63. I wonder why…

afflinghaze

“You’ve been using a heart-soothing treasure to simply help you sleep?” a cultivator said sourly. “What a waste!”

Sun Fuyu frowned and retorted, “This is a gift from my Wen-ge, and he said it’s to help me sleep. It can also glow. I can use it how I want.”

But for the other cultivator who said that it was amazing, a senior surnamed Cheng, Sun Fuyu reluctantly took out an older stone that was now low on Wen-ge’s qi.

“Senior Cheng, you can borrow this for a day. The amazing aura is from my Wen-ge!” Sun Fuyu said, chin raised slightly in pride.

Hu Jingyan’s puzzlement immediately disappeared. “Your Wen-ge, of course! That’s why it felt familiar!” After all, Wen Zhihao had moved into Liu Zhongmin’s accommodation quarters, where Hu Jingyan also had her rooms.

The other cultivator, senior Cheng, accepted the old qi-infused stone from Sun Fuyu and gasped. “Amazing! This kind of aura really does make you want to sleep! It’s estimated that the resentful ghosts became sleepy! Sun-shidi, your Wen-ge must be a master crafting cultivator!”

One of the Nascent Soul cultivators, who had been dealing with the more powerful resentful ghosts, came over. “Little Disciple Sun, is that odd disciple of Elder Liu your ge?” she asked casually.

Sun Fuyu felt a little unhappy at this senior’s words, but he had to hold his grievances in. “My ge is Wen Zhihao, he is a disciple of Elder Liu. He is a talisman cultivator and he’s very smart in a lot of other things too.”

Senior Cheng rolled their eyes at the Nascent Soul cultivator. “You’re giving the rest of the sword cultivators a bad name. Recognise innovation and intelligence! It’s not ‘oddity’, it’s genius! Sun-shidi, can you sell this treasure to me?” Seeing Sun Fuyu’s conflicted expression, they tried, “No, how about this, will this Cultivator Wen sell me a few when we return to the sect? No, no, not a few, even just one! I will pay a hundred mid-grade spiritual stones!”

Lin Yijun snorted. He had walked over to see what all the commotion was about. “Cultivator Wen sells those things for 1 wen in the mortal towns,” he said coolly. “If you’re all so free, go and deal with five more resentful ghosts before night falls.”

“Is that true?” Senior Cheng asked Sun Fuyu.

Sun Fuyu reluctantly nodded. “Yes. But the ones that my ge gives me are the best!”

Senior Cheng pursed their lips in thought. “Interesting! One wen, this is the mortal currency? How much is one wen worth?”

“Stop chatting and get to work,” Lin Yijun interrupted. “If not, your share of the mission reward will be reduced.”

Senior Cheng waved a dismissive hand. “Fellow Disciple Lin, we are talking about important magical treasures!”

But when they turned back to their conversation partner...gone! Sun Fuyu had no intention of getting his reward share reduced, so he had quickly dashed over to where all the resentful ghosts were being held. Senior Cheng could only go into a corner and quickly study the stone that had been loaned to them.

The resentful ghosts in the area had been almost entirely caught and were held in separate magical cells set up by one of the senior array masters. The kindly old-looking Nascent Soul cultivator saw Sun Fuyu’s approach.

“Little Cultivator Sun wants to help?” the Nascent Soul cultivator asked. “Letting you deal with this ghost.” The cultivator pointed out the lowest level resentful ghost and handed Sun Fuyu the little talisman that controlled the ghost’s confinement array.

Sun Fuyu nodded seriously. With the talisman and the aura from Sun Fuyu’s stone, the distorted-looking resentful ghost was docile. He took out some food and magically burned it so that the little ghost could easily eat it.

“...For me?” came the ghost’s scratchy whispering voice.

“En. Please eat, senior ghost,” Sun Fuyu said.

The ghost put a ghostly meat bun into its mouth. As it bit down, tears suddenly welled in its eyes. “Ah-ah, I was human once!”

“Do you have any grievances?” Sun Fuyu asked directly.

Somehow, the little ghost couldn’t hold back, unloading all its grievances to Sun Fuyu. Sun Fuyu helped it on some reasonable matters and the ghost finally was able to let go of its resentment and leave.

The moment Sun Fuyu was finished with one ghost, he quickly volunteered to deal with another. The faster it was done, the faster he could receive his reward and see his ge again!

In fact, the fastest way to deal with resentful ghosts was to kill them. Many demonic cultivators also liked to take them under their control.

However, in recent decades, the practices of the temple sects had spread, advocating for more peaceful methods, which drastically increased the time it took to deal with them. It was widely believed that doing this would reduce the severity of one’s future heavenly tribulations. Of course, some ghosts, especially the ferocious and murderous ones would not agree to leave the world and could only be slain.

Lin Yijun’s stomach rolled in an unfamiliar feeling of tension.

It would soon be time for that event. He had wanted to stay in that area ahead of time to catch Zhou Sheng, who he still hadn’t been able to find. In desperation, he had even contracted an animal tamer cultivator with a demonic wolf to help search. However, he didn’t expect this big invasion of ghosts to occur right now.

In his last life, it had occurred a year later, wreaking havoc on the mortal towns and forcing multiple righteous sects to join hands to deal with them. Later, Lin Yijun had realised that the ghost invasion had been a precursor to the war—the ghosts were to weaken the righteous forces before the demonic cultivators descended.

Because of this, the moment Lin Yijun had heard the very first report about the ghosts, he had immediately gotten the mission severity level upgraded and took the task to deal with them as swiftly as possible—before the ghosts could consume mortal souls and grow stronger.

Lin Yijun wanted to slay all these ghosts and be done with it, but he still remembered his death. He couldn’t make his future lightning tribulation worse.

His jaw tightened. This wouldn’t be a problem if they hadn’t come earlier! Why had they?

A few days ago, in one of the demonic sects:

“That Lin Yijun snuck into your sect too?!”

“That Lin Yijun! Thought he wouldn’t be found out? Sneaking into our sects, that bastard!”

“Hmpf! He clearly has bad intentions! Well, if he wants to fight, then let’s fight!”

“Send in the cannon fodder ghosts!”

Speaking of dealing with ghosts, Ghosts Know What I Experienced is a good danmei! I do love OP main characters...

Also, I feel like Lin Yijun has become this author's cannon fodder even though he was supposed to be a traditional protagonist ?