Hell Emperor.

Chapter 384 Xia Wei - Take Action
"how so……"

In the messy house, Xiao Yun's face was filled with panic and his whole body was trembling. He didn't know where his mother had gone, but the situation inside clearly showed that the house had been robbed.

He took a deep breath and tried to calm his uneasy heart. After some thought, he soon came up with an idea: "Fortunately, I left a Ghost Messenger Token with my mother in advance and asked her to keep it with her. As expected, she took the Token with her..."

After finding out that the Ghost Messenger's Order was on a high mountain not far from his home, Xiao Yun did not dare to hesitate. He quickly took out the Shrinking Stone and set off.

The space changed, and when everything around him gradually solidified, the scene in front of him made Xiao Yun shocked and angry.

On the edge of the cliff, his old mother had wounds on her face and was tied up by a pitch-black rope. The other end of the rope was held in the hand of a vague ghost.

"Give me all your remaining life! Or do you want to suffer more? Do you believe I will throw you off here?"

The ghost threatened loudly, and the old mother trembled all over, but she refused to cooperate and refused to give up her life no matter what.

"stop!"

Xiao Yun immediately shouted angrily, raised his hand and concentrated, and a soul-breaking arrow suddenly shot out and attacked the ghost in the distance.

The ghost let out a light exclamation, with a hint of contempt in his tone, and with a little effort, he completely dissolved the approaching soul-breaking arrow.

Xiao Yun's expression changed slightly, and he asked, "Who are you? How dare you snatch my mother's life span!"

"Evil ghost? Open your eyes and see clearly. I am Zheng Xuan, a ghost from the Golden Wheel Palace, not a lonely ghost like you!" The ghost snorted coldly and took out a black token with the word "Xuan" engraved on it.

The style of the token was so familiar to Xiao Yun that he subconsciously reached into his arms and took out a token that was 90% similar to the one in his hand. The only difference was that the token in Xiao Yun's hand had the word "cloud" engraved on it.

Seeing Xiao Yun also took out the Ghost Messenger Order, Zheng Xuan was stunned and looked at him straight in the eye for the first time: "So you are also a ghost messenger in the palace, what a coincidence, no wonder this old woman has so much life span, the feelings are all given by you."

At this time, the old mother coughed hard, and blood flowed from the corner of her mouth. In order to preserve her life span, she must have suffered a lot. This scene made Xiao Yun heartbroken. He looked at Zheng Xuan with anger in his eyes, but he still had some doubts in his heart:
"How do you know that my mother has hundreds of years of life left? Considering her age, she doesn't look like someone who has that much life left, right? You should go find those children, why did you attack my mother?"

Zheng Xuan said disdainfully: "The longevity flag told me. I asked the flag to reveal the person with the longest life span in this area, and it guided me to your mother."

Xiao Yun was shocked. While he was constantly increasing his mother's life span, he also put her in danger. Eventually, she was targeted by thieves. Now, he was not the only one who could rob her of her life span. When he was wantonly robbing children of their life span, he never thought that one day, his mother would also become the target of others' robbery: "The longevity flag actually has such power?"

"Didn't you use longevity as a sacrifice to the flag? The more longevity you use to sacrifice to the flag, the stronger the power of the flag will be. If you use about two thousand years of longevity as a sacrifice to the flag, you can accurately find out the longest-lived person in an area." Zheng Xuan replied.

Xiao Yun was stunned. It turned out that there was such a secret in the longevity flag. He always felt that it was a waste to use the longevity flag as a sacrifice, so he only performed the minimum sacrifice. As a result, the longevity flag in his hand did not gain any substantial power except for the change in appearance.

"Since they are all ghost messengers from the Golden Wheel Palace, please let my mother go quickly!" Seeing his mother's depressed and sad face, Xiao Yun was anxious and spoke quickly.

At this moment, Zheng Xuan did not agree: "No."

"What exactly are you planning to do?" Xiao Yun was furious and stomped his feet hard.

"You should have a lot of lifespans stored in your longevity flag, right? Give me the flag and I will let her go. Otherwise, you know the consequences." Zheng Xuan threatened.

Xiao Yun's heart trembled. It was not that he was reluctant to give up the longevity in the birthday flag. If he could use the birthday flag to exchange for his mother's safety, why not give it to him? However, Xiao Yun had a worse premonition in his heart:
"What if I give you the birthday banner, but you still won't let my mother go?"

"You have no choice. If you don't hand her over, I will throw her off the cliff!"

As he spoke, Zheng Xuan pulled the soul-binding rope hard, and his mother immediately fell to the ground, groaning in pain.

