The Jin Ancestral Hall, built entirely of timber, could not withstand overwhelming force.
"All right," Mo Lin conceded to Li Hui's reasoning. His spirits were high—should a battle erupt tonight, he would fight with blind fury, paying no heed to shattered beams or splintered walls.
He settled into a chair, sipping his tea in leisurely calm. Outside, charcoal shadows crept across the skies as day yielded to dusk. Time slipped by in measured silence. The laborers outside hastened their work, conveying every valuable relic from the hall. Employees slipped away under cover of gathering darkness, until only Li Hui, Qing Yun, and a handful of venerable figures remained.
Dong dong dong…A crystalline chime from the rear courtyard bell sounded—seven o'clock.
At its toll, Qing Yun and Li Hui's expressions grew grave. The great hall fell so silent that even ragged breaths seemed audible.
Pat pat pat…A staccato of footsteps heralded the opening of the great doors. Five men entered, each cloaked in jet-black coats and hooded caps, as if desperate to conceal their identities. A surge of ghostly qi billowed in their wake.
"Where is he?" barked a burly figure at their head, shattering the hush.
"He is here," Qing Yun stepped forward to answer.
"I'm here for payment," the man said curtly.
Before Qing Yun could reply, Mo Lin interjected. "So you're the ones selling spirit couriers?"
Clad conspicuously in a scarlet Yin-Office robe and bearing a longsword at his waist, Mo Lin's arrival startled the black-clad men. Their leader's face, round and pale, bore jagged scars as black as night. At his motion, the other four peeled away their cloaks, revealing similarly deathly complexions—if not for their breathing, one might have mistaken them for mere corpses.
"You dare sell spirit couriers as bait to draw me out?" Mo Lin accused, his voice cold. "Some thousand-year foxplay from the Ghost Realm?"
In an instant, all became clear: these agents had honed in on Mo Lin the moment he crossed into the living world, using trafficked Yin couriers to lure him into their trap. When he first broke his seals, they must have marked him as prey.
Qing Yun looked on in bewilderment, uncertain whether they were mere pawns in a deeper scheme.
"You came to eliminate me, didn't you?" Mo Lin pressed, eyes narrowing.
The corpulent man sneered. "So perceptive, courier of the Yin Office. You truly are…clever."
"Don't flatter yourselves," Mo Lin retorted. "I find your lawlessness abhorrent—ghouls without honor, defiling corpses, flouting every rule. What possible purpose has your vile possession of the dead?"
At that moment, the ringleader produced a child's severed head as though discarding refuse. Crimson dripped onto the floorboards.
"I slaughtered her entire family," he teased. "Will you avenge her?"
Qing Yun's brow knitted in horror; even Li Hui's face turned ashen.
"Why? Why murder her?" Li Hui demanded.
"Found her on the road—so I killed her," the man answered with casual cruelty, as effortless as culling a chicken.
Mo Lin's lips curled in disgust. "I have no illusions of my own virtue, yet you disgust me…truly disgust me." His teeth ground. "What is gained by slaughtering innocents? The sole purpose of a spirit hunter is to capture and eradicate creatures such as you!"
His anger coalesced into steel. "Tonight, by the authority of the Yin Office, I shall bring judgment upon you. None of you shall live."
o4-mini