Chapter 288: Ritual Money, Old Capital (15)
No one knew just how many years this mass grave had accumulated. With a single glance, Yan Shixun could already see the remnants of many rotted garments scattered about—these weren’t modern clothes, but ones that carried a deep sense of history.
The people who had once worn them had come from all walks of life. The only thing they shared in common was that, after death, they had been discarded here, their corpses left to decay in the wilderness.
So this was the hell of the old Fengdu?
Yan Shixun furrowed his brows. Although the stench wasn’t unbearable, the sight of so many exposed, decaying corpses still made him uncomfortable—even as an exorcist.
He didn’t only protect the living—he also saved the souls of the dead, those who still had a chance. In his dealings with people from all walks of life, he had once personally gathered the remains of those who had died unjustly, allowing their bones to be properly buried amid the grateful voices of their spirits.
But this mass grave stretched as far as the eye could see.
This wasn’t the human world. Those whose corpses lay exposed in the wild would become wandering, lonely ghosts.
Yan Shixun still remembered what Ye Li had told him: In Fengdu, there were no living beings—only spirits.
And the fate of these spirits, cast aside like this—what would it be?
Would they be utterly annihilated?
Yan Shixun’s eyes darkened.
According to the rules of old Fengdu, the more grievous one’s sins, the deeper one would fall into the lower layers of hell—and the more terrifying the punishment would be.
Even in the first layer of hell on the surface, the spirits were tormented by the grudges and resentments they carried in life for a thousand years, driven to the brink of madness.
Then what horrors awaited in the lower levels?
Yan Shixun lifted his gaze and looked around, but the mass grave stretched endlessly, all the way to the gloomy, ominous sky. Layer upon layer of corpses formed undulating mountains of the dead.
Aside from him, there wasn’t a single person or ghost standing—there were only bodies, nothing else.
An overwhelming, oppressive terror blanketed the sky. The black clouds pressed down so low it felt like they would crush everything beneath them, so heavy they made it hard to breathe and stirred an inexplicable anxiety in the heart.
Yet Yan Shixun showed no visible emotion. His handsome face remained expressionless, revealing nothing of his true thoughts.
He simply and calmly observed the scene around him, making no rash moves until he fully understood his situation.
He remembered clearly that, just before losing consciousness during the fall, he had looked up one last time at the people behind him and confirmed they weren’t far from him.
But now, none of those people were around.
Even King of Hell, whom he had tightly held onto in his hand at the time, was nowhere to be found.
What disturbed Yan Shixun even more was that his original goal and the outcome now before him seemed vastly different.
From the moment he confirmed through Ye Li that Fengdu was a ghost city tied to karmic cause and effect, Yan Shixun had made his plan—to use the karmic connection between himself and Li Chengyun to draw himself toward Li Chengyun’s location.
But now, he saw nothing here that was even remotely connected to Li Chengyun.
Could it be that his master had also been discarded here like these corpses?
The moment that thought surfaced, Yan Shixun’s heart gave a sharp jolt.
But he quickly dismissed the idea.
Impossible.
He had personally escorted his master’s spirit back to Binhai City, watched with his own eyes as the remains were properly buried, and presided over the funeral rites for his master’s passage.
Even if his master had left behind a residual soul in old Fengdu due to having once visited Baizhi Lake, that shouldn’t have caused him to end up in a place like this mass grave.
Though his rational mind rejected the idea, Yan Shixun clenched his back molars tightly, his jawline tensing into sharp definition.
He forcibly erased the thought from his mind and turned his attention back to the limited clues in front of him, trying to deduce his current situation.
Since King of Hell’s “sins” had indeed allowed him to descend into the lower levels of hell, it meant that his initial judgment wasn’t wrong.
Which also meant that karma really should have led him toward Li Chengyun.
The others should have been led similarly.
But theory and reality didn’t match. What had caused the deviation?
Moreover, before he opened his eyes, he clearly remembered hearing the sound of corpses being dragged—and weeping… Where had that come from?
Yan Shixun strode forward. Even amid the uneven terrain of corpse mounds, he walked as if on flat ground.
He moved quickly, taking care to avoid stepping on the bodies whenever possible, instead treading over patches of dirt beside them.
His tall figure nimbly leaped across the piles of corpses forming small hills. The black coat trailing behind him fluttered like a hawk spreading its wings.
