Ghost Village Luoxia (4)

Everyone sat in a circle inside the slightly cramped guest room of the inn, the fatigue of rushing about and investigating not yet entirely faded from their faces.

Once everyone had rested a bit, their strained nerves relaxed somewhat, and their spirits recovered a little, they began one by one to recount the entire sequence of events from beginning to end, peeling back the layers like unspooling silk.

On the very first night the group entered the village, Wen Jian was indeed the only one who had discovered crucial and useful clues. Following this, everyone tracked step-by-step along this clue, unexpectedly unearthing a succession of shocking and hidden matters.

"Ninth Senior Brother, you were so lucky to run into it right when you arrived. After that, we staked out that barren mountain for several nights before finally managing to wait for the female ghost to appear," a young disciple said with great enthusiasm.

"Yeah, yeah, just like Ninth Senior Brother said, that female ghost didn't attack at all; she just kept crying and turned to run the moment she could. Fortunately, we were well-prepared and bound the female ghost, so we didn't let her escape," another disciple chimed in.

"Afterwards, we had Senior Sister Li communicate with her a bit, and that's how we learned this was the village chief's daughter," the disciple who spoke first added.

Someone asked, "The daughter the village chief said was carried off by the Ghost Bridegroom is her? Was she harmed by that Ghost Bridegroom?"

"No. The village chief has two daughters; the one who was carried off is the younger daughter, and this female ghost is the eldest daughter." The female disciple called Senior Sister Li shook her head and explained patiently.

Even though the village chief wanted to seal the villagers' mouths, paper ultimately cannot wrap up fire. There were always villagers who couldn't stand his usual tyranny and domineering ways, and who were willing to leak some information in secret.

As it turned out, the Ghost Bridegroom had been a well-read scholar in the village during his lifetime—talented, gentle, and refined. As for the ghost bride, she was the village chief's eldest daughter—born gentle and pretty, well-read and sensible, proficient in the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting alike, and a talented woman famous far and near in the village.

The two had known each other since childhood, were deeply in love, and had pledged their lives to each other early on, becoming an enviable couple. However, this beautiful romance encountered numerous obstacles because of the disparity in their social standing.

The village chief was bent on clinging to power and wealth, so how could he possibly look favorably upon a penniless scholar? He ruthlessly tried to tear the two apart, and even took it upon himself to betroth his daughter to a famous wealthy merchant in the neighboring village.

Though that merchant possessed vast fortunes, he was already past fifty and known for his ungenerous nature. Upon hearing this news, the young lady felt as though struck by lightning, her heart filled with utter despair and pain.

Even in the face of such a drastic turn of events, this pair of star-crossed lovers did not give up, vowing to elope and pursue the happiness that belonged to them.

The elopement was set for the day the merchant and the young lady were to be married. The bride was full of joyful anticipation; she cleverly tricked and dispatched the people around her, and with a heart full of excitement and trepidation, hurried to the agreed-upon spot to meet her lover.

Yet when she arrived, the scene before her was like a sharp blade, fiercely piercing her heart. Her lover had already been beaten to death by men brought by the village chief. Waiting there, aside from the cold-faced village chief, was only her lover's icy corpse.

The village chief ordered people to forcibly bind the eldest daughter. Grief-stricken and with all hope dashed, she no longer had the courage to live. Right as the crowd pulled and tugged at her, she unhesitatingly turned her head and slammed into the low brick wall, her blood instantly splattering as her life was snuffed out.

Speaking up to this point, Senior Sister Li sighed, "Afterwards was when the eldest daughter's resentment refused to disperse, and she turned into a ghost. Although her heart was filled with resentment toward her father's actions, the perpetrator was after all her own biological father—blood is thicker than water, so how could she bear to raise a hand against him?

With nowhere to go and no home to return to, the eldest daughter could only wander the village every night. She let out miserable ghost cries, terrifying the villagers so much that they lived in constant dread. That's how everything that followed came to be."

Then another group of disciples took over the conversation, indignation written across their faces. "The village chief did indeed hire rogue cultivators to perform rites. Knowing they had taken human lives and were deeply guilty of heinous crimes, they didn't dare invite disciples of righteous, prominent sects here, so they simply had to find some rogue cultivators to try their luck. Those rogue cultivators weren't high in cultivation, but their foundational skills were passable enough.

After the eldest daughter died, far from feeling any sense of remorse, the village chief instead grew resentful of his daughter for being so 'disobedient,' and directly tossed her corpse into the back mountain. That was his own biological daughter! To be so ruthlessly discarded by him—it's simply deranged!" The disciple saying this clenched his fists, his eyes brimming with anger.

"The female ghost came to the village by night, but she would return to the barren mountain by day. Taking advantage of the female ghost's absence, the rogue cultivators laid out a talisman formation, successfully blocking her outside the village."

