Chapter 9  : The Mountain’s Locked Ancient Temple, The Forest of Hanging Corpses

Fu Yao noticed that Little Ying was hiding within the crowd of people. Frowning, he asked, “Why is there a woman here?”

Although his tone wasn’t aggressive, it didn’t contain any goodwill either. Thus, when Little Ying heard it, she bowed her head. Xie Lian was the one who replied for her and said, “She was afraid that we’ll meet a mishap, so she came here to take a look.”

Fu Yao turned to ask the bystanders another question, “Did you guys come up here with her?”

At first, the people in the crowd hesitated a bit before they replied.

“I don’t remember anymore.”

“It’s hard to say.”

“That’s wrong. When we came up, she wasn’t with us, right?”

“In any case, I didn’t see her.”

“I didn’t see her either.”

Little Ying hastily spoke up, “It’s because I secretly followed you guys.”

The youngster immediately asked, “Why did you secretly follow us? Do you have a guilty conscience? Perhaps you’re the disguised ghost bridegroom?”

The moment he said this, the people standing around Little Ying abruptly fled, creating a vast and empty space. Little Ying began waving her hands in a flustered manner before she said, “No......No, I’m Little Ying! I’m really her!”

Then, she turned toward Xie Lian and said, “Young lord, we had just met each other! I helped you put on make-up, and helped you dress and groom yourself......”

Xie Lian: “......”

When they heard this, everyone began looking over to stare at him. There were even some people who started to whisper things. In bits and pieces, Xie Lian heard phrases like, ‘kink’, ‘different from ordinary people’, ‘I can’t believe it’.

Coughing twice, Xie Lian explained, “This......is just a requirement of the mission. A requirement of the mission. Nan Feng, Fu Yao, you guys......”

It was only after he turned his head did Xie Lian become aware that Nan Feng and Fu Yao were staring at him in a strange manner. In addition, they began slowly moving away from him in a restrained way.

Being stared at with gazes like that made Xie Lian feel goosebumps all over his body. He asked them, “......Do you guys have something you want to say?”

How could Xie Lian have known that a girl’s skill in make-up created legendary and mystifying results? Little Ying had only taught him how to fix his eyebrows by drawing them elegantly, how to powder his face with some white powder and how to dot his lips with deep, red rouge. However, if he didn’t speak, Xie Lian looked exactly like a gentle, soft and beautiful young lady.

Thus, when those two looked at him, it made their hearts shake tremendously. They found this scene hard to believe; it made them feel uneasy from head to toe as they began to doubt life itself. Xie Lian’s face still looked like his face, but both Fu Yao and Nan Feng felt as if they didn’t know who they were talking to when they faced his current appearance.

Fu Yao asked Nan Feng, “Do you have something you wish to say?”

Nan Feng immediately shook his head. “I don’t have anything I want to say.”

“......” Xie Lian replied, “Perhaps its better if you guys said something.”

At this time, the people in the crowd began speaking up.

“Eh? This is a Ming Guang Temple?”

“This mountain’s forest actually had a Ming Guang Temple? Odd, I’ve never seen it before.”

One after another, everyone began looking at the strange sight. However, Xie Lian suddenly said, “Yes, it’s a Ming Guang Temple.”

Nan Feng noticed that his tone was a bit odd. He asked, “What’s wrong?”

Xie Lian replied, “The North is clearly General Ming Guang’s territory. It isn’t as if the incense burning for him wasn’t flourishing, and it’s not like his spiritual power is weak. However, why is there only a Nan Yang Temple under Mount Yu Jun?”

It was rather easy to understand why that Official would send his prayers to the Martial God Heavenly Emperor. After all, he had been the number one Martial God for the last millennium, and his status far exceeded General Ming Guang’s. Naturally, the higher and more influential you went, the more insured and secured one would be.

However, General Ming Guang’s position was equal to General Nan Yang’s position, and there was hardly any difference between the two of them. If you really had to differentiate them, then General Ming Guang had nine thousand temples, a thousand more than General Nan Yang. Xie Lian really couldn’t understand why General Ming Guang would give up something close and instead seek something far away.

