Beside a road through the farmland outside the County Seat stood a platform built of stone, topped by a squat Land God Temple. The temple was small and its god insignificant, without even a single lantern. Though shabby, it was still reasonably well kept.
A scrawny old man sat on the edge of the stone platform, glancing anxiously from side to side.
He kept feeling that everything around him was strangely sinister tonight.
A gust of chill wind swept across the road, and a pitch-black ghostly shadow drifted past.
Inside the Land God Temple, the scrawny old man hardly dared breathe. He shrank farther and farther into himself. Only after the ghostly shadow had gone straight on without so much as glancing at the temple did he let out a long breath.
The night grew thicker. The barking dogs fell silent one after another, and even the feral cats stopped yowling. The County Seat sank into an oppressive silence. The Ghost King walked down the long street, looking neither left nor right.
Wherever he passed, the lanterns hanging beneath the eaves went out one by one. Before the last wisp of smoke could rise from each wick, it had already gone cold.
Azure Cloud Monastery.
The Abbot suddenly woke from a deep sleep.
The room was quiet, and the moon shone brightly outside. Its clear radiance spilled through the window into the bedroom. Wherever the moonlight touched was bright as white frost; wherever it did not was especially dark.
Pressing a hand to her chest, she felt an inexplicable panic. She sat up and turned it over in her mind.
Something abruptly flashed through her thoughts, and a startled cry escaped her.
"This is bad!"
She hurried out of bed, rushed through the doorway, and gazed toward the distant County