Chapter 7

Qi Xu didn’t know what the other party was running from, but she knew she had to give chase. However, because her brain felt groggy, she lacked the energy for it, and even pursuing lacked any enthusiasm. Qi Xu slowly paced through the air, walking toward the direction in which the stone spirit had fled.

She walked very slowly, but Qi Xu seemed to possess some shrinking steps ability, covering more than a dozen meters with each stride. Her speed was so fast it resembled a ghostly blur.

It created an indescribable visual sensation. Her eyes clearly saw Qi Xu walking slowly, but in the next second, she was very far away, as if frames had been skipped. What the eyes perceived was eerily different from reality. If anyone had seen it, their sanity value would have plummeted.

Even so, Qi Xu still felt that she was too slow. If only she had a car.

The stone spirit fleeing ahead didn’t dare look back at all, fearing it would meet disaster with a single glance. It ran very fast, charging headlong toward the direction in which Qi Xu and the others had fled earlier without turning its head. Half an hour earlier, Qi Xu and the stone spirit had swapped positions. Now the stone spirit was the one fleeing, with Qi Xu in pursuit.

The reason it fled in this direction was that it had overheard Xia Zhiming and Qi Xu’s conversation. The Ghost Domain was its territory, and no matter what anyone said there, it could hear. Only now did it realize that Xia Zhiming’s earlier words had been said deliberately for it to hear!

It had seen that Qi Xu still remembered Xia Zhiming’s words and figured that only Xia Zhiming could stop Qi Xu at a time like this, so it desperately fled in her direction.

The stone spirit’s speed surpassed Qi Xu’s from before. It didn’t take long for it to burst through the bubble barrier. At that moment, it spotted Xia Zhiming about fifty meters ahead, who had already set up the Five Elements Eight Trigrams Array. Her daoist robe, talisman paper, peachwood sword—nothing was missing.

At the instant the stone spirit halted, the copper coin sword came chasing after it and embedded itself in its neck, pressing it to the ground.

The copper coin sword carried tremendous force. With this motion, it dragged the stone spirit across those fifty meters, directly to the side of the array Xia Zhiming had drawn. Xia Zhiming glanced at the stone spirit and said, “If you want to live, spit out Qi Xu’s body.”

“I’m really done with you ghosts. You don’t investigate anything and just dare to act against Qi Xu? How does it feel now? Isn’t that sensation of your soul about to scatter just refreshing?”

【……】

The stone spirit couldn’t respond and could only do as Xia Zhiming said, first spitting out Qi Xu’s body.

It had hidden the body inside its stone body. It cracked open the stone, revealing a bit of Qi Xu’s body. Xia Zhiming glanced at the bubble barrier and frowned. She directly reached in, yanked Qi Xu’s body out, and held it in her arms, carrying it over to the Five Elements Eight Trigrams Array.

She had just finished doing this when the bubble barrier trembled. In the next second, it shattered outright.

The stone spirit’s eyes bulged wide. It had just been about to lament 【My Ghost Domain!】 when the scene before it left it too stunned to speak.

The bubble-like barrier hadn’t burst abruptly but had been smashed open. After the bubble cracked from the impact, an unbelievable sight came into view. A silver moon hung high, and below it was an unmissable procession. Beneath the sixteen-lift palanquin were numerous fierce ghosts—far more than sixteen in number. They hunched their backs and stacked together, yet every one extended hands upward to lift the sedan poles, as if bearing a thousand-jin stone mill that bent their waists straight.

The sixteen large palanquins had only four supporting pillars around, topped with a roof-like structure. The whole thing was pitch black, appearing especially heavy under the moonlight. Besides the ghosts carrying the palanquins, there was also a neat and orderly ceremonial guard team. The stone spirit took one look and found them familiar—weren’t these all the ghosts it had ruled before?!

It had been gone less than three minutes, and now they were beating gongs and drums to clear the way for her!

Some beat gongs and drums, some bounced and jumped beside the procession performing shaman dances, and others followed blankly at the rear.

They were completely different from the small fry under the stone spirit before. They had been draped in various ancient costumes, ragged and ill-fitting though they were. But their ferocious expressions and the eerie ghost qi swirling around them didn’t diminish their powerful appearance at all.

They hadn’t been like this under the stone spirit’s command before!

Upon closer inspection, a figure sat rigidly inside that heavy black palanquin. The palanquin was so large that the occupant couldn’t be seen clearly, but the instant it looked toward the palanquin, the stone spirit felt as if it had locked eyes with a pair of lifeless pupils, causing its entire body to tremble. It didn’t dare meet that gaze and could only silently lower its head.

That overwhelmingly oppressive aura and the spectacle of the ghost horde carrying the palanquin left the stone spirit utterly baffled: Where the hell had she gotten this palanquin from? How could it be so formidable?!

Earlier, when Xia Zhiming accused it of acting against Qi Xu without investigation, it had felt a bit unconvinced. Now the stone spirit truly understood—this was no one it could touch.

