Chapter 120 - Those Bearing the Surname Yan Spared, Move West to a New Home - Part 2

Soon, Tie Sha and his people had arrived, forcing onlookers to move back and clear the area.

In the flickering torchlight, over a hundred Blood Blade Sect workers stood in multiple rings of defense, brandishing blades. The atmosphere was tense. Associate disciples and hired men bolstered their ranks.

Firelight glimmered like dancing red snakes, illuminating uneasy faces. At the center stood Tie Sha himself, clad in his usual white robe, brow furrowed as he stared out toward the island. Ah Da, stocky but tough, waited behind him.

“What should we do, Sect Master?” one of the inner disciples asked nervously. “This doesn’t feel like a normal attack; it’s more like—”

He trailed off, as if afraid to utter the word.

Tie Sha raised his voice. “What are you afraid of? If it’s evil spirits, we’ll deal with evil spirits. Speak plainly!”

His voice was steady and sure, and bolstered by his reputation, the disciples’ panic began to subside. The babble of frightened voices quieted as everyone waited to see what their leader would do next.

Tie Sha suddenly asked, “There should still be some prisoners in the county jail awaiting execution, right?”

A disciple replied, “Yes, Sect Master. There are a few left.”

Tie Sha said, “Bring them here.”

Before long, five condemned prisoners were escorted to the lakeside. Tie Sha didn’t bother looking at them directly. “I’m giving you a chance to live.”

The five prisoners stood there, dazed, until a disciple kicked one of them. “Kneel and listen. This is the sect master talking!”

Realizing who was in front of them, the prisoners quickly fell to their knees, bowing again and again, chanting, “Thank you, Sect Master... Thank you!”

Tie Sha pointed toward the distant island. “See that place? Something evil’s taken over. Under normal circumstances, it stays on the island and won’t come out. Here’s what we’re going to do. Each of you draws a lot. Whoever picks the marked one will take a boat over. You don’t have to land; just wait at the shore for about half a stick of incense. After that time’s up, you can come back. And if you make it back, you go free.”

One prisoner swallowed hard. “W-what about the ones who don’t draw the marked lot?”

Tie Sha answered coolly, “They’ll go back to jail and wait for their executions. But if the first person who draws the marked lot dies, well...the rest of you can keep drawing until someone succeeds.”

The five prisoners fell silent, but they had no other choice.

Tie Sha knew a bit about so-called ghost domains and the opening of ghost gates—though not enough to fully understand why the black market’s ghost domain was suddenly awakening.

Old Ding had warned that as long as one stayed away from a ghost domain—never fed it, never entered it—there should be no danger. But that no longer applied now that it had completely erupted.

Still, one thing was certain. Ghost domains had boundaries. Tie Sha intended to find out just how far this one extended.

They tested it with the prisoners—

The first prisoner’s boat floated close to the island. He didn’t step ashore, but soon began screaming in terror before toppling overboard and vanishing beneath the water.

The second tried to keep more distance from the shore but met the same fate.

The third stayed even farther away, yet still died. Tie Sha caught a glimpse of a pale arm reaching up from beneath the lake’s surface.

The fourth also perished, and this time Tie Sha caught sight of a swollen, half-submerged face. That confirmed it for him; the entire black market area had transformed into a ghost domain.

Only the fifth prisoner managed to return alive, paddling frantically back to shore.

Tie Sha waved a hand. “You can go.”

Relieved beyond measure, the prisoner stumbled away...only for Tie Sha to quietly order a disciple to kill him once he was out of sight. He couldn’t risk anyone running around spreading panic.

With the boundary confirmed, Tie Sha then brought in five puppets from the inner district and large quantities of lamp oil. His plan was simple. Burn the black market down. Ghosts, after all, were beyond mortal understanding, but he was determined to try something.

By the time dawn began breaking, four of the puppets, each hauling containers of lamp oil, had managed to trundle onto the island and reach the black market.

Tie Sha had programmed them to follow a straight path, so they arrived without trouble—apparently, whatever lurked there didn’t attack puppets that lacked human souls.

The fifth puppet carried a torch and a blade.

The plan was simple, but it worked. Tie Sha avoided using fire arrows because the damp air, unmelted snow, and wide lake would all but smother any flames. Instead, he wanted to test the ghost domain’s boundary and see if the flames could destroy the black market itself.

From the white finch’s vantage, Li Yuan watched the black market go up in a massive blaze. Sitting on the edge of his bed in the dark, he let out a heavy sigh, eyes growing hot with emotion.

