Chapter 542 – Researching the Power of the Human Emperor, A New Ghost Prison is Born - Part 3

And just like that, the year neared its end.

In the old residence, the bare apricot tree by the courtyard had begun to thrum faintly with growing vitality, proof that the residual energy of the third rank meat field was quietly climbing again.

Of course, this didn’t mean it was breaking through to second rank. Rather, it was rising within the internal tiers of third rank, evolving from its lower phase to its higher one.

Outside, a beautiful woman in crimson robes sat cross-legged beneath the tree, a sword resting across her knees. Silent, steady, and immersed in cultivation.

Inside, the child slept peacefully.

Li Yuan slipped through the window as a tiny insect, then returned to his human form as he stood beside the bed. His eyes softened as he gazed at his daughter. Gently, he pulled the blanket up to her shoulders.

Her combat power still read 0~1.

But Li Yuan hadn’t forgotten the anomaly in heaven and earth that occurred the day she was born.

It had only lasted a blink, so brief, so subtle that no one thought to associate it with a newborn child. But in his heart, Li Yuan was convinced the anomaly belonged to her. He just couldn’t understand why it had vanished the moment it appeared.

He continued watching her in silence.

Suddenly, the girl opened her eyes, round, dark irises ringed with white, pure and luminous like black pearls and polished glass.

Li Yuan smiled, warm and gentle.

To his surprise, she didn’t cry. Instead, she broke into a soft, babbling giggle. She didn’t know who he was, but this

stranger

had visited so many times already that she was used to him.

Li Yuan raised a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”

The little girl stopped making sounds and looked at him with big, trusting eyes.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and reached into his robe, pulling out a wooden spinning top.

Her eyes sparkled.

She knew this man always brought something fun whenever he came.

Li Yuan placed the top in his palm and gave it a gentle twist. It began to spin.

She watched, transfixed.

Ordinarily, a top like this would slow down and stop after a few seconds. But this one didn’t. In fact, it slowly lifted off his palm and began to dance through the air, spinning upright, spinning sideways, flipping upside down, twirling across the room in a graceful little flight.

The little girl laughed in delight, waving her arms and cooing with joy.

Outside, Xie Yu, still sitting beneath the apricot tree, suddenly felt something. Her eyes snapped open. She stood, quietly moved to the door...and threw it open.

The room was empty.

Only the child sat there, giggling and waving at the air, as if chasing after something unseen.

But the moment the spinning top vanished, her laughter vanished too.

Xie Yu scanned the room, sharp eyes darting around for any sign of a disturbance, but saw nothing unusual. Then, her gaze lowered slightly.

“Zhen’er,” she asked softly, “tell Mama, someone was here, right?”

The little girl blinked. She couldn’t lie to her mother, not even if she tried. So she gave a small nod.

Xie Yu turned sharply and called out, “Li Yuan, come out!”

Her voice had barely faded when a figure appeared in the doorway.

Li Yuan looked at her and said, “It’s been a while.”

Xie Yu’s tone was cold. “She’s half yours. I’m not going to stop you from seeing her. Where are you living now?”

“I move around,” Li Yuan replied. “Nowhere fixed.”

Xie Yu nodded once. “Then come see her when you like. Take her out to play if you want. Our daughter is innocent. She doesn’t deserve to grow up without a father.”

“Yu’er—”

“Yu’er is dead, just like Ximen Gucheng is dead,” she cut him off. “Whatever bond existed between us is gone. Now, you’re simply her father. And I, by chance, am her mother. That’s all.”

She finished speaking, turned, and sat back down beneath the apricot tree. Eyes closed, she resumed her meditation, shutting out the world.

“Yu’er?” Li Yuan called again, but there was no response.

He let out a soft sigh, then turned back toward the house, a wry smile forming on his lips. He lifted his daughter into his arms and gently pointed to himself.

“Daddy.”

“Daddy?” Zhen’er echoed in her soft baby voice.

“Daddy.” Li Yuan nodded, affirming it.

“Daddy!” she squealed, wrapping her tiny arms around his face and planting a big kiss on his cheek. Then she started wriggling excitedly in his arms, chanting, “Spin, spin, spin!”

Li Yuan laughed heartily and pulled out the spinning top once more.

With a twist of his fingers, it began to whirl again.

Pure and bright laughter filled one corner of the courtyard as father and daughter played. Xie Yu remained seated beneath the tree, eyes closed, unmoved.

Only when Zhen’er was worn out did Li Yuan carry her back into the house.

