Chapter 1: Strange Phenomena in the Underworld

  She looked around, the vast wilderness was empty, she flashed and flew away with a "piercing wind" technique, her first use of magic, which was simply taught by Tu Xingsun when he was repairing the 18th floor of the underworld in Diyu Temple.

  At that time, Tudi came to the land office to inspect the progress of the project. King Yan asked him to teach Lan Jingqiu and Lu Xiaoying some magic skills. Tudi taught them wall-penetrating techniques, cloud-riding and fog-driving techniques, shape-shifting techniques, and protective skin bag techniques. Huo Jucui wanted to learn Tudi's earth escape technique, but Tudi did not agree.

  Lu Xiao Ying originally died from falling off a cliff. As she fell, she fantasized that if only she could ride the clouds and drive the fog, she wouldn't have fallen to her death at the bottom of the cliff. So she wanted to learn how to ride the clouds and drive the fog. As for the technique of protecting the fleshly shell, it was a required course for them, because they needed it to revive their corpses. In the past, those demons who revived in corpses could only prevent their bodies from rotting by relying on absorbing blood, but now that they had come to the human world, it was impossible for them to absorb blood, so they had to learn how to protect the corpses of others that they possessed.

  She stood at the top of a high mountain not far outside the village, looking down at the village with a wooden expression.

  The village was desolate at this time, surrounded by a mysterious forest with leaves falling all over the place. The withered branches of the trees were like the devil's claws pointing angrily at the sky. Under the trees, a shallow river that flowed through the village sang a tired song. Outside the village, honest farmers were working in the fields, cutting down corn stalks and burning them away. Thick smoke rose into the air like tornadoes.

  The scene before her eyes was very familiar to her, and after a few years of death, the village was still in the same shape.

  She took a deep breath and floated down the mountain, walking towards her own home.

  On the road, she met an acquaintance carrying a hoe and leading a cow. She didn't greet him, nor did she want to, because these people had all ridiculed her before she was born. The uncles and aunts also didn't greet her, but curiously discussed behind her back, who wouldn't be surprised by such a fashionable and beautiful girl coming to this poor and remote place?

  Her home, a humble house, has an air of desolation and decay that seems to have only intensified over the years. One of the rooms has a roof with several large holes, straw scattered on the ground, revealing several charred beams. The wall of this room has also become distorted and collapsed due to prolonged exposure to sun and rain.

  Moreover, weeds grew wildly on the roof, and the courtyard walls surrounding the house were in disrepair, making the scene even more desolate than a few years ago.

  Because the gate was locked, she couldn't get into the yard and could only wander around outside. There was no sound coming from inside, so he must not be home, not a single person, not even his elderly mother. If her mother were at home, she would have heard her mother's loud voice long ago. She clearly remembered that her mother had a particularly loud voice, every morning she would let the chickens out of their coop, then fetch food with a bucket and stand in the yard "clucking" to feed the chickens, after feeding the chickens, she would stand at the gate scolding her to get up and sweep the floor and cook. But now, she didn't hear her mother's loud voice.

  So now the yard is particularly quiet, quietly a bit unexpected.

  She had been wandering outside for a long time, she wanted to go through the wall, but was afraid that there would be someone in the house and her family would be scared if she entered like this, so she gave up the idea of going through the wall.

  "Hey! Miss, who are you looking for?"

  Just as she was hesitating about what to do, she heard a voice that was so familiar yet so unbearable.

  She hastily turned around and asked the person who had spoken: "Sister-in-law, is this the Lu Xiao Ying's home?"

  The person asking the question was a woman, who had put on makeup before going up the mountain to work. Her two thick eyebrows, like chopsticks, extended to her temples and almost surrounded her dark eye circles, which looked like those of a panda. Her cheeks were painted red, making her whole face look like the golden boy and jade girl placed beside the coffin during a Taoist ritual. She was carrying a hoe on her shoulder, followed by a man who limped along behind her. He had disheveled hair and a dejected expression, looking much more unlucky than the woman with the hoe. Although he wasn't very old, he looked much older.

  "It used to be," said the woman, "but it isn't now. Her home - just a pile of earth, in the weeds on the mountain behind."

  "Is that so?" Lu Xiao Ying forced a faint smile and suppressed her anger, saying "She's dead?"

  "Yes," said the woman, "can she live long looking like that? What an ugly creature!"

  "They're all dead, what's the point of saying these things? Even if she's dead, she's still my sister." The man muttered to himself, he sighed and walked over to open the door, then invited Lu Xiao Ying inside to sit down.

  "She's your sister, isn't she? I'll say it like that, what can you do to me? You care about her so much, why don't you just die with her!" The woman scolded and swaggered in, shaking her hips.

  The man stopped talking and found a wooden bench for Lu Xiaoying to sit on, while he himself sat on the stone at the gate, smoking his pipe.

  "What is your relationship with her?" The woman looked up and down at Lu Xiao Ying, seeing that the person in front of her was dressed fashionably, thinking she was a city girl, so she smiled and said, "I'm the sister-in-law of that short-lived ghost."

  "I was her classmate in junior high school, I had nothing to do today, so I came to visit her, but unexpectedly she's dead,"

  Lu Xiaoying said.

  "Is that so?" the woman said. "She's so ugly, yet she can make friends with someone as beautiful as you - I don't know if heaven is blind or not."

  "Excuse me, big brother," said Lu Xiao Ying as she walked up to the man, "are Uncle and Auntie at home? Why haven't I seen them?"

