Judge of Souls-Chapter 32 - Fifth Night

The white paper faces stuck to the glass fell down piece by piece.

Zhang Yangyang tried to kneel before Jiang Feng again. “Idol, idol, how can you be so charming?!”

Jiang Feng exhaled, put on his coat and said, “Grab a light, let’s go outside and take a look.”

Zhang Yangyang: “……”

Chu Xuanliang grabbed Zhang Yangyang by the collar. “Hurry up and follow.”

Zhang Yangyang wailed. “Big brothers! Is this supposed to be fun?!”

Chu Xuanliang stuffed a calming talisman into his hand. “Take this, don’t be afraid. Stand between us.”

The three of them awkwardly walked out onto the street, only to discover that the night was unusually cold.

Zhang Yangyang sneezed immediately, his breath visible as white mist.

“What place is this exactly? Do you feel cold? If the wind is strong…” Zhang Yangyang said, “Hey, is there no wind here?”

“It’s a bit like the Yellow Springs Road,” Chu Xuanliang said, “Shh!”

A truck slowly approached from the end of the road. The three stood in the shadows of an alley entrance, concealing themselves.

Zhang Yangyang pointed ahead and whispered. “Yesterday there was this same truck, it drove to that streetlight… and then flipped over.”

Just as he said this, the truck drove to the third streetlight ahead and flipped over again.

The cargo from the back of the truck tumbled down with a tremendous crash. Zhang Yangyang immediately hugged Chu Xuanliang.

Jiang Feng, who was closer, could see clearly. He said, “He hit something.”

Chu Xuanliang quickly asked, “What thing?”

Jiang Feng: “I don’t know.”

Zhang Yangyang became even more frightened and tried to hang himself on Chu Xuanliang.

Chu Xuanliang: “……”

Chu Xuanliang sighed helplessly. “Be a man……”

“I’m not anymore,” Zhang Yangyang said cowardly, “Let me be your sweetheart!”

Chu Xuanliang: “……”

What kind of person is this!

Suddenly, there came a rustling sound of paper pages turning from behind them. It wasn’t loud, but in this environment, any sound was enough to make one’s skin crawl.

Zhang Yangyang turned to look and saw layers upon layers of faces on the ground, approaching them like a tide. These were the paper faces that had fallen from the window earlier.

With their bright rouge and pale complexions, without the window as a barrier this time, the sense of fear increased exponentially. Zhang Yangyang had the illusion that they were crawling on his back.

“Oh my god, oh my god!” Zhang Yangyang’s hands trembled violently, “What do we do?”

“These are just small tricks of the road guardians, nothing powerful,” Chu Xuanliang stuffed another talisman into his hand, “Repeat after me! Ghosts and demons lose courage, spirits and monsters forget their form. Inside is lightning, the Thunder God conceals his name. Wisdom flows through, the Five Qi surge high. Golden light appears swiftly, protect the true person. Urgent as the law commands.”

Zhang Yangyang repeated it indistinctly, thinking it wouldn’t work, but the talisman in his hand began to heat up, and simultaneously a layer of majestic golden light emanated around the three of them.

The three were like small, shining suns, with light scattering in all directions. The group of paper faces were intimidated by the light, quickly retreating and disappearing into the darkness.

“Eh?” Zhang Yangyang opened his hand excitedly, “Wow! Is it really that powerful?”

He looked at Jiang Feng again, puzzled. “Why didn’t Jiang Feng recite anything but still transformed?”

Jiang Feng replied sincerely. “He made you recite it actually because he wanted you to shut up.”

Zhang Yangyang: “……”

He made a zipping motion across his mouth. “I’ll do it voluntarily, okay?”

Chu Xuanliang stepped forward in the direction of the truck.

The three originally thought there was no one in the truck, but when they looked through the upturned window, they found a middle-aged man sitting inside.

The four suddenly made eye contact, all drawing in a sharp breath.

The man asked in terror. “Are you… human or ghost?”

Zhang Yangyang said emotionally, “Hearing you say that, we know you’re a revolutionary comrade! How did you get into this ghostly place?”

The middle-aged man was stunned. “You are human?”

Zhang Yangyang said, “We’re not just human, we even have a Taoist priest with us.”

The middle-aged man immediately shouted excitedly. “Save me! Save me quickly!”

Among the three, Comrade Zhang Yangyang, being the most socially comfortable, instantly overcame his fear upon seeing another living person.

He walked around the truck and said with difficulty, “We don’t have any tools to pry you out.”

“I can get out myself.”

Saying this, he nimbly climbed out from between the seats, then jumped out of the window and stood before everyone.

Zhang Yangyang: “……”

Zhang Yangyang: “If you could get out, why were you hiding inside?”

The middle-aged man said, “…I was scared, wasn’t I?”

Zhang Yangyang, seeing a true revolutionary comrade, held his hand excitedly. “I understand! I understand completely! Friend!”

“You don’t understand! This is already my fourth day coming here!” The driver stomped his foot, “Every night I lie down in bed, and when I wake up I appear in this place. If this continues, I’ll go mad! I’ve even gone to temples to pray, but nothing works!”

Jiang Feng asked. “Is this your truck?”

The driver said, “Yes.”

“What’s loaded in the truck?”

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“Company goods.”

“What did you just hit?”

As soon as Jiang Feng said this, the driver’s face changed instantly.

“I… I didn’t dare to look,” the driver said, “The first time I came here, I hit a cat. At first I thought it was a person, but when I went down to check, I found it was a cat. The second time I hit a dog. It was the same—it darted out as a human shadow, but when I looked again it had turned into a dog.”

Chu Xuanliang: “What about the third time?”

