Chapter 187 — The Ghost Path
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 1 of 5
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The night lay deep.
The Wild Wolf Daoist, who had already passed through the gates of death and been dragged back by sheer luck, now had the wounds on his body bound up. He still looked utterly frail, but lying there on the ground, his breathing was faint yet even, and for the moment his life was no longer in danger.
Xiaowan, who had saved him, was likewise sunk in unconsciousness, but hers was merely an exhaustion of strength, nothing serious. Both of the other two conscious people present understood this well, and so they were not overly worried.
As for Zhou Yixuan, what concerned him now—what put him on his guard—was rather this mysterious man who had just stepped in to save Xiaowan. By now he had recognized the black-clad stranger; the man was not unfamiliar to him. He had seen him not long ago, in He Yin City at the foot of Canglan Mountain—the mysterious man in that charity mortuary. He had never thought to meet him again today.
Zhou Yixuan sat beside his granddaughter Xiaowan, his gaze drifting from time to time toward the black figure standing with hands clasped behind his back. With his experience and judgment, he naturally knew that this man's cultivation in the deviant arts of the Ghost Path was no small thing. Only that day the man had seemed an enemy, not a friend; he had never expected that today the black-clad stranger would step forward to save Xiaowan. At their last meeting they had been fortunate to have Ming Li's aid, and only then had the three of them escaped. Now, in this situation—though the black-clad man's purpose was unclear—the lives of the three on his side truly rested on a single thought of his.
While Zhou Yixuan was secretly turning matters over in his mind, the black-clad man—none other than Mr. Gui, who had been shadowing Ming Li southward all along—stood to one side looking as though everything was well in hand. Little did anyone know that he too was quite hesitant within. This act of saving someone ran utterly against his usual manner. It was only that the Ghost Path arts he cultivated had always been, in the eyes of the world, a strange and vicious heterodoxy—standing alone beyond the three great true schools of Dao, Buddha, and Demon, and beyond the shamanic arts of the southern frontier. Yet by worldly reckoning, even the Demon Cult, whose name had always been foul, actually looked down on the Ghost Path. For many years those of the Ghost Path had carried on quietly in the dark, and that Mr. Gui should receive such courtesy from the Demon King, master of the Ming Wang Sect, was an anomaly—and one with reasons of its own.
It was precisely for this reason that the Ghost Path, its origins shrouded in mystery, though it had endured to this day, was exceedingly thin in numbers; no one could say when its incense might go out. And small wonder: for a normal person, likely very few would ever think of cultivating such eerie arts, dealing with the gloomy ghost realm day in and day out.
Mr. Gui had cultivated for many years, and his attainments were among the foremost in the world; within the Ghost Path lineage, none could match him. His nature had always been hard and unyielding—a result of practicing the Ghost Path's strange arts. Yet tonight, suddenly seeing Xiaowan, at such a young age, display the supremely profound soul-gathering marvel of the Ghost Path, his shock was no small matter. First, he was astonished that this young woman, who looked so young and fair, should appear to possess an inconceivably high talent in the Ghost Path lineage. Second, and more astonishing still, was that although this soul-gathering marvel was a secret Ghost Path art, it had long since been lost for many years—even he, a grandmaster and great expert of the Ghost Path's heterodox arts, did not know it. Yet Xiaowan had brought it forth. How could it not shake him to the core?