Charles Gray didn’t know what to say. Carter Shaw spoke up in a low voice: “Heaven’s net is vast, with wide meshes, yet nothing escapes. Don’t worry.”

David Ford kept his head down, staring at the mouth of the small bottle for a long while, then wiped away his tears. “But how did I end up dead? I haven’t lived enough yet.”

“Come on in. Next life, may you be born into a good family.” Carter Shaw was starting to get impatient.

David Ford gave a bitter laugh. “Next life… let’s talk about that next life… Can you pass a message to my parents and my brother?”

Carter Shaw frowned, just about to speak, but Charles Gray quickly took out his notebook and, on David Ford’s page, carefully wrote the words “message” in his childish handwriting. “Go ahead.”

David Ford sniffled and rambled on about all sorts of trivial things. Charles Gray wrote down every single word without missing a thing, then handed it to David Ford to read. The young man, holding his hand, read it out loud word by word, then managed a difficult smile. “Alright, now I can rest easy—well, not that I have a choice. Brother, you’re a good person. Thank you.”

With that, he took a deep breath and dove headfirst into Carter Shaw’s bottle.

Chapter 102: The Soul Suppressing Lantern …

Carter Shaw capped the bottle, stuffed it into his pocket, and called back to Charles Gray, “Let’s go, time to find the next one.”

Charles Gray hurried after him, trotting along. After a few steps, Carter Shaw suddenly said, without looking back, “You did pretty well.”

Charles Gray was the type who would shine with just a little encouragement. Caught off guard by the praise, he was so overjoyed he almost didn’t know what to do, stumbling over his words and nearly forgetting how to say “thank you.”

Just then, a few howls sounded from not far away. Several low-level ghosts lingering in the human world caught the scent of fresh flesh and immediately lunged at them, jaws wide.

Carter Shaw grabbed Charles Gray, pulled him behind, and swept his leg out. With a dull thud, one of the ghostly beasts was kicked square in the chest, stumbling back a few steps and landing on its rear.

Three or four ghosts retreated a few steps, then charged forward together, shoulder to shoulder.

Carter Shaw gave Charles Gray a push on the chest. “Stay back.”

Then he reached for his gun and talisman.

But before the corpse king, who had been playing the good Samaritan for days, could show off his skills, a figure suddenly landed in front of Carter Shaw. It was a young man, holding a sharp spike, almost like a skewer for candied hawthorn. In the blink of an eye, he had strung several low-level ghosts together into a disgusting string of meat.

The young man was rather plain-looking, but his smile was open and sincere. He withdrew his spike, wiped it off to the side, then walked up to Carter Shaw. “Hey, friend, are you alright?”

Carter Shaw was a classic case of late-stage chuunibyou, always keeping a serious and guarded attitude toward strangers. As the man approached, he immediately frowned.

Fortunately, the other man was good at reading faces. Seeing Carter Shaw’s unfriendly expression, he didn’t come any closer, just stopped where he was and smiled amicably. “I’m a rogue cultivator. I thought something was off around here, so I came to check it out. Don’t get the wrong idea, brother.”

Carter Shaw gave a slight nod, maintaining a lofty and aloof demeanor, and didn’t respond. He just turned sideways and called to Charles Gray, “Little Guo, let’s go.”

Charles Gray hurried over, but the young man followed uninvited. Sensing that Carter Shaw was wary and not fond of conversation, he quickly turned his attention to Charles Gray. “What were those monsters just now? Why is there no one around here? What happened?”

Charles Gray wasn’t used to being bombarded with questions—he tended to lose track of the order and get flustered, so he just looked at the man innocently. “I’m not really sure either.”

The young man asked again, “Hey, brother, so what do you guys do?”

Charles Gray replied softly, “Police.”

“Ah! Really?” The young man exclaimed, and naturally started chatting with Charles Gray.

Carter Shaw listened to their conversation but didn’t interfere. Still, he kept his guard up. The young man was indeed a smooth talker; with just a few words, he noticed Charles Gray’s awkwardness with conversation and immediately changed his approach, no longer bombarding him with questions but instead chatting easily about the town, occasionally probing for their background.

