“Have you lost your mind?!” Just as Li Mian was about to intervene, Han Leizi held her back.
Han Leizi’s restraint was calculated. The children of Yu Xie Hou had been spoiled since childhood, getting everything they desired. It would leave an imprint on their Dao’s hearts whenever they couldn’t obtain something. While this wasn’t necessarily harmful and could benefit Li Chi and Li Mian’s cultivation, overcoming inner demons during advancement was much more challenging.
The simplest solution was to let him die.
Han Leizi had heard that although Yin was Huo Wuji’s direct disciple, he kept a low profile and rarely defied his master. Some fellow demonic cultivators had tried to cause trouble for him, but their attempts were always silently thwarted. It was as if… he didn’t exist within the Tian Xie Sect at all.
Frankly, Han Leizi wanted to test Yin’s mettle, even if it meant his death.
“Since my junior has such courage, please lead the way. We’ll support you from behind,” Han Leizi said.
Ji Yang nodded slightly, exchanging a glance with Nan Yan.
“Is Second Brother here?” Nan Yan whispered.
“Yes, and Zhan Ting too.”
Nan Yan’s gaze turned suspicious until they pushed open the door of the haunted house. The chilling wind that greeted them shifted her focus to the building itself.
The house was perfectly square with an odd layout. Three sides were walls, while one side housed a building. As everyone entered, the courtyard gate slammed shut behind them.
Elder Yu immediately went back to shake the gate, then sighed in relief. “It’s not a difficult barrier. A full-force attack from a Yuan Ying cultivator could break it.”
Li Mian sneered from behind, urging, “What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”
Nan Yan felt a slight squeeze on her left hand before following Ji Yang to the front door. The door was light and opened inward, creaking as it swung open.
Stepping inside, Nan Yan conjured a flame, lighting a nearby candle stub. The fire illuminated part of the room’s interior.
This place was not meant for the living. The room was empty, save for the occasional scurrying sound from the crisscrossing beams above. Nan Yan shot a blast of spiritual fire upward, causing a stray bone rat to fall.
Li Mian rushed forward, crushing the rat under her foot. “Filthy vermin!” she cursed.
As the rat was crushed, its ghostly eyes flew up and merged with the candlelight. Suddenly, all the candles in the room burst into eerie green flames.
The green fire made the room even darker, obscuring even the spiritual sense in the shadowy corners. Only the area near Nan Yan’s original flame remained bright.
Han Leizi commanded Nan Yan, “Go light all the lamps with your spiritual fire.”
At that moment, Ji Yang suddenly pulled Nan Yan away, and they both vanished into the darkness.
“How dare you run?!” Han Leizi exploded with Yuan Ying-level power, swinging his treasured Entangling Web to capture them. He felt it snag something.
“Mere Foundation Establishment cultivators think they can escape a Yuan Ying master’s grasp? Absurd…” Han Leizi tugged on the net, suddenly feeling as if he’d caught something massive. Confused, he watched as all the green flames flared up, and his Entangling Web began to glow.
In that instant, Han Leizi, Li Mian, and Elder Yu saw the ghostly woman sitting in the corner.
“Ahh! What is that thing?!” Li Mian screamed first, turning to flee towards the entrance.
“Miss Mian, don’t run!” Han Leizi called out, but the ghostly woman giggled, her snake-like limbs slipping through the net’s gaps and reaching for him.
After escaping the room, Li Mian found herself in a different courtyard with another building, not the one they had entered initially. She heard the chaos of magical treasures clashing and ghostly laughter behind her. Recalling the ghost’s distorted features, she shuddered.
She’d rather die than go back there…
Li Mian reasoned that Han Leizi had mentioned only one Nascent Soul-level ghost in the house, likely the woman they’d just encountered. Once Han Leizi subdued it, there’d be nothing left to fear.
Hearing a door close behind her, Li Mian caught a glimpse of Nan Yan’s robes disappearing into the second building. Her eyes filled with hatred.
“You pair of wretches… This haunted place is your trap!” Li Mian pulled out a black-handled scythe from her storage bag, emanating a forbidden aura of destruction.
This weapon, Yu Xie Hou’s magical treasure, was powerful enough to severely wound or even kill the ghost woman they’d just encountered.
Li Mian angrily pursued them into the second room, where she found a peculiar wardrobe standing in the center. As she entered, it began to shake and rattle.
“You dogs! Are you hiding in there?” Li Mian brandished her Corpse-Reaping Scythe, and the wardrobe suddenly stopped shaking, slowly turning to face her.
Li Mian then saw a person trapped between the wardrobe doors, tearfully pleading, “I can’t get out. Please help me, sister.”
Despite her jealousy, Li Mian had to admit this face was the most beautiful she’d ever seen.
The beauty’s face was visible, but her body remained trapped in the wardrobe, with only wisps of hair visible at the bottom. Noticing Li Mian’s darkening expression as she approached with an ice-blue dagger, the beauty fearfully asked, “Aren’t you going to save me? What are you doing?”
Li Mian traced the dagger along the beauty’s face, sneering, “What a lovely face. My brother would surely adore it… but I don’t!”
The beauty struggled. “Please don’t touch my face! My brother worked so hard to make me beautiful…”
Li Mian, fueled by fear and anger from her earlier experiences, felt an inexplicable urge to torment this person. She coldly remarked, “So you must be the beauty Elder Yu mentioned. How unfortunate that you’re trapped by ghosts. Blame your connection to that wretched woman.”
The ice-blue dagger seemed designed for flaying. Starting from the hairline, Li Mian swiftly circled the face. With a quick tug amidst the trapped person’s screams, she held a piece of skin in her hand.
