Return to Seek Secrets

The fat man before Li Hai, who hailed from the Black Wolf Bandits, and the thin man who had just died a miserable death, were certainly not good people.

Although the two brothers were not skilled in martial arts, possessing only the Force Eruption level of mastery.

Yet, after a round of interrogation, Li Hai learned the truth.

Relying on the fierce reputation and ruthless nature of the Black Wolf Bandits, the number of innocent commoners who had died at the hands of these two actually exceeded the count of two palms.

Consequently, after squeezing every bit of intelligence out of the fat man, Li Hai used a pipe to blow his head apart, leaving only a headless, obese corpse lying on the ground.

As for the martial arts these two practiced... one was Savage Bull Fist, and the other was Iron Fan Palm. Although they were merely farm-boy tricks that could only barely touch the threshold of Force-Qi Circulation at their peak, Li Hai did not look down on them and learned them both.

Because for him right now, learning every extra move was a form of respect for his own life.

This world was too vast, filled with many experts and many secrets, so it was better to be steady; if one could loot, one should loot, and never be picky.

"Setting other things aside for now..."

Li Hai looked down at his own worn-out, coarse cloth clothes and muttered, "This outfit needs to be changed."

Immediately, he began a meticulous search of the various side rooms within the courtyard.

Two quarters of an hour later, Li Hai, now washed up and dressed in new clothes and shoes, appeared in the center of the courtyard.

Aside from the clothing, Li Hai had also discovered quite a bit of wealth in one of the side rooms.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to holed copper coins and gold and silver, the currency of the Jing Dynasty actually included paper banknotes.

However, compared to the paper currency of modern Earth, the banknotes of this world were slightly rougher, and both their face value and size were somewhat larger, resembling silver notes more closely.

Therefore, not wanting to carry too many things on the road, most of the money Li Hai took from here consisted of these Jing Dynasty silver notes rather than copper coins or silver bullion.

"Time to hit the road. Dust to dust, earth to earth."

Standing at the entrance, Li Hai took one last look at the courtyard before tossing his torch far into the yard.

Whoosh!

In an instant, the mountain of oil-soaked firewood piled in the yard was ignited by the torch, and the fire spread rapidly.

Soon, the entire courtyard and the three corpses within were completely engulfed by the raging inferno.

Li Hai, with his back to the blood-red flames, stepped away slowly toward the rising sun.

"Wife~"

"Wife~~"

Just then, a faint calling sound drifted from afar, reaching Li Hai's ears.

He immediately paused his steps, tilted his head to listen, and then, with a slight change in his expression, his figure blurred as he sped rapidly in the direction from which the calls originated.

After traveling over a hundred paces, an extremely handsome figure came into Li Hai's view.

It was... Guo Huaijin in his youth.

"Wife~"

Guo Huaijin walked aimlessly, shouting aloud as he went, "Wife, where are you? Where are you?"

At this moment, he suddenly saw Li Hai standing quietly by the roadside, so his eyes lit up, and he hurriedly stepped forward to bow and ask:

"Brother, have you seen where my wife is?"

"Your wife, you say."

Li Hai countered, "What is her name?"

"Her name is..."

Guo Huaijin paused abruptly, then said in embarrassment, "I... I don't know."

"You don't know?"

Li Hai said, "If you don't even know her name, how are you going to find her?"

"I... I..." Guo Huaijin was lost and bewildered, not knowing how to answer.

"Right."

As if thinking of something, Li Hai asked again, "And you... what is your name?"

"This..."

Guo Huaijin froze instantly, then blankly said, "I... I don't know either."

"Hmm," Li Hai mused, "I think I probably know what you are."

You are... the lingering obsession of Asu left in this world.

With that, Li Hai turned and strode toward the distance, never looking back.

As for Guo Huaijin, after standing blankly on the spot for a while, he seemed to have completely forgotten everything that had just happened, stumbling once more into the depths of the forest, shouting as he ran:

"Wife~"

"Wife, where are you?"

"Won't you come back? Won't you come home with me?"

After being scorched by a monstrous inferno, the Ghost Forest had truly become a land of deathly silence.

All the trees and woods had been charred, carbonized into ash that covered the ground in a thick layer; one step would cause you to sink in, kicking up a cloud of black soot.

Walking across this land of ash, a crunching sound would rise from beneath one's feet, as if Dead Soul were groaning in agony.

At the same time, this ruined Ghost Forest was constantly permeated by a pungent, acrid smell of smoke that made it impossible to breathe.

Yet, in such a harsh environment, Li Hai was moving at a brisk pace without changing his expression.

With the leg strength of his current Steel Sinew Iron Bone Realm, he could cover dozens of zhang every second, and no matter how thick the charred wood blocking his path, it would be smashed and shattered into dust upon impact.

The reason Li Hai had returned to the Ghost Forest was to resolve a question in his heart.

Namely, where exactly did the Evil Spirit Earth Yin Absorption Method that Asu practiced come from?

And within that old house of hers, which only existed within Ghost Eye Vision, was there some kind of secret hidden?

"Finally here."

Beneath the vast Mist Dome, Li Hai gazed into the distance at the pitch-black rocky slope covered in ash, his figure suddenly turning illusory and his complexion deathly pale as he transformed into his ghost form.

Following that, the barren rocky slope underwent a bizarre change within his field of vision.

An ancient house with black tiles appeared out of thin air.

"I hope I can find something."

Muttering this, Li Hai drifted rapidly toward the ancient house.

Before long, he arrived before the mansion's gate.

But before he could push the door open to enter, a crisp, chilling woman's laughter drifted from within the ancient house:

"Hehehehe~"

At the same time, the pitch-black wooden gate before Li Hai creaked open on its own, as if urging him to hurry inside.

"Damn you."

To this, Li Hai laughed and cursed without a hint of fear, "You're a ghost, and I'm not? You're trying to scare a ghost!"

Having said that, he drifted inside, his toes touching the ground while his heels remained suspended in a ghostly manner.

The wooden door slammed shut with a heavy thud.

And at the very moment Li Hai entered this mysterious ghost house, a thin, middle-aged man dressed in Taoist robes and holding a divination banner also arrived outside the ruins of the Ghost Forest.

His brows were tightly furrowed as he stared straight into the depths of the Ghost Forest, muttering to himself while his fingers danced in a calculation:

"The evil energy is soaring to the heavens yet lacks any murky, muddled intent. Truly strange and bizarre; could it be that a clear-headed ghost has actually grown in this nameless land of evil spirits?"

After pondering for a short while, the middle-aged man in Taoist robes pinched a long, narrow yellow paper talisman from his sleeve with two fingers and began to chant.

Whoosh~

After he finished chanting, the yellow talisman ignited without fire between his fingers.

Then, the stranger held his banner in one hand and the talisman in the other, stepping into the pitch-black ruins of the Ghost Forest.