Earlier, relying on the Forbidden Avatar Technique to fuse into the Ghost Giant had clearly cost them dearly, and then they had been tormented by the Demon-Sealing Grand Array. As a result, the female ghosts had yet to recover their mobility, lying like fish on a chopping block, helpless to Li Fei's blade.
Only, that Xiao Lian seemed fiercely loyal to the Tree Demon. Though fear showed on her face, her gaze stayed firm, unwilling to bow beneath the demon woman's silver menace. Her voice sharp and cold, she said:
"Demon woman, kill me if you're going to kill me. If I so much as knit my brow, I'm no ghost worth the name."
"Good little sister, how could Big Sister ever bear to kill you?"
Li Fei tilted up Xiao Lian's chin with a fingertip, studying that eerie, pretty face.
It had to be said, the female ghost's looks fell right within Li Fei's tastes. She had a head of thick, jet-black hair, delicate and quietly elegant features, and a slender, tender neck that left the collar of her bloodstained white dress hanging loose, slipping from her thin shoulders and failing to hide her exquisite collarbones.
Only, her skin was a ghastly pallor, not a trace of color even in her lips, as if she gave off a chill that seeped into the bone. Water trickled inexplicably now and then from beneath her hem—a sickly, sinister sort of beauty.
"Demon woman, do whatever you want to me, then."
Xiao Lian realized Li Fei meant to interrogate her, yet she showed not the slightest panic. Instead she curled her lip in a contemptuous sneer: "I will never yield to pain!"
"Big Sister won't make you suffer. Big Sister only wants to make you feel good."
Li Fei smiled a smile heavy with meaning, breathing the words like orchid-scent against her ear.
She knew well that these female ghosts resembled the wraiths of the Continent of Enlos—possessed of extremely high physical resistance and pain tolerance. Ordinary methods of torture and coercion plainly wouldn't pry their mouths open.
Holy Light might make them feel pain, but Li Fei obviously wasn't about to spend her precious potential points on Life Magic for something like this. She'd have to find another way.
"Let's see what tricks you've got— mm."
Xiao Lian was about to spit out a few more harsh words when she suddenly felt her body turn strange, as if she'd grown far more sensitive to temperature and the drift of air.
With the tenth-tier Sensitivity Aura laid upon her, Li Fei blew a kiss. [Depravity] and [Bliss] activated at once, and the Charm Marks on her belly quietly reconfigured into [Mind Melt]—a fine thing that could shorten the interval between tides.
In an instant, the white, lovely form began to tremble, her pupils overtaken by a black tide, surging without pause.
In her daze, the female ghost drifted back to her childhood, to the days before she threw herself down the well.
Back then the sunlight was still bright. She often walked hand in hand along the field ridges with Xiao Hua, the girl next door in her floral-print dress, and splashed barefoot in the creek.
Xiao Hua always smelled sweet, much like a flower called the peony.
Her father beat her now and then, but every time the old sow at home farrowed a litter, when Father came back from the market he would produce, as if by magic, a string of sweet-and-sour candied haws.
Until one day, when Xiao Lian came home, she saw a horrifying wash of red.
The old sow, turned demon, was devouring her parents. Her father's eyes were open, but he no longer moved.
"Give me back my child!"
Seeing Xiao Lian, the old sow howled, weeping tears of blood.
Luckily, Xiao Hua's mother, who had brought her home, possessed a cultivation base. In only a few exchanges she cut down the swine demon, then closed the eyes of Xiao Lian's parents for her.
After the funeral rites were done, the household of Xiao Hua and her mother, who had only each other, gained a new family member.
The early days were hard, yet Xiao Hua was always thinking up ways to make Xiao Lian laugh. Xiao Hua's mother, Auntie Hua, was gentle and beautiful—lovelier than any young noblewoman in the city—and she cooked a fine hand of dishes too, her floral fragrance even richer than Xiao Hua's.
Soon Xiao Lian, no longer plagued by nightmares, recovered her old liveliness. The new family lived in warmth and harmony, a kind mother and a filial daughter, and the red of memory faded amid laughter and cheer.
By the original track of her fate, this beautiful, tender melody would have broken off abruptly the year Xiao Lian turned eighteen.
An old monk, passing through to beg a drink of water, suddenly declared that Xiao Hua and her mother were demons.
Then the once kindly-faced old man's hair and beard bristled, and he flung the alms bowl in his hand. The bowl spun round and round, swelling as vast as a mountain. An instant before it crushed down, Xiao Hua screamed and shoved Xiao Lian aside.
