Chapter 500: Ghost Garden
Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
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!"
The knowledge about dimensional fusion was part of the study on spiritual territories. Only 7th Tier Illusionary Divine powerful beings were qualified enough to have some contact with such knowledge.
However, now, a mortal family even made use of special environments to achieve such!
"We require many medicines for exorcism rituals. These medicinal herbs can only be grown under special conditions and environments. For example..."
Tantai Juexin voice was low and he raised his head to look at the moon.
Under the moonlight, a garden appeared. The plants inside were all oddly and eerily shaped. Normal people who saw such would definitely have nightmares!
Fang Yuan took a look and saw a stalk of Human Faced Sunflower. In its centre was a women's face that was swaying along with the moonlight.
On the ground, a broken arm crawled pass and left behind a trail of blood on the soil.
"This is the Human Faced Sunflower and Broken Arm Grass. These are some of the basic materials needed for us to make spiritual medicine..."
Tantai Juexin pushed Fang Yuan into the garden, "Today's lesson will be for you to stay inside here until tomorrow morning! I will teach you how to identify these materials tomorrow..."
"..."
Fang Yuan looked at the surroundings. It was rife with all sorts of extremely sinister-looking, bloody and horrifying plants that were beyond human imagination.
Normal kids would have been scared crazy if they were here.
'Something's wrong... this garden is obviously hidden with dangers!'
Fang Yuan suddenly had a thought, 'Perhaps... he wants me to die here!'
Outside the garden, Tantai Juexin's palm was trembling slightly.
Tantai Juexin knew it was actually a plot of wilderness behind the Hall of Sacrifice! This garden did not exist in the human world!
Even Tantai Juexin was feeling conflicted currently.
He both hoped this tool which carried the family's hope could create miracles and yet hoped he would just die like the others.
"Su Xin... she must be very sad, right? That's why she left him to be taken care by the wet nurse immediately after giving birth to him... She hates me, she hates this child!"
Tantai Juexin sighed. His expression was extremely complicated.
"This Ghost Garden is located in the netherworld and these plants can only grow in such an environment. Thus, it will occasionally attract some of those dangerous 'presence'. Hence, this is why it was built behind the Hall of Sacrifice and requires some family elders to periodically 'prune' it... Even if no ghosts come, the Aggrieved Ghost Vines and Corpse Vines inside also requires living humans as their nutrient and would automatically look for their prey."
Tantai Juexin was very clear that even a normal exorcist would go crazy or even die if they spent one night in such an environment!
For a 5 years old child, even if it was Tantai Mieming, it was a very difficult mission to complete.
However, at the next moment, his eyes opened wide and his mouth was agape. It was unbelievable.
Vines that were like streaks of black hair twined around the 5 years old Tantai Mieming as though they were playing with him.
Although this child was inside the Ghost Garden, he was like the king of all!
'Heart of Nature!'
Even if Fang Yuan was met with powerful entities like the Demonic Heart Realm and had his abilities sealed, his stats and special abilities still remained. The seal that sealed his skills was long lifted.
At this current moment, Fang Yuan was making use of his botany skills to subdue all the plants in the Ghost Garden!
It was not technically subduing them, in actual fact, what Fang Yuan did was to listen attentively to the heartfelt thoughts of these plants.
"It's different from the usual spiritual grass, I can only hear pain and suffering!"
Fang Yuan stroked the hair-like Corpse Vine in front of him. Suddenly, he exerted strength and plucked out the vine along with its roots.
"Ying! Ying!"
A women's cry could be heard from the streaks of black hair. Fang Yuan was immediately sympathetic, "I will help you to... release your pain!"
Fang Yuan's finger moved. It was as though he pinched a key spot and all the black vines turned into ashes at once. On his palm, a few black coloured legumes were left behind.
"Please teach me how to identify them now."
Fang Yuan walked out of the ghost garden and stood in front of Tantai Juexin with an indifferent look on his face.
"This person... this person..."
Tantai Juexin's face flashed with a tinge of shock and immediately changed to horror. Even he himself did not notice that his voice was slightly trembling, "These are the seeds of Corpse Vines, Corpse Vines requires the hair of drowned corpses as their nourishment. Its matured body needs to devour a living person every year and its seeds can be used to..."
After a night, the father and son there were not like father and son returned to the old mansion in front.
"Mieming, you go back first!"
Tantai Guijing seemed to have waited for quite a while already. After he instructed Fang Yuan to leave first, the conversation between him and Tantai Juexin could be vaguely heard.
"It is a bit too early to open the Ghost Garden to him now..."
"I have my plans, Father!"
"...Okay, looks like I underestimated his potential by too much. From now onwards, you will be fully in-charged of Mieming's training. Also, one more thing... Jueqing is back!"