Wuxia: Starting Off With 60 Years of Inner Strength

In the blink of an eye, the bodies of several 'Evil Ghosts' already lay on the ground.

When he looked up again, the surrounding 'Evil Ghosts' were clutching their weapons, cowering. Not a single one dared to step forward.

Jiang Ran smiled again.

"So Evil Ghosts can be afraid of the living?"

"This…"

The man behind the counter would have been pale even without the thick white makeup caked on his face. He stammered:

"You… you've got some nerve, daring to kill so wantonly in my Ghost King Palace.

"Lord Ghost King will not spare you!"

"Oh? I think you're mistaken, aren't you?"

Jiang Ran said with a smile:

"When did I kill any people? Weren't those… ghosts I killed?"

"I…"

The man froze, wishing he could slap himself.

Jiang Ran, however, paid him no mind and just waved his hand dismissively.

"I have a question. You said you saw another living person today, which means you saw someone else before I arrived.

"Tell me, where is this person now?"

"In… inside."

Not daring to hide anything, the man pointed deeper into the gambling house.

Jiang Ran nodded slightly and asked with a smile:

"May I go in?"

"Yes!!"

The man nodded hurriedly, without the slightest hesitation.

"Good."

After speaking, Jiang Ran turned back and tapped Liu Xiao'e between her eyebrows.

When Liu Xiao'e looked up again, clarity had returned to her eyes.

But tears streamed from her eyes.

"What… what happened? Just now, I think I saw so many… so many Evil Ghosts. They were holding severed heads in their hands, and the heads were still talking…

"Then I saw someone charge into the horde of ghosts, cutting them down left and right… But the Evil Ghosts he killed were still moving. Severed hands on the ground grew mouths and tried to bite him, but they could never reach him."

Jiang Ran found her description quite interesting.

He said with a smile:

"Don't worry, it was all an illusion. Miss Liu, would you care to join me for a look inside?"

"Okay!"

By now, Liu Xiao'e understood that Jiang Ran was no ordinary person.

The Evil Ghosts were formidable, but Jiang Ran seemed even more powerful.

She stood up obediently, not daring to look around. She couldn't seem to tell which of the bodies on the ground were real and which were illusions.

Jiang Ran took Ruan Yuqing by the hand, with Liu Xiao'e in tow, and walked straight through the entrance.

The 'Evil Ghosts' outside, however, reacted as if they had just seen a real one.

They scattered wherever Jiang Ran went, not even daring to meet his gaze, terrified that the slightest misstep would provoke him into drawing his blade and slaughtering them all.

Pushing aside the curtain, they stepped into the Soul Hook Gambling House.

Inside, a crowd of degenerate gamblers was completely oblivious to their surroundings. They stared intently at the pai gow tiles, dice, and shaking cups on the tables, shouting "Big! Big! Big!" or "Small! Small! Small!"

They were completely engrossed, lost in their own world.

Then they would either erupt in wild laughter or burst into bitter tears.

In the deepest part of the gambling house, Jiang Ran immediately spotted Luo Qingyi tied to a rack.

In front of her stood a pale-faced, middle-aged man with a large die painted on his head.

He held a sharp knife, muttering to himself while tracing lines in the air around her body, as if studying how best to dismember her.

Luo Qingyi was utterly fearless, cursing him out with a stream of incredibly foul language.

Seeing this, Jiang Ran grinned. He led Ruan Yuqing and Liu Xiao'e through the 'ghost crowd' and up to the man's table.

Strangely, while the other tables were swarming with ghosts, this particular one had not a single 'Evil Ghost' around it.

Luo Qingyi, in the middle of her tirade, spotted Jiang Ran and immediately fell silent.

"Sir!"

The 'Evil Ghost' with the die on his head turned to look at Jiang Ran and grinned.

"A living person?"

"Cut the act."

Jiang Ran was tired of playing along. "Let her go."

The moment he spoke, the once-raucous gambling house fell so silent you could hear a pin drop.

All the 'Evil Ghosts' who had been gambling feverishly at the tables stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at Jiang Ran.

...

...

「Eternal Town. Ghost King Palace. Pinxin Restaurant.」

Inside the back kitchen, a pale, heavyset, shirtless man with a large mouth painted on his forehead was savagely chewing a mouthful of bloody flesh, his face smeared with gore.

After swallowing the mouthful of meat, he raised his own hand.

His fleshy palm was dripping with blood, the bone underneath visible.

He stared at his hand with a look of both terror and hunger, muttering to himself:

"Eat slowly, enjoy it… Don't leave any behind."

As he spoke, he suddenly opened his mouth and took a vicious bite…

In the main hall of the restaurant.

Bodies lay everywhere in pools of blood.

Without exception, the faces of the corpses were deathly pale, as if caked in white powder.

Their cheeks were smeared with thick, heavy rouge.

Blood pooled on the floor, flowing in rivers to the restaurant's entrance.

Outside, a young man with a sallow complexion sat on the steps.

He clutched a saber with both hands, his eyes still wide with lingering shock.

After a long moment, he finally let out a deep sigh.

'This godforsaken place… is no place for humans…'

'Why did we have to come here? This is so damn annoying!'

'Now this is a problem. I got separated from him. If something were to happen to him… No, that's impossible.'

He stood up and glanced back at the sign that read "Pinxin Restaurant."

His face was a mask of indecision.

After a long moment, he let out a heavy sigh.

'Ah, forget it. I'm not thinking about it anymore. I can't just let that waste of space eat me.'

Just as he thought this, a tittering laugh suddenly sounded by his ear.

Immediately after, a voice whispered eerily right next to his ear:

"Sir, have you by chance seen my bride-to-be?"

At first, the voice was feminine and alluring.

But by the end of the sentence, it had suddenly grown coarse, shifting into the deep, steady tone of a man.

The young man's eyes darkened, and he sighed.

"I've had enough of this!"