Chapter 482 - The Terrifying Li Yuan, Crushing the Immortal Envoy - Part 1

Chapter 482 - The Terrifying Li Yuan, Crushing the Immortal Envoy - Part 1

Li Yuan knelt with one hand pressed to the ground and the other flicking a finger as if launching a pebble.

He watched as his right hand twisted through space in an eerie, impossible way, reaching straight through the wall and emerging behind the neighbor’s door.

What a strange sensation...

He silently absorbed the feeling. It was new. Intriguing.

He slowly lifted his left hand from the ground.

Instantly, all the doors vanished. His right hand, still creepily gripping the neighbor’s doorframe, snapped back to its proper place.

I get it now. The ghost organ has to be in contact with the earth to activate this power. No wonder you never see ghosts flying around. No, wait...that’s not right. This is probably just a unique case. I shouldn’t make assumptions.

Li Yuan shook the thoughts from his head.

Then came footsteps outside. He quickly withdrew the ghost hand. Glancing down at his tattered robes, still the same ones he’d been too deep in cultivation to change, he activated a thought, and vanished from the spot.

The footsteps, of course, belonged to Xie Yu.

She had just seen the four men across the way scream out in agony and was startled half to death. Not knowing what had happened, she bolted back into the house, instinctively grabbing the blade on the wall.

She pressed herself against it, muttering, “Damn Gucheng... Rotten Gucheng... Always disappearing for days without a word. Why don’t you just drop dead out there? If you don’t come back soon, you’ll only find my corpse when you do!”

But Li Yuan hadn’t gone far.

He was just in the nearby market. From his waist, he carefully pulled out the embroidered pouch he’d been hiding for ages, took out some gold nuggets, and bought himself a clean, elegant white robe. Only after changing into it did he stride confidently back home.

He pushed open the gate, knocked on the door, and called out, “Yu’er.”

Creak...!

The door swung open, and a hand yanked him inside.

As Li Yuan was dragged in, Xie Yu took one look at her ever-pristine husband. All her earlier fury instantly dissolved into a sparkle in her eyes.

She held a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture, then whispered nervously, “Something nasty’s happened next door. Either it’s an undying husk, or worse, we’ve got a real ghost on our hands. We should keep quiet and do nothing.”

“Oh,” Li Yuan replied softly, and the two of them hid in silence, not daring to make a sound.

They sat there, eyes locked, wide and alert, while the faint sounds of government officials arriving next door drifted in.

After the chaos of the Lotus Cult and the collapse of the

jianghu

, a new emperor had ascended the throne. In the resulting void, the old governors crept back from the shadows, reactivating local magistrates to keep some semblance of order.

Voices murmured outside.

“Sir bailiff, w-we’re locals, born and raised here! We’ve always kept to ourselves. That woman next door just started hurling insults at us for no reason. We argued back, and then suddenly, we felt drained, limbs going weak, like something unclean had latched onto us!”

“My brother said it might be the work of an undying husk. And since your office is already looking into those things...we thought it best to report it.”

“Come with us to the office and explain in detail.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll come with you, officers.”

“Brother, I’m coming too!”

Xie Yu’s brows furrowed into a sharp angle. “How dare they accuse people like that.”

Li Yuan said, “The provincial governors are busy hunting down the remnants of the Immortal Worship Cult and Lotus Cult. A lot of those remnants are undying husks, so that’s why things are the way they are.”

Xie Yu’s temper flared. “That’s ridiculous! I should go reason with them! I’m a sixth rank martial artist, you’re fourth-rank. What, are we supposed to be afraid of a bunch of nobodies?”

Li Yuan replied calmly, “And if you do that, we expose our true identities as members of the Xie Clan. The ones who wiped out your entire clan might come knocking next.”

He paused, his voice lowering.

“Besides, whether it's the imperial court or the jianghu, their stance toward the Immortal Worship Cult is the same. Better to kill the innocent than let one slip through. Trying to

reason

with that kind of thinking is basically suicide.”

“Ughhh...” Xie Yu pouted in frustration, letting out a soft whine like a grumbling kitten.

Li Yuan leaned in close and whispered into her ear, “Besides, they’re not entirely wrong. That incident just now? That was me. I didn’t like the way they spoke to you, so I thought I’d help you vent a little.”

“Huh?!” Xie Yu’s eyes went wide and round with shock.

Li Yuan gave his hands a gentle shake and in an instant, both turned into ghastly, pallid ghost hands.

He pressed his left hand to the ground.

A dozen doors shimmered into view before his eyes.

He quickly picked out the one that led to the neighbors, and with a flick, his right hand darted through it, vanishing into space.

A beat later, screams erupted next door.

“Ahhh! A ghost! There’s a ghost!!”

