After Saving the Self-Destructing Ghost King - Chapter 2

Yan Baichuan weighed the “Duanming” in his hand and clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction. “It’s passable, but it’s still a bit lacking compared to my Dichen.”

Jinyou sneered and teased him, “I see you are clearly very satisfied with it. Dichen such a perfectly good blade, yet given a name like a horsetail whisk. No matter how you look at it, it doesn’t seem like something used by someone who kills people… kills ghosts like flies like you.”

Yan Baichuan sheathed the blade and said indifferently, “It’s not like I named it. As long as it works well, that’s fine.” After speaking, he glanced at Jinyou again. “What’s the matter? We haven’t seen each other in seventeen years, and the moment we meet, you want to tease me so badly? Aren’t you going back to play in your pond?”

Jinyou stood in place without moving a muscle. “Yeah, I’ve been suffocated inside that bead for so long. Now that I finally got out to have some fun, I don’t want to go back. Besides, what’s inside my bead is the water of Zexian Lake, not some pond. You really don’t know quality when you see it.”

Gui Yun sorted out the current situation and suddenly asked hesitantly, “Is the blade Your Excellency mentioned just now the demonic blade, Dichen?”

Yan Baichuan’s movement to bicker paused for a moment. He narrowed his eyes and looked at Gui Yun unhappily, his tone indescribably dangerous. “…Demonic blade?”

Gui Yun instinctively wanted to take two steps back, but he held back and carefully measured his words. “If it is indeed that blade, then I know where it currently is.”

Yan Baichuan’s expression turned serious. “Stop beating around the bush. Speak.”

Gui Yun dared not delay. “Ever since the Battle of Huancang Mountain thirty years ago, both the humans and the ghosts suffered heavy casualties. After the great war, Your Excellency vanished without a trace, leaving only Dichen behind. Everyone attempted to claim Dichen for themselves and even came to blows over it, but unexpectedly, they were all injured by Dichen‘s malevolent aura. In the end, it was taken by the Wangjian Pavilion, which placed several layers of arrays to suppress the blade. Because the blade’s malevolent aura injured too many people, who knows how, it eventually came to be rumored as…”

Hearing this, Jinyou suddenly burst into a fit of loud laughter. “A demonic blade! Hahahahaha!”

Yan Baichuan’s face turned completely dark. “What a load of bullshit! They can’t even tame a single blade, yet they have the nerve to call Dichen a demonic blade!”

And they still dared to covet his blade under the banner of protecting the world what a bunch of useless trash!

The Battle of Huancang Mountain could be considered one of the rare instances in recent decades where the human race successfully forced the ghosts to retreat. Those who survived all became well-known heroes. Not to mention anything else, one of them was even an old friend of his master back then.

Hearing Yan Baichuan’s merciless cursing, Gui Yun’s face looked somewhat awkward. He turned to look at Jinyou instead. “May I ask Your Excellency, wasn’t the Battle of Huancang Mountain back then evenly matched, ultimately driving the evil ghosts out beyond Huancang Mountain so they wouldn’t dare invade again?”

Jinyou let out a mocking laugh, his tone entirely derisive. “Is that what they say? If I remember correctly, when Yan Baichuan and I rushed to Huancang Mountain back then, the people who claimed to be the orthodox sects seemed to only have the Shangyuan Sect, Mingguang Temple, and those minor sects left. What even is Wangjian Pavilion? Never heard of it.” After Jinyou finished speaking, he turned his head to look at Yan Baichuan. “Am I right? After all, to you, the Battle of Huancang Mountain feels just like yesterday.”

Yan Baichuan couldn’t be bothered to bring up these old matters and casually gave a perfunctory reply, “Of course I remember. Isn’t the Shangyuan Sect just that narrow-minded, stinky Taoist who caused himself internal injuries by blowing himself up while refining pills, and was even jealous of his senior brother’s talent?”

Looking at Jinyou, who was struggling to hold back his laughter beside him, Gui Yun was momentarily at a loss for words. He regretted opening his mouth to ask this question, wondering what Daoist Xuanyangzi of the Tianyuan Sect would think if he knew about this.

Amidst the awkwardness, the Daoist boy gently tugged at Gui Yun’s robes and asked in a small voice, “Master, when are we leaving the village?”

Gui Yun affectionately patted the top of the Daoist boy’s head, bowed to both Yan Baichuan and Jinyou, and requested, “As you two can see, Chen’er was born in the Chen year, Chen month, and Chen hour. It is precisely this fate horoscopy that preserved his last shred of vitality. In our current situation, I am afraid I can no longer continue traveling with him. I ask you two to do me a favor: find my sect and hand Chen’er over to my junior brother to be looked after. Gui Yun expresses his gratitude here.”

