Not for Bread, but for Pride

The man paying the bill paid twice, and Lin Feng died twice.

The man in question reported that he was emotionally stable.

The setting hadn't changed. His mindset had.

He was stuck.

Rain poured outside. Inside the Jixi Inn, Lin Feng tapped his sword as though humming a tune, waiting for his Corpse Driver buddy to walk in for the third time.

Outside, corpses lay everywhere. The Toothless Old Lady had died again, and Terracotta Figures littered the ground.

Having picked up a few hidden-weapon techniques, Lin Feng no longer feared being mobbed.

He had gotten the answers he needed. This time, Lin Feng hadn't stupidly shouted after killing everyone.

Doing that made him feel like an idiot.

A real oddball.

The Head-Taker didn't care that Lin Feng had killed her people. They were merely slaves serving under her.

The Head-Taker regarded Lin Feng as a "master" on her own level—someone above the common herd.

Western Hunan in this era had no concept of equality for all.

Neither did the Central Plains.

In the eyes of these "masters," slaves truly were worth less than pigs and dogs. Even cattle were more precious.

A superior person had beaten a few slaves to death.

It meant fuck-all.

Lin Feng hadn't adjusted to that way of thinking yet.

Hadn't the Head-Taker herself realized something was amiss and apologized to Lin Feng, even after he killed her people?

Even though she could twist Lin Feng's head off the moment she made a move.

Lin Feng and he differed in strength, but shared the same status.

[Ghost Yamen, Bufuna]

That was the Head-Taker's name. She was a giant standing just shy of three meters tall—an old woman.

"She" was the proper pronoun.

The Head-Taker wanted the Mountain God's blessing inside Lin Feng. She intended to refine him and extract the Mountain God Authority from his body.

Surprise! Uncle was actually Auntie!

That was also why Lin Feng qualified as a "master."

He carried the Mountain God's blessing, most importantly the Mountain God Authority.

That was what the Ghost Yamen's Uncle wanted.

Although Lin Feng didn't understand the tangled relationships deep in the Western Hunan Mountains, he knew one thing: the Mountain God worshipped by Clear Spring Stockade definitely had real power.

Though he had seen the Mountain God perish in the end, devoured by the Blood God, that blessing let Lin Feng thrive in the mountains like a fish in water.

The Ghost Yamen was powerful, but its members were a bunch of spirits and monsters.

They looked downright sinister.

They didn't look capable of commanding the spirits of the mountains.

Second, unless he killed Ghost Uncle, Yin Roadwalking was a dead end.

How had Lin Feng learned all this?

Well, hadn't he died twice because of Ghost Uncle?

The moment he set foot on the Yin Roadwalking route, Ghost Uncle came to seize him herself. If Corpse Drivers could travel the Yin Road, why couldn't she?

That was where he was stuck!

Every trip down the yin road ended with his head twisted off. All told, someone had twisted his head off twice now.

It was getting unpleasant!

After finishing the job, he hurried back to the inn, lit a fire, and dried his clothes.

When the guide smiled, even the wrinkles on his face carried a hint of ingratiation. He even helped Lin Feng with his clothes, flattering him all the while.

Compared with him, Hundred-Household Officer Zhu seemed rather lacking in tact.

After these two attempts,

Lin Feng's skill with hidden weapons had improved a little.

He had also grown familiar with some tricks of the occult trades.

For instance, he now knew that this world had something called Human Salve.

It was a dark yellow paste refined from corpse fat. Smearing it on the forehead and beneath both ears could conceal the scent of a living person.

It worked far better than human-fat candles.

This was what people used for Yin Roadwalking, to avoid disturbing the strange things in the underworld.

Not just ghost bailiffs.

Nor merely Yin Gods.

Even the Underworld Bureau's official gods didn't know exactly what lurked in the Underworld. Some of the trails used by practitioners of the occult trades led through places even ghost bailiffs wouldn't visit.

What you might run into

was a matter of fate.

That was why those practitioners checked prospective disciples' birth charts.

Without a sufficiently hardy fate, who knew where disaster might strike?

Lin Feng hadn't learned those occult techniques.

