With Ghost Gate Pass broken, the City of Unjust Deaths, only tens of li away from Ghost Gate Pass, instantly became an empty city.

This small distance was as good as nonexistent in the eyes of cultivators.

When the Yin-Yang Realm war had restarted, the ghost cultivators in the City of Unjust Deaths had already mostly departed. After all, ordinary ghost cultivators valued their lives and worried about being caught up in the destruction when the city fell. By the time the battle at Ghost Gate Pass was decided, there wasn’t even a ghost shadow left.

Shijiu Zhou’s side occupied the City of Unjust Deaths without effort.

After the initial victory, though they roughly guessed the current situation in the City of Unjust Deaths, to be safe, after discussion among the sect masters and elders of the major sects, they first sent several teams into the city to scout and sweep, in case there were any ambushes.

Kunwu cultivators were naturally among them.

Originally, cultivators with particularly high cultivation weren’t needed for this task, but for unknown reasons, Xie Buchen actually requested to lead people there himself.

The nearly hundred ordinary Kunwu disciples were somewhat surprised. But Xie Buchen didn’t speak much and rarely talked with them, and they didn’t dare approach him for conversation, so they could only speculate about his reasons in their hearts.

In the two days after the Ghost Gate Pass battle, Shijiu Zhou’s cultivators weren’t actually as calm as they appeared.

Countless people were privately discussing those seventeen figures from that day.

There were no walls without cracks under heaven, especially when Yashan’s Fudao Shanren and Kunwu’s Master Hengxu had actually quarreled in front of nearly ten thousand cultivators. Though it was only those few ambiguous words, it was enough to make people tremble with fear and speculation.

Eighty years ago, when Qingfeng Nunnery went into seclusion, Kunwu genius Xie Buchen and Yashan newcomer Jian Chou had a falling out and fought violently. One nearly died, the other disappeared, leading to accumulated grievances between Kunwu and Yashan and frozen relations.

This was the rumor.

Though the rumor sounded very real and definitely wasn’t groundless, no one had truly seen what this so-called “accumulated grievance” and “discord” actually looked like.

Now…

What kind of people were Fudao Shanren and Master Hengxu?

Two great pillars with illustrious reputations throughout Shijiu Zhou!

Even though the three Chan masters had considerable cultivation, in terms of prestige they absolutely couldn’t compare with these two.

Such two people—how many years had they been cultivating?

If not completely impassive, at least as long as they wished, they could easily control their emotions and not let others see through them.

Yet under those circumstances, they had actually drawn swords and glared angrily!

The rumors of discord were undoubtedly instantly confirmed.

And moreover…

Was it really as simple as mere discord?

They had only just captured Ghost Gate Pass and taken the first city, yet already so many contradictory signs had appeared. How could anyone know what the future would bring?

And some people spread word that those seventeen puppet-like figures destroyed by the Yashan cultivators’ collective swords that day were actually pieced together from fragments of old souls of Yashan cultivators who had perished in the battle eleven jiazi cycles ago…

When those above are unstable, those below will surely be stirred.

Amid everyone’s sighs, they inevitably felt anxious about what they would face in the future and the cracks now showing in Shijiu Zhou. Though no one dared speak of it openly, their worries couldn’t be dispelled.

Xie Buchen was quite composed.

He seemed completely unaware of everyone’s concerns and anxieties, simply walking at the front of the group. They left their original camp near the Extreme Domain’s Ghost Gate and walked across the wasteland that was now full of pits and craters from the previous great battle, soon seeing the ruined Ghost Gate Pass.

Its former fierce and imposing presence had long vanished.

Half the gate had already collapsed to the ground.

Massive black stones, bearing various traces of devastation and painted with the frost of years, were scattered among the wild grass. Some still showed above ground, while others had already been buried in the yellow earth.

When passing through this pass, Xie Buchen’s footsteps naturally stopped.

Someone behind him asked, “Senior Brother Xie, what’s wrong? Is something amiss?”

“No.” He raised his head, his gaze falling on that half gate which, though broken, still stood in this place. He replied flatly, “I just suddenly remembered some matters. You all enter this pass first and scout the City of Unjust Deaths. I’ll follow shortly.”

“Yes.”

