Editor: Sahloknir

Meng Yunfei spoke calmly, “An evil spirit cannot cultivate a golden core, and therefore cannot cultivate an immortal sword. While a demon cultivator could possibly cultivate such a sword, the one we encountered last night definitely did not belong to one.” He then frowned and asked, “Could the thing which haunts Linjiang City be a ghost cultivator? If this is the case, we would have to make a trip to Ghost City to continue our investigations. I’m afraid it will get more challenging.”

The Prince of Linjiang retracted his breath of relief and said, “Ghost..Ghost City?”

Meng Yunfei replied, “Yes, Ghost City and the Twelve Provinces. In other words, the Underworld.”

In an unprecedented instance, no one died last night in Linjiang City. When this news was confirmed, it became the sensation of the entire city. The courtesans and entertainers who were crowding in front of the various Immortal Sect’s strongholds swarmed around the Prince’s Residence and the poor Prince was happy to tears at the news.

He came rushing back from an outer village to the city in the morning and insisted on dragging the Immortal Masters to a banquet set up to thank them. Cultivators at Yuchi Xiao and Meng Yunfei’s levels practiced inedia.?Only Gong Wei was relishing and happily gnawing on his plate of?mouth-watering chicken. The use of chopsticks slowed him down, so he went ahead and used his hands instead, which were now covered in red chilli oil.

“If you want to catch a ghost cultivator, you must go to the Underworld.” Meng Yunfei sighed and said, “But how can living mortals travel to the Underworld? Unless it is Lord Xu, Lord Ying or other Immortals of outstanding power who are willing to expend their own lifespan to force their way through the Ghost City Gate, there is absolutely no way to do it.”

Prince of Linjiang looked as though he had a bucket of cold water poured over his head, he stuttered, “So what now? Will this ghost cultivator come back tonight?”

Meng Yunfei replied, “I can’t say for sure as it is rare to encounter a ghost cultivator. Why he only selects exquisite beauties as his targets is something I cannot understand either. Brother Yuchi? What’s wrong with you?”

Yuchi Xiao was looking incredulously at Gong Wei who was buried behind a small but steadily increasing mountain of chicken bones. He was silent for a long time before his blank expression changed and he asked, “I am curious, Your Highness. May I ask what you think of this otherworldly little Immortal now?”

The Prince of Linjiang turned towards the chicken-bone mountain and firmly said, “Extraordinary!!! He looks like a sage!”

Meng Yunfei: “..”

Yuchi Xiao: “..”

Yuchi Xiao leaned closer to Meng Yunfei and whispered, “How about sending him back to Cang Yang Sect. Doesn’t the ghost cultivator only pick the most exquisite beauties? He wouldn’t be attracted to this kid..”

Since his previous life, Gong Wei had been particularly fond of food, especially chicken. In the world of Immortal Cultivators, he was the only one who refused to practice abstinence for certain food types. For this reason, he was mocked by the major sect families, since the ability to endure the suffering from food abstinence was the first requirement for all the major sects to accept disciples.

Yet it was not uncommon to catch him eating up to two kilograms of braised chicken feet in one sitting, or snacking on a fistful of melon seeds every now and then. If the Chief of the Department of Discipline set such a bad example of non-abstinence, what credibility did he have to correct the wrongdoings of other disciples from other families?

Gong Wei finally finished gnawing on the last chicken bone. He wiped his fingertips, looking unsatisfied and asked, “Is there any more?”

It was so humiliating. Was he a fox in his previous life!?

Before Yuchi Xiao could chide him, Gong Wei clutched his right eye and muttered in a shallow voice, “My eye hurts from the attack by the ghost cultivator last night.”

“..” Swordsman Yuchi immediately felt powerless to reprimand him.

Meanwhile, the Prince of Linjiang quickly ordered his subordinates, “Get the kitchen to slaughter more chickens!”

Meng Yunfei had a silver crown on his neatly bunned hair and was donned in a moon-white robe with silver silk embroidery on his sleeves. His figure reflected toughness, yet carried an air of gentleness. When Meng Yunfei heard Gong Wei’s words, he leaned down to personally examine him and guiltily said, “ Thank you, Young Master Xiang for stepping forward to help in such a dangerous situation. We should have done our best to protect you. It is my fault. I promise it will never happen again.”

Gong Wei glanced at him gratefully, however in his heart, he thought,?You look like a gentleman, but in reality, you were one of the culprits who brought me here as bait! If I waited for you to rescue me, my body would have become a cold corpse last night. Better to trust myself!

