Chapter 1: The Haunted Yōlin (Part 1)

  These two days of turmoil have indeed made Ding Lingxu extremely exhausted, and this place is so quiet. He fell asleep soon after lying down. Ding Lingxu lay in the endless darkness, half asleep and half awake, and he felt as if he had a kind of transcendent experience, as if his soul was out of his body.

  When he was called again, his ears were Zhang Shanyi's extremely surprised shouting voice:

  "Brother Ding, Brother Ding, wake up quickly, wake up quickly, it's dawn, it's daylight."

  Ding Lingxiu rubbed her sleepy eyes and slowly sat up, because she was really too tired. After falling asleep, she woke up feeling even softer and more exhausted all over, unable to stand up straight.

  He got up unsteadily and stood still, looking around him.

  As the scene in front of him gradually cleared up, Ding Lingxiu only discovered that there was indeed a faint light appearing here, and not only in front of his eyes, but also half of the space had a crimson glow. This light was faint, as if it had squeezed into this space through a layer of window gauze. And its range was constantly increasing.

  "This light is a bit strange, isn't it? Why is it so blurry?" Ding Lingxiu rubbed his eyes, thinking that they hadn't fully adjusted yet, which was why he was seeing this strange phenomenon.

  "Yes, it should be blocked by the space we are in." Zhang Shanyi muttered.

  Ding Lingxiu realized after putting down his hand that this light was indeed shining through something and not just a product of his own eyes.

  They looked around and found that the range of light was getting bigger and bigger, and they could already see each other. With this hazy light, the shape of this space also became roughly clear:

  It turned out that the space they had been in all along was a ball, a ball covered with black soft hair. However, these hairs did not produce any fluffy sensation when they came into contact with the body, just like a thick foam that melted as soon as it touched. No wonder they didn't move no matter how far they walked before.

  And now, through the changes in the light, they can determine that Ding Lingxiu's guess was correct. This spherical space is indeed moving bit by bit towards a certain place, and that place should be the underworld.

  As the light enveloped the entire spherical space, Ding Lingxu's Xianyao Luopan suddenly emitted an abnormally sharp alarm sound.

  Ding Lingxi took a look and found that the Xun Yao Luopan had completely stopped moving, only constantly flashing with golden light. This situation meant that the place where he was located had reached an unpredictable level of demonic energy. However, Ding Lingxi knew that this was also a normal phenomenon, after all, they came to the most yin place in the world.

  Zhang Shanyi wiped the sweat from his forehead and licked his somewhat dry lips, saying:

  "Brother Ding, this light is getting redder and redder, and the temperature here has also become much hotter than before."

  "That's right, it's not only much hotter, but there's also something else that bothers me." Ding Lingxiu looked around, seemingly lost in thought.

  "What's wrong?" Zhang Shanyi asked.

  "Haven't you noticed? This space is almost sealed off, and our spiritual energy has completely disappeared."

  Ding Lingshu finished speaking, and Zhang Shanyi was like he had been struck by lightning. Ever since he lost his inner elixir last time, he became extremely sensitive to such matters. He hastily gathered his own spiritual energy, but found that his inner elixir was still operating normally without any abnormalities. However, his spiritual energy seemed to be sealed within the inner elixir, and no matter how many times he tried, he couldn't normally bring it out.

  "Really? What's going on?" Zhang Shanyi asked in puzzlement.

  "It's better to say that the spiritual energy has disappeared, because there is too much yin energy here, and the spiritual energy can only wander inside the body and cannot overflow. But this place is almost airtight, which means there is no oxygen here."

  "No wonder your lighter and candles didn't burn, it turns out there's no oxygen here." Zhang Shanyi said, suddenly feeling something was off, "But if there's no oxygen, why are we still alive?"

  Ding Lingxiu furrowed his brow, his voice very gloomy:

  "So I have a bad feeling, are we... already dead?"

  "Huh?"

  Ding Lingxiu's face was illuminated by the dark red light as he spoke, making it look extremely cold and terrifying, which made Zhang Shanyi feel a chill run down his spine.