By the time the old monk left, both Xiao Hua and Auntie Hua were gone. All that remained was a glaring pool of blood on the ground and scattered flower petals—Xiao Lian recognized them: peony petals.
Xiao Lian's heart ached for a long, long time, but in the end she wiped away her tears, buried the petals, and resolved to live on strong, so as not to waste the effort Xiao Hua had made in the final moment of her life.
But the rope always snaps at its thinnest, and misfortune always hunts the wretched. With her protectors gone, the village chief—who had never dared act rashly before Xiao Hua and her mother—began to look at Xiao Lian with an ever more wrong gleam in his eye.
Before the drunken village chief could break down the wooden door, Xiao Lian leapt into the well—and crawled back out, carrying a body full of rancor.
She had meant to claim her enemy's life, never expecting that people from the Demon Suppression Bureau would pass through. Xiao Lian had thought she might see Xiao Hua, Auntie Hua, and her parents again—but just as she was about to be refined away, the Tree Demon, craving a feast of blood, stepped into the village…
And within the dream woven by [Bliss], everything was changed.
The old monk never came. The village chief's whole family died of a sudden, terrible illness.
On the day she turned eighteen, Xiao Hua, in phoenix crown and bridal finery, smiled radiantly and led her by the hand into the chamber.
The room was awash in red—not only red candles, red lanterns, and the red character for "double happiness," but Auntie Hua too, dressed in the same crimson wedding gown. She lifted her own red veil, her face flushed like sunset clouds, her red lips like cherries:
"Lian'er, if you don't mind…"
Xiao Hua embraced her from behind as well:
"Don't fail us, and then the three of us can live happily together forever…"
In the cold, damp, gloomy cavern, the blood-soaked female ghost shuddered again and again, weeping and laughing at once, letting out sighs like slurred murmurs:
"So good… it feels so good…"
Li Fei sat on a stump of charred black wood, legs crossed, silently watching Xiao Lian, a thread of pale smoke rising from the cigarette at her fingertips.
[Bliss] was far too overbearing. She dared not use it on Lady Annie, nor even on Miss Grace—but used on an enemy, there was no problem at all.
—She only wondered whether Sister Zhihua could hold out against it.
In the span of a single cigarette, the interval between tides shrank from around half a minute down to a dozen-odd seconds.
Li Fei noticed that Xiao Lian seemed to have no thought of resisting the illusion. On the contrary, she was utterly immersed in it, wishing she could die inside.
Such feeble willpower?
Li Fei frowned and waited with patience.
This method of interrogation came from a Marvel fanfic she'd read in her past life. The gist was that after Shockwave Girl captured Madame Viper alive, Viper stayed stubborn at first, refusing to yield even at the cost of her life.
In the end, Shockwave Girl used her vibration powers to make Viper lose a great deal of water, until she finally submitted.
Li Fei mused—wasn't [Bliss]'s effect much the same?
Before long, the interval between tides shrank to less than ten seconds. The female ghost's form pitched and heaved, letting out mournful cries under the witch's interrogation, sobbing as if pleading.
Only when Li Fei saw that even her body was beginning to blur did she cut off the spell, lest she truly pleasure this female ghost to death.
"…"
Xiao Lian opened her eyes, panting, and looked blankly around, a sense of loss hollowing her out.
Suddenly she clapped both hands over her mouth, hunched forward, and let out muffled, choked sobs, two lines of tears sliding down from the corners of her eyes.
The onlooking female ghosts exchanged glances, seeing the terror in one another's eyes.
What in the world had that demon woman done? To make even us female ghosts weep?
"Keep going! See whether I'll yield!"
Xiao Lian suddenly sat up, glaring viciously at Li Fei, provoking her of her own accord in a hoarse voice.
—It didn't work?
Li Fei was a little taken aback. She tapped her lips lightly with her forefinger and sank into deep thought.
"Why did you stop? Can't do it anymore?"
Tears in her eyes, Xiao Lian roared in a near-suicidal posture, her tone laced not only with madness but with a thread of urgency.
Li Fei regarded her with suspicion, then something dawned on her, and a cunning smile crossed her face:
"You said it yourself."
"Heh, come on then."
Xiao Lian lay back down, cupping her belly with both hands, awaiting death in a serene pose.
Li Fei satisfied her—yet did not satisfy her fully.
Just as the female ghost's body tensed, on the verge of reaching the peak, Li Fei severed the spell.
Xiao Lian opened her eyes, hair in disarray, her tone turning somewhat irritable:
"Why did you stop?"
