Judge of Souls - Chapter 114

Yama sat on the edge of the bed, listening to them finish recounting the entire incident before nodding noncommittally.

“What should I do now?” Wu Teng touched his throat and said, “I feel like I’m starting to feel uncomfortable again. If I remove the talisman now, will I die? What if this talisman continues to lose its effectiveness? What should I do?!”

They had never heard of such a thing before, nor had they seen it, so naturally they didn’t know what the outcome would be.

“Summoning earthbound spirits? Using yin energy to cause harm – I don’t know if this is a curse or an evil god.” Yama sneered coldly. “Who has such great ability to disturb the order of the mortal world in front of me?”

Chu Xuanliang said, “It’s not exactly in front of you – this was just an accidental encounter.”

One brother had been listening for a long time and asked nervously, “He wouldn’t happen to be your master, would he? I see he…”

Chu Xuanliang: “??”

He then realized what was happening and went to check his phone.

Taoist Master Xuanyi replied to him very straightforwardly with three words: [Don’t know]

Without even any punctuation marks.

Taoist Master Xuanyi sent another message: [You should perform a ritual for him to see if you can remove the yin energy from his body. Or bring the person before our patriarch to let the patriarch take a look. At a time like this, don’t wander around outside talking nonsense. First investigate the source clearly – I suspect it’s mostly evil magic at work.]

Chu Xuanliang: [I understand.]

Jiang Feng began to inquire. “From when did you start noticing that whatever you said came true?”

Wu Teng was at a loss. “I didn’t notice anything! Isn’t this just normal worry that everyone has? I was just casually making a reminder. I… I had no intention of harming anyone, and I didn’t know this thing could actually come true!”

Jiang Feng said, “You don’t need to be nervous. Think it through carefully. Start from where you had an impact.”

“I’m not very certain,” Wu Teng said. “I didn’t pay attention to the follow-up of many things.”

Jiang Feng: “You don’t need to be completely certain – roughly is fine too.”

Wu Teng tilted his head back and began to recall. But some things looked like complete coincidences. If he had known he had this ability, he definitely wouldn’t have been so careless with his words.

Wu Teng: “Oh, most of it is recorded on my Weibo. How about… we search through it?”

He returned to his room, pulled out his laptop, turned it on, logged in, and began scrolling through his Weibo posts one by one.

Wu Teng’s friends said:

“There’s nothing much on your account.”

“His boss follows him and even likes his posts. I remember your account posts things like ‘socialism is good’ and ‘love your job, work hard to become prosperous’ – it made me want to unfollow you.”

Wu Teng said quietly, “Actually, I have an alternate account.”

A friend waved his hand. “It’s fine, I have one too.”

“But it’s excessive that you don’t add us on your alternate account.”

“Damn, looking at the frequency of your main account posts and replies, plus having an alternate account – exactly how much time do you spend on your phone each day? Your boss doesn’t care about this?”

Jiang Feng and Yama took his computer and began scrolling through it.

Wu Teng’s alternate account was very active – sometimes posting over ten times a day. Only these past two days of traveling had reduced the quantity.

But looking at the content, most of it was quite discordant.

No matter what political hot topics arose, he liked to go against mainstream opinions, or inappropriately make malicious speculations, analyzing from pessimistic angles, standing out particularly among groups of people, often being chased and scolded by others.

Several friends looked for a moment and fell into stunned silence.

A woman pushed his shoulder and said, “Are you looking for trouble or what?”

“No, no. I just don’t know how to speak properly. You all know I have a sharp tongue, but I don’t mean anything else by it. And you can’t completely deny that the situations I mentioned won’t happen, right? I just analyzed from multiple perspectives – how does that make me malicious and petty-minded?” Wu Teng defended himself. “They say I want to become famous, but I really don’t! The internet is a place for free expression of opinions. What’s wrong with stating my viewpoint? Who knew these things would later…”

His brother immediately went to cover his mouth. “Holy sh*t, stop talking, ancestor! Do you want to double-check and add another blow to curses that weren’t effective before?!”

Wu Teng shook his head frantically, breaking out in a cold sweat from fear.

He had a sharp tongue, but that thing behind the scenes was truly ruthless.

Jiang Feng cross-referenced the multiple incidents he had participated in and began searching online for follow-ups. He found that some had indeed developed according to his predictions, but the probability of being extracted and realized wasn’t high. He also didn’t know if this was coincidence or if they had been influenced by him. Perhaps it was just that his early abilities were insufficient, which was why it hadn’t been so obvious.

He wanted to contact the people involved to ask if they had encountered any strange incidents. He sent private messages to several people, but none replied.

Wu Teng said, “I remember now – my throat discomfort started from the scenic area collapse!”

Jiang Feng straightened up, moving his gaze from the screen, and asked, “Before or after?”

“Ah?” Wu Teng said, “After the collapse, of course.”

Jiang Feng pointed to a popular comment on the page. “I’m asking whether it was before or after you posted this comment.”

Wu Teng was stunned for a moment, somewhat uncertain. “I was too nervous when we were trapped. I don’t know. I didn’t drink water inside – maybe it was just dry mouth?”

Jiang Feng thought for a moment and said, “Since your ability is related to prophecy, then your current symptoms might be because your curse came true.”

Wu Teng: “I didn’t curse them!”

