Peerless Bodyguard of a Stunning Beauty

However, as the three women rushed to the supermarket entrance, ready to rescue the assistant, they discovered a bizarre scene unfolding inside. The supermarket, which had been completely empty just a moment before, was now suddenly filled with people—the elderly, children, men, and women. The three of them were stunned.

Lili stared at the bustling crowd, her mind flashing back to the deserted market from moments ago. She stepped back cautiously, her guard raised high. ”This is bad... this supermarket is definitely trouble. Why would a place that was empty just now suddenly be packed with so many people?”

Yu Lan watched the shoppers and noticed something strange. Every single one of them was expressionless and lacked any body heat. Their faces were deathly pale, as if they were walking corpses.

A creeping dread washed over Xuelian. ”This is bad,” she said. ”We must have stumbled into a den of ghosts. Otherwise, how could there be so many of them in the supermarket of an abandoned gas station?”

Just as the women were backing away, the people inside the supermarket whipped around in unison. Their eyes locked onto the trio as they all bared their fangs. At the same time, Lili swiftly pulled the Monster-Reflecting Mirror from her pocket and shone it at the crowd. She wasn’t expecting much, but the sight gave her a shock. The man closest to them was a starving ghost. The pale-faced boy next to the man was the ghost doll, Huazi. The old crone near the cashier was the old woman from *The Ring*. The long-haired, rather pretty female student was the spirit from *The Pen Fairy*. And the little girl next to the boy was the female ghost from *The Grudge*.

Seeing this, Lili gasped. She turned and yelled fearfully to the nearby Zhao Rong, ”Brother Zhao Rong, this isn’t a gas station at all! It’s a haunted den of ghosts!”

Yu Lan pulled an infrared thermometer from her pocket and began scanning the temperatures of the people in the supermarket. She was shocked to discover that they had no body warmth at all; some even registered temperatures below 0°C. Meanwhile, Xuelian took a black donkey’s hoof from her bag and hurled it at the starving ghost closest to her. ”A black donkey’s hoof is like a bomb to you ghosts,” she declared. ”Let’s see how you like this!”

With that, she called out to Zhao Rong, who was busy filling two large buckets with gasoline from an overhead tank. ”Brother Zhao Rong, let’s get out of here! This place is really haunted!”

Having filled his buckets, Zhao Rong was just climbing down from the tank when he heard the women’s frantic cries. Terrified, he rushed over as fast as he could. ”If this place is haunted,” he said, ”then we either leave as quickly as possible, or we exterminate these ghosts in the most brutal way possible and bring peace back to this place!”

When the three women saw Zhao Rong approaching with the two large buckets of gasoline, they ran to him, took the fuel, and began filling the car’s tank. ”Brother Zhao Rong, there are too many ghosts! We can’t fight them, so shouldn’t we run? Let’s just get in the car and escape now!”

Lili screwed the gas cap back on, opened the car door, and urged, ”Brother Zhao Rong, the tank is full! Let’s get out of this godforsaken place!”

Yu Lan pressed the start button, and the engine roared to life. ”Brother, the gasoline here works fine! The car’s started, let’s go!”

Xuelian quickly checked the car’s systems. ”Brother Zhao Rong, everything is normal! We can leave now!”

However, before they could finish, the assistant, who had vanished earlier, suddenly started screaming from inside the supermarket. ”Brother Zhao Rong! Miss Lili, Yu Lan, Xuelian! If you’re leaving, take me with you! Please don’t leave me here! This place is a den of ghosts! It’s terrifying in here!”

Hearing his desperate cries, the three women realized they had completely forgotten about him.

Lili jumped out of the car and charged toward the supermarket. ”Brother Zhao Rong, let’s get the assistant out of there, then we’ll leave this haunted place!”

Yu Lan kicked over a nearby peach tree, broke off a thick branch, and rushed forward, yelling, ”I may not have a Peach Wood Sword, but I have a whole peach tree! That should be enough to beat you little ghouls back!”

Xuelian, a black donkey’s hoof in each hand, threw them toward the supermarket. ”You ghosts! Watch me use these to knock you all down!”

Just then, a tide of ghosts surged out of the supermarket, completely surrounding Zhao Rong and his three companions.

When Zhao Rong saw that his group was encircled, he threw his head back and laughed. ”You bunch of ghouls are out of luck, because today you’ve run into a Maoshan Taoist priest!”

Hearing Zhao Rong call himself a Maoshan Taoist priest, the three women asked in astonishment, ”Brother Zhao Rong, when did you become a Maoshan Taoist priest?”

Zhao Rong stretched his hands out and pointed to the sky. ”The moment I don the yellow robe, I become a Maoshan Taoist priest.”

Before he could finish his sentence, the package from earlier suddenly fell at his feet. As he began to open it, he said to the women, ”Keep your eyes peeled, and prepare yourselves. I’m about to transform from Zhao Rong into a Maoshan Taoist priest!”

As soon as he finished speaking, he tore open the package. He pulled out the robes of a Maoshan Taoist priest and shrugged them on, placed the matching hat on his head, and slipped his feet into a pair of tall Taoist boots. Finally, he brandished a Peach Wood Sword in his hand. To the women’s utter amazement, he even produced a fake mustache and false eyebrows, fixing the mustache above his lip and sticking the eyebrows over his own.