Though somewhat curious about what matters he spoke of, firstly there was the strict hierarchical barrier between ordinary Kunwu disciples and true transmission disciples, and secondly, Xie Buchen’s brilliant strategies in the previous battle had already established sufficient authority among Shijiu Zhou’s cultivators. So these Kunwu cultivators asked not a single question and passed through the ruined Ghost Gate Pass, heading toward the City of Unjust Deaths.

Xie Buchen stood in place, watching everyone walk away.

Only when their figures had all disappeared did he raise his head again, looking at this severely damaged gate. That mysterious sensation he’d felt several times when passing this place finally appeared in his heart again.

He slowly moved his steps, walking to the right side.

Wild grass grew thickly, covering the bottommost black rock of Ghost Gate Pass that was covered with mud. He brushed away the thick soil, and the eerie, fierce skull and ghost head patterns gradually emerged.

Also slowly appearing…

Was another strange mark hidden beneath these patterns.

Xie Buchen’s finger gently reached out. The moment it touched this mark, it transformed into a needle-thin gray-white spiritual light that entered through his fingertip…

Dark wind blew across the wasteland, and gloomy layers of clouds, like demons, howled past from the firmament along with the wind.

In Shijiu Zhou’s camp near Ghost Gate, Jian Chou suddenly opened her eyes.

But her slightly furrowed brow didn’t relax.

The robes stained red in the Ghost Gate Pass battle had already been changed. Now she wore moon-white again, and having used spiritual pills jointly refined by the Medicine King Yiming Xiansheng and Baiyue Valley’s medicine woman Lu Xiangleng, her injuries had completely healed. Her cultivation had even increased a level, climbing and stabilizing at mid-stage Void Refining.

Only…

Something still didn’t feel quite right.

She sat cross-legged, raising her hand to touch the corner of her eye, though deep thought flashed through her gaze.

Without looking, she knew her eyes had completely recovered.

Originally, when raiding the snowy region, she had forced her way through that formation of unknown ancient divinity to break free from danger. Going deep into that pit connecting to unknown places, when her consciousness wandered hazily and saw that enormous ancient corpse sleeping in the star river, she was suddenly attacked by a black qi that injured her eyes. From then on, her physical sight had been covered by a layer of gloom.

Even when her injuries healed, the gloom hadn’t disappeared.

But since cultivators had already developed spiritual sense, physical sight wasn’t very important. Moreover, precisely because her eyesight was poor, she could achieve twice the results with half the effort when comprehending First Line of Sky in the armory. So after discovering she couldn’t dispel this layer of gloom no matter what, she temporarily gave up, planning to find Lu Xiangleng or Yiming Xiansheng to help when she had the chance.

But unexpectedly…

Without her noticing, that layer of gloom had disappeared.

Jian Chou examined her entire body internally but couldn’t tell how the gloom had dispersed or where it had gone. She only vaguely felt it had probably happened during her previous battle with Lord Taishan.

Only at such times, when her attention was completely focused on combat with no mind to spare, and using spiritual sense instead of her eyes, even if her sight recovered, she wouldn’t have noticed.

“But it’s still very strange…”

Jian Chou recalled every detail of her battle with Lord Taishan. Everything else didn’t matter, but Lord Taishan’s shocked expression mixed with disbelief kept flashing in her mind.

That was the moment she raised her sword to his brow!

She could be certain that in that instant, Lord Taishan was looking not at the sword in her hand, but at her eyes!

Her opened eyes closed again.

After quite a while, Jian Chou opened her eyes once more.

She rose, pushed open the door, and walked out of the room.

Outside was a wasteland of the Extreme Domain.

Most of the cave dwellings and houses built by Shijiu Zhou cultivators during their previous standoff with Extreme Domain ghost cultivators had been moved away, making it seem somewhat sparse and desolate.

She had only taken two steps outside when she heard the voice of the person she was looking for.

“Dead salted fish!”

“Time spares no one. Even these old bones get disdained. I was kindly advising you, but this dead mayfly whose spirit has opened but wisdom hasn’t grown doesn’t know good from bad! I must have been blind back then—how did I end up going with you?”

“Didn’t you say you were tired of living?”

“…It was loneliness.”

