Chapter 175 – Li Yuan Gazes North, Mother and Daughter Reunited in the Ghostly Realm, an Envoy Dispatched to Northriver Prefecture - Part 1

Under the pallid glow of the moon, a swarm of ghostly figures materialized one after another. Each bore a weaker version of Li Yuan’s face—human-skin ghost servants advancing in waves, their weapons quivering in the long night.

Though they couldn’t reproduce Li Yuan’s original strike with true perfection, they managed a rough imitation nonetheless. One or two of these copies would have been laughable, but so many at once posed a real threat, especially as ghost servants.

Li Yuan stowed away his Ghost Bow and gripped the Dragon-Fanged Spear, still planted in the earth before him.

He’d confronted ghost servants before. At the mass grave, at the carpenter’s workshop...he had

slain

many of them. Which is why he knew their defining trait. They could hit you, while you couldn’t touch them, unless your weapon was enhanced with an ancestral seal drawn with shadow blood.

Yet every drop of Li Yuan’s own blood happened to count as just such a seal.

“As long as I smear my blood on the blade,” he murmured, “I can strike them like any ordinary foe.”

Beneath the moonlight, it looked like two armies clashing.

Li Yuan and the white-robed Yan Yu stood on the boundary line.

His garments whipped about in the wind, while her white robes hung perfectly still, untouched by any breeze.

Suddenly, blood oozed once more from Li Yuan’s fingertip.

With a resonant clang, he clenched his fingers around the Dragon-Fanged Spear and yanked it free of the soil. Drop by drop, his blood trickled along its edge and gathered at the spear’s tip, taking on a sinister gleam in the moonlight.

“Husband,” Yan Yu called, “don’t charge in headfirst. Let’s move back. The black market’s ghost servants likely can’t match the ones from the rouge shop. You just need to handle any that break through to us.”

Li Yuan glanced at the female ghosts crawling up behind him and then at the oncoming human-skin ghosts. He retreated with Yan Yu, slipping into the midst of the white-garbed ghosts.

Before long, the two groups collided.

Blades in hand, the human-skin ghosts lunged to cleave the female ghosts. Yet the instant their weapons made contact, the women vanished and reappeared behind them, snapping necks with ghostly claws.

Some human-skin ghosts collapsed in clouds of black smoke, which seeped into the ground. Others, faster on the draw, managed to cut the female ghosts in half, causing those apparitions to dissolve into black mist and sink back into the earth on the black market’s side.

Li Yuan watched quietly. If this had been his first time seeing such carnage, he’d have been terrified out of his wits. But now, having vanquished his own share of ghost servants and witnessed them tear into each other, his shock had dulled somewhat.

Ghosts were eerie and unknowable, but ultimately they were just another form of existence.

“They’ve acquired some of my power,” Li Yuan said, “but it doesn’t look like it’s doing them much good.”

“The human-skin ghosts took your abilities through Yin makeup,” Yan Yu explained. “Against martial artists, that would be devastating. But when ghost servants face off, it reverts to who’s inherently stronger. Think of it like extra Yin energy; they can wield it on humans, but it’s no game-changer against fellow ghosts.”

“I see,” Li Yuan said. “They have my power but not my blood. They can use my abilities on living fighters, but not on other ghost servants.”

“Exactly.”

“These things aren’t truly dying, either,” Li Yuan added. “They’re just returning to the ghost domain.”

“Ghosts can’t die,” she confirmed. “They just fall dormant.

Killing

one is what forces it into slumber. If they’re killed by someone’s blood, they sleep longer. But if it’s just another ghost servant that gets them, they’ll reappear much sooner.

“That’s why this standoff has dragged on so long. Feng’er and the peddler are roughly on the same level. Neither can easily swallow the other. It’s been half a year and they’ve only just maintained this stalemate. Who knows how much longer it’ll take before these ghost domains merge?

“Think of it like soldiers fighting soldiers, generals fighting generals. The generals can’t beat each other, so it’s down to whose foot soldiers devour the other side first.”

Yan Yu paused. “If Feng’er manages to consume the peddler, then her rules will become dominant. And I’ll be able to take advantage of those rules.”

Li Yuan looked at her thoughtfully. “So, Yan Yu...are you still human, or a ghost?”

“I’m probably a ghost now,” she answered. “My real body was lost in the fighting between Feng’er and the peddler. A normal mortal shell was insignificant in that struggle. Now, I exist only because I’m cocooned by the ghostly power of both Feng’er and the peddle. She protects me, while he tries to devour me. I’m caught in the middle, with a body that’s no different from a ghost’s, but somehow I’ve retained my sense of self.”

Li Yuan fell silent. His wife’s condition was indeed extraordinary. Without Feng’er’s rule of not allowing any harm on Yan Yu, she could never have remained this rational while in ghostly form.

At that moment, Yan Yu in white gazed off into the distance and murmured softly, “I miss you and Sheng'er.”

Even as they spoke, several human-skin ghosts crossed the boundary line.