Realizing she'd all but given her true feelings away, she quickly patched it up:
"I thought you had some great ability. Turns out this is all there is to it?"
Li Fei smiled and said nothing, only snapped her fingers lightly, and then, at the most perfectly timed moment, cut it off again.
She savored the female ghost's near-crazed expression, the tail behind her swishing all the more merrily.
So this was the correct way to unlock the [Bliss] interrogation method after all!
"You depraved, vicious demon woman! If you won't keep interrogating me, then I will absolutely never confess!"
Xiao Lian clenched her pearly teeth, beside herself with frustration.
Unhurried, Li Fei shifted to a different sitting posture. Only once the female ghost had more or less calmed did she hurl out another [Bliss]—and at the very instant Xiao Lian was about to take flight, once more she cut off the spell with cold, merciless precision.
"Ah!"
Interrupted again and again, Xiao Lian was nearly going mad. Only when she met the demon woman's half-smiling eyes did her muddled thoughts finally catch up, and she realized she was being toyed with.
"I'll take you down with me!"
Xiao Lian flung herself forward, heedless of all, wanting to perish together in mutual ruin.
Li Fei knocked her down with a single elbow. Then the hard, cold heel of her scarlet high-heeled shoe pressed against the center of those exquisite collarbones, leaving the female ghost unable to rise again.
Her deep gaze fell, and Li Fei looked down at the tearful, pear-blossom-in-rain ghost with cruelty and mockery both.
[Bliss], cut off, [Bliss], cut off, [Bliss], cut off…
In the despairing cycle between dream and reality, Xiao Lian struggled no longer. She stared with gray, deadened, numb eyes, her pupils scattered, her long hair strewn in disorder across the ground—like a rag doll played to pieces.
The bright, gleaming toe of the shoe lightly lifted the female ghost's head where it had lolled to one side, and only when their gazes met did Li Fei ask in a gentle voice:
"I'll give you one last chance. Will you talk?"
From somewhere the female ghost found the strength to suddenly seize Li Fei's ankle, pleading in her eyes:
"Please, let me go back one more time, please…"
Clearly, she had submitted.
—A spell that's both alluring and hits hard is the best kind of spell!
Li Fei nodded with satisfaction.
And Xiao Lian, too, at last got what she wished for. Draped in the bridal gown, she carefully pushed open the door of that ethereal, dreamlike wedding chamber.
Xiao Hua and Auntie Hua still sat at the bedside waiting for her—only this time there was one more person.
The peerlessly beautiful demon woman, draped in red bridal adornments, her face mirroring peach blossoms, was lovely beyond all description.
Legs crossed, she sat dead center, an arm reaching out to embrace the two peony-flower demons Xiao Lian had longed for day and night. Candlelight leapt within those deep, dark pupils.
"Come, let us fall together into the abyss of bliss…"
The demon woman's vermilion lips parted, gentleness and madness coexisting in her tone, like a coil of bewitching mist, like a raging, blazing fire.
"Mm."
After a slight struggle, Xiao Lian's gaze grew hazy and entranced at last.
Biting her lip, step by step, she walked toward the abyss.
"Big Sister, spare us."
"We beg Big Sister to take us in…"
The female ghosts vied with one another to pledge their loyalty.
Xiao Lian could be called the ghost closest to Granny, deeply relied upon—it was even said she had the makings of a demon king.
When even she had been tormented into a crazed state, submitting beneath the demon woman's skirts, the other female ghosts saw no point in holding out, and one after another they came over.
In truth, only a very few were truly unafraid of death. From the very start Li Fei could have turned the muzzle around; no doubt, even without interrogation, many of the female ghosts would have been willing to confess.
But gnawing through the hardest bone—didn't that show off my, Li Fei's, capability all the more?
The female ghost who had been iron-boned and unbending half an hour before now personally led the way for Li Fei, the iron chain around her neck clinking as it went.
Like a shepherd driving sheep, Li Fei alone subdued over two hundred female ghosts. Whoever dared make a suspicious move got greeted at once with a Fireball.
Before long she halted before a rather magnificent hall. There was no need to guess—this was built by the demons at the Tree Demon's command.
There were almost no guards here, because the demons under the Tree Demon had gone out in full force to that cavern.
If they succeeded, then any demon who dared steal the Tree Demon's treasures would surely die a wretched death; if they failed, then with their bodies dead and paths severed, there was no point clinging to external possessions.
Li Fei glanced at the tightly shut hall doors, gave a faint smile, and waved her wand with elegance, saying in an unhurried tone:
"Unlocking Spell!"
