VL Chapter6

Since the time when Pangu split heaven and earth apart, with the turbid energy sinking and the clear energy rising, the world has been divided into three distinct realms: the Immortal Realm, the Mortal Realm, and the Ghost Realm. The immortals govern order, humanity is devoted to creation and development, and the spirits of the dead preside over judgment. The three realms exist independently of one another, each abiding by its own laws. Though countless unseen threads bind and restrain them in subtle ways, no realm is permitted to interfere in the affairs of another without cause.

Shi Xiao deliberately put on quite a grand air. Humans were indeed easy to fool; a tiny little trick was enough to terrify them into looking like a drenched quail. He had no idea that the Ghost King before him had fled to the human realm with severe injuries, or how embarrassed and desperate he secretly was. After all, he was the lord of a realm. If things hadn’t been truly critical, how could he have rashly crossed the boundary at the risk of causing chaos in the human realm at any moment?

Taking advantage of the interval when the human kept his head bowed and dared not look up, Shi Xiao pulled at his outer robe to cover the blood that was gradually seeping from his chest and abdomen.

Fortunately, his grievous injuries had already drained away most of his power, leaving his aura significantly diminished. With only a slight effort to conceal himself, neither the Immortal Realm nor the Ghost Realm would be able to detect his presence for the time being. However, it was precisely because his power was too weak that he lacked the strength even for simple concealment. Therefore, the human right under his nose was the best tool he could find in the short term to mask his ghostly qi.

The upside was that the human was meek and easy to control, an orphan with virtually no ties to anyone. Although his home was somewhat rundown, it was inconspicuous and secluded, well away from prying eyes and bustling crowds.

Of course, there was one most crucial point: this Yan family could be considered to have deep origins with him.

A pale light had begun to creep across the horizon. Roosters from households throughout the village lifted their heads toward the bluish dawn sky, their raspy, drawn-out ravens echoing one after another. Shi Xiao rubbed his temples, having no desire to tease the scholar any further. He signaled for the scholar to stand up. Listening closely, his voice seemed to carry a hint of fatigue:

“The farming household you are lodging with is also the incarnation of this venerable one’s subordinate. They will return your few belongings here later. From today onward, you will resume your previous normal daily routine. You must not let anyone discover any abnormalities.”

Only then did Yan Jiang hastily scrub away his tears with his sleeve before struggling to his feet, his limbs still weak and unsteady. He retreated several steps, hesitated for a long time, and then spoke hesitantly again, “Previously… I would go to the neighboring village market every day to set up a stall and sell calligraphy and paintings.”

“For how long?”

“…Set off in the early morning, and return only at dusk.”

The scholar was terrified of this ghost. Although it was the truth, his voice inevitably grew quieter as he spoke, deeply afraid that the other party would suddenly break out in violence the next second.

To his surprise, the Ghost King merely nodded upon hearing this. “Then you may go.”

Yan Jiang hurriedly complied.

Just as he was about to let out a sigh of relief, he heard the other party sneer and add, “No matter what happens, you must return here before dark. You had better not dream of taking the opportunity to escape.”

The moment the words left his mouth, the first ray of morning sunlight peeked over the ridge of the mountain, dyeing the sky with a layer of holy light. Day had broken.

Compared to the unknown darkness, light always brought humans a greater sense of security. Yan Jiang’s chaotic mind finally found a sliver of reassurance, and his emotions also managed to struggle for air from the quagmire of fear. He quietly raised his eyes and saw that the ghost’s face was turning paler and paler as the sun rose. Within moments, his body could no longer maintain its human form, and black mist gradually spilled out in all directions, becoming thin and blurred.

With a wave of his hand, Yan Jiang’s arms suddenly went empty; the small wooden box he had been carrying with him for the past few days appeared out of thin air in the other party’s palm. The meager amount of copper coins and broken silver fell all over the floor with a clinking sound. One of the copper coins spun and rolled to his feet, topping over right after bumping into his bare toes. Yan Jiang cast a downward glance, aching for his coins but not daring to pick it up rashly.

“Find a cold and dark place for this venerable one.” The Ghost King’s command drifted through the light.

Yan Jiang’s peripheral vision only caught a glimpse of a black shadow slipping into the wooden box. With a soft click, the box snapped shut and landed on that luxurious purple wood chair, which looked completely out of place in the destitute room.

Looking around once more, the ghost was no longer anywhere to be seen. Yan Jiang swallowed hard, his heart pounding wildly. He carefully approached the wooden box; even before making any contact, he could already feel the bone-chilling cold radiating from within.

The Ghost King was resting inside—this realization terrified him to no end.

He wanted to run again, but when he turned and saw his parents’ pair of spirit tablets, his fleeting courage turned into tears that rolled onto the floor, never to be found again. Not even daring to sob aloud, Yan Jiang eventually forced himself to pull aside the bed boards. Gathering his courage, he picked up the wooden box from the chair and lowered it into the concealed compartment beneath the bed, hiding it together with the small inheritance his parents had left him.

The wooden box remained dead silent, offering no objections.

Only then did Yan Jiang feel like he had survived this nightmare.

Yet he did not dare to rest. In a frantic rush, he cleaned up the mess filling the room, tidied himself up a bit, and hurriedly left the house carrying his book basket filled with paper and brushes. He was still going to set up his stall; previously it was to make a living, but now it was merely a mechanical execution of the ghost’s command. Perhaps because his heart was so heavy, he was even drenched in sweat by the time he reached the market, looking exactly as if he had been pursued all the way there.

