Chapter 524 – A Blood-Red Night, Powers Unleashed, the Nine-Headed Ghost Gate Shattered! - Part 2

“Can you still recognize me?” Li Yuan asked.

The little crow shook her head, eyes wide. This was her first time seeing this form, not just a disguise but an entirely new manifestation of power.

This was a complete transformation.

There was no way anyone could look at this crimson-wreathed child and think,

That’s Li Yuan.

And in the next heartbeat, he leapt into the air.

Below, in the mountain’s shadow, the ground suddenly darkened. Black mist swirled upward, taking the shape of four humanoid silhouettes wrapped in crow feathers.

Each one held a staff and moved with heavy steps, their canes tapping rhythmically as they marched in four directions, North, South, East, and West.

From above, Li Yuan raised his right hand sharply.

A blinding crimson light burst from his palm.

Suspended in midair, the glow around him swallowed the pale light of the moon.

“If the threads can’t tell me where they came from...” he muttered.

Then he flicked his hand. The crimson ribbon unspooled from his body, dancing outward. It caught the wind and grew, stretching into a colossal flaming cloth, easily covering several dozen hectares.

“Go.”

With that single command, Li Yuan hurled it down.

The flame-cloth twisted into a radiant blade of pure Yang energy, utterly unnatural, utterly devastating.

It fell with a roar, and as it neared the Ghost Prison, the world itself seemed to shudder. In that moment, black and red membranes became visible, layered and utterly incompatible with each other.

But instead of breaking through, the blade began gliding along the barrier’s edge, like a razor shaving through silk.

In the sky, the young boy with the blazing feet followed closely behind, tracing the perimeter of the Ghost Prison with ruthless precision.

Snap snap snap!

One by one, the invisible threads began to break.

These were no ordinary threads. Happyland Zoo’s ghost items were never simple, especially not the ones meticulously prepared in advance.

But then again, Li Yuan wasn’t ordinary either.

If Happyland Zoo was a ghost domain designated as a forbidden zone, then Li Yuan was an equally powerful Yang domain.

And when he acted personally, how could mere ghost items hope to stop him?

As the threads shattered, faint ripples began to form way off in the distance. But that

distance

...was so far, even Li Yuan’s senses couldn’t reach it.

Still, it didn’t matter.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Wrapped in a black mist of crows, Sheng'er’s clones had already set out to investigate on her own.

Eventually, one of them spotted several white-robed figures standing by the temple railing, gazing vacantly in the direction of the Ghost Prison.

Their hands were trembling, as if a searing heat were radiating from within the prison walls, crawling up their arms.

Sheng'er recognized them. They were temple guards, loyal ones, no doubt about it. But then she remembered her father’s words.

So she stepped forward and asked, “What’s wrong?”

She appeared so suddenly that the men didn’t even have time to react. On instinct alone, they all snatched their hands back in alarm.

But the circling black crows told them exactly who she was.

“Divine Crow... Lady Divine Crow—”

No one had expected that the crow was, in fact,

truly

a lady.

Sheng'er didn’t waste time with pleasantries. She asked directly, “Why did you betray us?”

The men froze for a breath. But the next second, their hands darted into their sleeves.

However, they were too slow. Before they could pull anything out, vines emerged from the air and lashed their arms. The thick vines twisted and writhed like the tendrils of some abyssal sea creature.

They came from Sheng'er’s staff, which had suddenly sprouted a swarm of aerial roots.

The signal flares the temple guards had tried to pull out fell to the ground.

Sheng'er stared at it for a long moment, then repeated, her voice tight with anger, “Why?”

If they had been strangers or enemies, this wouldn’t have shaken her. But these weren’t strangers. These were people from Yan Yu’s temple, the same men who had once knelt in prayer before her mother, who had sincerely believed in her ideals.

That kind of betrayal hurt the most.

One of the men narrowed his eyes and then snarled, “The living world doesn’t need ghosts! Yan Yu is a ghost, her very existence—”

“SHUT UP” Sheng'er clutched her ears and screamed, cutting him off, then lashed out with her staff.

The roots surged forward like an armored cavalry charge, plowing through the white-robed traitors and grinding them into a mist of blood and flesh.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

The same scene was playing out with Sheng’er’s other clones.

After the threads of their ghost items were severed, the traitors had begun relocating. They tried to escape and find a new angle to launch another attack on Yan Yu.

However, none of them could escape Sheng’er.

From within the black mist, her once-gentle voice turned razor-sharp.

“Why?! Why?! We were all happy, weren’t we? People who didn’t have food now have food. People who didn’t have clothes now have clothes. You, you people

agreed

with all of it! So why betray her?!”

The boar-masked men sneered at her, drawing long blades from their belts, surrounding the cloaked figure at the center.

One of them said coldly, “Because happiness for humanity should be created by humans, not handed down by ghosts.”

Another chimed in, “We’re human. But Yan Yu? She isn’t anymore. She’s not one of us. And anything that isn’t one of us...must be purged.”

