The term "nest" clearly hit Su Kun's weak spot. He sprang up and whooshed to the master's side, grabbing his shoulders and shaking them as he pleaded, "Master, I need a talisman to save my life!"

"Gah?" The master, dizzied by the shaking, rolled his eyes and said repeatedly, "What talisman? First, take your hands off me; show some respect!"

"Bind me together with Gu Yan; wherever he goes, I go!" Su Kun thought about it for a long time and still felt this was safer.

Although Gu Yan's job involved chasing ghosts, Su Kun realized that as long as Gu Yan was by his side, his courage inflated like a pumped-up balloon, glossy and plump. Forget the female ghost that was just a dozen centimeters away from him before; even if something far scarier came right up to his face, nose to nose, he doubted he would be scared.

So, he'd rather follow Gu Yan and encounter ghosts daily than be alone.

The master blinked his black-bean-like eyes, stared at him for a few seconds, then reached into the cloth pouch slung over his body and pulled out a bundle of hemp rope, saying, "Here, know how to use this? Wrap this end around your waist a few times and tie a dead knot, then do the same on Gu Yan."

Su Kun excitedly took the hemp rope, touched it, and then looked down to ask the master, "Is this the legendary Taoist talisman? It looks just like a regular rope, huh. So, after tying it, will it glow and then disappear like in those novels and TV shows, but still be effective?"

The master rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, "What do you mean 'looks like'? This is just ordinary hemp rope."

Su Kun, about to wrap the rope around his waist, said, "Damn! This is a huge insult to my intelligence and emotional quotient..."

Seeing Su Kun's aggrieved expression as he complained to the master, Gu Yan helplessly reached out to drag him back, but then the small cloth pouch tied around the master's waist began to wriggle, and the tightly closed mouth loosened a bit. A round, fiery-red head peeked out, followed by the master's mount named Pomegranate, capable of changing size at will, fluttering out of the pouch.

Its usual palm-sized body looked a bit chubby, but its neck was quite long and slender, giving it a comically disproportionate appearance. The sharp beak was still clutching a piece of talisman paper, scribbled with incomprehensible symbols in cinnabar.

Su Kun watched as Pomegranate flew to him, placed the talisman paper in his palm, and then fluttered back towards the master.

"Look! Your red-feathered bird is more reliable than you!" Su Kun boasted as he waved the talisman paper, trying to figure out where to stick it on his body, while he said to the master, "Trying to fool me with hemp rope, and now I've still got the talisman paper, huh? Heh heh heh!"

The master twitched the corner of his mouth, "I advise you not to stick it, my Pomegranate is playing tricks..."

"Ah?" Su Kun looked at him confusedly, "Playing tricks? Isn't this a binding talisman? Then what is it?"

"It's a talisman that prevents you from speaking." The master turned his face away, unable to bear looking at him.

Su Kun: "..." Have I fallen so low that even a bird can bully me?

Watching from the sidelines for a long time, Geng Zimo silently looked up at Xiang Ge and complained, "Lack of intelligence is a fatal flaw, no hospital can cure it."

Unable to watch any longer, Gu Yan continued his previous action with an expressionless face, decisively picking up Su Kun and asking the master, "Master, may I borrow your mount for a moment?"

As Pomegranate circled the pouch, about to dive back in, it protested vehemently, "Chirp—!!" and then, with lightning speed, escaped back into the pouch, tightening the mouth of the pouch with its beak.

Xiang Ge silently looked to the heavens: The worldview is so damaged, it's incurable.

Su Kun fell silent for a moment, then decided that only stoicism was good, so he clung to Gu Yan's wrist and solemnly advised, "The master said that ghost either wandered for over a hundred years, absorbing countless shattered souls and spirits, or it was suppressed in an extremely yin place, right?

"Combining what you've said, it looks like it's the latter. Since they're all trapped there, please make sure to deal with that group of creatures as soon as possible. My life and safety are now in your hands, Comrade Gu Yan!"

"..." Gu Yan, rendered particularly helpless by his antics, rubbed his head and said, "Stop with that nonsense in your mouth all day."

Su Kun: "Oh." You missed the point, Comrade Gu Yan!

"Wait!" Just as everyone was about to discuss how to deal with those spirits to minimize harm to the public, Su Kun suddenly scratched his chin and said, "Master, repeat that statement again."

The master, puzzled, "Which statement?"

"The one about the whole nest being suppressed somewhere." Su Kun frowned, as if trying to recall something.

"..." The master, speechless, "Didn't you just repeat it yourself?"

Su Kun tilted his head, "I just feel like I've heard that phrase before, but I can't remember where. So I wanted you to repeat it to see if it jogs my memory."

