The female corpse soaking in the well belonged to the Third Branch. Going by Wei Yanchi's place in the Second Branch's family tree, she would have been his older cousin.
This cousin had quite a story of her own.
Unwilling to accept an arranged marriage and yearning to marry for love, she had run away with a man. But the outcome was all too predictable: she had been dragged back, while the man had been thrown into the hills behind the residence to feed the wolves.
Enraged, his cousin had killed herself by jumping down the well, placing a curse on the Wei Family.
She had cursed the Wei Family to die out without descendants.
By the looks of things now, her curse had been remarkably effective.
After listening to some of the Wei Family's history, Xie De had gained some understanding of how these vengeful ghosts had formed.
Those who killed themselves out of despair would dissipate into the world, forming a distinctive kind of resentment. Those who died angry, with lingering obsessions, would become Bound-Earth Demons that could never fade away.
But the truly powerful ghosts had all possessed a fierce will to live, endured endless torment in life, and been murdered or driven to their deaths by others. Their resentment was the strongest, deepest, and most concentrated.
Wei Jianye took a sip of tea. "As for the Ghost Bride inside Wei Yanchi, she's my granddaughter. She always followed the rules, and I always wanted to keep her close and enjoy her company. But then, one day, her bloodline awakened."
"An awakened bloodline isn't treasured the way it used to be. As you know, sir, once a member of the Wei Family awakens their bloodline, a spatial cage appears inside them, made up of a dragon and various