Forbidden to Capture Rare Cute Ghosts - Chapter 3

Just a moment ago, Nan Deng took a thorough look around the brightly lit living room.

The living room was clean, devoid of gossip compasses or anything related to demon expulsion.

Before the amusement park was wiped out, Nan Deng had once heard from other ghosts that nowadays, everyone was on high alert, and it was easy to be chased out once you entered a home.

The inhabitants of this house seemed to be new, with charms adhered only outside the door.

Nan Deng thought to himself that he was rather lucky.

Had it not been for last night’s incident, he might not have been so desperate in finding a target.

He was uncertain whether the rabbit head could consume life spirit, if it couldn’t, he would let the ghost of the fog absorb the food he ate once he returned to the underground.

Though the rabbit head couldn’t speak, it had accompanied him for a long time in the tower. Nan Deng didn’t want it to be eaten.

The black cat was still lying on the ground, meowing softly once.

Nan Deng blended with it incognito, moving so naturally that any ordinary person would not have noticed anything odd.

However, the faint black aura emanating from the black cat would be hard to miss in Lian Yi’s eyes, even if it was elusive.

Lian Yi stood with his eyes downcast, his gray, deviant eyes fixed on the black cat at his feet.

It had been a long time since he had seen a ghost foolish enough to court death.

As for the rabbit head that looked like a toy, Lian Yi paid it no mind.

All kinds of strange, deformed resentful spirits were constantly surfacing, some even had eight legs.

At this moment, Nan Deng realized that he’d been waiting for a while.

What’s going on? This man didn’t see the black cat? The cat had even meowed.

The black cat was just the size of two palms. Lying on the ground, the man’s look was mostly hidden under the dim corridor light and his expressions were hard to make out.

Nan Deng simply rose to his feet, planning to actively nuzzle this man’s trouser leg.

No sooner than he took a step, his body was suddenly launched into the air.

Caught off guard, in his panic, Nan Deng lost control, and his ghostly form disengaged from the black cat.

The charm on the door remained. The entire house repelled ghostly beings, and Nan Deng was instantly ejected. The rabbit head that he brought along was unable to continue staying and was forced to leave with him.

The black cat regained its freedom, reacting swiftly. With its hind legs, it pushed off the wall, landed steadily, and hissed at Lian Yi, its fur standing on end. Then, it quickly leaped onto the window where Nan Deng had entered and left too.

Lian Yi’s expression remained cold and indifferent, without the slightest emotional fluctuation.

Silently, he walked to the window. Under the night sky, the black cat from earlier was spinning around in the open area, as though there was something invisible there.

From a distance, Lian Yi couldn’t see the appearance of this ghost-like figure.

Judging by its aura, it was probably a spirit below the second level, so weak that it didn’t need to be deliberately captured. Maybe after a period of time, it would simply vanish somewhere in a corner.

He withdrew his gaze, closing the window tightly.

Outside, Nan Deng heard the window closing and hurriedly hid away with the rabbit head.

He thought he had been discovered, and anxiously waited for a long time, until the house’s lights went out.

If he had been discovered, would it really be… so calm?

Perhaps, his inability to possess earlier was due to the black cat’s rejection, or maybe his power wasn’t strong enough to maintain it for long.

Nan Deng sighed quietly, leaning against the corner of the wall. “Let’s try again tomorrow.”

The black cat had left without a trace, and the area was still very quiet, with no other people or ghosts appearing.

Nan Deng found an abandoned metal barrel. It was quite clean inside, so he moved it with great difficulty to a shaded corner and crawled inside.

With the cover above his head, the sunlight during the day wouldn’t reach him. Although it wasn’t as good as an amusement park, it would do as a temporary dwelling.

In the dark, Nan Deng took a few leaves from his pocket and fed them to the rabbit head.

The rabbit’s head drooped its ears, looking more spirited than it had been earlier in the night.

It was just a head with a mouth that seemed to be connected to an insatiable abyss, as the leaves it ate seemed to disappear without a trace.

After feeding the rabbit head, Nan Deng waited until daybreak, then curled up in the metal barrel to sleep.

……………………….

During the daytime, the streets and squares finally became lively.

The number of residents increased, occasionally with people in celestial master uniforms passing by. They were responsible for patrolling during the day.

Recently, the ghost troubles in this region have become too severe. The Celestial Master inner court had opened two talisman shops in the city center, distributing tools and medicine for exorcising ghosts for free.

In the resting room on the second floor of one of the shops, Lin Jiu reported the recent situation to the communicator on the other end.

