Since ancient times, righteousness and evil, divinity and demonic nature, as well as good and bad, have stood in stark contrast. Black and white were as irreconcilable as a speck of dust in the eye or impurity in clear water, tolerating no ambiguity.
Every sect and immortal gate in the cultivation world possessed strict disciplinary codes designed to prevent their disciples from colluding with demons and evil entities. Regardless of the severity, any infraction was handled as an abandonment of the orthodox path: their immortal bones would be shattered, and they would be cast into the Soul Burning Pagoda to fend for themselves and perish.
Even when a charge lacked definitive proof, remaining as vague and ambiguous as Pei Zizhuo’s situation, no leniency would be granted.
Shen Shu was about to inquire further when Zhan Tianwang cut in ahead of him, saying, “I disclosed this secret to you so you would trust me. The Matchmaking Cult Master in this mountain is the Ancestral Witch, and I cannot be mistaken. However, if you intend to get to the bottom of it and pry into my family’s secret techniques, I will never tell you.”
Shen Shu understood and said, “I know. You would not have revealed this matter if you were not in a desperate situation, and I swear to keep it strictly confidential. It is just that I know very little about the Faceless Ghost Ancestral Witch. What sort of divine abilities does he possess?”
The strength of a netherworld ghost general was comparable to the Soul Formation stage. Even so, relying solely on an Ancestral Witch, it would be extremely difficult to fend off the Devouring Taotie while simultaneously manipulating an Illusory Realm of such vast proportions. Either the Ancestral Witch had long since mastered a unique and formidable technique, or someone was pulling strings behind the scenes.
Zhan Tianwang had been trained by his family since childhood and had long since committed the records of contracted evil spirits to memory. Recalling the details, he said, “The Ancestral Witch died a miserable death, and after his death, his corpse was dismembered and buried in quicksand and muddy silt, making him one of the evil ghosts brimming with the strongest resentment. He harbors an extreme hatred for humanity and excels at psychological warfare. I fell victim to his schemes precisely while fighting the ghost skeleton.”
“Come to think of it, it is rather strange,” Zhan Tianwang rubbed his head hard with a puzzled expression. “He has been exiled to the netherworld for nearly a millennium and ought to be completely cut off from worldly affairs, yet he knew me inside and out. A mere casual remark from him stirred up my temper, and just now I went berserk as if I had lost my mind.”
The emergence of a ghost general would inevitably command all minor ghosts across the realm, so it would not be difficult for the Ancestral Witch to ascertain Zhan Tianwang’s background. As for his proficiency in psychological warfare, it was likely just a matter of mining negative emotions from hearsay to throw people into disarray and disturb their minds.
What baffled Shen Shu the most, however, was this: as a mere netherworld ghost general whose cultivation level could hardly be considered top-tier in the boundless six realms, how could he possibly grant the wishes of thousands of common folk and construct such a massive Illusory Realm?
It was impossible for there to be no master behind the scenes assisting him. Lowering his gaze, Shen Shu asked, “I am unfamiliar with the realms of ghost cultivation. Do you know where the Ghost Ancestor resides?”
“The Ghost Ancestor?” Zhan Tianwang pondered for a moment before replying, “Ever since the Four Ancient Fiends perished, the demonic and ghostly realms have remained utterly withered, frequently colluding and adopting common followings until the boundaries between them blurred. Among the practitioners of the demonic and ghostly paths, there are countless mediocre individuals who are self-conceited, envious, and ruthless, each unwilling to submit to anyone else. Consequently, the positions of the Demon Lord and the Ghost Ancestor have remained permanently vacant. There are, however, many who bestow upon themselves grandiose titles such as the Asura Supreme of some mountain or the Nether Patriarch of some cavern, but they are truly not worth mentioning.”
If that truly was the case, then who could possibly be assisting the Ancestral Witch from the shadows?
Seeing Shen Shu furrow his brow in deep thought, Zhan Tianwang offered words of reassurance: “The Ancestral Witch has run amok across the human, ghost, and demon realms for many years, so his information network is exceptionally well-informed. He is bound to possess some unknown, unique techniques, and it is only natural that we are unaware of them.”
