Chapter 136: The Spirit-Walking Woman (Part Two)

The night was pitch black.

It was already early spring, and vegetation was thriving. The insects that had lain dormant throughout the winter began to chirp in the grass once more, their calls rising and falling in succession.

In Qiaoqiao Village, some of the villagers had not yet fallen asleep.

Ever since the incident with the stone men, strange and bizarre occurrences would still plague the village whenever night fell.

Fang Yue was not asleep either; he was waiting.

The lodging arranged for him by Wen Dalong was quite spacious, and Jiang Fucheng, the bailiff from the county yamen, stayed in the room right next to his.

The midnight hour was fast approaching, and the night grew increasingly heavy and dark.

Fang Yue sat before a table, upon which burned a single red candle.

With a sweep of his left hand, a gust of palm wind rushed forth, instantly extinguishing the flame.

Then, channeling his right hand with the Blazing Palm technique, a scorching heat wave brushed across the candlewick, reigniting the flame.

"The third stage of the Blazing Palm possesses quite decent power."

During his ascension to divinity, a vast amount of merit points had been consumed to wash away the negative emotions wrapped around the incense wish-power. Upon returning to his physical body, only about fifteen thousand merit points remained.

These merit points were still somewhat insufficient if he wished to push forward to the sixth stage of the Dao-Enlightenment Art and enter the middle stage of the Innate Realm.

Moreover, having just stepped into the early stage of the Innate Realm, Fang Yue needed some time to adapt, comprehend his state, and consolidate his cultivation before advancing further.

During this period, he needed to slay ghosts and evil spirits to accumulate merit points. Therefore, Fang Yue had utilized merit points to advance the Blazing Palm from the second stage to the third, thereby raising his combat capability first.

"The martial arts knowledge I grasped from the manual of the Blazing Palm is sufficient to push the technique up to the fifth stage, roughly reaching the peak of the Innate Realm in terms of power.

"However, beyond that, there is not enough martial theory and knowledge to support the advancement of the Blazing Palm to the sixth stage."

Fang Yue pondered in his heart. This problem was not easily resolved; martial arts techniques at the Martial Saint level were generally comprehended by the practitioners themselves from their own state of mind after attaining the rank of Martial Saint, tailoring the technique to suit them best.

"I will first reach the peak of the Innate Realm while simultaneously advancing the Blazing Palm to the fifth stage.

"If this mission can be successfully completed, the merit points gained should be enough to support pushing the Dao-Enlightenment Art to the seventh stage, reaching the late stage of the Innate Realm."

Fang Yue weighed the options in his mind. However, this mission would not be easily accomplished; he might need to borrow the power of the divine body located over at Yutou Town.

"The strength of that divine body is just a hair's breadth away from the Martial Saint level. Once the incense wish-power accumulates for a bit longer, I should still prioritize elevating the divine body to the Martial Saint level."

As Fang Yue was deep in thought, the midnight hour passed its midpoint, and the flickering flame on the candle turned an ash-gray color without warning.

"Has it arrived? No, rather, it has always been here. These heterodox paths do possess a certain degree of marvel, but it is a pity their karmic debt of slaughter is far too heavy."

Fang Yue rose leisurely from his chair, straightened his azure scholar's robe, ensured his treasured sword was properly secured at his waist, and then pushed open the door to step outside.

...

In the roadside grass, the chirping of the insects had long since ceased. The entire settlement was plunged into a deathly stillness, and there was not even the slightest breath of wind in the air.

In the dead of night, the surroundings should have been pitch black, but Fang Yue could clearly see the scenery around him at this moment.

Yet, none of these sights possessed normal colors; instead, everything was rendered in various shades of ash-gray.

This was a world permeated entirely by ash-gray, devoid of any other hues.

Even Fang Yue himself had been transformed into an ash-gray silhouette.

Faced with such a bizarre spectacle, Fang Yue's expression remained as calm as ever, as though he had anticipated it long ago.

Ever since the night the Fengyang Martial Arts Hall was attacked by two practitioners of heterodox paths, Fang Yue had acquired some understanding of these heterodox practitioners through various channels.

"Save me, please save me."

"Hurry and save me, I don't want to be trapped here."