Using the elevated vantage point these corpse hills provided, he gained a broader view of the grave site, taking in the full scene at a glance. His eyes swiftly scanned every visible area, searching for the source of the weeping he had heard before regaining consciousness.
Yan Shixun didn’t find the crying woman.
But he did see smoke curling into the sky in the distance, at the far edge of the mass grave. Upon closer inspection, there seemed to be a few simple huts built there.
Someone was living… in a place like this?
A strange feeling crept into Yan Shixun’s heart.
He stopped and looked into the distance. Before he could make out the situation around the huts clearly, his eyes suddenly caught sight of something unexpected.
At the very top of a mountain of corpses, a fresh body lay with its eyes wide open, unable to rest in peace.
It was unmistakably the face of Zheng Shumu.
Yan Shixun raised an eyebrow, a little surprised.
He had assumed Zheng Shumu had perished along with Zheng Tiantian, reduced to ashes. But it turned out that Zheng Shumu’s soul had fallen into this place?
When he walked up to the corpse and crouched down to take a closer look, he noticed something off.
Yan Shixun had witnessed Zheng Shumu’s death with his own eyes. In fact, it was he who had guided the outcome that led to the destruction of the siblings.
After all, a ghost infant that had grown to this extent had no weaknesses—except for the unresolved karmic entanglement with her two older brothers.
Xie Lin had taken a clear stance from the beginning, so Yan Shixun had never factored him into his plans.
Yan Shixun respected others’ choices and never interfered with their freedom to choose. Besides, he had the confidence to back it up.
—No matter what Xie Lin chose to do, it would still fall within the range of problems he could handle.
Even so, Yan Shixun was always one to plan ahead.
Before anyone else made a move, he had already observed their mannerisms, expressions, and behavior, deduced their personalities and intentions, and anticipated their actions several steps in advance. This allowed him to set his trap long before others even realized what was happening.
Before anyone had noticed a thing.
Yan Shixun had seen clearly that the key to breaking the deadlock was Zheng Shumu.
He peeled back the bloody, brutal truth and laid it bare for Zheng Shumu to see—made him realize that everything at Baizhi Lake had already spiraled out of control. That was what pushed Zheng Shumu to stop wavering and take a firm stand, choosing to side with him and taking Zheng Tiantian away.
It had been a win-win outcome.
Yan Shixun saved everyone, while Zheng Shumu delivered Master Bai and Zheng Tiantian from the endless torment of their personal hell.
…Even though the ghost infant’s mind had long since become twisted, unaware that she was already in hell.
However, the ghost infant who had controlled all the living-eyed, speaking wooden carvings feared fire. And Zheng Shumu, who had personally helped his sister reach that final outcome, knew her weakness well. He chose to take her away into the flames.
A fire that hadn’t fully burned out decades ago had finally completed its work—ending the sins of the Bai family village, and cutting off the karmic entanglement between the two pairs of siblings and the three souls involved.
That was why Yan Shixun had believed that if Zheng Shumu’s soul bore any wounds, they should have been burns.
Not this—his chest torn open, body drenched in blood, with an empty abdominal cavity.
Yan Shixun took out a handkerchief and wrapped it around his hand. With respect for Zheng Shumu’s remains, he carefully reached out and examined the wound on his chest.
It was strange.
The cut wasn’t like something made by a sharp blade—it was too smooth. Rather, it followed the natural midline of the human body, splitting cleanly to both sides.
Like a cloth doll torn open along a seam.
Even the internal organs in the abdominal cavity bore no signs of slicing or cutting. It didn’t look like they had been removed with a weapon.
All the connection points were smooth—as if this person had never had any organs to begin with.
For a soul to bear such a wound, and then be cast into the lower levels of Old Fengdu’s hell, dumped in a mass grave… Was it the result of karma and sin?
Yan Shixun still clearly remembered what the King of Hell had said about Old Fengdu’s judgment rules from a thousand years ago.
They only cared whether there was sin, not the reasons behind it. Any act of vengeance triggered by death was deemed a sin, something Old Fengdu could not tolerate.
By that standard, Zheng Shumu was beyond redemption.
Yan Shixun could even reconstruct the judgment Old Fengdu must have passed on Zheng Shumu based on the King of Hell’s description.
