BAM!
The wall buckled under Lu Sheng’s kick, collapsing into a spray of bricks and stone. Dust billowed as the debris scattered, revealing the entire bedroom in an instant.
It looked like any ordinary room—except for the thick purple stone pillar standing at its center. Atop it lay a book, open, its pages turning on their own as though stirred by an invisible hand.
“What’s this?” Lu Sheng’s eyes gleamed with the scent of treasure as he reached toward the book.
Behind him, the umbrella girl continued her soft, broken sobbing. “Yingying…”
Ignoring her, Lu Sheng extended his hand—
“BUZZ!!!”
White ribbons of hexes burst forth, swirling around the book in a halo of living script. They twisted and danced, forming a barrier that halted his grasp.
“Oh, interesting.” His intrigue deepened. Difficulty only meant value.
He withdrew his hand, then thrust his palm forward.
A shockwave blasted through the room, sending loose objects flying. His greenish-gray palm crashed against the glowing barrier.
BOOM!
The entire Scarlet District Manor shuddered. The impact felt as though he had struck an unyielding mountain.
“This seems to be connected to the entire Scarlet District… oh? Is this one of those formations spoken of in legends?”
The sensation beneath his palm was strange—slick and curved, like striking the shell of a giant egg. He drew his hand back.
BAM!
He struck again, this time using all the force his current form could summon.
BOOM!!
The manor grounds rumbled violently. The ribboned light pulsed, tethered to the district’s foundation itself.
Lu Sheng exhaled, pity flickering in his eyes. He couldn’t break it. For now, the treasure was beyond reach.
Moving through the manor with casual destruction, he tore through each room in seconds. Doors splintered under his grip, roofs peeled back like thin bark, and walls crumbled where his kicks landed.
Terrified remnant ghosts burst from hiding, scattering in every direction.
Lu Sheng didn’t spare them a glance. After gathering the items worth taking, he returned to the central courtyard.
The central courtyard was blanketed in white ash—the remains of ghosts he had burned to nothing with the Ultimate Crimson Nine Furies Skill. Lu Sheng crouched down and plunged his hand straight into the ashen mound.
Szzzzzzz…
A surge of Yin Qi immediately rushed into him. The Qi within the ashes was thin and scattered, weak enough that he could absorb it directly without the aid of blood.
The umbrella girl watched quietly as he strode from one pile to another, thrusting his arm into the ashes again and again. She assumed he was searching for something precious, and simply stared, teeth pressing into her lip.
At first, she kept crying, her voice a soft and endless whimper. But exhaustion soon overtook her. She hung limply as Lu Sheng lifted and shook her with indifferent ease, offering no resistance and no sound.
Nearly an hour later, after draining every trace of Yin Qi, Lu Sheng swept through the Scarlet District one final time to ensure he had left no valuable item behind. Satisfied, he departed with the umbrella girl still dangling from his hand.
Before leaving fully, he set the manor ablaze. The Scarlet District, built largely of dry timber, caught fire at once. A small spark blossomed into ravenous flames that devoured the grounds with terrifying speed.
Smoke coiled upward as fire danced wildly, its yellow-red glow setting nearby trees alight. A column of thick black smoke rose into the sky, spreading into a heavy, brooding cloud over the district.
The rest of the night crawled by. When dawn approached, the black clouds still hung overhead, flickering with lightning and echoing with distant thunder.
In the span of a single night, the Scarlet District had become nothing but ashes. Charred wood and cracked stone lay scattered everywhere—both blackened beyond distinction.
Then the rain came. At first sparse, then thick and heavy as the clouds pressed lower.
KA-CHA! A bolt of lightning split the sky, washing the world in a cold, pale glare.
Thud.
A long black shoe, embroidered with phoenix motifs, stepped onto the ruined entrance of the Scarlet District.
The Scarlet District Mistress stood drenched in blood. In one hand, she carried her own severed arm; half the flesh on her face was gone, leaving a grotesque, mangled patch of exposed muscle and bone.
Before her, the ruined Scarlet District smoldered. In her eyes burned a storm of fury, grief, and unrestrained madness.
She stepped into the manor’s remains. Smoke curled from every collapsed beam and broken tile. The rain hissed as it fell, smothering only the outermost flames—beneath the charred rubble, embers still glowed fiercely.
BAM!
She drove her fist into a surviving stretch of wall. It detonated under the blow, collapsing into a jagged opening.
“I don’t care who you are!! You destroyed my home—YOU’RE DEAD!!”
“Looks like I’ve come at a bad timing.” A middle-aged man in luxurious robes emerged from the forest beside the manor, his steps unhurried.
“Ye Moling?” The Scarlet District Mistress turned toward him. “You know who did this?”
Ye Moling had arrived only after spotting the towering flames and thick columns of smoke. He had not expected the devastation to be this complete.
“I only just arrived.” He shook his head. He had known her for many years—not as a friend, but as a threat. Back when he was the Manor Lord of Mortal Sweeping Manor, she was one of the few figures he regarded with deep caution.
Her real name had long been forgotten. To most, she was simply the Scarlet District Mistress. Others called her the Red Devil. Some, the Blood Demon.
