Blind and Delicate Husband

“Why don’t you give that top-level spiritual stone to me!”

“Why should I give it to you? Yun Qingzhu, who do you think you are?”

“You!”

“Caw—” the frightened crow screamed, flapping its wings up towards the sky.

In that moment, the crescent moon was covered by dark clouds, and darkness approached Dingtian Mansion in the night, as if to swallow it whole.

At this time in Dingtian Mansion, two people were arguing on a stone bridge, and they had not noticed the vision of the night.

An octagonal lantern with red lacquer fell onto the ground and rolled down the stairs of the stone bridge. Half of the man’s handsome face was hidden in shadow, the disgust in his eyes growing and exploding in a single instant.

“Bi Cen! Go and die!” The man’s handsome face was distorted as he reached out and forcefully pushed the person in front of him. The woman hit her back against the stone railing— she only had time to cry out before her whole person, due to the tremendous inertia, fell over the railing.

The sound of falling water followed: “Plop—”

The woman didn’t know how to swim. She floated up and down in the water. When she came up, she shouted, “Someone—help…” She sank again and swallowed a few gulps of water.

The redness in Yun Qingzhu’s eyes dissipated after he pushed the woman, and he returned to his senses. His hands shook and froze for a while; he trembled when he heard the woman’s intermittent calls for help, fear spreading in his heart.

Bi Cen, this woman, was the new mansion lord of Dingtian Mansion. If someone else found out about it, that it was him who had pushed her down…

No! He couldn’t let Bi Cen live!

“Boom—” Purple lightning cut through the sky; deafening thunder sounded without warning. Yun Qingzhu had committed a wrong. His legs trembled from the thunder, and he almost fell to the ground.

Yun Qingzhu’s pale face was illuminated by thunderbolts as he managed to hold on to the railing. He looked down anxiously and, through the dense lightning, saw the woman struggling on the water surface, her black hair spreading out and sticking to her face, as if she were a water ghost.

Quickly sink… hurry up and die…

Yun Qingzhu clung tightly to the railing, looked around, and eagerly meditated in his heart.

“Boom—”

After another strike of lightning, Yun Qingzhu was delighted to see that the woman who had fallen into the water seemed to finally lose her strength, slowly sinking below the dark water’s surface…

He waited for a while, making sure that the woman was dead. Then he raised his hands and messed up his clothes and hair; putting on an expression of horror, he ran off in a panic and shouted, “Not good! The mansion lord fell into the water—”

Soon, on that gloomy night, a group of servants with torches hurried over, and the area around the stone bridge was brightly illuminated by fire. 

When five servants who knew how to swim went into the water to search for their mansion lord, Yun Qingzhu stood by the river and wiped his tears, saying, “It’s all my fault, if I had persuaded the mansion lord not to stand near the river, then she wouldn’t have… wouldn’t have accidentally slipped down…”

He was born handsome; dressed in white, with his thin figure trembling slightly and his expression full of sorrow and guilt, standing there weeping like a painting, people were incapable of blaming him.

The steward didn’t have time to take care of the brother that the mansion lord had brought into the mansion on a whim. He hurriedly asked the servants who were in the water, “Haven’t you found her yet?”

The servants’ expressions looked very ugly.

If it was as Yun Qingzhu said, that the mansion lord had fallen into the water here, and she hadn’t risen for so long, it would be estimated that the person was no longer alive.

Everyone knew that Bi Cen, the new mansion lord of Dingtian Mansion, had inherited the position of the previous mansion lord and was an expert in the art of divination, proficient in profound arts, and could communicate with the spirits, change one’s fate, avoid disasters, and predict the future… but she couldn’t swim.

Unexpectedly, a dignified generation of profound arts masters had drowned in the river.

If word of it got out, I wonder if the world would sigh, sneer, or ruthlessly ridicule and treat this as after-dinner gossip. 

This river led to the outside of the mansion. Although the current wasn’t turbulent, it was enough to wash people away. Just now, so many people had gone down to look around, but no one had been found—some servants guessed that their mansion lord might’ve been swept away by the current, and the search was unsuccessful. One after another, the servants went ashore. 

Despite being blocked by the servants, Yun Qingzhu rushed and fell forward on his knees, mournfully choking on the calm, stagnant river; his voice became hoarse. “Leave me alone, let me go down! Let me save her. Mansion lord! You’ve died so miserably!”  

Two servants held onto his shoulders with difficulty. The steward, irritated by Yun Qingzhu’s crying, was about to yell at them, but who knew what they saw when they suddenly changed expression and staggered back—after several steps, they cried, “Oh my god! What is that?! Quick, quick, quick, retreat!” 

While everyone was at a loss, a stern wind blew from nowhere. The gust of wind, extremely cold, swept up the dead branches and leaves on the ground, making sand and rocks fly for a while. 

“Poof—” All the burning torches went out, and the riverbank was plunged into suffocating darkness.

“What’s the matter?!”

“Steward Gu, what did you see?”

“Could—could it be—a ghost?”

“!!!” Nobody knew who said what in the panic, and everyone went crazy.

People could turn into ghosts after death. If they turned into wicked ghosts and evil spirits, they could eat people and do evil. This huge province, Youzhou, was located in an evil place, rich in vengeful, wicked ghosts. The reason for its stability up until now was that it relied on Dingtian Mansion to calm the souls and thin out the ghosts; now that Dingtian Mansion’s mansion lord was dead, what would it mean for them? The ghosts suppressed by Dingtian Mansion had broken through the seal—in the future, Youzhou might become a ghost town.

“Boom—”

A huge crack of thunder frightened everyone. The moment the pale lightning flashed by, Yun Qingzhu, who had been kneeling on the shore, suddenly used his hands and feet to retreat madly, and he screamed, “No! Don’t come here!”

