The fan opened with a whoosh, slightly impeding the momentum of that thing.

This momentary pause allowed one to clearly see the shape of that thing.

In the old capital, there were countless demons and monsters. Apart from the ghostly qi that resembled gray mist, lonely souls took on human forms, while resentful ghosts had fierce and hideous appearances.

However, this thing only looked like a mass of turbid, thick black qi, with a twisted and uneven human face shape in the middle. Two streams of black qi spread out, seemingly used as hands, appearing eerie and chilling under the pale moonlight.

Naturally, Lu Hongyan would not miss this fleeting opportunity. She brought down her Shattered Kunlun sword with the force of ten thousand tons.

This young lady followed the path of entering the Dao through martial power, wielding a heavy and broad greatsword that completely mismatched her delicate figure. With one strike, it was like the weight of Mount Tai, heavy and overwhelming.

Chen Weichen dodged to the side and the heavy sword slashed vertically, splitting the black qi and the face in the middle into two.

Lu Hongyan let out a light breath.

Chen Weichen said, "Continue."

Her eyes turned cold as she slashed horizontally again, dividing the black qi into four pieces, which showed signs of reconsolidating.

As she continued chopping, she quickly asked, "What is this thing!"

Chen Weichen did not answer, but that thing let out a heavy "he he" sound, like a strange laugh.

Hundreds of fragments extended thousands of black tentacles, instantly converging together and pouncing towards Chen Weichen. Behind him was a rusty, dilapidated door. He seemed to have anticipated this, crashing open the door an instant before the thing could restrain its momentum. He then nimbly slipped into the room and slammed the door shut with a bang.

"Don't come in," he said.

Left outside the door, Lu Hongyan heard objects collapsing inside—a crisp shattering noise, likely from ceramic jars not completely burned in the fire—along with several heavy roars from the monster.

Walls and doors could not stop her; her sword could break through at any time. But in her heart, there was a hint of instinctive hesitation that told her not to disobey this man's words.

He was clearly a mortal gentleman who had stumbled upon some crooked path, with the heavenly qi that even cultivators could stimulate being so weak it was almost nonexistent. She forcibly suppressed that bit of hesitation in her heart. Just as she was about to break down the door to save him, she suddenly stopped, hearing the monster's deep and coarse voice, accompanied by ox-like panting.

"So you're also just putting on pretenses-"

It could actually talk! What did it mean, 'pretenses'?

She wanted to hear more, but there was only a sound like a choked cough before the voice was cut off.

She raised her foot to kick the door, but a cold white sword qi took the lead.

Lu Hongyan turned her head and saw Ye Jiuya coming from mid-air, his face slightly pale.

Seeing the critical situation here, he had forcibly reversed his qi circulation to stop the sword formation.

She followed Ye Jiuya into the room. Under the moonlight, she saw Chen Weichen pressing down on the monster in the corner of the wall. His left hand held the fan, while his right hand was completely submerged in the black qi, the situation unclear. Where the face had originally been, there was now only a pitch-black chaos.

When Ye Jiuya stepped into the room, the black qi suddenly let out a shrill scream. Chen Weichen abruptly pulled out his hand, bringing the thing towards Ye Jiuya. His entire hand was dripping with blood, drop by drop hitting the ground.

In a flash of lightning, sword light chopped forward, splitting it in half like Lu Hongyan had done before. However, unlike her cut, which had left lingering black qi, this one was very neat and smooth.

The larger piece fell to the ground limply and dissipated into wisps of black qi without a trace. The other piece, however, shot out like an arrow, passing through the wall as if it didn't exist.

Ye Jiuya, however, took a few steps forward to Chen Weichen.

Chen Weichen leaned against the wall, panting as if exhausted.

Lu Hongyan asked again from the side, "What was that?"

"I've never seen it before," Ye Jiuya picked up Chen Weichen's heavily injured hand; the blood was not bright red, but pitch black. "It has demonic qi."

"In any case, it's nothing good," Chen Weichen's voice still carried a hint of weakness, but remained as frivolous as usual. "Just now, when it saw your demon-breaking, evil-vanquishing sword qi, it got so scared its guts nearly burst. It really fled quickly."

As he spoke, his body began to tremble slightly, as if enduring something extremely painful.