Though the stone spirit had lowered its head, there was still one person with eyes wide open who dared to meet Qi Xu’s gaze. Xia Zhiming held Qi Xu’s body with one arm around her waist, letting Qi Xu’s head rest against her neck. Her other hand gripped the peachwood sword as she stared straight at Qi Xu in the center of the ghost-carried palanquin.

The palanquin arrived before them in an instant. The horde of vicious ghosts bared fangs and claws, lunging toward Xia Zhiming, but the Five Elements Eight Trigrams Array under her feet was no pushover. Golden light flared, forcing the ghosts to retreat a step with miserable shrieks.

The stone spirit nearby cursed inwardly: And you still claim you’re not a Daoist! With this setup! This skill—if you’re not a Daoist practitioner, I’ll take your surname!

It had overheard all the words Xia Zhiming and Qi Xu exchanged at the Ghost Domain entrance earlier. At this moment, it certainly wouldn’t believe Xia Zhiming’s claims. This was clearly the bearing of a Daoist.

The horde of ghosts dared not advance, but Qi Xu did. She stepped out from the palanquin as lightly as clouds in the sky, quietly floating about two meters in front of Xia Zhiming. The other ghosts scattered upon seeing her emerge from the palanquin, afraid to offend this master.

Her disheveled hair floated silently in the night. Qi Xu looked down imperiously from above, her lowered eyes fixed on Xia Zhiming below and her own body.

She didn’t open her mouth, speaking just like the stone spirit had: 【Why block me? I want to kill it. Eat it.】

Xia Zhiming raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’re not completely out of it. You haven’t attacked me yet.” She simply set down the peachwood sword and beckoned Qi Xu with a finger. With her other hand, she adjusted her hold on Qi Xu’s body, leaning it forward a bit.

Those lifeless eyes seemed to settle on her own body.

“I’ll give you a choice. Either return to your body now, or I’ll beat you back into it. Enough already—hurry up. Dawn’s coming soon, and you’ll really turn into a ghost.”

Qi Xu tilted her head, seemingly pondering Xia Zhiming’s words. After a moment, her unfocused eyes shifted and looked toward the stone spirit on the side. The stone spirit desperately curled its massive body into a ball, hoping Qi Xu wouldn’t notice it.

Xia Zhiming urged her at that moment. “Come back quick!”

In that instant, Qi Xu appeared somewhat aggrieved, but she still obediently listened to Xia Zhiming. She gave the stone spirit one last glance before descending toward her. The golden light that had just repelled the ghosts didn’t flare this time. Qi Xu, clad in her dark ancient costume, landed lightly on her own body like a fledgling returning to its nest. Then a flash of silvery white light passed, and Qi Xu’s ghost body vanished.

Even the heavy palanquin turned into motes of silvery white fragments and disappeared, leaving only the horde of fierce ghosts exchanging bewildered glances, unsure what to do.

At this point, the stone spirit felt it could perk up again.

The ghost body Qi Xu that it feared was gone, and it figured the Daoist Xia Zhiming probably couldn’t beat it. If she could have, she wouldn’t have run earlier. And so the stone spirit tried to slowly stand, forgetting that the copper coin sword was still embedded in its neck, pinning it to the ground.

It struggled a couple times, but the copper coin sword didn’t budge an inch. The stone spirit froze.

In the next moment, it saw Xia Zhiming, who had been holding Qi Xu, shrug her shoulders. Qi Xu tumbled straight off her shoulder to the ground with a loud thud. That sound made even the stone spirit wince in pain.

Xia Zhiming straightened her pink daoist robe, picked up the peachwood sword from the ground, and walked toward the stone spirit.

Only then did the stone spirit realize that the person before it was no pushover either.

Its whole body shuddered, and it once again thought of fleeing. But it didn’t know that the human before it was actually even harder to deal with than Qi Xu’s ghost body.

With the even more powerful ghost soul departed, the scene reverted to a uniform crimson. The bubble barrier, which had already shattered, now showed faint signs of repairing itself. The vicious ghosts once commanded by Qi Xu had lost their leader and began to show signs of submitting to the stone spirit again.

Everything was developing in the stone spirit’s favor, yet it felt a chill run through it. As a ghost, it couldn’t feel cold, but a chill seeped into its soul, creeping up its stone body.

“I’ve been investigating you for a long time, but since you never made a move, I got lazy and didn’t bother with you. I didn’t watch closely for one second, and you pulled off something huge. Little stone, you don’t think I can handle you, do you?” Xia Zhiming smiled as she walked to the stone spirit’s side, pointing her peachwood sword at it.

“I ran for so long earlier precisely because you pulled that mass human transformation stunt. Without those living people around you, you’d have kicked the bucket ages ago.”

Xia Zhiming was quite strong, but she had one flaw—she talked too much. This gave the stone spirit an opportunity. It carefully removed the copper coin sword from its neck. And while Xia Zhiming wasn’t paying attention, it sent a portion of its stone body snaking along the ground toward the bubble barrier.

As long as it could enter the bubble barrier, Xia Zhiming would hesitate to act.

Because it was the strongest earthbound spirit in this Ghost Domain.