Fellow Daoist

Xu Yi separated a wisp of ghostly energy and used his mind to control it, searching for the ghostly energy along the street to find its origin.

Xu Yi's mind followed the ghostly energy on the ground, winding its way from the city to the outskirts, then to a desolate place, until it reached a mass grave. There, it wandered along the hundreds of wells, and finally followed the well with the densest ghostly energy to the bottom of the earth...

After traversing the narrow underground passage and chasing each other several times, the view suddenly opened up before them. They saw a large circular open space where many spirit-like figures were gathered, and black energy was everywhere. Xu Yi landed and slowly approached, only to discover that in the very center was a humanoid skeleton emitting a faint yellow light...

The skeleton is folded into a cross-legged position, with hands clasped over the lower abdomen and the head slightly lowered, resembling a kind old man.

As Xu Yi approached, the unconscious spirits on both sides spontaneously made way for him, and Xu Yi walked smoothly to the front of the skeleton.

Xu Yi separated a wisp of his consciousness from between his brows and entered the skeleton. After searching it over, he found no consciousness or mind. Just as he was wondering about this, a thick ghostly aura suddenly emanated from the skeleton's left shoulder, forcibly pulling Xu Yi's consciousness out...

The ghostly energy was extremely powerful, causing Xu Yi to cough up blood. She took two steps back and looked at the skeleton's left shoulder, where she noticed a faint bite mark. Although the bite mark appeared shallow on the skeleton, the fact that it could penetrate human flesh and leave a mark on bone indicated that the old man was severely injured when he was bitten.

At this moment, a thick ghostly aura was emanating from the bite mark, growing more and more numerous and darker... This ghostly aura slowly fell to the ground, covering the open space and gradually filling the entire area. The previously dazed and confused spirits became agitated upon contact with the ghostly aura on the ground. Some had red eyes; some bared their sharp teeth; some clutched their heads and shrieked... and some even pulled out their own ribs and charged at Xu Yi...

Xu Yi, at the inn, quickly used all her strength to regain her composure and managed to return before being overtaken by the raging ghosts… Xu Yi opened her eyes, her forehead covered in cold sweat: “Wu Zi, underground, there are so many ghosts underground, and a skeleton too. The bite marks on the skeleton emit ghostly energy, that… that’s the source of all that ghostly energy…”

As soon as Xu Yi finished speaking, the ghosts from underground arrived... A dense swarm of all kinds of ghosts, holding bones in their hands, rushed towards Wu Zi and the other person. Wu Zi immediately jumped off the inn, raised his hand, and used the bell to seal off a ten-mile radius around him, trapping himself and the pursuing ghosts together...

Xu Yi, fearing that Wu Zi might get hurt, exclaimed in alarm, "Wu Zi..."

Wu Zi looked up and smiled: "It's alright, these little things are nothing to fear. You stay outside and don't let these ghosts disturb the mortals..."

“Okay,” Xu Yi quickly floated down from the window and started tearing at the sparse ghosts that weren’t covered… The torn ghosts turned into shallow ghost energy, which was absorbed by the black bead in her body all at once…

Xu Yi quickly dealt with the ghosts that had chased after him but hadn't been caught. At this moment, Wu Zi also captured all the ghosts and trapped them with a ball of golden silk thread as a cage. Then, Wu Zi chanted an incantation over the silk thread, and the ball of thread, which was originally the size of several people, gradually shrank until it was just a small ball in Wu Zi's hand...

Wu Zi removed the protective shield and smiled at Xu Yi: "It's nothing." He then tossed the ghost he had grabbed to Xu Yi, who caught it in a daze. Wu Zi patted her head: "I've removed all the impurities from these, so you can absorb them without worry."

"Huh?" Xu Yi looked at the ball of ghost thread in her hand: "This... can absorb them?"

“Hmm,” Wu Zi nodded, “It’s fine. Absorbing this ghost energy can strengthen you. However, most of the spirits have many bad traits, which are not conducive to cultivation. We don’t need the others.”

“Okay,” Xu Yi nodded, just as they were about to go back to the inn to digest their food. When they turned around, they saw a Taoist priest dressed as a Taoist standing not far away, carrying a sword on his back.

The man had bright and clear features, which made people feel like they were bathed in a spring breeze... He clapped his hands with a smile and praised, "You two are quite skilled." After speaking, he walked over to Xu Yi and the others. Wu Zi stood very cautiously in front of Xu Yi and cupped his hands to the newcomer: "May I ask where you come from, my master? I am Wu Zi from the Imperial Observatory."

“Oh, so you’re a fellow Daoist from the Imperial Observatory,” the man bowed even more deeply, “I am a rogue cultivator.”

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Wu Zi said politely.

"Nice to meet you," the man said politely.

After both sides finished their polite exchanges, Fen Yu walked to the side with great curiosity and looked at Xu Yi: "This... fellow Daoist, are you a ghost cultivator?"

Wu Zi frowned almost imperceptibly: "This is a ghost I collected on the way. Since she still has some consciousness, I asked her to help me out."

"Oh?" Fen Yu raised an eyebrow. "This young lady... if I'm not mistaken, she should be a vengeful ghost, right? Vengeful ghosts are evil cultivators, are you still willing to believe in using her for help?"

Xu Yi was displeased upon hearing the word "evil cultivator." Having experienced so much, she now had a general understanding of her own abilities and wasn't as afraid as before. So she retorted directly, "You're the evil cultivator! Your whole family are evil cultivators. I don't have a single drop of unclean blood on me. Are you blind?" After saying that, she realized her words were too vulgar and subconsciously covered her mouth with both hands.

