Qi Wu raised his brows slightly at that, his clear amber eyes flickering with barely concealed anticipation.
He smiled innocently, leaned closer to Chu Qingjiu, and asked softly, "Then if I help you, will you give me a reward, big brother?"
Chu Qingjiu knew perfectly well that if he agreed, Qi Wu would only grow more brazen. Without saying anything, he turned to leave.
"Hey-don't go, big brother." Qi Wu swiftly caught Chu Qingjiu by the arm and looked at him reproachfully. "I never said I wouldn't help you."
Chu Qingjiu remained as aloof as ever. Only after watching Qi Wu obediently dig up the corpse for him without complaint did he finally respond.
"Thanks for the hard work."
Chu Qingjiu said it with little sincerity.
Yet hearing it filled Qi Wu with enthusiasm, and he dug up the corpse considerably faster. His digging tool was a broken, rusty hoe from the backyard.
Though a hoe was less convenient than a shovel, it was better than nothing.
Only after digging down about a meter did Qi Wu finally hear the dull crack of the hoe striking bone. His arms were about to fall off. Digging up a corpse was exhausting.
"Big brother, what do I do if the bones broke? I didn't mean to."
Chu Qingjiu looked down into the pit at the black-haired boy, whose upper body remained visible above the ground. Watching his loose strands of hair flutter in the breeze and his clear, pure eyes seem to glow in the moonlight, he let out an almost imperceptible sigh.
"You'll have to explain that to the female ghost."
"What?"
As though sensing someone disturbing her corpse, the Red-Robed Vengeful Ghost suddenly appeared beside the banyan tree. Her expression grew darker as she looked at the two figures, one taller than the other.
She was a female ghost in a tattered red wedding dress, her black hair hanging loose, her skin ashen blue. Her long scarlet nails made her look all the more ominous.
Her eyes were pitch-black, without a trace of white, and her lips were blue-black as well. The longer one looked, the more unsettling she seemed.
"Are you with them?"
The Red-Robed Vengeful Ghost actually spoke.
Still, her level was indeed far higher than those mindless lesser ghosts, so her ability to speak was hardly surprising.
"Does it matter? You planned to kill everyone once you got the soul anyway, didn't you?"
Chu Qingjiu met the Red-Robed Vengeful Ghost's gaze with his uncanny violet eyes, an indescribable calm in their depths.
Qi Wu understood exactly what was happening, and resentment stirred in his heart, because Chu Qingjiu was using him.
Chu Qingjiu had made him dig up the corpse to lure the Red-Robed Vengeful Ghost out.
Though he had no idea why Chu Qingjiu wanted her to appear, he could very well have been in mortal danger if she hadn't retained her reason.
Chu Qingjiu didn't care whether he lived or died, yet he had still foolishly done as Chu Qingjiu said.
Without a word, he planted both hands on the ground and hauled himself out of the pit, then looked at Chu Qingjiu with a complicated expression.
"If you knew, why did you deliberately let me discover you?"
The Red-Robed Vengeful Ghost tilted her head in apparent confusion, her pitch-black eyes seemingly taking on a hint of bewilderment.
"Because I need you. We need to enter Ghost City and find Wang Peiling's ghost before the people from the Xu Residence do."
Chu Qingjiu stared straight at the Red-Robed Vengeful Ghost. His expression grew colder and more ruthless, yet under these circumstances, he carried a startling, compelling air of conviction.
"I'll find Wang Peiling's ghost before they do. My condition is that you enter Ghost City with me."
No particular emotion could be heard in the Red-Robed Vengeful Ghost's voice as she said flatly, "Fierce Ghosts cannot enter Ghost City. Neither can the living."
"I know, but-" Chu Qingjiu paused, his lips curving slightly. Bathed in moonlight, his pale face took on a mysterious air. "The living dead can."
As the name suggested, the living dead existed in a state between life and death. Vast quantities of yin energy had to enter their bodies, leaving only a final wisp of yang energy to keep them alive.
If their will wasn't strong enough, the yin energy would consume them, leaving them utterly dead. The risk was enormous; almost no one dared attempt it.
The Red-Robed Vengeful Ghost covered her face and laughed, seemingly finding someone like Chu Qingjiu very interesting.
"You're a madman with no regard for your life."
The Red-Robed Vengeful Ghost spoke with a smile, almost as though praising him. "If you make it out alive, I won't kill you."
As her words fell, she flicked her fingertips toward Chu Qingjiu, and a gray-black mass of energy immediately rushed at him.
The instant her yin energy touched Chu Qingjiu, the sudden influx sent his blood surging. He immediately turned his head and spat out a mouthful of blood.
"Your body is already terribly weak. I doubt you'll survive."
"Cough, cough..."
Chu Qingjiu felt his yang energy draining away little by little. As the yin energy consumed him, he struggled even to focus his mind.
A fluorescent green ball of light, surrounded by yin energy, was forced out of Chu Qingjiu's body, then slowly settled into the Red-Robed Vengeful Ghost's hand.
Fierce Ghosts could not enter Ghost City because her yin energy was strong and her karmic burden from killing was heavy, which would affect the lesser ghosts there.
But if she temporarily gained a human's yang energy to suppress her dense yin energy, she could bring it within the threshold that allowed entry into Ghost City.
However, her yin energy would continually consume Chu Qingjiu's yang energy. If he failed to retrieve it soon enough, he would still die without fresh yang energy to replenish it.
"Cough, cough..."
Chu Qingjiu turned to look at Qi Wu, who hadn't said a word since the female ghost appeared, and said weakly, "Actually... I'd intended... to thank you all along. I wasn't... using you."
Qi Wu watched the man before him say those words, his face deathly pale, his eyes brimming with tears, his lips stained scarlet with blood. He looked like fragile porcelain that would shatter at the slightest touch.
He reached out and caught the frail young man as he swayed, only to hear him continue in a thread of a voice:
"Ghost City... is dangerous. Don't go. Wait for me to come back. If... I'm still alive, I'll give you a reward... all right...?"
"No. I'm going. You'll die like this."
For once, Qi Wu didn't look relaxed and harmless. Instead, he frowned, his expression dark.
"I want that reward, so you can't die. Do you hear me?"
Chu Qingjiu leaned against Qi Wu's shoulder and buried his face deep in his clothes, answering softly, "All right... I won't."
Then his lips curved slightly, as though his plan had succeeded.
Wasn't a walking source of fresh yang energy right beside him?
He wanted Qi Wu to willingly give him all his yang energy. He wanted Qi Wu to pay for what he had done back then.
Only then would they be even.
Before you continue