He understood. It meant Senior Li was gone. In a ghost domain, there was no surviving. Senior Li, talented as he was, couldn’t have made it through.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Hours passed, and by midday, the fierce flames were dying down. People had been hoping to see scorched rubble—figuring if any ghosts remained, at least they’d be haunting a ruin. But then came the shock; the black market still stood. What’s more, the buildings that had apparently burned to the ground were inexplicably intact once again—gloomy and cold, perched at the water’s edge like an untouched nightmare.

Even from far away, faint white figures could be seen moving about in that eerie place.

Everyone watching felt a chill spread over their skin, goosebumps popping up one after another.

Tie Sha stared long and hard at the undamaged black market. His throat tightened, and finally, he declared, “This place is a forbidden zone. No one is to go near.”

He had been awake all night, but the surging shadow blood in his veins kept him from feeling too drained. Old Ding now stood silently beside him.

Old Ding nudged Tie Sha and said quietly, “Elder Li is here.”

Tie Sha nodded, scanning the surroundings before heading to a small pavilion where he could speak more privately.

Li Yuan dismounted, handing his horse’s reins to a nearby attendant, then strode toward the pavilion. Outside, he stopped and bowed briefly to Tie Sha.

Tie Sha’s heart skipped a beat. He had to play the part because he knew Li Yuan didn’t want his identity exposed.

To everyone else, it just looked like Elder Li was on particularly close terms with the sect master, which wasn’t unusual.

Only after Li Yuan stepped inside did Tie Sha speak with a solemn face, though his tone was soft. “Please forgive me, Patriarch. I had to keep up appearances in front of everyone else—”

Li Yuan cut him off, “I’ve already said, keep things the way they’ve always been.”

Next to Tie Sha, Old Ding bowed and lowered his voice. “Junior Ding greets you, Senior.”

Li Yuan, seeing his still-vigorous white hair, gave a small nod, letting it go. He’d rather this than have them press him about how he’d gained such power.

Old Ding continued, “Senior, in the past, the ghost domain existed only within the black market’s central area. We don’t know why it suddenly flared up so drastically.”

Li Yuan didn’t know what to ask, so he merely said, “Go on...”

Old Ding stroked his beard. “According to rumors from the Central Plains, the severity of a ghost domain often depends on how long it has existed and how many have died in its vicinity. The older it is, and the more deaths occur around it, the more dangerous it becomes. So while the ghost domain in our black market is indeed frightening, it’s still relatively new—and so not as terrifying as it could be.”

Tie Sha shot him a quick look and said, “If it’s not that dangerous, then...since it only just formed, do we have any way to eliminate it?”

Old Ding gave a dry laugh. “Sect Master, I said it’s not as terrifying as some ancient domains, not that it isn’t dangerous at all. There’s no simple way to remove it.”

He then explained in detail all he knew about ghost domains.

Li Yuan listened silently. From what he gathered, ghost domains were forbidden zones, whether newly formed or not. No one truly understood their origins, expansions, or the reasons behind their so-called gates opening.

Typically, only those who had reached the sixth rank stood a chance of surviving within one.

A sixth rank martial artist was capable of altering fate. Their very nature evolved, granting them an additional hundred years of life and a transcendence beyond ordinary mortal limits.

Once a martial artist reached the Fate Altering Realm, they would see a mysterious, ancient symbol imprinted in their mind. If they used their own blood to recreate this symbol, they could ward off evil influences.

Strangely, blood from anyone else didn’t work. Moreover, practitioners of different cultivation methods saw entirely different symbols upon stepping into the sixth rank.

These symbols are commonly referred to as ancestral seals. Only by drawing an ancestral seal with the blood of the one who first beheld it could it become a true talisman.

Talismans could banish evil—and for sixth rank cultivators, it was their best hope of escaping a ghost domain alive.

Even so, it was not a guaranteed solution. What if they didn’t have time to draw the talisman, or they ran out of blood after facing too many ghosts, or they stumbled upon a spirit too powerful for any talisman to repel?

That was why even sixth rank masters tended to avoid ghost domains as though they were plague zones.

As for undying husks, they were unlucky individuals who had wandered into a ghost domain. Death was all but guaranteed. Yet somehow through an incomprehensible twist of fate, they still lingered on. These individuals never had the luxury of using a talisman; that’s what made them walking dead.

That said, the likelihood of someone becoming an undying husk was painfully small. Places where ghost gates opened regularly could see a handful appear, but only after countless deaths.

It was exactly these environments that terrified experts like General Mammoth and Zhao Xiantong. It wasn’t the undying husks themselves that scared them—it was the kind of place that could create them, an area riddled with frequent ghost gates and roaming evil spirits.

After Old Ding finished his explanation, Tie Sha could only sigh. The ghost domain was truly unsolvable if one lacked the power to inscribe a talisman with sixth rank blood. With no sixth rank martial artist on hand, there was little they could do.