“Besides that, from what we can see so far, the other party can distinguish the content of your words and only realizes your pessimistic predictions. The form of its existence can’t be determined, but from the growth of yin energy in your mouth, combined with analysis of your Weibo data, it might be related to the malice you receive from the masses,” Jiang Feng said. “The faster your unfounded words spread and the more people accept them, the more severe the deterioration becomes. This is my guess.”

Wu Teng understood and immediately took out his phone, deleting all his previous Weibo posts and canceling all his likes.

Only then did he realize his high productivity on Weibo – his fingers were almost cramping.

Whether it was psychological or not, he really felt much lighter.

“I want to make one final confirmation. You say that Yama will be killed by a falling flowerpot when he goes out shopping.” Yama pointed at the computer and said, “Say it once and write it once.”

“What?!” Wu Teng became agitated. “This won’t work! I’d rather never speak or type again!”

Yama: “It’s fine. No one can kill me.”

Chu Xuanliang also said, “You can try it.”

Seeing their insistence, Wu Teng reluctantly said the sentence.

Yama and Jiang Feng got up and went out together.

Wu Teng snorted, and a cloud of black mist ran out of his nose. This time, without Chu Xuanliang saying anything, he saw it himself.

“Holy shit…” Wu Teng said, “I don’t want to speak anymore. Don’t make me curse anyone else!”

Chu Xuanliang: “Mm.”

The two of them went out for more than half an hour without returning. Wu Teng and the others became increasingly uneasy, but seeing that Chu Xuanliang was still focused on searching, showing no signs of worry.

When the clock hand passed forty-five minutes, somebody’s phone alarm suddenly rang, startling everyone.

“What should we do, what should we do? I told you so!” Wu Teng sat restlessly. “Does this count as murder? Will this be blamed on me? Such a well-behaved child!”

Chu Xuanliang said, “Don’t panic, wait a bit more.”

After fifty minutes passed, Jiang Feng and Yama finally returned, carrying six flowerpots of various sizes in their arms.

Wu Teng was dumbfounded and wanted to kneel before them.

Chu Xuanliang: “Returned with a full load?”

Yama placed the potted plants on the windowsill. “There are no flowerpots on the hotel room windowsills. We walked around the vicinity for five minutes, safe and sound. Then we went to nearby residential buildings. We sensed yin energy but didn’t see any ghosts.”

Wu Teng: “So?”

Yama said, “This shows that the other party’s ability isn’t very powerful – it must follow the meaning of your words to kill people. If you don’t speak, there’s no problem.”

Wu Teng breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good then.”

Yama said coldly. “And it actually tried to attack me.”

“So what?”

“That shows it has no brain.”

Chu Xuanliang pressed hard on the keyboard a few times and turned the screen toward them. “I searched online using keywords like #black mist#, #spitting black mist#, #crow’s mouth# and found this.”

“Mighty and Extraordinary: My childhood friend told me today that he has yin-yang eyes and saw black mist coming out of my mouth when I speak. He said it very seriously and insisted on dragging me to a Taoist temple. Hahaha, I’m dying of laughter. Are jokes this sincere these days?”

Looking at the timestamp, this was from half a year ago.

His latest post was an obituary.

The person had died a month ago. The specific cause of death was unknown, but when scrolling through his Weibo, they found that like Wu Teng, he was also someone who liked to make various attacks online, stirring up trouble and arousing public anger as a keyboard warrior. However, his words were full of profanity and abuse, obviously more like someone randomly venting emotions compared to Wu Teng.

And under one of his Weibo posts, Wu Teng’s alternate account had commented: “I wish internet celebrities like you who use any means to attract attention would trip and die while walking.”

The timing matched.

This showed that the ability wasn’t unique.

Wu Teng covered his face. “Oh my god…”

Seeing the black energy in his mouth, Yama also wanted to say “oh my god.”

He had Chu Xuanliang give him a more powerful talisman to continue suppressing it. After thinking, he turned the computer around and had Jiang Feng register him a new account with real-name verification, then rode the wave of this incident’s popularity, imitating their tone, and posted his first Weibo:

“Fuck those rescue workers! They deliberately left me at the back. I told them my leg was injured and I needed to go to the hospital, but they still didn’t care about me. That old man was obviously just scared unconscious – he’d be fine after sleeping. But if my leg becomes disabled, will they be responsible?! I wish you all would die!”

After posting, he received several abusive comments after a while.

“I’ll take responsibility. Funeral home phone number XXX…”

“Scum!”

“Not just scum – this is a giant baby.”

Yama waited for a moment, then opened his mouth and exhaled.

A faint black thread appeared in the air – so subtle that it was barely visible if you didn’t look carefully.

But it was definitely there.

Chu Xuanliang: “This…”

Yama smiled. “Interesting.”

Undoubtedly an evil god.

A mere little ghost couldn’t curse King Yama, even if this was a false body. The only possibility was a divine being that also possessed the power of faith.

Seeing this, Jiang Feng also posted something for himself.

However, since several hours had passed and the trending topic had already dropped, it didn’t attract much attention.

He was slightly more disagreeable than Yama and didn’t attract the other party’s favor – no matter how much he exhaled, there were no results.

Yama tested on the spot. “Jiang Feng will be killed tonight at the hotel by the master of the black mist.”

To be safe, he said it three times in a row. But judging from the black energy in his mouth, it hadn’t intensified.