He continued speaking and said, “Normally, even if the Ming Guang Temple on Mount Yu Jun is taken over by the ghost bridegroom, resulting in other people being unable to find it, one could always just build another Ming Guang Temple somewhere else. However, for what reason would another Martial God’s temple be built here?”

Fu Yao immediately understood and said, “There has to be another reason.”

Xie Lian replied, “Yes, there has to be another reason that would make the people of the Mount Yu Jun region stop building Ming Guang Temples. You guys, please lend me some spiritual energy again. I’m afraid I have to go and ask......”

At this moment, someone suddenly shouted, “So many brides, ah!”

When he realized that the voice had come from within the temple, Xie Lian immediately turned around. He had told these people to properly stay on the open space outside the temple, but they actually turned a deaf ear to his instructions and ran inside!

Nan Feng yelled, “The situation is dangerous, don’t run about!”

However, that youngster said, “Everybody, don’t listen to them! They won’t dare to touch us! We’re all good people, would they really dare to kill us? Everyone, get up! Get up, get up!”

This youngster actually realized that the three of them wouldn’t seriously hold down their waists and give them a beating. Thus, he began to become absolutely unrestrained.

Seeing this, Nan Feng’s knuckles began to crack, and he seemed like he was trying to restrain himself. However, as a martial god under Nan Yang Palace Hall, he really couldn’t beat up an ordinary person just because he wanted to. If a supervising Heavenly Official found out about it and reported him, then the aftermath really wouldn’t be fun to deal with.

The youngster laughed mischievously before sneering. “Don’t think I can’t tell what you guys are trying to do. You just want to deceive us and make us stay put, so you guys could solve this case all by yourselves and then collect the reward!”

With those instigating words, at least half the people in the crowd actually became restless. Thus, they followed the youngster and began running into the temple. Fu Yao apathetically brushed his sleeves and said, “Let them do what they want. This group of wicked commoners.”

His tone sounded extremely loathing, like he no longer wanted to care about what happened to them.

Then, within the Ming Guang temple came another loud scream, “These are all dead people ah!”

The youngster was also greatly shocked as he asked, “All dead?!”

“All dead!”

“What evil rituals! Some of these brides died decades ago, so how could their skin have not rotten yet??”

However, it didn’t take long for the youngster to get over his surprise. “It’s fine if they’re dead. Let’s carry the corpses of the dead brides down the mountain. After all, how could the people from their families not buy them back?”

When he heard that, Xie Lian’s gaze gradually sank. And after the group of people thought it over, they began thinking that this was reasonable. Some people sighed, some people muttered under their breaths, and some people became more cheerful.

Xie Lian stood near the doorway of the temple and said, “It’s better if everybody comes out first. For many years, a breeze hadn’t passed through this temple and thus the death qi has settled in. If ordinary people breathe it in, it won’t be good for them.”

His words made a lot of sense, and everyone didn’t know whether or not they should listen to him. Then, Little Ying spoke up quietly, “Everyone, stop being like this. It’s this dangerous here, won’t it be better if we listen to this young lord? Come outside and sit down, ah.”

However, this crowd of people didn’t even listen to Xie Lian and his team, so how could they listen to her? Nobody paid any attention to her at all. But Little Ying wasn’t discouraged and repeated her words a few more times.

Ignoring her, the youngster began instructing the crowd, “Everyone, we must choose the freshest corpses. If the corpse is too old, who knows if their family members are still living on this world. This way, we won’t have to waste our strength carrying the corpses down the mountain.”

Unexpectedly, there were actually people who praised the youngster for being smart and efficient. When he heard that, Xie Lian didn’t know whether he should cry or laugh.

Then, Xie Lian saw someone start moving and immediately warned, “Don’t take off their veils! Those veils can block the death qi and yang qi. The yang qi in your bodies is too strong. If the corpses absorb it, I can’t guarantee that nothing would happen.”

However, because this group of people wanted to pick out the freshest corpses, they had already taken off almost all of the veils. Xie Lian exchanged a glance with Nan Feng, who had just walked over to the doorway, before shaking his head. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop this crowd of people. After all, it wasn’t like he could give them a beating until they vomited blood and couldn’t move any more.