Even though Zheng Shumu had suffered the destruction of his family at a young age, he hadn’t died. That meant there was no direct harm to him personally—and thus no right to revenge.
But as an adult, Zheng Shumu had slaughtered over a hundred people in the Bai family village. That massacre alone was enough for Old Fengdu to condemn him as a vengeful ghost.
Yan Shixun lowered his gaze.
Sure enough, beneath Zheng Shumu’s body in the heap of corpses, he saw remains that closely resembled the wooden carvings he had once seen in the Bai family village.
All the villagers lay dead here, their bodies decayed beyond recognition. And on top of their corpses, Zheng Shumu’s body had been placed high above.
As if the villagers of that village had finally been “reunited” here.
Yan Shixun frowned in discomfort.
To place victims and their perpetrator in the same place—was that not just a second round of torment for the victims?
But he now understood Old Fengdu’s logic.
After their deaths, these villagers’ souls had been trapped inside the living, speaking wooden carvings, tormented day and night as they relived everything before and after their deaths. Naturally, they came to resent death itself.
Thus, Old Fengdu had judged those souls as malevolent spirits too.
After the ghost infant died, the power that had once flowed to her from Old Fengdu—along with the power she later accumulated—lost its vessel. It began to disperse, returning to the Ghost Dao and Old Fengdu.
That was why the souls of the villagers, once trapped in the lifelike wooden statues, had been released—because they, too, had been controlled and tormented by the ghost infant, making them part of its power. As a result, they had fallen into the lower hells of Old Fengdu.
In other words, the one currently bearing the Ghost Dao… was Old Fengdu.
—Old Fengdu could never have imagined that just a few corpses would allow Yan Shixun to see through layer upon layer of illusions and uncover the deeply buried truth hidden beneath them all in a single glance.
The moment he figured it out, Yan Shixun’s gaze grew dark and heavy.
“Tch… Old Fengdu…”
He clicked his tongue against his upper palate, never having felt such intense disgust toward Old Fengdu until now.
Whether it was the underworld, Fengdu, or Old Fengdu, Yan Shixun had always remained indifferent, treating them all with equal detachment, without any special sentiment.
Even though New Fengdu was now under Ye Li’s rule, and the hundred-thousand underworld soldiers of Fengdu had once turned the tide in a crisis, Yan Shixun had always remained calm and rational, never investing any emotion into Fengdu.
But now, his inner scales had suddenly tipped—sharply—in favor of the new Fengdu.
After clearly seeing what Old Fengdu had done, Yan Shixun actually felt a trace of joy that Ye Li had defeated and replaced it back then.
Along with that, his feelings toward Ye Li deepened ever so slightly, accompanied by a gratifying sense of “well done.”
He suddenly grew curious—what kind of person had that general from a thousand years ago truly been?
Ebony statue…
A smile full of intrigue and keen interest spread in Yan Shixun’s eyes.
Lowering his gaze, he looked at the corpse of Zheng Shumu, whose eyes still remained open in death. With a sigh, Yan Shixun gently reached out to close them. He laid his handkerchief over Zheng Shumu’s face and carefully arranged his wounds, making sure he at least looked decently presentable in death—preserving some dignity for the afterlife.
Unlike those perpetrators of karmic offenses whose bodies were left to rot in the wilderness, exposed and dishonored.
Yan Shixun did not believe that Zheng Shumu had done anything wrong.
Although Zheng Shumu’s methods were aggressive, far from what the world considered kind or benevolent, Yan Shixun never thought of himself as someone soft-hearted or especially virtuous.
In his eyes, there was no such thing as repaying evil with good—only karma being balanced by karma.
And so, at this moment, Yan Shixun felt an unprecedented surge of emotion. Never before had he so strongly wished to see Old Fengdu erased from existence.
When that time came, he would personally deliver every ghost imprisoned within Old Fengdu to New Fengdu for judgment.
Those who were truly guilty would be punished in the bitter prison cells of Fengdu, while the souls who had died seeking vengeance—they would receive justice in death and be allowed to reincarnate.
Yan Shixun slowly straightened his posture, his gaze resolute and sharp as a blade.
The heavy hem of his coat swept through the air in a crisp arc as he turned and walked toward a small house standing amidst a field of corpses.
It looked like a perfectly ordinary village home. Yan Shixun had seen similar ones before in impoverished, remote villages.
