Zhuge Qianyi paced anxiously around the room.
Every time she breathed, she glanced at the door, constantly expecting Fu Sang and Huo Wei to push it open the very next second.
She didn’t know whether it was a psychological effect caused by being too frightened or something else, but she felt that this room was really cold.
A fourth-to-sixth-rank underworld spirit… She had never seen an underworld spirit above third rank in her entire life.
Oh, no, that wasn’t right. There was a Crimson Evil by Fu Sang’s side. But that Crimson Evil seemed to have a very good temper and could even chat and talk with people. Aside from the strange color scheme, he was identical to a normal person in every other aspect. He didn’t make strange cries or scare people, and he was handsome with a nice voice, so she felt quite at ease. By now, she no longer thought he was frightening.
But this was only an exception. As a Nether Path spirit master who had already graduated, no matter how poor her foundation was, she at least understood one thing clearly…the higher a ghost’s rank, the more ferocious it would certainly become. Obviously, it wouldn’t become more powerful and have a better temper.
What should she do? If that female ghost’s target was Zhao Xiaobei, would she follow him into this room?
What should she do then? The female ghost wouldn’t hurt Zhao Xiaobei, but would she hurt her, an irrelevant bystander? Would it be wiser to turn around and run when that happened? But at any rate, she was still a spirit master, a direct disciple of the Zhuge family. Wouldn’t it be too embarrassing for the family if she encountered trouble and let an ordinary child face it alone?
…So when exactly were Fu Sang and Huo Wei coming back?!
Zhuge Qianyi plopped herself down on the bed.
She turned her head to look at Zhao Xiaobei’s condition and was stunned.
It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Zhao Xiaobei. The child was curled up in the corner of the sofa and had fallen asleep at some point. He was very quiet.
The person who truly left her stunned was Zhao Yong’an.
Zhao Yong’an seemed to have been staring at her the whole time, because when she turned her head just now, she met his gaze. The two looked at each other for a moment before Zhao Yong’an looked away in a somewhat flustered manner.
After that, he seemed extremely busy, sometimes playing with his fingers and sometimes looking left and right, with “guilty conscience” written all over his face.
A question mark slowly appeared above Zhuge Qianyi’s head.
She took the initiative to ask, “Uncle-in-law, what’s wrong with you?”
“Ah…?” Zhao Yong’an was stunned for a moment, then hurriedly shook his head.
“Nothing, nothing… You don’t have to call me that. Ah Zhen has been gone for more than twenty years. I haven’t really met her relatives on her family’s side. You weren’t even born when she died. I really don’t deserve to be called Uncle-in-law.”
“Oh… Then I’ll just call you Uncle. Uncle, are you very worried?”
Although Zhuge Qianyi herself was also very scared, she still chose to comfort Zhao Yong’an first:
“It’s okay. Don’t worry. My two friends are very capable. They’ll definitely resolve Xiao Bei’s problem. Don’t worry too much. Xiao Bei will definitely be fine.”
“Mm-mm, I know, I know…”
Zhao Yong’an nodded and kept rubbing his hands. Then he couldn’t help raising his head to look at Zhuge Qianyi again before quickly shifting his gaze away.
This tiny movement was noticed by Zhuge Qianyi once again.
She swallowed dryly.
The uneasiness in her heart grew stronger.
Something was wrong with Zhao Yong’an.
This was too strange.
Her intuition immediately made her stand up from beside the bed and move toward the room door.
“Um, Uncle… I’ll go see how my friends are doing…”
“Don’t blame me, girl.”
Before Zhuge Qianyi could finish speaking, Zhao Yong’an choked out and interrupted her:
“I really had no choice. Only by doing this will he be willing to let my child go. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
“…?”
‘Sorry for what?’
‘Why was he suddenly apologizing???’
Her premonition came true. Zhuge Qianyi turned and ran, but before she could take more than two steps, her legs seemed to have been stuck to the floor by something. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t move them even an inch.
She lowered her head and looked at her feet.
At some point, talisman paper had already wrapped tightly around her ankles.