At this, that disciple let out a mocking laugh and said coldly, "It was also the village chief committing countless evils and reaping his own retribution. Not long after those rogue cultivators left, the scholar also turned into a ghost. While the talisman formation blocked the female ghost, it also trapped the male ghost inside, unable to get out. Truly, he brought this upon himself!"

"It matches what we investigated," said the disciple responsible for investigating the neighboring village, nodding with a solemn expression.

"After the eldest daughter died, the wealthy merchant was furious. The betrothal gifts had already been sent out, yet the bride was gone. The merchant felt he had been made a fool of. The village chief hurriedly went to his house, and after much smooth-talking and cajoling, they finally agreed that the second daughter would take her older sister's place in the marriage. Hearing that this second young lady was even prettier than the eldest daughter, the merchant agreed.

Later, when the wedding was being held, she was carried off by the male ghost who had come looking for the eldest daughter. With both marriages running into mishaps, the merchant wasn't angry this time; he simply found the village chief's family deeply ill-omened, and sent men to take back the betrothal gifts, unwilling to have any further involvement with the village chief." The disciple shook his head helplessly, feeling a mixture of emotion and sighing over this absurd affair.

"Well—judging by that, the heartbreaking, sorrowful facade the village chief put on when we first arrived was actually him mourning the heavy betrothal gold given by the merchant!" A disciple suddenly came to a realization, disgust flashing across his face as if the village chief were some sort of filthy thing, contaminated by whom even he himself felt unclean.

"Tsk tsk tsk! What kind of person is this! He didn't care that two daughters met with disaster, and only cared about those few taels of silver? Utterly cold-blooded to the extreme!" Another disciple couldn't help shouting out in reprimand, and the junior and senior brothers all looked upon it with utter contempt, shaking their heads and sighing one after another.

Seeing that the topic was straying somewhat, Feng Yue hastily reined the conversation back, turned his gaze to Wen Jian, and asked with a serious expression, "Do you remember the girl who ran into you that day?"

Wen Jian nodded, a hint of contemplation flashing through his eyes.

"That unhinged maidservant is the attendant who inadvertently leaked the elopement plan back then.

After the eldest daughter and the scholar died, the maidservant suffered intense internal torment, her conscience giving her no rest as guilt tortured her day and night. Ultimately unable to bear this heavy psychological burden, her mind snapped, and she became deranged.

When she saw us arrive in the village, she became single-mindedly bent on confessing the evil deeds the village chief had done. Naturally, the village chief was unwilling and worried about the matter coming to light, so he locked the maidservant away."

After Wen Jian recounted his encounter that day, Feng Yue had kept a wary eye out. Following a round of searching, Feng Yue finally located the maidservant imprisoned by the village chief and successfully rescued her. Through the maidservant's disjointed accounts, Feng Yue gradually came to understand the entire beginning and end of the matter.

After the scholar turned into a ghost, his lingering obsession remained unextinguished, and he thought only of going to fetch his bride. Unable to find the eldest daughter, whenever he saw someone who looked like a bride, he would snatch her away, thus creating these terrifying incidents.

The well to which Wen Jian was led was precisely the place where the scholar's corpse had been ruthlessly discarded long ago.

He only then remembered: because the light was too dim, he had mistakenly assumed the Ghost Bridegroom's set of red robes was wedding attire. Looking back now, the collar and lapels were probably stained red by the blood the scholar shed when he was beaten to death.

Upon learning the truth, Feng Yue did not rush to make a move, but instead meticulously laid out this trap.

Earlier, when Wen Jian was carried off by the Ghost Bridegroom, Feng Yue's side feigned that his junior brother had met with misfortune, pretending to be furious beyond measure and demanding that the village chief explain the background of the Ghost Bridegroom so they could seek revenge. He even pulled out the Profound Heaven Sect's name to threaten the village chief that if his junior brother suffered even the slightest harm, the entire village would be buried with him.

Provoked in this manner by him, the village chief was frightened until his face turned as pale as paper and his legs trembled uncontrollably. Under extreme terror, he blurted things out incoherently and said whatever came to mind.

Naturally, he pushed all the blame onto the scholar in one breath, attempting to wash his hands of any responsibility. Yet under Feng Yue's pressing advance step by step, he ultimately still had to confess his crime of discarding the scholar's corpse into the barren well.

In truth, Feng Yue had long since secretly reported the matter to the officials.

When the yamen's men received word, they had already quietly hidden in the shadows, listening to every single one of the village chief's confessions with absolute clarity.

With the maidservant as a key witness, the others in the manor saw that the village chief had already lost his power and feared that the misdeeds he committed would implicate them. To protect themselves, they poured out everything they knew without holding anything back.