If they did that and something happened later, wouldn’t their wounds prevent the crowd of people from trying to run away? Xie Lian truly felt quite helpless.

At this moment, a buff guy removed one of the bride’s veils and exclaimed, “The f*ck! This young lady is really beautiful enough to the point she could ascend to the heavens!”

Everyone began gathering around him as people started discussing her.

“She probably hadn’t even crossed her husband’s door yet, right? Dying like that is really too unfortunate.”

“Her clothes are a bit worn out, but this girl is truly the most beautiful!”

This bride had probably just died recently, because the skin on her face was still quite flexible. Someone provocatively asked, “Does anyone dare to touch her face?”

The youngster immediately replied, “Why wouldn’t we dare to?”

The moment he finished saying that, he pinched that corpse’s face twice. The youngster only felt that the skin beneath his hands felt smooth like tofu, making people’s hearts feel itchy. He even wanted to grope this girl a few more times.

Xie Lian truly couldn’t continue watching this scene anymore and was just about to go over there to stop the youngster. However, Little Ying had already rushed over and said, “Don’t be like this!”

The youngster easily gave her a push and said, “Don’t hinder us big men from doing things!”

However, Little Ying crawled up again and said, “Doing something like this, you guys are truly just courting wrath from the Heavens!”

This time, the youngster became angry. “F*ck! You ugly person! Not only you’re ugly, but you’re bothersome as well!”

While he cursed her out, the youngster started kicking at her as well. Xie Lian reached over to grab the back of Little Ying’s collar and lightly lifted her away from him. Who would have thought that after he had done that, he suddenly heard a ‘bam’ noise, before the youngster yelled, “Who hit me?!”

Xie Lian turned around to take a look. That youngster’s head was unexpectedly badly bruised, and it even had a big hole. A stone covered in blood fell onto the ground. Little Ying blankly stared at it for a moment before she hastily said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I......I was scared, and accidentally threw it......”

However, even if Little Ying rushed to admit her wrongs, nobody would believe her. This was because, the direction that rock had come from was completely incorrect. That stone had been thrown into the window that was behind the youngster.

Thus, the moment that youngster had yelped in pain, everyone had looked over in that direction. They had been just in time to see the shadow of a person’s figure flit past the window.

The youngster yelled in a strange manner. “It was him! It’s that ugly creature with the bandages wrapped around his face!”

Xie Lian stuffed Little Ying into Nan Feng’s hands before taking two steps over there. Then, gently supporting himself by placing his right hand onto the window frame, he flipped out of the room and began chasing the creature into the forest. A few braver people who wanted to get the reward also followed him and jumped out of the window.

However, when he reached the edge of the forest, Xie Lian suddenly smelled the reeking odour of blood. Being extremely vigilant, he sensed something was wrong and immediately halted his steps. “Don’t go in!”

Xie Lian had already spoken up to warn them, but those people thought to themselves that it was great he wasn’t chasing after it, because now they could. Their steps didn’t stop and they instead charged right into the forest. The rest of the crowd that had been originally in the temple began rushing out as well. When they saw Xie Lian standing at the edge of the forest, those that weren’t too brave began gathering around him to watch.

It didn’t take too long before they began hearing a few blood-curdling screams. A few black shadows began stumbling out of the forest. They were exactly the people who had taken the lead in charging into the woods. Staggering out, these black shadows swayed around until they reached a spot where the moonlight shined down and illuminated them. And the moment everyone saw their appearances clearly, they were immediately terror-stricken by the sight.

When these people walked into the forest, they were still living humans. So why was it that when they walked out, they became people drenched in blood?

From their faces to their clothes, these people were all covered with bloodstains. It looked as if blood was gushing out of their bodies. If a regular person had bled this much blood, then it was impossible for them to continue living.

However, step by step, these people were still walking over to them. Everyone became so scared, they began uniformly scrambling backwards until they were hiding behind Xie Lian.

Xie Lian raised his hand and said, “Be calm. The blood isn’t theirs.”

Sure enough, those people said, “That’s right, ah! The blood isn’t ours, it’s......it’s......”

