Beyond the Yin-Yang Boundary, gray mist stretched boundlessly.
Xuan Chuan stood alone before the boundary stele, his violet robes faintly stirring in the cold yin wind blowing from the Netherworld.
This was already the edge of the forbidden zone for the living. Deep within the mist ahead, shadowy ghostly figures could vaguely be seen, accompanied by the faint sound of weeping and dragging chains.
On the third day after he had delivered his visiting card, he received a response.
It was neither a jade slip nor a talismanic decree, but a line of ancient characters glowing with ghostly light that silently emerged upon the boundary stele before him:
"The Yellow Springs Road is open. One person may be escorted."
After the words remained for three breaths, they slowly faded away. In their place, the mist before the stele silently parted to either side, revealing a flight of stone steps descending straight downward.
The steps were paved with some unknown gray stone and radiated bone-piercing cold. Countless eyes seemed to peer from the mist on either side, yet none dared approach.
"One person may be escorted..." Xuan Chuan repeated softly, the corners of his lips rising slightly.
Lady Pingxin had agreed to see him, and she permitted only him to enter.
This was both a rule of the Underworld and a test—did he dare to enter alone the Netherworld that all beings of the Primordial World feared most?
He did not hesitate in the slightest and stepped onto the stone stairs.
The moment his first step fell, piercing yin cold surged from the soles of his feet straight toward the crown of his head.
This cold was not ordinary low temperature, but a "deathly stillness" that pierced directly into the soul, as though it sought to freeze and strip away a