Young Master, This Servant's Name is Pi Hua!

Huang San stumbled through the door, but the woman in pink bowed outside and turned to leave.

Strangely, her movements were stiff as she turned. Under the midday sun, her shadow stretched long, so long... it didn't look human.

But Huang San's mind was filled with soft warmth and delicate jade, how could he bother with such details?

He pushed open the door to the main room, and a warm fragrance wafted out.

The room was elegantly furnished. A woman sat by a rosewood round table, her back to him, dressed in green with hair like a waterfall.

"Zhi Lan?" Huang San called out.

The woman slowly turned.

It wasn't Zhi Lan.

But Huang San instantly forgot about that. The woman before him was more than ten times more beautiful than Zhi Lan!

Her brows were like distant mountains shrouded in mist, her eyes like autumn water rippling with waves. Her skin was so pale it was almost transparent, glowing like jade under the candlelight.

Especially her lips, a touch of vermilion, slightly upturned, captivating the soul.

"Young Master, have you come to the wrong room?"

The woman's voice was soft and delicate, with a hint of shyness that made her even more pitiable.

"I haven't come to the wrong room, haven't come to the wrong room!" Huang San chuckled as he approached.

"Drunken Spring Breeze has beauties like you? I, Huang San, have never seen you before."

"So, miss, are you new? What's your name?"

"My surname is Pi, and my given name is Hua."

The woman lowered her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering. "I have indeed only recently arrived and have not yet hung my plaque."

Pi Hua? What a strange name.

But Huang San didn't care. He plopped down beside her and reached out to grasp her delicate hand.

"Miss Pi Hua, what a beautiful name!"

"I am the third young master of the Huang Family. In Black Stone City, when the Huang Family says one, no one dares to say two."

"If you follow me, I'll guarantee you fine clothes and food. Isn't that a hundred times better than being a top courtesan?"

As Huang San spoke, his other hand unceremoniously went to caress her waist.

The moment his fingers touched her clothes, a chill shot straight to his brain from his fingertips!

It wasn't ordinary cold, but a bone-chilling, penetrating cold, like touching iron in the dead of winter.

Huang San shivered, half his drunkenness gone.

But when he looked at Pi Hua's stunning face, his primal instincts immediately suppressed his reason.

With such beauty before him, who cared if she was cold!

"Miss, would you be willing to spend a pleasant night with me?" Huang San panted, leaning his face closer to her.

Pi Hua smiled shyly. "Young Master, this... this is still broad daylight."

"Day or night, isn't it all the same?"

Huang San could no longer restrain himself and suddenly kissed her vermilion lips.

The touch was cool and soft, with a strange fragrance.

But whether it was because Huang San was too forceful or for some other reason, Pi Hua's lips actually broke.

No, it wasn't her lips that broke.

It was her face that broke.

Like a piece of soaked Xuan paper being torn, starting from the corner of her mouth, a crack spread upwards, revealing the dark red and black... thing underneath.

Pi Hua let out a soft cry and pushed Huang San away, chiding him:

"Young Master Huang, why are you so rough? You've torn my newly painted skin."

As she spoke, she raised her hand and grabbed the edge of the crack on her cheek, gently tearing it.

Her entire face peeled off.

Under the candlelight, Huang San saw an indescribable face.

There was no skin, only dark red interwoven muscles and blood vessels.

Her eyeballs were exposed outside their sockets, her nose was two black holes, and her teeth were bared, white and grinning at him.

"Ah! A ghost!!"

Huang San wanted to scream, but found he couldn't make a sound.

His throat felt choked by an invisible hand, and even breathing was difficult.

His crotch suddenly felt warm, and he had lost control of his bladder.

The candle flame flickered and died.

If you can't find the book by its title, you can try searching for the author. Perhaps they just changed their name!

In the darkness, the bloody, mangled face pressed close to Huang San.

A cold, putrid breath sprayed onto his face.

"Young Master, you've torn my newly painted skin, you'll have to compensate me~"

"How about... I take your flesh and blood, along with your three souls and seven spirits, as compensation?"

