As the Ghost Mother Cult was preparing to massacre the residential districts, in Kunpeng Ward, beneath the Grand Prime Minister’s Mansion, on the east side of the newly established Ministry of Punishments, and less than a mile from the criminal office, there stood an incredibly lavish garden.
Above its gate hung a large golden plaque inscribed with the words — “Six Virtues Residence”!
The disciples of the Great Yin’s cultural teachings often said that a “gentleman” possesses six virtues: Wisdom, Trustworthiness, Sagehood, Benevolence, Righteousness, and Loyalty.
This garden, named after these "Six Virtues," was naturally a place frequented daily by refined gentlemen of the cultural teachings.
The Six Virtues Residence was indeed a well-known gathering spot for the scholars and literati of Haojing, where cultured gentlemen often engaged in lofty discussions, harshly criticized government affairs, or made judgments about officials, vehemently denouncing certain corrupt “eunuch factions” and imperial nobles who brought disaster upon the people.
Tonight, however, there was no gathering at the Six Virtues Residence.
In a small building at the back courtyard, deep underground in an extremely secure secret chamber, the owner of the Six Virtues Residence — Duan Fangxin, the current Left Vice Minister of Punishments — had a son, Duan Fangyu, who held a position as a construction officer under the Ministry of Works.
The young man was tied tightly with three gleaming golden ropes, wrapped up like a large glutinous rice dumpling, suspended from the chamber wall.
An elderly man, ancient and withered, exuding a heavy aura of death, with nearly all his hair gone and mottled age spots covering his scalp, his body no longer able to stand upright and bent like a dried shrimp, sat comfortably at a small square table in the center of the chamber.
He was eating peanuts and drinking a small cup of strong liquor with unbridled pleasure.
To the west side of the chamber, at the foot of the wall, stood an intricately decorated altar upon which rested a pure gold statue measuring nine feet tall.
The statue depicted a woman’s figure, her features blurred, with one head and eight arms extended.
Each palm held a lifelike woman’s head, some smiling, some crying, some furious, some twisted, numb, or deranged.
Beneath the statue, a spirit tablet bore neatly written, gold-etched characters: “Li Wanjie’s Passage of the Remnant Souls Governs the Underworld, Severing Yin and Yang — Nine Yin Ghost Mother’s Most Sacred Throne”!
Despite the usual crowds of distinguished guests and literati who frequented the Six Virtues Residence, it was, in truth, the headquarters of the Ghost Mother Cult in Haojing.
And the precious son of the Left Vice Minister of Punishments, Duan Fangyu — famed throughout Haojing City for his generosity, chivalry, and circle of friends — was in fact the third-ranked figure within the Ghost Mother Cult, overseeing all matters within the city as the “Nine Yin Holy Son.”
Ah, yes.
The other sects of the Great Yin taught that those with a legitimate claim to succeed as sect leader bore the title “Holy Son.”
The Ghost Mother Cult, however, worshipped the “Nine Yin Ghost Mother.”
So they commonly referred to Duan Fangyu simply as the “Ghost Son.”
Right now, Duan Fangyu, bound tight and bloodshot-eyed, was furiously yelling at the old man.
“Elder Shi, with your reckless actions, the Ghost Mother Cult’s foundation in Haojing City is about to be utterly destroyed!”
“A few days ago, you ordered our cultists to swarm out and attack the ward and market magistrate offices. Over eighty percent of our painstakingly cultivated disciples were killed, and of the remaining twenty percent, you plan to execute them all soon!”
“Our cult now only has a few hundred elite core disciples left in Haojing!”
“And yet you want to use them to assault the imperial city, and then have them commit suicide as sacrificial offerings!”
“You are the sinners of the Nine Yin Cult! You have destroyed the legacy painstakingly built by our ancestors in Haojing over hundreds of years!”
“You, you...”
Duan Fangyu roared hoarsely at the old man, voice cracked and raw: “Turn back while you still can!”
Elder Shi chewed on his peanuts quietly, eyes fixed on Duan Fangyu.
After Duan Fangyu had shouted himself hoarse, Elder Shi slowly lifted his small liquor cup and took a gentle sip.
“Ghost Son, you are still young, full of vigor. You are a little over thirty years old, practicing at the Meridian Expansion Realm. Your lifespan can easily be a hundred and twenty years. You still have decades left to live.”
“Especially since you are a cultured gentleman, born to an official family, and our cult’s Ghost Son, the gold and silver flowing through your hands every year could provide you a life of luxury and excess.”
“But what about us old fellows who have been in Haojing City for over a century, assisting your nine elders?”
“The eldest self-estimates he has about two years left, even if he struggles, can’t hold on much longer.”
“The second elder is worse. In his youth, he fought fiercely and was wounded repeatedly by the law enforcers at the Ministry of Justice. Back then, it didn’t matter, but now, though he is younger than the eldest by over ten years, he has at most half a year of life left.”
“As for the other brothers, I won’t say.”
“As for me, I feel my primordial energy nearly collapse, my meridians and acupoints withering away. My time limit is also just two or three years.”
“But I am unwilling to give up.”
“The eldest and second elders are unwilling, too!”
“We live in mansions with beautiful concubines and servants, dressed in fine clothes, enjoying pleasures. Ah, life on this mortal plane is so beautiful—how can we just die and vanish?”
“Earlier this year, I took in a pair of twin sisters—the 139th and 140th concubines—just as I was beginning to savor their sweetness. How could I just let them go?”