Thus, the village chief's crimes were thoroughly exposed. Even if he managed to survive by a stroke of luck, the second half of his life could only be spent within the prison walls, paying a bitter price for his wicked deeds.

Those who practice the Dao cannot make a move against mortals; this was a convention agreed upon by everyone. It stemmed not only from a heart of compassion and self-discipline, but even more so because making a move against mortals very easily entangles one in karma, harming future cultivation.

Cultivation itself is an act that defies the heavens; therefore, most cultivators have historically led rugged and ill-fated lives, and even those who ultimately achieved great things inevitably experienced countless life-or-death trials.

Mortals do not commit deeds defying the heavens, so they receive the protection of the Heavenly Dao to some degree. Yet while you practice defying the heavens and the Heavenly Dao can turn a blind eye, if you end up pushing your luck and insist on targeting the good children who obediently listen to it at home, isn't that practically running up to its door asking to be slapped?

Cultivators protect the common people, which to a certain extent can also be considered a form of ingratiating themselves with the Heavenly Dao—"Though I don't listen to your words, I'm very good to the good children of your household; can't you target me a little less, brother?"

Yet mortals also have villainous and wicked individuals. Since cultivators cannot casually make a move against mortals, such matters should instead be decided by mortal laws.

"Wrong is wrong. If wicked people are not allowed to receive the punishment they deserve, how can those innocent, wronged ghosts down in the well ever attain peace?" Feng Yue said.

While engineering the village chief's downfall and bringing him to justice, Wen Jian also instructed his junior brothers and sisters to split into two paths: one path to set up an ambush at a designated location, and the other to dismantle the Ghost-Binding Formation set up by the rogue cultivators.

After setting the ambush, the group used the eldest daughter's ebony comb from her lifetime as bait to lure the male ghost over. That comb had made prior contact with the female ghost and carried her aura.

Sure enough, sensing the familiar aura without a shred of doubt, the Ghost Bridegroom joyfully tracked the scent straight over. Afterwards he fell into the ambush, sustaining heavy injuries under the encirclement, though unfortunately he still managed to escape in the end, even leaving a few junior and senior brothers wounded.

The other side did not proceed smoothly either. This formation had already formed for some time, during which it could autonomously absorb ghost energy to operate, growing increasingly tough and complex. The degree of thorniness far exceeded everyone's imagination.

And both inside and outside the village happened to be entrenched by two resentful ghosts of no weak strength, the two echoing each other and continuously supplying ghost energy to the formation, causing the difficulty of breaking it to multiply greatly.

Fortunately, in the end they managed to catch up without any mishap.

The moment the formation was shattered, the female ghost was finally able to smoothly enter the village. Under the deliberate guidance of the disciples, the female ghost headed toward where the male ghost was located. The male ghost managed to reunite with the female ghost, putting an end to a lingering worry. All the malevolent Qi throughout his body dispersed completely, which was the only thing that allowed Feng Yue to pierce straight through his heart with a sword.

Were it not for this, the ghost energy would have clung to the spiritual sword like a muddy mire, making it utterly impossible to pierce through the ghost's body.

As for ghosts, their physical forms were illusions spun from ghost energy, while their true body actually consisted solely of a core condensed from resentment, known as the "Tear of Resentment." Only by shattering the Tear of Resentment could a ghost be truly considered to have vanished from this world.

Upon hearing this recount, far from smoothing out, Wen Jian's brows furrowed even more deeply. Seeing this, a disciple wore a look of utter bewilderment, confusion written all over his face, and couldn't help asking softly, "Ninth Senior Brother, what's wrong?"

Wen Jian let out a heavy, long sigh, sadness that could not be concealed resting in his eyes: "Those girls in the dry well were starved to death."

As these words left his mouth, everyone was stunned into speechlessness, their faces full of shock and reluctance to bear the truth.

"I've checked. There are no traces of torture on those girls' bodies; the scars upon them were all inflicted by themselves in extreme despair. That male ghost didn't lay a hand on them. They all suffered from dehydration, and were starved to death alive..." Wen Jian's voice trembled slightly, every single word sounding as though it were squeezed out from between his teeth, carrying deep sorrow and indignation.

"Mn. I asked about it. The village chief indeed guessed the male ghost's identity, and also knew the girls had been dragged into the well, but too many people had already died in this well previously. Harboring a guilty conscience and filled with boundless terror, the village chief was terrified that those who died in the well would turn into malevolent ghosts and come demand his life.

After suspecting the male ghost's identity, when he faintly heard cries for help coming from the well, far from feeling a shred of pity to go save people, he instead ruthlessly ordered men to find a huge boulder and press it tightly over the wellhead, believing that ghosts and specters wouldn't be able to come out this way," Feng Yue said with a solemn expression, speaking slowly.

