Lu Fuyue pulled the person behind her out and looked at him, "Can sword cultivators be afraid too?"

Song Zhou was taken aback, stopped, and asked with some curiosity, "Senior Brother Lu, has anyone ever told you that your observation skills are really strong?"

Although he was a sword cultivator, he did not possess the sharp aura that an ordinary sword cultivator should have, and ordinary people could not tell his identity.

Lu Fuyue glanced at him indifferently, then looked away, her gaze falling on the solid, illusory figure not far away.

"A mere Nascent Soul stage ghost dares to call himself 'this one'?"

As soon as these words were spoken, a fierce wind arose around them, and gusts of eerie wind blew, stinging their skin. The wails of countless vengeful ghosts surrounded them.

The female ghost wearing a golden mask stared intently at Lu Fuyue, then with a wave of her hand, she flew away, her sharp palm wind striking the two of them, "You're courting death!"

Lu Fuyue's eyes narrowed slightly, and she was about to make a move.

But Song Zhou stepped in front of her first, a broken cyan sword appearing out of thin air in his hand. He swiftly leaped into the air and slashed at the female ghost. Instantly, gusts of wind blew, carrying hundreds of different sword energies that shot out from all directions.

The female ghost tilted her head and smiled eerily, "A sword cultivator in the early stage of the Golden Core realm, a virgin with his primordial yang still intact, is truly a great tonic."

As soon as she finished speaking, she transformed her palm into a claw and suddenly grabbed with her bare hand. In an instant, all the sword energy that was heading towards her twisted and turned back the way it came, carrying a strong killing intent as it headed straight for Song Zhou's face.

Song Zhou's expression changed drastically. He tried to circulate his cultivation technique to avoid it, but he soon discovered that his body was firmly locked onto by divine sense.

Oh no! It's a vengeful ghost at the mid-Nascent Soul stage!

Just as those sword energies were about to strike Song Zhou, Lu Fuyue raised her hand and summoned the Weak Water Zither. The movement of her hands playing the zither was so fast that it created countless afterimages.

The black death string on the zither flew into the air and transformed into thousands of identical strings, weaving a large black net that was thrown down into the air and tightly trapped the female ghost.

With a sharp crack, the music changed from slow to fast, and the net suddenly tightened. Lu Fuyue glanced indifferently at the female ghost, and suddenly, countless golden-red flames ignited on each string of the net, relentlessly rushing towards the female ghost.

"Ahhhh—"

A scream rang out, and the golden mask on the female ghost's face fell off, revealing a face that was uneven and distorted, with features that were clearly burned by a fire.

However, the Phoenix Red Lotus Divine Fire only burned her soul; it wouldn't have turned her into this state.

The female ghost writhed in agony within the large net, trying to extinguish the flames on her body. However, this was the Phoenix Red Lotus Divine Fire, which could not be extinguished so easily.

"No, don't burn me! It hurts so much! Brother Liu, Ying'er knows she was wrong. Ying'er will never dare to dream of liking you again. Please let me go. I don't want to be burned to death."

"Brother Liu, I was wrong, I was really wrong. I will never compete with her for you again. Please let me go, this fire is burning me so badly..."

Song Zhou walked up to Lu Fuyue, and looking at the female ghost's appearance, a hint of surprise flashed in his eyes. "Could this female ghost have been burned alive by some heartless man?"

Lu Fuyue pursed her lips, and just as the female ghost's soul was becoming weaker and weaker, she waved her sleeve, and the Phoenix Red Lotus Divine Fire on the female ghost's body gradually dissipated.

However, she was still trapped in the net and unable to break free.

After being burned by the Phoenix Red Lotus Divine Fire for a long time, the female ghost lay half-dead on the ground, her body becoming increasingly transparent and weak, as if she would be about to be completely destroyed at any moment.

Lu Fuyue walked up and carefully examined the female ghost. The most powerful aspect of the Phoenix Red Lotus Divine Fire was its ability to burn away all evil in the world. However, after burning this female ghost for a long time, she was only weakened in spirit.

This shows that she was not some wicked ghost, at least not with too much human blood on her hands.

Song Zhou also walked up and stood next to Lu Fuyue. He thought for a moment and then hesitantly asked, "Senior Brother Lu, do you think we should still kill this female ghost?"

Upon hearing this, Lu Fuyue remained silent for a moment. After a long while, she sat cross-legged, lowered her head, and began to play the zither. The moment the zither music slowly began to play, the female ghost's soul began to solidify a bit more.

Song Zhou watched this scene in shock. He had seen sound cultivators before, but since most of their techniques had long since disappeared, the few remaining sound cultivators in the cultivation world were nothing more than showy figures, looking good but actually having very weak combat power.

However, he never expected that his senior brother Lu, whom he met along the way, would actually be a master of music cultivation, and even a master who could use the sound of the zither to heal ghosts.

It's unclear what level of cultivation he possesses.

Before long, the female ghost slowly woke up. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a woman in white sitting on the ground playing the zither.

Why didn't you kill me?

Lu Fuyue stopped what she was doing, looked up at her, and said, "You have golden light of merit within you, so that fire can't kill you."

Liu Ying'er gave a bitter laugh, two drops of bloody tears streaming from the corner of her eyes. "Your divine fire can't burn me to death, but his mortal fire can easily burn me beyond recognition and kill me."

Song Zhou looked at her curiously, "Golden light of merit? The 'him' you're talking about, wouldn't it be the Brother Liu you mentioned?"

A deep hatred flashed in Cui Ying'er's eyes. "Yes, it was him, my good stepbrother."

Upon hearing this, Song Zhou was stunned.

No way... this relationship.

Liu Ying'er naturally noticed Song Zhou's confusion. She slowly said, "He and I are not related by blood at all. More than ten years after my father died, my mother took me to remarry into the Liu family. From then on, I changed from Cui Ying'er to Liu Ying'er."

“We were only a year apart in age. Then, the night before I was about to turn 18, he broke into my room and said he loved me and didn’t want me to marry someone else. So he forced himself on me.”

"After he woke up, he held me and confessed that he had just drunk too much and mistook me for his maid."

"But he didn't know that when he hugged me and said he didn't want me to marry someone else, I was actually very happy because I had also fallen in love with him. However, after everything happened, he told me that he only regarded me as the maid who served him in bed."

"Later, he fell in love with the maid who served him in bed. He was willing to go against his family for her and even threatened to kill himself just to marry her. But I was not reconciled. I was not reconciled that I was the only one who took it seriously that night, so I went to question him, only to find him and that maid in bed together."

"Just because that maid said in bed, 'Young master, I don't like the way Miss looks at you. Will you kill her for me?' So he personally tied me up and threw me into a desolate wilderness, where I was burned alive."