"Auntie, what's your name?"
I quietly gazed at Auntie Ghost. This wasn't the first time she'd helped me—she looked after me a lot when I was little. She's my greatest benefactor.
"Ethan Zhang. Names don't matter. You do what you need to do. I'm leaving now. I just hope that next time we meet, I can see that girl who's always with you."
I clenched my fist and nodded.
"Auntie, that's my wife—her name is Rachel Lan."
Auntie Ghost smiled and waved to me. I nodded, and she turned into a streak of green light and vanished.
"Priest, I'm feeling a bit off today, like something bad is about to happen."
I bowed to Father Mason and followed him into the ruined temple.
This ruined temple had been abandoned for years, just outside the woods. After Wisteria Estates was set to be demolished, Father Mason led the ghosts away. I saw urns lined up, each with its lid sealed and a yellow talisman pasted on it. He told me he felt something was wrong today, so he sealed all the ghosts up. Normally, Father Mason would let them out at night and they'd return in the morning.
Both sides of the temple, even beside the statue, had wooden shelves packed with urns. Now, all of them were shaking.
"Ethan Zhang, keep your specter web in check. They can't handle it."
I responded and retracted all the specter web I'd released back into my body.
I didn't make small talk with Father Mason. Instead, I explained the situation straight away and handed him the paper with the array drawn on it.
"I'm powerless to help."
The result was the same. I'd already told Father Mason about Mao Wang.
"My conclusion is the same as my junior uncle's. Even among our generation, no one can decipher this array. Maybe our grandmaster could help you."
"Is it Elder Peach?"
Father Mason nodded, but then helplessly shook his head.
"I know the grandmaster is still alive, but I have no idea where he is. I only met him once when I was a child, and again in my thirties. After that, I never saw him again."
My phone rang. I answered—it was Hu Tianshuo. I had to hang up right away. I'd wondered if Wu Zheng might know something, but he was clueless. Just as Zhang Jizheng said, only people from the Mount Mason Order would understand arrays like this.
"Actually, our Mount Mason Order, aside from our Daoist roots, draws a lot from Buddhism, Zen, and mysterious black and white witchcraft. We often deal with ghosts, using the power of spirits to get things done. Our status in the Daoist community isn't high—we're even treated differently by other Daoists."
I'd heard about this before, but hearing it from Father Mason made it more real. At the Nine Dragons Conference, the other eight were cold toward Elder Peach, even showing disdain. Even the easygoing Xiaoyaozi rarely spoke to him.
"Priest, do you have any way to find Elder Peach?"
Father Mason shook his head, then pulled a golden talisman from his pocket.
"This was left to me by the immortal master—a golden talisman, incredibly powerful, but only useful for exorcising ghosts. As for finding people, I have no idea."
I remembered Wu Zheng and his master using spells to communicate, and mentioned it. Father Mason smiled and shook his head.
"Spells like that have probably long been lost. Remote voice transmission—even seeing someone's face. I've read about it in old books, but to cast it you have to have shared blood with the other person."
I made a sound of acknowledgment and stared out at the pitch-black sky, not knowing who to look for next. The only option left was to find Elder Peach.
Zhang Jizheng once said, no matter how complex the array, as long as you can structure it and understand its meaning, the skilled can even change the array—altering the original setup that needs ritual tools or other things. But the result stays the same. Most of the time, if something's missing, the array won't work unless you improvise on the spot.
I talked to Father Mason about all this. He looked at me in surprise.
"That priest must be a true master. I can't improvise arrays on the spot like that. It's a pity he's not from the Mount Mason Order, but from the orthodox Dao Sect. Their knowledge is strictly guarded, passed down orally, and never shared outside their sects."
I made a sound of acknowledgment and sat at the temple entrance, glancing back at the statue of the Grand Supreme Elder. I gave a bitter, helpless smile.
Father Mason had already pulled out a basketful of books, still searching for answers, still trying to help me.
"Priest, forget it. If I can find one of the Nine Dao Gate Elders, maybe I can learn Elder Peach's whereabouts."
The best chance was to go straight to Mount Immeasurable or Universal Temple. Maybe that's where I could find Elder Peach.
"Looks like my abilities as a priest are too weak to help you!"
Father Mason gave up, but suddenly something came to mind and I asked him.
"Priest, have you ever met those people with black or white faces?"
Father Mason glanced at me and nodded.
"They came to me before, along with a senior member of the Dao Sect, hoping I'd help. But I refused."
"Was it the silver-haired one? Zhang Anle?"
Father Mason nodded. I thought of Master Zachary Wu, my lifelong benefactor—someone I could never repay.
"Zhang Qingyuan, sometimes people simply can't go against certain things—life and death, the universe, yin and yang."
I hadn't said exactly why I'd come, but Father Mason seemed to see right through me.
I nodded slowly.
"Maybe so, Priest. But my heart tells me it's not over yet. As long as hope remains, nothing is finished."
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"As long as there's breath, hope never dies!"
I made a sound of acknowledgment and floated up, bowed again, and drifted away into the distance.
Now my only option was to ask Redmond's men for help. It might cause trouble, but I'd met Elder Peach before. If I linked my specter web to them, so they all knew Elder Peach's appearance, and tried every method to search for him—maybe we'd get lucky. This needle-in-a-haystack approach was all I had left.