this handprint made of teeth marks.

“It's not a Miao territory gu.”

Ayugu walked in a circle around Little Chen, sniffed her nose, and said with certainty.

“There is no fishy smell of insects. This is an ancient, vicious folk sorcery, somewhat like the Flower-Falling Cave Maiden curse of Western Hunan, but mixed with intense resentment and fire poison.”

“This kid's living soul has been bitten by something, and his shadow is probably incomplete now.”

Lin Ye stood up, wiped the toxic blood off the silver needle with a piece of yellow ritual paper, and looked coldly at Ms. Jiang on the ground.

“Your live stream channel has the Supernatural Signal Radar plugin I gave you, so nothing should have happened in any ordinary place.”

“Speak, Great Streamer Jiang. What haunted place did you take your team to court death in this time just for traffic?”

Ms. Jiang slumped on the floor, panting heavily, her hands tightly wrung together from extreme lingering fear.

She swallowed hard and recounted the events with a trembling voice.

“Last night... last night, a fan was frantically gifting in the stream, offering two hundred thousand yuan to demand that I go to the abandoned Red Star No. 3 Textile Factory on the outskirts of the city for a late-night supernatural exploration.”

Ms. Jiang looked up, her eyes filled with terrifying memories.

“A massive fire broke out in that textile factory thirty years ago. It was said that because the workshop director locked the safety doors from the outside, over a hundred female workers on the night shift were burned alive inside.”

“Since then, that place has been abandoned, and rumors say that the sound of sewing machines running and women crying can always be heard in the middle of the night.”

“I thought it was a good gimmick at the time, so I drove there with Little Chen.”

“We entered the textile workshop on the second floor... There were charred machines and snapped yarn everywhere. Nothing happened at first, until... until Little Chen pointed the camera lens at an unburned, old-fashioned sewing machine in the corner.”

Ms. Jiang's body began to tremble, as if recalling some incomprehensible, terrifying scene.

“That sewing machine... there was clearly no one there, yet the pedal began to pump rapidly on its own.”

“Little Chen wanted to get a close-up shot. Just as he stepped closer, his foot trod on a clump of black material. When I shone my flashlight on it, it was a massive tangle of semi-charred long hair from a woman!”

“Then... then Little Chen seemed to be tripped onto the sewing machine by something, letting out a blood-curdling shriek like a slaughtered pig.”

“I rushed over to pull him away. By the light of the flashlight, I saw... I saw that he had no shadow on the ground at all! His shadow had been stitched tightly to the pedal of that sewing machine with a red cotton thread!”

“I fought with all my might to drag him out of the workshop, abandoning all our equipment, and sped all the way back to the city.”

“But starting this morning, Little Chen became like this. Master Lin, what on earth is that thing? Can he still be saved?”

After listening to Ms. Jiang's account, the entire Funeral Shop hall fell into a brief, dead silence.

Lin Ye stared at the black handprint made of teeth marks on Little Chen's neck.

In his mind, he rapidly flipped through the Primary Talisman Compilation and the worn-out hand-written notes left by his grandfather.

“Shadow locked by thread, soul devoured by teeth.”

Lin Ye's eyes were icy cold as he uttered four words, pausing after each one.

“Paper Doll Soul Substitution Art.”

He turned to look at Fatty Wang, his tone completely devoid of emotion:

“Fatty, draft a contract. S-rank clearance commission for the Red Star Textile Factory on the outskirts of the city.”

“This kid was hit with a rare soul-binding sorcery, and his shadow was left in that haunted place. We must cut his shadow off from that sewing machine before the hour of Zishi tonight. Otherwise, once Zishi passes, the teeth marks on his neck will bite through his windpipe, and not even a Great Golden Immortal would be able to save him.”

“Alright.”

Fatty Wang immediately pulled out a contract with practiced ease and quoted a staggering figure.

“Three million for the basic life-saving fee, and two million for the house call to the haunted site, totaling five million. No credit, and no installments.”

This amount of money was nothing to Ms. Jiang.

Moreover, Little Chen was a veteran who had been with her for three years; if someone actually died, her streaming career would be completely ruined.

Without a second word, she took out her phone and transferred the money directly.

Lin Ye glanced at the transfer notification, pulled an Evil-Suppressing Talisman out of his tactical backpack, and slapped it onto Little Chen's forehead, temporarily suppressing the spread of the curse mark.

“Ayugu, you and Little Chen stay in the shop. Keep an eye on him, and don't let him leave the shop's premises.”

Lin Ye turned around, took the lightning-struck peach wood sword down from the display shelf, and hung it at his waist alongside the soul-suppressing copper coin sword.

The Pure Yang True Qi surged faintly within his body, producing a subtle thundering sound from his bones.