Bottle Ghost Girl

The candlelight flickered like a bean inside, while the night outside was deep and dark. Something let out a few regretful clicks of its tongue, then tiptoed away.

Only then did Stepmother breathe a sigh of relief. She then spread her palms and retrieved the dragonflies that had flown out to scout earlier.

Five had been released, but only three returned.

Those two were not destroyed by Old Qian.

Night was always full of danger. If Stepmother had been even slightly careless just now, this fight would not have ended here.

Lin Wanmo sensed at least three hidden, prying wills.

Xu Yuan checked his Three-eyed Firearm. The secret mechanism Cannon Powder was for the crafted bronze cannon, and it was overheating after three shots.

Xu Yuan felt a pang of regret. After changing the Cannon Powder, the power of this Artisan Cultivator-made creation had increased significantly, but its lifespan would likely be greatly shortened.

Setting the hand cannon aside for the moment, Xu Yuan began searching Old Qian's corpse—Lin Wanmo knew why this brat could bring back so much money when she saw him quickly pull dozens of copper coins from Old Qian's purse.

"How could this old geezer be so stingy!" Xu Yuan grumbled.

After searching Old Qian from head to toe, he only found a few dozen copper coins!

Lin Wanmo glanced at the corpse and said, "He isn't old at all, at most thirty-five. The decrepit appearance you see is because he was exposed to too many Yin souls. Even Divine Cultivators cannot do so without restraint."

Old Qian was obsessed with soul refining, indulging in it so much that his Divine Cultivator level progressed rapidly, earning him the Master's favor.

But it also damaged his body. Even if Xu Yuan hadn't killed him, he wouldn't have lived for more than five years.

The Master had bestowed a lot of wealth upon him, all of which he used to research soul refining. He possessed nothing else and lived a life of basic sustenance.

Xu Yuan searched him again and found a small booklet.

Opening it, he saw it contained all of Old Qian's cultivation insights. This was essentially his journal, where he recorded any gains from experiments and new ideas as they came to him.

If a Divine Cultivator obtained this, they could easily become the next "Old Qian."

And they wouldn't have to pay the price of their body deteriorating like Old Qian did.

For Divine Cultivators, it was priceless.

But it wasn't of much use to Xu Yuan and Stepmother.

The booklet also had three pages specifically detailing several Divine Cultivator methods. One of them was called the "Divine Skin Technique," which used one's own "True Spirit" to greatly enhance the defensive capabilities of the body's skin.

The foundation of Divine Cultivator cultivation was to strengthen one's "True Spirit."

Xu Yuan didn't know if Old Qian had used the "Divine Skin Technique" at the last moment—even if he had, he couldn't withstand three shots.

Stepmother flipped through the booklet and returned it to Xu Yuan: "Put it away for now. If you meet a friendly Divine Cultivator later, you can sell it for a good price."

Old Qian had nothing else on him; his only remaining possessions were those jars and bottles.

Xu Yuan then remembered that he had captured a "Bottle Ghost" from Qiao Zi'ang's study and had kept it in the room without examining it.

Xu Yuan opened a ceramic jar. A piercing shriek that stabbed the soul erupted from within, and a cloud of black sand sprayed out, solidifying into a ferocious ghost with a human body and a scorpion's tail in the room!

Its two eyes were blood-red, and four black fangs dripped with greedy saliva from its mouth.

Just as it was about to unleash its ferocity, it saw a short sword burning with Inner Fire waiting before its brow.

This was an Eighth Stream "Xian Ghost." It was the vengeful soul of someone who died tragically in the mountains, fused with some nascent spirits of mountain monsters—a peculiar entity.

Feeling the terrifying heat before its brow, it knew it couldn't withstand it if the sword were plunged in.

So, the Xian Ghost obediently retracted its body, dissolving back into a cloud of sand with a poof, and willingly returned to the jar.

It even flicked a small sand tail and closed the lid itself.

Xu Yuan nodded in satisfaction: "This one knows its place."

Then, Xu Yuan opened another jar.

This jar was the largest and most "exquisite" among Old Qian's collection of jars and bottles.

It was a blue and white porcelain jar, about three feet tall.

When Xu Yuan opened the lid, a little girl's head suddenly emerged from inside!

Lin Wanmo glanced into the jar and cursed, "This man deserved to die!"

The girl's limbs had been severed and forced into the bottle. Old Qian's method was different from the usual "fairy in a bottle" tricks found in the martial world.

After her limbs were severed and she was forced into the jar, she was fed for a period. The girl was already in immense pain, and Old Qian then stuffed various poisonous insects into the jar.

These insects gnawed at the girl's body day and night.

Unable to escape or evade, the girl was eventually eaten alive, dying horribly in the bottle.

Old Qian then sealed the jar with a secret technique, refining the girl's vengeful soul with countless poisonous insects!

Who knew whose daughter she was, to suffer such a calamity and be ravaged by him.

This kind of "Bottle Ghost Girl" was filled with immense resentment and carried terrifying poison, making her Old Qian's most powerful Yin Soldier.

As soon as the girl's head emerged from the bottle, her eyes bled, and her mouth opened into fangs, lunging to bite Xu Yuan.

Behind the child's head grew a long, serpentine neck!

Xu Yuan forced her back with Inner Fire and closed the lid, unsure for the moment how to deal with this Yin creature.

Lin Wanmo said, "Refine it and help her transcend. In her current state, her incomplete soul has to endure the gnawing of poisonous insect souls every day. It's truly... too tragic."

Xu Yuan nodded, took a deep breath, twisted his Inner Fire into a thin thread, lifted the lid a crack, and sent the thread of fire in.

After a moment, he opened the lid again. A wisp of curling green smoke rose from the jar.

The smoke formed threads, swirling and drifting before slowly dissipating.

Its form gave off a sense of relief and liberation.

Xu Yuan sighed inwardly, but his mood wasn't particularly bright.

Xu Yuan opened all the remaining jars and bottles. They contained various vengeful spirits and Yin Soldiers, eleven in total.

The Stepmother pushed the clay jars towards Xu Yuan. "Food for them."

Xu Yuan froze. "All of them?"

"All of them!" Lin Wanmo wished she could personally go out and capture more for Xu Yuan to refine into Outer Pills, to significantly boost his strength.

The moment that kid rushed out earlier, Lin Wanmo knew he wouldn't be able to "stay put" in the future.

If his strength wasn't enough, the Stepmother truly couldn't rest easy.

However, among these Yin Soldiers were several disgusting creatures like the "Corpse Water Monsters," and Xu Yuan found it a bit hard to stomach.

Lin Wanmo didn't force him. She merely went and sat beneath Xu Huanyang's spirit tablet, wiping away tears that might or might not have been there. She said mournfully, "Oh, Old Xu, you've only been gone a few days, and the child is already disobeying me. What's the point of me living? I might as well join you..."

Veins throbbed on Xu Yuan's forehead. Isn't this going a bit too far?

She's really putting on a show! Just as expected of the Proprietor of the old theater.

Three chapters today, please vote with your monthly tickets!