The wooden communicator was palm-sized, and installed with special material inside for secure communication among celestial masters, providing a higher level of security than ordinary devices.

On the screen, there was an elder, about sixty years old, speaking.

He asked, “You’re saying Lian Yi is here too?”

Lin Jiu answered, “That’s correct. He should still be in the area.”

His rank was not high enough to casually probe Lian Yi’s whereabouts and intentions for coming here unless Lian Yi sought him out.

The elder asked again, “Is he alone?”

“Yes.”

“Zhuo Qing, the elder, went with him to Xiang Nan, and there has been no news since. Yet Lian Yi returned on his own?”

The elder furrowed his brows. “Have someone to keep an eye on him, but don’t stir up any trouble.”

Zhuo Qing was Lian Yi’s teacher, and the relationship between the two had been in a cold snap for years, which was no secret.

However, if something happened to Zhuo Qing, his soul should automatically return to the inner court for refinement… unless his soul met some unexpected fate too.

Lin Jiu respectfully acknowledged, “Understood.”

“Be extra careful on your end since the regional Earth Spirit has died. Report immediately if there’s any situation.”

“Understood.”

“Have there been any traces of the Ghost King that escaped from the Tower of Living Beings?”

“No, we are still searching. It might have gone to another place.”

“… Apart from the Ghost God, have there been any signs of the other two gods?”

“No.”

On the first floor of the talisman shop, the apprentice responsible for reception saw off the customers, and then resumed studying his notes.

He flipped to a page and sketched a few strokes below the empty space, making it look like a door.

A few lines of text were written at the top of that page.

Ghost God: The Underworld, represented as a door form.

Mountain God: Various theories, very mysterious.

Chaos God: Its name is Hui Shou, and it resembles an exceedingly ugly wild beast, with three red eyes. It’s often mistaken for a ghost.

These three Gods attract each other and may appear together.

The apprentice sketched the door from his memory, but after a few glances, he felt inexplicably nervous and ripped off half the page to discard it.

It wasn’t until nighttime that the Celestial Master in charge of the night shift began to take over.

The residents hurried home, and the streets began to empty.

Several teams along the roads leading out from the city center used compasses to search for abnormalities, especially in dark neglected corners.

When they approached the outskirts, one patrol team completed their mission and prepared to return.

Someone in the team looked into the distance, hesitating to ask, “Are we not going over there?”

“No one lives there anymore,” the team leader replied, pausing before adding, “Although, Chief Lian seems to have moved there temporarily for a few days.”

They had no idea why Lian Yi came here. Without a specific task at hand, the movements of the Chief Celestial Master were not restricted.

The one who asked the question fell silent again, whispering only after they had passed through the street, “If another Chief Celestial Master had come… it would have been better.”

With a Chief Celestial Master present, it was as if they had a reassurance pill. In any situation, they could ask for help.

However, Lian Yi was different from other Celestial Masters.

Or to say, he was different from normal humans.

Born with a fatal body, even if he lives peacefully to his natural end, his death will turn him into a fierce ghost with an incredibly strong vengeful aura, repelling human souls.

Yet at the same time, souls carrying a fatal aura are a ghost’s favorite food. Most won’t live past ten years old, but Lian Yi was an exception.

However, he was nurtured by the vengeful aura, which also influenced his temperament.

This uncontrollably extreme existence somehow became a Celestial Master.

………………………….

On the outskirts of the city, a single-story house was brightly lit, standing out in the pitch-black night.

Lian Yi was sitting on the study room sofa, rolling up his right sleeve to reveal a bloody gauze.

He unwrapped the gauze to find a deep wound on his right arm, one that was so deep you could see the bone. Blood continually seeped out, and it wouldn’t heal normally.

Lian Yi picked up a bottle of medication powder from the tea table and sprinkled it on the wound before rewrapping it with fresh gauze.

His expression remained calm, as if he couldn’t feel the slightest bit of pain.

“Why haven’t you died yet?”

On the tea table was also a square glass bottle sealed with a talisman. Inside, a shapeless black entity was held captive.

“How long do you think you can hide your atrocious misdeeds?” The black entity in the glass bottle spoke, “I advise you to kill yourself sooner. Maybe there’s still a slither of a chance.”

The voice belonged to a man in his forties or fifties, a voice that intermittently spewed out numerous curses.

Lian Yi seemed not to hear, only lifting his gaze after he finished re-bandaging his wound. The black entity immediately let out a miserable scream.

