Chapter Forty-Five: The Pink Warhammer, Slayer of Resentful Ghosts

Beneath her dress, the girl wore a close-fitting suit of deep-blue sharkskin, enveloping her petite, delicate figure from head to toe. The suit seemed almost alive, pulsating gently and radiating a circle of sapphire light, clearly far superior to the one worn by the Pearl Diver Ah Xiao. Yet, the little girl had barely begun to develop; she was nothing like the grand, magnificent woman with heterochromatic eyes. Her figure was dry and unimpressive, with nothing to catch the gaze.

Wang Cheng felt that even a single glance at her slender frame was an insult to his own sense of aesthetics.

“Brother Wang, my uncle commissioned this sharkskin suit for Shu Shu at great expense from the Leather Master. What do you think?” Han Shu Shu called out. “The thirty-six halls of the Water Division each have their specialties, but swimming is always foremost. Shall we race to see who reaches the sunken ship first?”

With that, Han Shu Shu plunged into the water. Despite her frail appearance and lack of skill in mathematics and astronomy, she was determined to best Wang Cheng in her area of expertise.

The sharkskin suit hugged her tightly, transforming her feet into broad fins. With a flick of her tail, she vanished from the surface, moving with grace and incredible speed.

The Leather Master, a rank in the Earth Division, was one of the Four Minor Dark Trades alongside the Coroner, Executioner, and Paper Craftsman, specializing in stitching corpses and crafting leather. This “leatherware,” requiring careful maintenance and never to be worn for more than ten days at a stretch, was coveted by Water Division officials who spent their lives at sea. Even in the depths of winter, it offered perfect insulation from the cold.

Wang Cheng could not afford such luxury. Stripping off his clothes, he revealed a standard swimming suit that traced his perfectly sculpted muscles. Though he primarily practiced internal martial arts, the harmony of internal and external training had given him a robust physique and “living flesh” that could be both firm and supple.

With a splash, he followed her into the water.

Han Shu Shu, swimming ahead, had no idea that the sea was Wang Cheng’s true domain.

Blessed by the Azure Abyss, he would never drown! Underwater, he became like a fish, needing no breath, able to roam the vast Eastern Sea at will. Thanks to the Ghost Power acquired from the Seashore Spirit—Turtle Head Form—his strength in the water soared to three hundred pounds.

Invisible force gathered around him, propelling him forward as his legs and arms churned up powerful whirlpools, increasing his speed with every stroke.

Effortlessly, he overtook Han Shu Shu, arriving first at the deck of the sunken ship.

He had no intention of competing with a little girl; his superiority was simply undeniable.

On the surface, the boatmen cheered, and even Han Shu Shu’s companions had to concede respect to the Fourth Young Master of the Straight Duty Hall, certain that he would one day hold a prominent position in Yue Port.

Beneath the waves, Wang Cheng closely examined the sunken ship.

The hull had a gaping hole; the midsection was torn open by something sharp, leaving a clean-edged wound. It seemed unlikely that it had simply struck a reef—more probable that it had encountered some colossal sea monster, a Lord of the Deep.

Water-tight compartments had prevented the ship from sinking immediately, allowing it to flee near the island, only to succumb to a tragic fate in the end.

Two centuries had passed. The wooden merchant vessel was encrusted with seaweed, barnacles, and myriad parasites. Most of the cargo had long ago rotted away, dissolved by the ocean. Only a batch of corrosion-resistant porcelain remained, lying quietly in the hold, with some scattered in the silt of the seabed from the impact of capsizing.

Here lay the source of those salvaged pieces of marine porcelain, their patterns and craftsmanship indistinguishable from the originals.

Wang Cheng estimated that these hundreds of Yunmeng blue-and-white export pieces were not imperial treasures, but could easily fetch more than twenty thousand taels of silver.

“According to our agreement, we get thirty percent—that’s six or seven thousand taels! And with the broker’s fee from Feng Lin Studio, this will be a tidy fortune.”

Wang Cheng’s mood soared.

Of course, besides treasure, the ship held another inevitable cargo—the vengeful spirits of the crew who died aboard, transformed into evil ghosts.

Han Shu Shu, arriving late, swam up beside him. Having lost the swimming contest even with her Leather Master suit, she felt a deeper respect for her “cheap senior brother” Wang Cheng.

