The Path to Immortality Begins with the Life-Extending Lamp

Chapter 108 Qishan - Master of Dongli Garden
"Hee hee~"

"Hehehe~"

In the ruins of the backyard of Dongli Garden, the continuous rain turned the place into a ghostly realm, and thunder and fire tempered the evil spirits.

This commotion quickly attracted some uninvited guests!
All that could be heard were bursts of ghostly chatter and laughter. Suddenly, dark blue handprints appeared on the paper demon that was wandering in the ghost realm.

As the terrifying ghostly handprint climbed onto the forms of the several rampant gods, the forbidden ghostly runes on their bodies began to dim.

The plain white paper robe covering his body began to turn yellow rapidly, and outside the ghostly realm, ghostly figures seemed to be climbing rapidly around the ruins!

"Are they... those wandering ghost children in the Qishan Underworld?"

Li Qing was sitting in the royal carriage, his brows furrowed. He immediately flicked his sleeve and collected the spiritual essence piled up on the incense table.

It is unknown where that group of ghost children was born.

When Li Qing first entered the East Garden Pavilion, he had crossed the high walls of the mansion and witnessed the riots of those little devils in the neighborhood.

The second time they met was when Li Qing's thoughts returned to the palace's protective restrictions in the East Garden. From the perspective of overlooking the entire underworld, she glimpsed the group of little ghosts attacking the passing feathered flying boat...

This unruly and cruel ghost child is terrifying; he can reign supreme in the Purple Palace!
With just a few ghostly handprints, Li Qing's Six Ding, Six Jia, and Twelve Rampaging Gods suffered extremely severe damage.

This damn thing is far beyond Li Qing's current ability to fight!

Li Qing had no choice but to flick her sleeve and point her finger at the ruins. The Six Ding and Six Jia gods instantly transformed into precious light and returned to the Hunyuan Huagai Royal Chariot. Only the twelve spirit tablets with inscriptions swayed slowly under the royal chariot canopy...

The gloomy and ghostly realm no longer exists. In Li Qing's dark eyes, he can clearly see many "ghost children" who are either crawling on all fours, standing upright, climbing on ruins and walls, or hanging upside down on broken stones and wooden beams!
These ghostly creatures are thin and dark-skinned, with eyes that dart out like black beads, searching around. Every time they climb over a spot, they leave handprints and footprints with their ghostly claws and feet, which is extremely terrifying.

At this moment, the ghostly children and evil spirits all turned their heads and stared directly at Li Qing under the broken wall and hanging flower gate.

"Hehehe~"

As the ghostly laughter arose, handprints were slapped onto the hanging flower gate. Even with the magical restrictions on the broken walls of the main courtyard blocking the way, one or two handprints inevitably landed on Li Qing's royal carriage.

The terrifying attack shook the precious light of the Hunyuan Canopy, it was extremely ferocious!
"You guys are quite fierce."

Li Qing sat leaning against the royal carriage, gazing at the rows of ghost children, and hummed softly.

The courtyard wall is dilapidated and crumbling, and under the hanging flower brackets, one of the door leaves is missing. It still needs to be properly repaired!
"The Southern Dipper Life-Extending Treasure Lamp, which refines and saves spirits, extends lifespan and has at least one hundred and forty-eight restrictions."

"Let me think... There seems to be a spell called 'Reflecting the Candle' in the Demon Star's Fate-Slaying Curse?"

As she murmured softly, Li Qing's dark eyes swept around, and she raised the Qionghua Treasure Lamp, then placed a sheet of spirit paper with a hundred-eyed phoenix pattern between the Qionghua Treasure Lamp and Li Qing's eyes.

With a myriad of thoughts converging, a dozen or so dark ghostly figures could be seen lingering around the spirit paper. Just as the candlelight froze, Li Qing lightly held a wisp of mist between her lips and exhaled a breath of energy, which landed directly on the spirit paper.

The moment the mist dissipated, nineteen dark blue ghost children of various shapes appeared on the scroll of spirit paper!
"Really not running?"

Looking at the group of mischievous kids trying to squeeze through the layers of ruins, Li Qing chuckled.

Immediately afterwards, a wooden box appeared on the incense table in the royal carriage. Li Qing slowly untied the magical seal on the wooden box, and the long, flowing ghost hair instantly poured out like black water from every crack in the box.