Thin tendrils of smoke drifted up from a chimney in the roof, the gray wisps curling around the building, lending it an unexpectedly dreamy charm.
If not for the terrifying surroundings, this place could almost have passed as a secluded retreat.
But as he drew closer, Yan Shixun realized that not only did the house stand conspicuously at the center of the mass grave, but even stranger—the ground before the door had been carefully cleared. There wasn’t a single corpse in sight.
Daily living items were neatly stacked nearby, filling the space with an oddly domestic warmth.
It closely resembled the homes of reclusive cultivators Yan Shixun had once encountered deep in the mountains.
If he had seen such a house in the mountains, he wouldn’t have thought it strange at all. But this… this was Old Fengdu’s hell.
He stepped forward and politely tapped his knuckles against the door.
After several knocks, the house remained silent—no one answered.
Still, the smoke rising from the chimney convinced Yan Shixun that someone must be home—or at least nearby.
So he patiently waited, knocking in sets of four.
Three knocks signaled a person; four knocks, a ghost.
Four knocks—just right for a ghost.
Since he was in the hellish realm of Old Fengdu, Yan Shixun had no reason to assume the house’s occupant was still alive. For ghosts, four knocks were considered polite.
Given how meticulously Old Fengdu had tried to entrap him earlier, Yan Shixun decided it was better to err on the side of caution.
When he reached the fourth set of knocks, a voice finally responded.
“You scared me!”
—But it didn’t come from inside the house.
It came from behind him.
Yan Shixun’s back stiffened, his brows twitching ever so slightly.
He hadn’t sensed anyone approaching from behind.
This inability to grasp the situation completely made him all the more alert.
He slowly turned around, shifting his gaze toward the source of the voice.
What he saw made his eyes widen slightly in surprise.
It was completely different from what he had expected.
Yan Shixun had assumed that whoever dared build a home atop such a desolate, corpse-strewn field must be a ghost—or one of the lingering remnants of Old Fengdu.
But what he saw… was simply an old man.
The old man sat on a chair at the foot of the corpse mound, one leg crossed over the other, basking leisurely in the sun with a teacup at his side.
He looked exactly like the retired old men Yan Shixun used to see strolling through alleyways and neighborhood streets.
If it weren’t for the grotesque, bloody corpses behind him instead of a well-kept park, Yan Shixun might have truly mistaken the scene.
But somehow, the dead body and the smiling old man “basking in the sun” now seemed oddly well-matched.
“Where did this kid come from, got lost?”
The old man shook his leg and clicked his tongue. “You sure have skills, managing to get lost this far out and even ending up at my doorstep. When you knocked, I nearly died of fright—these old bones of mine… Don’t young people nowadays know how to knock more gently?”
Yan Shixun gave the old man a steady nod. “Apologies, I just happened to be passing by.”
The old man: “………”
“Passing by my ass! You trying to fool me?”
The old man gave Yan Shixun a suspicious once-over. “Who the hell could ‘just happen to be passing by’ here? Have you ever seen anyone casually stroll through hell?”
Yan Shixun, “You asked if I was lost. I was just going along with your line of questioning. What, isn’t that the answer you were looking for?”
He remained unbothered, completely unfazed by the fact that his flimsy lie had been exposed. “You tried to fool me first, so I returned the favor. That’s called fairness.”
The old man, “…Where’d this smart-ass brat come from!”
Failing to tease Yan Shixun into any sort of flustered reaction, the old man quickly lost interest. He leaned back in his chair, lazily slouched with his legs shaking and scratching his foot, humming an old tune under his breath. He stubbornly refused to spare Yan Shixun another glance.
But Yan Shixun didn’t show a trace of discomfort or awkwardness from being ignored—as if such feelings didn’t exist in him at all.
Except sometimes, when facing Ye Li, he’d get that strange, hard-to-place sense of unease. That guy always had a way of making things feel… off.
Yan Shixun stepped forward toward the old man with a completely natural air, as if he were in his own home. He bent down, picked up the teacup from the stool beside the old man, then flipped his coat tails aside and sat down on the stool, holding the cup in his hand.
Even in the entertainment industry or at Haiyun Temple, Yan Shixun’s bearing would have been top-tier.
Whether standing or sitting, he always held himself with the upright grace of a pine or cypress tree.