“You, you don’t have to do this, Uncle-in-law. Although I’ve never met you, I’m still Aunt Ah Zhen’s biological niece…”
Zhuge Qianyi was almost crying. She turned to look at Zhao Yong’an and saw that, at some point, he had a mirror in his hands, its surface reflecting the direction of her feet.
She guessed that it was probably some kind of artifact.
So she lowered her head again.
The wooden floor beneath her feet had already turned into a mirror-like muddy pool. Zhuge Qianyi could clearly feel herself sinking downward. Something was pulling her tightly, dragging her toward the unknown.
“I had no other choice…”
Zhao Yong’an lowered his head. Beside him, Zhao Xiaobei was sleeping deeply because of the Tranquility Talisman that had been placed on him at some point.
The boy’s small face was pale, and he was not sleeping peacefully. His brows were still tightly knitted, as if he was having yet another nightmare.
At that moment, Zhao Yong’an seemed to have finally made some kind of decision.
He gritted his teeth and forcefully crushed the mirror in his hand.
The mirror shattered with a “crack.” The sound reached Zhuge Qianyi’s ears and became incomparably slow and incomparably clear.
Zhuge Qianyi’s heart sank into emptiness.
By the time she came to her senses again, she had already fallen into an endless void.
…
“Long time no see, Zhuge Fusang.”
Zhuge Lin sat in a rattan chair on the balcony, his body thin like dead wood in winter.
Just as disgusting as he remembered. No, even more so than before. The moment Fu Sang saw that face, he felt nauseous. He was probably going to be unable to eat for the next three days.
“Long time no see, old thing. How are you still not dead?”
Fu Sang curved his lips into a smile, rarely revealing a little genuine joy.
“Don’t be disappointed, little beast. I’m not far from death.”
Zhuge Lin smiled at him as well. The wrinkles on his face became deeper and more densely packed with that smile.
“That’s really good news.” Fu Sang meant that sincerely as well.
“I imagine you also have good news to tell me, right? Since you were able to discover us, presumably… you can see now?”
Zhuge Lin looked him up and down, his gaze deep and unable to reveal what kind of emotions were hidden within.
It wasn’t difficult to discover that one person and one ghost were hiding in the room.
Fu Sang had come to this room twice. The first time he came, the yin energy in the room was somewhat thinner than it was now, and its form had been scattered. This meant an underworld spirit had appeared and passed through, leaving traces behind.
But after entering this time, the yin energy was faintly flowing. As long as one carefully observed the subtle changes in the direction of its flow, it was possible to find its source.
Of course, Zhuge Lin certainly had ways to resolve this problem and conceal his whereabouts. It wasn’t difficult either. But clearly, he didn’t make any effort to hide from the beginning.
Whether he was relying on Fu Sang being unable to see, or deliberately testing him, Fu Sang didn’t know.
“I can see now. What are you going to do?”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Lock me up again and continue your unfinished grand enterprise? Go ahead and try.”
This was originally a taunt, but Zhuge Lin answered seriously:
“No. There’s no need for that anymore.”
He sighed slightly:
“Another twelve years have passed since you left the Zhuge family. In these twelve years, I have found another way to make up for the regrets you left me with. I know you hate me and wish you could kill me, but you have to admit that I did you a favor. I gave you a chance to live, and I taught you so many skills. You should be grateful to me.”
Fu Sang almost laughed when he heard this:
“What, do you still want me to kneel down and kowtow to you right now?”
“There’s no need to kowtow. The master-and-disciple relationship between us no longer exists. I can’t accept you kneeling to me.”
While Zhuge Lin was speaking, Li Guizhen behind him seemed to have grown tired of standing. She slowly sat down beside his rattan chair and leaned sideways against his knees.
Seeing this, Zhuge Lin lowered his eyes and gently stroked the top of Li Guizhen’s head with his dry, slender fingers that resembled tree roots. He suddenly began talking about something completely unrelated to what they had been discussing:
“Her name is Guizhen, the Guizhen of ‘returning to simplicity and returning to the true.’ She took her mother’s surname, Li. She is very beautiful, isn’t she? She is my only daughter.”