“What is loneliness?”

“Loneliness is the reason you came to Great Dream Reef back then to find me to travel together.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand simply because you haven’t realized its existence yet.”

“But I have old friends.”

“…Go away.”

“Brother Kun told me before that I have old friends.”

“Right, now you not only have old friends, but you actually swallowed half a heart. Don’t you feel anything wrong?”

“After swallowing it, it disappeared. That’s strange indeed.”

“Hehe, your fate is sealed!”

“What do you mean?”

“Mayflies originally have no heart. You ate half of one—this is big trouble…”

“You—Friend Jian Chou?”

Originally, one mayfly and one Kunpeng were talking as they walked over from the wasteland outside. Fu Chaosheng’s old robe that seemed covered with moss hadn’t changed, but the fish-shaped hairpin on his head had become a black jade thumb ring, worn on his thumb and spun round and round.

The pair of dead fish eyes on the ring were obviously somewhat dizzy.

At this moment he walked over and happened to see Jian Chou. He immediately forgot all the questions he wanted to ask Kun, standing stunned for a moment before calling out to her.

The feeling at this moment was rather strange.

Fu Chaosheng felt something somewhere on his body seemed wrong, but exactly what was wrong, he couldn’t quite say.

He only stopped and gazed at Jian Chou.

There weren’t many cultivators moving about nearby.

It was very quiet.

Jian Chou looked at his face, which still showed the same natural pallor as before, and those eyes faintly hiding some demonic aura. She felt this great demon possessed an indescribable directness and frankness, so she couldn’t help recalling their first meeting and those straightforward yet shocking wild words.

She observed him for a long while before walking over and greeting him similarly: “Friend Chaosheng.”

Fu Chaosheng could see at a glance that her cultivation had completely recovered and even increased somewhat. Normally, according to human customs, he should be happy for her, but when examining her, he felt her expression seemed overly calm.

So an extremely difficult to describe feeling arose.

He didn’t frown, only asked: “Does my old friend have something she wants to ask me?”

“…Yes, I do.”

Now it was Jian Chou’s turn to be slightly stunned. She felt Fu Chaosheng was much more perceptive than usual, or perhaps her thoughts were already showing externally, or she simply hadn’t concealed them from this great demon who should be “not of my kind”?

That was right.

She had originally come to ask for advice—what was there to conceal?

Scene after scene from the Ghost Gate Pass battlefield flashed through the depths of her mind: Lord Taishan’s shocked gaze when she struck with her sword, the sword she hesitated to strike when Lord Wu Guan came to rescue Lord Taishan, and finally those seventeen soul puppets that appeared above Ghost Gate Pass…

Various thoughts, sorted one by one.

Jian Chou slowly smiled, standing close to Fu Chaosheng, slightly raising her gaze to look at him, and asked: “Friend Chaosheng is born of heaven and earth. Though people call you the ‘Supreme Evil Great Demon,’ you may not lack heaven and earth’s spiritual essence. I want to know, how does Friend Chaosheng view the cycle of life and death?”

The cycle of life and death?

These four characters seemed simple but were actually extremely vast.

Fu Chaosheng should not have understood what she was talking about, but in this instant, he recalled the figure of her walking against the crowd when countless Yashan cultivators’ swords fell that day.

So he suddenly understood.

He said: “My old friend is troubled by those soul puppets.”

How could she not be troubled by them?

Jian Chou took a step to the side, placing her clean palm under the gloomy sky of the Extreme Domain, looking at those unique palm lines in her hand that differed from others, then murmured: “At that moment, I had a very rebellious thought in my heart…”

A very rebellious thought.

She lowered her palm, turned around, and gazed intently at Fu Chaosheng: “Tell me, in this six-realm cycle, if you lost all memories of a lifetime and only the soul remained the same—would you still be you?”

Memory, soul.

Would you—

Still be you?

This was definitely not an easy question to answer, or rather, different people would have different answers.

But for Fu Chaosheng, this question was very simple.

He lowered his brow and eyes, pondered for a moment, then smiled and answered her: “Of course not. If only the soul were the same with no memories, then I would be no different from any mayfly under heaven. Not knowing my old friend’s path, much less having known my old friend since birth, a soul equivalent to blank paper—though blank papers have different materials, they’re just empty sheets. Memory is the writing and painting on paper, differing by person. ‘I’ should be a painting, not merely a sheet of paper.”

