Chapter 265

Chapter 265: Not the golden light, but her

The two ghosts fought so fiercely that the teahouse filled with choking yin energy. People couldn’t even keep their eyes open. Wind moaned through the hall like the cries of countless wronged souls.

As soon as the two ghosts appeared, everyone scrambled for what they thought was a safe spot. Those near the windows climbed out in a panic, not caring about appearances. On the second floor, the guests far from the windows couldn’t escape at once, so they huddled together as far as they could from the fighters. The shopkeeper ducked behind the counter and didn’t dare raise his head.

No one knew how long it lasted. Then the ghosts stopped, and the moaning wind went quiet. Someone peeked and saw Li Yu gripping the collar of the nearly spent young master, holding him with ease so he couldn’t move at all. Moments ago he had been full of swagger; now his face was pure terror, his body shaking hard. If he had a body, he probably would have wet himself.

He shrieked: “No! Don’t kill me!”

He babbled, clutching at hope: “Yu’er, I love you. I love you the most!”

He pleaded: “I only did wrong because that slut fooled me. Forgive me, please!”

He tried to coax her: “We’re both dead anyway. Let’s be a pair of ghost lovers and stay happy and in love forever. Isn’t that good?”

Black killing aura flickered around Li Yu as she gave a cold smile: “You think you deserve that?”

She hissed: “Do you know what kind of days I lived through in that place? Do you know what those filthy men did to me?”

Her voice dropped, full of hate: “Even Liu Dong Ping came to spend money on me. He told me you and his daughter had already gotten together long ago. To get rid of me, you tried many times in secret. I only escaped by luck again and again.”

Her empty eyes were packed with hatred: “You’re not even a man. If you didn’t love me, you could have said so. I don’t cling to people. I could have persuaded my parents to break the engagement. Why did you have to ruin me?”

Two lines of bloody tears slid down her cheeks as she choked out: “My mother pined for me and died. My father and my brothers spent everything looking for me. The inner household fell into chaos over it, and my brothers all met with accidents.”

She spoke through her teeth: “Our Li Clan is shattered.”

She glared at him and growled: “I won’t only kill you. I’ll make the whole Wang Clan pay with you.”

The young master shook his head wildly and denied it: “No, no, your parents and brothers died for their own reasons. It had nothing to do with me.”

Li Yu didn’t want to hear another word. She clenched hard, and the young master’s neck snapped.

Yu Zhi Yi only watched in silence.

Breaking the neck didn’t kill him. The instant his head and body separated, he gained a brief freedom. His head and his body turned into two streams of black smoke and shot toward the door. Only his arrogant voice echoed back: “Fool, I’m a ghost. As long as my soul isn’t destroyed, I can split my body however I want. Ha!”

He slammed into a black barrier with a harsh squawk and froze in shock.

Yu Zhi Yi shook her head and explained calmly: “Her level is higher than yours. If she wills it, you can’t leave her ghost domain.”

The young master twisted his head stiffly back around and, as soon as he faced forward, discovered Li Yu right behind him. She beat him again, blow after blow.

When his soul grew thin and transparent, Li Yu suddenly opened her bloody maw and swallowed him whole.

When it was over, Li Yu’s power surged. She turned to Yu Zhi Yi and said coldly: “Official Yu, I’m going back on my word. I don’t want to reincarnate. I will kill everyone who hurt me and my family. I will make them pay.”

The blood-red light in her pale eyes burned brighter.

Yu Zhi Yi raised an eyebrow and answered evenly: “If you want to deal with the young master’s vengeful ghost, I won’t interfere. But if you plan to harm the living, I cannot sit by.”

She continued, steady and clear: “They broke the law. Human law will punish them. The local yamen is already investigating. It won’t take long to expose everything this family did and make them pay.”

She promised: “I can guarantee this case will have no loopholes. They will wear out the prison floor and spend the rest of their lives behind bars atoning for their crimes.”

Li Yu’s killing aura spiked again as she cried: “But my parents and my brothers are dead! They do evil and still get to live several more decades. My parents and brothers didn’t offend anyone, yet they paid with their lives. Why?”

Yu Zhi Yi didn’t argue. She said instead: “What if I tell you that after they finish paying in this life, they will still have to keep paying after death?”

Her voice was quiet but firm: “In the human world they’ll atone for decades. After they die, every day they will endure the punishments of the Eighteen Levels of Hell, without pause, day after day, until their sins are washed clean. And in their next life, they won’t be reborn as humans. They’ll be born as lowly animals.”

She added gently: “As for you and your family, you did good and suffered huge injustice. In the next life you will be born into blessed homes and live safe, peaceful lives. If fate allows, you may even reunite and be family again.”

Her tone sharpened a little: “But if you start killing the living, your own hands will carry blood debt, and you will also hurt your family’s accumulated merit. They can still reincarnate, but what kind of family they enter will become uncertain.”

Li Yu’s killing aura surged and sank, sometimes bursting out, sometimes forced back inside. At last, after a long struggle, her breath calmed. She changed back into the form she had in life and said softly: “I trust Official Yu. I won’t kill them.”

Yu Zhi Yi nodded once: “Good. Get ready. I’ll send you to reincarnate.”

Li Yu gave a graceful bow and said, almost teasing: “But my lord, I also don’t want to reincarnate. Being human is too hard. Being a ghost isn’t so bad.”

Yu Zhi Yi’s fine brows drew together: “I can’t allow a near soul-stealing ghost to wander the world. If you insist on refusing reincarnation, then you’ll have to stay by my side.”

Li Yu’s killing aura rose sharply again.

Yu Zhi Yi’s mouth twitched. Inwardly she sighed that vengeful ghosts were truly unstable, always on the verge of going wild, and hard to trust.

She caught a talisman between two fingers, and in the blink of an eye it stuck to Li Yu’s chest. The next second, purple lightning crashed down, blasting away a large part of Li Yu’s killing aura. Clarity returned to Li Yu’s eyes.

Yu Zhi Yi asked in her clear, airy voice without any anger at all: “Are you calm now?”

Li Yu shivered and nodded: “C-calm.”

Her guess had been right. Official Yu was terrifying. She finally understood what she had feared at the very start: [It wasn’t Official Yu’s golden light that scared me. It was Official Yu herself.]