Chapter 24 Imprisonment Collapses: Fate descends like a thunderbolt, and she cannot break free…
In the distance, a loud "boom" came from ahead, and the ground shook several times, making people's legs go numb and their hearts tighten.
When Zhou Yaren arrived at the Ghost Office, a large crowd of people had already gathered outside. They all stood in a huddle at a distance, craning their necks to watch with a mixture of fear and curiosity, occasionally whispering among themselves, asking nothing more than, "What happened?"
"I don't know. I was suddenly startled awake by a few loud bangs, so I came out to see what happened."
Someone asked in alarm, "Did this come from the ghost government office?"
Is it haunted inside?
"I don't know, that was quite a commotion, it looks like a house collapsed?"
"Have you reported it to the authorities?"
"What good will reporting to the authorities do? If this damned government office has caused such a commotion, shouldn't we go find the Taoist priests from the Ancestral Mountain?"
"Yes, yes, we should go find a Taoist priest. Isn't that Master Fang in our Beiqu? What inn is he staying at?"
"Hey, don't get close! Everyone, stop moving forward! That place is really creepy, stand back!"
"Hey, you there, young man, don't go over there!"
As everyone was whispering among themselves, they suddenly saw a young man rush past, heading straight for the Ghost Office, and they couldn't stop him no matter how much they shouted.
"Oh dear, why doesn't he listen to instructions? We absolutely mustn't go that place!" The old woman slapped her thigh in alarm, wanting to chase after him and grab him, but was quickly stopped by someone nearby. "Don't worry about it, don't you see that man looks rather strange?"
Only then did everyone notice that the man was soaking wet, with large patches of blood on his chest and shoulders. As he hurried past, he stirred up gusts of cold wind, carrying a faint smell of blood, which was emanating from him.
The crowd's expressions changed instantly, and they watched in complete silence as he stormed into the ghostly government office.
As soon as Zhou Yaren stepped in, the ceremonial gate in front of her collapsed with a crash, and the houses on both sides were also about to fall, with tiles falling and smashing to the ground with a crackling sound.
The once-solid ground collapsed under the weight, as if a huge hole had been dug out from the ground, and the entire main hall of the Ghost Government Office tilted forward.
"Innocent!" Zhou Yaren rushed in without regard for anything, the blue bricks beneath his feet were overturned by a violent aura, forcing him back several feet.
Zhou Yaren pushed aside the falling bricks and tiles and stubbornly went inside. The white bones and array stones under the foundation were exposed. He suddenly stopped and looked up in shock.
Bai Yuan stood amidst the ruins, looking at him through the billowing dust and smoke.
In Zhou Yaren's eyes, she was still bound by strings of inscriptions forming a curse, faint and faint, integrated with the array stones beneath the foundation, and wrapped around the white bones.
Zhou Yaren then saw clearly that Bai Yuan's hands were tightly gripping a set of torture spells that were connected to the great formation. These spells had long been strung together into long, inscribed shackles, woven into a large net spread out beneath the foundation of the Ghost Bureau, covering all the bodies of the wronged who had died, and then Bai Yuan suddenly dragged them out from the ground—dragging out piles of white bones.
The ground beneath my feet began to tremble, and a rumbling sound came from underground, as if a slumbering beast was awakening at this moment.
Zhou Yaren could barely stand and staggered forward a few steps.
The roof collapsed with a deafening roar, crashing down on him. Zhou Yaren swiftly leaped over it, dodging the collapse with a difficult choice: "Are you going to raze this place to the ground?"
Bai Yuan's expression remained cold and aloof: "You want to stop me?"
However, at this moment, he simply couldn't bring himself to say anything to stop him.
“I have heard people say,” Bai Yuan said coldly, “that those who die in government offices are bound by the gods of the office, and their souls cannot leave unless the walls and houses collapse.”
"Detained by the God of the Court?" Bai Yuan smirked sarcastically. "This is what they call being detained by the God of the Court?!"
She not only wants to raze this place to the ground, but also turn the entire ghost government office upside down.
Zhou Yaren swallowed with difficulty, standing there almost dejectedly. He understood more clearly than ever before that the idea of being bound by the gods of the yamen and unable to leave was just to deceive the world. After all, Master Fang of the Ancestral Mountain believed it, the people of Beiqu believed it, and he almost believed it too. If he hadn't witnessed it with his own eyes: "The entire ghost yamen is a formation."
A massive array lies buried beneath the foundation of the entire Ghost Government Office, serving as a restriction to suppress the Yin/Daoist body.
No wonder, no wonder when he stepped into the Ghost Palace, he could sense the dense Yin energy and the scattered, fluctuating cold currents leaking from the talisman array, but he could not detect where the energy came from. It turns out that it was pressed under the foundation and connected to the Taiyin/Dao Body.
What an elaborate and meticulously planned scheme this must have been!
"If an office is built on this formation, all those who died unjustly in the office will sink into the Taiyin/Dao body."
“That’s right,” Bai Yuan said. “Every body that died unjustly in the Ghost Bureau is a soul that died unjustly in the Taiyin/Dao Body Prison.”