A few slightly familiar vendors nearby asked a few casual questions, and Yan Jiang brushed them off by making an excuse that he had been sick for the past few days and was still a bit weak. The auntie selling rice cake at the street corner approached with a family letter tucked in her clothes, asking the scholar to read it to her as usual. The bustling market was boisterous with people shouting and bargaining; Yan Jiang no longer found it noisy, but rather felt a sense of warmth from it. He finally enjoyed a fleeting moment of relief, and his tense spine also relaxed slightly.

In the blink of an eye, the evening sun began to sink.

When entering the village entrance, he ran into the crazy old woman of the Huang family again. The old woman was dancing on the village road while babbling, laughing, and shouting. Catching sight of the scholar from afar, she came to a sudden, rigid halt, staring straight at him before breaking into a hair-raising smile.

Yan Jiang lowered his head and bypassed her from a wide distance.

A household by the roadside had built a shed for their chicken coop over the past few days. The leftover bamboo strips had not yet been cleared away and piled messily in front of the house. In other houses, people were lighting fires and cooking meals. He walked past one household after another. Although the village scenery remained exactly as it had always been, he instinctively sensed that something about the atmosphere had changed, like the final moment of clarity before death or the eerie calm before disaster strikes.

When he reached home, he had to fully prepare himself psychologically before daring to push the door open. Yet, when the dilapidated wooden door swung open, Yan Jiang was still startled into taking a large step backward.

Looking up, he saw that the house remained unchanged, its walls still made of mud mixed with thatch, with patches of red and yellow mud plastered here and there. The entire thatched cottage had grown hideously ugly through years of exposure to the wind and sun, making one wonder if a strong gust of wind could blow it down.

Inside, however, the house had been transformed into a completely different space, with stone floor tiles, lacquered walls, and a tiled roof. Every piece of furniture had been replaced with luxurious, opulent items; the entire room was glittering with gold and jewels. Yan Jiang stole a hasty glance; any single item he saw could cover his food and clothing for a lifetime.

His first reaction was to quickly slip inside like a thief and turn around to shut the door.

He set his book basket down by the doorway, walked through the small parlor, and went around the four-panel flower-and-bird screen at the entrance to the bedroom. Sure enough, he found that his own room had also undergone a complete overhaul. In place of the broken platform originally pieced together from a few long wooden planks stood a wide mulberry-wood bed, draped on the outside with shark-silk curtains and furnished inside with silk quilts and pillows. Even the small hooks holding the curtains back were inlaid with jewels.

Under the twilight sun, the Ghost King leaned lazily against the head of the bed, studying the scroll in his hand. Only when he heard the scholar fearfully call out “My Lord” did he leisurely look toward the doorway. “This house of yours is simply too dilapidated. Considering that this venerable one has to stay here for a period of time, it is truly a miserable grievance.”

Yan Jiang mumbled, at a loss for words. Shi Xiao hooked his finger, and like a puppy, he obediently let himself be summoned close to the bedside.

…The only thing to be thankful for was that this Ghost King, despite being a creature of yin and evil, still maintained a basic human appearance and was not too terrifying. Nervous, Yan Jiang could not help but let his mind wander.

“Do you recognize this object?” Shi Xiao flipped the scroll in his hand and asked in a lazy voice.

Yan Jiang looked up and found it somewhat familiar. Out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly noticed several yellowed pages scattered across the footstool at the foot of the bed. With a jolt, he finally remembered that these were the things he had hidden under the bed boards. They were supposed to be wrapped tightly in many layers of oiled paper and were part of the inheritance left behind by his father.

Before his passing, his father had mentioned nothing else but specifically instructed that this scroll must be well preserved. When he achieved success and fame in the future, it should be hung in the Yan Clan Ancestral Hall to be enshrined alongside the High Ancestor and continue to be passed down to future generations.

Yan Jiang snapped his head up.

“What? You haven’t seen it?” The Ghost King twitched his face, putting on a sinister smile.

Seeing that the scholar looked as though the sky had fallen and did not answer, he did not get angry either. He untied the outer string and slowly unrolled the yellowed scroll toward the human.

Yan Jiang widened his eyes while watching the Ghost King’s movements. He truly had never seen it, because his father had never allowed him to.

It turned out to be a portrait.

The person in the painting had his black hair tied up high with a half-smile lingering on his lips as he looked askance toward a distant snow-capped mountain, revealing the beautiful lines of his nose bridge and jawline. Dressed in military attire, with the red tassel on his long spear fluttering gently in the wind, he looked every bit the spirited and dashing young general.

One could tell the artist had poured his heart into the painting; using only the simplest outlines, he had captured the person lifelike. Even though the painting paper had yellowed in spots over the years, it could not take away an ounce of brilliance from the person in the drawing.

Yan Jiang stared fixedly at the scroll, but his legs suddenly gave way, sending him crashing to his knees as his kneecaps struck the footstool of the mulberry-wood bed with a heavy thud.

The person in that painting… actually looked exactly the same as the Ghost King right in front of his eyes.

The only difference was that the eyes in the painting were still normal black and white, making him look like a vivid, living person, rather than the dead soul currently before him.

“Your Yan family has certainly broadened this venerable one’s horizons.” Shi Xiao turned the painting back to himself, looking it up and down with great interest as if he were looking not at himself, but at someone else. “This venerable one still remembers that this painting was personally done by Yan Huaizhi back then. Later on, it was also with these very hands that he harmed and killed me at the northern border, thousands of miles away from home.”

Yan Huaizhi was an ancestor of Yan Jiang from who knew how many generations back, occupying the very first slot on the first page of the Yan clan genealogy. It was said he used to be a high-ranking official in the imperial court.

“Did he want to remind the generations of the Yan family’s descendants that their own ancestor was an ungrateful murderer by leaving this scroll behind?”

Yan Jiang drew in a sharp breath of cold air. Overwhelmed by an indescribable panic and shock, he looked up in disbelief, meeting Shi Xiao’s gaze.