Xiao Yun was completely panicked and had to take out the longevity flag: "I'll give it to you. It contains a thousand years of longevity, which is enough to satisfy you!"

After learning that Xiao Yun's birthday flag actually contained a thousand years of life, Zheng Xuan's eyes lit up. He caught the birthday flag thrown by Xiao Yun and simply stopped pretending. He said grimly:
"The Palace Master does not allow ordinary ghost officials to interfere in the life-saving trade. People are only allowed to trade on their own, or have the life-saving ghost officials do it. Using the life-saving flag to rob the life-saving like we did has violated the Golden Wheel Palace's precepts and will be severely punished. From the moment you discovered me, I would never let you go!"

Zheng Xuan's eyes darkened, and there was an lingering murderous intent in his eyes, as if in his eyes, Xiao Yun and his mother were already two dead people.

Xiao Yun also felt the fierce murderous intent and felt cold all over. He had just become a ghost, and Zheng Xuan's realm was much higher than his. The suppression of realm alone was enough to make a person lose his fighting spirit, but he could not retreat. His mother was still captured by Zheng Xuan, and he must rescue his mother!

"Taste the power of the Soul-Breaking Arrow!"

Xiao Yun shouted angrily, clenched his hand, and a sharp black arrow condensed in his palm and shot towards Zheng Xuan!

"How dare you use a mere entry-level Soul-Breaking Arrow to embarrass yourself? To tell you the truth, because of my meritorious service in catching the beast-shaped ghost, the Soul-Breaking Arrow on me has been upgraded to the minor success level by the hall master. You can't compare to me!"

Zheng Xuan's face was full of disdain. The soul-breaking arrow he condensed was much larger and more condensed than Xiao Yun's, and its power was simply incomparable.

The big arrow pierced through the small arrow without any obstruction and went straight towards Xiao Yun.

Xiao Yun was horrified. The arrow contained a terrifying power that could crush the soul. If he was hit by it, the only outcome would be death. There would be no other possibility!

Xiao Yun dodged as the Soul-Breaking Arrow narrowly missed his body. He could almost feel the terrifying power contained in the arrow. The next moment, a rope wrapped around him like a thorn in the flesh, completely immobilizing his body and making him unable to move.

Binding Xiao Yun with the soul-binding rope, Zheng Xuan laughed triumphantly: "With your strength, you dare to fight me? All these years of life are now mine, and you can just die..."

Before Zheng Xuan finished speaking, two purple rays of light suddenly flashed across the sky. The purple rays of light descended from the sky, like a sharp sword wielded by a god. The blazing light contained the power to cut through everything. Anything that stood in the way would be split in two under that magic light!
Faced with the great power that suppressed everything, Zheng Xuan's soul was almost gone. The only thing left in his eyes was the girl riding a dragon at the end of the sky.

With a flash of devilish light, Zheng Xuan's soul was completely shattered and disappeared into thin air.

Xiao Yun fell to his knees, feeling grateful for having survived the catastrophe. Could it be that the heavens had opened their eyes and sent an immortal to save them? Just as he was wondering, a black shadow fell from the sky and hit the ground heavily, making a dull sound and splashing dust all over the sky.

When the dust settled, a girl with fiery eyes and razor-sharp eyebrows appeared. There was a lingering purple color hidden in the depths of her eyes. It was obvious that the magic light just now came from her hand.

"It seems that this evil ghost is the murderer who killed the children in the village." Xia Wei asserted when they arrived here.

A dragon descended from the sky, and Li Fei'e also jumped down, thankful that "Luckily we arrived in time, if we were a step later, I'm afraid that several more innocent people would have been killed by that evil ghost..."

Xia Wei glanced at the attacked Xiao Yun and his mother and frowned, "But why did that evil ghost attack the children in the village? Could it be that he suffered injustice in his life and turned into a fierce ghost to seek revenge after his death?"

Li Fei'e quickly stepped forward and picked up a ghost messenger order and two small golden flags from where Zheng Xuan's soul had scattered. "Huh? This is... a ghost messenger order? The evil ghost just now turned out to be a ghost messenger?"

Xia Wei was puzzled and looked at Xiao Yun: "Hey, why did the evil ghost attack you just now?"

When asked by Xia Wei, Xiao Yun also reacted and quickly replied: "Your Excellency, the ghost attacked us in order to steal our lifespan. He attacked the children in the village before in order to steal their lifespan!"

"What?" Hearing this, Xia Wei was stunned. "Snatching life? Life span is determined by heaven, how can it be snatched away by others?"