Even though their faces were covered in blood, it still wasn’t able to conceal their completely frightened looks. Following their gazes, the rest of the crowd shifted their eyes over to the forest. It was quite dark, so it was hard to tell what exactly was going on within the woods. Xie Lian grabbed a torch and went a few steps forward as he held the torch up to illuminate the forest.

Within the woods, something dripped onto his torch, making a sizzling sound. Xie Lian glanced at his torch before shifting his gaze upwards. After contemplating for a moment, he lifted his hand and threw his torch.

Even though the torch only illuminated the sky for a short moment, everyone still clearly saw what was on top of the trees.

Very long black hair, a deathly pale face, a tattered military official robe, and an arm that kept swaying back and forth in the air......

More than forty corpses of men were swaying in the air, hung upside down at various heights on the trees. Xie Lian didn’t know how long the fresh blood had flowed for, but it still hadn’t dried.

Drip, drop. Drip, drop. This created the frightening scene of a forest filled with corpses as blood rained down from above.

The crowd of people outside were all strong and buff men. However, when would they have ever seen a gruesome sight like this? They were all frightened so badly, they completely blanked out as not a single voice could be heard. And when Nan Feng and Fu Yao walked over and saw this sight, both of their gazes became focused.

After a moment, Nan Feng said, “Green Ghost.”

Fu Yao replied, “Indeed, this is his favourite trick.”

Nan Feng told Xie Lian, “Don’t go over. If it’s really him, then this is going to become a bit troublesome.”

Xie Lian turned around to ask, “Who are you guys talking about?”

Nan Feng responded, “A ‘Near Devastation’.”

Confused, Xie Lian asked, “What’s a ‘Near Devastation’? Something approaching the Devastation rank?”

Fu Yao replied, “Not bad. ‘Near Devastation’ Green Ghost. He’s precisely a ‘Wrath’ that had been assessed by Ling Wen Palace Hall, and they claimed that his realm was actually awfully close to the ‘Devastation’ rank. He’s extremely fond of stringing corpses on trees and making a forest of corpses, this kind of game. It could be even said that its part of his famous reputation.”

When he heard Fu Yao’s explanation, Xie Lian thought in his heart, ‘This name was truly unnecessary. If it was a ‘Devastation’, then it was a ‘Devastation’. If it wasn’t, then it wasn’t. Just like how there were only the phrases, ‘ascended’ and ‘haven’t ascended yet’. There were no such things as ‘near ascending’ or ‘approaching ascending’. On the contrary, adding on a ‘near’ word made people feel awkward.

Suddenly, Xie Lian recalled how that teenager who had robbed his sedan had held his hand and led him here. Back then, there really had been a moment where the sound of rain hit the umbrella that the teenager had opened. Could it be that the reason the teenager opened an umbrella was because he had wanted to block him from being drenched by this rain of blood?

“Ah,” Xie Lian quietly let out a noise. The two small martial gods beside him immediately asked, “What’s wrong?”

Xie Lian gave a brief explanation of how he had met a teenager on the sedan and how that teenager brought him here. When he finished, Fu Yao said sceptically, “When we came up here, I had sensed that befuddling array. It had been extremely treacherous. However, you say that guy had just destroyed it without any extra trouble?”

In his heart, Xie Lian thought, ‘It wasn’t ‘without any extra trouble’, that guy had just casually stepped onto it! He didn’t care about it at all.’

However, Xie Lian said, “That’s right. Thus, do you guys think that this ‘Near Devastation’ Green Ghost is him?”

Nan Feng thought for a moment before he replied, “I haven’t seen the Green Ghost before, so it’s hard for me to say. Did that teenager have any special characteristics?”

Xie Lian said, “Silver butterflies.”

Just now, when Nan Feng and Fu Yao saw the forest of corpses, their expressions could have been considered as completely calm. However, the moment he said that, Xie Lian clearly saw the expressions on their faces immediately change.

Fu Yao asked in an incredulous tone, “What did you say? Silver butterflies? What kind of silver butterflies?”

Xie Lian sensed that he had probably said something quite important. He replied, “They were silver, but they also looked as if they were made out of crystal. They were not alive, although they did look extremely beautiful.”

Then, he saw Nan Feng and Fu Yao exchange glances. Both of their complexions became extremely ugly, paling until they were deathly white.

