Taboo Mage - Chapter 17 - Ugly Woman

Fatty Ling let out a yelp and jumped forward, sprawling onto the main road like a lump of flesh.

From across the way, the beautiful woman turned her head at the sound. Taking my chance, I threw the rag doll I had been holding.

The rag doll carried a peach blossom spirit. If there was something strange about that woman, she would certainly notice it.

Sure enough, hiding in the bushes, I clearly saw a fleeting cold smile at the corner of the woman’s lips. She raised her hand slightly, and in an instant, the rag doll turned to ashes.

With a piercing scream, a plume of white smoke rose from the ashes, drifting into the night sky.

Fatty Ling, who was nearby, got up lecherously from the ground, shaking his rolls of fat as he walked towards the woman.

The woman finally turned her head. At the sight of her face, I tightly covered my mouth, stifling a terrified scream.

Her face was marred with scars, her eyeballs bulging like two glass marbles, and her cheeks were deeply sunken. Her lips were dry and cracked.

At a glance, she looked like an ancient mummy that had escaped from a museum.

I stared in astonishment as I watched Fatty Ling’s corpulent body throw itself onto the mummy, his greasy lips fervently kissing her neck.

I glanced in bewilderment at Du Qiu beside me. Was this really the kind of creature he had been with that night?

Indeed, Du Qiu’s face at this moment looked as green as matcha cake, like it could drip water.

I swallowed hard. By the time I looked back, Fatty Ling was already hugging the mummy’s waist, hailing a taxi to get in.

Du Qiu signaled to me with his eyes, asking if we should save him.

I frowned, memories of Li Mi’s incident rushing back to mind. Part of me wanted to leave Fatty Ling to his fate, but at that moment, he was still useful to me.

I nodded, pulling a lighter from my pocket. I took out a piece of yellow talisman paper I had folded into a paper airplane earlier and lit it. I sent it flying towards the roadside.

I had been playing this game since childhood and had never failed.

Sure enough, the yellow talisman paper flew through the air and landed at the mummy’s feet. She reacted as if she’d been burned, quickly breaking free from Fatty Ling and leaping away in an instant.

The runes on the yellow talisman paper quickly burned, and the white smoke started to drift erratically towards the mummy.

Suddenly, the mummy turned its head, glaring in my direction, its dried-up eyes emitting a chilling light.

I tried to control my trembling body, praying I hadn’t been detected.

After a while, Du Qiu gave me a push and then stood up, dragging the dazed Fatty Ling back from the middle of the road.

Back at the shop, I first checked on Li Mi. She was relatively stable, and through her words, I gradually learned what had happened.

It turned out Fatty Ling had indeed tried to assault her, but I arrived just in time, kicking in the door at the last moment. Although Li Mi had been groped all over, she had thankfully been spared the worst.

I let out a small sigh of relief, comforted Li Mi with a few words, and then turned to head back to my bedroom.

For some reason, after Du Qiu sent Fatty Ling back, he insisted on staying at my place.

I didn’t have any extra rooms, but this young master, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, was willing to squeeze onto my shabby bed.

As usual, I set up a dharma array around the room and the living room with a red string, hanging bells on the string. After confirming everything was in order, I finally went back to my room to rest.

Du Qiu lay on the inner side of the bed, and I tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. Having such an ambiguous figure sleeping next to me made me feel uneasy.

In the middle of the night, a sudden jingling of bells from the living room echoed up to the bedroom. I woke up with a start to find the red string tied to my wrist trembling violently.

Hurriedly, I woke Du Qiu, handing him a peachwood sword meant for warding off evil, then climbed out through the back window.

Righteous energy clashed with the bell, seeking justice without a route.

Armed with the ancestral wooden sword, I looped around from the back door of the bedroom to the living room. Within the red string array, a phantom shadow was darting around frantically, the jingling of bells erratic and piercing.

I lit a piece of yellow talisman paper in my hand and threw it into the array. After a scream, a huge bulge suddenly rose from the floor. A few minutes later, the bell gradually fell silent.

“Mr. Gu, how is it?” Du Qiu’s trembling voice called out from the room, tightly clutching the peachwood sword I had given him.

I patted the paper ashes off myself and said, “Don’t worry, it’s all fine.”

Hearing my reassurances, Du Qiu visibly relaxed and headed back to the bedroom to sleep.

But it was destined to be a sleepless night for me.

Holding the wooden sword, I stared intently at the ancient book in front of me. On the open page was an illustration of a seductive woman, but the terrifying face was almost identical to the one I had seen on the road earlier.

The text on that page read “ugly woman.” According to the ancient book, an ugly woman is formed from the resentment of the dead, possessing a decayed corpse. The greater the resentment, the more grotesque the appearance.

This entity is neither a demon nor a spirit, nor a ghost. If I had to categorize it, it closely resembled the zombies frequently seen in 1980s Hong Kong television dramas.

This was the first time I had encountered such a being.

I quickly flipped through the book for a solution, but found none! However, next to the term “ugly woman” was a note from my grandfather: “living soul amulet.”

I quietly repeated these words. What did this mean?

Living, I understood.

Soul, I also understood.

But a living soul… surely it couldn’t mean using a person’s spirit to imbue a life amulet?

This question kept swirling in my mind all night long. By the time Du Qiu and Li Mi got up, I greeted them with panda eyes, staring at them groggily.

Du Qiu made a phone call and arranged breakfast. He sat down next to me, his gaze lingering on the ancient book I hadn’t put away yet, showing great interest as he reached for it.

I quickly lifted my hand, tossed the book into a cabinet, and locked it.

Du Qiu awkwardly smiled and asked me about the progress of his situation.

Feigning mystery, I said I had a solution, but it would be quite troublesome.

To be honest, I didn’t like Du Qiu. The reason Fatty Ling dared to set me up and use Li Mi to blackmail me was because he had Du Qiu backing him up.

Since I’d already gotten involved, I might as well make it worth my while!

Du Qiu took the hint, pulled out his wallet, and tossed a card onto the table in front of me.

“This card has three hundred thousand yuan on it as a deposit. Once this is resolved, I’ll give you another two hundred thousand.”

Half a million? I was taken aback for a moment. Truly, the wealthy are generous with their money.

I swiftly pocketed the card and told him the items needed for crafting a life amulet. Du Qiu immediately took note.

According to the ancient book, making a living soul amulet required the spirit of someone with a compatible destiny to Du Qiu’s. However, forcibly extracting the soul of a living person would bring far more severe consequences than mere backlash and shortened lifespan-it would be divine retribution!