Chapter 15: “The three ghost saints of the ghost realm.”
People in the jianghu say: the Profound Sect has three Lords, while the ghost realm has three Saints.
These three Lords were precisely the Dao Lord Qing Xuzi, the Demon Lord He Huan, and the Sword Lord He Ku. After He Ku began closed-door seclusion to pass his calamity, these three people were equivalent to the strongest cultivators in the world of the living.
As their counterparts, the Saints were the strongest among the ghosts; the three ghost saints. They were known as: Ghost Aunt from the End of the Sea, Mourning Rhapsody from the Classical Academy, and Embracing Happiness from the Yin City.
Among those three, the Ghost Aunt was a woman who habitually resided in the Little Yu Mountain at the End of the Sea. She ought to have nothing to do with Zhuge Qingtian. However, the remaining two ghost saints were rather suspicious.
Obtained from the intelligence Bi Qianren knew, the Mourning Rhapsody Saint had been an official who turned into a ghost many years ago. In order to purify the court, he had disciplined corrupt officials for his entire life. However, the few students he raised all became corrupt officials themselves.
After killing his students with pain and reluctance, the Mourning Rhapsody Saint was regarded as an evil person by an immortal from the Profound Sect who had been deceived. With the single slash of a sword, the immortal ended his life.
After this person died, his resentment was hard to resolve and he ultimately became the Mourning Rhapsody Saint. According to Bi Qianren’s Master He Huan, who had seen him before, this ghost wore plain white mourning robes and looked melancholic all day long.
As long as you were by the Mourning Rhapsody Saint’s side, one’s negative emotions would be magnified to the extreme. If one didn’t have powerful willpower, even a Nascent Soul cultivator would lose the will to live. People would either die with depression in the endless gloom, or their Dao hearts would fall into disorder, causing them to qi deviate.
Among the historical records of the Profound Sect, in the past, there were once three Nascent Soul cultivators who attempted to help the Mourning Rhapsody Saint find peace. At that time, the Mourning Rhapsody Saint had merely sat in place, allowing them to set up their spells as he drank tea and read his book.
Not even three days passed before one cultivator chose to self-implode, while the second fell into the demonic way. Only the last person managed to escape, but even to this day, his cultivation hadn’t advanced at all.
And the third cultivator who had fled, was precisely Ling Sui Daoren, the current Mansion Master of the Sky Master Mansion.
Nobody knew exactly how strong the Mourning Rhapsody Saint’s cultivation was. Fortunately, before death, he had exhausted energy and thought for the good of the world. So even after death, the Mourning Rhapsody Saint was unwilling to cause calamities for the common people.
Thus, since he was born, the Mourning Rhapsody Saint merely stayed in the Ten Thousand Ghost Classical Academy located in the ghost realm, guiding malicious spirits to seek reincarnation. Thus, in these years, he lived in harmony with immortal cultivators.
As for the Embracing Happiness Saint, he was exactly the opposite of the Mourning Rhapsody Saint. Before dying suddenly and turning into a ghost, he had been a person who was flushed with success for his entire life.
Although information about this ghost’s life before death was unknown, the Embracing Happiness Saint frequently walked around in the mortal world a few years ago and many cultivators had seen him.
Rumour has it that the Embracing Happiness Saint wore red robes and was always beaming with happiness. As long as one was by his side, good things would definitely happen to them.
However, these good things would all become the owner’s nightmare in the end.
For example, the Embracing Happiness Saint once drank wine at a rich family’s birthday banquet1. The old man the ghost had toasted indeed lived a long life till a hundred years old. However, all of his close relatives encountered misfortune and lost their lives one by one. The old man could only see his children die before himself, guarding the memorial tablets of his entire family by himself. He ultimately couldn’t bear it and threw himself into the river before dying.
Another time, the Embracing Happiness Saint had a chance encounter with a beautiful woman. Moved by her graceful bearing, the ghost gave her his blessings.
This woman’s husband ended up winning top marks in the imperial examinations, becoming the new top scorer and earning the highest rank. However, in order to marry the Prime Minister’s daughter, he killed his wife and abandoned his children. The man himself became a treacherous official of that generation, causing countless disasters to the people.
During the time the Embracing Happiness Saint walked around the mortal realm, incidents like this practically bred like flies. However, the influence of his resentment wasn’t as obvious as the Mourning Rhapsody Saint.
In the beginning, the common people had even worshipped the Embracing Happiness Saint as the God of Fortune. A long time had passed before cultivators realized something was wrong. They immediately reported to the Profound Sect in a panic, requesting a Post-Calamity cultivator to undertake the task and remove this evil.
