Volume Two: The Human Realm Chapter Fifty-Five: Numbers Out of Place

The ghost vanished.

After Sword Nine captured it into his spatial artifact, the ghost that had been trapped within the sword formation disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only the tattered corpse of a mountain goat. The specter’s aura had completely dissipated.

Everyone gazed at the mountain goat’s body, now returned to the scene, and in the hush that followed, a deep despair settled in.

What more could they possibly do...

The first plan had proven that a hidden ghost could not be harmed by mortal means.

As for the second plan...

“What did you see at the end?” Sword Nine turned to look at Ye Mingke, whose face was ashen.

“What I saw was a curtain of darkness. The moment you sealed the ghost into the spatial artifact, I saw that darkness scatter. Then I saw nothing at all, knew nothing at all,” Ye Mingke replied, his eyes filled with the same confusion and disappointment.

The second plan had revealed that the ghost could not be sealed away; once sealed, the ghost would simply reset itself.

“Nothing at all?”

Upon hearing this, Ying Kui erupted in fury. In a flash, he seized Ye Mingke by the throat, slamming him against the trunk of a tree with a thunderous crash that sent leaves fluttering down like butterflies.

“Nothing at all? There were two ghosts—are you blind? You didn’t see the ghost vanish? What right do you have to live?”

“Nothing at all? Do you realize those two schemes didn’t kill the ghost, but cost my brother his life!”

Ying Kui’s eyes were bloodshot with grief, rage, and madness as he glared at Ye Mingke.

Ye Mingke struggled for breath as those iron-like hands tightened around his throat. Blood welled at the corner of his mouth, his pale face half-shrouded by tangled hair, wearing a mocking smile and a gaze tinged with pity.

“You deserve to die!”

Ying Kui was unmoved by Ye Mingke’s scorn, but that look of pity was unbearable. His crimson eyes slid away, his grip tightening further.

“Ying Kui, enough,” Sword Nine’s voice cut sharply from the side.

But Ying Kui gave no sign of hearing.

“I was the one who proposed those two plans. If there’s blame to be assigned for Mingqing’s death, it should fall on me,” Sword Nine’s voice was no longer calm, but laced with grief and violence.

Ying Kui’s grip faltered for a moment, and at that instant, a slender hand shot out beside him, knocking his arm away and pushing him back two steps.

“That’s enough. You share in the blame for Mingqing’s death too.” Song Mingyu’s pretty face still bore the tracks of tears. She lifted her chin, teary eyes glaring at Ying Kui as he staggered back, her smile laced with hatred.

“It should have been you, not Mingqing, who died, shouldn’t it?”

“Why was it him and not you? You ruin everything, you lunatic!”

“A madman who only ever gets his friends killed!”

“No wonder your own clan and sect don’t want to acknowledge you!”

Her words grew louder, each syllable a blade, her hateful smile a dagger, as if she meant to stab all her grief into someone else.

“Enough!” Sword Nine stepped forward and grabbed Song Mingyu.

With a dull slap, Ying Kui took another step back, his face rapidly turning ashen, and stood silent.

Ye Mingke slumped against the tree, wracked with coughs, his hands braced on the ground, struggling to breathe, a mocking smile on his lips, pitying gaze sweeping over the mortals and so-called immortals present.

Fang Wu curled up again, muttering, “Don’t kill me.” Bamboo Pole and Zhao Yuan stood motionless, faces dark, while Old Liu could only cover his mouth and lower his head. Li Han’s shoulders were hunched, his expression locked in sorrow.

And as for the so-called immortals—the girl vented her pain by lashing out at the last of her companions. Ying Kui did nothing but blame others and flee from his torment. The supposedly steady leader, Li Guifan, ignored the team’s infighting, sitting alone and vacant upon a rock, his eyes clouded and dark.

Only Sword Nine remained, clumsily trying to use a social grace he was ill-suited for, attempting to keep the team from falling apart.

“With the Spiritual Awakening Talisman, we can at least survive one more time.”

Sword Nine offered comfort to his companions, but his words rang hollow. He was the only one speaking; everyone else was silent as the grave.

Despair had come so swiftly—was there truly nothing else to do but despair?

Perhaps not. Ye Mingke chuckled at himself, raising his head with effort from where his hands pressed against the soil, and addressed Sword Nine in a strained voice.

“Count.”

His throat was thick with the metallic taste of blood; his voice was hoarse and low, but clear in its intent.

Sword Nine understood, and his gaze grew complicated as he met Ye Mingke’s eyes.

“Forty-nine,” he answered softly.

One, seven, nine, seventy-seven, twenty, twenty-seven, thirty-nine.

Ye Mingke struggled upright, picked up a twig, and scratched those seven numbers into the earth, then added a new one.

“Forty-nine.”

He began calculating once more. He did not know how else to fight the ghost, only that he should still try to do the right thing.

The air remained thick with desperate silence, the occasional outburst heavy with a tension on the verge of explosion.

Time slipped by amidst this silence, agitation, oppression, and despair. Night fell once again.

