After lifting Nangong Mian, the High Priest looked at Huangquan. “Should we split up and search?”
Huangquan shook her head. “No need. Take them into the city and find a place to wait for me. I’ll join you shortly.”
The High Priest gazed deeply at her. “How confident are you?”
Huangquan smirked. “Completely.”
“Good.”
The High Priest acknowledged and then turned to the others. “You, come with me.”
Nangong Mian looked at Huangquan with a complex expression, but their eyes met briefly. Seeing Huangquan’s intense gaze, Nangong Mian shivered involuntarily and quickly averted their eyes.
Lin Xu’s expression soured. “I knew bringing him along would be a hindrance.”
Upon hearing this, Huangquan looked at him with a half-smile. “Are you really so capable?”
“If you’re so capable, why did you collapse just now?”
“And besides, did I ask you to come along?”
“I…” Lin Xu was at a loss for words after being retorted.
Jingchen, annoyed by his complaint, spoke coldly, “All four of you collapsed as soon as you entered. If it wasn’t for Huangquan telling me how to wake you up, I wouldn’t have known how to bring you back to consciousness.”
“Four?”
Though Feng Jiuyuan was also displeased with Lin Xu, he had no time to deal with him now. He looked at Jingchen and asked, “Out of all of us who entered together—myself, Nangong Mian, Lin Xu, and Nangong Qingyue—are only the four of us the ones who collapsed?”
Jingchen nodded. “Hmm.”
Feng Jiuyuan, surprised by his nonchalant response, exclaimed, “I collapsed, and you’re perfectly fine…”
Jingchen remained silent, clearly unimpressed by the remark.
“Not coming?” The High Priest, who had already walked some distance ahead, turned back to them, his tone indifferent. “If you don’t want to come, stay here.”
With Huangquan’s earlier rebuke still stinging, Lin Xu felt embarrassed and angry, unsure of what to do. Now, prompted by the High Priest’s words, Lin Xu quickly ran to catch up.
Nangong Qingyue followed suit, moving swiftly.
Jingchen also resumed walking.
Feng Jiuyuan looked at Huangquan, who remained standing still. “Are you really not coming?”
Huangquan looked back at him. “Why? Want to stay here with me?”
“Only if you’re willing, then I am.”
Suppressing the urge to hit someone, Huangquan smiled faintly. “Let’s go.”
“Faster!” she added sharply.
“Haha.” Feng Jiuyuan chuckled and stopped teasing her, saying, “Since you don’t want to, I won’t insist. Huangquan, I’ll go ahead. Catch up soon.”
With that, Feng Jiuyuan ran ahead for a while before catching up with Jingchen.
The group gradually moved farther away and soon disappeared from Huangquan’s sight.
Once they were out of view, Huangquan looked up at the deathly stillness in the sky, a bloodthirsty smile creeping onto her lips. “Did you come out on your own, or did I invite you out?”
“Hmm…” As Huangquan spoke, a woman in a black dress appeared before her.
The woman had black hair and wore all black attire, her eyes the only feature tinged with a faint red hue.
Raising an eyebrow at the woman’s eyes, Huangquan asked, “Are you from the Demon Clan?”
The woman stared back at Huangquan without speaking.
Not bothered by her silence, Huangquan scrutinized the woman.
Whether from the Demon Clan or not, she was undoubtedly a dead person.
Black mist emanated from the woman’s body, a sign of deathly aura that only the deceased possessed.
Finally, breaking her silence, the woman asked, “How did you discover me?”
“No, rather… how can you see me?”
Perhaps it had been too long since she last spoke, as the woman’s voice was extremely hoarse. However, her eyes, which had previously been dull, now brightened as if a person trapped in darkness had finally seen light.
Huangquan observed the change in her expression and raised an eyebrow without answering directly. “Why shouldn’t I be able to see you?”
“You shouldn’t see me,” the woman replied with a hint of sadness. “I am a dead person…”
Upon hearing this, Huangquan subtly furrowed her brows.
Since her arrival, she had noticed something peculiar about this continent. While it operated similarly to the world she had known before—where souls could depart and possess others—it differed in one significant aspect.
Normally, ordinary people couldn’t see souls, but after death, a spirit would linger briefly near its body. During this time, emissaries from the underworld would guide the soul away.
However, in this world, the soul vanished instantly upon death.
It wasn’t the type of dispersion where the soul scattered upon death, but rather, the soul disappeared the moment the person died.
Huangquan had never witnessed such a phenomenon before, but she had speculated that different worlds operated under different rules. Perhaps in this world, the underworld and the mortal realm didn’t overlap. Therefore, when someone died, their soul simply vanished instead of waiting for an emissary to escort it away.
Since her arrival in this world, Huangquan had not seen any ghosts.
Or rather, she hadn’t seen any until today.
The woman before her was the first soul of a deceased person that Huangquan had ever seen.
“If you’ve died, why are you still here?” Huangquan asked the woman. “Shouldn’t you be in reincarnation?”
“Reincarnation?” The woman chuckled bitterly. “I can’t even leave this place, how could I enter reincarnation?”
Huangquan raised an eyebrow at her response. “You can’t leave this place?”
“No,” the woman nodded. “After I woke up, I was in this place. At that time, there were not just me, but many others here. Countless people. I thought those people were like me, but later I realized, we were all dead.”
“Many people didn’t want to believe they were dead and tried to leave this place. But no matter what we did, we couldn’t leave this city,” the woman continued.
“People started going mad. It was from that time onwards that the deathly aura above the city grew heavier. Eventually, it covered the entire city. When the deathly aura shrouded the city, a formation appeared beneath the city tower. The tower absorbed those deathly auras. Seeing something abnormal about the tower, everyone went there. But once they went there, they never returned.”
“They never came back. Why are you different?”
After hearing the woman’s story, Huangquan smiled faintly. “Is it because that tower had a special fondness for you, so it spared you alone?”
With her gaze fixed on the woman’s face, Huangquan scrutinized her carefully and then clicked her tongue twice, shaking her head. “You’re not even that good-looking.”
The woman couldn’t contain her anger upon hearing this and her face contorted slightly.
Seeing her expression, Huangquan chuckled. “Why stop pretending now?”
“Go on pretending. Watching you act and spin stories is quite entertaining.”
The woman’s face twisted even more with rage. “Whoever you are, once you’re here, don’t think you’ll leave alive!”
“Don’t contradict yourself,” Huangquan said with a smirk. “It hurts to be contradicted. Moreover…”
