Devouring Ghost Fire

Qiu Rong and Xiao Xie were both stunned. This request was even stranger than Sa Yuehua's earlier one; no one had ever asked them this before, not even Tao Wangsan.

Qiu Rong hesitated for a long time before finally reaching out and plucking a small cluster of dark blue flames from the will-o'-the-wisp between her brows. Xiao Xie followed suit; her will-o'-the-wisp was a paler color, with a faint warm yellow tinge.

Two clusters of will-o'-the-wisps were held in the palm of his hand and presented to Liu Jin.

Liu Jin opened his mouth and swallowed. Qiu Rong's ghost fire entered his throat, and a bitter taste rushed from the tip of his tongue straight to his heart. It was the cry for help that no one heard when he died unjustly, the hatred that had nowhere to be delivered after the enemy died, and the stubbornness of standing in front of his own empty grave and silently questioning the cold moon, "Why?"

Xiao Xie's will-o'-the-wisp followed, softer and more stubborn than Qiu Rong's. It was an endless recollection of the brief and beautiful time in her life, an unwillingness to forget a certain person, a certain word, or a smile captured when turning around, and a reluctance to see her one more time or smile one more time even though she knew she was dead.

Two clusters of ghostly fire slowly burned in his inner vision, intertwining with the vitality of the Lingzhi Demon Fire, the coolness of the Taiyin Fire, and the destruction of the Samadhi True Fire.

He pondered these two drastically different obsessions, and suddenly thought of many people. The first one that came to mind was...

Zuo Ruotong

Master's eternally clear and pure face, the well-worn scriptures in the lecture hall, and the slender figure meditating alone in front of the stone wall on the back mountain.

What is Zuo Ruotong's obsession?

It is a path that the founders of the Sanyi School have pondered for three hundred years but have not yet completed.

He has walked this road to the end, but how long did he carry that burden before he finished?

The rise and fall of the sect over hundreds of years, the last wishes of the patriarchs, and the responsibility to the disciples all rested on his shoulders.

That's not an obsession, that's a belief.

But when a belief becomes too strong, it becomes an obsession.

Then he thought of two people who seemed to have no obsessions.

Zhang Zhiwei, the Taoist priest who slapped Lu Jin to tears at the Lu family's birthday banquet, forced Lu Jin to admit defeat by his own Qi Fire, and then laughed and said, "Next time I will find a way to break your fire."

His world was too simple: become stronger, and then continue to become stronger. There was no resentment, no bitterness, no "why should I?", only "not enough."

What about Wugensheng? The man sitting on the edge of the field, bewildered, asking, "Does what I'm doing have any meaning?" His world is even stranger: he is clearly doing what everyone thinks is impossible, integrating all aspects of humanity, setting boundaries for evil, and turning disorder into order.

But he himself would occasionally doubt the meaning of it all. One of these two never looked back, and the other was always thinking, yet neither of them was trapped by their obsessions. Zhang Zhiwei was born without obsessions, while Wugensheng was forever examining his own obsessions.

And what about himself? Liu Jin's obsession has always been very clear.

First, he wanted to return home with his newfound skills. On Earth, he was an ordinary person, and it was only after transmigrating that he achieved his current status. He wanted to go back, to see what Earth was like now, and to do something with his newfound abilities.

Secondly, he wanted to become an immortal. Ever since Zuo Ruotong asked him, "What do you think constitutes an immortal?", this thought had never left him.

He broke through the third level of the Reverse Rebirth Triple Realm, and successfully refined the Samadhi True Fire. He even punctured the screen of the live streaming system, but what is an immortal? He still doesn't fully understand.

These two things form the basis of his character, the driving force behind his spiritual practice, and the unease that always suddenly arises in the dead of night.

However, after he mastered the Samadhi Fire, he found that his obsession was no longer a problem.

Burning everything to return to the source, a person who can repeatedly temper their own heart, for whom obsession is not a burden, but fuel.

Having figured all this out, Liu Jin opened his eyes. He spoke to Qiu Rong and Xiao Xie, his tone not like that of a master giving guidance, but more like explaining a principle he had just come to understand.

Having convictions isn't a bad thing. Just don't let them trap you. If you are trapped, your convictions are a cage; if you aren't, they are a ladder.

He raised his hand and plucked two silvery-white specks of light from the Taiyin gauze robe, gently flicking them toward Qiu Rong and Xiao Xie.

The light fell between their brows, transforming into a cluster of extremely thin, silvery-white flames that hovered and slowly rotated beside their respective will-o'-the-wisps.

The Taiyin Fire Star protects the soul. As long as the flame does not go out, their soul will not be harmed by external forces, nor will it be gradually dissipated by the yin energy due to staying in the yang world for too long.

At the same time, Qiu Rong and Xiao Xie felt a cool, spring-like power envelop their soul cores, which was more than ten times purer than the few drops of moonlight they had just experienced. Their entire souls felt as if they had been cleansed, and the turbid yin energy accumulated over the years in the mortal realm was swept away. The outlines of the two ghosts were now so clear that they almost did not look like ghosts.

Qiu Rong looked down at her hands, which were so solid they were almost tangible, and her voice trembled slightly: "Master, this kindness is too heavy."

Xiao Xie wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her hand, and only after wiping it did she realize that ghosts don't have tears, so she could only bow deeply to Liu Jin with red eyes.

Tao Wangsan had been watching from the sidelines since the beginning. At this moment, he stepped forward and respectfully bowed to Liu Jin.

"Thank you for your kindness, Daoist Master. Since the two young ladies cannot leave the Jiang residence, I do not intend to move away either. From now on, I will teach them to read and write, to understand right from wrong, and to know how to behave appropriately. Even if in the end, humans and ghosts are destined to be apart, at least for this period of time, they will not be wandering ghosts, but my classmates."

Liu Jin nodded without saying anything more. He turned and walked out of the study, his silver gauze robe leaving a faint arc of light at the doorway.

Zhao Fengnian did not immediately follow. He stood at the door of the study, took out a neatly folded talisman from his waist, and placed it on Tao Wangsan's desk.

He drew the talisman himself; the cinnabar marks were crooked, but the spiritual energy was barely enough.

"We are monks from the Sanyi Temple in Beiguo. If you encounter anything serious, not the kind of sleep paralysis you experience in the middle of the night, but something truly life-threatening, burn this talisman, and we will be able to sense it."

Qiu Rong leaned over to take a look at the talisman, and couldn't help but purse her lips, saying it was really ugly.

Zhao Fengnian wasn't annoyed. He chuckled and replied, "It may be ugly, but it works." Then he turned and left the study.

He caught up with Liu Jin at the alley entrance. The moonlight illuminated the entire alley, making the bluestone pavement look like it was covered with a thin layer of frost. Liu Jin's moon-patterned gauze robe shimmered softly in the moonlight as he walked ahead at a moderate pace.

Zhao Fengnian followed him a few steps and asked.

"Brother, Qiu Rong and Xiao Xie are settled. But according to the original plot, Tao Wangsan will be implicated in a wrongful case and imprisoned later. Xiao Xie and Qiu Rong will run around trying to save him, eventually moving a Taoist priest to help them return to life. Should we intervene in this part ahead of time?"

Liu Jin shook his head.

"We can't bring them back to life. You said that the original ending was that a Taoist priest would help them be reborn. Since that Taoist priest will appear, we can meet him then. With the Taiyin Star Fire around, nothing serious will happen to them."