It was the height of summer, heat blazing, yet the sunlight that reached this place turned strangely sinister. The black market ghost domain had become a vast, blurred silhouette, like some deep-sea shape glimpsed at the bottom of an ocean trench. Never mind ordinary folk, even powerful martial artists, at first sight of it, would feel as if a pale, icy hand had closed around their hearts, squeezing the breath from their lungs. Now that she had fused with the boar, Yan Yu’s beauty carried a darker, graver poise. The white of her face was no longer a ghastly pallor but a refined whiteness, as if brushed with a thick, expensive foundation. Her lips burned red like flames. Her hairpin was blacker than ever, its surface etched with obscure patterns. Most striking of all was her clothing. The once blue robe had become a floor-dragging black gown, upon which strange ghostly images drifted—icebergs, bronze mirrors, pools of blood, cages, and famished wretches crawling on their bellies, among other horrors. From afar it looked austere; up close, once the details resolved, it was terrifying. Li Yuan stood wrapped in a red bubble, the visible consequence of the vast Yin energy crushing the Yang flame within his body. “Yan Yu.” He looked at the woman before him, genuinely happy. Seeing Xue Ning grow old had jolted him into realizing that none of his family could escape the wall of lifespan. Even if he could place them within the Deathless Tomb, he still couldn’t escape the fact that, slowly, he would be left alone in the world. But now, this long immortality at least had a floor. Yan Yu would stay by his side forever. He understood that; Yan Yu understood it too. Yan Yu needed Li Yuan as well. If not for him, then even if she managed to link Sheng’er to the ghost domain, she would still lose her humanity and become a pure ghost. But now, with Li Yuan beside her, even if Yin and Yang repelled and touch was hard to come by, that would not happen. Yan Yu, black ghost-gown trailing, stood at the border of the ghost domain and gazed tenderly at the youth lying in the earthen pit on the other side. She said softly, “You are the same as ever. I…am changed.” Li Yuan laughed. “Changed into someone even more beautiful, aren’t you?” Yan Yu dipped her head and said, “After becoming a ghost, I kept trying to act by the killing rules of ghosts. My thinking has grown less and less…human. But there is one thing I have never forgotten.” “I will never forget the human hell of fields strewn with starved corpses and parents trading children to eat. So…I want Sheng’er to come help me too. The child turns 31 this year and is much more mature. She can run a merchants’ guild. Her guild should make a great deal of money. With money, I want her to save more people.” “Alright, I’ll have Sheng'er—” Li Yuan began, then cut himself off. The air went still, drawn tight for no reason anyone could name. A heartbeat later, Li Yuan said, “Yan Yu, Sheng'er can’t come. Not now.” “Because…we’ve definitely disrupted the merger between the Exotic Beast Park and Apparel Atelier. After this, the Lotus Cult, Immortal Worship Cult, and that powerful presence I sensed before…every one of them will come sniffing around. “You spent a long time on the ancient ghost street in Hidden River Province. Plenty of them know you, and they’ll know you still have a human heart.” Thought flickered in Li Yuan’s eyes. He spoke slowly, word by word. “Before, they might not have cared much about you. Now they’ll throw everything they have into uncovering who you are. “Then they’ll use your family to threaten you, force you to keep pushing toward the Grand Union of Yin and Yang, fusing with Apparel Atelier after it swallows the other half of the Exotic Beast Park. If Sheng'er shows up, they won’t even need to search. They can threaten you directly.” “They dare?!” The words fell from Yan Yu’s lips, cold as iron. A terrible pressure rolled off her. The red fire-bubble around Li Yuan shrank again under that weight. It became smaller, thinner, and more brittle, like a skiff vanishing beneath storm-tossed waves. Watching this ghostly empress take shape, Li Yuan saw it more clearly than ever. Yan Yu’s human reason was leaching away. To a ghost, killing was the first answer to any living thing that dared to provoke it. As for the twists and turns in between, ghosts don’t bother. Their thinking rarely went beyond exploiting the rules of killing. And even then, their tricks were crude, laughable to human eyes. That was why ghosts required undying husks. An undying husk was human, someone who could think for them, teach them to wield their power with finesse. That was why the Exotic Beast Park needed Peng Mingyi, and Apparel Atelier needed Zhao Gutong. Yan Yu was different. She didn’t start as a beast that woke to intelligence; she turned from a true human into a ghost. So she placed her trust in Pang Yuanhua, and Pang Yuanhua helped her subdue most of the undying husks in Cloudpeak Province and founded the Court of Judges. Now she’s begun to trust Fan Chouwan and Xie Qing’an as well. Their feelings for Yan Yu were the real thing. They genuinely held her in reverence and esteem. Those two were once trapped in a plot carried out by the Immortal Worship Cult and transported to the ancient ghost street. By rights, they should have died. But for an act of rewarding good and punishing evil, Yan Yu gifted them ghost money, bought their lives, and made them undying husks. However you look at it, any intelligent ghost still needed a human mind