Su Ming’s voice trembled in the silent night, carrying a month’s worth of pent-up grievance and wild joy.

“Master! You… you’re finally awake!”

Bean-sized tears could no longer be held back, rolling down the youth’s cheeks and falling onto the old book pages, smudging a small patch of ink.

Lin Yu secretly complained, “Hey, hey, hey, don’t cry! You crying like this makes me seem like a heartless scoundrel who abandoned the lonely and widowed… no, a heartless master! My image! My lofty demeanor is about to collapse!”

Lin Yu’s soul body frantically “steadied itself” inside the ring and cleared his (non-existent) throat.

He tried his best to make his voice sound ancient and unrippled, carrying a trace of weariness and vicissitude from just waking from deep meditation.

“Foolish child, with such an unstable state of mind, how can you seek the Great Dao?”

The voice sounded directly in Su Ming’s mind, gentle yet carrying a hint of reproach, yet it was like the warmest flame, instantly dispelling all the coldness and terror in Su Ming’s heart.

“Disciple… disciple just…” Su Ming was incoherent, crying and laughing like a fool.

“Your master is unharmed,” Lin Yu said lightly, while simultaneously beginning to rapidly inspect the changes in himself.

This one “look” startled even himself.

Lin Yu secretly exclaimed, “Holy crap! Is this me?”

Originally, that ethereal, translucent soul body had now solidified several times over! Although it was still an illusory shadow, its outline was clear, no longer looking like it would scatter with a gust of wind. He could even faintly see a layer of faint, flowing ghostly light shimmering on the surface of the soul body.

He felt like he had gone from a refugee starving for five hundred years to a three-hundred-pound strongman after one meal, his entire being brimming with a sense of power.

With a slight stir of his thoughts.

“Swish!”

His perception abruptly extended outward, instantly breaking through the confines of the small room.

He “saw” the rain-soaked bluestone slabs in the courtyard, the spider hiding from the rain under the eaves, and in his eldest brother Su Feng’s room next door, the slight frown on his sister-in-law Wang Chuntao’s brow as she slept.

Further out, he could even “hear” the uneasy clucking of the old hen in Widow Li’s house at the village entrance.

The range had expanded at least tenfold!

And… the perception had become much more refined.

He could clearly “smell” the faint scent emanating from the pine-soot ink stick on Su Ming’s desk. Though weak, it was real.

He could also “feel” the vigorous, sun-like Yang energy radiating from Su Ming’s body, continuously nourishing his own form and repairing the hidden injuries left from that night.

Lin Yu secretly gloated, “Struck gold! A bloody windfall! Just devouring a little ghost, and the effect is comparable to a super invincible ‘I Love One Stick’ brand ten-complete great tonic pill! This deal… is worth it!”

An unprecedented sense of satisfaction and power surged from the depths of his soul body.

Right at that moment, a thought popped up without warning.

That kid’s Yang energy… smells so good…

If I could get a little closer, take a whiff… the taste would surely be wonderful…

Lin Yu’s soul body shuddered violently!

Lin Yu internally: “Wait! What was I just thinking?! Sucking from my disciple? Am I crazy?! That’s my pension fund! My long-term meal ticket! How could I have such a beastly thought!”

A wave of icy cold instantly extinguished that self-satisfaction.

He was horrified to discover that his emotions seemed to have become somewhat… unstable.

That pure Yin energy originating from the shadow, though greatly nourishing, was also like a sugar-coated cannonball. Beneath the sugar coating, it contained the most pure resentment, greed, and madness of that ghost creature before its death!

He forced himself to shift his attention, focusing his mind on Su Ming.

“Your mind has been in turmoil this past month,” Lin Yu slowly spoke.

Su Ming’s body stiffened. He lowered his head, his face full of guilt. “Disciple… disciple thought Master you…”

“Thought my soul had scattered to the winds?” Lin Yu’s tone betrayed neither joy nor anger. “So you gave up on yourself, even neglecting the most basic meditation?”

“Disciple wouldn’t dare!” Su Ming thudded to his knees, his forehead pressed against the cold ground. “Disciple was just… just panicked and confused, unable to calm my mind…”

Lin Yu muttered internally, “Alright, alright, I know you’re loyal, get up already, the floor is cold. I’m not completely dead yet. But come to think of it, this kid is quite devoted. Good, didn’t save him for nothing.”

Lin Yu grumbled in his heart, but his mouth continued to maintain the lofty master persona. “Panic and confusion are the greatest obstacles on the path of cultivation. Do you know why the ghost in the temple that day was defeated?”

Su Ming was taken aback, raising his head. “Because it… was no match for Master’s divine might?”

“Wrong!” Lin Yu firmly denied.

Internally: “Nonsense! Of course it’s because I ate it! But can I say that? No! Must package it, turn it into a teaching case!”