As they walked, they collected another six or seven souls into their bottles. The two small bottles quickly filled up, glowing with shifting colors in the night. Carter Shaw placed them side by side in his waist bag and took out an empty one.

The corpse king was extreme and cold by nature, and corpse cultivation was always a path shunned by the world. Carter Shaw prided himself on his aloofness and never cared about merit or virtue.

He always felt that so-called “morality” was just a façade, with hidden currents beneath. The more pure and beautiful something seemed, the darker it might be underneath.

Yet, despite this cynical view, he couldn’t help but tolerate Charles Gray.

Carter Shaw himself couldn’t say whether it was just habit or something else.

In any case, whenever he looked at the soul bottles hanging in his bag, he felt something indescribable. So, while he complained that Charles Gray was “full and bored,” he still silently followed him in the dead of night, collecting scattered souls.

There were quite a few ghosts wandering the town, and the strange young man kept helping them clear the way. Sometimes, Carter Shaw didn’t even have a chance to act.

The young man was quick and ruthless, which only made Carter Shaw more wary of him. So when the man asked about the Soul Suppressing Order, the corpse king couldn’t help but coldly warn, “Sir, there are some things you shouldn’t ask about. Why go out of your way to make yourself unwelcome?”

Charles Gray, on the other hand, smiled apologetically. “Sorry, my brother Chu is a really good person. He didn’t mean it that way, it’s just that we have rules…”

The young man was taken aback, then nodded amiably. “Ah, haha, it’s fine, I was being nosy. Sorry, brothers, I’m not the scheming type, just straightforward—sometimes I might annoy people… You don’t mind, do you, little brother?”

Charles Gray immediately said, “Of course not! You’ve helped us a lot. When we get back to the county, let us treat you to a meal. You’re a good person.”

The young man nodded in agreement. Just then, as they passed a small shop, the young man was standing sideways to the window, smiling brightly at Charles Gray. Charles Gray happened to glance at the reflection in the glass—

And was stunned to see that the friendly, enthusiastic man’s reflection was a monster he’d never seen before: pitch black all over, its form shifting, sometimes taking the shape of a head. In the window, it was grinning at him with a mouth full of fangs like ancient torture devices.

Before Charles Gray could cry out, the electric baton in his pocket reacted first, sending a shower of sparks at the seemingly kind young man. Carter Shaw turned around in surprise to see Charles Gray standing there, at a loss, while the young man instantly leapt back more than ten meters, landing weightlessly on the roof of a small villa.

Carter Shaw knew the baton wasn’t under Charles Gray’s control—it was a natural reaction to fear. He stuffed the glass bottle in his hand into his bag, narrowed his eyes, and looked up at the man on the roof. “What’s going on?”

The young man on the roof was no longer smiling, looking down coldly at Charles Gray. “Yeah, friend, what’s going on?”

Charles Gray: “He… his… shadow…”

Carter Shaw turned on his flashlight. The young man’s solitary shadow was clearly visible in the beam, but no matter how he looked, nothing seemed amiss. The young man squatted on the roof, letting him shine the light as he pleased, and calmly asked, “What’s wrong with my shadow?”

Carter Shaw glanced at Charles Gray in confusion. Charles Gray was at a loss for words.

The young man shook his head and sighed. “I really can’t catch a break. I helped you all the way, and not only did I not get any thanks, but if I hadn’t dodged just now, would I have died at the hands of this honest-looking little brother?”

Carter Shaw stuck his hands in his pockets and frowned. At that moment, the whistle hanging around his neck suddenly went silent. In the distance, the sound of shuffling footsteps echoed, chilling in the darkness. Goosebumps rose on Charles Gray’s neck. Then came heavy breathing, and after a brief silence, a huge ghost beast’s head suddenly burst from the ground, wedging itself between Carter Shaw and Charles Gray, staring Charles Gray right in the face.

The great seal seemed to be weakening, and the ghosts wandering the human world were drawing ever closer, lured by the scent of fresh flesh. Yet less than fifty kilometers away, in the county town, people remained unaware, their lights still shining bright.