After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

A cold wind swirled the charred red cloth strips in the courtyard, rustling as it brushed against the blue brick floor.

Zhou Ran put his arms around Su Qingling and Su Qingwu.

The two women leaned against his chest, the chill seeping through their clothes.

The Tide Saint Body had been operating continuously for too long, and its spiritual veins had long been exhausted, making it difficult to even stand still.

The red lanterns on the courtyard wall were still swaying.

There was no fire inside the lantern, but the paper sheet was bulging and contracting, as if something was sticking to it and breathing.

The paper figures on the ground, burned to ashes by the demonic fire, still had half of their pale faces remaining in the ash heaps, their blush burned into a smear, yet they still managed to maintain a smile.

"You all step back first."

Zhou Ran raised his hand and swept it, forcing the invading Yin Qi back towards the wellhead by the Primordial Blood Qi.

The most important thing right now is to keep the Su sisters calm.

The filthy things in the underworld are most likely to burrow into a person's meridians when they are weak.

The Tide Saint Body is associated with water, making it easily susceptible to being entangled by the deathly energy of the River of Oblivion.

If that thing really takes root in their spiritual cores, even if they go back to the manor to save them, it will take at least half their lives.

Beneath the skin of Zhou Ran's left arm, the dark Primordial Totem gradually lit up.

The intense yang energy and blood transformed into a warm current, which forcefully poured into the bodies of the two women through his palms, which were pressed against their backs.

Su Qingling's pale face finally regained some color.

She gripped Zhou Ran's coat tightly, her knuckles taut, as if afraid that if she let go, she would be trapped back in that ghostly shadow.

Su Qingwu took a few breaths in his arms, her eyelashes damp with sweat and the corners of her eyes red.

"Can I stand?"

Zhou Ran lowered his head and asked a question.

Su Qingling bit her lower lip and nodded.

Zhou Ran then let go and handed the two sisters over to Fatty Wang, who had rushed over.

"Protect it well."

As soon as the two words were spoken, Fatty Wang immediately understood.

He clasped his hands together and pushed the Buddhist Golden Body Technique to its limit.

Dark golden light burst forth from that body of fat, erecting a golden wall in front of the Su sisters.

This house is not an ordinary haunted house.

Those paper figures and the red-clad female ghost, if you just released a few of them, could devour an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator until there's nothing left but bones.

The fact that the Su sisters have been able to stay here for a month is already a testament to their resilience.

Zhou Ran turned around.

My gaze fell on the dry well at the end of the courtyard.

The entire courtyard full of paper figures and female ghosts had been burned to ashes by his punch.

The blue bricks were covered with charred powder, which had a pungent smell mixed with the dry smell of burnt paper money, making one's throat dry.

Only the crimson, bowl-shaped glow above the old house remained, still flickering.

The bloody glow hadn't dissipated, nor had the eerie atmosphere of the entire house.

The real problem lies by the well.

The well rim was covered with yellowed talisman paper.

The cinnabar characters on the talisman had long since turned black, as if they had been soaked in blood and then dried.

Several broken bowls were placed around the well opening.

There was no rice or incense ash in the bowl.

There were only sections of black hair that had been cut off.

This is not a warding-off-evil.

This is inviting evil spirits into the house.

The coldness in Zhou Ran's eyes deepened.

Someone deliberately kept Su Qingling and Su Qingwu here.

Using this old house, using that idiot Liu Yu, using the city-wide bounty and gossip, we'll slowly wear them down in the bureau.

The people they were truly waiting for were not the Su sisters.

It was him, Zhou Ran.

Li Zhiyao stepped forward on the blue bricks.

The stiletto heels of high heels crushed the charred charcoal on the ground with a crisp cracking sound.

The custom-made blue and white cheongsam clung to her body in the cold wind, and her long legs, exposed by the slit, were dazzlingly white under the red light.

Without hesitation, she walked to the dry well and leaned down to look down.

I only glanced at it.

Li Zhiyao's brows furrowed, and the composure she had cultivated over two thousand years was torn open by the well.

"My lord."

She turned her head, her voice very low.

There is no water in the well.

"Only flowers."

Zhou Ran stepped forward.

The leather boots rolled over the black ash on the ground.

He stood by the well, his purple-gold eyes opening, his gaze piercing through the black mist swirling around the well's mouth.

The well is very deep.

At least a hundred meters.

There was indeed not a drop of water at the bottom, nor any silt or aquatic plants.

All that could be seen were vast expanses of blood-red spider lilies.

The flowers spread out at the bottom of the well, their petals curling and swaying in the darkness.