Xiao Yun explained: "Life span is determined by heaven, but that was a thing of the past. Today, the merits of heaven are in the hands of man. People are the masters of their own lives and have the right to dispose of their own life spans, and even trade their life spans."

Xia Wei's eyes trembled, and she said in disbelief: "This...how is this possible?"

Xiao Yun simply said: "That golden longevity flag is the proof of the transaction of longevity. If you don't believe me, you can check it. There are many years of longevity stored in it."

Li Fei'e checked and found that it was just as Xiao Yun said: "What he said is true. One of the two longevity flags contains 400 years of life, and the other is empty... I can even add the life in it to myself and increase my lifespan by 400 years!"

Holding the birthday flag, Li Fei'e seemed to have discovered some new toy. He looked left and right and couldn't help but want to add more longevity to himself.

Xia Wei stopped her, "Don't touch the longevity in there. If all this is true, the longevity in the longevity flag was snatched from those innocent children. How can you use it indiscriminately?"

Hearing this, Li Fei'e realized the seriousness of the problem, and even the 400-year life span of the flag seemed not so attractive anymore.

Xia Wei then asked Xiao Yun, "Is the ghost snatching life span an isolated case or a common behavior?"

Xiao Yun was silent for a while before answering, "Not only are ghosts robbing, people themselves are also robbing. I heard that in Goguryeo, the king there requires everyone to hand over 60 years of life. Every day, tens of thousands of people die and return to the underworld. The world is in chaos."

"How could it be..." Xia Wei's teeth chattered, she couldn't believe what she heard, "How could the world become like this? I knew that when people suddenly can see their own life span, it won't be a good thing... No, I have to tell Master, let Master come to help the people here!"

Xiao Yun was stunned: "Who is your master?"

Xia Wei replied: "His name is Ye Jie, and he is the master of the Golden Wheel Palace, one of the Ten Yama Palaces."

"Ye...Palace Master Ye?" Xiao Yun opened his mouth wide. He never expected that the girl in front of him was actually Palace Master Ye's apprentice. "Don't you know that everything about Yangshou Trade was promoted by Palace Master Ye?"

"What..." Xia Wei's pupils shrank and she was completely stunned on the spot. She felt something shatter beside her ears!
After bidding farewell to those unfathomable practitioners, Xiao Yun hurried to his mother's side, ready to take her home to recuperate.

Thinking of the girl's bloodshot eyes and furious look at the end, Xiao Yun felt a pang of fear. Fortunately, Zheng Xuan appeared and took the blame for him, which allowed him to escape. Otherwise, if that person knew that those children were not killed by Zheng Xuan, but by him, Xiao Yun, he would have been doomed.

"Fortunately, I was one step ahead. I knew that even if Zheng Xuan took away his life span, he would not let us go. So when I threw out the longevity flag, I added all the life span on the flag to mother in advance. Although the longevity flag has been taken away now, with these life spans, mother can live for at least a thousand years..."

Xiao Yun was about to support his mother, but his arm was pushed away by her. He looked over in a daze and saw his mother looking at him with a complicated expression. Her eyes were filled with regret and shame:

"Yun'er, tell me honestly, where did all that life span come from?"

Xiao Yun opened his mouth, not knowing how to answer. He wanted to find an excuse, but under his mother's eyes that were clear as day and filled with tears, he finally gave up his lie and said, "I got it from someone else."

The old mother was filled with shame and beat her chest and stamped her feet: "So... those children who disappeared in the village were all caused by you?"

Xiao Yun panicked, as if he had been caught doing something wrong, and hurriedly explained, "Mother, I did all this to extend your life. Now that you have lived for a thousand years, you can live ten lifetimes of an ordinary person. You don't have to worry about dying anymore!"

The old mother shed tears of disappointment and murmured, "How could you hurt so many innocent people just to extend my life? What that ghost messenger did to me, I think you also did to others when you were trying to save your life. These thousand years of life are filled with the blood and tears of others. I don't know how many innocent people have suffered because of it..."

As she spoke, the old mother stepped back and in a blink of an eye she was at the edge of a cliff. The cold wind kept blowing her robe, making it rustle in the wind.

Xiao Yun panicked: "Mother, please come back soon, it's very dangerous over there!"

"It's all my fault. I taught you to be like this. I feel sorry for those who died. This is all retribution..."

The old mother pursed her lips tightly and kept shaking her head, looking at him with eyes full of guilt and loss. Finally, she jumped out resolutely and disappeared among the clouds under the cliff.

(End of this chapter)