“By the age of twenty, Ye Yu had successfully broken into the Ascension Realm—and had deliberately amassed 270,000 points of negative emotional energy!”
“If he exchanged them all at once, there was no doubt his cultivation would skyrocket several tiers.”
“This was the fruit of ten years’ relentless effort. During that time, he had never been idle for a single moment.”
“Not to mention turning the entire Wuzong Ghost Abode into utter chaos, at the very least his four senior brothers had never enjoyed a single peaceful day.”
“Senior Brother meditates? I strike the drum—I want to see if breaking his meditation will drive him mad!”
“Second Brother wants to study the cultivation manuals? Sorry, I’ll tear them up to see if you can recite them from memory. Ah? You can’t? Then you’re trash—after all that reading you still can’t recite, go figure out your own shortcomings!”
“Third Brother, don’t move—I’ll wash your head with black dog’s blood. I’ve heard from the people of Ghost City that this stuff is a bane to low-level ghosts. I want to see if it works on a powerhouse like you!”
“Fourth Brother, do you practice any ghost-fire techniques? I want to learn one. Go find your strongest ghost-fire skill—once I master it, I’ll burn you. Senior Brother says you’re slow to warm up; I don’t believe it. I want to see if you’ll stay chill when you’re on fire.”
“Honestly, if Master hadn’t said it himself—that no one may strike Ye Yu—those senior brothers would have torn him to shreds the moment they got the chance!”
“In the end, they came up with a plan: ‘Ye Yu loves to stir up trouble every day. If we can’t beat him, can we at least avoid him?’”
“So the four senior brothers simultaneously set out on travels!”
“Even the mildest of them, First Senior Brother Yu Lixin, did the same!”
“However, they had only been gone half a day when Master Xiang Tianya summoned them all back!”
“The reason was simple: Ye Yu couldn’t harvest any negative emotional energy from his senior brothers, so naturally he had to find a way to mess with Master!”
“After all, the others in Wuzong Ghost Abode simply weren’t worth his time!”
“Xiang Tianya knew full well that Ye Yu’s tongue was like a poisoned blade. If he heard too much, his morale would falter, his chest would tighten, and his Dao-heart would waver.”
“So he insisted the disciples stay on hand—he absolutely refused to suffer that torment himself!”
“And because of that, the four senior brothers remained firmly nailed inside the sect, becoming Ye Yu’s daily tools for refreshing his negative emotional energy stockpile.”
“But as time passed, they all realized that Ye Yu’s heart wasn’t truly malicious—he only had a venomous tongue and liked to toy with people’s mindsets.”
“First Senior Brother Yu Lixin once tried to teach Ye Yu to speak properly!”
“After three days of effort, he gave up.”
“He feared that if he spent any more time alone with Ye Yu, he’d end up driven to pieces by sheer irritation!”
“If the junior brother insisted on behaving this way, then so be it!”
“The other senior brothers felt the same. Yet after spending so much time together, they grew quite familiar and even somewhat indulgent.”
“In their eyes, they couldn’t help but show a hint «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» of doting affection.”
“After all, he was just a boy who hadn’t yet grown up!”
“And a genius boy at that!”
“A twenty-year-old in the Ascension Realm—no wonder Master took such special care of him. As long as he lived, Wuzong Ghost Abode would surely rise again!”
“Of course, it would be even better if he were mute!”
“Lately, however, Ye Yu had not been in high spirits.”
“He’d noticed that the amount of negative emotional energy he extracted from his four senior brothers had dwindled.”
“At first it was over a thousand points each; now it was only in the dozens!”
“All signs pointed to this principle: the greater the gap in strength between two people, the more negative emotional energy was released. When their strengths were similar, the yield was relatively lower.”
“Moreover, there was another drawback to his Dream-Realm gift: no BUG exploitation allowed!”
“You couldn’t keep harvesting one person indefinitely!”
“And Ye Yu had been leeching off his four senior brothers for ten whole years!”
“They had truly suffered!”
“It was time to give them a way out!”
“That very night, Ye Yu went of his own accord to the entrance of First Senior Brother’s Fudi Dongtian, intending to thank him.”
“Over these ten years, Yu Lixin had truly taken care of him.”
“Even when driven to the brink of soul-body imbalance, he’d never thought to strike him. The harshest words he’d ever used were simply: ‘Excessive.’”
“Yu Lixin was like a gentleman among mortals—cultured and refined. He’d had the bad luck to gain a disciple like Ye Yu. But from now on, he’d trouble him no more!”
“Senior Brother, I’ve come to see you. Don’t be nervous or hide—today I have something important to discuss!”
As he spoke, Ye Yu stepped inside—but found no trace of Yu Lixin in the Fudi Dongtian.
“Could it be he stepped out for some matter?”
Ye Yu didn’t dwell on it—after all, Yu Lixin was always busy. He turned and headed for the next Fudi Dongtian.
Second Senior Brother Du Lin was a homebody ghost. His favorite pastime was studying that Way of Deduction manual in his Fudi Dongtian. Although he always miscalculated, he never tired of it. Perhaps this was what it meant to be spiritually fulfilled!
But, to Ye Yu’s surprise, Du Lin was absent as well.
“Could the four senior brothers have really had enough? Running away together again?”
“It’s not necessary—they’d endured for ten years. Shouldn’t they have grown accustomed by now?”
“And it’s already been nine hours today, and I haven’t even gotten to rile them up yet. Shouldn’t they be burning incense at home in fear?”
“I finally prepared to talk to them normally, yet they don’t even give me the chance. Sigh!”
He shook his head and was about to leave the Fudi Dongtian, when a figure blocked his path.
It was Fourth Senior Brother Meng Ling’en. At this moment, his soul-body was critically wounded; a large gash marred his abdomen, wisps of ghost qi leaking from the wound.
If he didn’t receive timely healing, his soul would scatter before long!
Ye Yu’s heart dropped. He hurriedly asked what had happened.
“Listen,” Meng Ling’en said, “Master has gone mad. He’s swallowed First and Second Senior Brothers. Third Senior Brother led him away to cover my escape. Now you and I must leave together—or we’ll both die here!”
Saying so, Meng Ling’en seized Ye Yu’s arm and together they fled at top speed.
Just as First Senior Brother Yu Lixin had predicted ten years ago, Meng Ling’en was slow to warm up—but after so long, even he would grow passionate.
In fact, not only Meng Ling’en but the other senior brothers as well—they had long since come to see Ye Yu as their mischievous junior brother.
Though they never said so outwardly, that was exactly how they felt.
This was the true reason Meng Ling’en had risked returning alone to fetch Ye Yu.
But alas, how could disciples stand against their master?
They had not yet passed beyond the gates of Wuzong Ghost Abode when an immense Ghost Wall rose up to block them completely!
