Chapter 244
Chapter 244
Mogu had long expected that, with the reputation of the Ghost King’s Palace at stake, the Earth Lord would never stand by and do nothing.
She had indeed wanted to kill Xueyin just now, but in truth, she had also been quietly measuring how far to go.
Now the Lord of the Netherworld looked down at the attendant prostrate at his feet and began his reprimand.
“Hanyuan, all those years ago, I pardoned your offense and sent you to the mortal world to atone.”
“And what have you done? Even now, you show no remorse. Instead, you commit one wrong after another. You have disappointed me deeply.”
Xueyin trembled, sobbing softly.
“Hanyuan knows her sins are grave. I am too ashamed to face you again, Earth Lord…”
“Why not let Mogu kill me? Why lower yourself to make this journey?”
The Earth Lord snorted. “You wish to die? It will not be that easy.”
With her arms folded, Mogu coldly watched the ghostly master and servant put on their performance, then deliberately yawned.
Only then did the Earth Lord turn to her, a measure of reproach in his words as well.
“Mogu, you really… need not have destroyed your body.”
“What else was I to do?”
Mogu glanced at her “body” nearby. Ren Fengjue still held it, but it looked as though it had probably already gone cold.
“Your Attendant of the Cold Abyss forced me to it. How do you propose to compensate me, Earth Lord?”
A muffled chuckle immediately came from behind the ghost-king mask. “Once you leave the Illusionary Realm, you will naturally come ‘alive’ again.”
“That is all?”
“…I’ll give you another ten percent of my soul power.”
“That will do.”
Mogu agreed, turned, and walked away.
The Earth Lord immediately called her back. “Leaving already?”
Mogu stopped but did not turn. “Is there still something for me to do?”
“Of course. Do you not want to know the full story of this attendant of mine and Mingyue Villa?”
Mogu did not hesitate. “No.”
Seeing her walk away so freely, the Earth Lord raised his voice. “Not even if it concerns you?”
Only then did Mogu stop and turn back.
“Speak.”
The Earth Lord came straight to the point. “A hundred years ago, I sent the Attendant of the Cold Abyss to the mortal world to apprehend a soul…”
Mogu frowned. “Apprehend a soul?”
The Underworld Administration had Black Impermanence and White Impermanence. Black Impermanence seized souls, while White Impermanence bound them. Either one could easily subdue an ordinary ghost.
Even Vengeful Ghosts and Evil Spirits were no trouble when the two envoys worked together.
For the Earth Lord to send the foremost of his twelve attendants, this soul could be no ordinary one.
A suspicion stirred in Mogu. Could the soul be connected to her?
“This soul was exceptionally skilled at concealing its tracks and difficult to trace…”
“Hanyuan searched the mortal world for several years before she found an answer. But then, unexpectedly…”
At this point, the Earth Lord turned to look at Xueyin.
She pressed her forehead firmly against the ground, not daring to lift it even a little.
His voice grew colder. “She lured me away from the Underworld Administration and stole the Book of Life and Death in the ensuing chaos.”
Mogu had already guessed part of it.
“For a man?”
“Yes,” the Earth Lord replied. “During her years in the mortal world, she fell in love with a man and forgot her duties entirely.”
“She returned to steal the Book of Life and Death, hoping to gain immortality for him. She was even willing to give up her position as an earth deity of the Underworld Administration and return to the mortal world to be with him forever.”
Mogu frowned again. “And the result?”
The Earth Lord gave a snort. “I granted her wish.”
“…” Mogu was skeptical. “It was not that simple, was it?”
“There was a condition, of course.”
That sounded more like the Lord of the Netherworld.
Mogu asked, “She had to capture that soul?”
The Earth Lord nodded.
“And then?”
“Not a word from her.”
“…”
Two pairs of eyes turned toward Xueyin on the ground. At last, she raised her head, her face full of pain.
The Earth Lord said, “At this point, the Attendant of the Cold Abyss owes me an explanation.”
Knowing she could evade it no longer, Xueyin slowly began recounting what had happened all those years ago…
After stealing the Book of Life and Death from the Underworld Administration, she had returned to the mortal world.
She crossed her beloved’s name out of both the Volume of Life and the Volume of Death.
Even then, she had not regretted it at all. She had also expected the Earth Lord to find her soon.
Yet the Lord of the Netherworld had not punished her. Instead, he promised that if she captured the soul and brought it back to the Underworld Administration, all would be forgiven.
He would even allow them to be together.
Xueyin believed that the Earth Lord’s word was unbreakable. Overjoyed and full of hope, she continued her search in the mortal world.
Then a devastating reversal shattered all her hopes.
She discovered that she had been used.
The soul the Underworld Administration wanted to capture was hidden inside her “beloved.”
The discovery nearly drove her mad.
She could not bring herself to surrender his soul to fulfill her task. She also knew she could never return to the Underworld Administration to face the Earth Lord…
For a hundred years, she lost herself in the mortal world, trying to forget everything.
And so there came to be Mingyue Villa.
“He built Mingyue Villa for me. At first, we spent a happy time there, cut off from the world.”
“But I knew his ambitions went far beyond that.”
“Immortality alone bored him. He also wanted power above everything in the world.”
“He even dreamed of becoming a god…”
Hearing this, Mogu involuntarily thought of the Ghost God legend in Beiding County.
She wondered what connection there might be between the two…
Xueyin continued, “Gradually, he began going away from time to time. His absences grew longer and longer, from a few days to months, and even years.”
“I knew I could not keep him with me, so I placed a barrier around the villa and kept only two servants and a rabbit for company.”
“But mortal lives are short. After the servants died, I could only preserve one fragment of each of their souls, then bring back similar souls from outside. The villa always stayed as it had been in the beginning.”
“Yet he returned less and less often, until one day he came back gravely wounded…”
“I did not know what he had been through. But he told me that once his wounds healed, he would no longer fear the Underworld Administration. Unless the Lord of the Netherworld acted in person, no one could do anything to him.”
“He begged me to heal him with my spiritual essence. I knew that helping him would mean aiding his evil and setting myself against the entire Underworld Administration.”
“But I also knew that I had already joined him. I had long since passed the point of no return…”
At this point, Xueyin’s face darkened, her eyes full of conflicting emotions.
“Yet even after his wounds healed, he did not stay. He only returned from time to time to draw more spiritual essence from me.”
“I knew nothing of the changes in the world outside and lacked the courage to step into it. All I could do was keep myself trapped in the villa.”
“Until one day, I felt an emptiness and loneliness unlike any before. I made a decision. A life like this ought to have an end…”
Xueyin smiled, a trace of madness in her expression.
“So I opened the villa’s barrier, allowing the living to enter, and killed those greedy, hypocritical, depraved, lustful villains.”
“I turned the ghost flowers that sustained my spiritual essence blood-red. At last, I was no longer an earth deity of the Underworld Administration.”
“Only a Vengeful Ghost lingering in the mortal world.”