Now let's talk about my afterlife.
When I was alive, I was truly a notorious female demon, stealing candies from children, and getting into fights with the homeless on the streets. Those who loathed me in the cultivation world could go around the Chenzhou Mountain three hundred times holding hands.
I thought that after my death, my grave would surely be desecrated and my body would not be safe. But it turned out that I drifted around the grave for several years, and the verdant grass grew to be half a person tall, yet not a single enemy came looking for me.
Suddenly, I felt a little lonely, realizing that all the wrongs I did during my lifetime were for naught.
It's all because of this nameless gravestone!
I resent the person who erected this gravestone for me. They didn't write my title or my name. Not only did they make it impossible for my worshippers to find me, but they also made it impossible for my enemies to find me. And just when I was deepening my resentment towards the person who erected the gravestone, in the year when I grew increasingly dissatisfied, on the day of Qingming when the drizzle was fine as hair, I finally waited for someone to come and pay respects at my grave...
It was a man in black, braving the rain. As he came closer, I saw that his face was as beautiful as a jade, stunning me as well.
I watched him for a long time, and suddenly I felt that his features seemed somewhat familiar. I touched my chin and waited for him to offer a few unripe fruits at my grave. That's when I suddenly realized...
Ah! Isn't this the eccentric clown Mo Qing!
It turns out that after the frightening ink marks on his face disappeared, he became so handsome!
He stood in front of my grave, with the fine raindrops falling on him like frost. In a hoarse voice, he said, "I know you like sour things, so I picked a few unripe fruits for you on the way."
I love eating sour things, and everyone in the Wanjian Sect knows that the fruits offered are always unripe. He knew it was me buried in the grave, and except for the one who buried me, no one else should know who lies beneath this nameless gravestone.
I understood in my heart that he must have brought my body to bury after snatching the Wanjian Sword at the Sword Grave. After understanding this, I was even more disdainful. Mo Qing used me, caused my death, and now he dares to come and show off at my grave! Still carrying the Wanjian Sword! Is he here to flaunt it!
I glared at him, angrily wanting to kick the unripe fruits aside. "I don't need your unripe fruits, I can't eat them, and you didn't even burn a piece of paper when paying respect at my grave. Do you even understand the rules, kid!"
"These fruits are very sour. I tasted them on the way, you must really like them."
You tasted them too? Are you out of your mind, licking them before offering to someone else?
He looked at my gravestone, completely oblivious to my angry gaze, and continued, "The Wanjian Sect now, I have taken care of it well for you."
What! He actually took over the Wanjian Sect! I was shocked. What a cunning kid! He killed me and also snatched the sect that I built single-handedly! Ruthless! But... although I really wanted to say at that time who had the ability to kill me, the position of sect master should go to whom, it was because at that time I was confident that no one could kill me!
"With the Wanjian Sword in hand, I have slowly regained my strength and gradually reclaimed the fragmented demonic path."
What! I was shocked again! Is he going to ascend to the position of the Demon King! That was the position that originally belonged to me!
"Everything you want, I am gradually helping you achieve."
Yes! Everything I wanted has been snatched by you!
This rascal is obviously here to show off!
I was so angry I wanted to pretend to rise from the dead. I'm already lying in the soil, and he specifically came here to talk about these things and make me feel miserable! How much does he hate me! Clearly, I also saved him when he was young! What an ungrateful person!
I clutched the grass on the tomb, only hating that I couldn't get up and bite him to death.
However, after showing off his achievements, he didn't leave, but stood for a while, as if extremely bitterly saying, "Too bad, you can't see it anymore."
What! Do you want me to see it too? If I were alive now, I would be annoyed by you a hundred times a day! This guy's heart is too venomous!
I was furious, standing in front of the stele staring at him, until he turned and left in the drizzle, his ink clothes completely blending into the night. My anger could not be dissipated.
When I was alive, I never thought he would be such a shameless and ugly freak.
The more I thought about it, the more I hated it. I felt that it was not enough to avenge him for all the accumulated grievances in my heart.
In the few years I've been floating in this tomb, occasionally, other lost souls and wild ghosts would pass by me, and I learned from their mouths that there is a ghost market twenty miles from my tomb, specifically for selling things to wandering lost souls and wild ghosts.
The rare treasures I had seen during my lifetime were more than the entire ghost market, and I was initially disdainful to go see it. But now, I feel it's time to go take a look, find a way to return to the living, it won't take much time, just enough to go back and stab Mo Qing with one real blow, then I'd be satisfied.