Yet another said, “A ghost is still a ghost. Just because she gives us kindness today doesn’t mean she won’t eat us tomorrow.”

“You’re the one who should repent.”

“You’re the one who’s wrong.”

“It’s you.”

“It’s you!”

“IT’S YOU!”

“If you truly cared about us, you’d go die. You should DIE!”

Their venomous words spun together into a suffocating web, crashing down over the girl within the crows.

But in the very next instant, all of them burst into flames. The ghost items they wielded evaporated, devoured by Yang energy.

And there stood Li Yuan, having silently appeared. He placed his hands gently over Sheng’er’s ears.

Behind them, the boar-masked traitors screamed and thrashed, running blindly through the flames, their bodies burning, their lies turning to ash.

Sheng'er stood trembling, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Why...” she whispered.

Li Yuan only smiled. Then he said, “I wasn’t sure at first. But now I understand. They’re not the temple’s people anymore. They’re fearless soldiers.”

Fearless soldiers were mindless and obedient like machines. However, the ones that formed the ghost cavalry weren’t mindless weapons. They had personalities. They had free will.

Xu Lan and Xu Sheng were siblings bound by deep affection. They’d lived together for so many years. If it had only been a change in temperament, then with time, with love, with the undeniable pull of blood ties, Xu Lan would have gradually returned to herself.

But that wasn’t what happened.

Even after all those years together, Xu Lan still ran away. And all Xu Sheng left behind was a single, chilling conclusion.

“She’s not my sister. She’s been replaced. I’m going to find the real Xu Lan.”

That was the first clue.

The second was in the palace, swirling conspiracies surrounding the young Emperor.

A tangled web of palace maids, guards, record-keepers, imperial physicians, and even a street vendor selling kites—all seemingly unrelated, yet all working together. Some were even handpicked by the Empress Dowager herself. And all of them, together, formed a single, seamless conspiracy.

When Ying Zhuoyao had admitted that what happened in the Jade Capital was her people’s doing, Li Yuan immediately thought of the fearless soldiers.

The third clue was the King of Chu.

Xiang Yan was merely a pawn. A tool.

The King of Chu exploited this poor girl’s simple heart and sent her straight to Yan Yu’s temple.

Then, using the bond of father and daughter and relying on how others assumed he simply wanted to cozy up to Yan Yu, he began showing up openly and frequently.

Back then, Li Yuan hadn’t known why. Now he did.

All those visits were for one thing, to

quietly

replace the temple guards with fearless soldiers.

And all of it, everything, from the threads being drawn to the blade now unsheathed, was for

this

moment. To force the Grand Union of Yin and Yang. And to destroy Yan Yu’s humanity in the process.

In the eyes of the world, fearless soldiers were believed to be mindless. No autonomy. No will.

But that was only the

low level

ones.

The

advanced

fearless soldiers? Those were in the hands of the puppet master behind Ying Zhuoyao.

Li Yuan didn’t know the exact mechanics. But clearly, these fearless soldiers weren’t just infused with murderous qi.

No, they held something far more terrifying. That was another soul, one not their own. A soul carrying

causality

that matched the original host.

And that thought, that realization, was enough to send chills down the spine.

While all these thoughts raced through his mind, Li Yuan gently stroked the crying girl’s head.

“Don’t listen to what they say. Hold fast to your own beliefs. Don’t argue with them. Watch what they

do.

Yan Yu gave this land, this world...real happiness. She brought joy to the people here.

“And those others? What have they done? Big, fancy words? Anyone can say those. But they’ve done nothing. Nothing at all. True kindness lies in both thought and action. Words without deeds, those are the words of bad people.

“They picked on you because you’re just a young girl. So they used a few cruel phrases to try and pierce your heart. The more you cry, the more pleased they’ll be.”

Sheng'er wept and whispered, “But...why?”

Li Yuan smiled. “You want to ask your enemies for answers? What do you expect, that they’ll tell you the truth? That they won’t lie or deceive? If an enemy asked

me

why, I’d lie too. I’d sweet-talk him. Then I’d break his heart.”

He paused and looked deeply at the boar-masked men still screaming in the flames.

To still be trying to break someone’s spirit even in this moment...that was a terrifying kind of cruelty.

As the two spoke, a sudden firestorm erupted in the distance.

Buildings across Silver Creek burned like lanterns lit across the night, one after another, setting the whole region aglow in flickering firelight.

And in the air, voices rang out, sharp and chaotic, blending truth with falsehood.

“Lady Divine Crow is killing people!”

“Yan Yu is slaughtering innocents!”

“Anything not of our kind must be purged!”

Everywhere, the same refrain echoed, loud enough to stir fear and vague enough to feel real. Whispers spun through the crowd like smoke.

Li Yuan held Sheng'er’s hand and said softly, “You see now? Doing good is hard. Doing evil? All it takes are a few clever lies. Trust takes years to build, but rumors can destroy it in minutes. So...what will you do?”

Sheng'er took a deep breath. Then another. But still, she said nothing.

Tears continued to fall down her face.