"Yet in truth, by doing this, he simply ruthlessly cut off the girls' very last shred of a lifeline..." Wen Jian slowly lowered his gaze, his voice filled with helplessness and heartache.

"After the scholar turned into a malevolent ghost, his obsession ran deep, and he brought all the brides he snatched back to the well. Discovering he had grabbed the wrong person, he ignored them completely, leaving those innocent girls trapped at the bottom of this gloomy well to fend for themselves and perish."

"The scholar was indeed in the wrong, but after the scholar left, as long as they cried out loudly for help to attract others' attention, it was entirely possible for them to break free from their desperate plight—and in reality, the girls did indeed do so.

Yet because of what the village chief did, those abducted girls completely lost all hope, and could only slowly... starve and thirst to death, alive, in this sunless bottom of the well amid despair and terror..." Wen Jian's voice grew lower and lower, nearly choking up toward the end.

Feng Yue reached out a hand and gently patted Wen Jian's back, one stroke after another. At this moment, a thousand words seemed pale and powerless, and he could only offer him comfort through this silent method.

The junior and senior brothers also fell into a profound silence, heaviness and indignation written across every single one of their faces. Most of them had ascended the mountain early on, wholly devoted to the great path of cultivation, and rarely witnessed such distorted truths of human nature.

Matters having reached this point, the village chief had also received the punishment he was due, and the dead girls could not return; continuing to lament would only add needless trouble. After quickly adjusting his mood, seeing that the atmosphere was heavy, Wen Jian hurried to change the topic, deliberately putting on an inquiring expression as he looked at Feng Yue: "Putting aside how you changed the plan without telling me a word, Senior Brother, weren't you afraid I'd truly meet with some mishap?"

"No, I wasn't." Feng Yue merely uttered those three words, yet his gaze revealed a reassuring firmness.

After Feng Yue went upstairs to rest, a junior sister covered her mouth in amusement, walking over with light and nimble steps.

She leaned close to Wen Jian's ear and whispered, "Don't be angry, Ninth Senior Brother. Third Senior Brother had already placed a Substitute Spell on you long ago. If there really were any dangerous business, Third Senior Brother would definitely shoulder it himself and risk his life before ever letting Senior Brother come to harm."

Hearing this, Wen Jian was slightly taken aback, his inner displeasure dissipating somewhat as a trace of complex emotion surfaced on his face, leaving him temporarily at a loss for how to react.

A junior brother had doubts brewing in his heart and couldn't help speaking up: "That's not right, though. Those two ghosts only turned into ghosts not long ago; logically speaking, they shouldn't possess such formidable strength. Third Senior Brother is at the Golden Core stage, yet that male ghost was actually able to suppress him a fraction—isn't that way too abnormal?"

Hearing this, Wen Jian slowly explained, "Matters of ghost entities can never be judged by ordinary logic. Generally speaking, the heavier the resentment at the moment of turning into a ghost, the greater the ghost's strength will be."

That junior brother still refused to give up and continued pressing, "There are no small number of people in this world who have suffered encounters like theirs—how is it that the obsession of these two runs so deep?"

At this, an elder senior sister couldn't help rolling her eyes at the junior brother, scolding playfully, "What do you rough and careless people understand! Sincere and infatuated devotion is the hardest thing to come by in this world; the purer one's true heartfelt devotion, the more vicious they become after turning into a ghost. Why? Simply because their hearts are pure enough.

Take Ninth Elder, for instance: although he is the youngest among the elders, he possesses a pure sword heart, which is why his path in cultivation has been smooth sailing all the way without obstruction. The two seem different, but the underlying principle is the same."

Rebuked flatly by the senior sister, that junior brother didn't dare speak out again.

This trial, filled with thrills and twists, could be considered to have concluded safely without mishap.

Nine Domains Encyclopedia:

○Ghost Cultivator

Deceased individuals possess a certain probability of having their soul remain in this world, becoming a ghost. Those who step onto the path of cultivation due to various reasons or fortuitous encounters and are capable of utilizing spells are Ghost Cultivators.

Generally speaking, the heavier the resentment at the moment of turning into a ghost, the greater a Ghost Cultivator's strength will be.

Ghost Cultivators actually possess no physical entity; their bodies are illusions spun from ghost energy, while their true body consists solely of a core condensed from the soul. Because most ghosts are born from resentment, it is known as the "Tear of Resentment."

Only by shattering the Tear of Resentment can a ghost be truly considered to have vanished from this world.

When in a non-physical state, Ghost Cultivators are immune to all purely physical damage. Furthermore, precisely because they lack physical entities, they are exceptionally skilled at fleeing.

Excessively condensed ghost energy will transform into a muddy mire, causing their physical forms to become exceptionally tough and resilient.

They harbor an instinctive dread toward people and things heavy with Yang energy, and basically suffer severe injuries upon contacting items such as peach wood or rooster blood.