As he sat on the stool, one long leg crossed over the other and a teacup in hand, he looked every bit like the true master of the place—elegant, calm, and completely at ease.
In an instant, the roles of host and guest were reversed.
Yan Shixun held the upper hand with absolute confidence and composure.
Instead, it was the old man who now seemed like he had come seeking help.
The old man: “???”
“You sure are bold…”
Yan Shixun gave a slight nod and replied with composed elegance, “Thank you.”
The old man snapped, “Who the hell complimented you! Can’t you understand ghost-speak or something?”
“Now then, I think we can talk about this place.”
Yan Shixun pressed his palm downward, gesturing for the old man to calm down, and asked with the steady tone of a host, “This is the lower layer of the old Fengdu. Why are you living here?”
The moment Yan Shixun mentioned the old Fengdu, the old man raised an eyebrow in surprise. His slouched body straightened slightly—it hadn’t occurred to him that this living soul, who looked so out of place, actually knew about the changes in Fengdu.
Instantly, the old man’s attitude became far more cautious. He no longer dared to casually brush him off like before.
—When you ask questions while knowing nothing, those in the know will just grow impatient and dismiss you, looking down on your ignorance.
But if they believe you already know quite a lot, the situation flips entirely.
Yan Shixun understood human psychology well—even if the person in front of him was a ghost, he still couldn’t escape the instinctive reaction rooted in habit.
The old man’s response was exactly as he had anticipated.
He wanted the old man to think that he was well-informed, to use that as leverage in exchange for what the old man knew about the old Fengdu.
Yan Shixun had chosen his words with precision. He only revealed the tip of the iceberg, just enough to make the old man uncertain about how much he actually knew, or what he was after. That uncertainty would cause the old man’s imagination to run wild—imagining that beneath the surface, there might be an entire hidden mountain of knowledge.
The old man eyed Yan Shixun warily this time, but his gaze was serious, no longer as casual and dismissive as before.
“…Since I started living here, you’re the first one to ever knock on my door.”
The old man sounded exasperated. “Don’t you think knocking on an old ghost’s door is a bit strange? I’m already dead, and yet you’re still disturbing me—what kind of behavior is that?”
“If you don’t like that question, we can change it.”
Yan Shixun didn’t act like he desperately wanted an answer. Instead, he smoothly followed the old man’s lead and shifted the topic, appearing very considerate.
“Have you seen others like me, lost down here? They’re about this tall, look kind of like this.”
As he spoke, Yan Shixun raised his hand and gestured in the air beside him, then added sincerely, “They all looked a lot younger than you.”
“You’re really quite fortunate, elder.”
Before the old man could erupt in anger, Yan Shixun sighed earnestly. “See, you lived to such an old age before dying. Unlike my companions, who, so young…”
“…already got lost.”
The old man: “…………”
He felt like the breath in his chest was being jerked up and down by Yan Shixun’s words, and he nearly choked himself to death on the spot.
And yet, for all the absurdity of Yan Shixun’s words at first glance, the more one thought about them, the more they made sense.
Dying of old age—wasn’t that supposed to be a blessing?
The old man couldn’t even come up with a proper rebuttal. The frustration left him speechless, and all he could do was roll his eyes at Yan Shixun in defeat.
“Didn’t see anything!”
He was just trying to mess with him and still expected an answer? Not a chance!
The old man fumed silently. If this had been back when Fengdu hadn’t changed hands, would a living soul like this even dare to speak to him this way?
Back then, if exorcists from the human world wanted a mere glimpse of them, they had to prepare generous offerings and incense, invite them with utmost respect, and even then, it depended on their mood whether they would bother descending to the mortal world.
If it weren’t for… if it weren’t for that warrior who could defy Heaven and Earth…
The old man’s eyes, shadowed beneath his drooping lids, dimmed. His resentment toward Yan Shixun stopped abruptly.
In its place, only a faint, barely noticeable sigh of weariness remained.
Although Yan Shixun kept his gaze lowered, looking calm and confident, he had been watching the old man’s expressions out of the corner of his eye the entire time, not missing the slightest change on his face.
He quickly sensed that this old man was no ordinary ghost dumped at a mass grave.
When the old Fengdu was mentioned, his reaction wasn’t like those of the confused, indifferent souls that roamed aimlessly. Instead, he showed a deep attachment—like he was reminiscing about days long gone.