“Your-your Highness!” At this time there was a clamour outside the door, then a loyal servant ran in frantically, “Bad news Your Highness! Another person has died outside!”

The people in the room turned pale. Yuchi Xiao rose up, “Where?”

“Outside the residence, the group of ladies!”

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A woman in a lake-blue dress was slashing at the air wildly with her hairpin, and the few frightened maids could not restrain her. Her face was red with anger and her cries of grief could be heard, “Little bitch! I’m not someone you can humiliate!” she continued to wail in despair, “Master Zhen, Master Zhen! If you no longer love me, why would you redeem my freedom?!!” Saying that, she stabbed the bloodied hairpin straight into her right eye!

Stabbed in the right eye too?

As Gong Wei was pondering the meaning behind these actions, Yuchi Xiao waved his arm and knocked the golden hairpin from her hand as she then continued stabbing into the air. The woman still did not give up, she charged forwards in an attempt to crack her head on the stone pillar in front of the Residence’s gate. Seeing that it was about to turn into a bloody scene, Yuchi Xiao who was a few steps away, knocked her onto the floor.

He then commanded, “Stop her, she is going to die by biting her own tongue!”

The Prince’s servants were fearful that an accident would happen in front of their own gate, and several of them went forward to grab hold of her jaw. At this moment, the sound from a guqin echoed from the door—majestic like a beam of moonlight in a pine forest and ethereal like a clear stream running over rocks. However, when it sounded again, there was an unquestionably oppressive aura which charged forward. The woman, who was vigorously struggling, stopped and dropped her head in an instant, her pearl beads and jade hairpin scattering all over the floor.

It was Meng Yunfei!

Meng Yunfei, with one hand holding the guqin and the other plucking the strings, stepped out of the threshold of the Prince’s Residence. He was usually very decorous but at this moment, his face was stone cold. He listened carefully in an attempt to pick up movements from the vibrations and said, “Not good.”

Yuchi Xiao’s was aghast, “What’s wrong?”

“It is coming.”

—It is coming..

Behind Yuchi Xiao, Gong Wei seemed to sense something and slowly turned back to look at the lofty residence.

At that moment, shrill screams could be heard from the streets. A few servants who were standing nearest to the group of women froze simultaneously and an eerie expression reflected on their faces. One of them shook violently and then dashed towards a guard, grabbed the sword from the startled man and killed himself. Before the bystanders could even react, his head fell to the ground with a thud. The rest of them charged like maddened cattle towards the crowd with swords drawn. The scene suddenly spiralled out of control and it was about to become a bloodbath!

Everyone was running in fear and trampling in all directions, but Gong Wei seemed to be undisturbed by all the chaos. He narrowed his eyes, looking high above.

In the distance, on top of the glazed roof of the Prince’s Residence, a faceless, grey-robed and ghostly figure stood up high wielding a sword. The figure then passed through the chaotic street, stopped and quietly faced Gong Wei.

No one could see it, even the talisman of an Immortal Master could not sense it.

..What the hell are you??Gong Wei thought as he narrowed his eyes.

Under the smoke-like hood of the ghostly figure was a flickering scarlet light which seemed very much like an eerie smile.

With a sonic-like boom, Meng Yunfei expertly pulled the?guqin?in front of his body, his ten fingers strummed it fiercely and the tone changed steeply. At this moment, a monstrous wave came crashing down. The few men who were maniacally slashing at the crowd rolled their eyes back into heads, stopped and dropped their swords onto the ground. The Prince of Linjiang broke away from the guards and hurriedly ran out of the gate, seeing the situation he was about to shout, “Well done!” Before he could say it, another scream erupted from not far away!

The woman who screamed fell to the ground at the centre of an empty space surrounded by a group of people who suddenly turned mad all at the same time. Some of them were kneeling and tearing at their own chests, some were rolling in pain and crying, some pulling out their hairpins and stabbing their own throats. In the blink of an eye, the already tragic situation worsened, with five or six people falling on to the ground and dying at the same time!

Meng Yunfei was furious, “Who is it that’s doing this? How dare you!” He rose and heavily played the guqin’s strings. The guqin tune changed from the soothing and gentle ‘Rest’ to the murderous ‘Armour Light’, and he walked towards the unconscious woman at the bottom of the stone stairs.

Just then, the ghostly figure suddenly turned towards Meng Yunfei’s back, as if it had discovered something of great interest.

