Chapter 16 The Human-headed Capital Spectator, 'Melon Seller' Old Man

"Stripy Tiger, perk up, let's go!"

"The best way to eliminate fear is to face it head-on. Keep it up, give it your all!"

After signalling a thumbs-up to the brindled tiger, Yi Chen squatted down to lift the tiger's nape with one hand and grasped the Dragon-Slaying Sword with the other, then marched straight out of the room.

Fear couldn't solve the crisis; the only option was to fight.

Stepping out of the side chamber and into the main hall, a massive ancestral tablet bearing the character "Offer" caught his eye, with two white candles burning on the altar.

Above the altar were thousands of spirit tablets arranged in rows. The number of tablets increased toward the bottom and decreased toward the top.

The tablets barely bore any names, just portraits of individuals, and the majority of those portraits had turned to gray.

By now, Yi Chen had a hunch that those whose portraits had turned gray probably didn't meet a good end.

Yi Chen looked towards the very top, where a vividly colored Daoist figure was placed, with a smile at the corner of his mouth and bold letters that read "Zhang Ji Shi".

Hisss.

Worthy of being a big shot who dared to suppress evil spirits alone in the Yin Manor, definitely high-profile.

Top of the list, indeed.

Yi Chen gasped in surprise, and regardless of whether the big shot could hear him or not, he hastily bowed to the spirit tablet and said, "Yi Chengzi, junior disciple from Hidden Dragon Temple, pays respect to the senior. If I'm lucky enough to escape today, I will surely return your jade tablet to Dragon Tiger Mountain in person."

….

He waited for a long while, but there was no response.

Regrettably lifting his gaze, Yi Chen realized he still had to rely on himself. He looked at the white ancestral hall in the eerie red mansion, not daring to draw his sword and damage it.

He had a strong intuition that if he acted recklessly, something bad would happen.

Yi Chen had never heard of such a peculiar entity as the Yin Manor in recent years. It could very well be that Daoist Zhang Ji Shi had exhausted his methods to put its master into a dormant state, with only instincts remaining.

If that was the case, acting impulsively might not only undo Daoist Zhang Ji Shi's previous efforts but wake the master of the Yin Manor, leading to a horrific demise for himself.

Frustrating!

He was still not strong enough.

The pride Yi Chen felt from his breakthrough to the sixth level of the Minor Pure Yang Skill vanished instantly as he realized that his current strength was still lacking, quickly disillusioned by the harsh reality.

After waiting a little longer with no signs of any change, Yi Chen gradually lost his patience. He crossed the hall and headed for the side room on the right.

Creeaak.

Using the tiger head of the brindled tiger to push open the vermilion door of the side room, Yi Chen narrowed his eyes at the sight that met him.

At this moment, he felt even more aware of the extraordinariness of the Yin Manor.

As the door opened, it seemed as if the world had changed. Yi Chen found himself on a long street amid dense fog, with hazy silhouettes barely discernible in the murkiness.

Yi Chen stamped his foot forcefully, and a solid sensation came from beneath. This place didn't seem like an illusion; it was as if he had been transported to some mysterious space with a long street.

"Damn, is this an illusion or reality? It's too realistic," Yi Chen muttered as he tentatively continued along the street with the brindled tiger in tow.

Strangely enough, as he walked, the fog on both sides began to dissipate, revealing the surrounding scenery.

A hoarse old voice came from nearby: "Young Daoist, would you like to buy a melon? If you buy one, I'll tell you how to get out of here."

Upon hearing the voice, Yi Chen stopped in his tracks, a glint of joy in his heart. This was the first voice he had heard since entering the Yin Manor, and any change was a good sign.

If he was really trapped in this damned place forever, exchanging blank stares with a dumb tiger every day, that would be too desperate.

Yi Chen believed the dumb tiger probably felt the same way.

Looking in the direction of the voice, Yi Chen saw an old man wearing a tattered straw hat crouching by the roadside, next to a white, worn flag that read "Premium Melons."

The shabby little white flag, likely pilfered from a gravesite, was stained with dirt and yellowed with a foul stench.

In front of the old man's stall lay a pile of human heads arranged like melons...

Fog on the long street reveals an old man, human heads displayed like melons in view.

Having finally found a ghost he could speak with, Yi Chen naturally wouldn't let the opportunity slip by, even though the scene was a bit unsettling.

He walked forward and asked with a smile, "Old man, how much for a melon?"

"Twenty years of your lifespan for one, and I'll tell you how to get out," replied the old man squatting by the roadside, his mouth stretching into a grin that barely revealed three intact teeth.

Yi Chen frowned: "Is your melon peel made of gold, or are the seeds made of gold? Twenty years of lifespan for one; are you trying to rob me?"

Tossing aside the brindled tiger he'd been carrying, he continued, "Old man, see this fierce tiger next to me? It's pure, and it's a male with equipment. How about I trade it for one of your melons? Your teeth are so loose they're about to fall out; it could do with a bit of reinforcement."

"I don't take trash; I want yours," the old man laughed even more presumptuously. As his grinning intensified, his mouth split open down to his neck, revealing two rows of sharp, inverted triangular teeth, and his fingernails started to turn black and grow longer.