Fu Sang raised an eyebrow slightly. “Not interested.”
But Zhuge Lin acted as though he hadn’t heard him.
“But just as you can see, I lost her forever. Fortunately, Heaven did not treat me unfairly and finally allowed me to find her again.”
“Back then, after she died, I swore a poisonous oath before her gravestone. I told her that I would not let go of anyone in this world who had ever harmed her. So afterward, I found you, Zhuge Fusang. You guessed correctly. I originally wanted to train you into a sharp knife, but unfortunately, your knife was a useless piece of trash that couldn’t be sharpened. It turned all my twelve years of planning into nothing and made me waste another many years planning everything all over again.”
At this point, Huo Wei really couldn’t help interrupting:
“Wasn’t your daughter’s death caused by difficult childbirth? Even if there really was something else going on, that person died in your Xuangu Mountain Range. If you want to demand their life, go find someone from your own family! Why bother frightening someone else’s child for no reason? Your son-in-law didn’t do anything wrong, and his child is even more innocent. You old thing, what kind of ability is it to bully ordinary people?”
“He didn’t do anything wrong?” Zhuge Lin seemed to have heard a joke.
He gave a very soft scoff while carefully smoothing Li Guizhen’s long hair with his fingers:
“Guizhen’s death was suspicious. Zhao Yong’an clearly noticed that something was wrong at the time, but because he was cowardly, afraid of trouble, and greedy for a peaceful life, he chose not to investigate further. He blindly believed that explanation about ‘difficult childbirth’ and put on an act of grief before lightly letting the matter be brushed aside.”
“In the end, what is love and affection compared with flesh and blood relatives? To Zhao Yong’an, Ah Zhen was ultimately just an outsider with whom he had some connection and feelings. If she was alive, that was good. She died, there was nothing he could do.”
“All these years, I have traveled everywhere searching for the truth and a way to avenge Ah Zhen, while he began embracing a new life. He got a new lover, even a new child. Why?”
“Why did my daughter die without knowing why, while he had a happy and complete family? Does he still remember Ah Zhen? I’m afraid he forgot her long ago, didn’t he? Look at how healthy and lively his child is. Every day when he faces that child, has he ever thought, even for a moment, about the child he and A Zhen had?”
“There’s no such principle in this world, child. You say I’m bullying him, but where have I bullied him? I never intended to take their lives. Ah Zhen wouldn’t want me to kill him and his child either. I simply think that after all these years of effort, I finally found Ah Zhen again, so I should share this joy with him. After all, Ah Zhen loved him so much. I have to make him remember Ah Zhen, and let his child know that Ah Zhen existed too. Only then would it be fair.”
“…”
Huo Wei was left speechless by this.
When Zhuge Lin was still living at the main family, he rarely showed himself, so Huo Wei didn’t see much of him and knew even less about him. Her entire impression of him was simply that of a wicked old man who locked Fu Sang up.
Only after exchanging a few words with him did she discover that this person was stubborn and paranoid to an extreme, doing whatever he pleased and having his own set of reasoning. There was simply no point in communicating with him.
No wonder he had raised Fu Sang into this state, until he even surpassed his master!!!
Naturally, Zhuge Lin couldn’t hear Huo Wei’s inner thoughts.
He lowered his eyes to look at Li Guizhen resting on his knees, looking to be in a very good mood:
“…Soon, everything will be over. When the truth comes to light and the evil people are executed, I won’t have endured all these years for nothing. Although the process over these past twenty-odd years was somewhat tortuous, the ending is still acceptable. Now, the chess game has reached its end. Only the final move remains, and I need you to help me one more time, Zhuge Fusang.”
“But before that, I have to test your abilities first and see how much you have grown during all these years when I wasn’t around.”
As he spoke, Zhuge Lin slowly took something out from behind his back.
The object was lifted out of the deep black shadows and exposed beneath the warm yellow light overhead, allowing Fu Sang to see its appearance…
It was actually a bone-white wind chime.
Another artifact whose troublesome ability he had no idea about.
Fu Sang noticed that after the wind chime appeared, Li Guizhen suddenly became alert and straightened herself.