“Hahaha…”

When his words fell, Jian Chou couldn’t help but clap and laugh!

Initially delighted, but by the end tears moistened the corners of her eyes.

She couldn’t control the surge of tears!

What excellent words: “‘I’ should be a painting, not merely a sheet of paper”!

She didn’t know whether to say Fu Chaosheng’s words had suddenly made her see through the clouds, or that his words were exactly what she had been thinking.

She only wanted to laugh at the absurdity that arose from her heart at this moment.

That was all!

Fu Chaosheng watched her without speaking.

But Jian Chou gradually tired of laughing, only waving her hand at him and heading alone toward Ghost Gate Pass.

Fu Chaosheng had wanted to follow but was stopped by Kun’s words.

He only said: “This old friend of yours needs to be alone and quiet right now.”

Jian Chou indeed wanted to be alone and quiet.

Only because a certain thought had occupied her mind for too long. Previously it had only floated vaguely, but when she saw those “monsters” pieced together from Yashan remnant souls about to be slain by Yashan disciples, this thought had grown like wild vines, thoroughly revealing its rebellious form to the world.

Because it was too real, it appeared fierce.

She was certain—

If she dared stand out and tell others her thoughts, probably everyone would stand up and angrily accuse her of wild thinking and ill intent!

Even among them would be fellow Yashan disciples.

Closing her emotionally turbulent eyes, Jian Chou walked under the ruined Ghost Gate Pass, through those shattered black stones, crossed the wasteland in between, and soon saw the City of Unjust Deaths standing at the horizon’s end.

The city gates were wide open, and the drawbridge was already lowered over the moat.

Only that照我镜 (Zhaowo Mirror) hanging at the city gate had lost its former brilliance. A large hole had broken through the mirror’s surface, unknown whether it was forcibly shattered by cultivators entering the city or accidentally struck by stray attacks in the previous battle…

Cultivators from other sects were guarding the city gate.

With Jian Chou’s robes and face now known to all, when she stepped onto the drawbridge, no one came out to stop her.

The cultivators on both sides only bowed respectfully to her.

Jian Chou walked past, passing before the照我镜, and when she raised her hand to stroke that dust-covered rough mirror surface, she couldn’t help recalling what she had seen in the mirror years ago.

She stayed for a moment, then entered the city.

At such a time, she didn’t want to ask anyone anything. She only wanted to return to that old residence in the City of Unjust Deaths and look again at those shocking and worldly words she had seen years ago!

The streets were as before, the ghost cultivators had vanished without trace, with only a few teams of cultivators moving through the streets and alleys with hurried steps.

After entering the city, Jian Chou followed the path in her memory.

Soon she saw the familiar round tower, the broad street, and that old residence in the corner where she had once lived.

But she hadn’t expected that when she walked up the steps and wanted to use her old soul imprint connected to the residence’s protective formation to open the gate, she discovered—

The two great doors were actually ajar!

With a gentle push, she heard a teeth-aching “creak” as the door slowly opened…

At this moment, Jian Chou felt a chilling coldness rise from her feet and assault her heart!

The courtyard hadn’t changed at all.

Only the two地橘 (diju) trees planted in the court, with their scorched black trunks and dark green crowns, had grown somewhat thicker and more luxuriant.

Perhaps because no one had cleaned for too long, old withered leaves covered the ground.

On the windowsill of an open carved window behind them sat a plum vase with three plum branches inserted diagonally, their tips blooming with bright red flowers.

Plum petals at their peak were falling onto the windowsill.

Several fingers, slender as jade, gently brushed over the line of characters carved on the windowsill, finally touching those fallen plum petals, naturally picking them up and placing them in his palm.

When he raised his head, he saw Jian Chou standing at the gate of this residence.

Jian Chou’s pupils contracted sharply as she looked at him without speaking.

Xie Buchen seemed equally surprised to encounter her here. After a slight pause, he calmly opened his palm, letting those bright red fallen plum petals fall one by one.

He smiled and asked her: “Friend Jian Chou, how do you come to be here?”