The next day, Zhao Huoyan delivered the documents. It was a thick stack, covering everything from location and scale to urgency, even including satellite images of the area.
Song Miaozhu flipped through it. Among all the cases, the situation at the Sanyuan River in Yuncheng was the most urgent. Because it was the only one involving water. Water could trap ghosts, but it also concealed and concentrated Yin energy.
Ghosts who died in the river couldn't reach the shore. Yet in the water, with the flow acting as a barrier and Yin energy difficult to disperse, combined with a constant stream of resentment, the ghosts only grew stronger.
They had already become a threat long before spiritual energy began its resurgence. Anyone who went swimming or even played by the river upstream rarely came back. That was before the reawakening of spiritual energy. In the early days of the resurgence, those who entered the upper reaches of the Sanyuan River all drowned without exception.
Later, the Lingdu Ghost Mountain incident caught the attention of The SEIU, which launched a nationwide investigation. Only then was the anomaly upstream of the Sanyuan River discovered. Once it was fenced off and access restricted, the incidents gradually stopped.
But judging from the satellite images, the Yin energy that had once lingered only in the upper river was now spreading downstream at an alarming rate. And it was expanding faster than the ghost outbreak at Ghost Mountain in Lingdu. Yet Ghost Mountain had housed several thousand Japanese ghosts. This river held, at most, a thousand.
Clearly, it was the advantage of "terrain."
Song Miaozhu decided to retrieve the corpse sludge of the Japanese ghosts from Sanyuan River first and use it to craft cursed paper servants. Fortunately, locating their remains was easy. Though the ghosts roamed widely in the river, their bones would be found where they most frequently lingered, where resentment and Yin energy were thickest.
One look at the satellite images made it clear. Still, since the target was underwater, she needed to prepare. She spent two days at home cutting paper servants, increasing her stock from sixty to one hundred. Then she spent another week crafting Yin Paper Clothes and spiritual armor for them.
Little paper servants were most vulnerable to fire and water. To dive for corpse sludge, proper protection was essential. She made plenty of armor so they could stay submerged longer. Once everything was ready, Song Miaozhu drove to the upper reaches of the Sanyuan River in Yuncheng.
At the riverbank stood a tall barbed-wire fence. The signs hanging from it weren't the usual "No Swimming" warnings, but photos and reports of real drowning cases that had occurred here. Even though the images were censored, they sent chills down her spine. No wonder such a picturesque spot had no one crossing the fence.
Song Miaozhu parked by the roadside and tapped the fence. Solid. And the top was lined with anti-climb barbs.
So, how was she going to get across?
She did find a gate, but it was tightly chained with a large padlock. It would be a bit embarrassing to call Zhao Huoyan and ask someone to unlock it for her. Thinking it over, she slipped into a nearby grove. Using the trees as cover, she pulled out a little paper servant and blew on it. The paper figure instantly transformed into a two-meter-tall, burly soldier. The fence was three meters high, but that wasn't a problem.
"Lingma, get me over this!"
She didn't want to get jabbed by the barbs, but Lingma had no such concerns.
Lingma crouched and hoisted her onto her back, then took a few steps back, preparing to run and leap against the fence for momentum. But with a loud clang, the fence was kicked clean off its hinges.
Instead of using it as leverage, Lingma had knocked it down completely. She stumbled a few steps before steadying herself, looking a little lost.
Song Miaozhu patted her shoulder. "Put me down."
Well, that solved the problem. No need to climb over anymore. She could just walk right in. Hopefully The SEIU wouldn't scold her for damaging government property. She hadn't expected Lingma to be this strong. She turned her back into a paper talisman and stored him in the Ghost Workshop vault. Then she stepped through the gaping hole and walked onto the riverbank.
"The Yin energy here is even thicker than in the satellite images."
It was early afternoon, with bright daylight overhead. Yet Song Miaozhu could clearly see a layer of Yin energy drifting above the water. The faint mist quickly burned away under the sun, but the river itself remained pitch black. Sunlight couldn't penetrate it at all, and the Yin energy below seemed almost solid.
Song Miaozhu observed for a moment, then picked up a suitably sized stone and had her stealthiest little paper servant wrap itself around it. Then she hurled the stone into the river. As it sank, the scene beneath the surface appeared in her mind.
Just as she suspected, there weren't many Japanese ghosts at the bottom. The rapid downstream spread of Yin energy wasn't just due to the river's natural properties. The Japanese ghosts, constantly drifting through the waters, had released too much Yin energy into the current.
Ever since the barbed-wire fence was erected around Sanyuan River, people had kept their distance. Yet even something as simple as a falling stone stirred the ghosts' power. They fixated on the stone, then surged toward it. The little paper servant was clad in several layers of spiritual armor and remained hidden.
Before the ghosts could reach it, forty-nine burly paper soldiers materialized in front of it and charged. Only then did the paper servant reveal itself, sinking to the riverbed with the stone. More heavily armored paper servants appeared around it and immediately began digging up the corpse sludge.
This was its most important task—quietly entering the river as a medium to connect the Ghost Workshop vault to the underwater battlefield, releasing paper soldiers to stall the ghosts while others excavated the sludge.
Only it could remain invisible long enough, hidden within the stone, undetectable by spiritual sensors or ghosts. Although made of paper, the soldiers' manifested combat forms were composed of pure spiritual energy and soul power. This unique structure made them impervious to blades, flames, and water. Only when their energy ran low would their paper forms be exposed and vulnerable.
But Song Miaozhu had ensured they were all fully charged before deployment. There were only about fifty ghosts in the area now, but each one was brimming with power. The paper soldiers couldn't break their ghostly force right away, but holding them back to protect the diggers was no problem.
Song Miaozhu had even given them a strategy—aim their punches upward and drive the ghosts toward the surface. As long as the soldiers didn't breach the water, they'd be fine.
Sunlight was a ghost's worst enemy.
This way, three or five soldiers could keep each ghost occupied. The rest were dispatched downstream to intercept any others that might return at any moment.