She fell asleep almost immediately. He gently shut the door behind him, walked back outside, and asked quietly, “It’s the end of the year... Can I come?”

Xie Yu opened her eyes. “Then you and her can spend it together.”

“What about you?” Li Yuan asked.

“Why should I tell you?”

“If I don’t come,” he said, “take Zhen’er and Sister-in-law and enjoy a proper New Year.”

“Shameless,” Xie Yu snapped.

Li Yuan just stood there, speechless. Then, silently, he turned to leave.

Forget it,

he thought.

Taking the blame for Xie Wei one more time doesn’t matter.

And even if they’d been arguing, this was still the first time Xie Yu had spoken to him in nearly two years.

These mundane, messy family squabbles, they were like an anchor. A tether to something real. Something human.

Even arguments felt warm.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

A few days later.

Snow fell heavy and thick.

Li Yuan sat quietly before a massive black egg, a crow perched on his shoulder.

The little crow chattered away, painting a picture of joy from afar.

Xie Wei and Xie Yu had cleaned and decorated the home together. Zhen’er was overjoyed, waving her arms at the colorful lights, her giggles ringing out like bells.

Li Yuan smiled at the image, then turned his gaze back to the swirling black mist before him.

If it weren’t for the daily stat points Yan Yu kept giving him, he might’ve thought something had already happened to her.

At this point, those stat points were the only thread keeping their connection alive.

Li Yuan reached for the jar of Springdream Brew he had prepared in advance. He poured two cups, one for himself, one he poured out gently onto the black egg in front of him.

When he finished, he sat there in silence for a long time. Then he poured another cup. And another. And another.

“Your mother’s fine.” Li Yuan spoke softly to the little crow on his shoulder.

The crow nodded, then chirped in its quiet voice, “I know. If anything happened to her, I’d feel it.”

Amid the falling snow, one man, one crow, one jug of wine, they sat together in silence, faces turned toward the black mist that shrouded the distant ghost domain.

After a long while, the crow suddenly said, “Papa, the fourth rank target you’ve been looking for has surfaced.”

“It’s a vice cult leader of the Lotus Cult, from the Red Lotus Cult, goes by the name Han Lin’er. He’s done all sorts of evil and is on the run now.”

Li Yuan understood immediately.

For the past year, the Human Emperor had been sweeping through the land, reclaiming the fractured territories and bringing rogue factions under control one by one.

Eventually, even the remnants of the Lotus Cult hiding in Bloomtown were dug out.

During that time, Ying Zhuoyao and Peng Mi had both tried to reach out to him. But Li Yuan, lacking the Nine Provinces Provisional Patrol Token, had no way of reaching Swallowcloud Province in the far north.

With the Central Plains ravaged by the war with the Nine Flames Tribe, and the Human Emperor cleaning house through the martial world, it was impossible to say how many had died. Ying Zhuoyao and Peng Mi both assumed Li Yuan had been lost in the chaos and stopped looking.

Peng Mi, left with no way out, had planned to surrender.

But the Human Emperor refused to accept traitors or fiends.

With that, surrender was no longer an option for most of the Lotus Cult.

Peng Mi, it seemed, was executed on the spot.

As for Han Lin’er, who had committed countless atrocities, he too wasn’t on the list of those eligible to surrender. So he fled early, and now he was likely being hunted on all sides with a bounty over his head.

But Han Lin’er was a slippery one. He somehow managed to sneak down south, probably by taking some obscure route.

Unfortunately for him, Li Yuan had caught wind of his trail.

For a year now, Li Yuan had been searching for high-level cultivators to use in his experiments.

He’d tried sixth rank martial artists. They held out a bit longer than commoners, but the results were the same. He tried fifth rank ones next. They developed some early symptoms but didn’t die. Nor were they attacked. And beyond that, nothing happened.

He also experimented with location as a variable, and found that people viewing the vortex radical responded differently depending on the temperature and lighting around them.

The warmer and brighter the environment, the faster they died. Cause of death? Self-immolation.

As for the

wood

radical, it seemed tied to plants and wind. The denser the surrounding forest, the stronger the breeze, the quicker the subject would die. Cause of death? Internal arborization. They grew trees inside their bodies, turned into treefolk.

It was easy to find wicked fifth or sixth rank martial artists, but fourth rank powerhouses were rare enough, let alone ones that had committed many atrocities.

Now that Han Lin’er had been identified, Li Yuan was ready to move. But he wouldn’t go himself. He needed to remain in Gemhill County to oversee things.