  "Excuse me," the man said, "my parents passed away last year."

  When Lu Xiao Ying heard that her parents had passed away, she felt a pang in her nose, but she still held back her tears. Looking at her brother in front of her, she also felt some distress. When she was alive, the one who loved her most in the family was her brother. Her brother had always been introverted and a bit dull-witted. In the past, he had borne the brunt of their parents' anger for her sake. After getting married, he suffered even more. The whole family looked down on the two siblings. Even the neighbors in the village would often mock them. So Lu Xiao Ying was certain that her brother had suffered a lot.

  "Can you take me to see my classmate's grave?" Lu Xiao Ying glanced at her sister-in-law and then asked her brother.

  "Of course!" her brother said.

  "What's wrong? Not working anymore? Old lazybones!" His sister-in-law glared at her brother and said.

  "Sister," Lu Xiao Ying took out 100 yuan from her pocket and handed it to the woman with wide eyes, "I didn't prepare anything either, let's buy some fruit."

  Her sister-in-law's eyes, which had been round and wide with surprise, suddenly narrowed into two crescent moons, her bitter melon face turning into a peony flower face. She hastily reached out to take the money, saying: "Look, what's the point? It's fine if you go, anyway it won't be long."

  The brother and sister left, the two of them walked silently all the way. They bypassed the village and went up the mountain along a rugged and long-grassy mountain road. When they were about to reach the tomb, her brother sighed and said: "Little sister, I won't go with you anymore. Every time I see my sister's grave, I feel especially sad in my heart. You can follow this small path and walk not far before you can see a grave surrounded by only a few stones, that is your sister's."

  "It's just a pile of stones, and it's only surrounded by a little bit, which means it can't even be considered a grave, it's just a mound of earth?" Lu Xiao Ying said somewhat angrily.

  "Yes," his brother sighed, "it's all because of my incompetence. I couldn't help my sister, and with my leg injury, it's hard to find stones on this mountain. I can only bring them over bit by bit from other places. I'll get it done eventually, but she has to put up with it for a while."

  After hearing her brother's words, Lu Xiao Ying really wanted to call him "brother", she really wanted to tell him that the person standing in front of him was his dearest younger sister. But she didn't, she endured it. She couldn't possibly tell her brother that she was a soul who had borrowed a corpse to return to the world of the living.

  She looked at her brother with deep feeling, then took out 2,000 yuan from her bag and handed it to him. She said: "Big brother, Xiaoying and I are good friends, so you're my big brother too. Here's 2,000 yuan, hope you don't think it's too little."

  "How can I take your money? No way! No way!" The brother refused.

  But Lu Xiaoying insisted again and again, her brother reluctantly took it in his hand, his hands trembling, tears streaming down onto the money.

  Watching all this, Lu Xiao Ying's tears had long been uncontrollable. She turned her head away, and her brother said a thank you to her before turning to leave.

  "Big brother," said Lu Xiao Ying, "I think that sister-in-law of yours isn't a good person either. How about this, I'll give you the money and it's best if you keep it for yourself to buy something to eat. If you hand it over to her, you might not get anything."

  "Got it!" His brother thanked him again and turned to go down the mountain.

  The autumn wind was bleak and the cold wind cut like a knife. On a desolate mountain path, Lu Xiao Ying looked at her brother's hunched and weathered back, a back that had endured hardships, a lonely and helpless back, a pitiful and dependent back. This back made people feel his heartache, thinking of all the suffering he had endured in this life, she couldn't help but sit on the mountain and wail loudly: "Brother, take care of yourself!"

  The wailing is mournful and sorrowful, moving gods and ghosts! Those who hear it are heartbroken, those who listen to it shed tears.

  She cried and walked in front of her own grave, this earth grave was indeed only surrounded by a few stones, and the stones were not big, but for her brother's body, it was already very difficult.

  Weeds grew thickly on the grave, and the mound was almost invisible. The earth that had been piled up earlier had been trampled by countless water buffalo, leaving many hoof prints. In some places, it had been trodden down so much that the tattered grass mat that had wrapped her body was exposed.

  She pulled out the grass on her grave one by one, then stared at the small mound for a while, and went to see her parents' graves. Her parents' graves were also just a pile of mud like hers. She looked at her mother's grave with a bitter smile and said: "You tormented me when you were alive, but now everyone is the same, in your eyes I was an ugly duckling, but that was also born by you, and I hope I am as beautiful as I am today, it was you who made me walk to this point today, it was you who made my brother's life miserable, I hate you, other people's parents love their children, but what about you? Having a child is like having a tool. Today I came to see you, not to be filial, for me, you are not worth doing so, you two old things, I will always hate you!" She spat on her parents' graves several times, kicked them a few times in anger, and then turned away.

  After getting off the mountain, she didn't immediately return to Haizhen City. Her sister-in-law's attitude towards her brother made her uneasy, so she wanted to stay a few more days and go to town to help her brother buy some clothes.

  She went to town and found an inn to stay in, every day she secretly visited her brother. She just didn't show up.

  She stayed at her hometown for a whole month, and these days she came back to Haiwei City because of lack of money, borrowed some money from Qian Xiaohong, and then went back to her hometown again, so she hasn't seen her brother for several days.

  That day she returned to her hometown, she bought some fruit and also bought a piece of clothing for her brother. But when she got home, she heard something that made her never believe it again. Her brother had actually died, died without reason, died inexplicably!