to scheme for it. Yan Yu’s circle just happened to be wider. “Yan Yu, don’t be angry.” Li Yuan gave a wry smile. “Husband.” Yan Yu lowered her gaze and said no more. She understood her own slip, and asked, “Then what should we do?” Li Yuan thought it through. “Right now, no one can kill you. As long as they can’t use us to threaten you, you’ll be fine. And you’ll keep stacking the deck in your favor. “Since the Apparel Atelier could spin off the Immortal Worship Cult, why shouldn’t you build up your Court of Judges? “Besides, both the Apparel Atelier and the Exotic Beast Park created jade husks to act in their stead, even to handle human affairs specifically. Yan Yu, why not make another jade husk?” “I’ll expand the Court of Judges. But as for creating another jade husk…” Yan Yu fell silent for a moment, then shook her head. “By now I’ve learned the truth. Whether it’s the Exotic Beast Park or Apparel Atelier, there’s only one known way to make a jade husk. While a woman is pregnant, they secretly channel their own Yin energy into her womb. “But that’s murder.A pregnant woman can’t possibly bear that Yin energy. The fetus even less so. Maybe the moment she goes into labor is the moment both mother and child die. Or maybe she gives birth to a blue-faced, tusked, mindless ghost servant, but not a jade husk “The Exotic Beast Park and Apparel Atelier must’ve tried it countless times to get a single success, and that one success became the likes of Peng Mingyi and Zhao Gutong.” “Then forget it,” Li Yuan said, gravely shaking his head. “Only ghosts do things that vile. Anyone with a shred of humanity wouldn’t.” But as he turned the idea over his head, he suddenly added, “Yan Yu, I told you about the Wolfmother, remember?” “Yes.” Yan Yu nodded. “The Wolfmother is a jade husk. So how was she made?” The woman in the black gown pondered, then slowly shook her head. “I don’t know.” Li Yuan’s pupils tightened. He murmured, “Looks like the waters in the Deathless Tomb…run very deep.” Then he smiled. “But it also proves a jade husk can be created by other means.” “I’ll think on it,” Yan Yu replied. Only then did Li Yuan leap out of the earthen pit, swat the dirt off his backside, and say, “You think it over. I’ve got an errand.” “What errand?” she asked, surprised. “I’m going to find the Dragon Vein and ask for an alliance.” “Haven’t you already allied with them?” “Back then, you hadn’t fused with the Exotic Beast Park’s boar, right? Back then, the Dragon Vein was on the verge of a sweeping victory, weren’t they? But now I suspect the Jade Capital is completely under the Lotus Cult’s control. Whether it’s Lu Xuanxian or anyone else, they’re probably finished. When the weak are weak, isn’t it only natural they band together?” “You and your ghostly schemes,” Yan Yu said, rolling her eyes. Li Yuan grinned. “Can’t compare to you, my dear wife. Every idea you have is a ghostly scheme.” His quip carried a double meaning, but it also made one thing plain. He didn’t care in the least whether Yan Yu was human or ghost. They were family. That kind of joke could be tossed around freely, with no need for reverence. Yan Yu burst into laughter. She lifted a hand and beckoned him closer. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹·𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾·𝗇𝖾𝗍 Like a ghostly empress summoning a subject, she crooked a finger at Li Yuan. Li Yuan stepped in and, following her instructions, pressed his face to the border where the red film met the black. Yan Yu eased forward, rising on tiptoe. Her lips, red as flame, drifted toward his cheek through the film. But there was a muted dimness in her eyes. At the last instant, Li Yuan turned his head. Lip-to-cheek became lip-to-lip. An unheard-of sight, a kiss through the boundary. In that heartbeat, the gloom in her eyes flashed to astonishment, then melted into bashfulness and joy. Husband and wife kissed in silence. Clearly neither could touch the other. Clearly the law that kept yin and yang apart stood between them. By rights they should have been heartsore, yet in that moment they were more tender and earnest than ever. Li Yuan kissed with grave sincerity. So did Yan Yu. After a long while, she turned away. Li Yuan called out, gazing at her with pitiful eyes.“Over already…?” She flicked her hand. “You menace, why’d you suddenly turn your face!” He grinned like a rogue; she lifted her hand to smack him. But the film was still between them. Suddenly Li Yuan’s gaze slid sideways, his expression twisting into something hard to name. Yan Yu looked back and promptly covered her mouth, laughing until she ran out of breath. At some point, the ghosts had drifted up behind her. They stood there in a hush, taking in the close-up of her and Li Yuan kissing, as if pondering, What sort of attack is the boss lady launching now? “Yan Yu, I’m off,” Li Yuan turned and said. “Besides feeling out an alliance with the Dragon Vein, I need to move Sheng'er and the others fast. Because—” A cold light flashed in his eyes. “The Dragon Vein knows where they are. And if the Lotus Cult investigates you, it wouldn’t be hard for them to trace our family too. We can’t leave the slightest opening.” Getting his weakness seized, then being threatened, then trudging off to nurse a grand vendetta…that was never good, nor was it hot blooded. “Husband… take care.” Yan Yu stood at the edge of the bubble, hands folded, to see him off, yet could go no farther. Li Yuan walked away, glanced back once, then kept on, farther and farther.