Li Xiang did not believe in coincidences.
In this Netherworld, behind anything that defied reason, there had to be an unseen hand pulling the strings.
About an hour later.
After evading three groups of Ghost Soldiers searching for him, Li Xiang finally returned to the enormous beast-bone building at the intersection of the main thoroughfares.
Yet the sight before him made him pause.
The door the Ghost General had kicked to pieces yesterday had somehow been restored completely.
More than that, on streets where the entire city trembled at every whisper of wind and cry of a crane, where every shop had shut its doors tight, the [Bone Cavern Tavern] was still open for business!
Inside, there were no earthshaking ghostly wails, nor any clamor of revelry.
It was remarkably quiet.
There was not even a single Ghost Soldier guarding the entrance.
"Something's wrong..."
Li Xiang stopped, quietly awakening the faint glow of his [Dharma Eye].
In his vision, not so much as a thread of death qi flowed around this seemingly ordinary Bone Cavern Tavern.
It was as though an invisible power, standing above the rules of Wangsi City itself, had forcibly plucked it out of this world, turning it into an utterly motionless island.
Go in, or retreat?
Li Xiang's fingers curled slightly inside his sleeve.
His instincts told him that an extremely dangerous being lurked behind that door.
But the answers he wanted were there as well.
Li Xiang took a deep breath, stilled his inner energy completely, and crossed the white-bone threshold with the Old Consumptive Ghost's distinctive, faltering gait.
The tavern was dimly lit.
The female ghosts in red gauze who had bustled about yesterday, along with the obsequious four-armed ghost bartender, were nowhere to be seen.
Rows of tables and chairs pieced together from