When he came back to his senses, Martial Uncle looked at me and said, "Kid, don't be afraid. This is a good thing—one might not appear even once in several hundred years."
Before I could reply, Martial Uncle added in a jealous tone:
"You little brat really have incredible luck. Something like this actually fell into your lap. Your ancestral graves must be smoking green."
"Oh, no, that's not right. Your ancestral graves exploded, and there's even a hole in them."
What kind of rotten crow's mouth is that? If you don't know how to talk, then don't talk.
But it seemed my family's ancestral graves really had exploded, and there really was a hole in them.
I had seen it when I went home that night, and I still couldn't forget it.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but I always felt that the female ghost looked at me differently now!
There was a feeling in her red eyes that I couldn't describe.
It was like a child looking at a toy she loved dearly, along with something else. In any case, I couldn't put it into words.
I smiled and didn't respond to Martial Uncle's words. Instead, I asked him what we should do next.
Martial Uncle looked at the female ghost and said, "Ask about her origins, and find out exactly what happened here.
"This place is both an underground palace and the Four Symbols Sealing Array. To put it bluntly, a Ghost King is indeed powerful.
"But she isn't powerful enough to warrant using the Four Symbols Sealing Array to suppress her.
"Isn't that like using a cannon to swat a mosquito? It would make more sense if it were suppressing a Ghost Emperor."
Martial Uncle cleared out a spot and sat down. I followed suit and found a place to sit as well.
We looked at the female ghost, and she found a place to sit down too.
Just like that, the three of us—no, two humans and one ghost—sat in a circle.
I took out some dried provisions and water. There were only a few flatbreads, and I handed one to Martial Uncle.
Martial Uncle accepted it and began eating. I ate as well, watching the female ghost while preparing to hear her tell us what had happened here.
Who would have thought that the female ghost would suddenly say, "Give this king one too."
My mouth fell open, and my flatbread dropped to the ground. After recovering, I asked, "Aren't you a ghost? Ghosts eat too?"
Martial Uncle said I was making a fuss over nothing. Strictly speaking, she no longer counted as a ghost.
Or rather, she had transcended ghosts. She could take physical form and wasn't afraid of sunlight.
I was shocked! Then I took another flatbread and handed it to her. She accepted it and said, "Thank you!"
Then she began taking small bites, eating with immense enjoyment. She even said she hadn't tasted food in several thousand years.
She somehow made a plain flatbread seem like lobster and abalone.
I reckoned even ancient emperors eating a Manchu-Han Imperial Feast would have worn that same expression. I could only admit defeat.
Looking at her now, her face was white in some places and black in others, and she wore an ancient version of a T-shirt.
Her two arms, blackened by fire, were exposed, and she had even lost one shoe.
With her hair hanging loose, she sat there gnawing on flatbread with a blissful expression.
She looked pitiful beyond measure. The more I looked, the more she resembled a beggar!
A dignified Ghost King! At least a tyrant ruling one side. I wanted to laugh, but I didn't dare. I knew this woman was not someone to provoke.
Who could have guessed what terrifying power lay hidden beneath her pitiful appearance?
If it were someone else, they probably wouldn't have imagined it without fighting her first.
I picked up the flatbread that had fallen to the ground, blew off the dust, and continued eating.
When the female ghost saw that, she actually gave me an approving look.
I was a little afraid of her, so I edged closer to Martial Uncle. Call me cowardly if you wanted—I was genuinely scared of her.
Even now, the aftershock of that palm strike still filled me with dread.
Seeing me avoid her like that, a trace of sorrow seemed to pass through her eyes.
Then, with sorrow in her eyes, she said, "More than a thousand years ago, I was the legitimate daughter of an official family.
"My surname was Nangong, my given name was Yiyi, and my courtesy name was Zezhi.
"From childhood, I was well versed in poetry and books, the Four Books and Five Classics. As for the qin, chess, calligraphy, and painting, I could wield them at will.
