Chapter 438 – The Wheel of Fate Turns, the Dragon Son is Born - Part 1

Ge Zhengyou and the others were slowly consumed by the hungry ghosts, chewed down to the bone. From within the grotesque boar-like grunts came gusts of cold, white breath, each puff laced with an eerie chill.

That white vapor flooded over the scattered remains, mere bone fragments now, of what were once men.

Above, in the half-lit sky, their souls twisted and tore apart, morphing into grotesque shadows of their former selves before plummeting to the ground and rejoining the ranks of the starving ghost servants.

If anyone could see it, they'd notice that every ghostly servant and ghost in this eerie domain was connected by unseen threads, each one tracing back to a single source, Yan Yu.

Step, step, step!

The starving ghost servants shuffled away once more, their number now swollen by a few fresh recruits.

Yan Yu stood in her haunting black dress, head tilted slightly, eyes vacant as she stared at the cage.

The ghost domain was evolving. And as its sovereign, she too was undergoing a transformation.

Among her eerie powers was a copper mirror, one that could reflect a person’s past and lay bare all their virtues and sins.

The moment Ge Zhengyou stepped into this netherworld, she saw everything. Saw his goodness. Saw his evil.

𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Her gown dragged along the ground, sleeves trailing like ribbons. She looked like a figure from a painted scroll. It was serene, solemn, and otherworldly.

She gazed into the distance, as if pondering something profound. But her thoughts had already become inhuman. She could feel it. She knew she was changing. But she couldn’t stop it.

Behind her, a boar waddled after the horde of starving ghost servants, snorting and snuffling as it went. Every so often, it would suddenly leap forward, pounce on one of the ghosts, and feast, tearing into its prey with wild abandon. The ghost servant would shriek in inexplicable agony, as if pain still clung to its wretched form, but it couldn’t fight back.

And when the boar had devoured every last bit, the ghost wasn’t gone. No, within a few days it would be born anew, rejoining the swarm of hungry dead that prowled this bleak black-and-white wasteland. Now and then, one of them would lift its head and look up, only to see the black-robed lady, standing silently at the apex of this nightmarish world.

The newly fallen Ge Zhengyou and his comrades were prime cuts in the boar’s eyes, fresh stock on the shelves.

Soon, one of them lay entirely in the boar’s mouth.

With a wet crunch, he was snapped in half. His head and feet swayed up and down as the boar chewed, its jaws working with gleeful efficiency. The ghost was consumed, every last bit, leaving nothing behind.

"Husband." the black-robed Yan Yu suddenly said. She didn’t turn around. But her voice was low, uncertain. “Did I do something wrong?”

At the edge of the ghost domain, a small red bubble shimmered into existence.

From within, Li Yuan strode forward with firm steps.

“You didn’t,” he replied. “Yan Yu, you did nothing wrong. Kindness...is the rarest, most precious virtue. A kind person should never be made a fool of. They deserve praise, not punishment. Kindness should be rewarded. Evil should be punished. Even if a kind person stumbles into wrongdoing, their goodness cannot be used to justify their sins.

“That’s why you let him walk away from the ancient ghost street all those years ago, rewarded him with life, and made him an undying husk and granted him power beyond the ordinary. But when he became full of betrayal, injustice, and lies...he still ended up here. In your ghost domain. To face judgment.”

After a long silence, Yan Yu finally turned. The horror etched into her face slowly softened. She said softly, “Good thing... I still have you. Otherwise, just now, I might’ve completely fallen, become nothing more than a vengeful ghost.”

“The one I saved...turned out to be harboring such filthy, petty thoughts. He tried to use my appreciation of kindness to threaten me. In that moment, I hated everyone. All of humanity.”

Li Yuan chuckled gently. “I get it. That’s the kind of hatred that makes you want to tear life apart. A deep-rooted resentment toward the living.”