The black hair, filled with resentment, coiled around Li Qing's right hand in the blink of an eye, and then climbed out of the carriage.

Li Qing didn't reject the spreading ghost hair; she simply peeled away the strands of hair that bound the Ghost Scissors' blades, so that the Eternal Regret Ghost Scissors could see the light of day once more!

"The walls separating the main courtyard are dilapidated, and the Hundred Ghosts Pagoda's power is probably less than half of its original strength, but it can still suppress 50% of the eerie things."

Gazing at the slowly spreading ghost hair and feeling the increasingly strong smell of blood, Li Qing made a decision. She simply cut the blade of the Long-Hate Ghost Cutting Scissors and used it to cut the spirit paper on the incense table!
A piercing howl was heard, startling the hundred ghosts of Qishan.

The next moment, the nineteen images of ghost children on the paper were all cut in two, and in the ruins, only thirty-eight dark blue mutilated bodies, severed at the waist, remained...

The Qishan Hundred Ghosts Pagoda Restriction binds the hundred ghosts, and also binds this forbidden artifact of the ghost path.

In the Qishan Underworld Cluster, Li Qing, who wields the "Eternal Regret Scissors," is none other than the real ghost prince, Li Qing, a little ghost lord who can terrify all ghosts!
With a single strike, the horde of ghosts was annihilated, and Li Qing's vital energy was reduced by more than 70%.

"Oh, Changhen! You truly are worthy of being the vessel of King Mu."

Li Qing didn't hold back her praise and uttered a beautiful compliment.

But his hands did not stop moving at all. After cutting down the ghosts with a single snip, he immediately used his primordial energy to free the ghost hair wrapped around his body, closed the double blades, wrapped the strands of ghost hair around the ghost scissors, and sealed them into the ancient, dark wooden box.

The Blood Demon Realm of Everlasting Hatred, which had not yet descended, vanished in an instant. After the wooden box was sealed, all the strange phenomena disappeared!

Li Qing placed the wooden box on the altar of the royal carriage, then rose, lifted the beaded curtain in front of the carriage, stepped down, and strode into the ruins. A small three-inch banner floated beside him, and twenty-four weapons, as small as flying needles, once again circled the black banner. He personally began the process of collecting the corpses…

Residing within the underworld of Qishan, the Ghost Mother governs the inner realm, her terrifying power directly shaking the mortal world. Li Qing governs the outer realm, his forbidden techniques being even more renowned throughout the Netherworld.

What a contradictory yet harmonious couple!
So Li Qing continued to wander through the ruins, searching for the still intact blue bricks with the hundred ghost totems and the flawless yellow tiles with ghost faces, and then commanded the paper figures to collect these usable items one by one into the courtyard.

First, clean up the backyard, then sweep up the connecting West Garden.

Li Qing knocked down one useless section after another of the ruins, sat under the hanging flower gate in the backyard, and watched as the madmen leveled the ruins, completely razing the several acres of backyard to the ground!
Immediately, the paper figures went to the parapet behind the main courtyard and rebuilt a tall pagoda wall, topped with yellow tile eaves. They then searched through the ruins and selected two ten-foot-tall copper-nailed vermilion doors to place on top.

The ruins were used to replace the broken foundation of the main courtyard, and the still intact blue bricks and yellow tiles were replaced in the main courtyard. Blue bricks were laid again to suppress the ghosts, the pillars and beams of the hall were erected, the framework was reconstructed, yellow tiles were placed on top, and the underworld hall was erected... At this point, even if the doors, windows and walls of the main hall were temporarily missing, it would not be a big problem!

Ultimately, only the front yard, the four-way garden, the main courtyard, and the three-section residence were retained, plus two independent side courtyards, the East Garden and the West Garden.

And as the shattered bluestone foundation for suppressing ghosts and the imprisoned ridge beast were repaired one by one, this underworld—Dongli Garden—finally began to revive.

The Hundred Ghosts Pagoda and the Treasure Barrier of the Five Courtyards were linked together. In the main hall, in the dilapidated shrine, only a cluster of Six Heavens Netherfire suddenly ignited. On the half-ruined main hall, the evil-repelling yellow jade tiles and the ghost-suppressing ridge beasts that had been misshaped by the paper servants actually moved and returned to their original positions on their own, transforming into a perfect array base...

