No matter how miserably the old man cried or begged, the torturer just carried out the execution without asking any questions. The innumerable demonic spirits around him laughed even more piercingly.

There was also a brief period where the torturers left the room. During this period of time, the incomplete demons and monsters limped, crawled, and dragged themselves to gather around the old man, desperately trying to tear at and devour him. This kind of deformed madness and greed was even more terrifying than the demons of the outside world, and his cultivator’s soul allowed him to feel every bit of pain without being fatally injured.

Once the torturer returned, these mutilated ghosts immediately switched from their vicious glee to panic, and fled one after the other. This cycle repeated, with each turn being slightly different, never to repeat. If it did repeat, it was simply because that method of punishment had caused the old man more pain and mental destruction than the others, so they chose to do it again.

Just above the bottom level of the Punishment Division’s prison, the Head Official of the Punishment Division and the Martial Judge of the Rewards and Punishments Divisions observed the fate of the evil cultivator through the gloomy mist, watching as he longed for relief and liberation.

“Humph. With such a twisted character, it’s no wonder he chose such an evil demonic path.”

The Martial Judge’s lips twitched. Even the other ghost officials in the underworld feared the Punishment Division’s lowest levels. Prisoners were subjected to the most horrific punishments, even for cultivator souls. How long could they endure it without breaking down?

“Is it time to interrogate him about the events in Jin Province?”

The Head Official of the Punishment Division smiled and shook his head.

“Don’t worry, there’s no rush. This man has a solid soul. His body was well-tempered with spiritual energy and power, and he has been practicing his cultivation for a long time. Let him suffer a little more. After a while, as long as the torturer intends to interrogate him, I guarantee that he will remember everything, down to the moment of his birth, and confess it all eagerly.”

“Hm!”

The Punishment Division had its own methods of interrogation, and had clearly determined its scale and intensity. The Martial Judge didn’t say anything more. This evil cultivator scum was not worthy of sympathy. He would truly be miserable when he had confessed everything he could, and then found out that he would continue to be punished.

As for the pregnant woman’s interrogation, it was much more straightforward. Aside from her good looks, she otherwise had the heart and temperament of a country woman in her entirety. Although she had practiced evil techniques and had eaten human hearts, she almost directly collapsed when she arrived in the underworld and saw the ghosts and demonic spirits there.

Someone like this would naturally not know all that much. Apart from the demonic methods taught to her by her master, which were said to enable one to become the Ghost Mother of Nine Children — a being who could fly into the sky, escape into the earth, devour gods, and destroy immortals — she didn’t know much else.

However, people in the underworld scoffed at her statement. Generally speaking, a fetus in the womb was considered to be alive after three months.¹

Seeing that her belly was almost seven or eight months along, even the ghost baby in her womb was incomplete in spirit and body. This kind of exaggerated talk had no credibility.

. . .

For the time being, Ji Yuan didn’t care much about the things happening in the underworld of Chunhui Prefecture. If they couldn’t pry open the evil cultivator’s mouth and make him talk, then naturally he wouldn’t be able to either.

At this moment, Ji Yuan had already returned to Ju’an Pavilion in Ning’an County. When he arrived home, the brocade bag was still hanging on the door outside the main house. The courtyard was already covered in new layer of snow, and there were no traces of paw print tracks or footsteps. It seemed Hu Yun hadn’t been here recently.

It was now early in the morning. Ji Yuan picked the brocade bag back up, opened the door, walked to the wooden table in the room, and sat down. Then, he took out a few talismans and a yellowed book from his sleeves.

One of them was the Hidden Earth Escape Talisman, which still had some spiritual energy. There was also a Qi Concealing Talisman and a Heart Purification Talisman. These three talismans were obviously no ordinary goods, and the spiritual light around them was extraordinary.

Then again, talismans were considered a specialized branch of spiritual practice. It took a long time, and was slow in giving returns, so not many individuals practiced it intensively. However, those who had achieved success in the practice were very popular. After all, everyone liked spiritual talismans, so each individual’s technique could be considered a trade secret. Various kinds of talismans were kept secret and passed on by word of mouth; not even the Old Dragon was familiar with the specific varieties and intricacies of talismans.

Ji Yuan didn’t expect the evil cultivator to give him any surprises in this regard. The only thing that disappointed him was that the life-substitution talisman was gone.

The other elements of the talisman arts were just extensions of some supernatural techniques, but the Life-Saving Substitution Talisman was truly miraculous, and was likely quite costly to make.

The book itself was a completely ordinary book, with no supernatural energy left inside it. It was revealed to be the demonic cultivation method, called “The Great Method of Refining and Controlling the Ghost Mother.”

“Humph!”

Ji Yuan snorted coldly. Just from the name, he could tell that it contained similar kinds of twisted methods like refining corpses and raising ghosts. Even if it had succeeded, the woman would have been a victim in the end, not a legitimate disciple at all.

