VL Chapter8

Shi Xiao thus settled down in Yan Jiang’s shabby little cottage. One human and one ghost sharing a single roof, barely maintaining a strange master-servant relationship. During the day, Yan Jiang went out to make a living, while at night upon returning home, it was Shi Xiao’s turn to go out, speaking at most a few words to each other at dusk and dawn.

After a few days, Yan Jiang’s trembling, fearful heart finally found a bit of breathing room alongside the stability of daily life. Although the Ghost King was not easy to get along with, he at least maintained a human form in front of him, and no horrors like their initial encounter occurred again.

The only strange thing was that every morning upon returning, he carried a more or less metallic scent of blood on him. Yan Jiang wondered about this for many days before realizing it was because the Ghost King’s back was seeping blood. Staining his black clothing made it rather inconspicuous, requiring a close look to notice a darker patch of color.

Observing the Ghost King further, he also caught a trace of weakness in his expression.

Not being of the same kind, Yan Jiang was unable to foster feelings of concern for him atop his dread, feeling merely uneasy. Whether it was cowardice or simply spinelessness, he knew better than to pry into the Ghost King’s affairs, so he kept his mouth shut and pretended he knew nothing.

Every morning before going out, when offering incense before his parents’ spirit tablets, he would also dutifully light a thick stick of incense for the Ghost King and respectfully place it at the head of the bed. The curling white smoke would then spontaneously seep into the scroll possessed by the Ghost King as if it had a life of its own.

This was at Shi Xiao’s request. Human incense offerings and worship were a form of faith as well, capable of replenishing ghost power for departed souls; though it was not much, it was better than nothing.

His healing made zero progress over these days. Yet hiding in the human realm was ultimately not a long-term solution either. On one hand, the Underworld was currently without a ruler, and there was no telling how chaotic the traitor would make it. On the other hand, if Gui Feng mastered the Ghost Realm and then came to the human realm seeking him, this usurpation struggle would inevitably spill over into the human realm, bringing disaster upon it.

Shi Xiao was no benevolent soul, yet having served as Ghost King for so many years after all, he naturally held his own considerations regarding the balanced coexistence of the Three Realms. He also understood Gui Feng; the man had gone obsessed mad just to kill him, not caring in the least if he dragged both the human realm and the Ghost Realm down with him.

Therefore, he needed to utilize every available resource to restore his strength so he could return to the Underworld as quickly as possible. Unaware of the complex twists behind all this, Yan Jiang assumed the Ghost King was simply being extravagant, using sacrificial incense as sleeping incense. However, with no choice but obedience, he begrudgingly shelled out silver he previously couldn’t bear to spend to buy thick incense to light it daily for this living King of Hell.

As the sun began to sink, black mist trickled out from the scroll, dispersing casually before condensing into a human skin shell by the bed within a split second. Shi Xiao retained that imposing demeanor of natural authority with his hair tied high, clad in black robes adorned with red patterns and gold trim. The bloodstains from the night before had vanished from his abdomen and back, while his wide sleeves spread across the bedding, giving him an opulent yet mysterious appearance.

It happened to coincide with Yan Jiang returning from closing his stall. Entering the bedroom, he greeted this short-tempered King of Hell. Shi Xiao nodded without opening his mouth.

Sitting upright in the shadows, he pinched a burnt-out incense stick from the burner beside the bed and held it before his eyes for a close inspection with a thoughtful expression on his face.

This house was indeed too small.

A folding screen blocked the doorway, and the only tiny, shabby window was sealed tight by the massive wardrobe. It was so airtight it felt like a coffin. The moment the scholar stepped inside, the scent unique to a living soul completely filled the space. It wasn’t overly fragrant; rather plain, much like the scholar himself. Yet within that plainness lurked a faint, subtle sweet aroma, indistinct, hazy, and ambiguous.

It made one long to stuff him into one’s mouth and savor every detail.

Ever since his physical body had perished and he opened his eyes as a ghost, Shi Xiao had been one for more than a thousand years, roughly speaking, yet this was the first time such an intense impulse had ever surged within him. He was deliberately suppressing himself, but as time went on, that desire grew stronger and stronger, to the point of burning his heart.

He knitted his brows, the expression on his face darkening ominously.

As long as his injuries showed no sign of improvement, his ghost energy would bleed away day by day. Unable to sustain such consumption, his ghost body was driven by the most primitive instincts, urging him to devour living souls.

“My Lord?” Yan Jiang stood stiffly at the doorway, not daring to step forward.

The moment he spoke, the aroma in the room grew even richer, relentlessly drilling its way into the nose of the Ghost King, who didn’t even need to breathe. Shi Xiao endured it time and time again until, at a certain moment, he suddenly snapped his eyes open, black mist surging behind him.

He hooked his finger toward the doorway, leaving Yan Jiang with no choice but to walk forward obediently with trembling hands and legs.

In the dim bedroom, the scholar’s rough white cloth robe stood out conspicuously. As usual, he came to a stop a pace away. Before he could make out what was happening, Shi Xiao’s hand shot out with blinding speed, seizing the scholar’s wrist with force. With a quick tug and a sudden gasp, the man fell to his knees on the footstool beside his legs.