Having said that, Zhan Tianwang coughed in mild embarrassment. After all, just yesterday he had spoken arrogantly, telling Shen Shu not to drag him down, only to be rescued by the very same person shortly after, making the situation quite awkward.
Remaining half-seated on the ground was rather inconvenient. He braced his hands against the earth, preparing to stand up, but the moment his feet touched the ground, his legs went limp and he collapsed instantly.
The fall was not only thoroughly painful but also exceptionally heavy, yet Zhan Tianwang no longer had the bandwidth to care about such details. His legs felt as weak and devoid of strength as if drained of all power; he could not muster any leverage and failed entirely to stand.
Sensing the abnormality, Shen Shu hurriedly asked, “What is the matter with you?”
“I, I have no strength. Are my legs crippled?” Zhan Tianwang’s face turned deathly pale as a layer of despair crept over his heart. Staring blankly with dull eyes at his own thighs, he spoke with a trembling voice.
Shen Shu projected a stream of immortal energy that coursed through Zhan Tianwang’s entire body. The tendons, bones, and blood vessels in his legs were completely intact and unharmed; his legs were not injured in the least. Rather, his dantian was utterly drained and empty, as if his spiritual energy had been sucked dry in an instant, a state of exhaustion from severe depletion that left him temporarily unable to use his legs.
“Your legs are fine. You merely exhausted all your spiritual energy during the combat just now,” Shen Shu frowned and said.
“Exhausted?” Zhan Tianwang widened his eyes in disbelief and blurted out, “Just a single ghost skeleton was enough to drain all my spiritual energy?”
“It was not merely the ghost skeleton. The entirety of Mount Chan has already been shrouded by the Illusory Realm, and furthermore, the Ancestral Witch is harboring a Taotie in his embrace, whose appetite is insatiable. At this point, whatever bizarre occurrences happen should no longer come as a surprise.”
The Illusory Realm, the Ancestral Witch, the Taotie, these eerie anomalies weighed down upon him like several towering mountain peaks, pressing so heavily that Zhan Tianwang felt a wave of darkness wash over his vision, nearly suffocating him.
Driven by some unknown provocation, he gritted his teeth, braced his hands against the ground, and bottled up a fierce breath, determined to defy nature itself and force himself to stand.
A state of depleted spiritual energy required several days of quiet rest and recuperation; how could one brute-force it? Stepping forward to support him, Shen Shu said, “It is nothing serious. You will recover after resting for a while.”
“Do not touch me!” Zhan Tianwang violently brushed away his hand, veins bulging on his temples and his face flushed crimson. Relying on sheer willpower, he propped his upper body up from the ground. His brocade-purple outer robe was already stained and soiled with dirt, making him look utterly disheveled. As if possessed, he muttered under his breath, “I can do it myself. I do not need anyone’s help. I must catch the demon, I cannot just lie here paralyzed, I have to prove it to them.”
Several times he nearly straightened his body, but in the end, his legs remained weak, causing him to crash heavily back to the ground. The handsome face, usually so arrogant and proud, was already scraped by gravel in a few places, and this bedraggled state bore no resemblance whatsoever to a young master of the Cangyang Sect.
Shen Shu sighed, stepped forward to firmly grip his shoulders, and looked him in the eye as he said sternly, “You have reached the Golden Core stage before turning twenty, which is more than enough to prove yourself. Right now, what you need most is quiet rest. The sooner you calm down, the sooner we will be able to capture the Ancestral Witch, all right?”
Zhan Tianwang understood the logic as well, yet he could never overcome his own psychological barrier. It was only after being halted by Shen Shu’s words that he finally calmed down. With a sudden sting in his bridge of nose, his eye sockets instantly turned red. Turning his face away, he replied in a hoarse voice, “All right.”
The late autumn wind was chilly, and the night chill began to rise. Shen Shu helped Zhan Tianwang up and leaned him against a tree trunk to rest. Daring not linger after offering words of comfort, he left behind a protective barrier of immortal energy to encircle him and instructed before departing, “I will return to the Matchmaking Temple first and come back to pick you up shortly.”
