Chapter 118: The Ming Realm of the Ghostly

Ning Zhe carried Ji Taimi's head and looked back at the road he had come from. One fat and one thin, one old and one young, four flickering ghost shadows drifted leisurely from the distant intersection, either happy or angry, resentful or hateful, all kinds of living human emotions gathered on their faces, vivid and lifelike.

"What is that? Ghosts?" Feng Yushu moved her body closer to him, blocking in front of Ning Zhe, feeling a bit nervous.

Her height was much shorter than Ning Zhe's, and even wearing thick-soled sandals, she was still half a head shorter than him. But the firelight jumping in the heart of the ginkgo tree shone on Feng Yushu, casting a huge, deformed, terrifying, and ferocious pitch-black shadow, as if she were a god nailed to a cross.

"Special Permission" was restless because of Feng Yushu's nervous emotions, restless and wanting to pounce forward to kill those approaching ghost shadows one by one.

But Ning Zhe stopped her from doing this.

"That is not a ghost." Ning Zhe said, lifting his hand slightly, and the girl in red appeared before him. But this time, her appearance was not something only Ning Zhe could see—Feng Yushu also noticed He Nianjun's appearance.

"This is..." Feng Yushu was a bit surprised: "From He Family Village?"

"Sure enough, if it's here... even you can see Zhao You." Ning Zhe nodded slightly, beckoned He Nianjun to come before him, and continued: "Those things around are not ghosts, they are just people whose lives have returned to zero. But because of the restrictions of the rules of Nursing Village, people here cannot die normally even if they are killed, and can only wander here half-dead... in this Underworld of the Ghostly."

Look at the shadows walking out of the alleys. They are happy or sad, all kinds of emotions overflowing on their faces. There is the white-haired old ghost with a face full of smiles, the thin ghost walking with a limp while holding a human leg bone, their footsteps flickering, muttering to themselves, all approaching here.

After experiencing several eerie events, Feng Yushu's courage was much better than before. Seeing the scene of flickering ghost shadows surrounding them from all directions, although she was still nervous in her heart, she didn't lose her composure.

She moved her body closer to Ning Zhe and asked in a low voice: "Ming Realm of the Ghostly... what is that?"

"A small folk story." Ning Zhe remained unmoved and said lightly:

"Legend has it that in ancient times, there was a scholar. No one knew which dynasty he was born in. One day, he was reading by the lamp at home. By midnight, he was exhausted and fell asleep without knowing it. In his dream, he opened his eyes in a daze and saw two impermanence ghosts, one black and one white, standing in his room, holding iron chains and saying, 'Your lifespan is exhausted, come with us to the underworld.'"

"The black and white impermanence ghosts bound the scholar's soul with iron chains and dragged him to the Ghost Gate. But the scholar's lifespan was not actually exhausted. The black and white impermanence ghosts had mistakenly hooked the soul of a living person, so the path to the underworld went wrong. Instead of entering the Ghost Gate directly, they mistakenly entered a strange place called the 'Ming Realm of the Ghostly'."

"The impermanence ghosts took the wrong path and missed the time to escort the soul. By the time the judge of the underworld discovered that his lifespan was not exhausted, the scholar was already on his last breath, his life hanging by a thread. The impermanence ghosts, fearing a major mistake, hurriedly returned the scholar's soul to his body, and even forgot to erase the memory of this trip, letting him return to the Yang world with his experiences in the underworld."

"After returning to life, the scholar painted a picture, titled 'The Imaginary Map of the Ming Realm of the Ghostly,' which depicted the Ming Realm of the Ghostly he had mistakenly entered on the way to the underworld."

"The so-called Ming Realm of the Ghostly is not in the underworld, does not belong to the underworld, and is not in the Yang world."

"Its realm is dark as ash, cold as water, vast as the sea, deep as an abyss... a kind of deformed spiritual body that is half-human, half-beast, neither human nor beast, wanders around in the Ming Realm. Its name is—'Gui'."

"Ancient books say: When people die, they become ghosts, and people fear them. When ghosts die, they become 'Gui', and ghosts fear them; ghosts fear 'Gui' just as people fear ghosts."

Ning Zhe had a big heart. In such an environment, he still had the interest to tell folk stories to his aunt, not only because of his confidence in his own abilities but also because Ning Zhe already had a plan in mind for the current situation.

"'Gui'..." Listening to Ning Zhe's description, Feng Yushu couldn't help but think of the human bone snake that crawled out of Ji Taimi's grandmother's corpse.

She lowered her voice and whispered: "After Ji Taimi's grandmother died, it seemed she turned into that kind of deformed spiritual body called 'Gui'?"

So are we now in the Ming Realm of the Ghostly in 'The Imaginary Map of the Ming Realm of the Ghostly'? "No, the Ming Realm of the Ghostly is on the -1 layer, and we are currently on the 0 layer." Ning Zhe said generously: "However, we are about to go to a deeper layer."

"Deeper?" Feng Yushu was stunned: "Then how do we go... to that Ming Realm of the Ghostly?"

Ning Zhe turned his head and gave her a clear smile: "Very simple—we just need to die together."

As he spoke, the ghost shadows around had already surrounded them closely. The Central Plains official language with a slight retroflex sound chattered in the quiet environment, as if someone were whispering in your ear. The ginkgo tree behind the Earth Temple was on fire, but the air at this moment was chilly. A sense of crisis surged into Feng Yushu's heart, but immediately after, Ning Zhe held her hand.

"Let's go, to the next layer." As he said this, Ning Zhe used Feng Yushu's hand to reach out to the chest of the girl in red and turned a page of the almanac.

In the next moment, both of them died.

The ancients said: When people die, they become ghosts; when ghosts die, they become 'Gui'.

What is 'Gui'? If you write this character in seal script and paste it on the door, all ghosts and monsters will stay a thousand miles away. This is what ghosts fear.

Following the triggering of Zhao You's instant-death rule, Ning Zhe and Feng Yushu both died. But here, in Nursing Village, death was not the end of everything.

Feeling that her consciousness had walked between life and death once again, Feng Yushu's brain felt dizzy. Opening her eyes again, everything before her seemed to be no different from before. It was still that ginkgo tree, still that Earth Temple, and flickering ghost shadows wandered in the gray village, as if nothing had changed.

No, there was.

=9+Shu_Ba

Feng Yushu lowered her eyes and looked around. What she saw was pitch black, snow white, and burnt gray, as if the whole world had faded of color. The two of them stepped through death and walked into a faded old photograph, and everything around them was so desolate.

Before Feng Yushu could observe this "faded" world, a long white bone snake with a human face and an aged head suddenly darted out from nowhere, its opened ribs pouncing directly toward her face.

The resentful eyes, the wrinkled skin—it was exactly the same as Ji Taimi's grandmother, and it was indeed the human bone snake she had just killed.

Feng Yushu felt a shock in her heart and subconsciously wanted to trigger "Special Permission" to kill it again. But once again, Ning Zhe stopped her.

"You can't kill it, you will only send this ghost thing to a deeper layer." His voice was very light, but every word was very clear, making Feng Yushu feel relieved.

Ning Zhe didn't pay attention to the human bone snake that appeared again, but just turned the almanac again on his own, letting Zhao You kill himself again for violating the death taboo.

The ancients said: When people die, they become ghosts; when ghosts die, they become 'Gui'; when 'Gui' die, they become 'Xi'.

What is 'Xi'? The "Tao Te Ching" records: Listen but cannot hear, it is called 'Xi'.

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 119 =====