Beneath the eaves, the remaining crimson lanterns shook off the dust, and the blood-red candlelight was relit.

Throughout the entire Eastern Fence Garden of the Underworld, conspicuous ghostly flames burned continuously, and blood-red lanterns and eerie ghostly flames illuminated the top of Qishan Mountain, causing the hundreds of ghosts on and around Qishan Mountain to tremble in fear.

Someone has begun to take control of the Youtian-Qishan region!
In Li Qing's Niwan Palace, the Netherworld Book and Ghost Contract immediately began to undergo the most drastic changes. Turning to the second chapter, the ghost text seemed to come alive. The original second page of the Netherworld Book had now transformed into a simple Netherworld Contract, which was called "Qishan-Dongliyuan Contract".

This is the underworld belonging to Li Qing and the Ghost Mother, and also their sacred place of practice.

The East Garden houses the main pavilion, the main courtyard contains the main shrine, the West Garden is temporarily unused, the Four-Way Garden is used as a medicinal herb garden, and the front courtyard is guarded by the flower gate...

The paper figures stand tall, lighting the eerie blue lamps in the underworld. Paper lanterns are also hung on the eaves and beams, where the morning lamps are lit in the courtyard!

On Mount Qi, in this garden, candlelight blazed brightly.

The human-faced owl, wandering in all directions in the mountains, cawed loudly. After hundreds of years of shattering, another ghost or spirit has entered Qishan.

Immediately afterwards, howls that sounded like harbingers of death rose and fell, and several human-faced owls, each half a zhang tall, flapped their wings and landed on the open ground behind the underworld from who knows where.

Quack, quack, quack...

The annoying howling echoed faintly, causing all the big and small ghosts wandering in Qishan to avoid this plague-ridden monster that ate ghosts!

Three or four owls ahead cried out anxiously, but no one could tell what they were trying to do. It wasn't until the last owl, covered in bones, landed that the owl gently shook its wings, immediately causing a dozen or so Nether Pearls to fall from its black feathers.

The translucent, azure soul bead rolled several times on the ground before slowly sliding down to the back gate of this underworld...

Li Qing's mind was still focused on the Ghostly Contract of the Underworld. She raised her eyes in surprise, looking past the faceless monsters that were sealing the gate, and gazed at the ugly human-faced owl that was standing in front of the open space outside the courtyard. She heard the faint meaning contained in the ghostly howl and suddenly realized something.

It wasn't there to cause trouble; it seems they were regular visitors to the underworld from all sides.

Upon seeing that the Underworld Garden suddenly had an owner, they immediately came to beg for food.
"Oh? What do you want?"

Li Qing stood in front of the back gate of the mansion, listening to the mournful howls that sounded like a death knell. He frowned for a moment, then turned around, closed the back gate, crossed the main courtyard, and wandered around for about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

As the back gate of the underworld opened again, three paper servants strode out of the East Fence Garden. In their arms, each of the three paper figures carried a two-foot-long black-scaled fish, a flower and leaf root that had just been dug up from the Four-way Garden, and a box of four food pills...

Upon seeing these creatures, the excited howl from the human-faced owl rang out again.

The lead owl, with its bony face, walked at the very front and immediately began to enjoy the highest-grade black scales of the tail with a single bite.

The remaining human-faced owls also shook out the Netherworld Pearls, Ghost Bones, and other strange collectibles hidden in their black feathers, and pushed these items to the back gate of the Netherworld with their wings. The large owls each picked up a bait pill, tilted their heads back, and swallowed it...

The Cui family of Qishan once kept night owls to monitor the Yin veins for eight hundred li. These strange creatures, neither demons nor ghosts, always lived alongside the dead for a long time.

It even sometimes crosses the boundary between Yin and Yang to deliver a letter to the offspring of ghosts and gods.

Even after the Netherworld shattered over hundreds of years, the massive owl clan managed to sustain itself by devouring ghosts and spirits.

Today, the ghost fire of Qishan-Dongliyuan has finally been lit, and it has come to beg for food and rebuild the relationship of servitude!

You possess fertile land and abundant resources, and my claws and teeth are still sharp. If you provide me with your annual and monthly tributes, then I beg you to defend the manor and forests for you, and to annihilate any external threats...

(End of this chapter)