Li Yuan stepped out from among the creeping female ghosts. With the shadow blood coursing through him, he silently visualized Southern Mountains’ Ghostly Rain in his mind. A cold, desolate mood crept in, strange and oppressive.

He followed that feeling, body flickering like a spirit, moving with a bewitching grace. He unleashed one of his three sixth rank skills—Phantom Blade.

Slivers of blade-light gleamed like blood-stained scales flashing in midair. Once the blade struck, Li Yuan’s figure vanished, leaving only afterimages of steel. Wherever those fleeting arcs appeared, each ghostly servant—its face painted to resemble Li Yuan—fell in a spray of black mist as female ghosts swarmed over them, shredding the remains into wisps of smoke that sank into the ground.

In a whirl of movement, Li Yuan returned to Yan Yu’s side. A glance at his Dragon-Fanged Spear showed the blood coating it had already dried. He frowned, and fresh droplets began seeping from his pores, trickling onto the blade once again.

Without a word, he floated back into the fray, moving like a drifting leaf in a cold wind or pale gauze in swirling fog. Almost soundlessly, the blade sliced down upon another charging human-skin ghost servant.

His hot blood scorched the creature’s body as steel ripped it apart. Right then, another ghost servant pounced from behind, its own blade buzzing with killing intent. Without even turning, Li Yuan thrust the Dragon-Fanged Spear behind him at an impossible angle.

Stab!

With one swift motion, the spear pierced through the ghost servant, then flung it aside, where it was overwhelmed by the white-garbed female ghosts. The blood on the spear tip dimmed once more.

Li Yuan pressed on, his shadow blood gushing and drying in turns. He lost track of how many ghost servants he had killed, and he had no idea how much blood he’d poured into each strike. His head swam, and he finally retreated to Yan Yu’s side, cold sweat pouring down his brow.

Yan Yu lifted her hand as if to wipe his sweat, only to stop partway. She could only watch, unable to touch him as he stood there breathing like a wounded beast.

Li Yuan gazed into the distance. His effort had not been in vain. By slaying so many of the human-skin ghost servants with his own shadow blood, he’d swung the momentum in favor of the black market ghost servants. What had been an invasion by the rouge shop’s forces was now turning into a counterassault; his side was beginning to push deeper into the other domain.

“Did I help?” he asked.

“You did,” Yan Yu replied, clapping her hands gently.

Her tone brought Li Yuan back to the early days of his training in the Return-Willow Technique, when she would feign disbelief yet still encourage him. Caught up in old memories, he simply muttered, “Tell me the truth.”

She lowered her gaze. “Husband, you’ve used up a great deal of your shadow blood, haven’t you?”

Li Yuan nodded.

Yan Yu explained quietly, “When your shadow blood recovers next time, the ghost servants you killed with it today will also regain their strength. I can command my own ghosts to hold our ground for now, but eventually, we’ll be back at the old stalemate.”

They both fell silent.

Li Yuan broke it at last. “Unless I can help you finish off the rouge shop ghost domain in one go.”

“You’ve done plenty for now,” Yan Yu reassured him. “What you did today will help us hold on for a few more months at least.”

She watched as he collapsed onto a cold black rock. His sweat was gone, and his black hair flowed back in the chill winds of the ghost realm. She longed to wrap her arms around him from behind, but she still couldn’t touch him.

Li Yuan suddenly asked, “What about Senior Li’s body? Is it still around?”

“Yes,” Yan Yu replied. “It was originally in the north market. I removed it and placed it in a coffin we found in the black market. Because of the dense Yin energy here, his body dried out but hasn’t fully decayed.”

Li Yuan paused, then said, “I’ll take him with me when I leave.”

With that, he lay down on the frigid ground, staring up at the stars, trying to recover as quickly as he could. Although he managed to reclaim a bit of strength, his shadow blood was still heavily drained—his shadow bones simply couldn’t produce more fast enough.

At sixth rank, his ancestral seal shadow blood had the power to slay ghost servants. Would reaching fifth rank grant the power to suppress entire newly formed ghost domains like the carpenter’s workshop outright? If one person at fifth rank wasn’t enough, then maybe a few such experts combined could handle it. That might be all he needed to tip the balance for Yan Yu, to help her take the rouge shop ghost domain in one decisive move.

“Fifth rank... fifth rank...” He knew to break through, he’d have to let the

seeds

he planted sprout, then bloom and bear fruit. And he’d also need the flesh of a sixth rank demonic beast, something that cost blood gold to purchase.

“Blood gold... sixth rank...” Li Yuan muttered, lost in thought.

His thoughts drifted to Yan Mu. By the time his strength had mostly returned, Yan Yu turned to him and said quietly, “Husband, you should go. My time awake is almost at its end.”

He nodded, sat up, and found a black coffin already placed beside him. The lid was open, revealing Senior Li’s waxen corpse, still more or less intact.

Li Yuan closed the lid, hoisted the coffin onto his shoulder, and boarded a small boat. Under cover of night, he made his way back. He buried Senior Li near the Hundred Lotus Manor, right beside Old Tang’s grave. Then, before dawn, he dragged his exhausted body home.