The master, thoroughly exhausted by his pestering, didn't even bother to complain about him interrupting their planning anymore, just stroked his beard and thought for a moment, then said, "What I meant was, that nest of ghosts, or at least part of them, must be old ghosts from long ago, buried by sorcerers or enemies, or someone with ill intentions in unsuitable places for burial...

"And perhaps they were dug up later or their spirits were drawn out and moved to a place with extremely bad feng shui. They've been trapped there, suppressed for over a hundred years, unable to transcend, not entering the cycle—hisss—"

As he spoke, he too figured out something was off.

Su Kun "smacked" Gu Yan's arm and exclaimed, "I remember now! This is it! When you guys were talking about that emperor before, you mentioned something similar."

Xiang Ge raised an eyebrow: How did the emperor get dragged into this?

Geng Zimo, who knew some of the details, instinctively glanced at Gu Yan.

Seeing his furrowed brows deepen, a strong disgust visible in his usually calm eyes, Su Kun also looked at Gu Yan. Realizing he might have mentioned someone he shouldn't have, he pinched Gu Yan's hand and sheepishly corrected himself, "Er... I was a bit tactless just now, shouldn't have brought up that fatuous emperor again, I must have been overthinking. That guy wasn't the one who ran out and got caught by the master later, so it probably has nothing to do with him, my imagination just ran wild..."

As Su Kun spoke, Gu Yan instinctively glanced at the master, but noticed the master's expression was oddly awkward.

If he remembered correctly, the last time he saw a similar expression was in the milk tea shop when they, along with the landlord, came to help take care of Su Kun's business, and they also mentioned that fatuous emperor.

Gu Yan thought for a moment; back then, the landlord seemed to have mentioned something like "that fatuous emperor caused some chaos and before he succeeded, the master caught him," and standing next to him, the master had a similarly awkward expression.

"Master, you..." Gu Yan gently patted Su Kun's hand, signaling that he wasn't upset with him, then hesitated before addressing the master, "Do you perhaps have something to share?"

Su Kun, who had been attentively listening, suddenly turned his face away: hearing that phrase now spontaneously made him think of certain health issues, which seemed quite disrespectful to these serious historical figures.

The master, clearly also finding the phrase, which was widely used in various advertisements, somewhat ridiculous, twitched the corner of his mouth before regaining his earlier demeanor. However, following Gu Yan's question, a significant amount of apology seemed to add to his simple embarrassment. He shook his head and sighed deeply, "This matter is a long story..."

Hearing this and seeing his current demeanor, Gu Yan had an uneasy suspicion arise in his mind: "Master, could it be that initially... you failed to capture that fatuous emperor?"

"Ah?" Su Kun's eyes widened as he looked at Gu Yan and then at the master, hoping he would deny this guess.

Unexpectedly, the master did not immediately refute it but fell silent for a while.

This silence caused Gu Yan's expression to darken suddenly, and Su Kun also felt a sinking feeling in his heart, thinking: could it be...?

"The capture was made," the master finally spoke with an expression that seemed difficult to articulate, pausing before continuing, "but the person initially tasked with it made the wrong choice."

Gu Yan paused for a moment, then asked, "Did you entrust it to your junior brother?"

"It wasn't directly by me. At that time, I wasn't as constantly busy with external affairs as I am now, and it was rare for me to return to Huaiyin Temple. Twenty years ago, the disciples of Huaiyin Temple of my generation still worked in coordination, assigned according to our roles.

"I was part of those active outside. We had to bring back new captures of evil spirits or demons, hand them over to the sect, and then the master would assign different disciples to handle them. At that time, Qing Yuan had just returned from outside; we didn't yet know he had caused trouble. The master bundled that emperor's spirit with several other newly captured evil spirits and handed them to him, instructing him to take them to the underworld and hand them over to the King Yama."

"And the result?"

"As soon as he left, the master found out about the trouble he had caused outside and sent people to chase after him, ordering him to return for punishment and reflection..."

"So he simply took off with those few evil spirits?" Gu Yan asked.

"Having such a disciple was not exactly honorable, so the sect ordered silence and the swift retrieval of Qing Yuan and those spirits."

Su Kun grimaced, "You didn't end up finding any, and those evil spirits became the nest we now have in H City?"

"Of course not, we found the other evil spirits gradually over time. It seems Qing Yuan threw them out as decoys to conceal his location." The master sighed, "But even knowing they were decoys, we had to collect them. Otherwise, leaving those spirits to wreak havoc and harm people would be unacceptable. So, back and forth, we lost track of Qing Yuan. As you know, understanding each other well within the same sect, if someone genuinely wants to hide, they are not easy to find."

"Master, are you saying that Qing Yuan finally just ran off with that emperor's ghost?" Su Kun asked puzzledly, "But why would he run away with a ghost? To keep it as a pet?"