Only one kind of identity would explain such a response.
A survivor of the old Fengdu.
For instance, one of Fengdu’s former ghost officials.
For minor figures like him, having a strong backer mattered immensely.
Even though the Underworld and Fengdu had always been at odds, and the underworld’s Yin officials often cursed Fengdu with no lack of disdain, mocking them at every turn—
If an underworld Yin official and a Fengdu ghost official ever crossed paths in a narrow alley, the underworld Yin official would be the first to retreat.
After all, Fengdu was governed by ghost deities, while the Underworld, even before Fengdu’s fall, had already been weaker in status. And before Jing Xiaobao ascended as the King of Hell, the Underworld had no ruler at all and nearly collapsed several times.
The same held true for ghost official of the old Fengdu.
Once proud and overbearing in the mortal realm, relying on their status from Fengdu, they had turned into pitiful, beaten dogs when Northern Yin Fengdu fell.
Many perished, others fled, and none were seen by humans, gods, or ghosts again.
…Except for one particular ghost official.
In every tale told to Yan Shixun—by ghost or man—there had always been that one ghost official.
The one who, out of gratitude, taught ghost plays to the Bai family ancestor while on the verge of death; the same one who, after all the others fled from the crumbling old Fengdu, had returned there once again.
And so “coincidentally,” that ghost official had also descended into the lower layers of Hell—and was never seen again by any soul.
In just a brief moment, Yan Shixun realized who the old man in front of him really was.
A barely detectable smile crept into his eyes, though his face remained composed, giving nothing away.
The old man, still furious, turned his head sharply away, refusing to look at Yan Shixun. Even his foot-scratching intensified with vengeance, as if he weren’t digging at his heel but at his enemy’s skull.
Yan Shixun raised a brow slightly and said in an earnest tone, “You’ve been criticizing me this whole time, so I suppose you’re much more refined and cultured than I am. As expected of someone who’s lived for so long.”
The old man froze mid-scratch, puzzled. This rude little brat was now suddenly complimenting him?
But before he could feel pleased, Yan Shixun followed up with another line:
“A refined elder like you surely wouldn’t stand by while a young man starved to death just because he lost his way at your doorstep, right?”
Yan Shixun’s voice was kind and sincere, as if he were truly praising him. “Thank you for taking me in and feeding me, sir.”
“When did I ever say that?! Who are you trying to fool?!”
The old man roared, feeling like thousands of years of self-cultivation had all gone down the drain.
How could anyone be so shameless and full of
nonsense? Who was this kid, and where did he come from? Outrageous!
For a fleeting second, the old man even suspected that the lingering spirit of Fengdu’s old city must’ve made a mistake—thinking he was one of those souls who needed to be punished in Hell.
Otherwise, why else would such a headache of a brat “get lost” right to his front door? Sitting on his stool, drinking his tea, planning to eat his food and sleep in his house?!
But Yan Shixun had already stood up calmly, a smile on his lips. He nodded politely to the old man, lifting the teacup in his hand with grace. “Thanks for the hospitality. You really are a kind elder.”
“People like you are rare these days.”
He added meaningfully, “This kind of virtue—died out about a thousand years ago, didn’t it?”
Yan Shixun emphasized the words “a thousand years” with deliberate weight.
The old man, who had just begun to rise from his chair with the intention of kicking Yan Shixun out, froze in place.
He understood what Yan Shixun meant.
Clearly, this was a living soul in the present, yet not only did he know about the change in Fengdu, he even knew the precise time it happened.
That battle a thousand years ago… hadn’t been recorded by any living being. Even among human exorcists, relevant records were extremely scarce and had long been lost over time.
So how did this living soul know?
The old man’s anger slowly faded, eventually settling into a cold, expressionless seriousness. He pressed his lips into a straight line and stared hard at Yan Shixun, trying to glean something from him.
But Yan Shixun not only remained completely calm, he even spread his arms with a relaxed smile, openly allowing the old man to inspect him, looking every bit the picture of frank sincerity.
The old man immediately felt like that choking breath caught in his throat had stuck there again—neither going up nor down—leaving him utterly suffocated.
His already wrinkled face flushed red with suppressed fury.
Yet Yan Shixun showed concern for the old man’s health instead, kindly saying, “Did you catch a chill from the wind? Hurry inside and warm up.”
