Chapter 158 Distressed Deserters in the Desolate Manor
It was depressing everywhere they looked.

Every inch of the place appeared desolate.

The once glorious General’s Manor seemed to have collapsed in the blink of an eye and nearly disappeared in the dust of history. Ye Que slowly toured the manor, carefully taking in the strange environment. He looked into every building while Red Bean followed him in silence.

Even though she didn’t know the reason for it, she could tell that he was in very low spirits.

“Shouldn’t homecoming be a joyful thing, just like in the stories?”

Red Bean looked curiously at everything inside the manor. Was this Ye Que’s home?

Neither the moon nor stars could be seen in the night sky. Everything had sunken into darkness.

Ye Que carried a paper lantern with a hole in it. Inside, the flame flickered uncertainly. He lit the intact oil lamps he found in some rooms and bleak yellow glow began appearing in the General’s Manor. One lit lamp soon morphed into two, and then three…

Soon, the manor was lit up by star-like flames.

Gradually, the fog dissipated. Seen from the Yong’an Street, the light in the manor ought to be the brightest of them all. That was the case in the past, except the manor was now downtrodden.

Right at this moment, however, the manor that had towered tall and strong for decades was once again illuminated after half a month.

The night watchman, Guo Erhei, yelled as he walked down Yong’an Street, “The weather is dry and things are flammable! Take care not to catch fire!”

When he looked up, he saw the illuminated General’s Manor.

In his shabby clothes, Guo Erhei stood uncertainly in front of the General’s Manor. He leaned on the large statue of a lion in front of the doors and peered inside the manor. He murmured, “Wasn’t the General’s Manor sealed off and its household exterminated? Who’d be so fearless to come here? Could it be an heir of the household? I heard the Young Master and the Madam were never brought to justice. Did they return for revenge?”

Guo Erhei couldn’t see anyone. Never mind a person, he couldn’t even see any movement. Though he could see the faint illumination, the flickering candle flame made the place look sinister.

He calmed himself and held his breath. He perked up his ears and carefully listened for any noise. Still, he couldn’t hear any movement.

A frigid burst of wind swept the place.

“Don’t tell me… it’s haunted?”

The moment the thought occurred to him, his heartbeat began quickening and his back became drenched with cold sweat. The stories he had heard from the streets during the day resurfaced in his mind: “200,000 soldiers of the Ye Army were supposed to set out to kill 150,000 grassland barbarians from the north but were inexplicably wiped out in the city of You Prefecture. They died along with the citizens of You Prefecture. There were no survivors.”

“The Ye family were the commanders of the army. Could it be that their unjust deaths led to their ghosts seeking revenge here?”

“In their investigation, the Court of Judicial Review said that the family was responsible for the death of 200,000 soldiers. Could this be the truth?”

Pursuing this line of thought caused Guo Erhei’s thighs to tremble and teeth to chatter. “Dear heaven above and earth beneath, dear Queen Mother of the West, I, Guo Erhei, have never done anything evil…”

He calmed down somewhat after chanting the “spell” a whopping three times. But the moment he looked up, he saw a human silhouette flitting across at the end of his vision. He rubbed his eyes with force and peered deep into the manor. Another silhouette ran past, and then another. In the end, a total of five silhouettes crossed his vision like ghosts.

“Gho…”

“Ghosts!”

Guo Erhei shrieked and immediately made his escape. He hadn’t run far when he staggered and crashed onto the ground. He slammed his head on a protruding stone and subsequently fainted.

Ye Que lit up every oil lamp he could find before grabbing a broom and cleaning up the trash inside the manor. Even though it was deep into the night, day and night didn’t make much of a difference to a cultivator like him. At most, he would be missing his nightly cultivation session tonight.

Besides, Ye Que hadn’t been cultivating recently. Most of his time was spent on studying formations. Thanks to his experience over two lifetimes and the mystic literature recorded in the Divine Book, his knowledge of formations were more profound than most. He wouldn’t dare to claim superiority in the Three Realms, but he supposed few would be able to rival him in terms of formations in the Human World.

He had also been synergizing his past and present knowledge of formations. The formations available these days were mostly the same ones he learned in the past as well as some formations from the Celestial World. The page of the Divine Book that he obtained by coincidence in his second life happened to record ancient formations.

With knowledge from past and present making up for each other’s flaws, he was able to perfectly fuse the formations.

Ye Que was beginning to create formations of his own.

Bored out of her mind, Red Bean kept yawning as she followed Ye Que around.

“Go to bed if you’re sleepy. I can do this myself,” Ye Que said.

“Where do I sleep? You’re done cleaning up?” Red Bean asked.

“You’re not a germaphobe. You can sleep everywhere, can’t you?” Ye Que replied casually.

“Just because I’m not a germaphobe doesn’t mean I won’t shun filthy places,” she said.

“Then why did you sleep on the roof yesterday?” Ye Que retorted.

“I was drunk,” she said.