“Finally, something goes my way. This rare beauty is now mine, making this journey worthwhile.” Li Mian sprinkled some powder on the skin, instantly removing any remaining flesh and turning it into a clean, thin membrane.
After examining it for a moment, she glanced at the now faceless figure in the wardrobe. Habitually, she tried the skin on her face. As she adjusted it, she heard the wardrobe creaking.
Li Mian looked down to see a mass of hair pouring out of the wardrobe as its doors slowly opened, revealing the beauty’s body.
The figure in the wardrobe was actually a child, its soft arms curled limply at its feet. As black hair continued to grow, it raised its face—now just raw flesh—and whispered, “If you like it, I’ll give you my face. Just remember not to take it off.”
Li Mian realized in horror that she couldn’t remove the mask from her face. In an instant, half her body was entwined by the growing hair.
“Corpse-Reaping Scythe!” she screamed.
The scythe emitted a dark beam, instantly incinerating all the hair. The ghost child cried out in pain, its body split in two, but still alive. It crawled on the ground, whimpering, “Mother, it hurts! Save me!”
Li Mian broke free and fled the room. In the distance, she saw Han Leizi running out, his right ear bloodied. “Master, save me!” she cried.
Han Leizi had been evenly matched with the ghost woman, but when she sensed her child in danger, she became ferocious, biting off half of Han Leizi’s ear and forcing him to retreat temporarily.
Li Mian sought Han Leizi’s protection, but he nearly struck her upon seeing her face. “Miss Mian, your face…”
“My face? What’s wrong with my face?!” Li Mian touched her face and let out a blood-curdling scream. “Why are my eyes on top of my head?! My mouth! What happened to my face?!”
Completely unhinged, she unleashed the Corpse-Reaping Scythe’s final attack, slicing off the ghost woman’s right side.
“You… deserve death!” the ghost woman hissed.
As she was about to strike, the sky above suddenly swirled with dense clouds. In the distance, atop the eighteen-story tower, blue flames flickered, dispersing countless sparks. These lights enveloped all living cultivators in the ghost city, transporting them into the tower.
…
Nan Yan opened her eyes to find herself in a stone chamber.
She recalled seeing someone trapped in a wardrobe who looked exactly like her, but quickly realized it was a ghost. Ji Yang had pulled her away, and they’d run through a false wall in the second room. After a dizzying sensation like passing through a teleportation array, they’d bumped into Yin Ya, who had been eavesdropping.
Before she could say anything, Ji Yang mentioned something about time being up, and everyone was enveloped in blue light and disappeared.
Now, she was here.
Nan Yan looked around the stone chamber, its walls depicting various hell scenes. The front was barred with stone. In the distance, she heard other voices.
“Where are we? Why are we in prison?!”
This outcry was followed by a chorus of confused cultivators.
“I was in the middle of refining an ancient castle. How did I end up here?”
“Me too. I thought I was about to be eaten by ghosts.”
“What is this place? How did we all get transported here?”
Amidst the confusion, Nan Yan heard someone tapping on the left wall.
“Nan Yan?”
“Second Brother?”
She rushed to the left corner of the bars, seeing a hand waving at her through the gap in the adjacent cell.
Slightly relieved, Nan Yan asked, “I’m glad you’re not dead. Is Big Brother here?”
Yin Ya’s voice sounded weak: “I asked the person across from me. They said he’s next to me, still asleep. Are we in prison?”
Nan Yan nodded and exchanged information about Youquan Chuan with Yin Ya. “If this is truly one of the Nine Hells, Youquan Chuan, then we’ve been captured for punishment.”
“I don’t think so. The ghost woman told me that Youquan Chuan’s prison lord position is being contested. We might be candidates for that role.”
“Oh? So this could be an opportunity?”
As Nan Yan finished speaking, footsteps approached from the far end of the prison. A hot-tempered cultivator shouted:
“You evil ghost! Why have you brought us here? Release me at once, or my sect will raze this ghost—What are you doing?! You dare… Ahhh!”
The prison fell silent. Nan Yan bit her lip as the footsteps drew near. A monster with a bull’s head and human body dragged half a human corpse, slowly passing in front of her cell.
Nan Yan: “Second Brother, you call this an opportunity?”
Yin Ya: “That little ghost got my wonderful beauty treatment. She shouldn’t have lied to me.”
Nan Yan: “What did you say? Repeat that.”
Yin Ya: “No, let me explain—”
Nan Yan, nearly boiling with anger: “Never mind, don’t bother. Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you? I’ve been bullied by demonic cultivators and gnawed on by rats. I can’t believe you’d stoop so low as to collude with evil ghosts just to save yourself. And worse, you’d use your sister’s face in some mysterious transaction, trying to ruin my reputation behind my back. From today on, our sibling bond is severed.”
Yin Ya, panicking: “Heaven knows, when your Big Brother and I were trapped in that haunted house, we thought of you constantly. Your Big Brother missed you so much he almost burst into song. I swear I’m not lying!”
Nan Yan: “You’re not human to begin with. Prove it by singing!”
Yin Ya scratched the wall for a while, then reluctantly hummed:
“In all the world, only little sister is good. A brother without a sister is like a blade of grass…”
The bull-headed ghost, who had walked away, seemed to hear this and returned, standing in front of Yin Ya’s cell with the bloody corpse.
Nan Yan: “I forgive you. Farewell, Second Brother. May there be no ghosts in the Western Paradise.”
Yin Ya: “…Nan Yan, you little…”