After a while, Fu Yao spoke up in a deep voice, “Let’s leave. Let’s immediately leave.”

Xie Lian asked, “The ghost bridegroom case hasn’t been solved yet, how can we go?”

Fu Yao responded, “Solved?”

Fu Yao turned around and smiled grimly. “It seems like you’ve truly stayed in the mortal realm for too long. This ghost bridegroom is no more than a ‘Wrath’. And even if the Green Ghost was responsible for this forest of corpses, he is just a ‘Near Devastation’ and would only give us a headache.”

After pausing again, Fu Yao’s tone unexpectedly became quite stern. “However, do you know who the master of those silver butterflies is?”

Xie Lian honestly replied, “I don’t know.”

“......” Fu Yao stiffly said, “Even if you don’t know, currently we don’t have enough time to explain it to you. In short, it’s not someone you can go against. You should just hurry back to the Heavens and send off some rescue squad soldiers.”

Xie Lian replied, “Then, you return first.”

“You......”

Xie Lian explained, “The owner of those silver butterflies didn’t reveal any malice. And if he had been hiding his evil intentions and is truly as scary as you make him out to be, then I’m afraid it’ll be hard for us to escape him when we’re within the Mount Yu Jun range. At this time, it’s best if someone stays back and guards this place. That’s why, it’s better if you return first and see if you can help me by sending over a rescue squad.”

He could tell that Fu Yao didn’t want to stay here and deal with all of these troublesome things. Since he didn’t want to stay, Xie Lian definitely wouldn’t force him to reluctantly stay here.

Fu Yao was precisely a straightforward kind of person. Without another word, he brushed his sleeves and actually left.

Xie Lian turned toward Nan Feng. He was about to speak up and thoroughly question the small martial god about that teenager, however, the crowd of people was suddenly in an uproar. Someone exclaimed, “Caught it, we caught it!”

With this, Xie Lian didn’t have any time to ask Nan Feng more questions. He immediately asked, “What did you catch?”

Two bloody figures began walking out of the forest. One was a strong and buff man. He had been one of the people who had taken the lead in rushing into the forest. Surprisingly, he hadn’t been scared into retreating because of the forest of corpses’ rain of blood. He could truly be considered as someone daring and fearless.

The other figure was the young boy he had been dragging out with his hand in a death grip. This young teenager had bandages wrapped around his head and face in a messy manner.

Xie Lian still remembered what the tea sommelier from the Chance Encounter Little Store had said. “Rumours state that the ghost bridegroom is an ugly creature that lives on Mount Jun. Because he was born too ugly, no women would like him. This is why his heart gave birth to resentment, and why he would snatch other men’s brides to prevent the couple from experiencing a happy occasion.”

At that time, Xie Lian and his team had thought it was just a rumour. Unexpectedly, there really was a person like this.

But him existing was just him existing. Whether or not he was the ghost bridegroom was another matter entirely. Xie Lian was just about to carefully take a look at this bandaged young teenager when suddenly, Little Ying rushed over and exclaimed, “You guys are wrong! This isn’t the ghost bridegroom, he isn’t!”

The youngster retorted, “He got caught red-handed at the scene and you still say he isn’t? I......”

He suddenly stopped talking before he looked as if he had realized something. “Oh, I kept asking why you were so weird, always continuously going ‘it’s not’, ‘it’s not’. It turns out you were colluding with the ghost bridegroom!”

Little Ying was startled by his accusation and began repeatedly waving her hands. “No, no. I’m not involved, and he isn’t either. He really hasn’t done anything before. He’s just an ordinary......ordinary......”

The youngster aggressively asked, “An ordinary what? An ordinary ugly creature?”

He carelessly grabbed the top of that bandaged teenager’s head twice. “Then let us take a peek at what this ordinary ghost bridegroom looks like, to be so fond of robbing other men of their wives.”

His two movements caused some of the boy’s bandages to loosen. That induced the young teenager into hugging his head before screaming. His voice was brimming with fear, sounding extremely mournful, yet extremely pitiful as well. Xie Lian grabbed the youngster’s elbow and said, “Enough.”