I asked the passing ghosts for directions, and set out that day, drifting for three days. Finally, I drifted to a place twenty miles away...
I'm tired in my heart.
I move slowly, which is also why I haven't left the tomb for years.
Twenty miles, in the past, I could have traveled there in the blink of an eye without having to cast spells and curses. But now, this soulful body has no strength at all and can only rely on drifting. It's alright at night, I can drift faster with the cool breeze, but during the day, especially at noon, I wish I could bury myself in the ground.
The ghost world is like this, no matter how powerful you were in life, after death, you're just a mass of gas. In fact, there are different kinds of gas. Fierce ghosts can float much faster than me, like they're riding a hurricane, and the more fierce the ghost, the faster they float, and the greater their strength. But fierce ghosts are bound by their past lives and can't leave their own little territory, no matter how fast they float, they can only wander around in their own circle.
The reason I didn't become a fierce ghost is probably because I died without much fanfare.
It's also worth mentioning that, considering how flashy I was in my lifetime, after a lifetime of flamboyance, I ended up dying so unusually ordinary.
I refuse to accept it, I must return to life and die again. This time, it must be a resounding death!
I found ten thousand reasons to return to life for myself, and finally drifted to the ghost market. It was quiet there, and the wandering lost souls and wild ghosts were doing their own business in a gloomy atmosphere. I looked for a long time along the main road and finally saw a grand storefront with a sign hanging high on the door, with black background and white letters, crookedly written "Revival Shop."
I was about to go in for a closer look, when suddenly, a large knife was thrust in front of me, and when I looked aside along the blade, I saw two green-faced, fanged ghosts guarding the door of the shop.
"What's your name?" he asked me. I stood with my hands behind my back and gave him a sideways glance, "Chen Ji Mountain Road Zhaoyao."
Upon hearing my name, he wasn't afraid either, and after a conversation with someone inside the shop, he put down the mirror in his hand and held the large knife horizontally, "You can't go in."
I raised my eyebrows, "The owner won't let me in, why?"
"You don't have money in the underworld!"
I felt an arrow pierce my heart, and in an instant, it felt like I was going to vomit blood. I had never bought anything in the ghost market and didn't know that they actually needed money to buy things, just like in the mortal world. I suppressed my anger and asked, "Where do ghosts get money?"
"Let someone burn for you."
I fell silent.
Who could I get to burn for me! For the past few years, Moqing has been the only one visiting the grave! And his uncle even only offered a few roadside fruits! Isn't this ridiculous!
I looked at the ghost with bared teeth, then at myself, and finally had to sigh, resigning myself to leave, allowing the ghost to mock me from behind, "Been dead for four or five years, not a penny to your name, a poor ghost, still daring to come to our soul-reviving shop."
What he said was true, I was really angry but also had no confidence to refute.
I sighed all the way, and wandered aimlessly for three days, helplessly drifting back to my own grassy grave.
Thank goodness being a ghost doesn't require eating, otherwise, being too poor to buy food and starving would be the biggest joke of my life.
I couldn't help but feel emotional. My surname is Lu, my given name is Qiong, and my nickname is Zhaoyao. When I was alive, I lived up to the nickname "Zhaoyao," and now that I'm dead, I seem to also be living up to the character "Qiong." Truly, I've become so poor. I never experienced poverty in my lifetime, and now I've stumbled upon it in the afterlife...
Life is so unpredictable, unbelievably so!
I felt hopeless about taking revenge. At a time when my ghostly life was dim, on a stormy night, I was silently watching the lightning and thunder when a frantic series of horse hooves approached from a distance.
I saw a black steed galloping, with a woman in a pink dress struggling on its back. From a distance, I could hear her screaming, "Let me go! I don't want to go with you!"
The man behind her, holding her, only made the sound of horse hooves and didn't answer.
As the steed galloped to the side of my grave, a red and white lightning bolt suddenly tore through the sky, followed by a thunderous roar. I could barely see how she struggled, but she plunged from the horse and slammed heavily onto my stone tablet.
With a "thud," blood splattered on the spot. Even I, sitting on the grave, couldn't help but exclaim.
As she slid down from my tablet, rolling in the mud, her clean and pretty pink dress was instantly covered in dirt. The man on the black steed urgently reined in the horse, before it even had time to steady itself, he leaped off and ran to my tombstone in a few large steps, and then embraced the dirt-covered woman in his arms, "Zhiyan!" His rough and pained voice, "Zhiyan!"