“What more can we do?”

“Is there any other plan?”

Li Guifan turned to Sword Nine, hope flickering faintly in his eyes.

Sword Nine, wrenching his gaze from the tangled array of symbols before him, pressed his brow. The numbers still yielded no pattern, no thread to follow.

And even if a pattern was found, would it truly allow them to escape the ghost’s hunt?

He glanced at Ye Mingke, still hunched over his calculations, a bitter, self-mocking look in his eyes.

“I haven’t thought of anything yet,” Sword Nine shook his head.

“Should we leave now, then?” Li Guifan’s voice was stripped of its usual composure, edged with panic.

“Leave? Where to?” Sword Nine tilted his head to look at him.

“Out of the Sea of Mists!” Li Guifan lowered his voice.

“We’ve been wandering for days and never found a way out. The ghost could appear at any moment. If it grows stronger with every rebirth, we may not last a day. The odds of escaping are slim.”

Sword Nine shook his head.

“We should focus on restoring our spiritual energy, so that next time the ghost appears, we might not need the Spiritual Awakening Talisman. That way, we could survive one more attack. A little more time.”

“Yes, you’re right. There’s just not enough time,” Li Guifan murmured, his face buried in firelight’s shadow, eyes reflecting the flames in a complex gleam.

“If only time were longer, there’d be a sliver of hope,” he said, dazed.

By now, over two hours had passed since the ghost last appeared.

Li Guifan told Sword Nine he would catch a few more wild beasts to confuse the ghost’s choice of host, then walked into the forest.

After a while, he returned with a deer, laying it beside the fire. He glanced at Ye Mingke, still absorbed in his calculations, and Sword Nine, cold-faced and pensive, then left again without a word.

Later, he returned with a wild goat and placed it by the fire, turning as before and disappearing into the forest.

Ye Mingke stared intently at the tangled array of glyphs before him, summarizing the ghost’s behavior and the taboos for dealing with it.

One, three, seven, nine, seventy-seven, twenty, twenty-seven, thirty-nine, forty-nine.

The ghost first possesses the weakest person.

Its possession cannot be reversed.

It must not be allowed to escape.

It cannot be completely destroyed.

It cannot be restrained.

It cannot be sealed within a spatial artifact.

With every resurrection, it grows stronger.

What secret lay hidden in these numbers? What pattern lay behind the ghost’s incomprehensible actions?

Why did no line of reasoning hold? Why did no algorithm apply?

Could there truly exist something in this world that defied all calculation?

“There is nothing in the world without order; all things move along unseen tracks.”

“All things contain their own path. This is the lifelong faith of every Celestial Calculator.”

Staring at the chaotic formulas, Ye Mingke seemed to hear Aunt Long’s voice again, as if she were beside him, guiding his hand through a complex game of chess to uncover the core number.

Her hands were warm, her clear voice firm.

“All is number; all can be calculated. If one day you find you cannot calculate something, do not first suspect that it cannot be reduced to numbers, but doubt first whether you have the right numbers.”

His gaze sharpened on the eight initial numbers before him.

Sword Nine had provided them all.

Sword Nine possessed a sword-heart of clarity and was skilled in numerology; it was unlikely he had erred in the values.

If a number is not wrong in itself, what could be wrong?

All things are connected. If something is amiss and you are not mistaken, perhaps the world itself is at fault. If a number is not incorrect by itself, perhaps another related number is wrong.

But all things are relative. If every other number connected to one is wrong, perhaps it is that this number itself is misplaced—it should not be where it is.

Ye Mingke’s gaze settled on the largest of the eight starting numbers—“seventy-seven.”

All the other numbers represented the ghost’s power after resurrection, except this “seventy-seven,” which was the data from the ghost that had escaped and then been destroyed.

Of course, this number was different. But Sword Nine had included it for a reason: usually, the ghost was destroyed soon after appearing, so its power did not change much. Adding or removing this number and the one before it would yield the ghost’s power at the moment of destruction.

But what was the point of knowing the ghost’s power at death?

It related to a suspicion he’d long held: the ghost’s strength seemed tied to the amount of spiritual power they expended to destroy it.

The more power they used, the stronger the ghost became next time. They would then have to expend even more energy to destroy the stronger ghost, only to face an even mightier adversary each time after. In the end, they would be trapped in a cycle where the ghost grew ever stronger until it became unstoppable, slaughtering them all.

But this theory was blocked by the “seventy-seven.” They had killed a ghost with power at seventy-seven, but the next time, the ghost’s power was only “twenty.”

If “seventy-seven” was wrong, then where was the error?

Suddenly, two seemingly insignificant sentences that Li Guifan had once spoken came to mind.

“The Spiritual Awakening Talisman is an extremely rare charm bestowed by the sect for disciples’ protection. It does not require spiritual power to activate; you need only trigger the mental imprint upon it. Its force is tremendous.”

“Other than Junior Brother Sword Nine, who has one, only I have one left.”

No spiritual power required? The Spiritual Awakening Talisman?