"Sect Leader Ye, be gentler," he said. "These past few days, you've been mending my bones for me. Lady Lu, as long as he touches me, I'm reminded of the pain. I'm terribly afraid. This person is really heartless..."

"Speak less," Ye Jiuya said mildly. "I will remove the demonic qi for you."

Only when the black blood had all dripped out and the color turned bright red, with a faint bloody smell permeating, was the demonic qi considered completely removed.

Chen Weichen immediately went half-dead and stuck himself to Ye Jiuya. "I can't stand. Sect Leader Ye, quickly let me lean on you."

There was a wall behind him, yet he wanted to lean on someone in front of him. Lu Hongyan had really never seen such a shameless person.

The strange thing was, Ye Jiuya also didn't peel off this dog skin plaster. Only when this delicate young master finally "could stand steadily" did he turn to walk out the door.

Chen Weichen naturally followed, and Lu Hongyan also left this place.

"That thing ran away. What should we do?" she asked.

"Naturally, follow Sect Leader Ye closely," Chen Weichen answered as if it was obvious. "Untouched by evil, truly reliable."

"I wasn't asking you!" Lu Hongyan glared at him and asked Ye Jiuya, "Was that a demon? Have demons crossed the Heavenly River? They never care about the laws of heaven or the flow of qi. What do they want with the Jinxiu Ashes and such things?"

"It's not a demon from the other shore," Ye Jiuya said.

"That's true," Lu Hongyan said. "The two shores have been at peace for a long time. The cultivators and demons are content to roam freely on that shore without touching the pure qi of the immortals. There's no reason for them to come here looking for bad luck."

Saying this, she asked unhappily, "Surnamed Chen, what exactly do you cultivate? How were you able to deal with that strange thing?"

"In a moment of urgency, I imitated the ladies fighting on the streets back home - pulling hair and clawing faces. The power was quite impressive," Chen Weichen switched the fan to his right hand, wanting to wave it elegantly as usual, but forgot about the wounds covering his hand. For a moment, he was in extreme pain. Only after a while did he have the strength to continue spouting nonsense, "I accidentally restrained it, which shows that although that thing is ugly, it still cherishes its face. Could it be a female ghost?"

Lu Hongyan was so angry that she didn't know what to do with this shameless and often nonsensical person. She stomped her foot hard on the ground, almost wanting to go up and ask Ye Jiuya why he wasn't keeping him in check.

When Chen Weichen saw that the lady was angry, he was about to go over and say a few sweet words, but suddenly remembered something and said with a bad expression, "Oh no, my Ah Hui is still outside!"

Just now, Ye Jiuya had forcibly stopped the sword formation, but the residual power was still there. The master was sitting in the city, transforming resentful spirits, and could not help.

Injured by Ye Jiuya, that thing must have fled far away. It couldn't stay in the city, but outside, the world was vast. They had to stop it before it escaped; while the world outside was vast, the Ghost City's barrier funneled any escape through a single opening at the city gate.

Ye Jiuya took Chen Weichen and flew towards the city gate. Lu Hongyan in her red clothes immediately followed. Outside the broken city gate, they saw a lone figure holding a frosty long sword, muttering and shivering, "Left left support six armors, right guard - guard"

Seeing the three of them come out, he immediately threw himself over, "Young master, Swordmaster Ye - you're finally back. I'm scared to death by this ghostly place!"

Chen Weichen saw that he was okay and breathed a slight sigh of relief, "What were you doing just now? Where's the Daoist priest?"

Wen Hui had a mournful face, "Chanting. Just now, Daoist Xie chased after a black thing that rushed out. The ghosts inside were about to come out again. I vaguely remembered a little of the chants he had recited before, so I had no choice but to chant them randomly."

The servant was complaining about his suffering when he saw the terrible condition of his young master's hand. He was obviously distressed to the extreme. He went up and wailed, "Young master, what happened to you! If the madam finds out, she'll beat me to death!"

"It's a minor injury. I'll bandage it when we get back," the young master himself didn't seem to care much. "Where did the little Daoist priest go?"

"To the west." Wen Hui pointed to the undulating, ghostly mountains in the distance. He immediately pulled his young master's uninjured left hand and dragged him to the well-equipped horse carriage. From his posture, he clearly did not agree with "bandaging it when we get back" no matter what.