New Times, New Hell

Ch16 - Ghost Imaging Technology

People in the past would use dust to detect the tracks of ghosts when they came back. The supposed "coming back" referred to the day when the spirits of the deceased would return to visit. Some families who had deceased members would place fine dust on the counter during the day of return to see the tracks of the spirit.

According to legend, one could tell what the deceased what reincarnate into in the next life based on the tracks left in the dirt. If one saw chicken tracks, then they would reincarnate into a chicken; if one saw dog tracks, they would reincarnate into a dog. There was an even more bizarre saying, that if there were chain imprints in the dust, the deceased had committed too many sins when alive and had returned in chains.

Daoist priest Mu naturally knew of all this. Sometimes, more traditional families would even invite him to perform spirit send-offs, but he had never truly seen a ghost's imprint before.

He never imagined that his first time witnessing it would be under these circumstances. Beyond that, he never imagined that the imprints he would see were those of handcuffs...... But he had to admit, it truly was on par with the times.

Daoist priest Mu's eyes filled with a confusion that seemed to read, "Who am I, where am I." He temporarily became speechless.

His apprentice simply became mute.

Everyone looked in the direction of the footprints, only to see a pair of handcuffs floating in the air, directly in line with the prints in the dust.

Father Chen was shaking in fear. He finally gathered the courage to ask, "Did you catch the g-ghost?"

"Yes." Yu Zhengdu looked at the Chens who were now in a huddle together. He comforted, "You guys can relax, it's fine now."

How could they relax, the handcuffs were still in midair.

Probably because he thought huddling in a group wasn't a pretty image, Father Chen stood up, though he was still terrified at heart. When he was a certain distance away from the handcuffs, he stopped and started peering, as if he wanted to get a closer look but was also very scared he would get hurt. He asked, "How did you catch it?"

As soon as he asked, Daoist priest Mu and his apprentice looked over too, intense curiosity burning in their eyes.

How would he know. Yu Zhengdu looked at Boss to seek help.

Shang Que said, "There are many magical instruments capable of holding ghosts. A chain is one of them. The old Daoist should know this."

The method of using dust to detect trails did note that sometimes the deceased returned in chains. Those were, of course, instruments of the Underworld. But in the mortal realm, some Daoists also preferred to use chains as their magical instruments, refining them to be able to hold ghosts.

Thus, Daoist priest Mu nodded his head.

Shang Que looked at him in disdain, "So how come now that I've changed its form, you don't recognize?"

Daoist priest Mu: "............??"

Was your method as simple as switching a magical instrument? Your entire ghost catching process was too unscientific......oh wait, too scientific, okay!!! Is this how someone who works with superstitions should act?!

Daoist priest Mu wanted to argue, but Father Chen already seemed to understand. "So that's what happened, I see. This is one of your new inventions too, right. Handcuffs are more convenient than chains."

We're sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we're going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.