"To suppress you?"
"To suppress me," Bai Yuan said with particular clarity, "the people of the world have committed countless sins, creating so many wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice."
For every person who dies unjustly in the world, another shackle, signifying the grievance, is placed upon her.
Zhou Yaren could barely breathe: "Why?"
Why? Bai Yuan paused in a daze: "For me, being wronged is a curse."
Yes, he had examined it carefully within the Taiyin/Dao Body, and the ancient inscriptions binding Bai Yuan were indeed a form of torture or curse.
“Someone has used the great array beneath the foundation to turn the curse into shackles, and then set up a hexagram array to firmly bind the shackles made of the curse to my body,” Bai Yuan said in a deep voice, “intending to imprison me forever in a wrongful prison.”
Zhou Yaren clearly remembered the three Qin coins that Lu Bing dug out of the death row. Afterwards, he and Master Fang each cast a hexagram, and the result was the same hexagram array, which was the same hexagram array that was placed in the death row.
"Tie it with a cord and place it in a thicket of thorns, so that it may never escape."
So that was the purpose of the hexagram array—to bind Bai Yuan with shackles of torture and curses. But he didn't understand: "Why imprison you in this way? Have you done something heinous? Or have you made enemies?"
Bai Yuan retorted, "And what about you? What did you do to be imprisoned, or who did you hold a grudge against?"
One sentence left him speechless.
He did nothing wrong, nor did he have any enemies; he was wronged.
Zhou Yaren bit her tongue hard, trying her best to calm the panic deep inside her, until a metallic taste spread in her mouth: "How did you know?"
Bai Yuan remained expressionless: "Of course I know."
How do we know this?
“Your soul bears a brand of torture.” Bai Yuan stared straight at him and began to speak plainly, “You are destined to be imprisoned for the rest of your life, never to be released.”
Every word the other person spoke seemed to be a pronouncement on his life.
A storm raged within Zhou Ya's heart, and the composure she had been maintaining on her face was almost impossible to maintain. Her fingers, hidden in her sleeves, trembled slightly. Then she heard her ask, "But how did you end up here? Did you escape?"
"You..." he began to speak, but his voice was hoarse.
Click-click—
boom--
The loud noise of the beams and pillars of the tax office on both sides breaking and collapsing silenced his hoarse words.
A sudden storm arose, snapping vegetation and whipping up a blinding cloud of yellow sand.
A wisp of black smoke rose from the foundation of the Ghost Office, like thick black smoke, rolling out from the crack torn open by the great formation and churning in the collapsed ruins.
Zhou Yaren saw a thick, black fog colliding with the raging wind, producing howls like trapped beasts, and causing gravel to crumble wherever the malevolent energy passed.
Zhou Yaren raised his hand to brush away the flying debris, his gaze quickly sweeping over the inscriptions revealed from the foundation. He dispersed the violent black energy: "Wait, this grand formation..."
Bai Yuan was determined to uproot the ambushing formation. As the foundation was lifted, countless cracks appeared in the trembling earth, spreading outwards.
Cracks climbed up the walls of the government office like winding vines. The brick walls suddenly cracked and collapsed when hit by the churning black mist.
In an instant, the mountains collapsed and the earth cracked. Amidst the howling wind, Zhou Yaren caught a chorus of panicked voices.
The walls of the ghost government office crumbled, affecting the surrounding abandoned houses, which shook violently a few times before collapsing.
The crack spread in all directions, extending into the streets and alleys. Zhou Yaren's heart sank to the bottom, and she shouted sharply, "Bai Yuan, don't try to force me!"
The talismans dissolved in the wind, patching things up like patches, but to no avail.
"Don't get in the way here."
Zhou Yaren was knocked down countless times by the rampaging black energy, and his head and face were scratched by falling gravel. Ignoring his own injuries, he tried his best to break into the center of the formation.
But the center of the formation was shrouded in a massive black aura, forming a violent vortex, as if it were a barrier as vast as mountains and seas. As soon as he got close, he was scratched and injured all over: "I don't want to get in your way, but this great formation has been rooted underground for thousands of years and has spread throughout the entire Northern Qu. You can't force it!"
The rumbling sound from underground was like the roar of a lurking dragon, and Bai Yuan was currently gripping the dragon's tail, which was powerful enough to destroy a city. With this pull, she was about to tear apart the entire foundation of Bei Qu.
Zhou Yaren quickly spoke, trying to persuade her to stop: "I know you're angry..."
"Angry?" Is it just a casual remark about being angry?!
“No, resentment, I know you're resentful, but it has nothing to do with the people of this city. They are completely unaware. If you insist on turning the great formation upside down, it will inevitably cause houses to collapse.” The displacement of the people is the least of their worries; the vast majority are still fast asleep, oblivious to the impending disaster. Zhou Yaren almost screamed, “Then the entire city will be buried alive! Bai Yuan! Stop!”
With his roar, the storm surged into the center of the formation, tearing a clear opening through the thick black mist. Zhou Yaren seized the opportunity to rush in, but from afar she saw Bai Yuan, covered in blood, inside the formation.
