"Thirteen Guardians approach, mortals make way!" A headless ghost emerged first, the severed head cradled in its arms shouting the clearing announcement.
Then came a woman floating mid-air with a lolling tongue, a burly dark-faced brute, a frail-looking scholar, and a bride clad in crimson wedding robes—a procession resembling the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons.
The merchant caravan stood frozen in terror, but the man clutching his nephew suddenly dropped the boy and stepped forward. "The Thirteen Guardians! I know of you! Living deities! Save my nephew!"
All the vengeful spirits halted to stare at him. Not a soul dared breathe—who wouldn't be petrified under the gaze of such grotesque beings?
"Oh? Your nephew..." A figure in theatrical robes slowly stepped forth, feigning divination before frowning. "His mortal span isn't spent. Who dares stir trouble in our domain?" An icy aura erupted.
Several ghosts simultaneously pointed at the merchant group, whose members collectively turned to see a gaunt, towering specter materialize.
"You opera-singing..."
Fang Zhiyi scratched his ear. Were people and ghosts in this era all so linguistically bankrupt? Before he could command, the horde of monsters lunged forward—a familiar beatdown. This time, however, Fang Zhiyi didn't annihilate the ghost. He'd recently discovered that spiritual energy flowed similarly to his past cultivation world. These wraiths' resentment could be absorbed.
Mimicking Taoist priests, he produced a porcelain vial to capture the lanky specter—but it resisted. No matter; their solution was simple: if persuasion failed, violence would suffice.
As the ghost was pummeled, Bai Jingtian guided Wang Sanyuan's drifting soul back to its body, meticulously tucking it in.
With matters settled, Fang Zhiyi bowed to the merchants and departed with his entourage.
Among the merchants, Wang Sanyuan awoke with no memory of the ordeal. The ghostly maze had vanished—all was well.
In a dilapidated temple, the ghosts hesitated before the unappetizing black pellets before them. Only the drowned ghost picked one up, "accidentally" dropping it into its mouth.
"You don't wish to disperse, do you? Then eat!" Fang Zhiyi commanded.
"But we don't want to exist like this forever either..." Huang Shuren grumbled, swallowing the pellet crafted from the defeated ghost.
"Patience. It's in progress." Fang Zhiyi merely watched them through narrowed eyes, withholding his plans.
---
Ma Xiuyun's days had grown unbearable. She and He Wei rushed to every rumored haunting, only to find either frightened but unharmed victims or ghosts already purged by the Thirteen Guardians. This left He Wei's shop barren—occasional customers seeking talismans or feng shui consultations took one look at his youthful face and fled.
Her inquiries about the Thirteen Guardians yielded only hearsay: "A friend of a friend said..." Even her father, Master Ma, had lost faith, now feigning illness to avoid her visits.
The villagers of Qinghe Town had forgotten how she and He Wei saved them from ghosts, instead gossiping about their "shameless" relationship—though the rumors inexplicably pleased Ma Xiuyun.
One evening, while idly wandering, she spotted a man lowering a swaddled bundle into the river. Hiding behind a bridge pillar, she watched.
A baby's cry pierced the air.
"Quiet!" The man panicked, clamping a hand over the infant's mouth. "Blame your worthless gender! Next life, pick better parents!"
Many villagers witnessed this—Qinghe's residents were both nosy and heartless.
As the child hit the water, the man pressed down: "Let me help you die properly. Don't end up like Ma Xiuyun did."
The name jolted her memory—Fang Zhiyi, her savior. Where was he now?
"No, focus! Save the baby first." Ma Xiuyun shook her head. Snatching the child openly? Impossible—it'd doom her and He Wei, just like Fang Zhiyi's fate.
She resolved to retrieve the infant secretly after the man left, then find adoptive parents elsewhere.
But before she could plan, the man gasped.
Something gripped his wrists as a figure lifted the baby from the water, tenderly wiping its face until the crying resumed. Only then did the rescuer laugh.
Before the man stood a bloated "person," water gushing from every orifice, its lifeless eyes locked onto him.
"Gurgle, gurgle."
Fang Zhiyi glanced over. "He fainted. Dump him."
The drowned ghost obeyed, flinging the man onto stone pavement. The crack of breaking bones made Fang Zhiyi grimace before he sighed.
"Move out." A head-carrying ghost bellowed behind him: "Thirteen Guardians pass—mortals yield!"
Hearing the name, Ma Xiuyun sprinted forward. "Brother Zhiyi!"
Fang Zhiyi's gaze turned glacial.
"It's me, Ma Xiuyun!"
He sneered, emphasizing her surname: "Oh? Ma Xiuyun."
"My father acted foolishly back then! Spare him!"
Fang Zhiyi rolled his eyes. "When did I ever target him?"
Undeterred, she pressed on: "Your Thirteen Guardians are the vengeful ghosts, aren't they? Why keep harming people?"
The absurdity nearly made him kick her. Was she truly this dense?
Salvation came as He Wei charged from afar, waving a peachwood sword: "I sensed evil energy! Release that child!"
Once, Fang Zhiyi might have retreated. But now, having merged ghostly and immortal arts, he flicked his sleeve—sending the sword snapping in half. Another flick launched He Wei airborne.
"Consider this interest. The principal comes later."
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
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."
saw a female celebrity tied up and stuffed in the trunk! Little did he know, countless cameras were aimed at him at this moment - this was a new type of reality show. The first randomly selected passerby was caught in less than an hour. But when Xu Moru was selected, things started to take an unexpected turn. "Damn, this isn't how the script goes. This Xu Moru is too bold, he's not following the rules at all." "Crap, is this guy taking it seriously?" "The female celebrity has been scared to tears!"
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.