"My father held a high office, serving as the prime minister of the court. He toiled for the nation all his life, bowing to the utmost and exhausting himself to the very end.
"Later, due to his advanced age, he submitted a memorial requesting to resign from his post as prime minister and return home to enjoy his remaining years in peace.
"His Majesty repeatedly tried to keep him, but my father's mind was made up. After many failed attempts at persuasion, His Majesty had no choice but to approve it.
"As he departed, His Majesty bestowed countless treasures of gold, silver, and jewels upon him.
"My father repeatedly declined, but an imperial command could not be defied, so he had no choice but to accept.
"Yet my father had always been indifferent to fame and fortune. He took only a small portion of the wealth.
"He distributed most of it among commoners and impoverished refugees in batches, then left the capital with his family and servants.
"When we passed through Lin'an Village, the sky had already grown dark, so we wished to find a household where we could stay for the night.
"We planned to leave at daybreak the next day, but who could have known this place was a dragon's pool and tiger's den?
"My father and the more than eighty people traveling with me all met with disaster that night, our corpses strewn throughout the village.
"Before I died, those villains even stole my chastity.
"In the end, my body was discarded in this cave behind the mountain. Perhaps Heaven pitied me, for there was a Yin Well within this cave.
"I cultivated by this well and became a Ghost King, thinking that one day, when I got out, I would slaughter the descendants of those villains until not a single piece of armor remained."
As she spoke, the female ghost's eyes turned scarlet, and the aura around her rose steadily.
I hurriedly told her not to get worked up. Only then did the female ghost slowly calm down.
I thought it over myself. The general meaning was that several thousand years ago, she had been the prime minister's daughter.
She was the daughter born to that prime minister father of hers and his first wife. Her name was Nangong Yiyi, and her childhood name was Zezhi.
Zezhi was an elegant name for "lotus." From childhood, she had been literate and learned, and she was especially skilled at the qin, chess, calligraphy, and painting.
One day, her father no longer wanted to be prime minister. He no longer wanted to work for the emperor.
So he went to resign from the emperor, saying that he was done. He had worked all his life and could no longer keep going.
He wanted to go home and retire, but the emperor didn't want her father to leave.
After trying to persuade him several times without success, the emperor simply couldn't outstubborn the old man and approved it.
When he left, the emperor even rewarded her father with a great deal of gold, silver, and jewels.
But her father distributed most of the gold, silver, and jewels bestowed by the emperor among poor families.
He kept only a small portion to take home as retirement money.
When they passed through Lin'an Village, it grew dark, so they planned to stay in the village for one night.
That night, the people in the village—or rather, bandits—
killed her, her father, and everyone with them, then stole the gold, silver, and treasures the emperor had bestowed upon her father.
Then they did that to her too—you know, that thing—and finally threw her corpse into this cave behind the mountain.
She discovered a Yin Well here and cultivated using the yin energy inside it.
She cultivated until she became a Ghost King, then planned to go out and kill every last descendant of those villagers to avenge her blood-deep hatred.
This was probably more or less what Martial Uncle's "master" had said before, except this time, she was telling it herself.
Then Martial Uncle asked the female ghost, "What happened afterward? What happened next?
"And how did you end up trapped here, unable to leave?"
Upon hearing that, the female ghost replied, "There is another existence here, one even more powerful than I am.
"I never discovered him while cultivating here before. Then one day, he woke up.
"After that, we fought a great battle here, fighting until the sky darkened and the earth dimmed.
"In the end, he was a notch stronger than me. Afterward, he cultivated here and even controlled the corpses above, eating them.
"Of course, what he ate was the flesh on those corpses that still had elasticity and moisture.
"A while ago, he seemed to have made a breakthrough. After that, he kept searching for a way out.
"Because there is an extremely powerful array above. That array has been here for many years, and no one knows who set it up.
"It was because of that array that I was trapped here for so many years, unable to leave.
"He tried as well, but he still couldn't get out. But one day, the array seemed to loosen a little."
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