Hearing the boy’s miserable screams, Little Ying’s tears immediately began rolling down her face. However, when she saw Xie Lian step in, she looked as if she saw her light of hope. Immediately, she clutched his sleeve and begged, “Young......Young lord, help me. Help him.”

Xie Lian glanced at her. Little Ying immediately let go of his sleeve in an embarrassed manner. She looked as if she was afraid he would dislike her because she had touched him, and thus wouldn’t help her anymore.

Xie Lian comforted her, “It’s alright.”

Then, he took another look at that bandaged teenager covered in blood. Suddenly, he noticed that the boy was looking at him with a pair of bloodshot eyes. In fact, he had been peeking at him through the gap between the bandages hanging from his arms. The teenager had only stolen a single glance before he immediately bowed his head again to redo his bandages.

Although he hadn’t exposed his face, the little skin that had been revealed was already extremely frightening. It looked as if his skin had been burned by a fierce fire. It wasn’t hard to imagine what kind of a horrific face he would have under his bandages. It made other people suck in a breath of cold air, and that reaction made the young teenager shrink in on himself even more.

Xie Lian noticed that unexpectedly, both Little Ying and this teenager cowered in the same manner, as if they didn’t see light all year round and as if they didn’t dare to meet people either. As Xie Lian sighed in his heart, the youngster beside him became on guard. “What do you want to do? The ghost bridegroom was caught by us!”

Xie Lian let him go and explained, “I’m afraid it wouldn’t be that simple for you guys to capture the ghost bridegroom. Just now, my friend had searched for him in the vicinity and didn’t find him. This boy probably only came afterwards. The real ghost bridegroom should still be hiding somewhere here.”

Little Ying summoned her courage and said, “You want the reward......but you can’t randomly grab people and claim they’re guilty!”

When the youngster heard that, he once again wanted to make a move. Ever since this case began, this guy kept causing trouble for Xie Lian. At the end of his patience, Xie Lian waved his hand. The silk Ruoye abruptly shot out and slapped the youngster, causing him to take a tumble. And it seemed that Nan Feng had also reached his limit for he swiftly gave the youngster another kick. Finally, the youngster hit the ground and didn’t get up again.

That youngster was a specialist in stirring up trouble. Once he stopped moving, the crowd didn’t know who they should follow. Thus, they became rather well-behaved. In fact, even after a few sparse shouts, they couldn’t create a disturbance.

In his heart, Xie Lian thought, “I can finally begin handling affairs.”

After sizing up the young teenager on the ground for a moment, Xie Lian asked, “Were you the person who threw that stone into the window?”

Although his voice sounded gentle, that teenager still shook like a bamboo sieve. He once again took a secret peek at Xie Lian before he nodded his head. Little Ying replied in his stead and said, “He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He only saw how the youngster looked as if he was going to hit me, so he wanted to help me......”

Xie Lian questioned that teenager again, “Those corpses hanging in the trees, do you know what’s going on there?”

Little Ying replied, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I definitely know the corpses weren’t hung up by him......”

That teenager kept trembling, but he still began continuously nodding his head. Nan Feng, who had been staring at him, suddenly asked, “Do you know who Green Ghost Qi Rong is?”

When he heard that name, Xie Lian became slightly startled. On the other hand, that teenager looked obviously at a loss. He hadn’t reacted at all toward that name, and he also didn’t dare reply to Nan Feng. Little Ying said, “He......He’s just scared, and doesn’t dare to speak......”

She kept trying to protect this strange teenager at all costs. Thus, Xie Lian asked in a warm tone, “Young lady Little Ying, what’s the matter with this child? Whatever you know, let me hear about it first.”

When she saw Xie Lian, it seemed as if Little Ying managed to summon a bit of courage. Even when the flame of the fire illuminated her face, she didn’t hide.

Instead, she wrung together her hands as she said, “He really hasn’t done any misdeeds. This child only lives on Mount Yu Jun. When he becomes too hungry, he’ll go down the mountain and steal some food to eat. Once, he happened to end up in my house......I saw that he didn’t really know how to speak and that furthermore, there were wounds on his face. So, I found some cloth bandages to wrap up his face and sometimes, I would send him some food to eat......”