The old man stood up abruptly in frustration, trying to ignore Yan Shixun brushing past him.
But then he heard Yan Shixun sigh softly behind him, “I didn’t expect people could still get sick after they died. Life really isn’t easy.”
Old man: …So annoying. Could this brat just drop dead right now?
But because Yan Shixun’s identity was unclear, and he had such accurate knowledge of Fengdu, the old man couldn’t figure him out. He didn’t dare act rashly and had no choice but to swallow his anger and walk home with a belly full of rage.
He shoved open the door and snapped over his shoulder, jerking his chin back: “Come in.”
Yan Shixun chuckled lightly but didn’t move right away. Instead, his gaze swept behind the chair the old man had just been sitting on.
That corpse mountain seemed shorter and looser compared to the others—it didn’t look like something that had been piled up for long.
It seemed newly formed.
That puzzled Yan Shixun and sparked his suspicion.
The old Fengdu had been replaced by the new one a thousand years ago. From Ye Li’s words, it was clear that heaven and earth now treated the old Fengdu like garbage—something to be erased entirely.
Letting the old Fengdu take charge of ghost detention again? Impossible.
Otherwise, the southwest wouldn’t be overflowing with so many ghosts. The congestion was even squeezing the living out of their own spaces. That’s why the exorcists in the southwest had been forced to conduct mass ghost sweeps, and why other exorcists shunned the region like the plague.
There shouldn’t have been any ghosts here from after that ancient battle, much less a freshly piled corpse mountain.
Even Zheng Shumu and the others had only ended up here because they lived near Baizhi Lake and were closely tied to the old Fengdu due to the ghost infant.
Without the ghost infant, Zheng Shumu and the rest would’ve just become wandering spirits in the southwest after death.
But now, this corpse mountain clearly stood out from the rest. The bodies—it was obvious—weren’t the same as those in the others. Who were they?
Before Yan Shixun could lift a foot to go check it out, the old man gave a disgruntled grunt and snapped, “Weren’t you just insisting on eating this meal? Now I’ve agreed, why aren’t you moving?”
“Getting cold feet? Chickening out?”
The old man gloated, “Young people shouldn’t be so arrogant. Always leave room in your words and save yourself some face. Otherwise, if you show off and lose, it’ll be awfully embarrassing.”
His tone was filled with glee.
He still remembered how oppressed he’d felt being verbally steamrolled by Yan Shixun earlier, so now that he saw an opportunity to regain face, he seized it eagerly.
Yan Shixun sensed the old man’s mood.
He raised an eyebrow, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
At the moment, he was standing half-turned, facing the spot where the old man had just been seated, with his back toward the man himself.
The old man couldn’t see his expression and, naturally, couldn’t read anything from Yan Shixun’s tightly controlled demeanor.
Yan Shixun’s thoughts shifted, and he made a new decision.
He didn’t turn around. Instead, he stood still and let the old man keep talking.
He even subtly adjusted his muscles to make his posture appear tense—like someone trying to save face after being seen through and afraid to back down.
After years of exorcising ghosts and warding off evil, Yan Shixun had perfected his control over his emotions and body to a near supernatural level.
Even ghost deities wouldn’t notice.
Sure enough, the old man was completely fooled. He bought into Yan Shixun’s act, thinking the boy really was scared and frozen in place.
So he grew even more gleeful, smugly piling on, “How about this—if you dare come in, I won’t just give you that meal, I’ll let you sleep in my house too. How’s that?”
The old man chuckled darkly.
Eat a ghost’s meal, sleep in a ghost’s grave—I dare to offer. Let’s see if you dare to accept.
But Yan Shixun merely lowered his eyes slightly, his smile widening.
Far from being scared, he was clearly quite pleased with how things were going.
At last, he turned around to face the old man and gave a small nod. “Then I’ll accept your kind offer.”
I knew this brat wouldn’t dare… Wouldn’t da—
Wait, what did he just say?
The old man blinked slowly, turned his gaze, and looked at Yan Shixun.
Yan Shixun was still smiling, relaxed and composed, his back straight like a pine tree.
Like a model junior.
Old man: “…………”
Yan Shixun, still smiling, politely added, “Thank you, elder. I’m sure the old Fengdu would be deeply touched to know about this.”
Old man: “!!!”
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