"Will someone please save me?"

...

Fang Yue walked through the ash-gray settlement, passing by several houses where cries for help drifted out from within.

During the daytime, Fang Yue had already gathered a general understanding of those households; they were all places where the men had turned into stone men.

Therefore, the ones crying out for help now should undoubtedly be the souls of those very men.

Choosing a house at random, Fang Yue pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Although it was night, everything was bathed in the ash-gray hue, making visibility quite clear.

In this household, all the other family members had vanished, leaving only a man lying upon a bed, crying out desperately for rescue.

When Fang Yue looked upon him, he was not in a physical body of stone, for this place was not the realm of the living.

This was the soul of the man who had turned into a stone man, imprisoned deep within the stone and unable to break free.

Even as he desperately begged Fang Yue for salvation, bloody tears streamed from his eyes.

Within this environment, the blood and tears he shed were likewise ash-gray.

"Can you hear me speak?" Fang Yue asked.

The man merely continued his frantic pleas, the bloody tears flowing ever faster from his eyes, showing no reaction whatsoever to Fang Yue's words.

Fang Yue shook his head and turned to walk out of the house.

Once outside, the landscape suddenly shifted dramatically.

It was no longer a village, but rather a dilapidated, ash-gray ancient city.

The city walls were towering and imposing, and the streets were broad and expansive.

One could easily imagine that this city, too, must have once bustled with a constant stream of carriages and horses in days of old.

Presently, however, it could only manifest itself from the distant corridors of history in this manner before the eyes of Fang Yue, a mere spectator.

"Prosperity fades away, all passing like smoke and clouds," Fang Yue sighed inwardly.

If he guessed correctly, this ancient city was likely the predecessor of the small settlement known as Qiaoqiao Village.

In other words, countless years ago, the region where Qiaoqiao Village now stood had also flourished and prospered, boasting the existence of a grand city and countless travelers coming and going.

Yet that was a past belonging to an unknowable era. Modern-day Qiaoqiao Village was nothing more than a tiny hamlet, retaining not a single trace of its former splendor.

That maiden's stone statue was likely a relic left behind by this very ancient city.

Immersed in the ash-gray world, Fang Yue took a few steps down the street of the ancient city and suddenly spoke aloud, "Jiang Fucheng, it is time to come out."

The moment his voice fell, the sound of footsteps echoed from the far end of the silent street.

A bailiff emerged from the corner of the street, standing in the distance to confront Fang Yue.

"How did you know it was me?"

The voice issuing from Jiang Fucheng's mouth was, oddly enough, the timbre of a young maiden, sounding quite eerie.

Fang Yue did not answer Jiang Fucheng's question. Instead, he said, "I wonder if it is even appropriate to call you Jiang Fucheng; the real Jiang Fucheng is most likely in grave peril. Still, I shall call you Jiang Fucheng for now.

"Stirring up trouble in Qiaoqiao Village, what is your ultimate purpose?"

"What do you think?" Jiang Fucheng giggled. A grown man possessing the posture and voice of a young maiden was enough to make one's skin crawl.

"You practitioners of heterodox paths do everything you do for nothing more than power," Fang Yue said.

"Oh, you are quite knowledgeable, aware of us heterodox practitioners whom the world reviles. Then do you think there is anything wrong with our pursuit of power?" Jiang Fucheng stared at Fang Yue.

"Supreme strength belongs to oneself, and pursuing power is naturally not wrong. But what you should never, ever do is achieve it by sacrificing others," Fang Yue declared with a stern expression.

He, too, had been constantly pursuing power, but he would never cast aside everything else just for the sake of it.

"Sacrificing others? Don't you think those people deserved to die? Just because a stone statue was damaged, they beat a helpless woman to death with stones.

"You didn't see the scene back then—her flesh was smashed to a pulp, blood flowed across the ground, and that woman struggled for quite a long time before she finally breathed her last."

Clearly, all of this terror was her own doing, yet she spoke of it with a light, breezy tone, as if it were entirely unrelated to her.

At this moment, she held a bizarre flower plucked from somewhere unknown, lowering her head to sniff it delicately.

It was an ash-gray, bizarre flower bearing the visage of a tormented human face.