Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“Brother Feng, there’s something important that I need your help with.” The person who appeared out of thin air was Zhu Ming, and he was looking at Feng San with a panicked expression on his face.
“Brother Zhu? This is…” Feng San stared blankly back at him. He had not expected Zhu Ming to suddenly appear, and in this fashion no less. Although teleportation would allow one to travel hundreds of thousands of miles in a second, it required a huge amount of energy. Unless it was a matter of life and death, ghost immortals would not teleport.
Zhu Ming was obviously extremely anxious. “Brother Feng, can I ask where the three people who came to the Divine Underworld earlier…” He stopped mid-sentence on seeing Shen Ying next to him. His eyes brightened and he cupped his fists immediately. “That’s great, you all are still here. Mother Feng… Mother Feng is in trouble.”
“What’s the matter with her?” Lonemoon walked up, shocked.
“I don’t know what’s happened to her either. Her soul suddenly became extremely unstable,” Zhu Ming said anxiously. He scanned the room and rested his gaze on Shen Ying. “May I please ask this Exalted Goddess to come back with me and save Mother Feng?” He had observed her when she broke the array earlier. This Exalted Goddess whose surname was Shen had a cultivation level higher than what it appeared as. If anyone could save Mother Feng, it would be them. He had no other choice but to come and look for them here.
Shen Ying and Lonemoon exchanged a look and decided to go and check things out. Afterall, this whole matter about missing remnant souls probably had something to do with Mother Feng as well.
“The few of us will go and check in on Mother Feng first,” Lonemoon said as he addressed Feng San and Long Zhen. “May I trouble both divinities to go to Ling Tai Mountain first to ask about the missing remnant souls?”
The two of them scanned the group worriedly. “But you all…” Feng San’s expression reflected confusion. He could not understand why Zhu Ming came here not to ask him for help, but to ask his son’s weak-looking master for help. He was just about to persuade Zhu Ming to change his mind when he caught Long Zhen glaring at him. He swallowed his words.
“Thank you, friends.” Zhu Ming quickly thanked the three of them upon hearing that they would follow him back. He urged the few of them to teleport with him.
Everything went dark for a second, then they found that they had arrived in the Divine Underworld. They were surrounded by ghost Qi and travelling souls. In front of them was a foreign temple that was covered in thick Yin Qi. It was obvious that this was where Zhu Ming lived.
Half of the originally tall temple had crumbled into pieces. From inside, they heard intermittent screaming and could faintly see the red glow of an array.
“Mother Feng is right here,” Zhu Ming exclaimed. He led the group into the temple.
The inside of the temple was in ruins. Everywhere, the walls were shattered. All that remained was the sturdy glowing array in the middle of the hall. In the middle of the array was Mother Feng, who looked as crazy as when they first saw her. She was attacking the array that trapped her. Both her eyes were bloodshot and she looked like to be in extreme pain.
The key thing was that there were nine Mother Feng’s in the array. Each was taking turns to scream, wail and groan in pain. Each one crashed into the walls of the array with greater and greater force, until cracks began to appear on the array.
“Mother Feng!” Zhu Ming shouted, rushing forward to conjure a seal to hold the array in place.
“Her soul has been split!” Lonemoon shouted, turning to face Zhu Ming. “What happened?” The different parts of her soul should have been connected to one another. As long as they were not in the soul-splitting array, they should gather back as one. Why was Mother Feng’s soul splitting into more parts?
“I don’t know either. She just became like this all of a sudden. No matter what I did, her soul would not gather back together. I had no choice but to trap her in this array,” Zhu Ming explained as he mended the array. He turned to Shen Ying pleadingly. “I had no choice but to trouble the few of you. The last time, you were able to break the Soul-Splitting Array. This time, can you please help me find out what’s wrong with Mother Feng?”
Lonemoon frowned. “We can’t tell what’s wrong with her either.” Mother Feng was different from Chef. She was missing her primary soul, not her remnant soul.
Zhu Ming’s face fell. He was beginning to panic again.
Mother Feng’s movements in the array became weaker and weaker. It seemed like she was getting tired. Or perhaps her split souls could no longer withstand the torture. Yet, her screams and wails were getting louder and louder. Each word overflowed with indignation so that it seemed like the entire Divine Underworld echoed with her hatred.
“I hate what you did to me! Why?”
“Every mountain and valley, staying together for eternity, hahaha… liar, all lies!”
“I will not die, I won’t die! Even if I become a ghost forever, and am not allowed to reincarnate, I will drag you all down into hell with me forever!”
“Great justice, cutting off your emotions to achieve enlightenment… it was all a lie! Return my life to me! Return it to me!”
Her voice was becoming more and more ear-piercing and each sentence became louder than the last. Black Qi began to appear on Mother Feng’s originally transparent souls. It did not look like the Yin Qi of ghost immortals and neither did it look like demonic Qi. Her outraged energy rushed toward the sky, threatening to fill up the entire atmosphere.”
“Grievance aura!” Zhu Ming’s eyes widened in disbelief. “How… how can this be?” Although everyone who became a ghost immortal had died with huge grievances, this was the Divine Underworld. The Divine Underworld’s Yin River could remove all the grievous energy so that ghost immortals would not be forced to descend into insanity. That was why it was not easy for ghost immortals to leave the Underworld. Yet, Mother Feng had so much grievous energy despite her soul having split.
Zhu Ming’s eyes remained wide as he realised something. His face drained of all color as he muttered, “Could it be… she still can’t let go.”
“There is one soul missing in the array,” Xuan Tong cried out.
Everyone jumped back in shock and turned to look. Indeed, of the nine Mother Feng’s that they saw in the array, only eight were left. And each of them had a huge amount of grievance around them. A moment later, five of the souls became surrounded by grievances and began to gather, as if they were being pulled by an invisible force.
“Spirit Convening in Grievance,” Bai Ze muttered, his jaw hanging open. All that grievance was helping her parted souls to gather back into one.
“No, this would cause Mother Feng to be swallowed by the grievances.” Zhu Ming became even more worried as he conjured a seal hurriedly. Yet, he could not produce anything.
The different parts of Mother Feng’s soul had already more or less gathered into one. The wailing and screaming stopped. Mother Feng’s black robes and messy hair blew about in the middle of the array. Two trails of blood remained on her face.
Suddenly, she quietened down and lost her craziness. For some reason, those two blood eyes seemed to brighten. Her gaze fixed on where the group was. All of a sudden, she broke into a cold toe-curling grin.
“Mother Feng…” Zhu Ming took a step forward.
Mother Feng’s grin widened from ear to ear. Her eyes were almost bulging out of her sockets when she suddenly laughed. “Heh heh heh… you were an accomplice. You all deserve to die. Return me my life, will you… Junior Brother?”
“You… remember?” Zhu Ming’s eyes widened as he stiffened.
Mother Feng raised her arms and screaming, causing a gust of grievous aura to charge toward Zhu Ming. All around them, the Yin Qi retreated to make way for the grievances which looked like they was about to swallow him whole.
“Zhu Ming!” Lonemoon screamed, throwing a ball of sword Qi toward Zhu Ming so that he was pushed out of the way of the grievous aura. The ground began to shake and the temple which was already half-destroyed, fell to the ground in a heap of rubble.