Yan Baichuan glanced at the child, who was clinging tightly to Gui Yun’s Taoist robe and staring at him with wide, expectant eyes. He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to go?”

Chen’er nodded quickly, his voice growing a bit louder. “I don’t want to leave Master!”

Gui Yun softly reasoned with the boy, but Chen’er held onto Gui Yun’s thigh tightly and refused to let go. Yan Baichuan looked down at the two of them, then suddenly squatted in front of the child. “Hey kid, want some candy?”

Chen’er looked at his master, then at Yan Baichuan, and nodded greedily anyway. “Yes.”

“Open your mouth. Even if it tastes bad, you aren’t allowed to spit it out.” Taking advantage of the moment the child opened his mouth, Yan Baichuan popped a pill inside. Then, he cleanly stood up, patted the dust off himself, and called out to Jinyou, “Let’s go.”

Gui Yun did not know what Yan Baichuan had given Chen’er. Seeing Chen’er knit his brows with an expression of wanting to spit it out but not daring to, anxiety crept into his heart. However, Yan Baichuan did not wait for him to speak: “Once this medicine is swallowed, ghost qi will not enter his body. Even if he stays with a ghost like you, he will be fine. Since you are worried, keep him with you and take good care of him yourself.”

Preventing ghost qi from invading the body sounded simple enough, but how precious must this pill be! Overwhelmed with gratitude, Gui Yun bowed deeply to Yan Baichuan from afar.

Jinyou looked at Yan Baichuan with some surprise. “You actually willingly gave that kid a Zhengxin Dingqi Pill? Qin Guang only gave you three in total, didn’t he!”

Yan Baichuan glanced at Jinyou. “What, is the old emperor’s life somehow nobler than that kid’s? Besides, in this day and age, it’s not set in stone who the real dragon will be. If I feel like giving it to him today, then I give it to him.”

Jinyou didn’t want to argue with him and simply waved his hand. “Fine, fine, fine, you’re always right. The Underworld went to great lengths to save you, but who would have thought seventeen years had already passed outside? By the way, don’t forget what you promised King Qin Guang. I don’t want to be dragged down by you again.”

“I know. Isn’t it just about not killing good ghosts and finding the passage that connects the ascending upper realm and the Underworld? The Underworld is left with nothing but a bunch of ragtag soldiers right now, yet Qin Guang just happens to have this kind of excessive kindness to worry about the Heavenly Dao, dragging both you and me into it.” It was only after arriving in the Underworld that Yan Baichuan discovered that out of the former Ten Kings of Hell, only King Qin Guang remained. No wonder countless ghosts wandered the mortal realm, unable to reincarnate for the longest time. With the Underworld’s current strength, if they tried to guide and ferry ghost souls, it was feared the Underworld would change masters by tomorrow.

Yet, it just so happened that he was saved by Qin Guang. Qin Guang used this to beg him to emerge into the world again and even gave him “Duanming.” The only requirement was for him to help, during which he couldn’t kill good ghosts. This forced him to agree, and he had been thinking it was a massive hassle ever since.

One had to know that the conflict between humans and ghosts had lasted for ages so long that some people believed once someone turned into a ghost, they were no longer part of the same race. ‘If they are not of our race, they must be eradicated.’ There were quite a few cultivators who held this mindset, and even Yan Baichuan’s past style of killing ghosts on sight had earned him a good number of supporters.

Seeing his dark expression, Jinyou cleared his throat to change the subject. “Where to next? You can’t possibly just run straight to Wangjian Pavilion to demand Dichen back, right?”

Demand it back? It was originally his property, yet he had to use the word “demand.” Yan Baichuan sneered, “Of course not.” After saying that, he pointed at the town ahead and said, “Let’s rest our feet first and prepare some supplies. We need to make a trip to the Liuleng Snow Realm to fetch some helpers.”

“Wine for sale! High-quality Lihuabai! Would the honored guests care for some?” The wine shop assistant spotted two new faces entering the town. One of them dressed in a way that looked extremely wealthy, so he hurriedly went up to greet them. “Is it the first time for you two to come to this Sishi Town? Why not try our finest Lihuabai?”

Jinyou was about to open his mouth to refuse, but he saw Yan Baichuan lean in close to the bottle’s opening, take a deep breath, and raise an eyebrow. “Not bad. It really is good wine. Then give me”

“Then give it a nice, proper placement right back where it was.” Jinyou manifested a folding fan and struck the back of Yan Baichuan’s hand hard, returning the wine bottle to the assistant. “I manage the money. Ignore him; he can’t afford to pay.”

