In the surging fog, within the City of Dead Silence to which no visitor had come in who knows how many years, Zhu Li opened her eyes.
In her eyes, a hint of confusion flashed.
“There’s a disturbance in the city?”
Inside this City of Dead Silence, save for those tens of thousands of resentful ghosts that were being restrained, only the wandering lost souls, muddleheaded and bereft of their spiritual intellect, remained.
But now, Zhu Li sensed some sort of commotion within the city.
She rose amidst the fog and headed directly toward the source of the disturbance.
Within the fog, she saw a towering ghostly shadow topple heavily to the ground.
A young man’s body, which should have been dead, now stood upon the long street—it was he who had felled the ghostly shadow.
Zhu Li appeared silently and asked with a frown, “Who might you be to dare barge into this treacherous den?”
The body of the young man before her was clearly that of some Great Divine Power user who had returned to life by possessing the corpse with a primordial spirit.
However, directionless within the fog, the other’s primordial spirit had managed to pierce through the fog and reach this city…
A flicker of caution surged through Zhu Li’s mind.
Yet facing her sudden appearance, the mysterious visitor was not surprised at all and seemed to have expected her emergence.
He looked at Zhu Li with calm composure and said, “Dragon Immortal, the resentful ghosts in this city are about to break free from their seals and descend into uncontrollable chaos, are you really oblivious to this?”
Though he was the newcomer, he now appeared to arrogantly challenge Zhu Li with questions.
This left Zhu Li momentarily flustered and uncertain.
“… The resentful ghosts in the city are about to erupt into chaos?”
Why haven’t I noticed anything, yet the man before me has foreseen this?
Zhu Li, full of doubt and uncertainty, did not strike out immediately.
And the subsequent words spoken by the mysterious man made Zhu Li feel even more uneasy.
He said that the city’s ghosts were about to go out of control and would overrun the mortal realm, causing calamity to live creatures and even she would perish in the upheaval caused by the enraged ghosts.
Such shocking news, yet he spoke with utmost seriousness, and what he described also made sense.
If the ghosts in the city were truly to go into a frenzied uproar, she, who was utterly unprepared and in the line of fire, indeed stood a great chance of perishing…
After hesitating for a while, Zhu Li chose to tentatively believe him.
“Fine! I will tentatively trust you.”
“But I want to follow at your side and witness everything you do with my own eyes…”
Although the other party was a Great Divine Power user, he had ultimately only borrowed a corpse to return, and truly couldn’t deploy any powerful Immortal Technique.
In this fog, as long as she was willing, she could easily expel his primordial spirit.
Therefore, Zhu Li decided to tentatively trust him, wanting to observe his actions with her own eyes to see whether he was telling the truth.
If what the other party said was false, she could also dispel him at any moment.
Zhu Li was ready for either possibility.
…However, the subsequent actions of the mysterious man greatly surprised Zhu Li.
Somehow, he had managed to knock down those powerful lingering souls in the city and refine them into mystically pure Treasure Beads.
These lingering spirits, unlike the resentful ghosts beneath, were not filled with sky-high resentment; as long as one didn’t provoke them intentionally, they would stay put, almost harmless.
Many of these souls were Demigods in life, and even in death, they retained formidable combat prowess.
Some of the stronger ones would even pose a challenge to Zhu Li.
Yet the mysterious man before her kept defeating these lingering souls, turning them into some kind of mystically pure Treasure Beads.
“…This is the ‘Treasure Bead of Resentful Souls,'” the mysterious man said. “The Treasure Bead of Resentful Souls can soothe and purify the resentful ghosts within the city. Once the beads are collected completely, they can suppress and cleanse the city’s ghosts, allowing them to regain their clarity and cease to trouble the world.”
The stranger’s plan was perfect, but what perplexed Zhu Li was his divine ability to refine the Demigod souls into beads… Such an inexplicable and bizarre technique had never been heard of before.
Yet, thinking of how this person managed to travel through the fog and reach the city amidst the spirits, Zhu Li calmed down.
Passing through the mist with the primordial spirit paled in comparison to the technique of refining the Demigod remnants into resentful Treasure Beads, which seemed quite ordinary.
Zhu Li calmed down and followed the mysterious person, helping him refine those Demigod remnants within the city.
Her expression was indifferent as she gradually accepted the extraordinary nature of the mysterious person.
Until…
“Zhuang Zi is not a fish, how can he know the joy of the fish?”
A hint of surprise appeared in Zhu Li’s eyes.
She had never heard such exquisite words before.
Yet, the mysterious person laughed and said, “This is a conversation between Zhuang Zi and Hui Zi, two philosophers.”
“Zhuang Zi and Hui Zi were wandering above the Hao Liang. Zhuang Zi said, ‘The trout swims at ease, that is the joy of fish.'”
“Hui Zi replied, ‘You are not a fish, how can you know the joy of the fish?'”
…
The mysterious person laughed as he recounted the story of the two philosophers.
Zhu Li had never heard the names of these two philosophers before, but countless years had passed outside of the mist, so it was not surprising that impressive philosophers had emerged.
Zhu Li simply assumed these were newly-emerged philosophers in the world of men, pondered for a moment, and then let out a light chuckle.
“…One philosopher transcends the mundane, not sticking to material possessions, while the other seeks truth and is pragmatically argumentative—a truly interesting contrast.”
It seemed that he had detected her interest in such topics, so the mysterious visitor continued the conversation with a smile.
As he struck down and refined the Demigod remnants in the city, he shared with Zhu Li laughter-filled tales and witty sayings of philosophers like Zhuang Zi, Hui Zi, Lao Zi, and Confucius.
Every sentence he said, every story he told, was thought-provoking and contained philosophical insights.
Some words even held the ultimate truths of the Great Way.
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Ordinary people might not perceive such essence of the Way, but after some reflection, Zhu Li’s gaze became startled.
“The valley spirit never dies, it is called the mysterious female…”
“Zhuang Zhou dreams of being a butterfly…”
“Heaven and Earth are born with me, and the myriad things and I are one…”
“The highest good is like water, water nourishes all things without contention…”
…
These topics were diverse and complex, with philosophical reasoning and also with the ways of the sage and the ultimate truths of cultivating the Great Way.
The mysterious person only briefly touched upon each topic, refraining from deep discussion with her.
But even so, Zhu Li gained a lot.
For her, though the practice of secret techniques or Immortal Law was beneficial, these ultimate truths of the Great Way were equally precious.
Logically speaking, they were strangers without any acquaintance to speak of, but upon their first meeting, the other party imparted such valuable knowledge gratuitously…
Zhu Li sighed in her heart, feeling the weighty kindness of a favor.
She wanted to decline, but after pondering for a while, she chose to silently accept this goodwill.
This mysterious person with Great Divine Power, whose primordial spirit ventured deep into the fog just to suppress the resentful spirits in the city, must be a highly revered figure on the Path of Immortality.
Since she had already accepted this kindness, she might as well quietly note it down.
When the opportunity arose in the future, she would repay the favor.
—That was Zhu Li’s plan.
But when the conversation suddenly turned to Zhu Li’s circumstances and the mysterious visitor became aware of her predicament of being trapped in the city, the mysterious person laughed and pointed out a way to life for her.
“I know where the Military Annihilation Tiger Talisman is, right here in the city.”
“If we can get the Military Annihilation Tiger Talisman and have those tens of thousands of resentful spirits follow your commands, you will have the chance to leave this City of Dead Silence.”