Chapter 29: The Desire to Escape

“He really left?!”

Qu Hanchen shrank behind Duan Lingqi and Xi Chunsnow, staring in shock at what was happening outside the corridor’s main door. This man had truly said he would leave them here—and now he had actually done so?

“The Honored One… might come back, right?” Duan Lingqi’s flood dragon tail lashed out, sending a purple-robed ghost soldier who was trying to drive them into the cell flying, unable to believe it.

“He’ll return.” Xi Chunsnow wielded the iron chain in her hand as a weapon, snatching a soul-capturing rope from a ghost soldier, then using the rope as a whip, keeping the soldiers at bay.

“How do you know?” “Are you sure?” Qu Hanchen and Duan Lingqi turned to her at the same time.

“Because he’ll want to confirm that we’re truly annihilated,” Xi Chunsnow replied calmly. Her beautiful face betrayed no expression; none could tell if she was joking or deadly serious.

“Don’t hold on to hope for him. Even now, we can’t be sure what kind of person he is. If he’s a sorcerer practicing forbidden arts, we’ll all become his vessels in the end,” Xi Chunsnow said as she whipped another purple-robed ghost soldier, scattering its soul—though after several attempts, the ghost managed to reform and lunge at her again.

“You’re right; I’ve always suspected he’s not a good sort. Do you have any ideas now?” Duan Lingqi nodded hastily, his flood dragon tails sweeping the soldiers aside.

“Can you handle the Yaksha, the Rakshasa, and the Bull-headed and Horse-faced guardians?” Xi Chunsnow asked.

Duan Lingqi shook his head. In his current flood dragon soul form, he could summon only weak streams of water and rely on the strength of his soul—stronger than ordinary ghosts, but his supernatural abilities were sealed.

He could bully these purple-robed soldiers, but as for the Bull-headed and Horse-faced guards outside, and the Yaksha and Rakshasa, he had no confidence. Su Yuanbai could handle them easily, but that didn’t mean Duan Lingqi could.

“Then it seems we have no choice but to wait.” Xi Chunsnow threw aside the soul-capturing rope and retreated into the paper cell that Su Yuanbai had forcibly opened.

“Wait?! That’s your plan?” Duan Lingqi refused to sit and await doom. He thought this was a perfect opportunity to escape—when would such chaos present itself again?

In the prison above, Duan Lingqi had waited—three hundred years, leading only to a blood contract binding him to another. Though that person gave him fine treasures and found a sea route bypassing the Dragon Soldiers and Turtle Generals’ patrols, letting him return safely to land, Duan Lingqi could never accept being anyone’s servant.

He lashed out with a flood dragon tail, sending a row of advancing purple-robed soldiers flying, his serpentine body curling as his four claws touched the ground, no longer standing upright as a man.

A rush of wind.

Any ghost soldier in the corridor who tried to block him was thrown as if struck by a speeding carriage—some merely staggered, others nearly annihilated on the spot.

“Bull-headed ghosts, come forth!”

At the entrance to the dungeon corridor stood the green-faced Bull-headed guardian, its head thick and dark as twisted tree roots, brandishing a bronze trident.

“By the Judge’s command, you must not harm these souls. Let me handle this.”

The Bull-headed guardian looked back at the approaching Yaksha and Rakshasa, shook its head, tossed aside the trident, and spread its hands to block the doorway.

“Foolish!” Duan Lingqi snorted coldly, his dragon’s nostrils spraying jets of water, the droplets accelerating like darts toward the Bull-headed guardian.

The guardian did not dodge, letting the water strike its body, while the Bull-headed ghosts gathered behind it.

A thunderous crash, as if two mountains collided, echoed through the ghost prison, stirring up clouds of dust.

“This flood dragon soul still carries traces of the mortal realm—not a typical soul fallen to the underworld. Could it be an underworld messenger made a mistake recording its fate?” Yaksha stroked a snow-white flower of the other shore in its hand, its iron fork weapon transformed into this harmless bloom.

“If the Book of Life and Death was misread and the soul was wrongly summoned, it would enter through the Gate of Ghosts and be sent to the Hall of the Dead—not here in the shadowy city of the Northern Underworld on the dark side of the mountains.

Besides, they clearly retain memories of their former lives—they must have consumed Soulgrass, which is paired with the flower of the other shore,” Rakshasa said, turning its blade and averting its goat-headed gaze from the huge crater in Yaksha’s face, its green eyes watching the mist rising at the corridor door.

“These souls’ origins are strange enough, but that man just now entered the underworld with his physical body,” Yaksha said, seemingly forgetting the gaping wound the Rakshasa had inflicted, its terrifying face bent over the white flower, puzzling.

As the petals fell, they floated upward, drifting into Yaksha’s wound. The crater healed at a visible pace, restoring Yaksha’s fearsome red-faced ghost visage.

“Could it be connected to the one who stole the ghost artifact from the Judge’s mansion last time? I heard the Hall of Yama’s judge recently asked the Northern Underworld Judge for it. That artifact is said to be one of Yama Hall’s treasures,” Rakshasa muttered.

“No wonder the Judge didn’t send them to Hell for eternal torture—just locked them here in the ghost prison,” Yaksha said, stroking its face, unsurprised by the flower’s behavior.

Yaksha, a denizen of the Hungry Ghost Realm, knew every plant growing in Hell—especially the flower of the other shore.

“I’ll wager the strange meat on your plate. If you lose, it’s mine,” Yaksha said, pointing at the plate of bloody raw meat on the table in front of Rakshasa, as the mist began to clear.

Curiously, no matter how much Rakshasa ate, the bloody meat never diminished, always heaped full.

“What’s the bet?” Rakshasa asked.

“Which side wins or loses,” Yaksha replied, watching as the dissipating mist revealed the fierce flood dragon and the monstrous Bull-headed guardian.

“I refuse. That blood-fed ghost is a rare delicacy I found,” Rakshasa shook its head, turning and stabbing the blade into the meat, which writhed as if alive. Rakshasa showed no pity, cut off a chunk, chewed and swallowed it, and soon the missing flesh was replaced by fresh, bloody meat.