Fuck... At Ge Qi's words, a torrent of curses flooded Ding Songyan's mind.
Having read webnovels by the hundreds, he immediately began drawing connections:
Could Old Man Jiang have wanted to possess someone's body?
Did this world have martial arts that allowed Body-Snatching Rebirth? Or witchcraft?
Damn it, could Old Man Jiang's attempt to possess Second Brother Ding have killed his soul, letting me transmigrate because we shared the same name and died at the same time? And when I reached this world's Netherworld Grounds and was about to return to life in his corpse, Old Man Jiang completed the possession, leaving me without a target and forcing me to wander the Underworld...
So the person Demoness Ji killed later wasn't Second Brother Ding, but Old Man Jiang? Once the body was empty, I could finally return to life in it...
But according to Ge Qi and the Sects' investigation, after Old Man Jiang "died," "Second Brother Ding" spent a while in a daze before gradually recovering. He became timid and shrinking, showed nothing unusual afterward, and retained his basic storytelling skills...
Did my transmigration cause a conflict that prevented Old Man Jiang's Body-Snatching Rebirth from fully succeeding, severely damaging his own soul as well?
Ding Songyan chuckled and looked at Ge Qi.
"If I were Old Man Jiang, why would I come back to Ge Family Village? Wouldn't I worry you'd already reported me and the Imperial Court's men were waiting to arrest me?"
Without giving Ge Qi time to think, he changed tack.
"You said Old Man Jiang had no family or friends. When did he come to Ge Family Village?"
"Four or five years ago. Said he'd fled a locust plague North of the River. He cleared a few mu of land in that hollow over there