Originally, Xie Lian thought that these two were perhaps a couple. However, now it seemed as if Little Ying’s protection for this teenager was more like an older sister’s protection to her younger brother, so much that she resembled a senior who took care of their juniors.

Little Ying continued to speak, “Afterwards, there were a lot of people who began believing that he was the ghost bridegroom. I couldn’t do anything about it, and could only hope that someone would quickly catch that genuine evildoer......I thought that since young lord and your companions are this powerful, even if you disguise yourself as a bride to catch that ghost bridegroom, in the very least you definitely won’t catch the wrong person. This is because he absolutely, absolutely wouldn’t go and rob your marriage sedan. However, who would have known that after I left, I heard that the youngster and his team intended to go up and search the mountain as well? I was truly too worried, so I secretly followed them up to take a look.”

She stepped in front of the teenager to protect him, as if she was afraid that someone was going to hit him again. Then, she began defending the teenager once again, “He truly isn’t the ghost bridegroom. Look at him, only a few people were able to beat him up into this state. How would he have been able to beat all those military officials who had accompanied the bride’s sedan......?”

Xie Lian exchanged glances with Nan Feng, both feeling an extreme headache.

If what Little Ying had said was the truth, then wasn’t this teenager completely unrelated to their current assignment?

The bandaged teenager, the ghost bridegroom ‘Wrath’, the ‘Near Devastation Green Ghost’. Oh, and they couldn’t forget that powerful master of those silver butterflies, someone who could even make the complexion of a Heavenly Official’s face change when they were brought up in a conversation.

A small Mount Yu Jun actually had this many guests who kept visiting it. It really made it impossible for people to deal with this. Who was who? Who had a relationship with who? Xie Lian felt his head swimming.

Xie Lian rubbed the spot between his eyebrows. For the time being, he didn’t ponder over how much of Little Ying’s words were genuine or false. Instead, he suddenly recalled the question he had always wanted to ask. “Young lady Little Ying, have you always been living around the Mount Yu Jun area?”

Little Ying replied, “That’s right. I’ve always been living here, so I can guarantee that he has never done any bad things.”

In response to that, Xie Lian said, “No, I wanted to ask you another question. In the Mount Yu Jun region, other than the temple here, has any other Ming Guang Temples been built?”

Little Ying stared blankly for a moment. “This......”

After thinking it over, she continued to speak, “Yes, they should have been built.”

When he heard her answer like this, Xie Lian suddenly had the faint feeling that he had stumbled upon something quite important.

He asked, “Then why is it that under the mountain, only Nan Yang Temples were built, and not Ming Guang Temples?”

Little Ying scratched her head before answering, “It has indeed been built before. However, I’ve heard that whenever they make the decisions to build a Ming Guang Temple, the temple would always catch on fire for no reason before it was completed. Someone then said that they were afraid General Ming Guang had a reason for being unable to safeguard this place. Thus, they chose to build a Nan Yang Temple instead......”

Nan Feng noticed that Xie Lian’s gaze had become focused. He asked, “What’s wrong?”

Xie Lian suddenly realized that everything was too simple.

The brides that couldn’t smile, the temple that caught fire for no reason, the Ming Guang Temple locked up by the befuddling array, General Pei’s impressive-looking Godly statue, and the ghost bridegroom who had disappeared after it was hit by the silk Ruoye——

It was too simple!

However, something had been continuously blocking his line of sight, making Xie Lian unaware of this simple fact from the very start!

He suddenly grabbed onto Nan Feng and exclaimed, “Lend me some spiritual energy!”

Being grabbed like this, Nan Feng stared blankly for a moment before he hastily slapped his palm again Xie Lian’s hand. He once again asked, “What’s going on?”

Xie Lian dragged him along as he began running. “I’ll explain later! For now, think of a way to subdue the corpses of those eighteen brides!”

Nan Feng asked, “Are you confused? There’s only seventeen brides, unless we add on you to make eighteen!”

Xie Lian replied, “No, no, no! Before, there had only been seventeen corpses, but now there’s eighteen! Within the corpses of those eighteen brides, there’s one that’s fake——the ghost bridegroom has mixed itself in!”