Chapter 2021: A Street Shrouded in Fog

Kcch!

A slash streaked through the air, dark and inscrutable.

Reincarnation Sword Intent, a Moment of Silence!

The bloodied palanquin exploded, shattering in a rain of light. The woman inside vanished with it.

But Su Yi furrowed his brow. The woman in the palanquin was no more than a wisp of will!

Just as Su Yi expected, the woman’s shrill, icy voice rang out once more. “No matter who you are, all who enter the City of the Lost must die. This is an ironclad rule!”

But this time, no one could tell where she was hiding.

“An ‘ironclad rule?’” Su Yi shook his head. In his eyes, there was no such thing!

Heaven and earth returned to silence, but that baleful black fog still hung beneath the dome of heaven. However, there was no longer any sign of evil spirits.

It seemed the battle had scared every last ghost hiding within the graveyard.

Wu Lingchong and the woman in the conical hat, Li Shuang, sighed in relief. They had to admit that without Su Yi, they’d have died already. The battle just now was simply too terrifying!

Fortunately, Su Yi was here with them.

The two of them looked at him with deep-seated astonishment, but Su Yi reacted as if he’d done something perfectly trivial and ordinary. He landed gently on the ground and waved his hand.

A streak of sword qi exploded into being, then cleaved open Ye Chunqiu’s tomb. The tomb’s interior instantly came into view.

A body lay inside. It belonged to an old man in Daoist robes. His hair and beard were disheveled, and he lay there in silence. His body looked perfectly intact, but he showed no sign of life.

Ye Chunqiu!

When Su Yi took in his dear friend’s familiar face, his heart sank into the pit of his stomach. There was no longer any doubt about it. Ye Chunqiu had met his end after entering the City of the Lost. He’d even been forced to dig his own grave!!

Su Yi took a deep breath, then said, “When a man dies, he ought to return to his birthplace, just as a falling leaf returns to its roots. Ol’ charlatan, I’ll be sure to bring your remains back to the Immortal Realm.”

But just as he was about to take Ye Chunqiu’s corpse away… The corpse voiced its objections. “Whatever you do, don’t——!!”

“Fuck!” Wu Lingchong jumped, and Li Shuang instinctively moved further away.

Both of them wondered the same thing.

Is this a zombie?

Only Su Yi’s eyes lit up. He gazed intently at Ye Chunqiu’s corpse and said, “Have you been playing dead this entire time, you old charlatan?”

Earlier, there’d been no hiding his grief and melancholy, but now, his spirits soared as he saw newfound hope.

“‘Playing dead?’ No, I’m dead, but my soul remains. It’s like living a second life!” Ye Chunqiu opened his mouth and spat out a black pearl.

The strange pearl almost seemed alive, and it emanated wisps of taboo energy. A voice emanated from within it. "Who are you, anyway? How do you recognize me?”

The crowd suddenly realized that the one who’d spoken earlier wasn’t Ye Chunqiu’s fleshly body, but the black pearl hidden in his corpse’s mouth!

“Who else in this world would be so concerned about your life and death that they’d come all the way to the City of the Lost to look for you?” asked Su Yi.

The pearl quivered, and the voice emanating from it said urgently, “Ol’ Wang?”

Su Yi couldn’t help but grin at the familiar title. Back in the Immortal Realm, Ye Chunqiu was the only person who called Wang Ye “Ol’ Wang.”

Xiao Ruyi once expressed displeasure at the title; she thought it was too coarse.

But Yu Chunqiu didn’t get tired of it.

Incomparably delighted laughter resounded from the black pearl. “Ol’ Wang, it has to be you! Hahaha! You really are alive! I just knew someone so hated by both gods and ghosts wouldn’t just drop over dead like that! Back then, Xiao Ruyi was weeping and shouting about risking it all to avenge you. Hah! She doesn’t understand you as well as I do!”

But then, cracks appeared all over the black pearl, and Ye Chunqiu’s voice shifted. “This is bad! I’ve spent too long in this Soul-Sustaining Pearl. Its power is about to run dry! This wisp of my soul is going to dissipate!

“Ol’ Wang! I know there’s no changing your mind, but I must warn you. You still have an opportunity to fight your way out of the City of the Lost. Whatever you do, don’t go any deeper inside! This cursed place hides great horrors. Here, even gods are doomed!”

Ye Chunqiu was about to continue when Su Yi said directly, “This is just a wisp of your soul, but it sounds like the rest of it yet lives. Where is it? Show me the way, and I'll come find you."

He was calm, but he spoke with incontrovertible force.

Ye Chunqiu fell briefly silent. Then, he sighed deeply. “I knew I couldn’t convince you.”

“Then don’t waste any more time trying. Just tell me where to go,” urged Su Yi.

“Hold onto the pieces of this Soul-Sustaining Pearl, and when you arrive at the Fog-Shrouded Street, you’ll be able to sense my presence.

“But you must bear this in mind. Whatever you do, you must hide your presence. Don’t alert any of the Ghost Gods! All of them are true gods who died here a long time ago, and each is more terrifying than the one—”

But before he could finish, Su Yi laughed. “Too late. I’ve already offended them.”

