PD -Chapter 5 The Demon-Burning Flame

With that abomination right in front of me, how could I still care about a cold or fever?

Holding my right arm—faintly wreathed in blue flames—across my chest, I charged into the room.

The moment I stepped inside, illuminated by the eerie glow cast by the blue fire on my arm, I saw Liu Xiaopeng, dressed in a pink dress, lift the basin by the bed. Gritting his teeth, he hurled the saltwater inside straight at me.

I silently praised his timing.

That basin of saltwater would prevent the thing from vanishing again anytime soon. Meanwhile, the flames of my Demon-Burning Incantation were at their peak. This was the perfect chance to reduce it to ashes.

I snorted coldly and reached out with a claw-like right hand toward the blurry humanoid figure standing before me. Blue flames immediately gathered in my palm and roared to life.

I could almost feel my fingertips touching the thing, feel the icy malevolent aura radiating from its body. Just as I was about to tighten my grip and seize its vital point—

Countless tiny hands suddenly stretched out from every part of the shadowy figure’s body.

Then, like a pile of loose sand collapsing, it disintegrated into countless particles that scattered across the floor and disappeared through the cracks in the floorboards.

At that exact moment, Liu Xiaopeng’s basin of saltwater splashed directly over me.

The Demon-Burning Flame on my right arm was extinguished instantly.

A chilling sensation coursed through my entire body from head to toe.

I couldn’t help shivering. Spitting out a mouthful of saltwater that had gotten into my mouth, I cursed under my breath and looked down at the floor.

The shadow had vanished completely.

Only a small amount of black ash—identical to the residue I’d found in the refrigerator—remained on the floor.

Liu Xiaopeng stood there holding the empty basin, frozen in shock. After several moments, he finally came to his senses and hurried over to ask if I was alright.

I wiped the saltwater from my face and shook my head.

“We underestimated it this time.”

Then I grabbed Liu Xiaopeng and said:

“Let’s get out of here first and figure out our next move later!”

With that, I dragged both him and Tang Shanshan downstairs in a mad dash. We didn’t even bother packing up our equipment.

Exorcising evil spirits was a lot like fighting a war—it depended on momentum.

As the saying goes: strike while the iron is hot; the second attempt loses force, the third exhausts it completely.

We had already lost our advantage.

My Demon-Burning Incantation had been broken, and I wouldn’t be able to cast it again for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, that thing hadn’t suffered the slightest injury.

This was the ideal opportunity for it to launch a counterattack.

There was no reason to stay any longer.

We needed to leave immediately.

As I led the two of them downstairs, my mind raced with thoughts of what to do next.

Then suddenly I heard Tang Shanshan’s dazed voice beside me, tinged with a hint of sobbing.

“Th-that shadow… I think I know who it is.”

Her words caught me completely off guard.

The situation upstairs had been so tense that I hadn’t paid much attention to the shadow’s appearance.

All I had managed to determine was that it resembled a grown man.

Its entire body was pitch-black, as though composed of countless grains of ash and sand. There was no way to make out its face or features.

And Tang Shanshan had been sitting behind a computer screen the entire time.

How could she possibly have seen its true appearance?

Yet now she was claiming she recognized it?

I pulled her along as we hurried downstairs and returned to the office.

“The shadow’s face was impossible to make out,” I said. “Neither Xiao Liu nor I got a good look at it. Are you sure you recognize it?”

An expression of shock crossed Tang Shanshan’s face, mixed with something else.

Nostalgia.

Without saying a word, she pulled out her phone and opened a photograph for me to see.

The photo was blurry and yellowed with age.

It clearly hadn’t been taken with the phone itself.

Rather, it looked like someone had used the phone to photograph an old picture that had been sitting in a frame for years.

The image showed a man wearing a gray trench coat, standing before the sea.

The photograph had been taken from behind, so his face wasn’t visible.

But the instant I saw it, I immediately thought of the shadow we’d encountered upstairs.

There was no mistake.

The silhouette in the photo looked astonishingly similar.

We had repeatedly concluded that the shadow was a grown man, yet we’d overlooked the basis for that judgment.

What exactly had led our minds to make that assumption?

His clothing.

That’s right.

Although the shadow had been uniformly black from head to toe, it clearly wasn’t naked.

We had ignored that detail entirely and simply accepted our instinctive impression that it looked like an adult man.

Only now, seeing the photograph on Tang Shanshan’s phone, did I finally realize it.

The outline of the shadow was nearly identical to the silhouette of the man in the trench coat.

Holding her phone, I studied the picture carefully.

The more I looked, the more convinced I became.

Not only was the outline of the trench coat—covering most of his body—the same, but even the shape of his head and hairstyle appeared remarkably similar.

I looked up at Tang Shanshan in surprise.

