Dissipation

Dusk had arrived, and the golden evening sun bathed the eerie, grey-white woods shrouded in ghost qi. Night was drawing near. Not knowing how long the battle between the two "soul bodies" below would last, Xu Yuan took Ran Qingmo back toward the carriage to wait. Yet when they returned to the tree-lined path from earlier, the carriage was nowhere to be seen. After searching carefully, he discovered that the flame-hoofed carriage had been led into a stable amidst the woods and parked there. Xu Yuan instinctively assumed it was Xu Changge's doing. After all, apart from the demon-ghost who called himself Old Ghost, there were no other living creatures in this ghost mist. But upon seeing the forage and dried fruits in the feeding trough—evidently prepared with meticulous care—he immediately dismissed the thought. Xu Changge might drive a carriage, but the image of Xu Changge preparing horse feed was starkly out of character. Taking hold of the mahogany handle to board the carriage, Xu Yuan shook his head. "The feed is prepared quite well, but to think that Old Ghost would have such refined leisure." "Thank you for the praise, Third Young Master. This old servant has led horses and driven carriages for the Lord Chancellor all his life; aside from killing, this is the only craft I have left." "......" Xu Yuan froze. The voice, hoarse as grinding old tree bark, rang out abruptly. Xu Yuan's hand on the mahogany railing stiffened. After an instant of silence, that voice like scraping old bark continued from behind him, dull and bizarre: "If I have startled the Third Young Master, I beg the Third Young Master's forgiveness." Collecting his thoughts, Xu Yuan slowly released the handrail. But what caught the corner of his eye made his heart skip a beat. The stable here was crude—just a few wooden posts supporting a shed overhead. Open on all sides with a clear view, one could see the twisted, grey-white forest all around. Yet at this moment, the forest, which had still been relatively bright just moments before, was being swallowed at a visible pace by an encroaching black mist. In just a few breaths, everything around seemed to vanish into thin air, plunged into pitch darkness. Even Ran Qingmo, who had been standing a meter beside him just a moment ago, was nowhere to be seen. Apart from the stable, only a soul body that appeared almost corporeal stood quietly beside him. Yet it did not have Gui Qi's appearance; it was the Saint's soul body, and upon his fingertip rested that pitch-black soul ring. Seeing this, Xu Yuan's pupils constricted slightly. From beginning to end, he had never cared whether the Saint's remnant soul lived or died. Although the Saint's remnant soul had lived for ten thousand years, the useful information he possessed... was not necessarily more than what Xu Yuan himself knew. What Xu Yuan truly cared about, from start to finish, was solely the Saint's remnant soul's sheer strength that could keep him safe. After all, no matter how strong Ran Qingmo was, she could not merge with him. If they ran into formidable enemies and broke into a fight, he would only become a liability to Ran Qingmo; she would have to fight while constantly worrying that the shockwaves might pulverize him. The Saint's remnant soul, on the other hand, functioned as a ring-bound old master who could possess his body to fight. Full AI control, and no fear of being shaken to death by collateral shockwaves. A perfect bodyguard. Xu Yuan had actually planned to bind the Saint's remnant soul through mutual interest. He knew very well what kind of scoundrel this Saint's remnant soul was, and he knew exactly what the Saint's remnant soul desired. Now, however, it seemed Xu Changge had other ideas. While Xu Yuan didn't know what his elder brother specifically intended, it appeared Xu Changge had wanted Old Ghost to directly devour the Saint's remnant soul, usurping the nest so that Old Ghost could protect him instead. But the question was: Could a yin ghost truly be trusted? Unreliable though the Saint's remnant soul might be, he could at least be bound by the logic of self-interest. Yin ghosts, however, existed by nature solely to destroy. The situation caught Xu Yuan somewhat off guard, thoughts flashing rapidly through his mind. Was this also orchestrated by his elder brother? Surely it hadn't gone this far? Forcing him, a mere Seventh-Rank Meridian Tempering cultivator, to face a Second-Rank yin ghost right out of the gate—cranking up the difficulty shouldn't be this absurd, right? But if it wasn't planned by his brother... *Hiss...* Xu Yuan quietly circulated his cultivation technique and chose his words carefully: "Are you Old Ghost?" The Saint's soul body now had no whites in its eyes; both eyes were filled with an extreme, dense blackness. His voice remained just as dry and parched: "Third Young Master need not be nervous. For now, it is still this old servant." Xu Yuan quietly dispersed his technique. A demon-ghost of this rank truly needed no justification to kill him. But what did he mean by that? "For now?" "Yes." "Where is this?" "This is a ghost domain that this old servant created by borrowing the Saint's origin soul." "The Saint's origin soul... What about Luo Daofan?" "Temporarily suppressed by this old servant." "You didn't devour him?" "Naturally not," Gui Qi answered without hesitation. Xu Yuan paused, hesitating. "Then in the future, will you two share a single soul body?" He knew that in this world, a physical body could be shared by two souls, but whether a soul body could be shared was beyond his knowledge. Gui Qi fell silent for a moment, his voice devoid of any fluctuation: "No. This old servant will soon dissipate." Xu Yuan's pupils shrank. "Dissipate? Didn't Xu Changge tell you to devour that Saint's soul body?" The corners of Gui Qi's cracked lips seemed to twitch, but in the end he merely shook his head slightly. "This old servant naturally wished to protect the Third Young Master as you travel the world, and wished to continue leading horses and driving carriages for the Lord Chancellor, but with this demon-ghost body, I fear that is no longer possible. "A month ago, had the Eldest Young Master not arrived in time, this old servant would have become a mindless ghost monster. Even with a secret technique locking my soul, by now I have reached my absolute limit." Silence. Within the pitch-black ghost domain, Xu Yuan remained quiet for a few breaths before asking softly, "If that's the case, what was the purpose of doing all this?" "Soul fusion." As he spoke, Gui Qi slowly turned his gaze and raised a hand to point at this soul body of his. "Had it succeeded, this Saint would have sworn loyalty to our Chancellor's Manor." Gui Qi's coarse voice echoed in a muffled rumble: "Yet this old servant was incompetent and failed. But rest assured, Third Young Master—although I could not make him loyal to the Lord Chancellor, this old servant has engraved the thought of keeping you safe into his consciousness." Hearing this, Xu Yuan was stunned. Trading his life for a... mental seal? The thought flashed through his mind, and in that instant, he finally understood what Xu Changge had intended all along. Yet looking at Gui Qi standing so utterly calm before him, he fell into silence. A loyalty that remained unchanged even after turning into a yin ghost. After a long silence, Xu Yuan said in a low voice: "Old Ghost, you came to see me specifically because you have words you want me to bring to my father?" He remembered what the other had asked of him back in the cavern. Gui Qi gave a slight nod. "Yes." Xu Yuan took a deep breath. "Speak. I will pass it on truthfully." "Thank you, Third Young Master." Gui Qi bowed low in solemn reverence, his parched, withered voice carrying a slight tremor: "Gui Qi is incompetent. I have failed the Lord Chancellor." Having spoken, Gui Qi slowly straightened his back. Xu Yuan was silent for several breaths. "Just that one sentence?" "Stained with the blood of my comrades, this old servant has no face to say more." Gui Qi shook his head. With that, the soul ring slipped from his fingertip and flew before Xu Yuan. And the next moment, the ghost domain dissipated. A hunchbacked phantom, on the verge of fading away, separated from the near-corporeal Saint's soul body and drifted toward the sky. The setting sun was like blood, just as it had been sixty years ago. Standing among the mountain woods, the hunchbacked old man knelt and kowtowed one last time toward the Imperial Capital.