Each petal was dazzlingly red, and a fishy, ​​pungent smell wafted out from the well, making one's throat feel choked.

Wang Pangzi had only taken one sip when the fat on his face twitched twice.

"Ran-ge, this smells wrong. It smells like candy in a dead person's mouth."

Hold your breath.

Zhou Ran flipped his palm, and the Primordial Blood Qi pressed down on the well opening.

The fishy smell that had been wafting out was completely burned away.

He continued reading.

Deep within the sea of ​​blood-red flowers, a spatial displacement occurred.

A water-ripple-like reflection hangs vertically on the rock wall at the bottom of the well.

In the reflection, the yellow, turbid river water churns and rushes.

With missing arms and a broken head, it bobbed and struggled in the river, its mouth agape.

Someone was calling for help in the river.

The sound couldn't be transmitted.

Only strings of black bubbles rose from the surface of the water, only to be swallowed up by the yellow water.

Across the turbid yellow river lies a dilapidated and ancient bluestone bridge.

On the bridge, countless ghostly figures formed a long line, walking forward in a daze.

Each of the spirit shadows had a thin thread wrapped around its ankle.

Those lines disappeared under the bridge, their destination unknown.

Zhou Ran's eye twitched.

He had seen that river before.

The River of Oblivion in the Underworld.

He recognized that road too.

He had taken a similar route when he went to the third hall to see Emperor Song.

Zhou Ran straightened up.

The situation was bigger than he had initially estimated.

The Bridge of Helplessness is the gateway for souls to enter the underworld.

The River of Oblivion is a river that washes away the karma of the mortal world and separates souls.

Once these two things are dragged onto the Jiangcheng landform, Jiangcheng will no longer be a city of living people.

It will become a bridgehead sandwiched between Yin and Yang.

At that time, the ghost soldiers will no longer need to sneak across the cracks.

The departed souls no longer need to wait for guidance.

The entire city will be written into the underworld guide.

Destroy the well first?

No.

Forcibly dismantling the key points of the formation will only tear apart the reflection of the Bridge of Helplessness.

The yang energy of thirty million living people poured down through the crack, just as the rebels had hoped.

First, we need to figure out who is pulling the string behind the scenes.

We need to at least figure out which layer of Jiangcheng's geomantic vein this nail has penetrated.

"This is not a ghost story."

Zhou Ran turned around and looked coldly at Liu Yu, who was half-dead in the corner.

"The Liu family bought this house only because they were used as pawns."

"Someone used sophisticated methods to create a teleportation array between the underworld and the Jiangcheng earth veins."

Li Zhiyao stepped forward and stood beside him.

"A teleportation array?"

Li Zhiyao's expression turned cold, and the yin energy around her, stirred by her emotions, began to leak outwards.

"Have those rebels in the underworld gone mad?"

"The Bridge of Helplessness is a crucial instrument for the cycle of Yin and Yang."

The coordinates will be dragged into the mortal realm, and the boundary between Yin and Yang in Jiangcheng will be completely shattered.

"At that time, yin and yang will be reversed, and thirty million living people will be sucked into the River of Oblivion to fill the bridge!"

Wang Pangzi behind him felt a chill run down his spine, and the aura emanating from his body flickered twice.

Su Qingling and Su Qingwu supported each other, their faces, which had just regained some color, turned pale again.

What they've been dealing with for the past month isn't any wandering ghosts or spirits at all.

"So those paper figures..."

"The reason they can't be killed off is because the well is constantly being replenished?"

Li Zhiyao nodded, her tone growing increasingly cold and hard.

"The path is paved with red spider lilies, nourished by the deathly energy of the River of Oblivion, and the reflection of the Bridge of Helplessness stands guard."

"What you cut down was not evil spirits, but fragments of shadows falling from the bridge."

Su Qingling clenched her fingers.

For the past month, every time they thought they were about to seal the dry well, even more evil spirits would appear the next day.

It turns out it wasn't that they lacked the means.

The opposing team never intended for them to win from the very beginning.

Zhou Ran chuckled softly, a murderous glint flashing in his eyes.

"They're not crazy."

"They've got their plans very clear."

"Use the yang energy of 30 million living people to mend the holes in the underworld."

"They've set their sights on Jiangcheng."

The current situation in the underworld is no longer a minor skirmish.

While the Song emperor was still stubbornly holding on in the underworld, the rebels had already extended their reach into the earth's veins.

Western superhumans, the Holy Radiance Foundation, ghost soldiers, and reincarnators have all made moves around Jiangcheng.

If this situation continues to drag on, Jiangcheng will become the first gate that the rebel forces of the underworld tear open in the mortal realm.