“He’ll do,” he said.

“Got it, Papa!” the little crow chirped, hopping excitedly on his shoulder.

Elsewhere, a Tree’er disguised as an ordinary woman was sprinting through the wilderness with a cane in hand, moving like a red blur across the landscape.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

A little over a month later.

A broad-shouldered man with an honest-looking face, who didn’t look the least bit like a villain, was thrown to the ground before Li Yuan.

The man tried to rise, only to scream in agony. Roots burst from the earth and speared through his body, pinning him flat against the soil, completely immobilized.

Li Yuan glanced up.

Good sunlight today. Perfect.

He tossed the scrap of paper with the swirling vortex down in front of the man, then calmly said, “Stare at it. Or I’ll hand you over to the Human Emperor.”

Han Lin’er immediately caved.

He knew full well that the Human Emperor had reclaimed nearly all ancient inheritances and now wielded an absurd number of ghost items. If he were handed over, it wouldn’t be hard for the Emperor to crack him open like a walnut and dig out the locations of all the bloodlines he’d hidden.

“Who are you?” he asked, chin raised defiantly, trying to make out the man behind the mask.

He had never heard of such a master on this land. But now...his thoughts drifted back to the woman who had captured him.

He was a proper fourth rank cultivator...someone who, by rights, should’ve been untouchable in this remote southern land. Yet in front of that mysterious woman, he hadn’t even been able to lift a finger.

And now that same woman treated the masked man before him with deep, unmistakable respect.

He couldn’t wrap his head around it.

This land no longer belonged to the Lotus Cult. That much was clear.

“What is this?” he finally asked.

Li Yuan didn’t mock him or threaten him. He simply said, calmly, “Look.”

Han Lin’er had no choice but to obey. And so he stared.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

One hour turned to many. Day became night. Then day again. Three full days and nights passed.

And nothing happened.

Han Lin’er remained perfectly intact, alive, sane, and breathing. He had stared at the radical, the swirling vortex, for 72 hours straight.

“Please...” he begged weakly, voice hoarse. “I’m a fourth rank martial artist. I can be of use. I’ll serve you, I swear it. Just let me go.”

Li Yuan said nothing. He turned to Sheng’er and said, “Lock him up.”

Sheng’er gave a crisp, “Okay.”

Immediately, roots sprouted from the ground around Han Lin’er, thick, gnarled, and fast-growing. They weaved together into a cage, coiling around him like a net, then plunged with a

whoosh

into the earth, dragging him below.

“Papa, why didn’t anything happen to him?” the little crow on his shoulder asked.

“No clue.” Li Yuan shook his head. He’d run many experiments by now. If he went by the most obvious interpretation, the vortex radical was just a slow-acting attack that only affected weak cultivators.

But that couldn’t be right.

This symbol had been taken from the Human Emperor at the height of his power. It was something even the Emperor himself couldn’t decipher. Something that made even Li Yuan dizzy just by glancing at it.

There had to be more to it.

If it was really just some weak, situational spell...then why had it come from that place?

As he pondered this, a sudden jolt ran through him, his heartbeat spiked wildly, pounding in his chest without warning.

He turned his gaze toward the black egg not far from where he stood.

It was spinning now, like a massive black wheel, a void devouring time and space itself.

After more than two years of stillness...after fusing with Happyland Zoo and absorbing countless surrounding ghost domains...the Ghost Prison was awakening.

Li Yuan grabbed Sheng’er by the arm and pulled her back, retreating quickly into the distance.

Father and daughter stood far off, watching.

Before their eyes, the black mist began to churn and morph. A palace rose from the haze, grand, solemn, and utterly sinister. Around it rose a frozen glacier, a towering mortar and pestle, blood-red flowers in bloom, strange blade-covered iron trees, roaring steam baskets, crimson fire pillars...

A thousand ghosts. Ten thousand ghosts. Crawling, slithering, bowing before the palace in eerie reverence. The sight was terrifying beyond words.

And within the deepest hall of this newborn Ghost Prison, a woman in elegant azure robes stood with her hands tucked into her sleeves, gazing into the distance with cold serenity.

“Mama!” Sheng’er cried out in joy.

She made to fly forward, but Li Yuan grabbed her just in time.

Because in his vision, two immense, colossal masses of dark energy were approaching from afar, so massive and overwhelming that even he, with all his composure, felt a primal terror rising from deep within.

They were coming...to collide with this newborn Ghost Prison.