“Sigh. Brother Bai! Do you think we can seek out the Snowy Mountain Children of Fortune ourselves and ask them for their blessing?”

An idea occurred to Yi Pin, and he turned to ask Old Man of Snowy Mountain about it.

“Impossible,” Old Man of Snowy Mountain declared without hesitation. “The Snowy Mountain Children of Fortune only ever appear on their own. They cannot be tracked down or discovered either. If someone harboring ulterior motives or ill intent were to seek them out of their own accord, not only would they fail, they would become plagued by misfortune and suffer a string of bad luck.”

“Seriously?” Yi Pin asked suspiciously.

“Seriously.” Old Man of Snowy Mountain continued, “Here in the Raya Mountain Range, there is a saying that goes like this: ‘Better to insult King Yama to his face than harm a Child of Fortune.’ If you provoke King Yama, the worst thing that could happen to you is death. But if you disrespect or attempt to harm the Snowy Mountain Children of Fortune, then it would be as if you are possessed by the god of misfortune himself. Every moment in life turns into suffering, and even death is denied to the victim. Not even a Sage is exempt from its influence.”

“Once upon a time, there was a Sage who coveted the fortune powers of the Snowy Mountain Children of Fortune and attempted to capture it. Unfortunately, he failed despite scouring the entire land. Not only that, from the moment he harbored malice toward the Snowy Mountain Children of Fortune and set his foot upon the snowy mountains, he began to experience a string of misfortune and bad luck.”

“A Sage may be a transcendent being, but even they are not exempt from misfortune. As if that wasn’t enough, the Sage became increasingly unlucky to the point where even his friends and families became plagued by misfortune. He eventually lost his whole family, and everyone who is close to him met a miserable end.”

“This wasn’t even the worst thing. Although his luck was so bad that everyone close to him met a terrible end, he himself could not die no matter what. He had tried many times to commit suicide only for the attempts to fail for one reason or another. I was serious when I said that those cursed by the Snowy Mountain Children of Fortune are denied from death itself. He could only continue living painfully and pitifully.”

“Er… are you talking about the infamous Sage, Pei Youfu the ‘Unlucky Ghost’?” Yi Pin asked.

“Yes, but you shouldn’t say that name, Reverend. Just in case.” Old Man of Snowy Mountain warned.

“Yes yes, you’re absolutely right,” Yi Pin hurriedly echoed in agreement.

“Your reactions are a little exaggerated, don’t you think?” Ye Qing rolled his eyes at the tensed duo.

Even Ye Qing had heard of Pei Youfu the “Unlucky Ghost”. The guy was that famous—or rather, infamous.

Pei Youfu was infamous not because he was strong, but because he was unlucky.

Pei Youfu wasn’t born unlucky though. On the contrary, he was so fortunate as a child that his father decided to name him Youfu (Fortunate).

Thanks to the powerful combination of outstanding fortune and talent, Pei Youfu was recruited by a champion and taught diligently from a young age. As a result, he was able to reach the Sage stage before he was sixty and enjoyed a fair reputation.

But one day, Pei Youfu suddenly became one of, if not the unluckiest man in the entire world. Someone who stepped on dog shit or got water stuck inside his teeth were pretty unlucky, but compared to him, they were insignificant to put it mildly. As if he was possessed by the god of misfortune himself, misfortune befell him wherever he went. Anyone who was even remotely related to Pei Youfu would become unfortunate as well.

That was why Pei Youfu was eventually known as the Unlucky Ghost. Everyone avoided him like the plague, unwilling to even mention his name for fear that they would catch his bad luck somehow.

“

Exaggerating?

If anything, I think I’m not doing enough to insulate myself from the poor bastard. Where did you think the saying, ‘When the Unlucky Ghost appears, the world falls into disarray’ comes from?”

Yi Pin suddenly recalled something and asked, “You’ve all heard of the Fall of the Heavenly Tomb, right? The Unlucky Ghost is the reason behind it.”

“Really?” Old Man of Snowy Mountain looked astonished.

“Really. I was there after all.”

Yi Pin licked his dry lips before beginning his story. “It was about forty years ago, I think? I happened to be in the area when the Heavenly Tomb emerged, and like everyone else, I was hoping to pay it a visit and hopefully get lucky.”

“At first, everything was fine and dandy. I even divined my own fortune and received the best result I could have hoped for. All signs pointed toward me making an absolute killing in the Heavenly Tomb.”

“On the day of the opening though, I happened to glimpse the Unlucky Ghost entering the Heavenly Tomb. Feeling an indescribable chill, I immediately divined my own fortune a second time and found that it had changed. Instead of the perfect fortune I received before, I received the death fortune instead. It is what it sounds like. It means that anyone who enters the Heavenly Tomb would die for sure. I tried predicting my fate a couple more times using different methods, but the results were all the same: death.”

“I am a cowardly man, so I did not enter the Heavenly Tomb. As it turned out, I was right. Literally everyone who entered the Heavenly Tomb—over a dozen of famous Sages and countless more Truemen and Grandmasters—except the Unlucky Ghost had died inside that place.”

Over forty years had passed since that day, and Yi Pin still felt a lingering chill. “That wasn’t all. Although I was lucky enough to survive, that one glimpse of the Unlucky Ghost still earned me three whole months of misfortune. Do you understand why I’m so paranoid now?”

“Huh…”

Ye Qing rubbed his nose. In fact, he had heard of the incident named the Fall of the Heavenly Tomb. After all, it was

the

infamous incident that had killed over a dozen Sages and many more Trueman and Sages. It was such a huge blow that it took the

jianghu

and

wulin

many years to recover. The incident eventually became known as the Fall of the Heavenly Tomb.

Ye Qing had no idea that the Fall of the Heavenly Tomb was related to the Unlucky Ghost though. Assuming that Yi Pin was telling the truth, then it was no wonder that superstitions—which might not turn out to be unwarranted after all—were forming around Pei Youfu.

“Let’s not talk about him anymore, okay? It’s unlucky,” Old Man of Snowy Mountain suggested.

“Yeah, you’re right. Why are we even talking about the guy?”

Yi Pin echoed in agreement. “Let’s stop here.”

Right after that, Yi Pin produced three white jade bowls from his sleeves. One of them contained rainwater, the other contained yellow soil, and the third contained grains. Smooth as butter, he fell to his knees, placed the three bowls on the snow, and planted a purple incense stick on each jade bowl.

After chanting some sort of mantra for a moment and kowtowing three times, the three incense sticks ignited on their own. One smoke rose up into the heavens, the other spread across the snowy mountains, and the third sank straight into the ground.

“May the heavens’ blessing be with you. I ask that you have mercy for this foolish Taoist and overlook my impudence this once, lord children. Thank you, thank you.”

𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Yi Pin let out another Taoist chant before he finally climbed back to his feet.

“What on earth are you doing, brother?” Ye Qing chuckled.

“Apologizing to the Snowy Mountain Children of Fortune, of course! I disrespected them earlier, so it is only right that I apologize for my mistake properly. I have absolutely no desire to become as unlucky as a certain unfortunate bastard, you know?”

Yi Pin replied matter-of-factly, “The ritual I performed earlier is a special apology ritual that is unique to my Temple of Divination. The three bowls represent heaven, earth, and humanity, and the three incense sticks are offered to all gods and ghosts. If the incense sticks ignite, then it means that the god does not blame me for my transgressions. If the smoke rises, then the ghosts will not punish me for my sins. That is how it goes.”

“You sure spared no effort in saving your own butt, eh brother?”

Ye Qing teased him. He could tell at first glance that the three jade bowls and the three purple incense sticks were no ordinary objects. In fact, he could sense a sliver of karmic energy from them. They were priceless treasures that anyone would covet and cherish, and yet Yi Pin had used them for a mere “apology ritual”. That was how much he didn’t want to anger the Snowy Mountain Children of Fortune.

“Why even apologize if you’re not going to be sincere about it?” Yi Pin declared proudly, though he was really weeping blood on the inside. The treasures were

not

cheap. Still, it was a better fate than turning into an unlucky fuck like Pei Youfu. He would pay any amount of treasure to ensure that.