“Don’t be afraid, Ah Zhen, don’t be afraid…”
Zhuge Lin gently comforted her as he lightly shook his hand, making the wind chime ring.
The wind chime made from human bones could not produce much sound. Its tone was deep and muffled, and as the sound drifted out, Li Guizhen’s aura suddenly became fierce.
The yin energy in the room began to stir. Its master was no longer as obedient as she had been beside Zhuge Lin just moments ago. She stiffly twisted her face toward Fu Sang, and her eyes had already turned into a deep, abyss-like black.
The ringing became increasingly rapid, and Li Guizhen’s expression also became increasingly pained and ferocious.
She lifted her dark red lips and revealed sharp ghost teeth at Fu Sang.
Finally, when the rhythmic ringing reached its peak, Li Guizhen suddenly shot up from the floor like a storm, carrying violent yin energy as she pounced toward Fu Sang.
Fu Sang, however, drew the Snake Bone Nail from his sleeve as if performing a magic trick. He pinched his fingers and released the seal, and the long nail instantly returned to its normal size.
Fu Sang didn’t even move his eyes. Holding the long nail like a short sword, he casually made a flourish with it before suddenly thrusting it toward Li Guizhen!
As the sharp tail of the Snake Bone Nail cut through the air, wisps of black mist spilled from the nail. The fierce ghost with black hair and red clothes followed the direction in which the long nail fell, standing in front of Fu Sang together with the nail to meet the other enraged ghost.
But in the blink of an eye, both the ghost and the nail missed.
Just before the tail of the nail touched Li Guizhen, Li Guizhen suddenly dispersed like a dream.
Fu Sang only heard the sound of something shattering. Then, disappearing together with her was Zhuge Lin, who had originally been sitting upright on the chair on the balcony.
“… They’re gone?”
Huo Wei took half a step back and cautiously looked around.
After Li Guizhen appeared, they finally confirmed her rank.
She was a sixth-rank Vermillion Nightmare, already something rarely seen in a hundred years.
But every time an underworld spirit advanced by one rank, it underwent a qualitative transformation. The difference between ranks was like the difference between a mountain and a mountain. Even a Vermillion Nightmare was still completely helpless before a Crimson Evil.
The yin energy Qi Changying released slowly eroded and dispersed the traces Li Guizhen had left behind. Fu Sang narrowed his eyes slightly as he watched the changes in the yin energy in the room, suddenly feeling that something was wrong.
He remembered Zhuge Lin’s words just now: “I need you to help me one more time.”
He also remembered a certain moment just now when Zhuge Lin had inexplicably revealed a smile.
The curve of that smile was large. Perhaps he had merely tugged at the corners of his lips slightly, but on his face, where the overhead light deepened the shadows, every slight change looked particularly obvious.
“Qi Changying,” Fu Sang immediately ordered.
“Withdraw the yin energy. Quickly.”
Then he looked toward Huo Wei.
“Go check on Zhuge Qianyi.”
“Oh, okay…”
Huo Wei didn’t know what Fu Sang had discovered, but judging from his tone, the situation was urgent. She didn’t have time to ask more and instinctively trusted his decision, turning and quickly heading toward the door.
With a “click,” the lock opened. Huo Wei pulled the door open and had just raised her foot to leave when she froze at the sight outside.
At some point, four or five tall men had appeared at the doorway.
The man standing at the front had one hand raised, seemingly about to knock, but the door in front of him opened before he could.
This made him pause for a moment, but he quickly recovered. With a stern expression, he lowered his hand and took out an identification card from the inner pocket of his coat, holding it up for Huo Wei to see:
“Hello. Nether Path Special Task Force of the Spirit Investigation Bureau.”
“You’re Huo Wei, Miss Huo, correct? We received a report and evidence that you and your companion, Zhuge Fusang, are suspected of concealing a high-rank underworld spirit, allowing an underworld spirit to frighten and attack ordinary residents, and kidnapping Nether Path spirit master Zhuge Qianyi. We are now detaining you according to law. Here are the relevant documents. Please cooperate.”
