"You son of a bitch! Get him!"
Master Wang swung his club again, hitting the old man on the back of the head and knocking him unconscious.
Zhao Yan gave him a thumbs-up and went over to check on the old man, finding that he was still breathing.
"Master, those two hits of yours are truly top-notch," the two male disciples beside him fawned.
Master Wang raised his head proudly. When he suddenly came to his senses, he saw the old man standing not far in front of him, completely unaware of his presence.
How could he miss such a golden opportunity? He decisively picked up the wooden club. If he could take down the old man, it would be a merit, and he believed Xu Wen wouldn't treat him unfairly.
Two hits turned a bicycle into a motorcycle.
"Boss Xu, can you still hold on?" Zhao Yan came up to Xu Wen, looking at the claw marks on his chest.
"I... can!" Xu Wen nodded slightly.
"Next, I'm going to perform an exorcism. Should I knock you out first, and then remove the malevolent energy from your body? This process will be very painful," Zhao Yan said.
Xu Wen: "Master Zhao, I've already experienced all sorts of pain. A little more pain won't be anything. I can..."
Before he could finish, Xu Wen let out a scream, "Ah! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts..."
Zhao Yan, with black dog blood on her fingers, began drawing an exorcism spell on his chest.
Black smoke continuously rose from Xu Wen's chest.
After Zhao Yan finished drawing, she looked up and saw that Xu Wen had fainted from the pain.
"Who will carry Boss Xu?" Zhao Yan asked.
A worker raised his hand and said, "Master Zhao, I will!"
"Thank you for your hard work. I'll mention it to Boss Xu later," Zhao Yan nodded.
The two workers had worked hard all night and had exerted themselves greatly.
"Master Zhao, please give me a few of those too." Master Wang stretched out his neck and smiled at Zhao Yan.
Zhao Yan said "Okay" and drew an exorcism blood talisman on Master Wang's neck.
Master Wang let out a cry, but this sound was strange, not from pain but from pleasure.
This made Zhao Yan speechless for a moment.
Stepping back a few paces, Zhao Yan moved to a small pit.
She had previously smashed the teeth of the female corpse with stones and collected them.
The male and female corpses had been reduced to mummified remains. Zhao Yan used a hemp rope to tie the two corpses together.
She took off her jacket and wrapped the two corpses in it.
"Master Zhao, what do you want to do with this old man?" Master Wang asked.
Zhao Yan thought of the Bai Guangnian brothers and wondered if this old fellow was a Yin-Yang criminal, in which case she might be able to make a lot of money.
"Leave him to me. I'll call my friends later to see if they accept this junk," Zhao Yan said.
"Alright, I feel at ease leaving this kind of person to Master Zhao," Master Wang said with a smile.
It was better when he didn't smile, but when he did, his bare gums were visible, looking particularly awkward.
"Could the other worker brother please come over and help me carry this old man back?" Zhao Yan asked.
"No problem." The worker brother carried the old man.
Zhao Yan and her group walked out of the small mountain forest, calling Bai Guangnian on the way.
Then, she took a picture of the old man with her phone and sent it.
"Oh, Miss Zhao, how did you catch another one!"
Bai Guangnian looked at the photo and immediately did some research. He was startled.
This old man was named Yang Jiuhua, a grave robber who specialized in stealing corpses for corpse refinement.
He had already been involved in sixty-seven cases of corpse theft.
This old man only stole corpses from wealthy families. He had rarely appeared in recent years because cremation had become popular, and burial was infrequent.
He didn't expect Zhao Yan to catch him.
"Sixty-seven cases? That many?" Zhao Yan muttered softly.
After thinking about it, she didn't see any corpses behind the old man.
"Yes, mainly because this old man's whereabouts were mysterious, especially since he hadn't made a move in recent years."
Zhao Yan vaguely knew the reason for the old man's inactivity: he was likely planning something big, using the feng shui treasure land of Boss Xu's house to refine Boss Xu's parents into corpses.
Boss Xu's parents had already turned into white-haired corpses, but they were not under the old man's control.
"Okay, I understand, Brother Bai. I'll send you the address later, and you can come and pick up this old man," Zhao Yan said.
"I'll get there as soon as possible."
Zhao Yan said it wasn't urgent and hung up the phone.
She thought for a moment longer and then said to the worker in front, "Put this old man down."
The worker put the old man down, and Zhao Yan reached out and felt around the old man's clothes.
She cut open the lining of his clothes with a small knife and found a palm-sized book.
"Six Methods of Corpse Refinement."
She quickly flipped through it and found an even smaller book tucked into the middle lining.
"Corpse Refinement Notes."
Zhao Yan whispered softly and opened the smaller notebook.
Arriving at the cemetery security room, Zhao Yan put the small book in her bag.
"I didn't expect this old man to have such a story."
The old man, in his sixties or seventies, was still a romantic.
He pursued the art of corpse refinement his entire life, hoping to make his deceased wife "live" again.
For this purpose, his wife had been kept in a cold storage for over twenty years.
From this notebook, it seemed that the art of corpse refinement was not so easy to master.
He had stolen so many corpses for refinement, and all sixty-seven were failures.
Instead of calling it Corpse Refinement Notes, it might as well be called Failure Notes, as the content detailed the failed processes of sixty-seven corpse refinements.
Zhao Yan was not interested in corpse refinement methods. It was not good for such things to fall into the hands of others, so she might as well throw them into the fire and burn them.
However, she was more interested in the old man's technique of controlling paper figures with threads.
Zhao Yan searched the old man again and found something in his waist pocket.
"Entangling Threads of a Thousand Silks."
She whispered softly and flipped through this book.
The more she read, the more interesting she found it.
The old man had combined the content of the two books. Using the Six Methods of Corpse Refinement, he would strike the souls of vengeful spirits onto paper figures, and then control the paper figures with "Entangling Threads of a Thousand Silks."
This was not exactly sorcery; it was, more accurately, a very interesting technique.
It was like a skilled gambler's sleight of hand.
And "Entangling Threads of a Thousand Silks" was all about mastering the technique.
Combined with soul refinement from the "Six Methods of Corpse Refinement," this technique had a great killing power.
"I'll practice this technique when I have time," Zhao Yan said softly.
As she was thinking, a worker entered the security room and said, "Master Zhao, your friend has arrived."
"Okay, thank you, Brother Ma," Zhao Yan said with a smile and walked out of the security room.
Bai Guangnian's car stopped, and Zhao Yan took him into the security room.
"Is this the Yang Jiuhua you mentioned?" Zhao Yan asked.
Bai Guangnian pinched the old man's face, looked around, and smiled, "Yes, it's this old fellow."