Chapter 103 The Way of Man? The Way of Ghosts?
But at that critical moment.
Jiang Che suddenly realized that time had frozen still.
Then, his soul felt a sudden lightness. The world spun, and when he opened his eyes again, he was standing in a vast expanse of gray mist.
Beneath his feet were mottled jade tiles, their cracks crawling with dark red moss like dried blood.
Before him, a ruined black palace stood in the fog, eaves broken, red lacquer peeling. Only the bronze ghost lantern hanging at the center still flickered faintly, casting swaying shadows.
His mind grew suddenly clear.
This was… the inside of the ancient jade?
He could not help but walk forward.
The doors were long decayed, crumbling to powder at a touch. Within, the hall was empty and desolate. At its center stood a cracked stone stele, carved with the old script of the ghost clan. Yet Jiang Che could somehow understand it—
"In the three-thousandth year of the Sacred Era, the human saint used love as bait to tempt our clan's princess into stealing the Candle Yin Pendant…"
The carved words twisted and changed, transforming into visions that unfolded before his eyes.
He saw a moonlit night, serene as water. The white-robed saint, spotless as snow, stood hand in hand with the ghost princess by the River of the Dead. The ghost pattern on her brow glowed with a pale blue light, and hidden within her sleeve was the pendant—its colors shifting between day and night, pure black under the sun, snow-white by moonlight, as if a silver river flowed within.
"Later, the saint led human cultivators to massacre the ghost clan. The princess held the pendant to question him, but was ambushed instead…"
The vision changed abruptly.
The ghost princess had a Soul-Slaying Sword buried in her chest, blood staining her snow-white robes.
In her dying breath, her bloodied fingers pressed upon the Candle Yin Pendant. The shadow of the dragon clutching the candle within the jade suddenly opened its eyes—
The Candle Yin Pendant was the ghost clan's supreme treasure, forged from the reverse scale shed by the Candle-Holding Dragon, fused with the essence of moonlight. It contained the Great Dao of Time. Each use could reverse three breaths of existence!
It was precisely those three breaths that pulled back the sword's edge from her heart to three inches away.
She had every chance to strike back.
Yet she only trembled as she stroked the saint's face.
"If I could live it all again… would you truly treat me with sincerity?"
The saint's pupils contracted violently.
But before he could speak, she had already seen the answer in his eyes.
Her figure shattered into countless motes of light, fusing completely with the pendant. The Candle Yin Pendant became exactly as it was when Jiang Che had found it.
Then a cold voice echoed in Jiang Che's mind—
To enter my Ghost Gate, one must abandon all hope, forsake all humanity. With this jade, command the myriad ghosts!
So this ancient jade in his hands… was called the Candle Yin Pendant!
Jiang Che felt a violent spinning sensation, and when he returned to himself, he was once again in the Cave of Ten Thousand Ghosts.
In that instant he understood. The vision just now was shown to him by this supreme treasure, the Candle Yin Pendant, for one purpose only—to force him to choose between man and ghost.
The ghost general's claws tore through the air, a rancid wind surging toward him. Jiang Che could clearly see the rotten gums hung with scraps of flesh—perhaps the fate that awaited him.
"Do I even have a choice…?"
He gave a bitter smile, his fingers unconsciously stroking the burning-hot pendant at his chest.
In a daze, memories flashed like a lantern reel—
The resolute face of his childhood companion in his past life, the cold rejection of his clansmen in this life.
It seemed he had always been the one abandoned.
"This mortal world…"
Jiang Che suddenly laughed.
"—is truly not worth it!"
He was about to merge with the jade upon his chest.
But in that fleeting instant, his body froze.
A gentle power wrapped around him.
Startled, he looked up into a pair of warm, tender eyes.
...
[Jiang Che]
Cultivation: Object Manipulation Realm (Peak)
Potential: 100 (Peerless Genius)
Fate: 75 (Child of Destiny)
Loyalty: 10 (Slight Favorability)
Personality: Kind, Resolute
…
Chen Chang'an quietly wiped the sweat that didn't exist on his forehead.
If not for idly sweeping his system panel across this youth who had come to deliver news, he might have missed it.
Just a moment ago, he had seen the strange artifact at the young man's chest releasing thick black deathly qi, enveloping him completely. The youth's face had shown grief, then resolute determination. Only a fool would fail to know he was about to make a decision that would provoke heaven's wrath.
Chen Chang'an immediately immobilized him.
What followed was boundless delight.
He had found his eldest disciple's future wife, and encountered the ultimate goal of this mission!
It was truly a double blessing.
He glanced at Elder Mo, still struggling to resist the tide of ghosts, and felt a pang of guilt.
Sorry, brother, you'll be able to rest soon.
Next, it's my turn to take over the stage!
After giving a reassuring look to his future little disciple…
Chen Chang'an took a deep breath. At a time like this, against these ghosts drenched in baleful qi, the best method was naturally the supreme immortal art of wide-area devastation—Great Sun Burning Heaven Technique.
Flames suddenly appeared, but in the next instant, Chen Chang'an quietly extinguished them.
Because right then—
"Disgraceful!"
A cold snort boomed like thunder, shaking even the surging baleful qi in the cavern into stillness.
Everyone looked up in shock to see a blood-red blade light cleaving through the black mist, as a middle-aged man in dark crimson battle robes strode through the air.
His figure was towering like an iron tower, his face sharp as if cut by a blade, marred by a vicious scar across it. His gray-white temples were bristling like steel needles.
Most striking of all were his eyes—his left black as ink, his right glowing with a strange, eerie green, as if sealing some ferocious beast within.
"Ge-General!"
The white-robed commanders were struck as if by lightning. The bronze mask of the third commander even clattered to the ground, revealing a pale face. The fourth commander's legs trembled, his bloodstained saber slipping from his grip with a clang.
The man was none other than the current general of the Ghost-Suppressing Army—Blood-Eyed Asura, Ye Guhan!
Every step he took imprinted a bloody flame mark in the void. Behind him manifested a six-armed, three-headed Asura phantom.
The raging tide of ghosts instinctively recoiled. Several ghost king–level beings whimpered in terror and curled back into the depths of baleful qi.
"Three hundred generations of endurance…" Ye Guhan's voice was icy, like it came from the depths of the Nine Nether Hells. "And it results in you worthless traitors?"
He suddenly stretched out his hand, seizing the third commander by the throat from afar and lifting him into the air.
"You all deserve death—but now that the Ghost Gate has opened, the Ghost-Suppressing Army has entered emergency readiness. I will grant you a chance to atone for your sins through merit."
"Understood?"
"Thank you, General, thank you for sparing us!" The white-robed men instantly fell to their knees, knocking their heads to the ground, their earlier confidence utterly gone.
Ye Guhan then turned his gaze upon Chen Chang'an and his companions, finally settling on Elder Mo. "Leave this to me. You follow them to the black market. Unless absolutely necessary, refrain from acting. I have no wish for that inexplicable one to suddenly strike at the Ghost-Suppressing Army."
"That would be best," Elder Mo said with relief. He had not expected this journey to be so perilous.
Fortunately, it had passed without disaster.
But after speaking, Ye Guhan suddenly frowned, looking toward a shadowy corner. He murmured, "Strange… just now I clearly saw something there…"
No one noticed the faint tendrils of gray mist quietly seeping from Chen Chang'an's sleeve pouch…
…
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