"My teeth…"

```

Crack!

The old man's voice came to an abrupt halt.

Yi Chen's fan-like huge hand directly smacked his head into his chest cavity, and he sneered:

"Old guy, what the hell are you laughing at!"

"Has anyone ever told you that your laughter is really unpleasant?"

How could there be a good end to a deal with a ghost? Words from a ghost are all lies, not even the punctuation can be trusted.

Yi Chen never intended to deal with this ghostly thing from the beginning. He even deliberately threw the colorful tiger aside, fearing it would get hurt if the fight started, leaving its fate to chance.

After smacking the old man's head into his chest with one palm, Yi Chen gave a fierce kick towards the 'melon stall', sending heads flying into the sky. He then waved the Dragon-Slaying Sword repeatedly, slashing at the falling heads as if playing Fruit Ninja.

Swish swish swish.

Most of the heads were split into halves by him.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye. The old man's headless body was twitching wildly on the ground. A new head grew from his neck, and the moment it opened its eyes, it saw its stall trashed and was so furious that the yin qi surged all over its body, clearly enraged.

"Taoist, you dare to slash my melons," the old man howled to the sky. Suddenly, the heads scattered on the ground leapt up and attached to the old man's ghostly body, embedding themselves into it, even his chest had two more heads now.

In an instant, the old man turned into a giant deformed monster, chilling to the bone and likely to trigger trypophobia. After the transformation, the yin qi around him intensified. All the heads on his body opened their eyes and bared their fangs, roaring in rage:

"Taoist, I want you dead!!!" His voice was thunderous.

There was a sizzling sound.

The newly grown head on the old man's neck was swept away by a pale purple sword edge, and the good head rolled onto the ground, then was stepped on and exploded into a mist of blood by Yi Chen.

"Old guy, is that all you've got?"

At this moment, Yi Chen wielded the Dragon-Slaying Sword, pale purple Pure Yang Inner Qi ran wildly within him, his muscles bulged, and blue veins emerged on his skin like serpents, showing that he had pushed his Minor Pure Yang Skill's Inner Qi to the limit at the sixth level.

Facing the old man's transformation, Yi Chen did not hesitate to use the active skill derived from breaking through to the sixth level of Pure Yang Skill, Extreme Yang Change, fearing he couldn't overcome him otherwise.

The strike was indeed exceedingly effective. Yi Chen himself possessed extraordinary strength; when it tripled in addition to the sharpness of the Dragon-Slaying Sword, he easily took off another of the old man's heads.

"You're proud of having so many heads, right? Keep growing them, keep going. I love watching," Yi Chen said with a sneer, holding the Dragon-Slaying Sword and stepping towards the old man's ghostly body. The pale purple sword light flickered unpredictably at the tip of the sword, searing the ground to a charred color.

The old man squeezed out two conjoined heads from his neck, which were then effortlessly sliced through by Yi Chen's sword. His neck was now smoking with black smoke from the erosion of Pure Yang Qi, and no new heads were willing to grow anymore.

"Come on then, keep growing. Let's see if your heads grow faster or my sword is quicker." Yi Chen said with a slight smile.

"You... How has your aura suddenly surged? And that sword of yours, damn it..." Seeing this, the old man's expression wildly changed; he was beginning to doubt his ghostly existence.

Although he no longer had heads on his neck, there were plenty more embedded in his body, which did not hinder his sight.

With every step Yi Chen took forward, the old man took a step back.

One step forward, one step back.

"You... don't come any closer... ah"

"I don't sell melons anymore, okay?"

"Don't you want to know how to get out of here?"

At this time, Yi Chen's aura was brutally violent, his body enveloped in pale purple Pure Yang Qi, veins on his neck bulging, nearly two meters tall, he looked more like a demon than a Daoist. He wielded the Dragon-Slaying Sword again, flashing towards the old man's ghostly body and split it into a butchered mess.

Then he stamped heavily on its chest:

"Speak quickly if you're going to speak. My patience is limited," he grunted, indeed, the duration of Extreme Yang Change was only ten minutes...

The old man was trembling with fear, babbling avoidance, and Yi Chen, frowning at the possible scenarios, grew tired of the nonsense. Without hesitation, he struck out like a dragon with his sword, slicing the old man into mincemeat, and the old man dissolved into black smoke and disappeared.

The place was a mess.

The expected message of successfully killing the melon-selling old man did not come, leaving Yi Chen utterly confused, his face drooping like that of a disappointed puppy, clearly unhappy.

The melon-selling old man was spewing nothing but lies, and it was clear he was simply stalling for time. Yi Chen couldn't maintain his state of Extreme Yang Change for long, so his decision was to fight to sustain the fight, to kill outright.

He was just fifty-four points short of breaking through to the seventh level of the Minor Pure Yang Skill. If he could make up this gap by the end of the Extreme Yang Change, he would still have a fighting chance.

On this long street, the fog was thick, and ghosts seemed to lurk everywhere. Who knows what malicious spirits were hidden. Even if the melon-selling old man didn't provide enough Deep Red Points, he could still take two more steps forward and welcome the next victim.

But the plan failed before it even really started.

"Golden Finger failing at a critical moment? Is there a bug?"

Yi Chen sheathed the Dragon-Slaying Sword, looking up at the sky at a 45-degree angle; the sky was misty, with no birds in sight.

The confusion in his eyes lasted less than a second before they became resolute again.

```