“Who is the man in this photo?”

She was silent for a moment before answering.

“My dad. This picture was taken when I was ten years old. We went to the beach together.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Tang Shanshan had told me before that both of her parents had died in a car accident five years ago.

And that shadow was obviously not a living person.

Could it really be her father’s wandering spirit returning home?

Tang Shanshan had clearly reached the same conclusion.

In a daze, she asked:

“Do you think… it could be my dad? Did he come back to see me?”

I shook my head.

“You can’t identify that shadow as your father based on a single photograph.”

“And even if it is…”

“The living and the dead walk different paths.”

“It’s best not to have any contact.”

Dust returns to dust, earth returns to earth.

Those who have died no longer belong to our world.

We shouldn’t bind them with our emotions any longer.

It’s better to let them rest in peace.

When she fell silent again, I thought for a moment and asked:

“Before your father was buried, was he wearing that trench coat from the photo?”

Tang Shanshan didn’t understand why I was asking, but she thought about it anyway.

“My dad was cremated. I don’t think he was wearing that coat. He was dressed in a custom-made suit.”

She paused.

“But that coat should have been burned together with his other belongings.”

Her answer shocked me once more.

If both the body and his personal belongings had been cremated, then why was his spirit still lingering in the world?

China has always been vast and culturally diverse.

Different ethnic groups and regions possess different religious beliefs, and naturally, different funeral customs.

The Han people generally follow the Confucian ideal of “returning to the earth in peace,” making burial the most common practice.

Tibetans and Mongolians traditionally practice sky burials, offering the body to birds and beasts as a symbol of the soul’s immortality and reincarnation.

Some coastal regions choose sea burials, consigning bodies to the ocean.

The Three Gorges area even possesses the mysterious tradition of hanging-coffin burials.

Among all these methods, however, cremation is by far the cleanest and most decisive.

For the spirits of the deceased, the corpse is like a dwelling place.

Some souls remain in the mortal world for various reasons.

Spirits burdened by attachments often reside within their corpses during the day and wander at night.

Cremation reduces the body to ashes through fire, after which the ashes are stored in an urn, buried, scattered into water, or released into the air.

This practice entered China alongside Buddhism and became widespread.

The most famous example is the Buddha, Shakyamuni, whose cremation supposedly left behind sacred relics known as sarira.

From a practical standpoint, cremation disposes of remains far more efficiently than other methods and requires fewer resources.

Buddhism, meanwhile, teaches that the body is merely a vessel to which the soul and consciousness cling.

Once the soul departs, the flesh is no longer sacred.

Cremation allows the soul to ascend with the smoke toward the Pure Land.

Not that I necessarily agree with Buddhist teachings.

Nor do I know whether such a paradise truly exists.

But one fact remains:

Cases of spirits lingering in the world after cremation are extraordinarily rare compared to those involving burial or other funeral practices.

At least, I had never encountered such a case before.

I had even discussed the matter with other practitioners knowledgeable in exorcism techniques.

They all told me essentially the same thing:

They had almost never encountered malevolent spirits whose bodies had already been cremated.

Because of this, our profession has long relied on a straightforward method for dealing with evil spirits:

Find the corpse and burn it.

Once the body is destroyed, the spirit dissipates as well.

Yet Tang Shanshan had clearly said her father had been cremated.

So why was his soul still wandering the mortal world?

Frowning, I stood in the middle of the office, pondering the situation before us.

Meanwhile, Tang Shanshan’s eyes grew distant.

Her eyelashes trembled slightly.

Tears gradually welled up and spilled over, tracing paths down her pale, exhausted cheeks.

She seemed to be remembering happier days spent with her late father.

I didn’t know how to comfort her.

I guided her to the sofa and sat her down.

Then I shot Liu Xiaopeng a meaningful glance, hoping he’d say something encouraging.

Understanding immediately, he spoke up.

“Sister Shanshan, don’t be sad. Let me get you some water.”

With that, he went off in search of a cup.

I sat beside Tang Shanshan, watching her cry silently, feeling completely helpless.

Regardless of whether that shadow was truly her father, it shouldn’t continue existing in this world.

I had to find a way to restrain it—and destroy it.

Thinking this, I sighed and turned to her.

“That shadow does look remarkably similar to your father’s silhouette.”

“But that doesn’t prove it’s his spirit.”

“And even if it is your father…”

“He stopped belonging to this world a long time ago.”

“You shouldn’t become entangled with it anymore.”

I looked at Tang Shanshan and realized she hadn’t really heard a word I’d said.

Sighing again, I gave her a stern warning:

“Don’t go back home for now.”

“Wait until I’ve figured out a solution.”

“Promise me one thing.”

“No matter what happens, don’t enter that room by yourself again.”