Chapter 167 – Heaven and Earth Shift, People Return; Seeds Are Sown, Living Ghost - Part 2

Early August.

A letter arrived for Li Yuan, sent through a trading guild. It was from Yan Mu, and it was filled with disappointment. However, the letter never spelled out exactly why he felt that way; it only said he wanted to come back.

Li Yuan gazed at the letter thoughtfully, suspecting a hidden story behind Yan Mu’s words. Through a few rounds of correspondence, he pieced together that Yan Mu was most likely a disciple of some major power on par with the Sacred Fire Palace.

Before long, Li Yuan used his own channels to dig up news of yet more upheaval in the Central Plains. The previous year, the emperor had gone back on his promise to open the Great Zhou Treasury. Though he had once vowed to share its contents, he ultimately reneged, something Li Yuan could understand. After all, the treasury held the imperial family’s deepest reserves; once the emperor allowed outsiders to strip those treasures away, how could the throne still call itself the throne?

But naturally, large sects like the Sacred Fire Palace would not take no for an answer. They were no less than a coalition of debt collectors, demanding the payment they were promised. An emperor who couldn’t even handle the Red Lotus Prince, who had once overrun the Jade Capital, certainly wouldn’t be able to stop those who had bested the Red Lotus Prince himself.

This year, the solution began to emerge, pieced together from rumors brought south by fleeing merchants and wandering martial artists. In simple terms, the emperor had chosen to rely on undying husks. More specifically, he chose to appoint one as an advisor and bestowed him the title of Imperial Tutor.

When Xue Ning heard this, she could only shake her head in disbelief. “Isn’t the emperor just being foolish? Doesn’t he worry the undying husk might covet his imperial treasury?”

Li Yuan offered a guess to clear up her doubts- “Perhaps the undying husk truly doesn’t care about the Grand Zhou Treasury.”

“But why wouldn’t he?”

“Because being a undying husk isn’t about normal cultivation. In ages past, many ghost domains didn’t exist, and treasures in the imperial treasury are mostly suited for martial cultivation. They’re worthless to an undying husk. So the emperor likely thinks it’s perfectly safe to give him power. But clearly, the undying husk must have their own designs. Ghost domains run too deep. Whoever allies with the emperor is scheming for something significant.” Li Yuan paused, mulling over a suspicion he’d nursed for a while. “I even wonder if our yearly farmland famines are related to all this.”

Xue Ning understood what he was implying. Every harvest brought disappointment, yet the meat fields grew more and more productive. In simpler terms, as the farmland failed, the meat fields thrived. And wherever such meat fields appeared, one would inevitably find terrifying ghost domains nearby, as if yin inevitably followed yang.

“This pattern wasn’t how it used to be,” Xue Ning sighed. “Some years the harvest was bad, some years it was good. That was just life. But now, it’s been five straight years of famine. If we hadn’t opened more farmland, recruited more farmers, and lowered the grain tax, these five counties would already be a living hell. It feels like Heaven itself won’t let people survive. And this year’s harvest time is just around the corner...”

She had personally checked the fields. Looking at the yellowing soil and the anxious lines across every farmer’s brow, she knew what the outcome would be.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Soon, October arrived.

Once again, it was a poor harvest.

Meanwhile, output from the eighth rank meat fields rose yet again, and the trend showed no sign of slowing.

Then, the deep winter set in.

In Gemhill County, members of the Blood Blade Sect ran their routine checks on the boundary of the black market ghost domain.

The ghostly realm had expanded. It still hadn’t reached the lake’s surface, but at its closest point, the domain lay barely ten meters below the waterline. If anyone decided to go swimming, they might accidentally slip into it.

In response, new blood-red warning signs were posted along the shore.

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Come spring of the following year, there was an unsettling incident in Autumnlake.

From the mass grave ghost domain, a fearsome sixth rank ghost servant emerged. Clad in ancient garb that no longer matched the current era, it caught General Mammoth off guard.

𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Luckily, the ghost servant seemed fixated on its own particular grudge; when General Mammoth stepped aside, it left Autumnlake without a fight, and no one knew where it went.

A month later, the sixth rank ghost servant returned, dragging a large sack crammed with several dozen corpses.

Alarmed, General Gu Xiang investigated and learned that an entire family in the neighbouring Bluepond had been mysteriously slaughtered.

By all accounts, they were a good family—locally beloved, never known to provoke anyone, let alone someone as powerful as a sixth rank cultivator.

The more he thought about it, the more dread crept over him. He recalled a chilling possibility.

Ghosts bear grudges. But if the targets of their vengeance are already dead and gone, they might hunt down the descendants, wiping out entire families to repay ancient wrongs—and then haul those bodies back to the mass grave ghost domain.