He turned to look at Wu Zi discreetly and found that Wu Zi did not show any displeasure on his face, which relieved him.

Wu Zi laughed twice: "She does indeed harbor resentment, but she is not an evil cultivator. Fellow Daoist, you've misjudged."

Xu Yi was quite pleased to hear that Wu Zi was on her side. She proudly shook her head at Fen Yu and gave him a disdainful look.

With a narrowed eye, he chuckled lightly, a half-smile playing on his lips: "Miss Xu is indeed adorable. No wonder Fellow Daoist Wu wants to keep her by his side. She's quite fortunate!"

Good fortune? Xu Yi instinctively felt that this was not a good thing to say, so she mustered her courage, put her hands on her hips, and said to Fen Yu Yizhi with a bit of a shrewish attitude: "It doesn't sound like a good thing to say. If you can't speak properly, then don't speak at all. It's grating."

Unexpectedly, a cold glint flashed in Fen Yu's eyes, but he turned around and put on a smiling face as he looked at Wu Zi: "Fellow Daoist Wu has quite a good temper."

The implication is that you're not going to discipline or discipline your children?

Having spent so much time in the mortal world, Wu Zi could naturally tell what kind of person the other party was just by feeling. So he patted Xu Yi's head and offered Fen Yu a way out: "She's young and speaks bluntly, fellow Daoist, please don't mind."

"I wouldn't dare... Fellow Daoist Wu, you're too kind." After saying that, she changed the subject and asked Wu Zi, "Fellow Daoist, are you staying at the inn next door?"

"Oh?" Wu Zi raised an eyebrow: "Fen and you are also staying at this inn?"

"It was because I sensed a ghostly aura that I came out to take a look, and that's how I saw the two of you."

Sensing ghostly energy? Then why didn't he help them subdue the ghost? He stood by and watched for so long, only showing himself after the fight was over? Xu Yi frowned as she looked at Wu Zi, but Wu Zi calmly dismissed the matter: "Then, shall we go back together?"

He cupped his hands in greeting, replied, "Okay," and then went back chatting and laughing with Wu Zi.

Xu Yi looked at the two people chatting happily ahead and felt a little unhappy. Xu Yi had a feeling that Fen Yu was not a good person, but Wu Zi actually chatted with him back and forth. He originally wanted to call Wu Zi to stop, but then thought it wouldn't be good, so he followed them back to the inn with a sullen expression.

Back in his room, Wu Zi was still smiling and saying goodbye to the person in the opposite room when he closed the door and frowned as he said to Xu Yi, "This person is not a good person. You should be careful lately."

"Huh? I thought you hadn't noticed?" Xu Yi pouted unhappily, "Then why were you chatting so happily with him?"

Wu Zi poked Xu Yi's head: "You! People say it's better to offend a gentleman than a petty person. When dealing with this kind of petty person, we just need to be polite on the surface, but we know what's going on in our hearts. I always feel that he is more interested in you, so you must pay more attention to him recently."

"good."

“Remember, never be alone with him,” Wu Zi added.

"knew."

Wu Zi noticed that Xu Yi was a little tired, so he came over, patted Xu Yi's head, and comforted him, "Go to sleep, I'm here for you."

"Mmm." Xu Yi lay down on the edge of the bed and fell asleep.

Wu Zi had been feeling uneasy lately, so he hid a defensive formation on Xu Yi's body and used his magic to extract a trace of Xu Yi's original ghost energy and put it into his magic artifact before he could finally lie down and rest next to Xu Yi.

I slept without any dreams.

The next day, Xu Yi led Wu Zi in the direction they had explored the day before to find the arid, dark well. They finally reached the mass grave from the previous night, but among the dense array of wells, they couldn't find the well they had entered the night before.

Xu Yi was a little anxious: "How could this be? It's right here, so why can't we detect it?"

Wu Zi glanced at the surrounding dry wells and advised Xu Yi, "Don't rush, take your time searching. If all else fails, check again tonight. Or check if there are any unusual well edges around here to narrow down the search area."

“Okay,” Xu Yi nodded, “Search separately.”

Xu Yi looked at several wells on the other side but found nothing. He decided to open his ghost eye to take another look, but the sun was shining brightly. As soon as Xu Yi opened his ghost eye, he was burned by the scorching sun and had to revert to his human eye form.

Just as Xu Yi was about to open her Dharma Eye to take another look, she heard Wu Zi call out to her, "Xu Yi, come here."

Xu Yi ran over in a few steps, intending to go and take a look at the well in front of her, when Wu Zi, with his sharp eyes, stopped her. He held up Xu Yi's burned hand and asked, "What happened?"

"Oh," Xu Yi looked at her skin, which was wrinkled from the heat, "I was just trying to use my ghost eye to take a look, but I got sunburned."

Wu Zi glared at Xu Yi: "It's the middle of the day, and you're using your ghost eyes? What are you thinking?" He didn't stop talking, and he didn't stop using his hands either. He took out a round copper coin from his pocket and pressed it onto Xu Yi's arm. Waves of yin energy seeped out and quickly replenished Xu Yi's yin energy, and his hand returned to normal.

"Wow, that's amazing!" Xu Yi held up her restored hand, looking at it from side to side repeatedly, her eyes sparkling as she looked at Wu Zi: "What is this, Wu Zi?"

"It's a Yin coin, containing a lot of Yin energy, which can help you recover."

"Where did you find this?"

"The underworld," Wu Zi replied simply, hiding his frostbitten fingers behind his back.

Xu Yi, being a rough and uncultured man, naturally didn't notice anything. However, Fen Yu, who was secretly following and observing, did see it. He sneered in Wu Zi's direction and quietly left.