  Ding Lingxiu touched the black fluff around him. Although it felt nothing when he wiped it away, he could also feel that these fluffs were indeed much hotter than before. The entire dark red space was extremely eerie, just like a blood-colored moon shining in a cluster of pitch-black dark clouds.

  They stayed in this black velvet ball for an unknown period of time, when suddenly the surroundings became noisy and sounded like they had arrived at a bustling city district, with people's voices clamoring.

  "What's going on? How did it suddenly become so lively?" Zhang Shanyi asked.

  "We're probably going to the underworld," said Ding Lingxiu.

  Before Ding Ling's voice had fallen, they felt the black furry ball begin to plummet downwards. In the blink of an eye, they only felt a shock throughout their bodies, and the two of them started tumbling inside the black furry ball.

  The spinning lasted for nearly three minutes before it stopped, and the two people in front of them were dizzy, with countless black fluff floating in front of their eyes, as if a swarm of bats were flying wildly around them.

  When the spinning stopped, both of them had already fallen to the ground, only feeling dizzy and their whole body felt like cotton.

  Ding Lingxiu struggled to get up, and was surprised to find that he was already standing on solid ground. It was a kind of red rock, similar to volcanic rocks found near volcanic mouths. Zhang Shanyi also got up, rubbing his head, and used his toes to pick up the slippers that were flying nearby and put them back on.

  "This is," a seductive voice came from behind the two people:

  "How was your journey?"

  Ding Lingxiu and Zhang Shanyi turned their heads back, shocked to the point of being completely speechless.

  Because the "person" who spoke to them looked exactly like Master Fangzhang, but his temperament was completely different. This "person" had two eyes that were eerily green, and his expression looked ferocious and arrogant, absolutely not a good person. His entire body emitted a cold and eerie aura. The biggest difference was that this "person"'s skin was dark red, looking somewhat similar to the skin of a ghoul. On his back, he had two large wings, covered in black fluff. Moreover, Ding Lingyu could see at a glance that these fluffs were exactly the same as those from the previous black spherical space.

  Ding Lingxiu exclaimed in surprise:

  "Master Fangzhang, how did you end up looking like this?"

  The "person" suddenly grinned and said:

  "Haha, I'm not some abbot master, I am Luo Xie!"

  Ding Lingxu suddenly realized, thinking to himself that he had been confused by this sudden change, and unexpectedly even failed to recognize Luo Ci, a demon with such great representation.

  Rakshas, the only kind of evil spirit in the world that is extremely evil but will never do anything bad. They are the product of high-ranking monks who have expelled all their evil thoughts from their hearts after achieving a high level of cultivation. Those monks and cultivators who completely drive out their evil thoughts from their bodies will let these thoughts materialize into this kind of extremely terrifying evil spirit. However, these Rakshas possess the anti-personality of those high-ranking monks' good personality in the mortal world, being exceptionally cruel and tyrannical. But since they were born, they have been too evil to be tainted with any spiritual energy or goodness, so they can only exist in the underworld, becoming the underworld's Yin messengers, participating in the underworld's large and small grassroots work, most commonly serving as ordinary soldiers in the eighteen layers of hell.

  They think this Rakshasa in front of them is quite well-mixed.

  "So that's how it is. I was blind to the opportunity, thank you Brother Luo for sending us here." Ding Ling said with a courteous bow of his hands.

  Rakshasa smiled, but this made him look even more intimidating rather than easier to approach.

  "Little brother, you two seem to be here for the first time, and yet you're being so honest in front of me."

  Ding Lingxiu looked at the wings behind him and asked in confusion:

  "Huh? Wings? Did we just fit inside your wings earlier? How can such small wings hold us? And I feel like there's fluff everywhere?"

  Rakshasa smiled with satisfaction and stroked the black wings behind her back, saying:

  "Although you're very big now, I can get even bigger"

  "So it is." Ding Lingxiu nodded, "Right, Luo Cha big brother, how far are we from the underworld now?"

  Rakshasa leaned on the railing, raised his thumb and pointed behind him, saying:

  "Yes - the city at the foot of the mountain is Hell."

  Ding Lingxiu hastily walked over, looked up and gazed into the distance, only to find that the underworld was vastly different from what he had imagined.