500 Ghost Garden (1/2)

Fang Yuan's life was very organised, or should I say... monotonous!

Ever since he displayed an intelligence on par with average 10-year-olds at the age of 3, he had more lessons every day.

Specialised teachers were hired for all his lessons, from normal culture classes to physical education, and including his most interesting topic on the supernatural and the spiritual. The person who taught him spiritualism was his father, Tantai Juexin.

”Father!”

After Fang Yuan finished his dinner, he went to the study room.

The ancient looking oil lamp flickered. Tantai Juexin sat behind the study table with a cold and harsh expression on his face.

Fang Yuan called his father quietly without any emotion, it was as though he was calling any other person.

”Let's start our supernatural lesson now! Repeat to me what I have taught you yesterday!”

Tantai Juexin was used to such coldness from his son. He then continued with an expressionless look on his face, ”Tell me, what are 'ghosts'?”

Fang Yuan concentrated and the knowledge inside his brain came out, ”Ghosts are a spiritual presence. It is unknown when they appeared in this world... It is a phenomenon that cannot be easily explained by science and it's filled with terror! Most importantly, all kinds of ghosts cannot be destroyed by humans! What we can do is to discover the patterns behind them and thus, avoid the dangers and save lives. This is our job as exorcists...”

As Fang Yuan recited, he felt rather astonished secretly.

Indeed, supernormal powers were present in this realm, they were 'ghosts'!

However, such ghost spirits were very different from the impression Fang Yuan had inside his memory. They appeared in the form of spiritual bodies and only those ghosts at the lowest tier could be observed and described.

In actual fact, Fang Yuan being gravitated to them was a curse, a meme! They could not be completely described and explained. Even exorcists' conclusions were one-sided as they were things that could not be understood by humans!

All ghosts could not be destroyed by humans. They possessed all sorts of inexplicable powerful abilities, such as messing with people's heart and mind, reversing cause-and-effect, killing people in their dreams and even distorting space-time. When normal people were faced with them, they would sink into complete despair!

When Fang Yuan heard all these, he was immediately greatly interested in this phenomenon of ghosts.

After all, even dream master sages could not distort space-time nor cause-and-effect. This realm was indeed worthy to be explored!

However, Tantai Juexin had also sternly warned Fang Yuan before. If any exorcist were met with such a ghost who could distort space-time and cause-and-effect, they must immediately hide far away from it and should never walk into such a situation. This was because even the most supreme exorcist would definitely die to such a ghost!

Yes, Tantai Family was an exorcist family!

This family's bloodline possessed a special gene which caused all their descendants, regardless of gender, to possess extraordinary appearances and abilities! There were even some who could awaken some 'special traits'!

These included the ability to see ghosts, temporarily dispel curses and even sense a person's remaining lifespan!

Due to such powers, Tantai Family could remain strong through the eras and they even amassed a great fortune.

Unfortunately, such a family was ridden with an unbreakable curse!

'All members of Tantai Family! Would die a horrible death! In a certain period of their lives, they would definitely die of unnatural death!'

The expression Tantai Juexin had when he said this was deeply ingrained in Fang Yuan's sea of consciousness.

The origin of this curse was unknown. However, it had spread throughout the bloodline of Tantai Family. Amongst all the family members, there were no exceptions!

This was the reason why there were so little elderly in Tantai Family.

Also, Fang Yuan was the 'tool' created to resist this unbreakable curse.

For his 'arrival' ritual that time, not only were large amounts of things depleted from the storage, a few elders of the family even died of unnatural death. Lots of funerals kept happening in the family mansion; the price paid was too heavy.

Of course, Tantai Juexin would never tell Fang Yuan such. This was silently observed and concluded by Fang Yuan himself.

”Very good, you are almost done with learning the theory of exorcism...”

Tantai Juexin looked at his son and felt emotional. His son's learning speed was shocking, there was indeed... that sort of presence.

”What's next is the practical stage. Follow me!”

Tantai Juexin stood up and brought Fang Yuan to the ancestral hall at the back of the mansion.

This was an important place for the family. It was also extremely gloomy and frightening. Other kids would never dare to come here to play.

Behind the ancestral hall, there was a plot of land.

In the centre of the area, there was a black coloured hall. To the Tantai Family, this was even more important than the ancestral hall.

”This is the 'Hall of Sacrifice'! It is taken care of by a few family elders.”

Tantai Juexin said calmly but did not go in. Instead, he went to the back of the hall.

'What is worthy to be sacrificed?'

Fang Yuan's heart jumped. He wanted to use his special ability to look inside it but felt a sense of danger and chose not to instead.

One had to be able to live till an old age in Tantai Family to become a family elder, it was a very powerful role. Thus, the items offered inside this Hall of Sacrifice were definitely unusual and extraordinary!

With a bit of regret, Fang Yuan arrived behind the Hall of Sacrifice.

”This is...”

Fang Yuan could clearly felt that the surroundings had changed, ”Dimension fusion? Is this the secret of Tantai Family's old mansion? What is exposed on the outside is already so scary, this is just the tip of the iceberg!”

”Also, this realm is too unusual... even mere mortals can possess such powers. Although they don't rely on themselves, they put quite a few Illusionary Divine dream masters to shame!”