"Hm? You can talk?"
Li Hai looked at him in surprise. "Then tell me yourself. What exactly are you?"
"Master, I... I... I'm human!"
The Ghost Citizen stammered, "I'm human, really! I'm not a monster!"
As he spoke, he hurriedly pulled away the tangled mass of filthy green hair covering his head, revealing a gaunt, sallow face.
His face was etched with sorrow and hardship, as though simply staying alive had already drained every ounce of strength from him.
Li Hai's attention, however, lingered more on the green-furred cap in the Ghost Citizen's hands, which he had taken off in one piece.
Looking at the rows of rough but clearly hand-sewn stitches inside the cap, Li Hai mused, "The green hair on your head and face is fake. Don't tell me the green fur covering your whole body is fake too."
"Master... you, you..."
The Ghost Citizen knelt on the ground, stammering as he replied. In a few quick motions, he stripped off his damp, thick green-fur suit, revealing a skinny man wearing nothing but worn-out clothes.
From his appearance, he was indeed human—and a sickly, sallow man with weak blood and energy. It wasn't quite right to say he couldn't even truss a chicken, but anyone who'd learned a couple of moves could probably beat him to death.
Curious about how the Ghost Citizens had come into being, Li Hai asked again, "What's your name?"
Hearing the question, the Ghost Citizen answered obediently, "This humble one... is called Zheng Dashan."
"Good. Zheng Dashan, in this creek..."
Li Hai shifted his gaze to Turbid Creek and said calmly, "There's more than just you, isn't there?"
Zheng Dashan's body quivered. "Th-there are also my family members."
"Then take me to see them."
Li Hai spoke calmly. "I'm curious how a whole group of living people could be hiding in a creek full of sand and stones."
Through Ghost and Monster Seeking and his ability to observe qi, he could clearly sense several more presences, neither human nor ghost, slowly emerging from the depths of the creek.
"This... this..." Zheng Dashan clearly had no wish to satisfy Li Hai's curiosity.
"Don't worry." Li Hai softened his tone. "I'm not a bad person. If you've run into some kind of trouble, perhaps I can help."
As he spoke, he took some gleaming silver coins from his pocket and waved them, enticing Zheng Dashan with the promise of a reward.
"All... all right."
Seeing the money, Zheng Dashan gritted his teeth and agreed.
To be honest, even without the lure of money, faced with a man like Li Hai—over two meters tall and built like an ox—in the middle of this deserted wilderness, he wouldn't have had the courage to tell him no.
So Li Hai followed Zheng Dashan into Turbid Creek and swam down toward its depths.
Only after getting into the water himself did he realize the creek wasn't nearly as fast-flowing as it looked. In fact, any child who could swim could have stayed afloat in it for quite some time.
They didn't have to swim for long, either. After going down more than ten zhang to the bottom of the creek, Li Hai followed Zheng Dashan into a pitch-black hole along the creek bed.
They swam diagonally down through the lightless hole for another ten or so zhang. When they reached a stretch of water that was noticeably clearer, Zheng Dashan started swimming upward, and Li Hai followed close behind.
"Zheng Dashan has pretty good breath control."
Watching the figure ahead of him dart upward like a fish, Li Hai thought, It must be thanks to that so-called Adverse Survival skill.
After swimming upward for around twenty zhang, they emerged from a secluded pool inside some unknown karst cave.
"What a fine place."
Looking up at the warm light pouring down from above and the broad, gently sloping rocks all around them, Li Hai couldn't help smiling. "Zheng Dashan, you were lucky to find a place like this. Tell me, what kind of enemy drove you into hiding here?"
In fact, the moment he climbed out of the deep pool, he'd spotted four Ghost Citizens concealed a hundred zhang away in the darkness, too afraid to make a sound.
A woman and three children.
The three children were also pale, but their blood and energy seemed fairly strong. Clearly, they hadn't gone too hungry in their daily lives.
The woman, however, was in much worse shape. Though she seemed to have been quite pretty, her blood and energy were as weak as Zheng Dashan's. And perhaps because she hadn't seen the sun in so long, she too looked withered and gaunt.
All told, the four of them and Zheng Dashan were clearly a family of five. What else could have made them live in such a hidden place, if not to escape their enemies?
"Master, we... we..."
Zheng Dashan fell to his knees with a thud. "Our fam... family used to live in Ox-Horn Town, in Zhou Family Fort..."
As he explained, Li Hai gradually learned that Zheng Dashan, his wife, and their three children had run a small inn in Ox-Horn Town.
It was the lowest-grade kind of inn, with only a communal sleeping room and plain noodle soup, and none of the so-called private rooms or meat dishes.
Only poor merchants on the road and itinerant laborers passing through would settle for a night there. Anyone with even a little money would go elsewhere.
So for years, Zheng Dashan's family had barely scraped by, never coming anywhere close to being well-off.
Even so, they were close-knit and happy, and their life had been bearable.
But one night three years ago, a drunk captain from one of the Zhou Family's Civilian Militia squads staggered into the Zheng family's inn with two or three drinking companions. There, he saw Zheng Dashan's wife, who had still been very beautiful back then.
Fueled by alcohol and egged on by his friends, the militia captain's beastly lust took over. He tried to assault the poor woman right there.
Zheng Dashan rushed forward to stop him, but the men beat him to the ground.
Then, just as the man was about to carry out his evil deed, Zheng Dashan grabbed a knife and rushed at him, stabbing him.
The militia captain's injuries were serious, so his friends helped him flee the inn in a panic.
But before he left, the captain made a threat:
"From this day on, I'll make sure your whole family never knows a moment's peace!"
Those words terrified Zheng Dashan's family so badly that they abandoned their inn and fled Ox-Horn Town in the middle of the night.
They were even afraid of being ambushed, so they didn't dare take the main road. Instead, they traveled along a side path for a day and a night, until they escaped into these mountains.
From then on, Zheng Dashan's family of five settled there and stayed hidden for three whole years.
"That's not right."
Beside the deep pool, Li Hai sat cross-legged on the ground and said to Zheng Dashan, "You left something out."
"Th-this..." Zheng Dashan stammered. "This humble one... has said everything he should."
"No, you haven't."
Li Hai spoke slowly. "You didn't say how your family found this hidden karst cave, or how you knew a creek led to it. I suspect someone outside your family must have helped you."
"Uncle helped..."
A hundred zhang away, one of Zheng Dashan's children had barely muttered half the sentence when their mother hurriedly covered the child's mouth.
But it was too late. Li Hai had heard every word.
"Your child said your uncle helped you."
He looked at Zheng Dashan. "Your uncle would be your brother-in-law, wouldn't he? But didn't you just say your family had no other relatives?"
"Ah..."
Zheng Dashan sighed helplessly. "This humble one will tell you the truth now. Please don't blame me, Master. It really was my brother-in-law who helped us—but he isn't my actual brother-in-law. My wife met him in these mountains."
"It's pitch-black in these mountains, and there aren't many living people around."
Li Hai looked perplexed. "Where did you find a relative?"
"Uh, my brother-in-law..."
Zheng Dashan hesitated. "He's actually... a... a ghost."
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