"What?" Fang Zhiyi sat comfortably in his chair, with two paper figures behind him serving tea and water. He sat up straight the moment he heard his subordinate's report.
"My ears are good, I heard it clearly." Liu Sandao pointed at his ears, but Fang Zhiyi had his doubts.
This old man was always hard of hearing. Last time, when Fang told him to split the money among the other ghosts, he pretended not to hear.
"Not just one, either—a man and a woman. The woman kept saying that thing had humanity. Can you believe it..."
Liu Sandao was getting excited, but Fang Zhiyi pushed him aside and pointed at the female ghost in red: "You, speak!"
The female ghost's face was full of venom. Her scarlet pupils swept around at every ghost in the room: "Why are you stopping me from taking revenge? Huh?" Before she could finish, a ghost with a crooked head slapped her so hard she saw stars.
"I've put up with you long enough. Who do you think you are? You haven't shut up the whole way back!" The crooked-headed ghost glanced at Fang Zhiyi. "Sorry, boss. She's just too infuriating."
Fang Zhiyi waved his hand. "Don't make me ask you twice!"
After that slap, the female ghost suddenly remembered who she was dealing with. This group—no, these ghosts—had connections that reached the heavens. Even the underworld messengers were like brothers to them. Her eyes instantly cleared up quite a bit.
"I... I originally possessed my sister, planning to bring her down here to keep me company..." The red-clad female ghost cautiously glanced at the fierce-looking ghosts around her. "Then my brother-in-law barged in with two strangers I didn't recognize, and that woman started asking me if I hurt and stuff like that." She grew grim again as she spoke.
"Would she know if I hurt or not? She's never been hit by a truck herself!"
Fang Zhiyi paused for a moment. A truck? That sounded oddly familiar.
"Alright, alright." Fang Zhiyi hadn't expected that even now, he'd still get tangled up with the male and female leads. With the male lead's personality, if his own minions were exposed to him, the consequences would be dire. "Stay put for now. In a few days, when A'da and the others come up to handle business, they'll take you down below."
"My revenge..."
"Have some shame," Waitou cut in when he saw Fang Zhiyi fall silent. "I've figured it out now. Your death was your own doing—that's your fate! Don't go blaming your sister. She was good to you! It's only because the boss has a kind heart that you're still here to see the moon tonight."
The female ghost had no retort left.
The few ghosts in front of her might have lost their human memories, but their yin energy was heavy—each one more intense than the last. Even with all her hatred for her sister, she was no match for them, let alone the even fiercer one sitting among them.
That should have been the end of it. But the next day, Liu Xiaohua came running up all excited, carrying a bunch of new paper burial offerings.
"What's wrong?" Fang Zhiyi could tell with one look that something was off.
Liu Xiaohua lowered her head. "Um, boss, I... can I borrow her again?"
Fang Zhiyi followed where she was pointing and saw the red-clad female ghost crouching by a tombstone, scratching at it.
"What happened?"
"Her family came looking for me again. Especially her sister—she insisted I had to find her younger sister. Otherwise, she said she'd cause trouble at my school..."
Fang Zhiyi was speechless.
Sure enough, the world was full of all kinds of crazies.
He held back his anger. "Oh... did she pay you?"
Liu Xiaohua shook her head obediently.
Fang Zhiyi turned around. "Hey, you!"
The female ghost in red had been eavesdropping the whole time and jumped up. "Boss, my name is Che Xiaohong!"
Fang Zhiyi nodded. "You heard that, right? Your sister's being a bit ungrateful."
"Don't worry, boss. Leave it to me!" Che Xiaohong was thrilled. She thought she'd have to go to rebirth full of resentment, but now she had this chance.
Liu Xiaohua, however, was hesitant. She looked nervously at the excited ghost. "Boss, won't she... end up killing someone?"
"Wouldn't that be perfect?" Fang Zhiyi toyed with the paper ingot in his hand. "If someone's threatening you, you don't let them off easy."
But when he noticed Liu Xiaohua biting her lip, he changed his orders. "Don't drive her to death. Your sister has some issues, and you have some issues too. Go and give her a proper treatment."
Che Xiaohong was taken aback. "Boss, how should I treat her?"
Fang Zhiyi suddenly crushed the paper ingot in his hand, making Liu Sandao wince in heartache.
"I want her to beg and plead for you Xiaohua to take her away!"
Che Xiaohong nodded silently. At least she had a goal now!
"Xiao Fang," Liu Sandao said. Unlike the other ghosts, he always called Fang Zhiyi "Xiao Fang," and Fang didn't mind—by age, Liu Sandao was indeed older. "Are you just letting her go with Xiaohua?"
"You don't trust her?" Fang Zhiyi raised an eyebrow.
"Well... she is a fierce ghost. It took several of us working together to hold her down..."
"Enough. If you're worried, follow them yourself. You have your tokens, don't you?" Fang Zhiyi had specially asked A'da to buy a few more tokens from the underworld. Otherwise, the ghosts would have trouble going out, and even then, they could only move around with Liu Xiaohua.
Liu Sandao hesitated for a moment before following them out.
Fang Zhiyi turned around with a meaningful look, then suddenly spoke: "Waitou! Xiaobailian!"
The two ghosts immediately came closer.
"Boss, are you telling us to go deal with old Liu?" Waitou mimed a chop.
"Are you some kind of thug?" Fang Zhiyi kicked him.
"I was just joking, lightening the mood!" Waitou rubbed his backside.
"Get ready. We need to speed things up, or else our hideout will be discovered before long," Fang Zhiyi ordered. He had a sharp feeling that fate was somehow drawing Liu Xiaohua into the orbit of the male and female leads. If this kept up, it was only a matter of time before the male lead, who hated evil like an enemy, found him out.
The ghost Fang called Xiaobailian was a good-looking guy, but he seemed a bit weak. No idea if he'd died from overindulgence—like all lingering souls, he had no memory of his past.
Xiaobailian was clearly more reliable than Waitou. "Boss, we've saved up enough money. It's just that the performance targets those two underworld messengers mentioned—we're still short."
Fang Zhiyi nodded. "Then what are we waiting for? Do you think performance will come to us? Starting today, everyone goes out to find them!"
Waitou was confused. "Find them?"
Fang Zhiyi rolled his eyes at him. Xiaobailian explained coldly, "The boss means—find all the evil ghosts, fierce ghosts, and resentful spirits still lingering in the human world!"
Waitou finally understood.
Not long after Liu Sandao had left, five or six ghostly figures darted out of the eastern cemetery, each heading in a different direction.
"Remember: only search. If you find one, don't act on your own," Fang Zhiyi had warned them.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
