A figure suddenly appearing among barren mountains and wilderness was bound to arouse suspicion.
Here in the Netherworld Pure Land, demons and ghosts abounded, spawning all manner of bizarre phenomena in a kaleidoscope of strangeness.
Even a married pair of ghost cultivators like Zhao Ziren and Madam Jin had encountered plenty of uncanny, unfathomable things during their travels these past days. They had long since grown accustomed to them.
Yet Zhao Ziren shuddered in alarm.
Madam Jin did not recognize that man. He did.
The gathering Ying spirits, as though possessed of innate knowledge, had granted him an understanding of Li Ling out of nowhere. His past surfaced endlessly in his mind like an old dream: the wondrous encounter beneath colored lanterns years ago, marrying Du Shi, the calamity that had struck him-all flashed past like glimmers on water and fleeting shadows.
Countless thoughts surged through him like a tide. His recollections reached back to when villains had murdered him, leaving his soul without refuge. With nothing but a thread of stubborn attachment to his daughter, he had become an obsessed ghost, preserving his true spirit from dissolution. Only afterward had he gradually rebuilt his primordial spirit around that thread of true spirit, forming the yin body unique to yin souls and ghost wraiths.
But even with all those extraordinary encounters, all he could have become was a ghost spirit-a common ghost that had gradually developed intelligence and awakened anew. Many ghosts, deprived of humanity's five senses and six faculties, would slowly lose their humanity as well, degenerating into monsters driven by instinct alone.
He remembered encountering something while he had still been lost in ignorance.
"What a lovely fragrance! How strange. Seeing that man standing there, I suddenly thought of orchids, though I don't know why!"
A strange, delicate