Chapter Seventeen: Phantom

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A sharp, crisp sound of porcelain shattering echoed through the air. Su Yuanbai glanced down at the brown clay jar he had instinctively kicked, fractured into pieces at his feet. Sometimes, being overly sensitive to one's surroundings was not a blessing.

"Master, what happened?"

Duan Lingqi had just reached the entrance of the cell, and upon hearing the sound, quickly asked with concern. Su Yuanbai did not reply. He looked at the shards scattered across the floor; the pungent stench of urine swiftly filled the prison, forcing Xi Chunxue and Qu Hancheng, who entered next, to immediately cover their noses and mouths.

"Whose urine could smell this foul... truly remarkable," Qu Hancheng said, pinching his nose in disgust. Yet, realizing that the handsome man standing atop the broken jar was the cell's master, he hastily corrected himself. "It doesn’t smell like human urine—more like horse urine."

Duan Lingqi's reaction was less dramatic than the others. He sniffed the air, puzzled. In his recollection, no horse demon had ever passed through this cell. Could it be one had arrived during his two months away?

"The origin of the urine matters little. What’s important is what someone hoped to conceal by it," Su Yuanbai said, glancing sidelong at Duan Lingqi.

"You’re not asking me to sift through these shards, are you?" Duan Lingqi's expression stiffened as he asked uncertainly.

Su Yuanbai nodded.

"You do it," Duan Lingqi immediately turned to Xi Chunxue.

"Let him do it," Xi Chunxue retorted. Though she disliked Duan Lingqi’s condescending tone, she knew that if she hoped to leave this prison, her best chance was to follow them closely. She tossed Qu Hancheng forward, unwilling to touch the shards soaked in the unknown animal urine.

"Me? I… actually, I find prison rather comfortable," Qu Hancheng scratched his head and forced a smile.

Silence enveloped them.

One breath.

Two breaths.

"I’ll do it!"

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Qu Hancheng gritted his teeth and walked over to the broken shards. Pinching his nose, he gathered all the pieces to one side in a single breath. As he picked up a particular shard, he suddenly felt resistance.

This rhomboid fragment seemed embedded in the ground. Despite Qu Hancheng’s strenuous efforts with both hands, he only managed to scrape his fingers raw, unable to move it even slightly.

A trickle of water flowed from Duan Lingqi’s toes, falling onto the rhomboid shard. The water appeared harmless, yet when Qu Hancheng accidentally brushed its edge, his clothes tore instantly, and a bloody mark appeared.

"It’s no use. Your demon power is being absorbed by this rhomboid shard," Xi Chunxue said, shaking her head at the immovable fragment.

"I’ll see just how much it can absorb!" Duan Lingqi’s slit pupils flashed with a hint of malice.

"This is not the outside world. There’s no spiritual energy for you to draw and refine. The vitality from that peach will not sustain you for long. If you deplete your demon power, what use will you be?" Xi Chunxue replied coldly.

Indeed, this Bi Zhen Prison was sealed by an array that cut off all spiritual energy from outside. If the fierce flood dragon continued to exhaust himself, when he was finally needed, he would be little more than a punching bag.

"That is enough," Su Yuanbai suddenly said.

He bent down and, with two fingers, grasped the sides of the rhomboid shard. Effortlessly, he lifted it.

A streak of gray light flashed.

Su Yuanbai looked at the round wound in his palm, where the gray light had pierced through. Had he not raised his hand in time, it would have struck his brow.

"You could have removed it yourself… why didn’t you?" Qu Hancheng stared blankly at the shard in Su Yuanbai’s hand. He had just failed to move it with all his strength, yet it came away so easily?

"The stench, rinsed off, feels cleaner," Su Yuanbai remarked calmly.

Qu Hancheng opened his mouth to speak, then wisely held his tongue.

He was no match for these people.

"Master, the wound on your palm looks identical to the round injury on that Bi’an’s head," Duan Lingqi observed, puzzled, as he studied the wound in Su Yuanbai’s palm. If he was not mistaken, it matched the corpse's wound in the corridor.

"That fleeting gray light carried a heavy aura of yin and evil..."

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Xi Chunxue spoke hesitantly, withholding the rest. Ordinarily, such concentrated yin energy could only originate in the Underworld, where darkness was thickest. How could Bi Zhen Prison on Sangyu Island be connected to the Underworld? And then, there was this strange man.

She gazed at Su Yuanbai's profile, her heart fluttering with unease. It felt as though she had stepped into an unseen mire, sinking deeper with every moment.

"This wound matches that on the Bi’an outside—not just superficial, it reaches the soul," Su Yuanbai said, curling his wounded palm. He felt not only the pain from the injury, but a stabbing ache deep within his spirit.

"But such a tiny opening—who could pass through?" Qu Hancheng craned his neck to peer at the round, coin-like hole at Su Yuanbai’s feet, muttering to himself.

At that glance, a chorus of wailing ghosts resounded in Qu Hancheng’s ears. He found himself lying atop a stone platform, unable to move. Suddenly, a blade split his belly, sliced out his heart, and pulled his intestines free, discarding them aside.

But it did not end there—the stone platform vanished, and Qu Hancheng plummeted from a great height. He fell upon a mountain of blades, which pierced and ripped him, blood gushing forth.

Next came a rain of knives and stones from above, tearing him to pieces. Only then did Qu Hancheng startle awake.

"If I am not mistaken, beneath this sea lies the Screaming Earth Hell, governed by the Fifth Yama King," Xi Chunxue said softly, kneeling beside Su Yuanbai and gazing at the terrifying reflection lingering in Qu Hancheng’s vacant eyes.

"You know quite a bit—familiar with even the affairs of the Underworld," Duan Lingqi sneered.

"It’s not that I know much, but the books are detailed." Xi Chunxue watched as Qu Hancheng’s eyes slowly regained their clarity, surprised. An ordinary mortal, faced with such a vision of the Screaming Earth Hell, would have collapsed in terror—if they awoke at all, they would not live long. Yet this jailer recovered.

He was clearly no mere jailer.

Reborn? Or a soul returned from reincarnation? Perhaps only a catalyst was needed to awaken memories of a previous life.