Afterwards, under the suppression of the Heavenly Alliance, the Embracing Happiness Saint was nearly annihilated until his soul scattered. Fortunately, the Mourning Rhapsody Saint rushed over just in time and brought the Embracing Happiness Saint back to the ghost realm. Only then did the Embracing Happiness Saint survive.
Even though this was the case, the Embracing Happiness Saint was forced to vow that he would never again step forth into the mortal realm. From henceforth, he began living in seclusion in Yin City, lying low for thirty years.
The scary thing about ghost saints was, regardless of whether or not they had malicious intentions, living people would be influenced by their resentment as long as they were together. If one wasn’t a Post-Calamity cultivator, it was extremely hard for them to resist.
Thus, regardless of whether one was a mortal or a cultivator, they all prayed they would never encounter any of these three evil stars. They didn’t even dare call them ghosts, and could only bestow them with the title of “Saint”.
People who could become ghost saints never had simple identities. As the demonic way’s Protector, Bi Qianren had more or less met all the famous people among the jianghu. However, he had never seen someone like Zhuge Qingtian.
After thinking over this carefully, Zhuge Qingtian’s enthusiastic personality was rather like the Embracing Happiness Saint’s. However, that ghost had long vowed to never again step into the mortal realm. The Profound Sect hadn’t issued any warnings either, so it shouldn’t be possible for him to appear in the Zhu family.
In addition, in comparison to these famous ghost saints, Zhuge Qingtian’s situation was very strange. All ghost saints were born with resentment. However, despite staying together with Zhuge Qingtian for several days, Bi Qianren’s Dao heart wasn’t affected by him. In fact, he didn’t feel ill at all.
At this moment, even Qianren couldn’t help but doubt—could this be because he originally didn’t have any desires for life, so even a ghost saint’s resentment didn’t have anywhere to attack?
While Bi Qianren contemplated these things as he meditated, Zhuge Qingtian also finished changing his clothes. He really liked the bright-coloured clothes the Sky Master Mansion had prepared for him.
Unfortunately, no matter what he wore, Zhuge Qingtian’s resentment would dye his clothes into the two colours red and white. Thus, his appearance ended up not changing much from before.
Zhuge Qingtian had always been someone who could never stay idle. After circling around the room three times, he once again began harassing the only living person in sight.
Taking the red chicken egg, he began waving it in front of Bi Qianren’s closed eyes. “Wife, do you want to eat an egg?”
“No.”
Without the slightest intention to open his eyes, Bi Qianren immediately overthrew his prior conclusions.
Alright, maybe he had been slightly influenced by Zhuge Qingtian. After all, Qianren’s temper was obviously much more irritable now compared to before.
So, could it be that this person’s resentment was only capable of turning people into cut sleeves? If this was really the case, Bi Qianren was indeed resisting it at all times……
Bi Qianren once again fell into deep contemplation as he tried to decipher Zhuge Qingtian’s mystical existence. After being coldly rejected again, the unknown ghost saint could only sprawl lazily on the table before rolling his chicken egg back and forth.
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck. Zhuge Qingtian once again raised his head expectantly and asked, “Wife, do you want to eat dinner?”
“No.”
Just this single word made Zhuge Qingtian once again slump back onto the table, bored to the extreme. He knew that one shouldn’t casually bother a cultivator while they were practicing, so he didn’t dare to talk again.
Although Zhuge Qingtian didn’t know why someone like him, who hadn’t even seen cultivators before, knew something like this, he could only remain in this position as he watched the sky gradually darken. Only until after the moon was hanging high in the sky did he finally straighten up with excitement. “Wife, do you want to eat a midnight snack?”
With a ghost saint in his room, Bi Qianren naturally didn’t dare to enter deep meditation. In fact, from time to time, he’ll send out a thread of spiritual thought to secretly observe Zhuge Qingtian.
Qianren originally thought that a chatterbox like Zhuge Qingtian wouldn’t be able to stay quiet for long. Who would have thought the ghost would really sprawl on the table like a corpse, not budging at all.
In the past, Bi Qianren always thought he was annoying. As a result, now that the ghost had really quieted down, Qianren kept feeling that his figure looked extremely lonely.
Even though his reason kept warning him how he shouldn’t provoke this ghost, Bi Qianren ultimately couldn’t hold back in the end. Opening his eyes, he said in an unhurried tone, “I have long abstained from mortal food and no longer need to eat.”
