Inside the massive Yama Hall, he was left by himself with a flowerpot. It really resembled the underworld, not one bit of a human air to it at all.

He felt like his mind had been thoroughly corrupted by these people. Once, he had been incomparably familiar with, incomparably accustomed to such environs, and when no one was around, he would feel secure, his heart at ease. After going out for a trip and then coming back, though, he found that this place he had lived in for a full eight years had gotten suffocating.

None of you have to worry, actually, he silently thought. Once I find a real road to the human world, I’ll turn back into a human, turn into the same as I had been ‘outside’ — laid-back and even-tempered, no longer temperamental, no longer insane, no longer living a life of casually killing people. There will… be someone beside me, too… he isn’t afraid of me, and I’m good to him. He’s someone I can be with for a lifetime…

He hooded his eyes, as if recalling something. A smile, neither sinister nor indifferent, appeared on his face, and he gently released the plant he was furling.

Living life… what a pretty phrase that was.

Zhou Zishu looked a bit tragic at the moment. Anybody that had followed a bunch of Scorpions for over half a month wouldn’t be too nice to look at, either, but in his opinion, this wasn’t anything too strenuous.

The Great Shaman’s medicine had been of great effect, nearly eliminating his ailment. It had been described as being able to suppress the Seven Acupunctures poison, and then it did. The pain that once inevitably broke out every midnight, reducing him to a half-alive state, was suddenly gone, which he was somewhat unaccustomed to. In any case, he wasn’t a finicky person; the assignments he had been required to go out and do himself in Tian Chuang had generally been a lot more difficult than this.

After this over-half-month, the Poisonous Scorpions stopped in a small town about thirty li away from Fengya Mountain. The Scorpion gave an order, and all the others, well-trained, switched into a black mass of clothes, dressing up as commoners of all trades. Like drops of water, they soon ‘vanished’ into the town’s populace.

Whilst Zhou Zishu was following by example, beneath the calm appearance of this unremarkable town, a dark undercurrent bubbled.

As if waiting for somebody, the Scorpion stopped here, and refused to budge.

In just a few days, word on the wind came in — Zhao Jing was leading the heroes of the realm, spreading out notices for heroism far and wide to crusade against the flock of evil Ghosts. What was most thought-provoking was that he only disseminated notices, not at all invoking the ‘Writ of the Land’.