As Mount Chan entered the night, mist and fog grew increasingly dense. The closer one approached the temple, the thicker the vapor became, and along the entire path, not a single night bird could be heard chirping, a dead silence saturated the air.
Landing quietly, Shen Shu raised his eyes and saw that the originally magnificent and brightly lit Matchmaking Temple looked as though it had been vandalized. The plaque was split apart, the wall plaster was peeling off, and amid the deep, shadowed night, it appeared even more bizarre and ominous.
Filled with burning anxiety and wondering how Pei Zizhuo was faring now, Shen Shu strode forward. Before he had gone very far, the sole of his shoe stepped into a puddle that felt sticky and viscous.
There had been no rain, so where had the water come from? Shifting his foot aside, his vision was instantly filled with a shocking crimson; terrifying slashes of blood had been splashed everywhere, extending all the way into the main hall and exuding a foul, fishy stench of blood.
His heart tightened violently, and he rushed into the hall in three strides as two. The bronze statue of the Matchmaking Cult Master on the divine altar had already been smashed to pieces, scattered in fragments all over the floor, and the ghost skeleton on the roof was nowhere to be found. Inside the entire temple, the daytime fervor was completely gone, leaving not a single living soul behind, only this pool of eerie blood.
An ominous premonition welled up spontaneously. Sensing his emotions growing increasingly turbulent, Shen Shu forced himself to calm down, closed his eyes, pricked up his ears, and listened for subtle sounds in the wind.
Half a li outside the temple, a weak and feeble cry for help rang out, so faint that it was nearly drowned out by the noise of the wind rustling through the weeds.
Shen Shu skimmed across the ground, racing straight toward that hollow depression. Beneath a tree, three figures lay sprawled out, all covered in blood and filth, with only a middle-aged man who appeared relatively robust still conscious, though entirely unable to move.
“Where are you wounded?” Shen Shu anxiously scanned the man’s body. The bloodstains were scattered in a chaotic mess, and his clothing bore traces of having been torn by wild beasts.
“Save me.” The man raised his head with a trembling effort, revealing a patch of exposed white bone where the flesh had been torn away, looking ghastly and terrifying. His yellowish eyeballs stared straight at Shen Shu as he pleaded, “Save me.”
The two individuals beside him had already lost all breath, though what these people had actually encountered remained a mystery.
“All right, relax, I am going to save you.” Feeling a pang of pity, Shen Shu reached out and channeled his immortal energy into the man to stem the bleeding.
“I will take you somewhere to rest,” Shen Shu hoisted the man up, though he momentarily hesitated as to where they should go.
Logically speaking, the temple was the Ancestral Witch’s lair, yet upon entering earlier, there had been no trace of that chilling yin aura whatsoever. Most likely, he had been injured too severely by Pei Zizhuo and was forced to abandon the place.
Furthermore, at least one room inside the temple could shelter them from the wind and rain, and should Pei Zizhuo return along the same route, they could meet here.
Supporting the man, Shen Shu turned and flew back into the temple, simply bandaging the wounds on the man’s face. Seeing him regain consciousness, Shen Shu asked, “What happened here?”
Collecting his wits, the man rolled his eyeballs, and instant tears welled up in torrents, overflowing with extreme grief as he wailed, “They went mad! Everyone went mad!”
The man’s memories were fragmented. He only knew that the second before, he had still been worshiping the Matchmaking Cult Master, but the next second he saw a faceless fierce ghost engaged in a fierce battle with a young man. Terrified, they huddled together and fled in panic, yet for some reason their legs felt weak and powerless, making it impossible to escape out of the temple doors.
Suddenly, a thick, sweet fragrance descended from the air. After inhaling a couple of breaths, he began coughing uncontrollably, and when he snapped back to his senses, he saw that everyone around him had turned into white skeletons. The empty eye sockets in those skulls stared straight at him, and in the blink of an eye, they lunged forward, biting and tearing at his flesh.
