Chapter 58

57, Zhou Eryang

Amid the dim mountain path.

Zhou Chang opened his left palm, sending strands of thought-silk into the purple-black lips within, from which threads dyed black as cotton thread slithered out, weaving into a sleeve along his left wrist.

Thought-silk continued to flow in, the cotton-like threads spreading rapidly, and in an instant, Zhou Chang was draped in the same black satin funeral robe that Li Xiamei often wore.

“Zhou, Zhou young master…”

At this moment, a timid voice arose behind Zhou Chang—Bai Xiue.

Zhou Chang turned his head at the sound, locking eyes with Bai Xiue a few steps away.

Seeing Zhou Chang clad entirely in pitch-black funeral robes, Bai Xiue visibly flinched, halting her steps and hesitating to approach.

Zhou Chang, meanwhile, perceived with perfect clarity the fear of Bai Xiue and her father—before his eyes, purple-black waves of dread-essence oozed from both, flowing entirely into the “Ghost Funeral Robe” he wore.

The “Ghost Funeral Robe” writhed faintly against Zhou Chang’s skin like a living hide.

The pale funeral-character patterns seemed to slowly split open, transforming into mouths bristling with canine fangs.

Zhou Chang’s spirit was bound to the thought-silk; the Ghost Funeral Robe, formed by thought-silk drawing upon the Imaginary Demon Root’s form, absorbed the dread-essence and returned its purest spiritual energy back to Zhou Chang.

Li Xiamei’s Imaginary Demon Root form, having absorbed external dread-essence, showed signs of gradual revival.

Yet all this, Zhou Chang now controlled.

He spread his right palm, and strands of pitch-black thought-silk, like cotton threads, slithered from the sleeve cuff of his funeral robe and sank into his right palm—

In his right palm lay a golden-red seal.

Yet the seal bore no actual inscriptions, only overlapping dragon scales.

As the black thought-silk touched the seal, it instantly turned golden-red; fine scales spread up Zhou Chang’s right wrist, and in the next instant, his black funeral robe transformed as if by magic into a python robe!

Zhou Chang was already tall and broad-shouldered; now clad in golden-red python robes, he radiated imperial majesty, his presence utterly inscrutable.

Bai Xiue and her father stood frozen on the mountain path, utterly at a loss for how to react.

Zhou Chang then grinned, clapped his hands together, and the python robe instantly shed from his body—he reverted to his original short-sleeved attire.

Without the Ghost Funeral Robe, he could not have removed the python robe.

Without the python robe, he could not have easily tested the Imaginary Demon Root form.

Now, the two balanced each other—and he reaped the benefit.

He had now preliminarily uncovered the Ghost Funeral Robe’s uses: first, to instill terror in all living beings who beheld it; second, to absorb the dread-essence of those around him and convert it into his own spiritual power.

The Ghost Funeral Robe would continue to grow; perhaps other functions would emerge later.

As for the “python robe,” Zhou Chang could only confirm for now that it balanced the Ghost Funeral Robe—its other functions remained unknown.

Bai’s father, watching Zhou Chang return to his ordinary attire, took a long moment to recover.

He stared at Zhou Chang, both astonished and afraid, unable to help saying: “You—you’re even better than those ‘face-changing’ performers people talk about! Legend says the Sichuan Face-Changing King can shift a hundred or more divine and demonic faces, bewitching gods and ghosts, escaping death itself.”

The Face-Changing King could only change his face—he couldn’t change his clothes.

You, in a blink, don a ghost-skin; in another blink, you wear an official-skin—your skill rivals his!”

“The Face-Changing King can shift a hundred divine and demonic faces; I have only this one ghost-skin and one official-skin—I’m still no match for him,” Zhou Chang laughed, shaking his head, yet finding Bai’s description oddly apt.

Calling the Ghost Funeral Robe “ghost-skin” and the python robe “official-skin” was perfectly fitting.

Bai Xiue, watching Zhou Chang and her father converse comfortably, smiled quietly to herself, saying nothing.

When their conversation paused, she whispered to Zhou Chang: “When you wore that funeral robe earlier, you looked a bit like Li Xiamei… it was frightening…”

“Li Xiamei is dead.”

Zhou Chang’s gaze was firm as he spoke to Bai Xiue.

“Understood,” Bai Xiue nodded obediently, falling silent.

The three descended the mountain path, entering a dense forest, arriving before the Bride’s Pond.

The sky remained pitch-black, not a finger visible.

Around the pond, trees loomed lush, vines entwined, weaving an even deeper, colder silence.

The pond water was dark as a black sea.

Walking here, Bai’s father and Bai Xiue fell quiet—this place held their painful past.

Yet Zhou Chang seemed utterly oblivious; he gathered dry twigs and dead leaves, lighting a fire beside the pond.

The flames flickered and leapt, bringing a trace of life to the cold stillness.

Even the gloom hanging among the three was dispelled somewhat by the firelight.

Zhou Chang sat beside the fire, picked up a stone shard, and tossed it into the pond, skipping it across the surface. When Bai Xiue and her father drew near, he turned to her and said: “Bai Ma previously took me down to the bottom of the Bride’s Pond to see what lay there.”

“Have you, Miss Bai, ever seen what lies beneath the Bride’s Pond?”

At his question, Bai’s father tensed, staring at his daughter.

Bai Xiue nodded gently: “Bai Ma isn’t from here. If she’s seen it, I’ve seen even more…”

“I intend to descend into the pond again,” Zhou Chang suddenly said.

“I knew when you came here, you’d want to go down into the pond,” Bai Xiue smiled, though her eyes still hesitated. “But the bottom is extremely dangerous. The dead’s essence-echoes have tangled and piled there for many years.”

“Last time, if Bai Ma hadn’t cast a spell for you, you might have lost your soul to the pond…”

Hearing this, Zhou Chang was surprised—he had never realized that the spell Bai Ma chanted during their last dive wasn’t meant to harm him, but to save him, shielding him from soul-loss in the pond.

“Times have changed,” Zhou Chang said. “Now I have two skins to protect me: the official-skin and the ghost-skin.”

“I won’t lose my mind to the essence-echoes anytime soon.”

“Moreover, at the bottom of the Bride’s Pond lies an old acquaintance—possibly connected to me.”

“To break this dead end, I may need to borrow the strength of that old acquaintance.”

Bai Xiue nodded, gazing at Zhou Chang, whispering: “The old acquaintance you mean—is that Zhou Eryang, tied to the Bai family’s grandmother?”

“Yes,” Zhou Chang nodded, then asked her in return: “How do you know that?”

This lotus-fiber thread was given to me by the Bai family’s grandmother—it’s bound with the essence-echoes of many deceased.

“I can glimpse the past through it… You bear a striking resemblance to that Zhou Eryang from over a hundred years ago… though your personalities are utterly different.”

That Zhou Eryang, like Zhou Chang and Zhou Chang, was another “I” of this world’s Zhou Chang.

He had gradually accepted this truth.

But why—why was it only him, in this world, who existed alongside countless other “I”s?

Was it all because of Yinshengmu?

Did Yinshengmu create him and all these other “I”s?

What was her plan?

Every “I” Zhou Chang encountered in this world was already dead—like Zhou Chang, like Zhou Eryang.

Or like Zhou Chang, who left behind relics in his coffin.

He had yet to meet a living “I”—perhaps when he did, some of these questions would find answers.