Journey to the Ancient Ruins

In a desolate forest far from the beaten path outside Stone Creek Town.

Li Hai stood with his hands behind his back, eyeing the benevolent-looking old man before him with a sneer. "Zhou Yugen, oh Zhou Yugen, you look like a decent human being, so why is it that you don't act like one?"

The old man—none other than Zhou Yugen—stared at Li Hai in terror, forcing a smile as he asked, "Young hero, might I ask how I have offended you? Enough to force you to destroy my garden, slaughter my subordinates, and finally drag me out to this wilderness?"

Li Hai had no intention of answering, instead posing a question of his own. "Zhou Yugen, do you still remember Qiu Fangzheng?"

"Qiu... Fangzheng?"

Zhou Yugen furrowed his graying brows, deep in thought for a long moment before offering a bitter smile. "Young hero, please forgive this old man for his failing health and fading mind; I truly cannot recall."

"Forgotten?"

Hearing this, Li Hai couldn't help but scoff coldly. "In my opinion, you've harmed so many people that you simply can't keep track of them all."

"Uh, well... heh heh heh." Zhou Yugen could only offer a dry laugh.

Li Hai immediately pressed again: "If you can't remember Qiu Fangzheng, what about his sister, Qiu Fanglan? Still nothing?"

"Qiu Fanglan... Lan..."

After a moment of recollection, Zhou Yugen offered another bitter smile. "Young hero, I won't lie to you, I truly cannot recall who this person named Qiu Fanglan is..."

"You're lying," Li Hai said suddenly. "Your heartbeat skipped a beat."

Without waiting for Zhou Yugen to defend himself, Li Hai kicked him squarely in the leg.

Crack!

Bone and flesh shattered, blood spraying everywhere.

"Aaaah!"

After a shrill scream, Zhou Yugen collapsed to the ground, clutching his mangled leg where jagged white bone protruded.

"Well?" Li Hai asked, looking unbothered. "Do you remember now?"

"I remember, I remember!" Zhou Yugen stammered through the agony. "Qiu Fanglan... I sold her."

"Sold her?" Li Hai frowned. "To whom?"

"I sold her to a wealthy family," Zhou Yugen stuttered. "They... they were missing a daughter, so..."

Before he could finish, Li Hai kicked his other leg, snapping it instantly.

"Aaaahhh!"

The pain nearly drove Zhou Yugen mad. He could no longer maintain his benevolent facade and roared at Li Hai with a twisted expression, "You little beast, I already answered you! Why did you still cripple my legs?!"

"Your pulse is chaotic and your lies are endless," Li Hai sighed, shaking his head. "I've lost my patience with you."

With that, he retrieved a hemp rope and several blades from his storage space.

"It seems I'll have to make you suffer a little."

Li Hai toyed with a sharp knife, looking down at the terrified Zhou Yugen, and said coldly, "Only then will you tell the truth."

Subsequently, a performance of slow slicing, woven with blood and screams, began to unfold in the depths of the desolate forest.

As the "actor" of this scene, Zhou Yugen finally began to spill everything he knew under the relentless cuts of the blade.

It was from his own mouth that Li Hai gradually learned what had truly happened to Qiu Fangzheng's sister.

After Qiu Fangzheng was murdered, his sister, Qiu Fanglan, had been snatched back to the estate by Zhou Yugen without a moment's delay.

Over the following three months, he tortured her until she was no longer human, driving her to the brink of insanity.

Because of this, Zhou Yugen quickly lost interest in Qiu Fanglan and sold her to a group of human traffickers for a pittance.

As for where those traffickers took Qiu Fanglan afterward, Zhou Yugen was not entirely sure.

He only knew from the traffickers in the years that followed that the girl, constantly displaced and wandering, seemed not to have lived past twenty.

In all likelihood, she was dead.

"You really are a living beast."

Li Hai shook his head, sighing. "Your entire family is nothing but animals."

With a flick of his wrist, he brought the blade down and severed Zhou Yugen's head.

"My lord, are you... saying... my sister..."

Deep within the limestone cave of Fish-Plate Mountain, Qiu Fangzheng stared blankly at Zhou Yugen's severed head, his voice trembling with excitement. "She was... saved... rescued?!"

"That's right," Li Hai nodded, confirming. "After you died, just as Qiu Fanglan was dragged into the estate by this Zhou Yugen, she was rescued by a passing martial arts expert."

"Then, what happened after that?"

For some reason, Qiu Fangzheng's tongue had loosened, and he asked urgently, "My lord, Xiao Lan... what happened to Xiao Lan after that?"

"That's good."

Li Hai said, "According to my investigation, after Xiao Lan was rescued by that expert back then, she fell in love and married the expert's son within half a year. Then, they left this Coiling Dragon Mountain and headed north to the Great Jing Dynasty."

"The Jing Dynasty is good; there is peace and stability within the Jing Dynasty."

Qiu Fangzheng smiled, a rare sight. "How should I put it? It is, after all, much better than Coiling Dragon Mountain."

"If there are no accidents," Li Hai continued, "your sister's grandchildren should be adults by now."

"Indeed," Qiu Fangzheng said with deep satisfaction. "If my father and mother know of this in the afterlife, they can finally rest in peace."

Li Hai remained silent.

"My Lord," Qiu Fangzheng slowly stood up from the ground, "I will take you to the ruins of that ancient sect now."

"Good." Li Hai nodded and also rose to his feet.

Following this, the two—no, the two ghosts—transformed into hazy phantoms and dove into the pool, vanishing from the cavern.

After leaving the cavern, Li Hai followed closely behind Qiu Fangzheng, weaving through layers of mountain rock, turning left and right as they traveled deep into Fish-Plate Mountain.

It was during this journey that he learned for the first time that the phasing ability of ghosts was not without its limits.

Although any ghost could easily pass through sealed houses and thick rock walls, this ability to dematerialize and pass through solid objects could not be used indefinitely.

To put it simply, it was like a human holding their breath; no matter how long they held it, they eventually had to breathe.

When a ghost passes through solid, hard objects, there is a numerical limit to the thickness of the object they can pass through at one time; they cannot pass through things endlessly.

For instance, the lowest level of ghost, the Dead Soul, has a maximum wall-passing thickness of ten zhang.

Once the thickness of a wall exceeds ten zhang, unless there are large cracks or holes within it, a Dead Soul-level ghost cannot penetrate it and can only linger outside.

As for the higher-level Fierce Soul-level ghosts, Li Hai discovered after testing that their wall-passing thickness was approximately one hundred zhang.

This value was neither thin nor thick; it was somewhat stuck in the middle.

If Li Hai were ever trapped in a deep underground cavern where the distance in every direction exceeded one hundred zhang, he would be stuck in a prison with no chance of escape.

As for higher-level ghosts, according to some documents in the warehouse of the Demon-Slaying Division station in Ox-Horn Town, they should be called Solid Ghost. The wall-passing thickness of such Solid Ghost-level entities might reach one thousand zhang.

In other words, even at a depth of one thousand zhang underground, a Solid Ghost could pass right through.

That level of power is considered very, very strong.

"My Lord, we have arrived at the path."

In an unfamiliar cavern deep within Fish-Plate Mountain, Qiu Fangzheng pointed toward a dark hole in the rock wall and said respectfully to Li Hai, "As long as we follow this cave path to the end, we will reach the outer wall of the ancient sect's ruins."

Li Hai stared fixedly at the cave ahead and said in a deep voice, "Very well, let's go."

Immediately, the two ghosts turned into black smoke and zipped into the cave.