"I won't let you go this time for sure!"
Bai Po's ferocious voice echoed from behind. Fang Ming didn't dare to turn back, burying his head and running towards the white mist.
"You can't escape!"
Bai Po's voice grew closer, hoarse with anger.
The distance between them narrowed. At a certain point, Bai Po suddenly pointed her finger, and everything in front of her was frozen and bound, including the fleeing Fang Ming.
"Hmph!" Bai Po snorted coldly and quickly flew in front of Fang Ming, reaching out to kill him.
"Old hag, I thought you were a good person!" Fang Ming cursed as he struggled in vain. "Didn't you say you were a good person?" Since he was going to die anyway, he might as well have his last words.
Bai Po stopped her outstretched hand upon hearing this, her five fingers already extended into steel-like nails.
"What did you say?" Bai Po grabbed Fang Ming's neck and asked coldly.
"I said... didn't you claim to be a good... good person? How did you turn into this monster!" Fang Ming struggled to pry away Bai Po's hand from his neck, but the vast difference in their strength made it futile.
Bai Po slowly tightened her grip, pressing, "Who told you this? I've only ever said this to three people! Was it Zhao Xue?"
"Heh, you told me yourself," Fang Ming's veins bulged, and he was almost suffocating, but he still refused to back down, his attitude disdainful.
Fang Ming knew that begging for mercy was useless against this Bai Po; she was just a cold-blooded monster!
Bai Po, with her acute senses, saw at a glance that Fang Ming wasn't lying. Surprise rippled through her. Did this man know her secret? How?
"If you don't speak, I have my ways," Bai Po sneered. For a mere human, she had a million ways to extract his memories.
"Look at my eyes..." Bai Po held Fang Ming's neck, forcing him to meet her gaze. Though Fang Ming didn't know what she intended, he quickly shut his eyes, refusing to open them.
"Look at me... look at me..." Bai Po's voice was hypnotic, and combined with the intense suffocation, Fang Ming's head grew increasingly groggy.
"Ah Ming, we're going home." A familiar voice suddenly sounded.
"Dad!" Fang Ming instinctively opened his eyes, and the world before him suddenly turned black. He lost consciousness instantly.
At the same time, Bai Po's eyes lost their color. A faint light passed through Fang Ming's eyes and entered his mind. Bai Po intended to enter Fang Ming's consciousness to find the answer!
Within Fang Ming's mind, his entire life's experiences unfolded before Bai Po's eyes, replaying from the moment he was captured to the burning of the ancestral hall, stealing straw, and entering the white mist.
"Presumptuous!" A fierce roar erupted in Fang Ming's mind, and Bai Po's consciousness was instantly repelled.
"Pfft!" The brilliance returned to Bai Po's eyes, but immediately after, she spat out a mouthful of blood, her eyes filled with terror.
"Was that ferocious creature the existence this guy encountered in the white mist?" Indeed, Bai Po saw Changsheng! The sheer terror of Changsheng was capable of attacking another entity through someone else's consciousness!
Bai Po had never heard of such a thing. What kind of power could achieve this? Or was this a trap set by that ferocious creature, a contingency it had secretly left in this outsider's consciousness?
Suppressing her shock, Bai Po's consciousness burrowed into Fang Ming's mind again. This time, she skipped the experience in the white mist and delved into older memories.
Soon, Bai Po saw the moment Fang Ming's true self entered Baimu Village. When she looked further back, the content turned a blinding white, inexplicably shielded. Only when Fang Ming was traveling to Baimu Village by car did the memories resume.
This meant that Fang Ming's memories of her transforming into Zhao Xue were completely blocked, and Bai Po could not probe them.
Unwilling to give up, Bai Po tried various methods, all to no avail. She could only continue onward.
One year, two years... until Fang Ming was ten years old, before his parents disappeared, Bai Po saw Fang Daolong.
"How is this possible..." Bai Po murmured. Fang Daolong was someone who had arrived in Baimu Village ten years ago. Baimu Village was around 1950s in the past, but this outsider's memories were from after the 21st century.
Fang Daolong wouldn't even have been born back then. How could he have come to Baimu Village and carved so many runes? And were these runes truly meant to protect Baimu Village?
Bai Po suddenly felt a chill run down her spine. An unseen, vast net seemed to have ensnared her and the entity behind her. She suddenly felt that the unfolding of events had completely slipped from her grasp, and she was merely a small insect caught in a spiderweb, waiting to be consumed...
She had always believed herself to be the manipulator, only to realize today that she might have been a mere pawn.
She had to keep looking! She had to figure out what was going on with this Fang Daolong!
As Fang Ming's memories from the age of ten ended, his memories abruptly ceased. A boundless expanse of white mocked Bai Po's overconfidence.
"What's going on? Why does he have no memories before the age of ten?" Bai Po was bewildered. For a living being, even with amnesia, their mind shouldn't be devoid of such memories; they just couldn't recall them.