Zhuge Qingtian originally thought that this time, Bi Qianren was even too lazy to reject him with a “no”. He was just feeling depressed when he suddenly heard the other man speak such a long sentence. The ghost immediately became happy again.
However, Zhuge Qingtian recalled how Qianren didn’t do anything other than cultivate and hasten their journey while they travelled together on the road. He was normally very expressionless too.
If not for how Bi Qianren would occasionally be angered by him, he completely didn’t seem like a living person.
In the eyes of mortals, the immortal cultivators definitely had to be the happiest people in the mortal realm. However, Zhuge Qingtian kept feeling that the person beside him had never been truly happy before.
When he thought of this, even though Zhuge Qingtian was never one to speak seriously, for a moment, the ghost couldn’t help but sigh and say, “You don’t eat or drink and never go out to have fun. What other pleasures can you find in life?”
“Heh. Even if I do these things, I will never feel any pleasure.”
After replying with a sneer, Bi Qianren’s expression didn’t change at all. He was He Huan’s disciple, so he had always gotten the best things during his life.
However, the moment Qianren reached the Golden Core realm, which was when cultivators could begin fasting, he never touched any food or drink again.
In fact, this decision wasn’t related to whether or not he liked eating. It was merely because food and drinks were the easiest things to be poisoned. Although Bi Qianren didn’t fear poison, it was ultimately a troublesome thing in the end. Thus, since it wasn’t a necessity to maintain his life, then there wasn’t a need to consume it.
In Bi Qianren’s life, he never had any favorite things. He only considered whether or not it was something he needed. So even if it was the paperwork of the demonic way that made everyone’s heads ache, he was still capable of handling them in a methodical way.
Bi Qianren didn’t have any weaknesses nor any tethers, and he could complete any mission in a perfect way. Regardless of whether he was by He Huan’s side, or when he was in the demonic way, he would always become the most useful person around. This was precisely the reason why Qianren existed in the world.
But there was something Bi Qianren couldn’t understand. A disciple like this would definitely make any demonic cultivator wild with joy. However, why did his Master always look so worried when looking at him, such a useful disciple……?
Sometimes, Bi Qianren thought……the reason he always allowed Zhuge Qingtian to harass him was perhaps because of the ghost’s personality, where he was always able to find happiness in everything. To Qianren, this was talent that he wouldn’t be able to possess for the rest of his entire life.
Cultivators were always very good at analyzing themselves. Upon seeing how Bi Qianren looked a bit absent-minded, Zhuge Qingtian didn’t know what he was thinking about.
The ghost merely took a look at his own pale skin before sighing with emotion, “I really don’t understand powerful people like you. When I was still alive, everybody always regarded me with disdain. So to me, as long as there was something good to eat at night, that was the happiest thing. It’s a pity I can no longer taste anything nor can I even eat. Even the most delicious dishes, I can only look at them……”
For the last ten years, the ghost had lived with Zhuge Qingtian’s memories. So even though he had already confirmed that this wasn’t really him, for a while, it was hard for him to break away from this character.
However, Zhuge Qingtian had always been a person who was very optimistic. After sighing over this, he immediately recovered before going over to shake Qianren’s arm. “So wife, eat something for me to see! As long as you let me watch once, I promise I’ll be really quiet for the rest of tonight!”
Was this malicious ghost becoming more and more presumptuous? Did he feel bad if he didn’t get kicked flying once a day?
Frowning, Bi Qianren stared at the youth who was lying on him and refusing to leave. After considering how troublesome it was to help him find his head, he ultimately didn’t kick him.
However, as Qianren watched this scene, he suddenly thought of something. If this ghost was really the Embracing Happiness Saint, then he probably also tried to enthusiastically make friends with everyone like this in the past as well.
As a result, those who had became fortunate because of him all had such miserable endings. What did this ghost feel after seeing all of that……?
As long as he existed, he would be a calamity for the world. For something like this, as someone born to be a demon, Bi Qianren had long gotten used to it as well.
That’s right ah. It was merely eating something for someone to watch. For a matter that takes such little effort, occasionally doing it wasn’t something troublesome at all.
When he thought of this, Bi Qianren raised his head. He thought, peacefully passing a night was truly a very enticing offer. Thus, although he hadn’t eaten for forty years, Qianren ultimately got up before saying in a light tone, “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
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areader says:
“However, in order to marry the Prime Minister’s daughter, he killed his wife and abandoned his children. ” Oh, isn’t it one of the Judge Bao stories?