She had built the Scarlet District almost single-handedly through sheer strength and fear. The organization existed because of her. Aside from the umbrella girl and a handful of Ghost Generals—most of whom had died or fled during the war with the Zhen Family—there were no other true powerhouses under her command. Now, only she and the umbrella girl remained. Two generals with no soldiers. The rest of the district was filled with newly recruited ghosts.
“Then what are you doing here? You want to snatch the Scarlet Tribulation Dragon shard?” she asked, her voice icy and sharp.
“Scarlet Dragon Tribulation shattered?” Ye Moling’s brows shot up in genuine surprise. “Don’t misunderstand—I’m not your enemy. I’m here to investigate the disappearance of the Officiator from Ashoka Manor. And considering the power required to make an Ashoka Officiator vanish without a trace… the culprit may well be the same force that destroyed your Scarlet District. In other words, we likely share a common enemy.”
“You should thank the gods it isn’t you.” Without sparing him a glance, the Scarlet District Mistress strode deeper into the manor, heading straight for the largest bedchamber hidden in the back.
When she found the purple stone pillar and the book resting upon it, she let out a long breath of relief.
Ye Moling, following behind, also breathed easier—until his eyes fell upon the book. He froze.
“Isn’t that… isn’t that…??!” Shock twisted his face as he stumbled back several steps. He stared at the book, mouth open, unable to form a sound.
Memories surged up—why Mortal Sweeping Manor had fallen, the catastrophe he himself had caused. Everything began with this book. This single, priceless tome held ghostly cultivation methods far superior to anything they possessed. It had driven him to gamble the entire might of his manor on controlling the powerful female ghost he found. That gamble cost him everything.
“You guessed right. It is that book—‘Nine Palaces of Chaos Divine.’” The Scarlet District Mistress approached the pillar and gently brushed her fingers across the shifting text. The characters warped and writhed, belonging to no known language.
“That… that female ghost…?” Ye Moling’s body tensed.
“What else do you think?” she scoffed. “If the book is in my hands now, the answer should be obvious. Now speak. What did you come here for? Don’t waste my time.”
Ye Moling’s heart thundered in his chest. He had always respected her strength, but the scene before him shook him far more deeply than he expected.
Back then, he had poured out every ounce of strength he possessed, yet still failed to stop the female ghost who massacred Mortal Sweeping Manor. She had stormed their headquarters alone and annihilated everyone, reducing the manor’s proud legacy to ashes.
Now, with that memory haunting him, the sight of the book made Ye Moling even more wary of the Scarlet District Mistress. Thankfully, they stood on the same side—for now.
“I’ve truly come as a representative of Ashoka Manor to form an alliance with you. Our intelligence network spans every major city. We can assist you in tracking down the real culprit.”
“Let’s hope you’re not lying to me.” The Scarlet District Mistress lifted the book and tapped it lightly. It burst into clusters of purple light and vanished without leaving even dust behind.
“In the entire Northern Lands, only a handful possess the power to destroy Scarlet District. We can investigate them one by one,” Ye Moling said cautiously. He remembered well how terrifying the female ghost had been—yet the woman before him had killed that very monster. His fear of her only deepened.
“You mean… Shangyang Jiuli and the League Master of Martial League?”
“That’s right.” Ye Moling nodded gravely. “Our Officiator vanished shortly after an encounter with Martial League. There must be a connection.”
“Yingying isn’t dead. I can feel it. If we find her, we may find the culprit.” Her voice was cold and flat.
“As long as we have a lead!” Ye Moling felt a flicker of renewed determination. What he once assumed would be a simple assignment in the Northern Lands had turned into something far more dangerous. If someone dared to destroy Scarlet District… then this case held deeper, darker secrets than he had imagined.
His wariness sharpened with every passing moment.
…………
In a cave on Eastern Mountain, several dozen li from Mountain-Edge City, Lu Sheng sat down with the umbrella girl still clutched in his hand. Outside, the sun cast a pale, icy glow as snow drifted endlessly, piling up and sealing the cave’s entrance in a quiet shroud of white.
‘Yin Crane Web’s inner Qi is of the Yin attribute… There are manuals for Yin-type cultivation, but no one practices them alone.’ Anticipation stirred in Lu Sheng’s chest.
‘With ghosts and demons running rampant, most martial artists turned to Yang-attribute skills. Even a weak Yang technique can wound ghosts; strong ones can obliterate them. Then what about Yin-attribute inner Qi? What effect would it have on ghosts?’
The umbrella girl huddled in terror, clutching her umbrella tightly. She curled herself into the smallest ball she could manage, barely daring to breathe.
A blood-colored web of inner Qi surrounded her, woven by Lu Sheng’s power. Even a slight twitch would ignite the web, reducing her to ash in an instant.
Lu Sheng straightened his posture, gathering his thoughts and consolidating the spoils from his recent expedition.
A small bell.
A rectangular black wooden box.
An ancient scroll resembling a treasure map.
All three items radiated Yin Qi—his only criterion for taking them. There might have been other items with faint Yin traces, but none as concentrated as these.
He picked up the first object, the small bell.
“Tell me, what’s this?” His gaze shifted to the umbrella girl.
----21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTyvcjyElhT
[Editor’s Note:] If you'd like to support the series and unlock more chapters, visit Patreon for early access and exclusive content.21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMI8yRTenRg
https://www.patreon.com/taleriareads21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuCngHbxrB0
and then Add to home screen.