“...” Yan Yu stared at him, shocked. For a moment, something startlingly human flashed across her pale face. It was the awkward panic of someone whose deepest, darkest secret had just been exposed. After a long pause, she asked in a whisper, “How did you know?”

Li Yuan's voice was warm. “Because even then, even with all that darkness clawing at you...you still loved me. You still loved Sheng'er. You still held on to your belief in kindness. That’s the part of you I love most, Yan Yu.”

Through the thick curtain of inky, rippling ghostly fog between their worlds, he looked at the woman on the other side. She was so near he could see her clearly, yet far enough he couldn’t touch her.

“I’ll always love you,” he said with quiet sincerity,

For a moment, the world fell silent.

The screams in the distance continued, but between the ghost domain and the land of the living, there was a strange hush, an unexpected stillness, tender and solemn.

“I’ve been thinking...this thing with the Yang flame, it’s growing more and more out of sync with your powers. It might one day clash with Sheng'er too. So once this whole crisis is over, maybe I should just let it go. Release the flame,” Li Yuan said.

Yan Yu’s expression turned stern. “You’re not allowed.”

Li Yuan looked at her and couldn’t help but laugh. At that moment, she looked just like a loving wife forbidding her husband from quitting his passion for her sake. His heart softened. He pressed both hands against the foggy membrane separating their worlds.

She stepped closer too, raising her hands until their fingers aligned on either side of the barrier. They stared into each other’s eyes for a long while, a silent exchange brimming with warmth and longing.

Eventually, their shared stillness faded.

Li Yuan began recounting everything that had happened recently.

When Yan Yu heard that Xue Ning’s hair had turned white and she’d entered the Deathless Tomb, a flicker of sorrow crossed her face.

Of all the women, she had been closest to Xue Ning. Back then, before Sheng'er was born, it was just the two of them by his side, caring for him together in their little household.

Those memories still felt vivid, like yesterday.

But now, in the blink of an eye, old friends were already gone.

And as time wore on, more and more people she knew would disappear—until eventually, as Yan Yu, she too would be forgotten by the world.

“You still have me and Sheng'er,” Li Yuan said softly.

Yan Yu blinked, pulled back from her thoughts, and nodded gently. As long as her family was with her, there would always be an anchor tying her to humanity. She would not drift completely into the abyss.

Then, a worry crept into her expression. “Sheng'er’s alone in the Deathless Tomb. Will she be...alright?”

Li Yuan laughed. “Her? She’s special in her own way too, remember? The Deathless Tomb is like her natural habitat. A battlefield built for her. You could send a hundred of me in there and she’d still wipe the floor with all of us. Hahaha!”

Yan Yu watched him carefully. Only when she was certain he was taking her seriously did her expression ease a little.

“Once things settle down here, you should find a way to bring out two coffins. I want to tether Sheng'er to the ghost domain. But the only way to make it completely safe is to place her in an extremely stable state.

“That means having her sleep inside one of those coffins. If her soul remains whole and undisturbed, I can attempt to use Yin energy to connect her to this world. But I don’t yet know how those coffins work, so I’m hoping to get one or two to experiment with first.”

Li Yuan nodded. It wouldn’t be easy, that much was obvious, but at least he had time to figure it out. Then he asked, “Have you encountered any mysterious figures lately? I mean the one I mentioned before, from the Jade Capital.”

“Nothing here.” Yan Yu shook her head.

“That person wants to bring about the Grand Union of Yin and Yang. But we disrupted that process. He should’ve come looking for you by now.” Li Yuan frowned.

“Even the Lotus Cult made it a priority to threaten you, to force you into participating in that union. And they didn’t just plan it, they acted on it. So why hasn’t that man made a move yet? Or maybe he

has

done something...and I just haven’t noticed?”

Li Yuan mulled it over for a long while, but the truth remained elusive.

The man moved like a phantom, slippery and unpredictable. Li Yuan couldn’t get a proper read on him at all.