At this moment, Yu Ziqing slowly opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a starving ghost, resembling a dried corpse, skin and bones, and withered innards. The starving ghost smiled faintly and bowed slowly to welcome his return.

He glanced down and saw a small strip of beef jerky in his left hand.

This was his Dao Mark for return.

It was also when he first transformed into a starving ghost, surrounded by countless people who had died of starvation, that they, transformed into starving ghosts, found some beef jerky to give him in gratitude for providing all the starving ghosts with a new path.

At that time, he had just landed in the Wilderness for a few days when a disaster struck, and everything was destroyed. The temperature began to plummet sharply, more and more people died, and chaos ensued. It was a living hell.

In the end, he would rather starve to death than eat rotten white meat. He feared that even if he survived after eating it, life would not be worth living, so it would be better to end cleanly.

Finally, he crawled to a hill, looked at the countless corpses scattered on the land, and chose the same path as them, preserving his last resolve by starving himself to death.

However, life had other plans. Everything he had, his memories, his path, his feelings, his thoughts, his past, everything was within his control. It was the only way to perfectly master a person's information without any blind spots.

The prerequisite for triggering his ability's judgment had been completely and utterly fulfilled.

And at the moment of his death, endless unwillingness, pain, and despair transformed into pure power without any impurities, harmoniously uniting with his body, mind, and will.

This fulfilled the second trigger condition, he was going to kill someone, even if that someone was himself.

Judgment completed, the explosion began.

Thus, his ability achieved its strongest and most perfect explosion.

But this explosion became himself against himself.

He wanted to starve himself to death, yet he didn't want to die of starvation. This contradiction kept battling within until it reached a unity.

Neither side relented, so both were compromised together; he starved to death, yet he didn't starve to death.

He surpassed the forever starving ghosts who could never eat, transforming into the first starving ghost with the chance to eat, something that had never existed before, completing that unity.

However, that time when he became the initial starving ghost was very short. There, countless starving ghosts accepted the path he showed and dug him out a small bag of beef jerky as a reward.

This was the initial gift and repayment.

The whole process took less than one incense stick's time, and he was pulled back by the beef jerky, which became a witness object.

Ever since then, the Hungry Ghost Dao manifested, and the beef jerky in his hand was no longer ordinary beef jerky.

He once said that his life was given by these pieces of beef jerky, truly not because he was stingy...

And now, after he awakened, in his right hand, there was a wooden bowl, left by the previous starving ghost, stubbornly believing that the thick soup in the wooden bowl was the best thing in the world, the most able to alleviate hunger, a Holy Object, insisting on leaving it for him.

Returning to his senses, Yu Ziqing smiled, looking at the starving ghost transformed from Cece in front of him.

"Seeing you, it means we should return to the Wilderness, and it's been less than twelve days."

After his first awakening, Yu Ziqing naturally knew that twelve days was the limit.

When he became the initial starving ghost, the Hungry Ghost Dao posed no obstacles for him, advancing one tier each day, and after twelve days, he could never return, and that King of Ghosts would exist forever.

However, in this state, the King of Ghosts had no self, no consciousness, only instinct.

It was also possible that, in a long time, the King of Ghosts could re-nurture a new consciousness, but that would have nothing to do with him, Yu Ziqing.

Yu Ziqing regarded the starving ghost in front of him.

"Your appearance, I find it quite unfamiliar."

He lifted his hand and handed the beef jerky to the other.

"This is your token of career change, an advanced token. Whatever, this is yours, eat it."

Holding the beef jerky, the starving ghost continued to smile and nodded.

The moment she got the beef jerky, a hole large enough for swallowing appeared in her sealed throat.

She placed the beef jerky in her mouth and chewed carefully.

Accompanying her movements, a black flame enveloped her. She pressed her lips slightly, letting out a low moan of pain that she couldn't suppress, yet her body was undergoing a transformation, being reborn in the flames.

The mummified body became full again, the pitch-black skin turned fair and pink, and hair appeared once more on her bald head.

When the flames dissipated, she returned to her previous appearance, resembling a living human.

The discarded old shell transformed into a black long robe that draped over her body.

Cece looked at her form in surprise.

Yu Ziqing smiled.

"Congratulations, you've completed your career change. 'Starving Ghost' is merely a race name like 'Human Race.' You were just an ordinary starving ghost before; now you have truly embarked on the Hungry Ghost Dao, with no chance of going back."

Cece knelt on the ground, her face full of fervor.

"Thank you for your generous gift, my king."

"Let's change the title. I'm not fond of it. If possible, I'd never want to starve to death again. I've already starved to death twice, and I don't want to become that unconscious form again, lest I really become a Devil King destroying the world."