The soul aroma surged. Shi Xiao took a deep breath, feeling what little ghost energy remained in his body come to a boil, partying and roaring within. He reached out to touch the crown of Yan Jiang’s head, applying a slight pressure that caused the human’s eyes to widen in terror, not daring to move a muscle.

Taking this living soul would require no more effort than a blink of an eye.

But he couldn’t.

A living soul was a ghost’s opium; once he began, he would inevitably grow addicted and bound to bring about a catastrophic disaster sooner or later.

Shi Xiao was still locked in combat with the overpowering appetite of his body, yet the more he restrained himself, the more intensely his ghost form churned with craving for the living soul.

A dangerous atmosphere filled the air. Yan Jiang finally sensed that something was amiss; petrified with fear, his body grew tense and rigid. Opening his mouth, it took a long moment to recover his trembling voice, “M-My Lord, did this humble one do something wr—”

Before he could finish his flattering words, he was cut off abruptly.

A crimson light suddenly flickered in Shi Xiao’s eyes, his expression contorting menacingly for a fraction of a second. Before Yan Jiang could even react, he felt the hand atop his head curl into a claw, gripping the roots of his hair tightly and wrenching his head backward, forcing him to tilt his face up.

Groaning in pain, he saw the Ghost King had already bent down and was face-to-face with him.

“You smell much tastier than those brutes.”

Like the temperature of his ghost form, Shi Xiao’s voice was frigid. With his other hand, he pinched the scholar’s cheeks from below, forcing the dazed scholar, who had forgotten to struggle, to open his mouth. Tilting his head to avoid their noses bumping together, he leaned his lips forward with an indifferent expression.

The collision of icy and warm body temperatures mirrored a gesture about to kiss, yet it halted barely a millimeter apart.

Shi Xiao’s handsome lips parted slightly, his tongue curling upward. Though there was clearly no physical contact, it was as if he had hooked something invisible out of the human’s mouth, drawing it over the tip of his tongue into his mouth to savor for a moment before swallowing it down into his stomach.

With his action, a wave of sudden weakness surged from Yan Jiang’s lower abdomen, spreading through his entire body.

Exhaustion overwhelmed his frame, leaving him too drained to support himself. The moment the Ghost King’s grip loosened, he slumped heavily to one side, leaning weakly against the edge of the bed. Darkness swam before his eyes, preventing him from seeing the other party’s satisfied, narrowed-eye expression.

Shi Xiao did not consume living souls, so as a compromise, he had extracted three-tenths of his soul energy instead.

Humans possessed soul bodies, and soul bodies generated soul energy; simply put, soul energy was the vital energy humans expended for daily activities, replenished through eating and resting. Although the soul energy provided to a ghost could not compare to that of an entire soul body, its advantage was that it was inexhaustible. More importantly, absorbing soul energy would not lead to soul-devouring addiction.

Perhaps due to his frail constitution, Yan Jiang’s soul energy was faint and weak. Yet upon closer tasting, it naturally carried a unique fragrance. Though Shi Xiao took merely three-tenths of the amount, it temporarily placated the turmoil within his body, proving even more effective than expected.

As the moon gradually rose, Shi Xiao felt the wound piercing through his abdomen and back grow faint with warmth, and his mood finally improved slightly. Glancing at the scholar beside him, he lifted him up before his eyes with one hand, “I merely consumed three-tenths of your soul energy, and you’re reduced to such a weak state?”

Yan Jiang’s eyelids drooped heavily with sleep. He heard the question but lacked the strength to answer.

After a bout of dizziness, his sluggish mind finally caught up, only to realize that beneath him was soft and comfortable; he was lying upon the Ghost King’s lavish, luxurious bed.

“Rest well.”

Forcing his eyes open to look at the Ghost King, he could only make out a tall, upright silhouette that slowly blurred into a cloud of black mist before disappearing completely into the darkness in the blink of an eye.

…….

Still in that uninhabited forest, Shi Xiao sat cross-legged beneath the moonlight, once again attempting to circulate his ghost energy.

The wound piercing through his abdomen and back was like a leak on a teapot, relentlessly draining his ghost energy day in and day out over these past days. Consuming the soul’s energy had initially been a sudden whim, yet the moment it entered his abdomen, he discovered to his surprise that this soul’s energy showed not the slightest sign of being swallowed up by the wound.

—It must be because the Tengjiao Dagger could only harm ghosts while remaining harmless to humans and immortals; thus, when a human’s soul’s energy drew near the wound, it wasn’t instantly sucked away.

Shi Xiao attached his own ghost energy onto the soul energy, then routed it to the wound inflicted by the Tengjiao Dagger. Sure enough, it was no longer instantly swallowed up. The ghost energy successfully adhered to the cut surface of the wound, weaving a fraction of new skin.

This was an unexpected, pleasant surprise, and it served to confirm the hypothesis he had formed when he first arrived.

As long as he had enough soul energy…

After finishing a cycle of circulating his aura, Shi Xiao opened his eyes and glanced at the sky before dawn. He rose to his feet at a leisurely pace, stroking the feathers of the raven on his shoulder in a rare, good mood.

After all, the Yan family owed him a life.

Sparing the scholar’s life was already an act of great mercy; taking a little insignificant compensation in return was hardly something to feel guilty about.