Gong Wei tried to stop Meng Yunfei, yelling, “Don’t go over there!”

—It was already too late.

Every step Meng Yunfei took, the sound of the guqin rose a pitch higher, the murderous and hostile aura strengthened, and the mad crowd around him fell to the ground as if they were crushed under the sheer pressure. As he approached the centre of the crowd through layers of fog and just a trace of sunlight, a flash of bright light appeared from the woman’s side.

Meng Yunfei’s footsteps stopped, his entire body became stiff as though glued to the ground.

Yuchi Xiao discovered something amiss. “Yunfei?”

Meng Yunfei turned his head inch by inch, his movements were incomparably stiff, as if he was fighting with all his will against some terrible force. His gaze was momentarily lax, then struggling, rigid, and then suddenly his eyes quickly grew bloodshot as he unsheathed his long sword?'Su Qing'?with a resounding?clang.

The green light illuminating it blasted out from the immortal sword,?Su Qing,?as if a dragon had ascended from the abyss, and did not hesitate to slash towards the frightened crowd.

Meng Yunfei had also been cursed!

With a deafening reverberation, Yuchi Xiao hastily drew his sword,?Gou Chen?and deadlocked Meng Yunfei. Without even looking back to the stunned crowd, he yelled, “Run!”

But at this moment, another light flashed by the woman’s side. Gong Wei’s vision became? blurred and his mind went completely blank, followed by the sudden wild and uncontrollable beating of his heart.

He too fell for the enchantment.

Although he knew clearly that he must not be controlled by this evil spirit and must immediately break free, his mind was dazed and beyond his control. Suddenly, the scene in front of him blurred like fresh ink in water, spreading out in all directions, and a cold wind swept in from the distant horizon..

Whoosh!

The wind tore through the thick fog and Gong Wei’s pupils suddenly dilated.

The scene in front of him was no longer the chaotic street outside the Prince’s Residence, but a wide and high platform carved out of white jade paving and lined with golden pillars. At the foot of the platform was a scene of winter grey mountains and a sea of pine trees.

—It was the beginning of Taiyi’s 28th year, and the place was the Ascension Platform.

It was the day he died.

Gong Wei gasped for breath and lowered his head. He clearly knew that it was merely an illusion, but from the left side of his chest emerged an unbearable pain. As his gaze traced the length of the blood-stained?No Way Out, a familiar hand was gripping onto the sword hilt, then there was the face of Xu Shuangtze looking down from above.

It’s fake, it’s all fake, I’m already dead.?This is just an illusion created by the evil spirit, I have been dead for sixteen years!

Gong Wei was trapped in the body of his former life, which was near death. Suddenly, he felt his hand involuntarily move. With fresh blood flowing over his fingers, he gripped the sword which was driving into his heart and said, “.. you..shouldn’t.. “

Xu Shuangtze’s expression seemed to be shrouded in shadow and blurred beyond recognition.

Gong Wei heard his own voice broken up with heavy gasping and desperate choking as he forced out the words, “I..I like you, Xu Shuangtze. You shouldn’t do this to me..”

His soul trembled like it was hit by a hammer, Gong Wei was incredulous.?What am I saying?

He reflexively tried to snap out of this body, but in this illusion, he was so weak that it was difficult to maintain even the simple action of looking up at Xu Shuangtze. He could only watch in despair as Xu Shuangtze leaned down, his face emerging from the shadows with those cold, familiar and oddly bloodshot eyes.

“Gong Wei,” his sword-wielding hand defied the obstruction of the fingers gripping it, slowly and cruelly driving in inch by inch, as he continued in a low voice, “You don’t like me, you just—”

Slap!

A sharp pain jerked Gong Wei’s mind back instantly, his soul was dragged from mid-air and into the body of ‘Xiang Xiaoyuan’. He almost stumbled and fell to the ground.

Yuchi Xiao grabbed him and roared, “Wake up! Why aren’t you running!” Before he could deliver the second blow, Gong Wei without thinking about it, swung his arm back with a blow ten times louder than the one he’d received.

Yuchi Xiao: “..”

Gong Wei: “..”

Half of Yuchi Xiao’s face was imprinted with five red fingerprints, as he stood there in pain and confusion.

Gong Wei dazedly awoke and hurriedly waved his hands, “..sorry, sorry..”