Ye Que scoffed. “Dragons can get drunk?”

“You’re picking a fight!” Red Bean raised an eyebrow. “Why are you so huffy?”

The words had just left her mouth when Ye Que threw the broom in his hand in her direction. Fury instantly overwhelmed her and she smashed the broom in midair with a punch. Her next punch was aimed at Ye Que.

She liked Ye Que and found him to be a special person. This didn’t mean that she would give in to his every whim, even allowing him to beat and scold her.

Touching her thigh? Holding her hand? She was cool with that.

Bullying her? Throwing a tantrum at her? Dream on!

He even dared to throw a broom at her?

He was seeking a beating!

Perhaps the little Dragon Girl who was experiencing love for the first time had truly focused all of her attention on Ye Que. She didn’t even notice the movement behind her. A helpless-looking Ye Que curled his lips. He raised his palms and circulated his Divine Energy with all of his strength to dissolve her fierce punch. He took advantage of the momentum to hug her waist and make a shushing gesture at her. He pointed outside.

There was a piercingly sharp Sword Qi cutting through the air.

A loud collision resounded.

A person in black fell off the eaves, his palm leaving a streak of blood as he crashed down. His sleeve was drenched with blood as well.

“Come down, the rest of you,” Ye Que said solemnly. “I won’t be so light-handed the next time I strike.”

Pin-drop silence.

The only sound visible was the man in black gasping and grinding his teeth on the ground. Never mind ordinary people, even a Rank 1 martial artist would have a hard time healing wounds left by Sword Qi formed out of Divine Energy. The wound would bring the wounded one searing pain at all times.

“Ignoring my advice?” With his arm around Red Bean’s waist, Ye Que stamped his foot and dust swirled around them.

Dust wafted through the air but instead of falling it down, it headed straight for the roof like a sharp sword. Instantly, four silhouettes crashed to the ground. They were dressed just like the one trying to ambush Red Bean.

Ye Que looked calmly at the black-dressed men lying on the ground. To be honest, he was confused because these weren’t Devil Seeds or soldiers from the Demon Race. They were just ordinary folks, not even martial artists. He would say that they were, at most, capable of some martial arts.

“Why have you come to my manor on this winter night?”

“Did you come to steal?”

“Or are you here to spy for someone?”

Ye Que sauntered up to the black-dressed men and lowered his head to stare at them. “I hate troublesome things and I’m in a particularly bad mood tonight. You’d better explain yourselves properly and don’t make me waste my time interrogating you. Being frank will do all of us good. Or I wouldn’t mind turning you into my punching bags. Oh, but heads up: my punching bags tend to die tragic deaths.”

He secretly exerted some of his might. The five men immediately felt the pressure pressing on them become heavier.

Several minutes passed but Ye Que didn’t obtain the answer he wanted. None of the men was quiet and seemed to have zero intention of even opening their mouths. The first one who fell off the eaves was glaring at Ye Que. If looks could kill, Ye Que would’ve been in hell by now.

Ye Que grabbed the other broom leaning against the door and patted that man’s face with it. “Don’t look at me like that. Did I kill your father or something?”

“You dare to come here but dare not talk. Even if you have a grudge against me, I won’t know until you tell me. Or do you prefer dying with your grievances?” He sneered. “Here’s a piece of advice. Dead people cannot be reincarnated. Haunting someone after death? That’s just for tricking children.”

For all that he said, what he got in return was resentful gazes.

Ye Que became intrigued after seeing their gazes.

He squatted down and dragged the man with the heaviest breathing by the neck with his right hand. “I bet that he’ll last no more than thirty breaths. What do you think?”

The gaze of the one who fell off the eaves first turned sharp and his brows became tightly knitted.

The one whose neck Ye Que was holding onto opened his mouth wide, but no words came. His pale face turned red and then purple. His eyes were turning red, with wisps of blood tracing the whites.

In silence, Ye Que slammed the man’s face onto the ground in front of the other men.

“You devils!”

“You’ll all die a horrifying death!”

“200,000 of my brothers will haunt you!”

“B*stard!”

“I curse your ancestors!”

No one would be able to restrain their emotions if they had to watch their companion getting closer to death with every step. The one who fell off the eaves first was no exception. Perhaps, it was even harder for him because people like him treasured his brothers’ lives above his own.

While cursing Ye Que, he used all of his strength to shake off the bind of the former’s Sword Qi. He was drawing blood from how hard he bit on his lips. However, it was useless. For a valiant soldier like him, not even breaking through ten times of his strength limit would be enough to break the Sword Qi cage of a cultivator nearing the Formless Realm.

“Oh, a deserter of the Ye Army?” Ye Que said subconsciously. He released the man’s neck.

“Deserter?”

“You’re the f*cking deserter!”

“The soldiers of the Ye Army will only ever die on the battlefield! Fleeing cowards have no place among us!” the man in black yelled so loudly that his voice became hoarse. It was as if Ye Que’s unassuming question had insulted his honor.