Ye Chunqiu was instantly frantic. He roared, “Then why aren’t you running away? Ol’ Wang, this is different from before. You don’t know anything about the City of the Lost. Whatever you do, don’t—”

This time, Su Yi didn’t interrupt him, but the Soul-Sustaining Pearl shattered before Ye Chunqiu could finish his sentence. Strange black fog dissipated, and Ye Chunqiu’s voice came to an abrupt halt.

Su Yi picked up the pieces of the shattered pearl, then solemnly examined the remains lying in Ye Chunqiu’s grave. In the end, he decided to leave them there for now.

“Let’s go.” Su Yi turned and walked into the distance.

Wu Lingchong and Li Shuang could tell that Su Yi’s mood had changed. He seemed… excited, even eager!

That person who calls Daoist Brother Su ‘Ol’ Wang’ must be one of his closest friends,

thought Wu Lingchong.

Lu Shuang, meanwhile, couldn’t calm down.

If that man’s soul is still alive, doesn’t that mean my father’s soul is still around, too?

After passing a stretch of graves, they saw a distant region shrouded in gray fog. The fog was faint and wispy.

They could dimly discern that they were looking at an ancient street. Green lanterns lined the eaves on both sides of the street, illuminating the fog and casting dull light over the area.

The street was so long that there was no end in sight.

There was a charcoal fire at the entrance. A bony old man crouched before it, holding a stack of joss paper and chanting. His voice started and stopped, but anyone who listened carefully would have been able to tell that he was burning the paper money in memory of someone.

The charcoal fire blazed, but its flames were an eerie shade of green, and they cast their unearthly hues on the old man’s waxy face.

When they saw this scene in the distance, Wu Lingchong and Li Shuang felt chills course down their spines.

Su Yi’s eyes narrowed. The old man’s aura was strange and inscrutable. He was obviously different from the ghosts they’d seen earlier.

“The three of you have finally arrived.” The old man looked up, gazing at them from afar, a gratified smile on his sallow, waxy face.

“This old man just made a sacrifice in your honor. I burned more than enough joss paper for three lifetimes. I trust that when I send you on your way, you’ll bear my good intentions in mind.”

The eerie flames illuminated his face, which flickered in and out of view. It was a sinister sight.

Wu Lingchong froze as the realization set in. That the old man had been burning that joss paper for

them!

He couldn’t help but curse at this inauspicious behavior.

Su Yi, however, just laughed dryly. “That so? We’ll just have to see who sends who on their way.”

He took a step forward.

Whoosh~

A cold wind blew through the streets. The green flames of the lanterns flickered, and the wind carried the joss paper strewn across the ground into the air.

One of the paper bills caught ablaze in the air.

Wu Lingchong and Li Shuang watched as a hideous, gaping maw opened silently just three feet above Su Yi’s head.

The two of them panicked. They were just about to call out a warning when the gaping maw charged at Su Yi!

But then, a streak of sword qi shot upward, cleaving through it with unstoppable force.

Boom!

The gaping maw was sliced to bits.

Su Yi, meanwhile, stepped onto the street. The ground split beneath him, and a desperate shriek arose from the bowels of the earth, then came to an abrupt halt.

It was only then that Wu Lingchong and Li Shuang realized that danger had lurked beneath the ground!

Before they could give the matter any further thought, the joss paper riding on the wind caught ablaze. Countless tiny rifts appeared throughout the surrounding area.

A blood-red river appeared, flowing through the sky. Countless vicious ghosts shot from its coursing waters.

A towering mountain of white bone descended, piled high with skulls, all of which emitted mournful wails.

A dark whirlpool surged forth, erupting with turbid, malevolent light. It was like a portal to tell, with utterly terrifying, devouring power.

The entire stretch of heaven and earth was in chaos, like a ghostly purgatory.

Li Shuang shrieked as the ground transformed to flowing sand beneath her feet and countless skeletal arms erupted from the ground, seizing her by the ankles to drag her into the bowels of the earth.

Wu Lingchong was horrified, but although he didn’t yet realize it, the contorted, hideous face of a ghost had appeared silently on the back of his clothes, and it was silently grinning.

At a critical moment, Su Yi’s sleeves billowed, and he raised his right hand into the air, like a sword supporting the heavens, and slashed.

Boom!

Heaven and earth collapsed, and everything fell apart.

A grand and mysterious world of reincarnation appeared reflected in the sword qi, then descended. The river of blood, the mountain of bone, the black vortex, and the countless evil spirits were all ripped apart as if they were made of paper.

Boom!

A rain of light scattered. The air was flung into chaos, and a desperate, terrified shriek rang out.

A moment later, all of the commotion and upheaval faded away.

The skeletal hands wrapped around Li Shuang’s ankles shattered, and the hideous ghostly face on Wu Lingchong’s back vanished.

In the blink of an eye, all of the danger vanished without a trace!

Mysterious, inscrutable reincarnation sword qi still filled the air, shaking both heaven and earth with its unparalleled taboo power.

“Don’t bother with such petty tricks going forward,” Su Yi said calmly. “You’ll only make a fool out of yourself.”

The bony old man crouched by the charcoal fire slowly rose to his feet. An indescribably strange, vicious aura spread from his gaunt frame, spreading throughout the surrounding area.