The driver said, “The third time I didn’t dare to look! And this time I don’t dare either!”

Chu Xuanliang: “After hitting, was that all? Did nothing else happen?”

“Something did! That’s why I’m scared!” The driver said urgently, “After I dreamed about hitting the cat, the next day while driving, I actually killed a cat on the road. It suddenly ran under my wheel, I didn’t even notice until I stopped the car and saw the body stuck in the wheel. After the second dream, I ran over a dog too. After that, my company had a rotational break, so I haven’t driven for two days. So is this a coincidence or a curse?”

Chu Xuanliang didn’t answer, but asked, “What about the cat you ran over?”

The driver said guiltily: “I… I didn’t do anything about it.”

Chu Xuanliang shook his head. “All living creatures have spirits. Regardless of the reason, since you killed it, you should apologize to it and say sorry. Otherwise, it’s hard to guarantee there won’t be consequences.”

“What should I do now? Is it too late to burn some paper money for it?” The driver was nearly breaking down, “What’s going on here?”

Zhang Yangyang said, “Don’t make it sound like an interrogation. Let’s sort this out. When did it start? When was the earliest accident—”

“A month ago,” the driver said quietly, “I ran over a person.”

Everyone: “……”

Zhang Yangyang: “Huh??”

The driver hurriedly said, “It wasn’t intentional! I know I was wrong, I really know I was wrong!”

Chu Xuanliang: “What was his name? I can check if it’s him.”

The driver’s eyes shifted, “He…”

He mumbled incoherently, unable to say the name of the person he had run over.

Now all three looked at him differently.

Jiang Feng walked forward a few steps. The person who had just been hit still had half their body caught in the wheel.

“This time it’s a person,” Jiang Feng asked, “Is this who you killed?”

The driver was pulled over by Chu Xuanliang to look. He kept his eyes tightly closed, only gathering enough courage to turn his head slightly to look. Upon seeing the clothes the person was wearing, his knees suddenly gave way and he knelt down.

“My wife!” The driver’s hand shook as he touched the hem of her clothes, crying, “This is my wife! Wife!”

Chu Xuanliang frowned and said, “Tell me your name and birth date quickly.”

The driver sobbed, raised his head, and was about to open his mouth when he, along with the truck, abruptly disappeared.

Zhang Yangyang rubbed his eyes. “What the hell?”

Jiang Feng said, “Dawn is coming.”

The orange lights floating in the sky were gradually dissipating.

Like a signal, the entire street began to return to normal. They could hear the faint sound of engines working, and subtle conversations.

When they blinked again, they were back in their original room.

This time Zhang Yangyang was thoroughly convinced.

“Oh my goodness…” Zhang Yangyang said, “Will I also end up like him, endlessly returning to this place?”

Chu Xuanliang walked to the window and said, “This street is very strange. Jiang Feng, do you feel anything?”

Jiang Feng touched his fingers, uncertainly. “I just feel that at the end of the road, there might be something.”

At this point, they all believed that the appearance of this “Yellow Springs Road” in the mortal world must be connected to the truck driver.

“I’ll come back tonight, and if it appears again, we’ll go in together and see,” Chu Xuanliang said, “I’ll first ask Old Ye to check who that man was last night.”

“Excuse me for asking, but does that plural ‘we’ include… me?” Zhang Yangyang said, “Actually, I don’t really want to appear in your futures. Could you find another powerful Taoist priest to look after me? I’m just a timid baby!”

Chu Xuanliang patted his shoulder. “With your current condition, don’t go troubling others. If we don’t clear this up, hiding anywhere won’t help. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. If there’s danger, I’ll find you a capable helper.”

Chu Xuanliang contacted Officer Ye, and they began searching the system for the identity of the truck driver.

Since the man had only roughly mentioned that he had been in an accident a month ago, without specifying which road or what time, the data was difficult to find. They had to search through different databases.

However, just after noon, an accident occurred in the center of A City.

A large truck suddenly lost control and drove onto the sidewalk. A woman happened to be standing there and couldn’t dodge in time. She was caught in the wheels and died on the spot. The truck driver was injured by shattered glass. Due to traffic congestion, the ambulance couldn’t arrive in time, and he died.

After identity verification, coincidentally, these two people were husband and wife.

For a time, the entire A City was buzzing about this topic, causing much sorrow.

Chu Xuanliang sighed and found the record of an accident that had occurred a month ago based on the man’s identity.

The victim was a young migrant worker, thirty-one years old, with a child who hadn’t yet started elementary school. He was the only breadwinner in his family. One night while returning from overtime work, he was standing by the roadside when he was killed by cargo that fell from a truck.

This was truly a disaster from the sky.

Because the junction nearby was under construction at the time, the surveillance camera was damaged and not yet repaired. The driver himself reported to the police, so the exact circumstances were unknown. The subsequent investigation determined it was an accident, caused by an abnormal depression in the road surface which, after a bump, caused the cargo in the back of the truck to fall out.

In the end, the company stepped in to negotiate, and both parties reached a private settlement with compensation of 150,000 yuan.

So, was the deceased coming back for revenge?

But since both parties had already reached a settlement, why seek revenge like this?

Chu Xuanliang had searched for souls but didn’t find any trace of this person’s soul in the mortal world. Finally, he used the token given by White Impermanence to summon a netherworld official and inquired about the whereabouts of the victim’s soul.

The official said, “This person’s soul was already collected by the netherworld last month and is waiting for reincarnation. It can’t be him.”

Chu Xuanliang was puzzled.

So what was going on?

After two o’clock in the morning, an orange lantern once again floated past Jiang Feng’s window.