Being a laborer, the man possessed some physical strength, so he fought and hacked his way through the skeletons. Realizing that the skeletons varied in strength, he knocked down a few weaker ones and stumbled away in a chaotic panic, only to eventually collapse from excessive blood loss.
After drawing in a few breaths of air and clearing his head, when he looked back, he was instantly chilled to the bone: there were no skeletons behind him at all, they were all living people, and every single one of them had been torn to shreds just like him.
Overcome by grief, the man wept uncontrollably and was completely incapable of further communication. Hearing mention of a few directions where people had fled, Shen Shu flew off to rescue them first.
Within a radius of a dozen miles, tracking along the road yielded dozens of people, of whom only seven or eight were still barely clinging to life. Shen Shu brought them back, asking whether any of them had seen Pei Zizhuo. A few who had inhaled less of the toxic vapor told him that Pei Zizhuo had headed toward the southern dense forest.
As the night deepened and the fog grew increasingly heavy, Shen Shu settled the survivors and turned to shut the door tightly.
He could wait no longer. The Ancestral Witch was as unfathomable and bizarre as a fog, and since Pei Zizhuo’s old injuries had not yet healed, he would surely be no match for the Ancestral Witch over an extended period. Leaping over the wall to the outside, just as he was about to take flight to search for him, the mist suddenly parted, and a figure pushed through the clouds, stepping forward while trailing the scent of blood.
Pei Zizhuo was still dragging two unconscious individuals by one hand each, trailing them across the ground, his face likewise stained with blood.
Shen Shu hurriedly caught the two people and handed them over to the crowd inside the temple. Amidst their miserable wails and chaotic commotion, Shen Shu helped them briefly tend to their external injuries, but when he turned back around, he discovered that Pei Zizhuo had vanished once more.
A sudden wave of panic surged in his chest. Taking a decisive stride out, his peripheral vision caught the side chamber door standing wide open. He hurried inside and saw Pei Zizhuo standing quietly with lowered eyes, his expression gloomy.
Could his cold poison have flared up again?
“Are you injured?” Shen Shu stepped forward, noticing that Pei Zizhuo’s white robes were stained with a significant amount of blood, making it look as though his battle with the Ancestral Witch had been an arduous one.
Shen Shu felt a lingering perplexity. No matter how one looked at it, Pei Zizhuo’s cultivation was merely at the Golden Core stage; how on earth had he managed to drive back a ghost general like the Ancestral Witch?
Biting his lip, Shen Shu gripped Pei Zizhuo’s sleeve, lifted his eyes to gaze straight at him, and asked once more, “Did you fight the Ancestral Witch? Are you injured? Let me check.”
With a forceful yank, Pei Zizhuo ripped his sleeve from Shen Shu’s fingertips. His expression was as cold as solid ice, his gaze as sharp as thorns, and lowering his brow to glare down at Shen Shu, he growled in a low voice, “Get lost!”
The words carried the edge of a sharp blade, serving simultaneously as an order and a warning.
His fingertips turned red from the friction against the fabric. Staring at him with eager panic, Shen Shu saw that Pei Zizhuo was clearly not himself, though whether he was furious or poisoned to become so hot-tempered remained unknown. At that thought, Shen Shu dared not leave this place even more. In a flurry of anxiety, he took a step forward, nearly pressing flush against Pei Zizhuo.
“Get lost.” Pei Zizhuo’s eyes remained devoid of warmth as he coldly repeated the phrase.
“I can get lost once you tell me whether you are injured or not.” Shen Shu grasped Pei Zizhuo’s icy hands, his pitch-black pupils reflecting the sinister, brooding face opposite him, his brow furrowed with deep worry.
The moment the words fell, Shen Shu found his wrists gripped. His hands were yanked upward over his head and pressed back against the wooden table by his waist.
Breathing heavily, Pei Zizhuo had a reddish glow flickering deep within his phoenix eyes, looking both dangerous and enchantingly seductive. Leaning down, he pressed his forehead against Shen Shu’s, their eyes locked, his voice low and hoarse with simmering anger as he gritted his teeth and viciously demanded, “Why are you always toying with me?”