A scorching Fireball roared out. The shattered doors crashed to the ground, orange-red molten iron trickling from them.
There truly weren't many door-locks in this world that could withstand a triple-damage Fireball, and even if she ran into one, Li Fei had the ultimate unlocking spell—Abyssal Lava.
"Who dares run wild here?"
The mere handful of demons inside were startled and hurried toward the doors.
Li Fei drew her sword and leapt in, cutting down in a flash these small-fry whose realms were at most Earth-tier. Then she drove straight ahead, stepping into the largest bedchamber, and quickly found what she was after.
"Tsk."
After a round of ransacking, Li Fei curled her lip in disdain.
Though that Tree Demon had lived for a long span of years, for most of its life it had been a shut-in, hunkering down and growing its strength. In these past few decades it had emerged and stirred up a bloody storm, yet nearly everything it had plundered had gone into the Soul-Burial Spirit-Nourishing Grand Array.
This severely cut into Li Fei's income.
"Soul-Locking Wick? Useless."
"Purple Placenta… hmm."
"Demon soldiers? They take up space."
She sorted and picked through it all for quite a while. Most of it was stall-grade junk; only a scant few things caught her eye.
[Ghost-Rearing Gourd]
Description: Can contain ghost entities; contained ghosts recover stamina quickly, with a certain nourishing effect on ghost-qi. Capacity 0/500.
[Lesser Yin Pearl]
Description: Can be set into a weapon to increase its sharpness and penetrating power.
Besides these two items, there were some materials that weren't bad either.
The various medicinal ingredients would definitely be taken back for Lady Zhihua to refine into pills; as for the materials beneficial to demons, those could be used to win demons over.
Among the myriad materials, the most precious was a jar of sap—amber-hued throughout, crystalline and translucent, more viscous than honey. This was a precious material that the Tree Demon secreted by instinct after crossing into the demon king realm, its yield extremely scarce. Li Fei had found only this one jar.
[Sap of the Thousand-Year Tree Demon]
Description: Once consumed, permanently boosts attributes and strengthens True Qi and battle qi; however, the mind will be eroded by demonic qi, and Morality Value will drop, falling as low as -10.
Li Fei solemnly put it away. This thing, too, would surely have to be handed to Lady Zhihua to handle before it could bring out its greatest effect.
The last thing worth noting was the legacy the Tree Demon had left behind.
Enormous, soft slabs of tree bark had been fashioned into scrolls and piled together. Li Fei pulled one out at random, and when she spread it open, the surface was covered with dense blood-red script—the strokes jagged and contorted, as if some murderer had written them in the victim's blood before taking their own life.
A pity that knowledge, an intangible asset, didn't count toward Wealth Points.
Li Fei sighed inwardly and scanned the bark scroll ten lines at a glance. Soon she came upon the [Soul Gathering] forbidden technique—the secret art by which the female ghosts fused into the Ghost Giant—as well as the cultivation and application methods of the [Black Wood Contract], and so on.
She coveted these savage, wicked demon arts, but regrettably, aside from the self-taught Glass Cannon and her masterful [Charm Mark Reconfiguration], the entire arsenal of spells possessed by the Spell Encyclopedia Lady had all been directly imparted to her by Miss System—she couldn't learn them.
—Back it up first, and once the female ghosts' loyalty rises, let them learn it… As for the originals, once she got back she'd hand them over to the academy. Techniques from another plane ought to fetch quite a few credits.
Carrying that tinge of regret, Li Fei quickly checked all the scrolls and was about to bundle them up and put them away when her gaze suddenly froze.
On the very last bark scroll was recorded, plain as day, the deployment conditions and Forbidden matters of the [Soul-Burial Spirit-Nourishing Grand Array]—and… the array's nine variations, along with their corresponding effects.
Li Fei had not originally had any designs on the Soul-Burial Spirit-Nourishing Grand Array. After all, that thing was thoroughly sinister and made for demons; for her, it was most likely harmful with no benefit.
Yet the knowledge on the bark scroll brought Li Fei an unexpected delight.
She calmed herself and read the contents word by word, quickly determining that what the Tree Demon had chosen was the [Soul-Burial Spirit-Nourishing Grand Array · Two], which could help it push one step further, a hundred feet past the pole's top.
But that was obviously not what Li Fei would choose.
"Should I pick [Three], or pick [Seven]…"
Li Fei's eyes swept back and forth over the crimson script on the scroll, sinking into a happy dilemma.
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