Chapter 40: Li Si

“Realize what?” Li Si looked bewildered, and asked strangely, “Brother Luo, why are you on fire?”

Seeing his expression, “Luo Ye’s” eyes now had pale flames bursting out, with flames starting to emerge from multiple parts of his body.

“Brother Luo, you’re on fire!” Li Si shouted at “Luo Ye” with a terrified expression.

“Have you had enough of pretending!” “Luo Ye” suddenly opened his mouth and roared. As he roared, his skin, hair, and clothes all turned into pale flames, his entire body becoming a skeleton covered in pale fire.

“Wow, Brother Luo! How did you become like this?” Li Si’s eyes revealed a fearful expression, his body involuntarily retreating.

“I’ll make you pretend!” The skeleton roared in anger, the pale flames on his body growing more intense. He charged directly at Li Si, his fist fiercely swinging towards him.

As he charged, the leaves and flowers touched by the pale flames all withered, as if their moisture had been instantly drained.

Seeing the skeleton’s fist coming, Li Si slightly shifted his body to dodge it, then directly crashed into the skeleton’s embrace, hugging him tightly.

For him, the skeleton’s combat technique was utterly crude.

Although the attack speed was extremely fast, Li Si had learned the “Mystic Tortoise Record”, possessing techniques to counter speed with slowness. Moreover, his eyes had been enhanced by the side effect of Ghost Blinding, allowing him to clearly see the skeleton’s movements. So in one fluid motion, Li Si firmly grasped the skeleton’s waist.

The skeleton was stunned for a moment when Li Si hugged him, then became furious. He roared and raised his fist to strike Li Si’s spine.

But just as his fist was about to hit Li Si’s spine, he suddenly froze, looking at Li Si in disbelief, “You schemed against me?”

“Mm, that’s right,” Li Si said calmly while hugging the skeleton’s waist, completely unlike his previous naive appearance.

He had long known this person wasn’t Luo Ye. From Luo Ye’s recent behavior of urging him to hurry and repeatedly dissuading him from going up, it was clear Luo Ye was a cautious person. How could such a person suddenly turn back and want to go with him to retrieve Cao Qing’s body?

Of course, he couldn’t be certain then, so when this “Luo Ye” helped him get the cloth strips and realgar wine, Li Si grabbed his hand and saw this “Luo Ye’s” information. This Luo Ye was actually the ghost creature that the original owner had become.

Formless Ghost (Li Si)

Formless Ghost (Skeleton Form)

Ghost Level: Low-level ghost creature

Abilities: Formless; Etherealization; Ghost Flame

Current Relationship: Not contracted.

Current Soul Strength: 78

Formless Ghost: Born into an ordinary family, with a gambling addict father and an ordinary mother. The already poor life became even more difficult with his arrival, and his parents often quarreled.

But one thing changed the family’s situation. His father heard of a way to obtain silver and took him at age five with his mother to a faraway place to arrange a ghost marriage.

When he returned, his face had changed, becoming fair-skinned with red lips, unlike his previously dark complexion. Stranger still, as he grew up, he didn’t resemble his parents at all.

So he began living with this face, knowing his future fate, but unwilling to give up on himself. From a young age, he cultivated virtue and understood himself, thus earning the respect of neighbors from an early age, especially after passing the imperial examination.

Despite this, he still couldn’t let go of his resentment towards his parents. Why did they kill him for their own wealth? By what right? Just because they were his parents?

He hated, hated extremely, even his hatred for the Nie family couldn’t compare to a fraction of his hatred for his parents.

But he also believed he shouldn’t resent his parents, after all, they gave him life in this world, so he always treated them with great respect and lived with them.

After his parents died, to dissolve the marriage with the Nie family, he went to a temple he had heard was extremely efficacious, hoping to find a master to save him.

However, he encountered an extremely powerful ghost creature at this temple. This ghost creature followed him for 10 li(1 li = about 500 meters), making him despair the entire way, yet not killing him. When they reached the county town, the ghost creature didn’t follow, but he fell seriously ill and died directly.

His resentment towards his parents turned into pale ghost flames.

Later, he saw someone occupy his physical body, living in his place, pretending to be him.

His resentment and reverence for his parents, along with being replaced by someone else, made him doubt himself. So he lost his form, able to transform into anyone, also losing his sense of self.

Skeleton Form: Able to control ghost creatures, making them obey his commands.

Limitation: Can only control people he has killed.

Formless: Able to transform into various people and change form. This ability can conceal the ghost flames.

Note: If the ghost flames erupt, the ability to conceal them becomes ineffective, needing to wait until the next natural day.

Etherealization: A basic ability of ethereal ghost creatures, mundane weapons cannot harm him.

Ghost Flame: Flames ignited by resentment, able to steal life force anytime, anywhere. Can be injected into food, and those who eat the food will also have their life force stolen and die.

“Awooo…” The skeleton wailed, the flames on his body transforming into a figure identical to Li Si, trying to separate from the skeleton frame but unable to, struggling constantly.

The skeleton itself lowered its head, looking deeply at Li Si who was grasping its waist, and said word by word, “You… are… dead… for… sure!”

The voice that came out was actually a chilling female voice. After saying this, the skeleton frame scattered, dissipating with the wind.

At this moment, the flame figure that looked exactly like Li Si also escaped from Li Si’s embrace, staring at him from a distance.

“You’re free now,” Li Si said with a smile, looking at this figure that was identical to himself.

“Who exactly are you?” the original owner asked, looking at the person before him.

“Come, let’s sit and talk for a while,” Li Si beckoned to him, then sat down on a large rock by the pool.

The original owner’s face revealed a hesitant expression, then his expression became determined, and he walked over to Li Si and sat down.

“You’re not going to kill me?” This was the first thing the original owner said after sitting down.

“Oh? Why would I kill you?” Li Si asked, somewhat puzzled, looking at this person who was identical to him.

“Because I tried to kill you earlier,” the original owner said coldly.

Li Si smiled and shook his head, “You tried to kill me earlier because of the control of the skeleton form. Do you still want to kill me now?”

Seeing Li Si say this, the original owner was silent for a moment, then looked at Li Si and asked the previous question again: “Who are you?”

Li Si picked up the realgar wine nearby and took a sip, not answering, but instead smiled and asked, “Let me tell you a story, shall I?”