But Fang Ming's situation was that he had no memories, not forgotten ones. This implied that Fang Ming's existence began after the age of ten!
Still unwilling to accept defeat, Bai Po continued to probe deeper into Fang Ming's consciousness. Finally, after wandering in Fang Ming's consciousness for an unknown duration, Bai Po encountered something that was no longer a blank void.
An immense cloud! Bai Po was like a speck of dust before it.
This cloud floated silently in the deepest recesses of Fang Ming's consciousness, unconnected to anything else.
Seeing this, Bai Po cautiously approached. The cloud didn't give her a sense of danger. Driven by curiosity, Bai Po's consciousness dove into it...
Meanwhile, a faint glow flickered across the "Chuan" shaped rune on the back of Fang Ming's hand, then quickly subsided.
A few minutes later, Fang Ming's body suddenly slumped. Bai Po's restraint on Fang Ming's body ended.
"Thump!"
"Ouch," Fang Ming cried out in pain and regained consciousness. He rubbed his arm and looked up to see Bai Po lying on the ground.
Seeing this, Fang Ming cautiously distanced himself, staring at her for a long time, unsure of the current situation.
"Hmm? What's going on?" Fang Ming was puzzled. Wasn't this Bai Po trying to kill him just moments ago? Why was she lying on the ground now? Was it a trap?
For safety's sake, Fang Ming's rationality overcame his curiosity. He turned and ran towards the white mist. Since Bai Po wasn't getting up, he couldn't be blamed for escaping.
A few minutes later, Fang Ming stepped into the white mist. He actually felt at home there now. The monsters were weak and eager to be dealt with, and he didn't have to worry about the threats in Baimu Village. Compared to that, this was paradise.
Once inside the white mist, Fang Ming finally relaxed. He took out the diary from his cloth bundle to check what would happen next.
"I narrowly escaped from Bai Po. For some unknown reason, Bai Po died. I safely entered the white mist, and a few small monsters rushed out, which I dealt with. While looking through the diary, I discovered new monster descriptions had appeared, and for some reason, the content had become very detailed."
"Huh? New content?" Fang Ming exclaimed in surprise, wondering what it would be this time.
Fang Ming quickly flipped open the diary from the back. Indeed, a large section of new content appeared, far exceeding his imagination.
"Sha Zhong (煞种): Nourishment cultivated by the Ancient Sophora Ferocious Spirit, using villagers of Baimu Village as raw materials, infused with a large amount of well water containing resentment, transforming the human body into a strangely-shaped creature."
Fang Ming finally understood the origin of the villager monsters and their real names. It turned out they were all cultivated Sha Zhong. As for their purpose, Fang Ming had seen the "fishing" in the square and guessed it was for this.
"Ancient Sophora Ferocious Spirit (古槐凶煞): A thousand-year-old sophora tree growing in a natural resentment gathering place. After absorbing a large amount of resentment, it was struck by heavenly lightning, triggering certain conditions for the formation of a powerful ferocious spirit."
"Shan Hun (善魂): The benevolent thoughts stripped away by the Ancient Sophora Ferocious Spirit to prevent them from hindering its growth. It was placed into the body of a woman and resurrected, generating an independent personality and consciousness. However, as it could only parasitize the Ancient Sophora Ferocious Spirit, its initial kindness was gradually eroded, and it became the proxy for the Ancient Sophora Ferocious Spirit to manage Baimu Village."
"Yuan Wu (怨雾): In places with extremely deep resentment, the resentment can transform from ethereal to tangible, forming something similar to white mist. Ordinary creatures that come into contact with it will transform into Sha Zhong. However, because the transformation is unconscious, these naturally formed Sha Zhong are usually weaker."
...
The new content in the diary spanned about two pages. Apart from some miscellaneous descriptions, Fang Ming's focus was on the earlier passages.
"I never expected..." Fang Ming mused, stroking his chin in astonishment, "that the true big boss of Baimu Village is the giant sophora tree in the ancestral hall!"
At the same time, Fang Ming understood why Bai Po always insisted she was a good person. It turned out her true form was a benevolent thought from the Sophora Ferocious Spirit. No wonder her obsession was so deep. It was a pity that she had strayed from the righteous path.
As for the description of the white mist, Fang Ming became somewhat confused after reading it. According to the diary, the white mist was merely the solidification of intense resentment. Then why were the Sha Zhong of Baimu Village so terrified of it?
If they were merely afraid of the ferocious spirits in the white mist, they wouldn't be so scared that they wouldn't dare to take a single step into it, would they?
Fang Ming felt that either the white mist held deeper secrets, or there were unknown circumstances in Baimu Village, even more hidden than the Ancient Sophora Ferocious Spirit...
"Now that I know the real target, I should be able to make a move tomorrow when daylight comes."
Fang Ming grinned. It seemed the ancestral hall still needed to be burned.