“It was defeated by greed, destroyed by loss of control,” Lin Yu’s voice was distant and profound, as if expounding some fundamental truth of heaven and earth. “It was devoured by its own desires, lost its original heart, thus appearing strong on the outside but hollow within, and utterly vulnerable.”

As he spoke, he tried to activate that newly acquired power.

Threads of Yin-cold energy seeped out from the ring. In Su Ming’s “vision,” that blurry old man’s illusory shadow seemed clearer than before, the contours of his facial features faintly visible.

This was the ability stripped from that shadow—illusion!

Lin Yu thought to himself, “Hey, not bad! The props for fooling my disciple have been upgraded, high-definition remastered version!”

Su Ming looked at that master’s illusory shadow, more solid than ever, his eyes filled with awe and worship.

Master truly is an immortal among men!

Just as Lin Yu was feeling satisfied with his new ability, a “boom” sounded in his mind as a fragment of memory not belonging to him exploded!

It was a dark room. A woman with a pretty face was facing a mirror, using a sharp pair of scissors to, little by little… cut open her own throat!

In the mirror, her face wore a bizarre, satisfied smile.

Blood gushed out, staining her wedding dress crimson!

A towering wave of resentment and violence, like a breached flood, instantly assaulted Lin Yu’s soul body!

Kill!

Kill the living person before me!

Devour his flesh and blood!

Seize his Yang energy!

“Urgh…”

Lin Yu’s soul body twisted violently. That “lofty master” illusion he had painstakingly maintained instantly disintegrated, reverting to a churning mass of black energy!

A bone-chilling, piercing killing intent abruptly emanated from the ring!

“Master?!”

Su Ming was horrified, his face losing color!

He felt an unprecedented malice, like countless icy needles, viciously stabbing into his soul!

This malice was even more pure, even more terrifying, than the ghost creature in the broken temple that night!

He felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar, the blood in his entire body seeming to freeze solid.

“Get out!”

Lin Yu let out a silent roar deep within his consciousness!

Lin Yu: “Damn it! Get the hell out! This is my territory! The retirement home I worked so hard to find, how can I let you, a wandering ghost, run wild here!”

He used all the willpower honed over five hundred years, desperately guarding his original heart.

That instinct for survival, that obsession with a “slacker life,” transformed into the sturdiest embankment at this moment, resisting the onslaught of that maddened will!

On the ring, those six blood-red patterns suddenly brightened. An even more ferocious, more ancient aura erupted, as if a monarch had been provoked, forcibly suppressing that foreign violent will.

The icy killing intent swirling around the ring receded like a tide.

Everything returned to calm.

Su Ming gasped for breath in large gulps, his whole body already soaked in cold sweat. He looked at the ring on his finger with shock and uncertainty. The terror of that moment just now made his heart still pound wildly.

“Disciple…”

Lin Yu’s voice sounded again, only this time, it was filled with unconcealable weakness and exhaustion.

“Your master… needs to rest quietly a while longer… You… remember what I just said… guard your original heart…”

Lin Yu: “Damn… almost capsized… the side effects of this thing are too fierce! No, can’t eat any more! At least until I find an ‘antidote’ or ‘digest’ it, absolutely must not touch this kind of thing again! The risk is too high, seriously affecting my retirement quality of life!”

Lin Yu now had only one thought.

This power was poison, a deadly toxin that could scatter his soul to the winds!

He must find a way to expel the “toxins” within it, or completely digest and assimilate it.

Otherwise, he would sooner or later become a monster that only knew how to devour and kill.

That was not the transmigrated life he wanted!

“Disciple… obeys!” Su Ming suppressed the shock and doubt in his heart, respectfully responding.

Although he didn’t know what had just happened, he could sense that Master had paid a great price to suppress something.

“Go to sleep,” Lin Yu’s voice was almost inaudible. “Starting tomorrow, your cultivation will have an additional subject.”

After speaking, Lin Yu’s aura completely sank into silence. No matter how Su Ming called out, there was no further response.

Su Ming knelt in place for a long time before slowly rising.

He blew out the oil lamp, lay down on the cold bed board, eyes wide open, without a trace of sleepiness.

The terrifying aura Master had leaked in that instant, that insane killing intent that didn’t belong to Master, and Master’s last meaningful words kept echoing in his mind.

He faintly sensed that the master he had apprenticed himself to harbored secrets deeper and more dangerous than the ghost in the mountains.

And at this moment, deep within the ring.

Lin Yu’s soul body was curled into a ball, mobilizing all his mental energy to wage a difficult struggle against those violent memory fragments and greedy thoughts.

Lin Yu: “Heart-cleansing mantra… Tao Te Ching… Prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony… anything is fine, come and suppress it! I don’t want to become a madman! My goal is the stars and the sea… no, it’s a stable retirement!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep