The appearance of a ghost’s body comes from its own attachments. Yang Cang wasn’t originally in this form, nor had he ever seen anyone with such distinctive shoulder bones. Before Li Chi pointed it out, he hadn’t even noticed that his ghost body’s appearance was unusual.
Where did his obsession come from?
The heart flame that he had drawn back into his chest flickered gently, but it could not illuminate the depths of his soul where this obsession was hidden. If it was unrelated to this life, then it could only be from a much more distant past life—so distant that even his heart flame could not illuminate it.
And this obsession, whose origin he knew not, had passed through heavy layers of time and reincarnation, and when he himself had not yet become aware of it, stubbornly sprouted a tiny shoot on his ghost body’s appearance.
The heart flame in his chest suddenly jumped, and Yang Cang instinctively pressed his hand against his chest. He suddenly felt a burning sensation, so burning that his chest felt sore, soft, and swollen. From that obsession whose origin he knew not, he sensed a blurred yet profound sorrow.
…..
Changpu reopened her eyes, her gray, hazy eyes filled with deep grief.
“Thank you,” she said.
Ding Qin shook her head. She felt she hadn’t really done anything—it was the High God who had guided Changpu and Yang Cang. However, since neither Changpu nor the Mingdeng Sect had any problems, there was one more matter that could now be asked directly.
“I want to ask you something,” she said.
Changpu nodded.
“The lamp-lighting method you taught Liu Chuanyu is problematic—are you aware of this?” Ding Qin asked.
“I didn’t know before, not until just now.” Changpu’s brow furrowed.
Only after her recent conversation with Yang Cang did she understand the problem with that technique. The lamp-lighting method she had taught Liu Chuanyu was not what she had learned from following Yang Cang. Yang Cang had also taught her a basic introductory lamp-lighting method, but that technique only had the effect of reducing the grievances and suffering of yin souls. Though very useful, its application was ultimately rather limited.
“I learned this technique later from other Mingdeng Sect members I encountered by chance,” Changpu said.
This lamp-lighting method had wider applications and seemed to have no problems on the surface, but there was a reason why the Mingdeng Sect’s widely transmitted introductory method only had one effect.
Yet this lamp-lighting method that appeared completely fine on the surface had unknowingly spread among the Mingdeng Sect’s followers.
However, because this lamp-lighting method had its own limitations, its spread wasn’t too serious a matter. But it signaled something—a signal that someone was making a move against the Mingdeng Sect. Still, this wasn’t Changpu’s concern. Since Yang Cang intended to consolidate the Mingdeng Sect’s forces, he would surely resolve this matter. As for Changpu, she had other things to do.
“I’m going to Sui Kingdom,” she said.
Before Ding Qin and Bai Hong could respond, they saw the door to the room suddenly pushed open.
Lu Si stood panting in the doorway, his eyes bulging like an ox’s, glaring at Changpu in anger. “Ha! I knew you were trying to run away!”
Changpu turned toward Lu Si, her expression even more helpless. “I told you, that painting can’t solve the problems you’ve been having lately.”
“Impossible!” Lu Si glared at her. “It was only after you painted that picture for me that I started having problems. If you didn’t tamper with it, how would you know what’s been happening to me lately? You’re dishonest! I may have defaulted on the bet, but I already bought that painting—this matter should be settled! I’m telling you, if you don’t solve this for me, I’ll block you right here, and you won’t be going anywhere!”
Bai Hong tilted his head to look at him and asked, “What happened to you?”
Lu Si said, “Everyone around me has become abnormal!”
“How are they abnormal?”
Lu Si snorted and said indignantly, “Take that old woman next door to me—she has no sense of her own age. She was pushing a cart and couldn’t get it up the slope for ages. I found her blocking the way, so I casually helped push it up for her. She looked at me like she’d seen a ghost and didn’t even say thank you!”
Ding Qin asked, “Where’s your painting? Let me see it.”
Lu Si hesitated for a moment, then pulled out the painting and handed it to Ding Qin.
He hadn’t kept the painting properly, just stuffed it carelessly in his shirt, so by now the painting was covered in messy creases.
The painting depicted Lu Si’s portrait—glaring eyes and sneering mouth, his fierce aura fully exposed. Looking at it, he didn’t seem like a good person, which was no wonder Lu Si looked angry. If judged purely on artistic merit, this painting was undoubtedly excellent. A few simple strokes sketched out Lu Si’s features, with a domineering air that leapt off the page—it could certainly be called both true to form and spirit. But the painting’s most distinctive feature wasn’t this.
When Ding Qin had caught a distant glimpse of this painting earlier, she had noticed that three parts of malevolent energy had been painted into it.
The presence of these three parts of malevolent energy made the fierce aura in the painting even more vivid, and the origin of these three parts of malevolent energy… Ding Qin glanced at Lu Si again. Changpu was blind; she saw people with her heart and painted with spirit. Lu Si was a ruffian that everyone avoided, naturally carrying fierce and malevolent energy. When Changpu painted him, she deliberately extracted the malevolent energy from his body and painted it into the picture. This was why Lu Si, who had previously been a detestable and frightening scoundrel, had been much milder in his troublemaking these past few times.
But malevolent energy belonged to a person’s impure qi and could regenerate itself. If a person harbored fierce and malevolent thoughts, malevolent energy would grow on their body. This malevolent energy would in turn influence a person’s thoughts, causing them to think in extreme and vicious directions when encountering situations. Therefore, although Changpu had extracted three parts of malevolent energy from Lu Si’s body, who knew when he might regenerate this malevolent energy to make up for it. How long this effect would ultimately last still depended on him.
Ding Qin slowly smoothed out the painting and asked Lu Si, “Do you like this painting?”
“Of course not!” Lu Si said.
Painted so fiercely, it naturally wasn’t likeable. Most people in this world shared one very interesting trait: no matter what they were actually like, they always hoped others would like them.
Lu Si was the same. Although it was unclear whether he really knew what kind of person he was in his heart, he too hoped to appear likeable and pleasant.
“But this is how you looked in other people’s eyes before,” Ding Qin said.
“How is that possible?!” Lu Si said angrily.
“If someone else helped that old woman, would she have reacted the same way?” Ding Qin asked in return.
Lu Si froze.
“Other people aren’t abnormal, and you’re not abnormal either. You’ve just become much better than before, but in other people’s eyes, you weren’t like this before.” Ding Qin rolled up the smoothed painting and returned it to Lu Si.
Lu Si took it in a daze, holding it in for a long time before saying, “But… but I don’t like how things are now.”
“Then decide for yourself whether you want to become like the painting again, or become even more different from the painting. The painting can’t solve this for you.”
After this round of persuasion, Lu Si gave up on troubling Changpu further and left the door in confusion, clutching his painting.
As for whether he would change from now on and stop being a ruffian that everyone detested and feared, or continue as before and regenerate a full body of malevolent energy, that still depended on him. Changpu’s painting was just a painting, after all.
Bai Hong withdrew his gaze from the departing Lu Si and said, “Your painting is quite interesting.”
Changpu smiled. “Just a small trick.”
When she suddenly went blind at age six, she later searched everywhere for traces of Yang Cang. A lone blind woman naturally often encountered people looking for trouble. For these ordinary people without cultivation, she didn’t like to resort to violence, so she used this method to solve the problem. For most people, removing a few parts of their malevolent energy would let them temporarily extinguish their evil thoughts and stop pestering her. Lu Si was an exception. After his malevolent energy was removed, he developed a desire to help others and could feel the change in attitude from those around him. Perhaps with this opportunity, he might become a different person in the future.
Such people were rare, but Changpu had encountered a few before. She thanked Ding Qin warmly. “Thank you for helping me out of that situation.”
Ding Qin shook her head. “He couldn’t have stopped you anyway.” Lu Si was just an ordinary person—if Changpu wanted to leave, she had too many ways to avoid him.
“But you showed me this kindness,” Changpu said.
She took out the painting she had made for Ding Qin earlier. After pondering for a moment, she added the eyes to the painting. Ding Qin had spiritual eyes, and Changpu couldn’t capture the spiritual essence of these eyes, which was why she had been unable to complete them before. Now she could only do her best to paint the finest eyes she was capable of creating.
Though they still lacked some of the radiance of Ding Qin’s own eyes, this was already a painting full of charm.
“For you,” Changpu handed the painting to Ding Qin. “Next I must travel to Sui Kingdom. We should part here.”
Ding Qin opened the painting. In those two painted eyes, the method for igniting the heart flame had been condensed.
…..
In the broken temple.
Yang Cang tried to ask Li Chi about the reason for his ghost body’s abnormality. After thinking hard without results, this was his only recourse. After all, this guest seemed to understand him better than he understood himself.
But Li Chi didn’t answer.
“The answer I give you would be meaningless,” he said.
If Yang Cang couldn’t remember it himself, even if Li Chi told him what had happened in the past, he would only feel as if he were hearing someone else’s story. Only by remembering it himself could he understand what kind of emotion that obsession deeply rooted in the depths of his soul truly was.
Yang Cang remained silent for a long time.
Li Chi reached out and made a motion in the air, opening a small passage to some unknown destination. He reached inside, and when he withdrew his hand, he held a small stone in his palm.
“It can conceal part of your traces,” Li Chi said.
Yang Cang took the stone. It was a black stone the size of a fingertip. At first glance, it looked no different from ordinary rock, only its texture was denser, appearing to have been refined.
The stone faintly emanated the aura of another soul. When he held it in his hand, this soul’s aura merged with his own, becoming another unfamiliar aura.
This object’s concealment ability was quite marvelous. With this, his act of leaving this place to consolidate the Mingdeng Sect would have a layer of protection.
“Thank you,” Yang Cang expressed his gratitude. He wanted to say more. Twenty-three years of confused waiting had ended today, but there were still many perplexities he didn’t understand.
But Li Chi had already risen. “Twenty-three years of bitter waiting is complete. Why linger over other matters? Go now, go.”
A breeze swept through the temple, and Li Chi’s figure had disappeared.
Two “Ouch!” sounds came from the threshold and door frame. A ghost ear and a ghost eye were tossed onto the altar table, instantly transforming into two little ghosts—one rubbing his ear and one covering his eye, both pouting pitifully.
Yang Cang couldn’t help but laugh. “What did you hear?”
“Nothing at all.” The little ghost rubbing his ear said pitifully. He could hear a little at the beginning, but when it got to the crucial parts, everything became unclear—he couldn’t make out anything.
The other little ghost had been watching the whole time, but only seeing two people sitting and talking without hearing the sound, he didn’t know what had happened either.
“Learn your lesson. Don’t casually play such little tricks in the future.” Yang Cang tapped both their foreheads.
The two little ghosts’ discomfort was eliminated. After obediently listening to Yang Cang’s lecture, they looked up at him and asked, “Sir, are you leaving?”
“Yes,” Yang Cang said.
The yin souls in the temple emerged one by one. Though they didn’t speak words of persuasion to stay, they all showed reluctance. They had long known that their teacher wouldn’t stay here forever, but when the day truly came, they still couldn’t help feeling sad.
Both little ghosts pursed their lips, but still tried to smile. “That’s wonderful—Sir won’t be trapped here anymore.”
“Why act like children?” Yang Cang knocked each of their heads. “I’ll still need your help in the future.”
“Really?!” Their eyes lit up.
“Really.” Yang Cang smiled.
Consolidating the Mingdeng Sect wasn’t something one could do alone. These yin souls who had spent every day and night with him for twenty-three years were precisely his best beginning.
….
In the Daqing Mountain foothills, at Li Manor.
Jin Yan had just flown out of Li Manor’s main gate. He was planning to find the red fox Li Feng outside Shuigu Town. Wei Qiuning and Li Feng had opened a girls’ school outside the town, but just reading and learning characters wasn’t enough—practical life plans had to come from life itself. Because of Ding Qin’s connection, they had become familiar with the Yun Family Medicine Shop in town. After discussion between both parties, they opened another class on identifying medicinal materials and learning medicinal principles. These girls could become apprentices at medicine shops in the future.
With the High God’s protection in the mountains, even during the great calamity, all was peaceful and worry-free. Jin Yan occasionally went to help. This time was the same—he was just preparing to descend the mountain when he suddenly felt something wasn’t quite right.
He looked down. Hey! Why had the large rock under the little pine tree at the gate lost half its mass?
Jin Yan scratched his head. This place was protected by High God Li Chi, so naturally only High God Li Chi could silently take away the stone. But what did the High God want with such a large stone?
Never mind the confused and puzzled Jin Yan. On the other side, the avatar Li Quan who had taken the stone had already arrived in the heartland of Liang Kingdom.
In Lu Kingdom, the calamity afflicting mortals had stabilized. Everywhere was so peaceful it seemed as if the calamity had ended. But in Liang Kingdom, this calamity continued to carve deep traces of suffering.
Those strange locusts that had crossed the Daqing Mountain range and forced Lu Kingdom’s ruler Lu Hong to decide to immolate himself in prayer to the gods had previously ravaged Liang Kingdom for a long time. One could imagine Liang Kingdom’s situation.
Where wild grass grew thick, a pile of ash remained—traces of fleeing refugees. Not long ago, a fire had burned here with several people sitting around it.
Li Chi suddenly descended, his gaze falling on that pile of embers.
At the bottom of this pile of ash, a tiny spark still remained, soon to be completely extinguished.
Divine power silently descended from the void. The dying spark suddenly brightened, and in an instant a flame rose from the air, then blazed into a fire as tall as a person. The expanding flames sketched out a figure in the air.
Li Chi looked at that figure, the corners of his mouth slightly curved. His face was crossed with light and shadow in the firelight, only a pair of pitch-black eyes so deep they reflected no changing light.
“Flame Lord.”