Purple Lightning Thunder Seal

Three days later, the scruffy Daoist returned, covered in blood, with one arm nearly severed. Wang Shouyi continued, saying that the three were remnants of the Youming Sect who specialized in finding children with special constitutions and refining them into ghost slaves. Because Wang Yun had been born on an unusual birthday and possessed naturally yin eyes, she was precisely what they had dreamed of...

An unusual birthday? Ye Yun sharply grasped the key point.

Born in a yin year, yin month, yin day, and yin hour. Wang Shouyi smiled bitterly. As strange as it sounded, on the night Wang Yun was born, the cats and dogs in the mansion howled all night, while the well water inexplicably boiled... The midwife said this was an inauspicious sign and urged his father to drown the baby. But out of consideration for his own flesh and blood, his father merely moved Wang Yun and her mother to the most remote western side room...

Ye Yun understood. A Four-Yin Constitution combined with naturally yin eyes was indeed an ideal material for cultivating evil arts. The Youming Sect cultivators must have used some method to prematurely stimulate the yin qi within Wang Yun, causing her to lose her mind and kill her own mother with her bare hands—that was the most crucial step in Youming Ghost Planting: the blood of a close relative.

What happened to that Daoist afterward?

He set up a formation in the western side room and left behind a cultivation manual, saying it could suppress the ferocious ghost Wang Yun had become. Wang Shouyi gestured for Wang Fu to bring over a red sandalwood box. After finishing all this, he... passed away in meditation. Before dying, he said that unless someone mastered the Purple Lightning Thunder Seal he had left behind, the Wang family's descendants were never to approach that well...

Wang Fu nervously carried over the wooden box. When it was opened, it contained a thin booklet. Four large characters, Purple Lightning Thunder Seal, had been written on its cover in cinnabar. The strokes were vigorous, faintly carrying the force of thunder.

Ye Yun had just reached out to take it when he suddenly felt the long saber at his waist tremble violently! A streak of white light shot out from the scabbard and condensed in midair into a blurry humanoid form—it was that woman in white, the female ghost!

Wang Shouyi and Wang Fu cried out simultaneously and scrambled backward on hands and knees.

The female ghost did not attack anyone. She merely floated above the Purple Lightning Thunder Seal, letting out a mournful wail. Her figure alternated between clear and blurred, as if struggling against some invisible force.

Yun... Yun'er? Wang Shouyi called out bravely.

The female ghost's sobbing abruptly stopped. She slowly turned her head. On her deathly pale face, a pair of eyes without any whites stared fixedly at Wang Shouyi. "Big Brother... why... why didn't you save me...?"

Wang Shouyi was struck as if by lightning and collapsed limply into his chair, tears streaming down his aged face. "Yun'er... it really is you... Big Brother is sorry..."

The female ghost's figure drifted erratically in the air, her voice alternating between shrill and fragile. "They... put something inside my body... It hurts... It hurts every day..."

Ye Yun silently circulated his True Martial Gangkqi, ready to strike at any moment. Unexpectedly, however, the female ghost showed no sign of running amok. Instead, she seemed to have recovered part of her sanity and was able to communicate simply.

"Miss Wang," Ye Yun said softly, "can you tell me what those people did to you?"

The female ghost turned toward Ye Yun. A trace of eerie blue flashed through her pitch-black pupils. "They... made me eat... black beads... Then I... couldn't control myself..." Her voice suddenly grew shrill. "Mother! Mother! I didn't mean to!"

As her emotions surged, the yin qi around the female ghost churned violently. The temperature inside the room plummeted, and the water in the teacups instantly froze. Wang Shouyi and Wang Fu shivered from the cold, their lips turning purple.

Ye Yun hurriedly formed hand seals and chanted an incantation. A golden light shot from his fingertip and sank into the female ghost's brow. It was the Soul-Calming Mantra recorded in the True Martial Secret Manual, capable of temporarily stabilizing a yin soul's emotions.

The female ghost gradually calmed down. She lowered her head and looked at her hands—though they could no longer be called hands, but ten bone claws as sharp as blades.

"I... became a monster..." Her voice was filled with despair. "It's so cold in the well... so dark... I want to get out... but I can't..."

Ye Yun's heart stirred. "Was it that Daoist's formation that trapped you?"

The female ghost nodded, then shook her head. "At first... Later... I absorbed something from the bottom of the well... and then I could... occasionally get out..."

