After a long while, Feng Yuqin spoke again: “The founding ancestor of the Feng Family fell into destitution on the streets and nearly starved to death as a beggar. You saved his life, and that was how the Zhongyin Feng Family came to be. Now, with the Feng Family exterminated and only Cheng An’s bloodline remaining, you have returned to the world as a human. Everything has come full circle. Yaya, I entrust the Feng Family’s mission and inheritance to you—it is also returning it to you. From this day forward, there is no more Zhongyin Feng Family.”
Was her grandma about to leave her? Wang Ya’s already pale face turned ashen as paper, her wide eyes brimming with tears.
Feng Yuqin said, “Yaya, you must walk the path ahead on your own. If possible, I entrust Cheng An to you. Take good care of him. I don’t ask that he achieve great things—only that he lives safely. Of the Feng Family’s skills, I only taught you Exorcism and Ghost Hunting, fearing that as a child, you might act without restraint and harm lives. You endured endless bullying and exclusion as a child, and all I taught you was Refining the Heart, hoping you would understand my intentions.” She murmured softly, “The Nine Royal Tombs were all built on piles of human lives and bones!” As her voice faded, Feng Yuqin’s figure vanished along with the courtyard, revealing a ruin of scattered stones. Wang Ya stood amid the rubble, along with the Leaf Demon.
Wang Ya stood frozen in place like a wooden puppet, utterly motionless.
Ye Zi sat on a nearby stone, propping her cheek and gazing thoughtfully at the dazed Wang Ya.
It was a long time before Wang Ya stirred. She knelt respectfully toward the spot where Feng Yuqin had disappeared, kowtowing three times with her forehead to the ground. “Grandma, I will remember your teachings. No matter who I was in my past life or what grievances there were in the past, in this life, my name is Wang Ya.” With that, she rose and stepped through the ruins toward the fog. After walking some distance, she realized she was merely treading in place. She turned to Ye Zi, who sat on the stone, and said, “Ye Zi, please send me away.”
Ye Zi sat with her knees drawn up on the stone, gazing at Wang Ya. Her eyes were coldly sharp yet bright, the only real thing in this fog-shrouded, ever-shifting illusory realm. She asked, “You still want to leave? To go to the human world, that place that doesn’t belong to you or me?”
Wang Ya looked steadily at Ye Zi and softly uttered a single word: “Yes!”
Ye Zi’s piercing gaze fixed on Wang Ya for a long moment before she asked, “What is left in the human world worth your attachment? What’s good about going to a world that doesn’t belong to you or me?”
Wang Ya said, “Conviction! I want to live upright and unyielding. I want to carve a path in the human world different from my past life.”
Ye Zi asked, “Must you become human? I have already cultivated an External Incarnation, and you have separated from your original body to exist independently. You no longer need to go to the human world to find a way out for us.”
Wang Ya said, “But I must find a way out for myself.”
Ye Zi paused, not understanding Wang Ya’s words. She said, “The human world does not tolerate demons. If you go there, you’ll face endless pursuit and peril, gaining nothing. What way out is there?”
Wang Ya asked, “If the me of this life encountered the me of my past life, do you know what I would do?”
Ye Zi was stunned again and instinctively asked, “What would you do?”
Wang Ya softly uttered two words, firm beyond measure: “Exterminate the demon!”
Ye Zi’s voice suddenly rose, laced with anger as she demanded, “Why?”
Wang Ya said, “Those who harmed the Other Shore Flower Demon were the scheming Xuanmen Cultivators who sought to capture her for pills and artifacts. What did that have to do with ordinary folk? She allied with the nine Vassal Lords to build the Nine Royal Tombs, expending wealth and manpower—how many innocent lives were lost? I won’t speak of the tombs I haven’t seen, but just the Myriad Coffins Azure Dragon Palace and the Illusory City Labyrinth I witnessed claimed tens of thousands! If the Flower Demon hadn’t revealed these underground Yin Vein Dragon Acupoints to those Vassal Lords, even if they built tombs for themselves—violating taboos to erect imperial mausoleums—they wouldn’t have reached such scales or demanded so many sacrificial burials! Those people were once living beings too! They had family, loved ones, yet they were innocently implicated and died miserably underground! Even if the Flower Demon suffered injustice and hardship upon entering the human world, and even if she sought revenge in her rebirth, she shouldn’t make the common people and innocent masses pay the price! There’s a saying in the human world: ‘The guilty have heads, and debts have owners.’ She should seek vengeance from those who killed her, not implicate so many innocent lives. The Flower Demon committed a heaven-defying wrong and owes a mountain of blood debts! Ye Zi, how can I face this endless sea of withered bones, blood, wronged souls, and undead? With Exorcism and Ghost Hunting to guard the righteous path and perform Soul Delivery on the undead? Are you willing? Are those Vassal Lords who have slumbered underground for a millennium willing?”
Ye Zi was rendered speechless by Wang Ya’s impassioned words. After a long silence, she slowly asked, “Without allying with the Vassal Lords, what could she have used to oppose the Orthodox Xuanmen Path? What to protect herself? Without the aid of those nine Vassal Lords, you would have long been refined into pills, artifacts, or your Divine Soul scattered—do you think you’d have the chance to stand here and lecture on the past?”
Wang Ya said gravely, “If living means bearing endless sins, I’d rather die clean. Ye Zi, in the human world, I’ve faced pursuits too, cornered with no escape, even Opening Yellow Springs to flee and hiding in the Nine Great Royal Tombs to slay enemies. I’ve killed many, stained my hands with much blood, but I can proudly tell everyone: I never harmed a single innocent or owed anyone anything. I want to live openly and upright, standing tall—even in death, I die standing.”
Ye Zi pondered for a long time before asking, “Is the human world good?”
While Ye Zi pondered, Wang Ya calmed her emotions. She said, “The human world is a place where good and evil coexist. Every day, countless joys and sorrows unfold. Do you remember those Yin Spirit Ghosts lingering on the Yellow Springs Road, unwilling to enter the Underworld yet unable to return to the human world? They cling to it, and so do I. Compared to facing endless bones, undead, severed limbs, and an eternally dark world, I still prefer the sunlit human realm.”
Ye Zi thought briefly and said, “I want to go see the human world with you.”