Those inscribed curses were like sharp knives, already cutting her all over. Zhou Yaren's pupils shrank: "That is..."
Bai Yuan parted his thin lips slightly and uttered two words as if in murmur: "Execution."
The inscribed curses and punishments represent a deep injustice, and this injustice is also a sharp weapon used to kill her.
Bai Yuan gripped the razor-sharp torture device tightly, her palms smeared with blood: "You think I'll stop just because you tell me to?" Then her face darkened, and she suddenly growled at Zhou Yaren, who rushed in, "Get out of my way!"
Then he finally saw clearly that Bai Yuan was completely unrecognizable, his skin torn and bleeding, and there was not a single good spot on his body from head to toe.
She wanted to destroy the formation, but every crack that landed on the foundation of the formation would backfire on her.
Click—
Listen to the sound of breaking bone; a knife, a curse, cuts deep into the bone.
"They're going to dismember me!" Bai Yuan looked up, his body a bloody mess. "Do you expect me to care about other people's lives?"
This scene terrified Zhou Yaren and sent chills down his spine.
However, despite her words, she reined in the momentum that was enough to destroy a city and annihilate an army.
This brief pause and hesitation caused the torn formation to reverse violently, like a ferocious backlash. The curses binding the two ends tore Bai Yuan apart, leaving him bleeding profusely, and were about to rip him to pieces in the next moment.
Even being torn to pieces wouldn't be as bad as this.
Why should she suffer all this?
Bai Yuan stretched out her hand and clenched it tightly in the void, grabbing a handful of surging black energy. The soaring resentment instantly corroded her arm into white bones, and then swept across the land without restraint, shattering bricks and tiles into dust—this injustice buried for a thousand years was about to be overturned.
Seeing the resentment that corroded flesh and blood spreading and invading the houses, Zhou Yaren quickly rode the wind and built a wind wall around the Ghost Bureau.
The black mist crashed against the wind wall, finding nowhere to go, then surged back like a giant wave, baring its fangs and claws as it rushed toward the white wretch in the center of the formation.
That was a heavy injustice weighing on her shoulders, and with no way out, she naturally had to bear it.
The will of Heaven pressed down like a thunderbolt, and she could not break free from its restraints.
Even though you can't break free, you still want to.
Over the years, she had lost count of all these karmic debts. The injustice she had suffered was forced upon her by fate, which had instilled in her a rebellious spirit. In any case, she was destined to be skinned alive anyway. She suddenly raised her bloodied eyelids and glanced at the blue-clad man who had built a wall of wind to protect Bei Qu. He looked utterly pathetic.
The moment the black energy surged toward her, the man even frantically tried to shield her, but the gale was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot in the face of the surging black energy, and it dissipated in an instant.
Even the wind wall that had been built collapsed in an instant.
Bai Yuan suddenly found it quite interesting.
This person is such an indecisive living Buddha. When disaster strikes, he tries to help everyone, but in the end, he can't take care of either side and even gets himself dragged down with him, doing all sorts of thankless and exhausting things.
A dazzling flash of lightning ripped through the deep night, and people finally saw the dark clouds hanging low in the sky, pressing down like thick ink over the Ghost Palace.
Between the clouds and the earth, black energy surged forth like a cataclysmic disaster, carrying immense destructive power, uprooting houses and trees, and sweeping across the universe.
Zhou Yaren was swept several feet away before she could barely withstand the powerful force. She tried to break through the wind and move forward, but she could not move an inch.
Bai Yuan glanced at the thunderclouds in the sky and thought, "So be it, I'm already being torn to pieces anyway."
It's just a grudge, isn't it?!
Without hesitation, she made a horizontal cut in her abdomen, simultaneously creating a bottomless rift in the foundational array connected to it.
She simply transformed herself into a human-shaped talisman array, freely altering her flesh and bones, then shook her blood-soaked body, causing the earth to tremble violently.
The black mist surged up wildly, seemingly containing thousands of ghostly figures, struggling and roaring desperately to break free.
Zhou Yaren seemed to hear countless ghostly wails and howls, enveloped in a huge storm, accompanied by a strong swirling force, wrapped in black clouds and converging towards the center of the formation.
With a deafening roar, the lurking lightning struck down after the initial flash, colliding with the howling wind before hitting the ground.
Zhou Yaren intercepted this thunderbolt, and the Ghost Yamen erupted with dust dozens of feet high. The loud noise startled the entire Northern Qu, as if the sky had collapsed and the earth had caved in.
The chaotic black aura was cleared away.
The surrounding sandstorm raged, but it couldn't blind Zhou Yaren's eyes. He staggered to his feet, his ears ringing, his steps unsteady on the ruins, and stepped alone into the swirling dust, heading straight for the eye of the formation.
The bloodied Bai Yuan knelt on the ground, his head bowed, holding a black umbrella and poking it at the center of the formation, surrounded by a heavy aura of malevolence.
Zhou Yaren glanced at it once, then turned his head away in unbearable pain. Only then did he regain consciousness, and a wave of pain surged through his body, making him unable to stand. His knees buckled and he knelt down.
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