“AAAAHHHH!!”

The shrieking didn’t last long. The bailiffs who had come to investigate collapsed to the ground clutching their stomachs, faces pale as paper, drenched in cold sweat. Moments later, they passed out entirely.

The house next door fell into complete silence.

No one died, but for the rest of the day, none of them would be causing trouble for Li Yuan or Xie Yu again.

Just as Li Yuan was about to suggest they move out, he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye—a flicker of fear, quickly buried, in Xie Yu’s expression.

The ghost hands...they had shaken her. Even for someone like her, a sixth rank martial artist, it was too much.

His gaze shifted slightly. Then, without a word, he withdrew the ghost hands and let out a long sigh.

Under his breath, he murmured, “I wonder when these hands will next wield a blade again.”

Before Xie Yu could respond, he clenched his fists and slammed them to the ground. Then, slowly, he lifted them and opened his palms wide.

“These hands,” he said, voice tinged with grief, “once tamed wild horses and danced with steel. And now all they can do is summon ghostly tricks... I hate it. I really, truly hate it.”

His breathing grew ragged. Emotion surged in his face, and his eyes shimmered, just barely holding back tears.

“...” Xie Yu froze for a moment.

Li Yuan looked at her, hands trembling, tiger eyes misting over. “Yu’er, do you...do you think I’m disgusting now?”

Xie Yu grabbed his hand and whispered, “How could I ever?”

Li Yuan suddenly pulled her into a hug.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

The fear in her eyes melted away. She wrapped her arms around him too, holding him tightly. Then she asked, “So what do we do now?”

“Move,” he replied.

“Alright.”

“You’re not even going to ask where?”

“Oh, hush. Stop yapping and go pack our stuff.”

As it turned out, even when a man reached the second stage of Heaven Soul Realm, even when he touched the threshold of the Earth Soul Realm, some things would never change. He still had to do the packing.

Li Yuan gathered their things in record time, slung the heavy bag on his back, and headed to the marketplace with Xie Yu.

They bought a horse-drawn carriage, and he took up the reins and cheerfully played the part of coachman.

With those very same hands that once tamed stallions and now channeled eerie forces, he cracked the whip with a crisp

snap!

The wheels turned slowly. And just like that, they rolled out of the township behind them.

Wildflowers bloomed along the roadside, but they couldn’t really be called beautiful.

The earth was pitted and uneven, full of dug-up patches. At a glance, Li Yuan could tell some spots had been stripped of wild herbs, others crudely dug up for makeshift burials, shallow graves wrapped in straw mats.

The mortal world...was still the same, after all.

“Hey.”

“...” Li Yuan didn’t respond.

Xie Yu’s voice came again, softer this time. “Don’t be sad.”

He gave a bitter smile, half-laughing at himself. “Mhm.”

Then, with a

whoosh

, Xie Yu darted out of the carriage like a cat and plopped down beside him on the coachman's bench, squeezing into the narrow seat.

“Come on, think about it,” she said, cheerful as ever. “You manifested that enormous golden body, and now your hands can wield ghost powers. That’s really impressive! Honestly, I haven’t seen anyone stronger than you.”

“Strong?” Li Yuan looked up, eyes distant, gazing into the endless sky with a wry, self-mocking smile.

“Of course strong!” Xie Yu balled her tiny fists and waved them in encouragement. “Definitely strong!”

Li Yuan let out a long sigh. “And what does it amount to? Just a pair of hands...hands that can no longer hold a blade.”

“Ugh, Gucheng,” she huffed, using his nickname, “stop thinking like that. Even if you can’t use a blade anymore, you still have your power. That kind of strength—”

But her words were cut off by another heavy sigh.

She turned to look.

In the golden light of the setting sun, his flawless profile was cast into silhouette, sharp and distant. Even in stillness, it radiated loneliness.

She didn’t say anything more. Maybe...maybe this is what it meant to be a real man of the blade.

The more she tried to comfort him, the more it might hurt.

So instead, she simply looped her arm through his and leaned her head gently on his shoulder. Her gaze drifted to the hand holding the reins, outlined against the sunset.

The spring breeze was soft. Cool, but not cold.

Xie Yu closed her eyes in peace. And for a moment, she thought, if this carriage just kept rolling forward like this, forever, never stopping, never reaching an end...that might be a nice life.

Li Yuan turned his head to look at her sleeping face. He gently pulled out a thin blanket and draped it over her shoulders.

The carriage rocked lightly as it moved, and amidst that rhythm, he suddenly thought back to how theatrical...no, downright embarrassing his dramatic outburst had been earlier. He couldn’t help but chuckle and shake his head.

But then, his gaze darkened, shifting like deep water under a moonless sky.

That night, he resumed testing the powers of his ghost hands.