Everyone trembled, and their eyes gathered towards him.

“Since you’re sorry, come down and accompany me.” The voice coming from somewhere was cold and disturbing, with endless malice: “Hell has no shortage of scumbags like you.”

A pale hand broke through the water’s surface—its five fingers formed a claw and suddenly grabbed onto the shore.

Under the continuous flashes of lightning, they saw the hand’s pointed, bright red nails.

The dark clouds had disappeared at some point, and a blood-red crescent moon emitted a strange light in the sky.

Under the light, the river seemed to be flowing with gurgling blood, becoming a river of blood.

A strong wind blew on the earth.

Strands of black mist drilled out from the ground, were engulfed by the wind, and drifted towards the sky. The blood moon was looming from under the cover of the black mist, and the violent, whistling wind mixed with the cry of ghosts.

“Ooo…”

“Ooo…”

Hundreds of tendrils of black mist condensed into almost-substance, whizzing past Yun Qingzhu’s face and leaving fresh trails of blood.

“Ahhh, ghost! No! Don’t come over!” Yun Qingzhu screamed, flustered, covering his face.

Those cries gradually turned into whispers.

“Haha, he’s looking for death!” 

“You dare to provoke… the king…”

“Kill… kill him… feed him to the dogs!”

“Ghost! Ghost!” Yun Qingzhu pressed on the wound on his face in fear, wanting to retreat, but his legs grew weak; the veins on his forehead jumped violently as his hands chaotically drove away the black mist around him. He was so scared that he almost peed his pants. “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me! Please! Mansion lord, mansion lord, I didn’t mean to push you down the river, I was wrong, I was wrong! Don’t look for me, don’t—don’t—don’t you like me the most?”

He was scared silly, words begging for mercy coming out of his mouth, and everyone’s gazes changed when they looked at him.

How could there be such a vicious man?! He was obviously the one who pushed the mansion lord, but he’d acted so convincingly just now… It was too terrible!

The black mists seemed to grow irritated.

“Bah!”

“Tear that disgusting man apart!”

From the outside, Yun Qingzhu was almost swallowed by the black mist.

At this point in time, a ghost in the bloody river, hair all disheveled, slowly climbed onto the shore.

She raised her head. From under her long, dark hair, she revealed a pair of eerie, blood-red eyes, so evil that they carried the malice of an entire world. The indescribable black shadow condensed into a twisted, odd shape behind her, marking her as dangerous as a demon who had just crawled out of the abyss of hell.

“Hell welcomes you.”

She treacherously stretched out her hands, dripping with blood, towards Yun Qingzhu.

As if fearing her breath, the strands of black mist retreated, one after another. Yun Qingzhu, who had been freed from the black mist, stared at her eyes for a moment. The man went crazy, madly jumped into the water—“plop”—and then went silent.

The female ghost, wearing a red dress, slowly lifted her pale lips, but there was no smile in her crimson eyes. She quickly looked at the other people who were backing away and slowly licked her lips, revealing two white fangs; the black shadow behind her distorted more and more.

Everyone was stunned for a while. The steward was the first one who came to his senses and awakened everyone with his words: “What are you all doing in a daze? Quickly, run!”

However, before they turned around, the female ghost’s figure shook, and she fell to the ground, as if in relief. The black mist around her also dissipated, as if it had never appeared in the first place.

The clouds scattered, the wind stopped. Looking at the sky again, there was no blood moon—only a bright crescent moon quietly hanging from the horizon.

A servant glanced at the fallen female ghost and whispered, “Why does this ghost look… a bit like the mansion lord?”

Everyone looked over, oh— 

It really looked like…

The female ghost’s clothes had also changed back to a smoky green dress; it was their mansion lord’s usual dress.

The steward, who was the most courageous, moved to touch her hand, and he said with a trembling voice, “It’s warm, the mansion lord is still alive!” 

But half an hour had passed since the mansion lord had fallen into the water… Generally speaking, the mansion lord shouldn’t be alive.

So was the person who had climbed out a ghost or a human?

“…” Everyone looked at each other.

No matter if it was a ghost or not, he calmed down and guessed that the new mansion lord had just been possessed by a ghost. He took a deep breath, called a maid to send the mansion lord back, and sent someone to go down the river to find Yun Qingzhu.

Yun Qingzhu still had half a breath when he was picked up. After waking up, he kept on saying nonsense words, begging for mercy in particular.

The servants knew that the mansion lord had fallen into the water and that he was the one who had pushed her—feeling both contemptuous and disgusted, they put him in the woodshed.

It was a long night, destined to be a restless one.

At Donggao Palace, late at night, the state preceptor asked to see Emperor Donggao.

“This official observed the celestial phenomena in the night. Ghosts gathered in Youzhou, and a vision appeared in the sky, fearing the birth of a ghost king.” The state preceptor frowned tightly and bowed in front of the silent emperor. “Your Majesty, the birth of a ghost king would surely do harm to one’s faction.”

Under the swaying candlelight, the emperor’s expression was vague. “Does the state preceptor know the reason for the ghost king’s birth?”

“This official is ashamed and has not yet figured out the reason—heaven’s secrets could not be divulged.”  Then he added,  “Your Majesty, is there someone suitable to go to Youzhou for inspection?” 

The emperor rubbed his sword. The light reflected from the sword fell on his stern face. “Summon the third prince.” 

The state preceptor’s lowered eyes quickly flashed with a strange light. In his sleeves, his hands were clenched as he calmly answered, “Yes”.

After the state preceptor left, the emperor returned the sword to its sheath and walked to the window. He gazed upon the blood moon—hidden behind the clouds again—and sighed, “The world is going to be thrown into chaos.”