Yuan Qi nodded, observing Jiang Juncai's stubbornness. Logically, Jiang Juncai and Feng Caiyi hadn't met many times and shouldn't have had a deep relationship, so why was he so concerned about her life and death?
"I can summon spirits, but what if I can't?"
Jiang Juncai said with some sorrow, "Then I can't accept the other person either. The person who killed Caiyi must die."
"Okay, as long as you're not afraid of a lose-lose situation, I'll give it a try. But don't get your hopes up too high. When I'm performing the ritual, just call out your sister-in-law's name loudly."
Jiang Juncai agreed and made serious preparations.
Yuan Qi instructed Wen Zhujun and Shen Xun to stand guard outside. He used a desk as an offering table, lit incense sticks in an incense burner, performed the ritual of summoning the soul, raised his left index and middle fingers in front of his chest, held his right hand outstretched, and began chanting incantations.
The room was very quiet; there wasn't a breath of wind.
Jiang Juncai shouted loudly many times.
Seeing his persistence, Yuan Qi repeated the ritual once more, but Feng Caiyi's soul still didn't appear. Even after she stopped the ritual, he continued to call out.
"Stop calling, she's not coming."
Jiang Juncai was extremely anxious: "Why didn't she come? Seventh Sister, what do you think is going on?"
"There are two possibilities. The more optimistic one is that her soul is still there, but trapped and unable to return. The other, more pessimistic one, is that... her soul has been scattered. Brother, should we continue searching?"
Yuan Qi stared at Jiang Juncai; she didn't actually want her brother to be a cold-blooded and ruthless person.
"try to find!"
“Okay.” Yuan Qi took out a tortoise shell from the box and asked Wen Zhujun to find six tree branches to clean up the things on the table.
Wen Zhujun placed six thin twigs, each about the length of a finger, on the table and asked her, "What are you doing?"
Jiang Juncai thought she was going to set up an array to continue the soul-summoning ritual, but who knew she would take out these strange things.
He also asked, "What is this for?"
"Let's divine where she is."
This is the Great Derivation Technique, a divination method that requires a great deal of effort.
Wen Zhujun said "Oh," knowing that this was no ordinary magic. She wanted to learn it but didn't want to go outside to protect the magic, so she went to the corridor and asked Shen Xun to protect her.
Yuan Qi did not object. This kind of divination technique is very profound and cannot be learned by watching it once or twice.
Jiang Juncai watched nervously as Yuan Qi kept forming hand seals. Sometimes his fingers would trace back and forth on the tortoise shell, and sometimes he would throw a branch.
Gradually, sweat began to bead on Yuan Qi's forehead, but he showed no sign of stopping.
Jiang Juncai would occasionally peek out the door, and if anyone came, he would quickly block them from entering.
Almost an hour later, Yuan Qi finally stopped, looking extremely tired.
“The soul is still there, in the northwest direction.” Yuan Qi wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Jiang Juncai was somewhat taken aback: "It's so good that you're still alive. But isn't the northwest direction a bit too large?"
Yuan Qi snorted: "It's already quite good that you were able to calculate this much. I used up half of my spiritual power to get this result."
Jiang Juncai sighed, looking dejected: "It's thousands of miles to the northwest. Even if we search there, where would we find her in the vast Gobi Desert? Seventh Sister, what's the difference between this and not knowing where she is?"
Yuan Qi couldn't bear to argue with him anymore: "Brother, there's no need to worry. I have acquaintances over there, so I can ask them to help me find it. But I have to go there now. You wait here. If I don't come back by tomorrow, you can go back to your parents' home with that fake one."
"This..." Jiang Juncai was very surprised. "The journey to the Northwest is long and arduous. We should at least prepare horses, some dry food and water. And how can a young girl like you travel alone? At the very least, I should go with you and bring a hundred or so guards with us."
Yuan Qi chuckled: "You don't know this, do you? I take the Yin Road and it only takes half a day to get there."
"I'm going too!"
"I'm going too!"
Jiang Juncai and Wen Zhujun spoke in unison.
Yuan Qi stared at the two for a few seconds, then asked with a wicked grin, "The Yin Road, as the name suggests, is the road for the dead. All kinds of dead souls can be found on it—severed limbs, protruding intestines, headless ones. Are you sure you want to go with us?"
"go!"
"go!"
The two of them said in unison.
Jiang Juncai said, "I am, after all, the commander of the Imperial Guards. I have seen beheadings and dismemberment. Why would I be afraid of the dead?"
"Alright, you'll regret this." Yuan Qi slung the cloth bag over his shoulder, tore open a path through the shadows, and stepped inside.
Although Wen Zhujun was a ghost and had walked the path to the underworld, she had never seen such a way to enter, and she was stunned for a moment.
Jiang Juncai was even more astonished. Wasn't the Yin Road located in the underworld? How could an opening in the underworld be torn open anytime, anywhere? Could it be that the underworld and the mortal world are actually overlapping spaces?
This isn't normal!
"Come on, regretting it now?" Yuan Qi mocked him from inside. Could it be that he regretted it after just one glance?
As soon as Jiang Jun stepped across, he noticed a chilling wind blowing through the air, making him feel extremely cold.
There is no sunlight on the shady road; everything is gray and gloomy, as if shrouded in fog, making it impossible to see very far at a glance.
After walking a few steps, Jiang Juncai saw a man who was missing an arm, revealing a bloody stump. The man's mouth was crooked, his eyes were slanted, a piece of his forehead was missing, and his leg was broken. Even so, the man was still walking.
Jiang Juncai was extremely shocked; this was not what he had imagined!
horrible!
The key point is that the man chuckled at him, leaned closer, and mumbled, "A stranger? Smells good!"
As he finished speaking, the man's saliva was dripping down his face.
Yuan Qi turned around coolly, not intending to mock him. After all, he was the commander of the Imperial Guard. Although he was not a cultivator, he had plenty of yang energy and should be able to resist those wandering ghosts.
After watching for a long time, she still couldn't bear to see Jiang Juncai in such a sorry state, being teased by a male ghost, so she took out a talisman and gave it to him, and the male ghost finally left Jiang Juncai.
Along the way, they indeed encountered ghosts who had died in various ways. From initial tension and fear to later composure, Yuan Qi even praised, "Brother, you truly deserve to be the commander of the Imperial Guards; your courage is indeed extraordinary."
Looking at Wen Zhujun, she also had a calm and composed demeanor. As expected of a female general who had been on the battlefield, she was not afraid at all when she saw so many ghosts with bizarre deaths.
Three or four hours later, the long Yin Road was finally over. Yuan Qi tore open a gap and led the two out.
They found themselves in the middle of a mountain, with a huge, eerie cave in front of them, comparable to the environment of a ghostly road.
Perhaps the people inside sensed that someone had come from outside, because a lot of people rushed out of the house at once.
It's less like it rushed out and more like it floated out.
When those people saw Yuan Qi, they bowed and scraped as if they were seeing their master, and invited Yuan Qi inside.
Yuan Qi asked, "Where is the red-haired devil?"
Jiang Juncai then asked, "Who is the red-haired devil?"
"The Northern Ghost Emperor among the Five Ghost Emperors." With that, Yuan Qi led his men inside, where a ghost with a head full of red hair came out to greet them with a hearty laugh.
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