They relied too heavily on human corpses. Lin Feng didn't work at a funeral home, so he had no way to get hold of that stuff.

Funeral-home workers held public-sector posts.

Could an ordinary person get in without taking an exam?

The Western Hunan Mountains treated him kindly. Lin Feng had even accumulated a few more wisps of qi in his lungs.

His stamina had increased, and his sword strikes were faster, fiercer, and more powerful.

Only when the qi within his lungs grew from wisps into a mass would he truly have progressed and reached the Qi Nurturing stage.

Inside the inn, the Three Baleful Corpses were reviving. Lin Feng ignored them.

There was no need to kill them. Li Pusa would arrive shortly anyway and soothe the three with paper money.

Besides, after two lives, Lin Feng's horizons had broadened.

"Once you cross the mountain, your horizons broaden."

These Three Baleful Corpses were ninth rank at best. Their ability to suppress the earth veins probably had something to do with their birth charts or some other mystical factor.

Ghost Uncle, however, was different. He wondered whether Liao Chi's Blood Buddha could take her on.

Without Liao Chi, he had no Demon Seed either, and couldn't improve his cultivation by much.

Whether in the Underworld or the living world,

the Three Baleful Corpses weren't particularly strong. Ghost Uncle was the frightening one.

He had to kill Ghost Uncle before he could travel the yin road.

Otherwise, it would be just like the previous two attempts. Whether they went fast or slow, they would pass down a desolate highway surrounded by dust and white mist, with occasional villages, great cities, and temples, all equally dilapidated and crumbling, only for Ghost Uncle to catch up from behind and block their path.

Ghost Uncle was a little giant three meters tall, an old woman with hands like palm-leaf fans and what looked like two basketballs hanging from her chest.

The moment they met, the old woman cackled.

She said she could smell the human salve on them from ten li away!

Fine. On his next attempt, Lin Feng learned his lesson and skipped the Human Salve.

Well, the instant they entered, before they even saw any buildings, a dark cloud so vast its edges were impossible to make out appeared on the horizon.

One gulp, and Lin Feng and the others were gone.

[Wild Fox Zen] hadn't come from nowhere.

In the living world, Lin Feng had Dragon-Tiger Qi. In the Underworld, few great horrors feared his paltry amount of it.

In other words, using Human Salve meant having his head twisted off by Bufuna. Going without meant encountering a terror even worse than Bufuna.

What was he supposed to do?

This time, Lin Feng would go in and pit one predator against another.

Whatever happened, he had to kill that old woman once first, or he wouldn't feel right.

Li Pusa walked in. Lin Feng gave him a sloppy, half-baked Daoist salute and said that the two of them served the imperial court and were passing through, but had no banknotes. He asked Brother Li Pusa to be generous and cover their lodging for the night.

Hundred-Household Officer Zhu produced his waist token, and Lin Feng drew his sword. Li Pusa instantly became understanding. He burned paper money to soothe the three corpses, said it was his honor to serve the imperial court, and declared that if the two gentlemen had any other difficulties, he would spare no effort to help.

Lin Feng had known he would say that.

Taking full advantage of the opening, Lin Feng made his request: he wanted Li Pusa to help them go to Bull-Head Stockade. They would merely use Yin Roadwalking, leave the corpses stored here, and be back in no time.

Before Li Pusa could utter a single "no," two weapons were laid across his neck.

Li Pusa, who had been about to refuse, instantly lost all his anger. He licked his lips and meekly murmured his assent, then reluctantly took out his own Human Salve, broken incense, and candle stubs. Without asking why these three wanted to go to Bull-Head Stockade, he began the ritual.

The Human Salve concealed their living scent.

He flicked broken incense over their bodies, concealing their human aura.

He lit candle stubs, blinding the eyes of ghosts and gods.

The three entered the Underworld.

They hurried onward, past little buildings at their feet, beneath a sky that remained forever dim. When a dilapidated village appeared beside the road in the distance, Lin Feng stopped.

The other three all looked at him.

"You go on ahead," Lin Feng said, drawing his sword and gazing into the distance. "I can't get away!"