The Town That Once Was No Longer Existed

"From then on, Spirit Hall never came again. Gradually, caravans stopped resting here. Of the seven inns, six closed down. The young either died or left, leaving only us old folks to watch over this field of empty graves."

Zhou Qiubai lifted his bowl and drained the remaining half-bowl of wine.

Then he set down the empty bowl and looked out the window.

"Innkeeper," he said steadily, "I think I understand something now."

The innkeeper raised his head, his eyes still slightly red.

"Have you ever considered that those things weren't actually here for revenge?"

The innkeeper froze, clearly surprised.

But Zhou Qiubai explained, "Have you ever considered why only Soul Masters died? Why they kept following a certain instinct?"

Negative energy required something to produce it, though that something did not necessarily have to be human.

Anything alive, from grass and trees to all living things, could generate negative energy.

A stone resented its inability to move. Grass and trees complained that they could only remain in one place. Those were all forms of negative energy.

"What is their instinct?" the innkeeper asked curiously.

"Protection," Zhou Qiubai answered. "They didn't want to destroy this town. On the contrary, their goal was to protect it. They were born from the town's resentment. Because Soul Masters had once destroyed this place, they regarded all Soul Masters as enemies. Yet they were unwilling to hurt the townspeople. They never appeared during the day, never entered houses, and never harmed the elderly. They only slaughtered Soul Masters still wandering the streets at night."

"They believed they were carrying out the will of everyone in town, believing that the living wanted them to act this way." His tone grew somewhat heavy. "But they are merely a group of obsessions without intelligence. They misunderstood what