Indeed, if those ancient souls had awakened, seeking retribution after generations had passed, who knew how many old grudges still lingered? No one could guess where that path might lead next.

And so, it truly echoed the old saying,

When will vengeance ever end?

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Summer passed without incident.

Autumn came, and once more, the harvest fell short.

This was now the seventh consecutive year of poor harvest.

With winter’s arrival, Pang Yuanhua happened upon a curious discovery. She observed new lines weaving across the sky.

Following the trail, she and Li Yuan realized that the carpenter's workshop had awakened once again.

Almost immediately, a large number of people began disappearing, while others fell prey to a grotesque affliction known as flesh-withering disease.

Li Yuan and Pang Yuanhua both recognized this malady as a telltale sign that someone was

queuing

to enter the carpenter's workshop.

Shortly afterward, Pang Yuanhua visited the 14th room on the west wing of Clock Mansion and returned with startling news. Bao Dachong was still alive. If he lived, it stood to reason that the carpenter's workshop should remain blocked and unable to claim new victims.

But further investigation revealed a nightmarish twist.

Within the carpenter's workshop, a new row of wooden racks had appeared. In other words, the old one-at-a-time queue was gone. Now there were two parallel lines leading in.

Alarmed, Li Yuan and Pang Yuanhua sprang into action once more, employing the same tactic as before. They captured notorious mountain bandits, marking them with blood, and then forced open the carpenter workshop’s door to toss them inside the ghost domain. Previously, the plan was to let the first bandit get trapped, then quickly yank the door shut so the carpenter's workshop would remain

jammed.

However, something went wrong.

The first bandit never made it out. Only the second bandit managed to escape, and only then did the door manage to jam the shop again.

Although they succeeded in temporarily blocking access, the uneasy weight in Li Yuan’s and Pang Yuanhua’s hearts grew heavier.

Ghost domains never remained static; they could keep evolving. If the carpenter's workshop had jumped from one row of racks to two, who could say it wouldn’t someday expand to ten rows, then dozens, even hundreds?

They could still plug the gaps now; how would they possibly stop it when it multiplied?

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Drained by their efforts, Li Yuan and Pang Yuanhua returned to Hundred Lotus Manor without a trace of relief.

Something terrifying was unfolding in the world. What they had witnessed was only the beginning.

Back at the manor, Li Yuan resumed his training to expand his skill pool.

For the moment, he still relied on seventh rank resources and techniques, since both sixth rank techniques and the necessary materials for them required blood gold.

He also refrained from attempting any breakthrough into fifth rank. The more he tried, the more he realized it was a profound realm—one likely beyond the reach of any lone individual.

Li Yuan couldn’t help recalling things he had read before crossing over, about

cultivating a demonic seed in one’s Dao Heart

or

seizing attributes

to ascend. The more he practiced, the more he saw connections between those ideas and the shadow blood cultivation methods of this world.

He had a nagging feeling that he was, in fact, a sower—someone who planted the seeds. Once those seeds sprouted and bore fruit, he would claim that

harvest

and glimpse the path ahead.

It was pragmatic but undeniably cruel. Those who climbed high ascended alone; the grand road to Heaven did not accommodate two travelers side by side. Like a sovereign’s throne, it had room for only one.

Such an inkling gave Li Yuan a glimpse of the world’s underlying reality—a mere tip of the iceberg already freezing him to the bone.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Deep into winter, a sudden influx of disorderly soldiers appeared from the north, rushing headlong into Antelope Pass with crazed expressions. They seemed utterly mindless, unfazed by death. Yet they didn’t appear to be some sort of magically manipulated army, just regular men driven mad.

Fortunately, the counties of Gemhill, Flowerpath, and Southsky had long since formed a unified ring around the Martial Lodge. Experts from all three counties mobilized, quickly wiping out the invading troops and taking turns patrolling in case more arrived.

Meanwhile, Antelope Pass was gradually being fortified into a proper defensive outpost.

Strangely, these lunatic soldiers showed no sense of self-preservation. They charged to their deaths as if possessed. And nobody knew why.

That same winter brought an even more bizarre twist. Despite the late season, the weather was strangely warm with the sun shining brightly. The flowers also burst into brilliant bloom, so unnaturally vivid it filled people’s hearts with dread.

Just when everyone was reeling at this unnatural display, snow finally began to fall from the sky. The temperature plummeted as if from a sheer cliff, and by the next day, all those flowers had withered away, like a cruel joke played by heaven.

These ominous changes weighed heavily on Li Yuan. But all he could do was press on, expanding his skill pool while enduring the anxious wait for those seeds he had sown to take root and sprout.