The screams that penetrated the sealed glass bottle sounded even more desolate and despairing.

Silence descended in the glass bottle a few minutes later.

Lian Yi said indifferently, “Don’t worry, you won’t die yet.”

The death of a ghost meant the utterly complete dispersion, leaving no remaining traces.

The black entity no longer had the strength to speak, curling up and occasionally trembling.

Just then, a faint strange noise came from the kitchen.

Lian Yi put away the glass bottle and opened the room door.

At the same time, Nan Deng was tip-toeing to peek into the kitchen, with Rabbit Head squatting on top of his head.

He came again tonight, but unfortunately, didn’t find the little black cat. Soon after, he noticed that the window in the kitchen was left open as smoke wafted out.

Nan Deng squinted for a good while. He heard the sound of pots and flames, but saw no human figure.

Just when he found it peculiar, he saw a tiny paper figure the size of a palm, dragging an eggplant twice its size and walking by.

Nan Deng widened his eyes, giving a surprised “Huh” sound.

The little paper figure seemed to have heard his voice, paused its steps, and twisted its head to look over.

After a few seconds, the little paper figure set down the eggplant and ran over to observe closely.

The face of the little paper figure had no eyes, but Nan Deng could faintly feel its gaze.

As the paper and the ghost locked eyes, the little paper figure realized Nan Deng was a ghost and screamed out in fright.

Its voice was soft, but it still startled Nan Deng under the southern lantern.

A gust of wind happened to blow in, causing the little paper figure by the window to sway a few times.

Rabbit Head bounced up, opened its mouth, and chomped down on the little paper figure, crunching as it ate.

A commotion rose from within the kitchen, and Nan Deng quickly escaped with Rabbit Head.

As he held Rabbit Head in his arms, he fretted, “Xiao Tu, did you eat it?”

The mark on Rabbit Head’s ear was still there, and it once again ate something strange and peculiar.

Nan Deng held it in his hand as it licked its lips.

This reaction seemed to indicate… it was delicious.

Translator Footnotes:

羅盤 (luópán): It translates to ‘Compass’. The ‘gossip compasses’ mentioned in the text refer to the Luo Pan, a Chinese magnetic compass, traditionally used in feng shui.

生魂 (shēng hún): This term refers to the ‘life spirit’, a very important concept in Chinese traditional culture. It is often associated with the vital energy or spirit of a living person.

異瞳 (yì tóng): It translates to ‘deviant eyes’. This is often used to describe eyes that are not normal in terms of their color, shape, or other features, usually indicating unique or special abilities.

扭扭捏捏 (niǔniǔniēniē): It literally translates to ‘twist and pinch’. In the context, it means ‘awkwardly’ or ‘bashfully’, describing the hesitant movements and expressions. And it’s also a word that I have a hard time pronouncing without laughing, try it, and you’ll understand. Sounds like I’m playing with a kid making funny faces to them ( • )( • ) ԅ(‾⌣‾ԅ)  Sorry, I can’t take this word seriously

地靈 (dì líng): It translates to ‘Earth Spirit’. In Chinese mythology, Earth Spirits are often considered guardians of specific regions, responsible for maintaining the balance and well-being of the area.

業障塔 (yè zhàng tǎ): ‘Tower of Living Beings’, a place or structure where ghosts or spirits are contained or held.

鬼神 (Guǐshén): Ghost God. In Chinese mythology, this might represent the deity of the underworld or associated with the underworld.

山神 (Shānshén): Mountain God. These typically represent deities or spirits governing over mountains and nature in Chinese folklore.

混沌神 (Hùndùn shén): Chaos God, a deity or spirit that represents disorder or unpredictability.

煞體 (Shà tǐ): Fatal body. In Chinese culture, it implies someone born under ill-fated conditions or possessing certain attributes that attract supernatural entities.

連譯 (Liányì): The name of a character in the novel. In Chinese novels, names can sometimes be symbolic; for example, Liányì combines the characters for ‘link/connect’ and ‘translate’ which might rope in aspects of his role or personality within the story.

小紙人 (Xiǎo zhǐrén): Little paper figure. In Chinese folklore, paper figures often represent the spirit or soul of a deceased person used in ceremonial practices.

小兔(Xiǎo Tù): This literally translates to ‘little rabbit,’ but it’s an affectionate nickname Nan Deng has for Rabbit Head – drawing parallels to ‘bunny’ in English. In the context of Chinese culture, it’s common to see diminutive forms being used as terms of endearment, especially towards children or those deemed as cute and endearing.