There were booming sounds from all over and he saw the surrounding streets full of wreckage with dozens of people lying around. He was completely unable to tell if they were dead or alive. Meng Yunfei was kneeling with one knee on the ground, his entire body bloodied. With his sword?Su Qing?thrust into the ground to support himself, he shakily stood up.

Not far away his guqin lay with two steel strings broken by Yuchi Xiao in the struggle. It was still emitting a head-splitting, buzzing noise.

“Run! You’ll get yourself killed if you stay here!” Yuchi Xiao was too preoccupied to get payback for the slap he’d received and wretchedly shouted, “Yunfei is the foremost disciple of the Immortal Guqin Master, I can’t keep him under control! Bring the token on your waist to the Golden Gate to ask the Sword Sect Master to send help! Quickly!”

In the distance on top of the Prince’s Residence, the faceless, ghostly shadow seemed to draw closer, appearing to smirk.

Gong Wei exhaled with force in order to suppress his nausea and intense vertigo, “..I think I understand now.”

Yuchi Xiao who did not understand, “What?”

“It’s fear.”

Gong Wei had rarely hated anyone. In his past life in the Department of Discipline, he had come across recalcitrant disciples from numerous families, but almost no one could make him furious. Not even Xu Shuangtze had ever been truly hated by him, not even in the past sixteen years after he was killed.

However, the illusion provoked endless fear, anger and despair in him. Rage formed by a? desperate need for revenge burned and roared in his chest like a beast.

Even now, whenever he recalled Xu Shuangtze’s cold, bloodshot eyes, a great wave of hatred involuntarily surged from within his heart.

How could you treat me like that?

I clearly.. I clearly..

Gong Wei shut his eyes tightly, and an unbelievable thought suddenly surfaced in his heart:?Is the scene I saw really an illusion? The despair and anger were so visceral. Could it be that it was real? And the memories which I clearly had, were they false? Have I really returned from the depths of the Underworld, and is it Gong Wei or Xiang Xiaoyuan in this body now?

“Xiang Xiaoyuan?” Yuchi Xiao was anxious. “Xiang Xiaoyuan!”

Gong Wei forced open his eyes, wrestled himself out of his confused emotions, and hoarsely said, “It is an illusion that allows people to see their most fearful scenes in their minds. Once enchanted, one will not be able to distinguish between the illusion and reality. So some people kill themselves with hatred, some people desperately kill others, and some eventually die of exhaustion, purely depending on the scene each person sees.”

Therefore, the courtesan that stuffed her mouth with bark and leaves when she committed suicide—she possibly saw herself pawn her jewellery in her old age, living on the streets without food. The bride chased after her groom with a pair of scissors because she saw her husband beat her up cruelly and she fought back. As for the other victims who killed themselves, how they did it was more or less related to what they were experiencing at the time of the nightmare, or based on their most horrific memory.

As for Gong Wei, he saw the Ascension Platform from sixteen years ago.

To a dead man, there is nothing more frightening than reliving his own death.

But there was one problem he could not figure out:?there must be a specific condition for the illusion to be activated. Perhaps saying a certain word or performing a specific action? How were the twenty-eight dead people enchanted?

“There is something in the arms of the woman on the ground, it is the ‘trigger’ to start the illusion, if you see it glowing, you will be trapped, so be careful.” Gong Wei inhaled a deep breath, brushed away Yuchi Xiao’s support, staggered to stand up and said, “We can’t run. That thing is already here, we have to take care of it right now.”

Although Yuchi Xiao was arrogant, his moral standards dictated that he could not let such a low-ranking disciple risk his life, and he immediately tried to forcefully stop him. But at that moment he saw Meng Yunfei on the other side staggering to his feet, his face was stiff and greenish, and in the blink of an eye,?Su Qing’s?sword aura was charging right towards him..

Gong Wei fixedly stared at the ghostly figure from afar and did not notice Yuchi Xiao nor Meng Yunfei.

The moment the green light flashed from the sword, he just waved his hand, only to hear a loud ‘clang!’

A thunderous crash sounded and his fingertips deflected the sword, followed by a snap. He grabbed Meng Yunfei’s arm, wrenched his sword from his hand, and kicked the man towards the unprepared Yuchi Xiao.

“—hold him down.”

The next moment he raised his sleeves, his face like frost and snow, holding?Su Qing?in an attack position, he lunged at the ghostly figure!

Sahl: Ooh. So did Gong Wei confess or not? I’m guessing there is?way more?to the Ascension Platform incident than we’re seeing right now.. *bounces excitedly in seat* For those who know – no spoilers! Be good children.