CHAPTER 346: GHOST-FACE VINE! HIDDEN MESSAGE! BALD YOUTH!

The sky over Fengdu was shrouded in heavy and oppressive layers of black mist. It pressed down on the heart with suffocating weight.

All around, gloomy winds howled. From time to time came the wails of fierce ghosts, mixed with the sounds of men and women, old and young, arguing, crying, sighing... It was a constant cacophony gnawing at the mind, making it hard to remain calm.

Li Yanchu restrained his aura. He neither used his Cloud-Riding Immortal Art, nor stirred the surging qi and blood of a martial artist. Instead, he relied on the strength of his tempered flesh alone, bounding across the Fengdu secret realm. He was slower, yes, but steady.

In this hellish land, even one who could summon a third-realm Ancestral Master’s spirit had to keep their tail tucked. To recklessly soar into the skies here was nothing short of suicide!

One might not fly far at all before stumbling into a forbidden zone where not even birds could pass, or worse, a colossal hand might reach out from the clouds or mountains and slap you straight out of the air.

The limitation of the Illusory Form was simple: you couldn’t flaunt your powers. Otherwise, with qi and blood burning like a furnace, no matter how stupid they were, even the ghosts would know you weren’t one of them.

Guided by Daoist senses, Li Yanchu traversed Fengdu’s desolate lands. All around was only depthless darkness, each breath heavy and stifling.

At present, he walked across flat plains. The earth was hard, steeped with a faint stench of blood. No trace of life remained; it was barren, lifeless, and there was not a single plant in sight.

As he delved deeper, the terrain began to shift. Hills and mountains appeared here and there. And at last, Li Yanchu saw the first plant of Fengdu. A vine clinging to black stone, upon which grew a twisted ghost face.

As he passed by, the ghost-face vine tried to bewitch him, its mouth curling into a sultry woman’s voice before singing a haunting melody. Heat surged through his body, and his breath quickened. In an instant, Li Yanchu realized: this thing carried an aphrodisiac effect!

Ptui!

“Despicable thing!”

Li Yanchu didn’t use any protective artifact; he relied solely on his astonishing willpower to resist. After all, this was something born of Fengdu.

A thought stirred in him: he wanted to take this thing back. And absolutely not because of the ghost-face vine’s... effects. It was purely because he liked collecting treasures from secret realms.

He drew his sharp Jiaoslayer, ready to dig the vine out by the roots. But after a moment’s thought, he slowly slid the saber back into its scabbard.

Instead, he pulled out the bronze dagger he had seized from the old farmer. The ghost-face vine’s twisted visage shifted, and its expression looked almost human, and utterly terrified.

That dagger carried a chilling sword aura, a perfect bane against ghostly creatures such as this. Of course, the Jiaoslayer could have achieved the same. But that was his lifelong companion weapon.

Even after acquiring the Southern Ember Sword, a world-shaking killing tool from the Jade Altar Blissful Land, he hadn’t abandoned his saber for the sword. How could he demean it now and use it like a shovel?

The ghost-face vine was quickly uprooted. It possessed no real physical combat power, and its attacks targeted only ghosts and primordial spirits.

But against Li Yanchu? It was sheer misfortune.

His primordial spirit was incomparably tough, condensed to an extreme and utterly immune to the vine’s influence.

“Fellow Daoist! Why don’t we join forces and cut down this vile ghost together!” the ghost-face vine suddenly spoke, this time in the voice of a young man.

Li Yanchu’s brows rose. What the hell!?

Was there a cultivator’s primordial spirit trapped in this vine? Or... was the vine speaking to someone else, planning to kill him?

That the ghost-face vine could talk didn’t shock him too much, though such a thing shouldn’t have possessed this level of intelligence, who could say, here in Fengdu? This was a ghostly secret realm, after all. It wasn’t impossible for strange anomalies to arise.

But soon, he realized he had guessed wrong. Because yet another voice came from within the ghost-face vine.

“I’m not interested!” It was a cool, aloof female voice.

Distant, carrying a chill that rejected all approach, yet so pleasing to the ear that one could easily imagine its owner... If the voice belonged not to a top-tier voice actress, then surely it was of an extraordinarily beautiful woman.

Li Yanchu frowned. That voice... why did it sound familiar?

“Fellow Daoist, this Fengdu ghost domain is filled with peril. Perhaps I can lend you a hand!”

“No need.”

“Fellow Daoist... ah, wait, fellow Daoist!”

Another exchange echoed out.

Li Yanchu fixed his gaze on the ghost-face vine, and suddenly realized that this thing was just a recording device. It was parroting conversations it had heard. From the snippets, he guessed the male voice was probably some eager busybody, a bootlicker type. The female voice, by contrast, was icy and untouchable. In the end, the woman had likely walked away, ignoring him.

“Wait a second! Isn’t that Qinglan!?”

Li Yanchu smacked his forehead. No wonder he hadn’t recognized it at first. In this Fengdu secret realm, where could another living person come from? That was Fang Qinglan’s voice!

She had only spoken five words just now, but because he hadn’t seen her in so long, he hadn’t recognized her at first.

Immediately, his expression grew odd. The male voice sounded fairly young, a young man by the sound of it.

“What’s going on? Besides me, there’s another living man in Fengdu?”

Li Yanchu pulled out a talisman and slapped it onto the ghost-face vine.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!

White smoke hissed up, and the vine’s face twisted in agony.

“Damn it, I can’t suppress it.” He frowned.

What he had just used was an ordinary Demonslayer Talisman effective against ghosts, but clearly not enough here.

He thought for a moment. He could summon Lady Yun from the Dragon-Tiger Scepter; though timid, she did possess some high-level Daoist arts.

But Lady Yun’s aura was pure and clear, even touched with a trace of Buddhist qi. If she appeared here, she’d be like a 2,000-watt spotlight in the darkness!

The other option was to use an enhanced Demonslayer Talisman.

Li Yanchu gave a slight shake of his head. It wasn’t worth burning away merit just to seal a single ghost-face vine with an enhanced Demonslayer Talisman. Normally, he’d just chop it down with one strike.

After a moment’s thought, he instead cast a Soul-Capturing Art, using the technique to bind the ghost-face vine.

Not sure if this is the right tool for the job, he murmured inwardly.

The Soul-Capturing Art was designed to seize souls and primordial spirits. Whether it would work on a ghost-face vine in Fengdu... that he didn’t know.

Very soon... The vine only struggled weakly for a moment before being locked down by a powerful restriction.

“It works!” Li Yanchu’s eyes lit up.

Did this mean the ghost-face vine was essentially a kind of spiritual entity, rather than a plant? The thought flashed through his mind, but he quickly shook his head and let it go.

He stuffed the vine into his Universe Pouch, and continued on his way. About the time it takes to burn a stick of incense later, he arrived at a place of rugged terrain, strewn with black stones jutting up like a massive ruin.

Suddenly, he caught sight of a figure half-hidden behind one of the black rocks cautiously poking its head out. The figure had its back to him.

Li Yanchu arched an eyebrow. Whether that figure was man or ghost, why did it give off such an oddly... sleazy feeling?

A flash of divine light flickered in his eyes, instantly seeing through the man’s nature.

It was a living person! He merely carried something that concealed his yang qi.

Li Yanchu’s expression turned a little strange. “No way it’s such a coincidence...”

He immediately strode quickly toward that figure. Only when he drew closer did he notice that the man was actually bald.

Hearing the sound, the bald man turned around, his face full of vigilance. He looked to be about twenty-five or twenty-six, with small eyes and an ordinary appearance. He wore a scholar’s long robe, yet tucked into the belt at his waist was an axe.