Electrolux rolled his eyes at him and said to Lin Yun,
"Cut the crap. If that were really the case, you'd have been shaken to death by the aftershock already."
Lin Yun rolled his eyes at him and demanded inside the Sea of Consciousness,
"Neither this nor that, so what the hell are you trying to say?"
Electrolux replied,
"This thing doesn't seem to be theirs. It looks more like they're being forcibly kept in this state."
"That's because neither their souls nor their bodies contain any energy of a similar origin. Instead, there's a layer of powerful, incomprehensible power of the dead around the very outside, like a shell."
Lin Yun suddenly grew a little worried and said,
"Then the liquor I just used shouldn't cause any problems, right?"
Electrolux said,
"No need to worry about that. All the nonliving things here are normal."
Lin Yun headed back to the city gate.
Since there was nothing wrong with the things inside, that meant not everyone was unable to leave like he was.
Lin Yun watched the city gate, and sure enough, the other people had no trouble entering and leaving.
They didn't even look the slightest bit oppressed.
Something suddenly tapped Lin Yun on the shoulder.
Lin Yun turned around at once and saw a young man who looked to be around thirty, wearing frog-eyed glasses and smiling brightly at him.
"Little brother, are you from out of town?"
Lin Yun warily sized him up, took a step back, and said,
"I am. What about it?"
"What a coincidence. So am I, though I got here a little earlier than you."
Lin Yun narrowed his eyes. The young man said,
"How about we find somewhere else to talk?"
Ten minutes later, Lin Yun and the young man sat at a little barbecue stall. Lin Yun didn't eat any of the food on the table, let alone drink the liquor.
Even though he had actually chosen the place himself.
After the young man took a sip of liquor, Lin Yun spoke up.
"What exactly do you want to say?"
The young man glanced at Lin Yun, then said,
"You're from Shrek Academy, right? With your cultivation, you should be from the Outer Court."
Lin Yun was about to ask what he meant when the young man continued,
"My name is Chu Zhengzhang. My Martial Soul is called the Nether Flower. It's a Martial Soul that cultivates by absorbing the life force of others."
"As you've probably guessed, I'm an Evil Soul Master—and a Four-Ring Soul Ancestor, at that."
Lin Yun set down the cup beside him. He wasn't too panicked, since Electrolux had clearly told him he could win.
"If that's the case, did you come here to kill me?"
Lin Yun asked him in a low voice. Chu Zhengzhang, however, said,
"No. I came to ask you for help."
Lin Yun narrowed his eyes and looked at Chu Zhengzhang.
"You came to ask me for help?"
Lin Yun's expression was just like Liu Haizhu's when he'd said, "You came to me for help?"
Chu Zhengzhang said,
"To be honest, even I think this is ridiculous. But I can't help it—that person ordered me to bring you along. Come with me."
Lin Yun looked at him, then said,
"What if I say no?"
Chu Zhengzhang replied calmly,
"Nothing in particular. But you can forget about leaving. Let me put it this way: the senior Evil Soul Master who brought me here was a Titled Douluo. He'd only recently advanced, but he was still a Titled Douluo—and he was wiped out with a single sentence."
"Just think about what kind of expert could do that. Shrek Academy can't drag you out of this, and you don't look worth them risking their lives to save."
Lin Yun took a deep breath and clicked his tongue.
"If you put it that way, I guess I can go take a look."
Chu Zhengzhang's words had indeed convinced him. If it was a lie—and there was a good chance it was—then it made little sense from Chu Zhengzhang's perspective. He was a Soul Ancestor, while Lin Yun was only a Soul Grandmaster. If he really wanted to kidnap him, there was no need to waste his breath.
If it was true, then Mu En probably wouldn't come to his rescue. Besides, if the other party was that powerful, there wasn't much they could want from him.
It was like a billionaire setting up a starch-sausage stall outside a school.
Lin Yun followed Chu Zhengzhang, turning this way and that, until they soon reached a hill in Flying Star City.
Watching the woods grow denser, Lin Yun furrowed his brow and said to Chu Zhengzhang,
"How much farther? This place is way too damn remote."
Chu Zhengzhang laughed.
"With that filthy mouth of yours, people would believe you if you said you were an Evil Soul Master."
Lin Yun said impatiently,
"I've never been some refined gentleman. To be blunt, I used to live on the edge of life and death. How was I supposed to be elegant when I couldn't even get enough to eat?"
Chu Zhengzhang chuckled, intrigued, and struck up a conversation.
"We've still got a long way to go. Tell me, how did you get into Shrek? I figure your Martial Soul is probably either dark or undead in nature."
Lin Yun said,
"That's a long, tangled story. My family had no money, so my Martial Soul Awakening was put off until I was eleven. Then I happened to run into your lot slaughtering everything in sight, and my whole village was wiped out. I was the only one left."
"Then the people from your lot were swept away by the people from Shrek Academy, and I was picked up. They also helped me awaken my Martial Soul, as an apology for arriving too late. That's how it happened."
"Since it had only just awakened, they didn't kill me, even though it had a dark attribute. They left me at Shrek Academy to see what would happen."
A hint of envy showed in Chu Zhengzhang's eyes.
"It's a shame your parents died, but I envy your legendary life."
Lin Yun narrowed his eyes and answered casually,
"What's there to envy? You seem like you've seen a bit of the world. Why'd you end up joining an Evil Soul Master organization?"
Chu Zhengzhang said,
"Unlike you, I grew up in a wealthy family. To be honest, I'm the son of an Earl in the Dou Ling Empire, and I was the only boy in the entire Earl's Mansion that year."
"During the Awakening Ceremony, my Martial Soul mutated, and I ended up with a dark attribute."
"Although my family did everything they could to keep it quiet, a viscount under my father wanted to climb the ranks, so he exaggerated my situation when reporting it to Shrek Academy."
"Overnight, my father was killed. My mother was forcibly violated by that viscount and took her own life in despair. The viscount took everything my family owned, including my older sister. All of it was made legal in the Dou Ling Empire because of a single word from an elder of Shrek."
"The entire family was wiped out, except for me. My mother shoved me into a secret passage, and I rolled right out of the city."
Lin Yun clicked his tongue, then said,
"I think I've met those elders from Shrek too. They may not all be good people, but surely they wouldn't let that viscount do whatever he wanted to your mother. Who was that guy?"
Chu Zhengzhang shook his head and said to Lin Yun,
"I hadn't started cultivating with my dark attribute yet. I was only level thirteen, so of course I didn't know the other man's name. But I heard them mention the character 'Xuan.'"
Lin Yun nearly burst out laughing. He said to Chu Zhengzhang,
"Then you really drew the short straw—you ran into the most rotten one of them all..."
Before you continue