Water Division officials were unlike the Court officials of the Heaven Division, who climbed ranks through seniority and politics. Here, authority rested on ability alone.

She surveyed the ship’s interior, where slow-moving humanoid figures lurked under the suppressing light of the Tailwing Shadowless Wall. The jade amulet hanging from her neck glowed, allowing Wang Cheng to hear her voice:

“It’s probably because they were only a few yards from shore, just steps away from safety, but went down with the ship and died here. The attachment in their hearts was too deep, so even their corpses became vengeful spirits.”

She counted—there were seventeen or eighteen in all, not decayed enough to be recognizable as centuries-old corpses. But their bodies had fused with seabed parasites, barnacles, and coral, so densely packed that it made the skin crawl.

Just their appearance was enough to drive anyone with trypophobia mad.

Han Shu Shu, seemingly frail, showed no fear. Instead, in that eerie atmosphere, she eagerly explained to Wang Cheng:

“Brother Wang, ‘Waterbound Dead’ are the most common evil spirits in any body of water—rivers, lakes, seas, everywhere. Normally, after a corpse sinks, it gradually inflates as it decays, the gas distorting the face and lips, turning the body into a grotesque giant.

As the gas builds, the corpse floats—first the upper limbs, then the lower. So if someone drowns and isn’t found immediately, they’ll float to the surface in three or five days.

There’s another trait: because men and women have different pelvises, floating corpses are ‘men face-down, women face-up.’

And finally, some corpses remain upright, as if walking underwater, drifting forward with the current. They leave clear footprints in the dried riverbeds, step by step toward the deepest part, then turn and continue. Especially in the Turbid River, during the dry season, the riverbed is covered with these lines of footprints.

If you pass by in a boat and look down, you might come face to face with a Waterbound Dead, smiling up at you!”

She finished by turning to Wang Cheng and making a cute, crooked ghost face, then slipped through the hole into the sunken ship.

Wang Cheng had to admit, the little girl had a knack for telling ghost stories. He’d felt nothing before, but now his mind raced, worried that a bloated dead face might suddenly press against his back.

Just then, Wang Cheng’s eyes flashed. He called out, his voice low and urgent:

“Shu Shu, be careful!”

The light overhead illuminated the whole ship, exposing every evil spirit. But as Han Shu Shu swam inside, Wang Cheng realized there was more than just ghosts lurking here. Not far ahead of the girl, a cluster of sea anemones twitched.

His Gift of Rare Insight immediately identified it as a sea anemone crab, larger than a millstone. Its pincers were covered in anemones, using their tentacles for camouflage and protection, blending perfectly with the parasite-ridden planks.

As he warned her, Wang Cheng quickly drew a talisman from his waist pouch, one personally painted by Master Shen Yuting—the Black Water Serpent Talisman. He muttered swiftly:

“Red-headed, black-faced, eight-necked serpent. Mouth spews black vapor, coils around Kunlun. Controls all transformations, subdues thunder gods. Command!”

His spirit flashed; the talisman ignited underwater without flame, and a shadowy serpent shot from the gloom, coiling around the crab, freezing it in place.

But Wang Cheng’s worries proved unnecessary. Han Shu Shu demonstrated what it meant to never judge by appearances.

The timid, delicate girl seemed pitiful, weak, and helpless. Yet as Wang Cheng recited his spell, she had already pulled two heavy bronze war hammers from her pouch—enameled in adorable pink, their heads slightly larger than eggs and engraved with the Killing Ghost Seal.

Don’t be fooled by storybook exaggerations—the largest practical war hammers on the battlefield are about this size, never as big as watermelons.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

She wielded her hammers in a chaotic yet purposeful style, stirring the sea with thunderous blows. Within her tiny body, enormous strength was hidden.

With a few strikes, she pulverized the immobilized crab.

Once she started, she couldn’t stop. Han Shu Shu moved from the outside in, smashing the heads of the Waterbound Dead suppressed by the Shadowless Wall, sending corpse fluids and rotting brains flying everywhere.

This time, the spirits stayed down and never rose again.

They had been starved for too long, weakened beyond resistance—no match for this violent little girl.

Wang Cheng had wanted to remind Han Shu Shu to save some crab roe for him, not to ruin it.

He opened his mouth, nearly swallowing a mouthful of century-old corpse broth swirling with black and yellow brain matter. He quickly retreated, silently thinking to himself:

“Sweet on the outside, terrifying within!”