It was just that this kind of book only had pictures and text, with no spiritual meaning imbued in it. It was easy to make mistakes by just practicing it casually. The old man didn’t seem to have received any true teachings, which meant that the woman was indeed playing the role of an experimental subject.

After reading it over carefully, Ji Yuan became more and more irritated. If it weren’t for the fact that he was concerned about the kind of metamorphosis that would allow someone to survive after being decapitated, and wished to see if there was anything worth comprehending within the book, he would have destroyed it long ago.

Some of the contents were unbearably disgusting, but he forced himself to finish reading it. Suddenly, a fire burst out from Ji Yuan’s hands, startling the paper crane that had just poke its head out of his arms so much that it shrunk back into the bag.

“Just keeping this would also cause harm!”

In only half a breath of time, under the control of Ji Yuan’s fire, the entire book had been burned, breaking into fine powder and scattering out of the house in the breeze.

“Huh… This spiritual technique of mine is still the best. I’m going to go to sleep and practice dreaming cultivation!”

Ji Yuan didn’t know if anyone else could practice in their sleep like him, and he didn’t know how the efficiency of his method compared to meditation and enlightenment in the Holy Lands of various immortal sects, but just the ability to comprehend the supernatural in a dream state was definitely extraordinary.

He woke up from his first dream state on the second day because he had received news from the underworld of Chunhui Prefecture. The message had been passed on to the ghosts and gods in this region at the border of Desheng Prefecture, and on and on at the border of each county, until it finally reached Ji Yuan.

As expected, the old man had no connection to the True Demon, at least on the surface. However, that also meant that a very small group of people were getting curious about the rumors of Tianji Pavilion, and thought they could get past by being clever.

As for the fate of the evil cultivator, the underworld of Chunhui Prefecture didn’t elaborate, and Ji Yuan didn’t want to ask.

After learning the news, Ji Yuan sent the visiting ghost messenger away. He couldn’t wait to fall asleep again.

On this attempt, time passed even faster during his sleep. When no one came to disturb him for a long time, he actually ended up dreaming for four or five months, uninterrupted.

Those in the county who knew Ji Yuan thought that Mr. Ji might have gone on a long journey again, except the spiritual energy in the courtyard remained… until the next year, when the jujube tree was in full bloom and the fragrance of jujube flowers filled the air, bringing peace and tranquility.

The seasons had circled around back to spring. On this day, a red fox tried his best to avoid the crows of people, cats, and dogs in the county city, and hurriedly crossed the streets, arriving at Ju’an Pavilion, one of the more secluded places on Tian Niu Lane.

The fox glanced at the jujube tree in the yard that was full of flowers, then jumped over the wall and landed in the courtyard.

This was already the tenth time at least that Hu Yun had come to Ju’an Pavilion since last winter. Each time, he failed to see Mr. Ji. However, this time was a little different. He sensed something as soon as he entered the courtyard and looked up at the branches of the jujube tree.

There was a paper crane on a branch that was actually imitating the bees nearby, poking at the tiny jujube flowers with its paper beak.

“Paper Crane, is Mr. Ji awake?”

Hu Yun was overjoyed when he saw the paper crane. He directly asked his question to the little paper crane, seeing that it looked like a spirit.

However, the latter’s intelligence was not high enough to be able to communicate smoothly with the fox. It just flew down upon hearing its master’s name, landing on the stone table, and looked at the red fox. Then, in the very next moment, it suddenly flapped its wings and flew to the main house, landing at the door. It shrunk itself down and quickly slipped in through the crack in the door.

“Hey…”

Hu Yun had just opened his mouth and uttered out a word when the paper crane disappeared.

After a few breaths, the sound of a yawn came from within the room.

When Hu Yun heard this sound, his first reaction was surprise, but guilt and even a little panic.

‘Oh no! If Lu Shan Jun finds out that I woke up Mr. Ji, I’m dead meat! ’

Hu Yun’s next instinct was to run away: so, he took a running start and leaped onto the wall of the small pavilion, then jumped to the ground and fled Tian Niu Lane.

“Hoooh…aaah…”

Ji Yuan yawned and stretched, then sat up from the bed. Everything except the bed was covered in a layer of dust.

“This dream was quite long!”

He looked in the direction of the door again, as if he could see through it, and muttered.

“Is this fox messing with me now? Did he run away when I woke up?”

The paper crane flew into the brocade bag by his bedside. Ji Yuan had naturally not been awoken by the paper crane — instead, the crane had come inside specifically because he had sensed that his master was about to wake up.

“I can’t sleep anymore. If I go to sleep again, I will miss the birth of Master Yin’s second child. I wonder if Yin Qing has already gone to visit.”

T/n: I still have a soft spot in my heart for Ying Ruoli as my favorite character, but man that adorable paper crane is in second place and catching up fast…

1. Note that the debate over when a fetus is considered “alive” is a very controversial debate, and LOTS of people have different opinions on when, how, and what the boundary line is.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read