PD -Chapter 27 The Five-Thunder Oil Pool Formation

After hearing the information Liu Xiaopeng had brought back, I couldn’t help but praise him. I’d always thought he was a quiet guy who kept to himself, but when it really mattered, he had managed to gather a surprising amount of useful information.

“Brother Han, what do we do next?” Liu Xiaopeng asked.

After some thought, I replied, “Based on what you’ve learned, that female ghost is almost certainly Xiao Chen. She carried such intense resentment before her death that there’s no way she’d be willing to leave this world so easily.”

“Now that we know what we’re dealing with, we can prepare accordingly.”

With that, I stood up and took Liu Xiaopeng out to the van. We loaded up our existing equipment and returned to Headless Bridge to survey the terrain and make preparations in advance.

By the time we arrived, it was already evening. Traffic passing over the bridge had noticeably decreased. Clearly, word of the bridge’s dangers had spread among local drivers.

We walked around the bridge, examining the area from all sides. According to Liu Xiaopeng’s description, the woman had jumped into the river to her death.

That matched what the truck drivers had mentioned earlier—that some people claimed to have seen fish and shrimp crawling out of the female ghost’s face.

If that was true, then the ghost in red was clearly a yin entity that favored darkness and water.

The Five Elements generate and restrain one another; they are one of the fundamental principles governing the world.

Since the female ghost belonged to the Water element, we would have to use Fire to suppress her yin energy.

Before setting out on this trip, I had personally prepared a large number of talismans. Now was finally the time to put them to use.

Standing beneath the bridge, I reviewed all the information we had gathered and estimated the spirit’s strength.

She had existed here for decades and had claimed countless victims. That would undoubtedly have greatly increased both her yin energy and her malice. She would not be an easy opponent.

Simply using Fire to counter Water wouldn’t be enough.

We needed a second layer of protection.

With that in mind, I had Liu Xiaopeng siphon some gasoline from the van’s fuel tank. Then I took out twenty prepared talismans, crushed them into powder, and mixed them into the gasoline.

Afterward, I stirred the mixture with spiritual power until the talisman powder and gasoline were completely fused together.

These were Fire Talismans and Thunder Lord Talismans that I had prepared in advance.

Using the gasoline as a medium, I intended to set up a Five-Thunder Oil Pool Formation on the bridge.

Taking Liu Xiaopeng with me, I used the gasoline as ink and marked out the formation on the bridge deck according to the positions of the celestial constellations above, using the Six Stars of the Southern Dipper and the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper as references.

At each corresponding point, I placed additional dual-attribute talismans.

Finally, I poured the remaining gasoline directly onto the center of the bridge.

By the time we finished, the sun had completely set.

Within a radius of five hundred meters around Headless Bridge, not a single vehicle or pedestrian remained. The entire area was engulfed in a silence that naturally stirred unease deep within the heart.

This was the countryside in the heat of summer.

Normally, the air should have been filled with the sounds of insects and birds.

Yet sitting inside the van, we couldn’t hear a single chirp.

What was more, I noticed that the temperature around the bridge continued to drop as time passed.

We remained on high alert, waiting inside the van for nearly two hours.

Yet there was still no sign of the entity.

I pulled out my phone and checked the time.

It was already approaching nine o’clock.

After a moment’s consideration, I started the engine.

“We’ll have to lure the snake out of its hole after all,” I said to Liu Xiaopeng.

Releasing the clutch, I slowly drove onto the bridge, drawing closer and closer to the Five-Thunder Oil Pool Formation we had set up.

The instant we drove onto the bridge, the headlights of my battered van began flickering as if there were an electrical fault.

Liu Xiaopeng immediately switched on the EMF detector in his hand.

The readings were climbing rapidly.

Just as the van was about to reach the center of the bridge, a flash of blood-red suddenly appeared in my field of vision.

My heart stirred.

Oddly enough, I wasn’t particularly afraid.

Focusing my gaze, I saw that it was indeed a woman dressed in red.

And she wasn’t nearly as terrifying as I’d imagined.

Under the illumination of the headlights, her figure and features instead carried a delicate, tragic beauty.

The thin red dress clung tightly to her body in the wind, outlining every curve of her figure as though deliberately provoking the desires of anyone who looked at her.

Staring at my vehicle, she slowly extended a slender arm, as if asking for a ride.

I had already been driving slowly.

But seeing this, I gritted my teeth and slammed the accelerator.

The van instantly surged forward toward the crimson figure.

Yet the collision that should have occurred never came.

The vehicle passed straight through the woman in red and continued toward the far side of the bridge.

My heart jolted.

I immediately hit the brakes and brought the van to a halt.

Looking through the rearview mirror, I saw that the woman still stood calmly in the middle of Headless Bridge.

“I respectfully invoke the Six Stars of the Southern Dipper and the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper—let all demons and spirits be reduced to dust!”

I immediately activated my spell.

Then I hurled a talisman, already ignited by spiritual power, toward the spot where the woman stood.

Boom!

Blue flames instantly erupted across the bridge, forming a massive array that surrounded the woman in red.

The dual-attribute talismans placed along the bridge deck and guardrails ignited one after another.

The blue flames fueled by gasoline gradually shifted to yellow.

Then tiny purple arcs of lightning began darting through the fire.

The arcs slowly connected together, forming an enormous blue electrical net that tightly enveloped the woman in red.

“Close!”

Seeing that the formation had taken shape, I immediately used my spiritual power to tighten the array.

“It worked!”

Watching the bridge behind us, Liu Xiaopeng cried out in delight.

Naturally, I was excited as well.

But I forced myself to remain calm, maintaining the hand seal and continuing to control the Five-Thunder Oil Pool Formation.

Within the thunder-and-fire array, I could vaguely see the woman in red throwing back her head and letting out a long howl.

Her figure began flickering.

Then she seemed to notice that we were watching her.

Slowly, she extended a hand toward us from within the formation.

In that instant, the van began rolling backward on its own.

My heart skipped a beat.

I immediately stomped on the brake pedal.

Yet no matter how hard I pressed the brakes—even with the handbrake pulled as tight as possible—the van continued reversing toward the bridge.

“Get out of the vehicle!”

As much as I hated to abandon my old van, survival came first.

The Five-Thunder Oil Pool Formation was designed to deal with evil spirits.

But the blazing inferno burning across the bridge would be just as deadly to living people.

I immediately reached for the door handle, preparing to jump out.

At that moment, however, my hand was suddenly seized by Liu Xiaopeng, who sat in the passenger seat.

“Don’t leave. Stay with me, okay?”

Liu Xiaopeng suddenly gave me a strange, eerie smile.

He gently removed my hand from the door handle and placed it against his own face, rubbing his cheek softly against my palm.

My mind went blank.

Goosebumps exploded from that hand and instantly spread across my entire body.