"Was it my father... who saved me?"
Hearing Sun Yan's words, Wang Qiang was taken aback, an inexplicable sourness in his nose, and his eyes turned red immediately.
He finally understood why the voice calling his name felt familiar because it was his own father.
The feeling of that heavy hand pressing his shoulder was just like when he was a child, and wanted to cross the road, his father would always stop him for dangerous reasons.
"My father, my father was really trapped in this river, and I didn't even know, no wonder he couldn't rest in peace." Wang Qiang choked, wiping away his tears and lowering his tearful head.
"When a person dies, if the soul does not dissipate, it will gradually transform from a soul into an Evil Spirit. At that point, they will lose the humanity and emotions they had in life. Mr. Wang, your father hasn't been gone long, so he still retains the feelings he had for you during his lifetime. When you were ghostly blinded just now and walked into the river, he must have been terribly anxious when he saw it.
Don't worry, I will help your father's soul find release." Sun Yan comfortingly patted his arm, then got up, took out the Ghost Torturing Stick, and walked toward the black figures.
Seemingly very afraid of the aura around Sun Yan, the figures didn't wait for him to approach and immediately vanished like extinguished candles in the wind.
At this moment, a head with long hair covering its face suddenly emerged from the river's surface. Her hair, like seaweed, spread across the surface, quickly moving toward Wang Qiang, who was still in mourning by the riverbank.
The hair agilely tied itself around Wang Qiang's ankle, forcefully dragging him into the river.
"Ah!"
Sun Yan, hearing the commotion, immediately turned around and saw a woman in a white dress with a swollen face, completely obscuring her features, her pale, murky eyes crawling with worms, clutching Wang Qiang's ankle, trying to drag him underwater.
The woman's movements were very stiff, yet even so, Wang Qiang was so frightened that he lost the ability to resist, only able to grip the ground hysterically, trying to delay her pull, but to no avail. The woman's strength far exceeded his imagination.
Just as Wang Qiang was about to be submerged, an elderly figure with white hair emerged from under the water, gripping Wang Qiang's thighs tightly, trying to push him back to shore.
But the woman's power was clearly beyond that of the old man's, as she grabbed his head with one hand and flung him away.
Seeing Wang Qiang almost fully submerged, with large amounts of hair wrapping his body like a cocoon,
at this critical moment, a stick was swung down forcefully, hitting the woman's head accurately.
It was Sun Yan, arriving just in time!
"Ah!"
The spot struck by the Ghost Torturing Stick sizzled, emitting gray smoke.
The woman, her mouth wide open, revealing a mouth full of decayed teeth, let out a wailing scream at Sun Yan.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, no Evil Spirit has a reason to linger in this world to do evil. You should be going to Hell." Sun Yan, expressionless, raised the Ghost Torturing Stick and struck again.
This Water Ghost had reached a state where it could come ashore, with a soul half-real and half-illusory. If left in the river for years, it might truly become a more terrifying Evil Spirit.
Since he had encountered it, Sun Yan wouldn't allow such a thing to happen.
If in the water, Sun Yan, with only a mortal physique, might not be a match for the Water Ghost, but now, with the ghost having come ashore and its power reduced, it was a good opportunity for Exorcism.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
With the continual strikes from the Ghost Torturing Stick, the Water Ghost finally couldn't bear it any longer, and with a final scream, her entire body covered in a gray mist, she slumped onto the shore, unable to move.
Wang Qiang, still in a state of shock, immediately kicked away the Water Ghost's hand, his legs weak, crawling back to the shore with heavy breaths, barely surviving.
If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed such a thing as a Water Ghost really existed.
"Wang Qiang."
The elder who had been flung away by the Water Ghost reappeared, walking anxiously to Wang Qiang, reaching out to touch his head, but his hand always passed through, unable to touch.
This elder's soul body was pitch black, his face ferocious, signs of becoming an Evil Spirit. Upon seeing him, Sun Yan instantly recognized his identity.
Previously, in the Memorial Hall, he had seen the deceased's black and white photo, identical to the elder before him – Wang Qiang's father.
Earlier, he had been able to pat Wang Qiang's shoulder because Wang Qiang, being ghostly blinded, had his soul and body unaligned, and thus could perceive other souls.
Now the situation was different, and without Sun Yan's Celestial Eye, Wang Qiang naturally couldn't sense his father's soul beside him.
"You are already dead. Even if he is your son, it's best that you keep a certain distance. The living and the dead are different; you'll affect his Yang Energy this way." Sun Yan said.
Wang Qiang's father turned around, "You can see me?"
"Of course, I am an Exorcist hired by your son, here tonight to guide you to the afterlife."
"Wonderful, I can finally be released." Wang Qiang's father sighed in relief, "Thank you."
Sun Yan asked, "Before that, I want to ask you about this woman. Do you know her? In general, a Water Ghost haunts the place where they died, and the likelihood of someone accidentally drowning here would be high among Dongmu Town's residents."
With a complex expression, Wang Qiang's father looked at the bloated woman on the ground, "If I'm not mistaken, she should be Lady Monica. Eight years ago, her husband went to the police one night to report that his wife accidentally fell off the bridge into the river while they were walking. The entire town participated in a salvage operation, but by dawn, Lady Monica's body still hadn't been found. The police speculated it might have been flushed downstream, and the matter was left unresolved."
"Is that all? Normally, even if a person turns into a Water Ghost, their resentment wouldn't be so severe." Sun Yan was puzzled.
"Perhaps there's something hidden behind it. Just two months after her death, her husband received a huge insurance payout, quickly moving in with another widow in town. Within a year, they moved away from Dongmu Town, and no one knows where they went."
Wang Qiang's father spoke calmly, but Sun Yan felt an inexplicable chill down his spine.
Connecting these events, it's not hard to deduce that Dongmu Town might have experienced a premeditated insurance fraud back then.
Now the perpetrator has long since gone off scot-free, while the victim's soul suffers day after day in the cold river waters, its resentment growing.
Time is the most poisonous of poisons, capable of burying evil in history.
"Thanks for answering. Do you have any last words for your family? I can convey them for you." Sun Yan asked the elder.
"Please tell my love not to mourn my passing, and tell Wang Qiang that I will be watching over him from the sky. He must live well; he has a long life ahead of him."
Wang Qiang's father silently exhaled, accepting the inevitable conclusion peacefully.
"Okay, I will relay that to them."
Sun Yan extended the Ghost Torturing Stick, touching the elder's soul.
The soul instantly shattered, turning into countless fragments, slowly dissipating from the world.