"Not speaking? Then you agree."

Huang San shook his head desperately, tears and snot smearing his face, roaring in his heart:

I don't agree! I don't agree!

Let me go!

But his body wouldn't move, not even a finger could be lifted.

In the darkness, an icy hand touched the top of his head.

"The formation is ready to be activated."

The moment the Painted Skin Ghost's hand pressed down on Huang San's head, deep beneath Drunken Spring Breeze, a dark red pattern lit up.

The pattern spread rapidly like a spiderweb, passing through the foundation, climbing the walls along the cracks between bricks, the pillars, every window, every door.

The entire Drunken Spring Breeze trembled slightly, but the patrons inside, seeking pleasure and revelry, were completely unaware, still lost in their drunken stupor.

That is, until the women in their arms, one by one, lifted their heads and revealed eerie smiles.

Immediately after, these charming and beautiful women went limp as if their bones had been removed.

Their skin rapidly shriveled and withered, finally transforming into thin sheets of human skin, painted with facial features, which fluttered lightly to the ground.

And beneath the human skin, were masses of writhing, dark red flesh conglomerates.

Terrified screams finally erupted, but were quickly cut short.

Gray mist seeped out from every crack in Drunken Spring Breeze, flowing onto the street like living things, spreading along the stone-paved road.

Wherever the mist passed, pedestrians and merchants alike froze in place.

Their eyes quickly became vacant, and then, in unison, they turned and began to walk, silently heading towards the Star Gazing Platform in the west of the city, which was nearing completion.

The gray mist spread faster and wider.

Jewelry shops, restaurants, carriage houses... every corner of Black Stone City, wherever there was life, was swallowed by this eerie gray mist.

Citizens, livestock, even the birds under the eaves and the mice in their holes, were all pulled by invisible strings, walking the streets in a daze.

Twenty thousand citizens and tens of thousands of livestock, converging from all directions into a vast, silent flood, surged towards the west of the city.

The scene at the construction site in the west of the city was even more horrifying.

The thousands of workers who had been toiling there, the young and strong men forcibly conscripted from Qi Family Village and other villages, had long since stopped working. Like offerings already laid out, they stood neatly arranged around the base of the Star Gazing Platform.

Their eyes were hollow, their postures uniform, like a group of marionettes.

Inside the City Lord's Mansion, Tang Hao stood by the window of his study, gazing at the gray mist spreading in the distance, his face expressionless.

Behind him, five Body Tempering realm martial artists and two Qi Induction realm mid-stage Qi Refiners, his guards, also had vacant eyes.

"The time has come," Tang Hao said softly, turning to walk outside.

The guards followed closely behind.

Inside the Star Gazing Platform, it was not solid stone.

Entering through a hidden entrance somewhere in the base was a wide staircase descending downwards, reaching a depth of thirty zhang underground.

At the end of the stairs was a huge circular cavern.

In the center of the cavern stood a nine-tiered altar, carved from black stone, its surface covered in complex, twisted characters.

A dark red liquid flowed within the grooves of the characters, emitting a strong smell of blood.

At the top of the altar, a black crystal the size of a fist hovered, slowly rotating.

With each rotation, it drew wisps of gray-white airflow from the void.

These were the souls of living beings.

Two people stood beside the altar.

On the left was a woman in green, who was Pi Hua, or rather, the true form of the Painted Skin Ghost.

She had now resumed her true appearance, still beautiful, but with a chilling ghostly aura in her eyes and brows.

On the right was a man in a red robe, tall and thin, with a gaunt face, sunken eyes, and pupils of a strange gray-white color.

His robe was open at the chest, revealing a ferocious black mark shaped like a vertical eye.

The man in the red robe said in a hoarse voice, "Painted Skin, you did well this time."

"Sacrificing the entire Black Stone City, twenty thousand souls, using their flesh and spirits as a guide to set up the Nine Nether Return to Ruins Grand Formation.

When we find the fragments of the Mask of Immortality, the Revered One will reward you handsomely."

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