I stood behind the man, watching the girl in his arms.
The girl's eyes were closed tightly, her face mixed with mud and blood, which was soon washed clean by the pouring rain, revealing her pale face.
"Oh, she really put some effort into that head-on collision. If she's dead, she's dead." I sighed, and then suddenly a flash of inspiration hit me. She died, died in front of my grave, is this fate, allowing me to try the legendary technique of Resurrection Through Borrowing a Corpse?
This is indeed a good idea.
So I eagerly waited for the girl to breathe her last. But before long, the girl suddenly twitched her legs, and then her chest rose, her lips slightly parted, and...
She opened her eyes again...
How could she not be dead from that! I marveled, how hard are your heads nowadays?
Disappointed, I turned my eyes away, losing interest in the commotion. But just as I was about to sit back on the grave, I heard the girl who had just regained consciousness gasp for air, and scream, "A ghost!"
Huh? Are you calling me?
I turned my head and stared at her.
Sure enough, the girl in pink stared at me with her eyes wide open, struggling desperately in the arms of a man, "No legs! Ghost! Ghost!"
Ah! She hit her head and could see me! It’s been a long time since a living person saw me! I was very happy and hurriedly took two steps towards her, smiling at her, "Yes, yes, I am a ghost."
"Ah! Ah!" She screamed again, pushing the man away and desperately crawling backwards, "Don't come near me, don't come near me!"
The man was both bewildered and anxious, asking her urgently, "Zhiyan! It's me, what's wrong with you?"
I also explained to her, "Don't be afraid of me, I won't harm you." I thought for a moment, "Actually, that's not true, I did want to harm you earlier..."
"Ah! Ah!" She kept screaming, crawling backward, and her back hit the monument, feeling the tombstone, she looked up and was startled again, about to scream, and the man grabbed her arm, "Zhiyan! Look at me! I'm here, I'll take you back! Don't be afraid!"
This man’s words had an effect, as Zhiyan immediately reacted, "I won't go back with you! Get lost!"
I chimed in, "That's right, make him leave, stay here with me."
She screamed again, "Ah! I don’t want to stay here with you!"
The man looked bewildered, "Zhiyan, who are you talking to?"
Zhiyan scolded him, "Don't worry about who I'm talking to, I'm not going back with you! I want to go to Chenji Mountain! I want to practice sorcery! I..." Before he could finish, the man picked her up and was about to ride away with her.
In his arms, she struggled, kicking and hitting: "No! I don't want to go back with you! Let me go!"
Just when she mentioned Chenji Mountain and sorcery, I became interested, but before I could do anything, she was carried away. Seeing her chaotic struggle, I was anxious, using all my speed, I hurriedly floated over to the man, shouting, "Hit him!"
Zhiyan, now anxious, truly listened to me, using her hand to hit his back. But it was like a playful tap, the man was unaffected, and he walked away faster. I shouted again, "Hit his head!"
In response, Zhiyan slapped the man's face, "I hit him!"
The man paused for a moment, giving me a chance to close some distance, "You didn’t hit him hard!"
Zhiyan slapped the man's face again, "I hit him hard!"
The man stopped completely, and I huffed and puffed to catch up, and when I looked up, I saw the man looking at Zhiyan with an expression that was tight-lipped with a hint of sorrow and sadness in his eyes.
Hmm, I thought, perhaps that slap really did hurt his heart.
But that had nothing to do with me. I was just worried that the girl hadn't knocked him out, and that he still had to take her away.
As expected, the man took a step, obviously intending to take Zhiyan away regardless of her screams: "I won't go! Let go of me, bastard!"
Oh bother!
I can't stand this kind of coercion, when the girl says she won't go, and he just grabs her and runs off, taking advantage of his physical strength to bully her! I rolled up my sleeves, shouted, "I'm coming!" and immediately lunged into Zhiyan's body.
Filled with indignation, I charged recklessly, feeling the long-lost warmth and heaviness in my limbs. At that moment, I didn't have time to care about anything else, so I broke free from the man's embrace with a sudden burst of energy.
The man was taken aback and looked at me in disbelief, "Zhiyan?"
I didn't say a word, pulled up my sleeves stained with mud, and focused my gaze, forming a hand seal. The man looked at me, then suddenly realized, his expression turning serious, "You're not Zhiyan! Who are you?"