The assistant looked at the two of them awkwardly, unsure of what to do. In the end, he could only nod at them sheepishly, take back the wine bottle, and head into the shop to attend to other customers.

Yan Baichuan followed behind Jinyou with a displeased expression, clearly still brooding over that bottle of Lihuabai. “It’s just a bottle of Lihuabai. How many silver pieces could it possibly cost?”

Jinyou snorted and gently swayed the folding fan in his hand. Despite looking like an elegant, refined young gentleman, his mouth held no kind words. “I wonder who it is that completely loses count the moment he starts drinking, with his mouth constantly opening and closing to shout for another jar. If you keep drinking like that, we’ll be sleeping on straw mats within three days.”

Yan Baichuan had slept in all sorts of places when he was down and out, so he didn’t care at all. “The sky as my blanket and the earth as my mat what’s bad about that?”

“Hmph, right. A hanged ghost on your left and a flower-thief on your right cradled by both sides, of course that’s wonderful.” Jinyou recalled the last time Yan Baichuan insisted on sleeping on a hilltop after drinking. Feeling uneasy, Jinyou had stayed by his side to watch over him, only to end up encountering those two fellows. One of them had even mistaken Jinyou for a woman because of his attire and targeted him for his looks, only to have his skull cracked wide open on the spot by Jinyou, leaving Yan Baichuan to be all lovey-dovey with that hanged ghost.

If there was any love between them, that is.

Knowing he was in the wrong, Yan Baichuan turned his head away and fell silent, following Jinyou to the entrance of an inn. “Yunlai Inn? This innkeeper is quite refined.”

Jinyou looked up at the forceful calligraphy on the signboard and, in a rare moment of agreement, remarked, “Somewhat interesting.”

The two walked into the inn, and Jinyou said to the innkeeper, “Innkeeper, we want two premium rooms.”

The innkeeper replied with a beaming smile, “Would the two honored guests care to choose an elegant chamber?”

“An elegant chamber?” Jinyou grew interested in the innkeeper’s phrasing.

The innkeeper seeing that they looked like first-time visitors, carefully explained, “Our place here is named Sishi Town. It neighbors the Cold Mountain Snow Realm to the north and faces plains and hills to the south. The scenery of all four seasons can be observed here, which is how it got its name. The rooms in our inn are also named after the four seasons. The arrangements inside each room are completely distinct, offering a unique brand of elegance.”

Jinyou nodded and looked at Yan Baichuan. “Since we are going to the snow realm, why don’t we choose Winter? It fits the occasion perfectly.”

Yan Baichuan didn’t particularly care either way. “As you wish.”

The innkeeper was highly discerning. While the two were talking, he had already prepared the rooms and handed them the wooden plaques. “I heard that you two are heading toward the northern snow realm. You might want to go to the West Market first to purchase some thick clothing and fire-strikers. The snow realm is incredibly cold, and few people ever venture there.”

Jinyou thanked the innkeeper, took the wooden plaque, and went to his room. Pushing open the door, he instantly felt that the innkeeper had indeed put some thought into it. Just the few sprigs of red plum blossoms arranged in the porcelain vase by the window added a touch of winter snow ambiance, and a woolen blanket was laid out right by the bedside.

Jinyou reached out to touch the plum blossom petals; they were real flowers.

“This innkeeper is quite generous, using an array to nourish just a few sprigs of plum blossoms.” Jinyou felt the array at the bottom of the porcelain vase; it looked like the work of a Taoist sect.

“More than that, the entirety of Sishi Town is likely protected by arrays. Places like this, where snow mountains and plains meet, have mixed Yin and Yang energies, making them the most prone to accidents.” Yan Baichuan had seen plenty of towns like Sishi Town that collaborated with Taoist sects to receive protection, so he did not find it unusual.

Having stayed in a gloomy place like the Underworld for so long, Jinyou now found it utterly fascinating and kept studying the decorations in the room. Finding it boring to watch, Yan Baichuan stood at the doorway with his arms crossed and reminded him, “What is there to look at? Don’t forget we still have to buy supplies tomorrow.”

Jinyou waved his hand impatiently to shoo him away. “I know, I know. Hurry back to your own room; don’t ruin my elegant mood.” After speaking, Jinyou tossed a piece of broken silver over. Yan Baichuan raised his hand to catch it, hearing Jinyou add, “There’s no more than that, so watch how you spend it.”

“It’s enough.” Yan Baichuan turned around and headed downstairs. “Waiter, bring me a jar of Lihuabai!”