"What's at the bottom of the well?" Ye Yun seized the crucial point.

The female ghost's expression suddenly twisted in pain. She clutched her head and let out a piercing shriek. "Something black... something that moves... It's eating me... and helping me too..."

Before her voice faded, her figure suddenly twisted, as if some invisible force were pulling at it. Ye Yun inwardly cursed. This was clearly another consciousness within the female ghost fighting for control!

"Miss Wang! Hold on!" Ye Yun snatched up the Purple Lightning Thunder Seal, quickly flipped to the last page, and asked, "What else did that Daoist say?"

The female ghost struggled and pointed toward a line of tiny writing in the corner of the page. Ye Yun focused his eyes and saw the words: "To plant a ghost through the Youming method, one must use the blood of a close relative as the catalyst and the Yin Sha Land as the furnace. It will mature in thirty years. If the process is incomplete, the Thunder Seal can destroy it."

Thirty years... Ye Yun's heart jolted. It had been exactly thirty years since Wang Yun threw herself into the well! The Youming Sect had calculated the timing and sent Prefect Zhou to collect it!

At that moment, the female ghost suddenly let out a howl unlike anything human. Her entire figure twisted and transformed. Her four limbs stretched out grotesquely, while another hideous face emerged over her own—a face without any features, possessing only a huge, blood-filled mouth!

"Be careful!" Ye Yun shoved the terrified Wang Shouyi aside. His long saber left its scabbard, and golden light blazed upward.

The female ghost—or rather, the thing occupying her body—let out a shrill laugh. "Clever boy... Too bad it's too late! After thirty years of gestation, it has finally matured today! Once I devour this girl's soul, I'll be able to... Ah!"

A streak of purple lightning suddenly shot out from the Purple Lightning Thunder Seal and struck the female ghost between the brows! She let out a mournful scream as the black qi on her body sizzled beneath the purple lightning.

In a flash of inspiration, Ye Yun infused the True Martial Gangkqi into his long saber.

"Miss Wang! Now!" Ye Yun shouted. His saber light descended like thunder from the heavens, cleaving toward the female ghost's crown!

At the critical moment, the hideous face on the female ghost's face suddenly twisted, revealing Wang Yun's original features. With tears in her eyes, she gave Ye Yun a beautiful yet tragic smile. "Thank you..."

The lightning pierced through her body, and the female ghost's figure gradually faded within the dazzling purple-gold radiance. In her final moment, she turned toward Wang Shouyi, who was crying his heart out, and said softly, "Big Brother... I don't blame you anymore..."

The light faded, and the room returned to silence. Only the Purple Lightning Thunder Seal on the floor and the long saber in Ye Yun's hand proved that everything that had just happened was not an illusion.

Wang Shouyi fell to his knees and heavily knocked his head three times against the floor, facing the place where the female ghost had vanished. When he raised his head again, this man in his sixties seemed to have aged another ten years, yet his eyes held a trace of relief.

"Lord Ye..." He rose shakily and took a jade pendant from his chest. "This was Yun'er's favorite possession while she was alive. I've kept it all this time. Now that she has found release, I'll give it to you. Perhaps... it will help you investigate the Youming Sect."

Ye Yun accepted the jade pendant. It was a fine piece of Mutton Fat Jade, with a lotus carved into the front. On the back, however, was an odd symbol—an eye pattern exactly identical to the one on the Bronze Token he had found on Sun Yu's corpse!

"This is..."

"The three Daoists left it behind," Wang Shouyi explained. "They said it was a protective talisman for Yun'er, but in truth... sigh..."

Ye Yun put the jade pendant away, already making plans in his heart. The Youming Sect, the Sun Family, the mysterious powerful family with the surname Quan... These clues were gradually linking together into a huge net.

When he left the Wang Mansion, the setting sun had already sunk toward the west. Ye Yun stood at the entrance and glanced back at the residence shrouded in twilight. Above the ruins of the western side room, a white figure seemed to bow to him from afar before scattering with the wind.

"Rest in peace, Miss Wang," Ye Yun said softly. "I'll settle your grudge along with everything else."

At the end of the long street, Yan Xiao Liu came running over in a hurry, unprecedented gravity on his face. "Brother Ye! Something major has happened! The Sun Family sent a large force. They've already reached the city gates!"

Ye Yun narrowed his eyes, his hand unconsciously pressing against the hilt of his saber. The storm had finally arrived.