“My millions in property, the scores of estates and manors inside and outside Haojing, the millions of acres of farmland, forests, pastures, fisheries, and mines.”
“Not to mention my many sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons...”
“I even raised a private army of over a hundred thousand men. On my territories, I am no lesser than the emperor!”
“You ask me to abandon all that, to return dust to dust, ashes to ashes?”
The old man shook his head with a smile: “Impossible, impossible. Not just you, our third Ghost Son — even if it were the first Ghost Son or the sect leader themselves, no one could stop us.”
Duan Fangyu stared deeply at the old man. “I have already reported the abnormal events in Haojing City to the sect leader.”
The old man shrugged carelessly. “By the time the leader receives the message and arrives, it will be half a month later… By dawn, everything will have settled into dust.”
“We are helping the Ghost Mother wash the imperial city in blood, sacrificing countless disciples and Haojing citizens. Our nine brothers only demand one thing — to become undead spirits so we can continue to enjoy our wealth and glory.”
“As long as we live, we can slowly gather and nurture the lost disciples…”
Duan Fangyu stared tightly at the old man. “The sect leader... Master, he won’t spare you… Ha! The followers in Haojing are our biggest source of wealth, gathering most of the cult’s elites. You have drained them all in such a short time for your own lives. You... are unforgivable.”
“If the sect leader doesn’t spare us, then kill him and replace him with another.”
The old man smiled kindly at Duan Fangyu. “We were lucky. A few months ago, we were the first to welcome the descending Ghost Mother.”
“As long as we acquire the cult’s legendary true ghostly body, we will transcend the mortal world and become akin to ghost gods...”
As he spoke, his body trembled with excitement.
Suddenly, a gulp of wine lodged in his throat and he began to cough violently, bending over with blood spraying from his throat.
Duan Fangyu looked at the old man in despair. “Elder Shi, that ghost you welcomed... Is she really the Nine Yin Ghost Mother we have worshiped for ten thousand years? Do you even believe it?”
The old man fell silent for a moment, then beamed brightly. “Believe or not, what difference does it make? She is a ghost, she is a woman, so she must be the Ghost Mother. As long as she grants us true ghostly bodies, whether she is truly the Nine Yin Ghost Mother or not, what does it matter?”
He glanced sideways at Duan Fangyu, leisurely adding, “Ghost Son, don’t be fooled by the sect leader’s old sayings… The teachings of the Nine Yin Cult are outdated.”
“Nowadays, the Nine Yin Cult is just a tool for us to make money… If it’s a tool, we use it when we need it, and discard it when it’s no longer useful.”
Suddenly, the sound of galloping hooves cried out.
To their shock, the sound came from behind the stone walls of the chamber.
With terrified eyes, Elder Shi and Duan Fangyu watched as a magnificent warhorse emerged from the stone wall itself.
The horse was wrapped in gray mist, its eyes gleaming blood red, its four hooves shrouded in blood-colored light, its mane rippling like waves, constantly emitting biting cold gray vapor.
Its whole body shimmered faintly with phosphorescence.
Riding the horse was a man with handsome, refined features, appearing about forty years old, face fair and beardless but with a short beard, looking more like a modest gentleman than the majority of Haojing’s scholars.
He wore a purple robe, a jade belt, a chi dragon jade pendant, and a five-beam black gauze official’s hat.
This man was, incredibly, a high official of the Great Yin Dynasty, ranked third grade or above!
“S-Sect... Sect Leader?” Elder Shi’s eyes glazed over as he stared at the stone wall.
Even on the fastest mount, coming from his current location, it would take over half a month to reach this place.
How could it be the sect leader appeared here already?
More astonishingly, how could he have used such an unbelievable method to come underground, directly passing through the five-foot-thick stone wall and bursting into the secret chamber?
Elder Shi had been part of the Nine Yin Cult for more than a century.
He swore on his old life that within the history of the cult, no one had ever heard of such a strange, miraculous method.
“Ma-Master...” Duan Fangyu burst with excitement, crying out loud: “The nine elders have rebelled. They sacrificed almost all the cultists in Haojing, sending them to attack government offices, causing nearly all to be killed.”
“They sacrificed their own disciples to a mysterious being they call the ‘Ghost Mother,’ making a huge commotion in Haojing.”
“Now, the other eight elders still lead the last few hundred elite disciples inside the city, uprising near the imperial palace.”
“They want to kill all the palace servants, offering the lives of over a hundred thousand people to that thing as sacrifice—blood, souls—to increase its power, aiming to kill the current Empress Dowager and the likes, to sever all ties and achieve immediate ascension.”
Elder Shi trembled as he looked at the stoic, silent Nine Yin sect leader atop the horse.
His body shook, and with a thud, he knelt to the ground.
With a hoarse voice, he said, “Sect leader, it truly is the Nine Yin Ghost Mother descended. She promised that our Nine Yin Cult would become…”
The Nine Yin sect leader raised his right hand and lightly struck down with a palm.
‘Smack!’
Elder Shi exploded into a cloud of bloody mist, leaving a thin, even layer of blood smeared across the chamber’s walls.
“Even so, the greatest benefits must be enjoyed by me — your sect leader…”
“You have overstepped your bounds.”
Twelve thousand miles east of Haojing City, the second-rank Governor of Lozhou and Imperial Conqueror, also the Nine Yin sect leader, Shi Wuyou sneered.
With a wave of his right hand, the golden ropes binding Duan Fangyu shattered, piece by piece dissolving into nothingness.
(End of Chapter)