Chapter One
Beneath one's feet lies a road paved with bluestone, spanning the chasm between life and death—this is the Yellow Spring Road.
Lifting one's gaze reveals a river of dark green waters reflecting this present life—this is the River of Oblivion.
Upon the river stands a bridge, its steps made of fate, where past lives are forgotten—this is the Bridge of Helplessness.
At its end rests a stone, where one looks back before rebirth, severing all worldly ties—this is the Stone of Three Lives.
Yellow Spring Road, River of Oblivion, Bridge of Helplessness, Stone of Three Lives.
Fate reversed, the cycle of reincarnation stretches endlessly—halt, halt.
Just look at these lines—so grand, profound, and weighty! It's a pity they were paired with the soft, lilting tune of Jiangnan folk songs and given the title "Why Bother."
These words drift ceaselessly over the shimmering River of Oblivion year after year. When Ayin first saw them, she was deeply moved for days. But after witnessing the hanged ghosts floating in the river, their long tongues lolling as they hummed this Jiangnan melody, striking her heart like a thunderbolt, she never again held even the slightest illusion about the Ghost Realm's proud anthem.
After Ayin died, this was the one thing she felt most regretful about in her heart.
It is said that these lyrics were composed by Ao Ge, the ruler of the Ghost Realm, who pondered for a hundred years to keep the souls of the Three Realms from rushing headlong toward rebirth on the Bridge of Helplessness. On the day of its completion, Ao Ge granted amnesty throughout the Ghost Realm and invited immortals and demons from the Three Realms to celebrate together. Once the lyrics were unveiled, they spread widely across the Three Realms for a time. Everyone praised the Ghost King for his grandeur and compassion, and many female immortals and demon monarchs, filled with admiration, hurried to the Underworld to catch a glimpse of this most mysterious and compassionate ruler of the realms. Unfortunately, after several days of banquets, the halls were filled with hanged ghosts dressed in gaudy theatrical costumes, singing to the Jiangnan tunes for days on end. When the festivities concluded, all the attending immortals and demon monarchs, regardless of their cultivation level, were carried out of the Ghost Realm horizontally by ghost attendants.
Since the Ancient True God Bai Jue sacrificed himself to quell the Chaos Tribulation and the Ancient Realm closed once more, this incident has been the most absurd event in the Nine Provinces and Eight Wastelands, which had enjoyed centuries of peace.
Of course, the Ghost King Ao Ge's peerless beauty also spread far and wide, known throughout heaven and earth. Since then, the number of beautiful, ethereal immortals and demons flitting about the Underworld has increased daily.
After Ayin learned of the tragic experiences of the immortals and demons from some gossipy little ghost, her thoroughly disgusted heart finally found some comfort.
But this digression has gone on long enough—let us return to the Bridge of Helplessness over the River of Oblivion.
In truth, it is not as mysterious or terrifying as mortal legends claim. The Bridge of Helplessness at the end of the Yellow Spring Road is merely an ordinary stone bridge. The only remarkable thing about it is that it connects life, death, and reincarnation.
At the very center of the bridge stands a jade-green stone table, upon which rests a jade-green bowl, exuding a rather lively aura. Sitting lazily on the bridge railing is a Ghost Lord, dressed in a jade-green robe. Turning around—oh my, his appearance is truly unmatched. Countless souls crossing the Bridge of Helplessness fall into the River of Oblivion daily because of his looks.
This Ghost Lord wears a splendid crown on his head, his sleeves trimmed with pure gold thread, and a Southern Field Warm Jade pendant hanging from his belt. His robe alone requires a hundred years of silk from the Cloud Stream Mountain Immortal Silkworm to weave, while the leather of his black boots is boldly sourced from the hide of the Cloud-Devouring Fierce Beast of the Demon Realm. In short, this person—no, this ghost—is both handsome and noble.
"Oh, Ayin, you're back! Come keep me company for a while!"
Perhaps these past few days, heaven has shown mercy, and not many have died. The Bridge of Helplessness is empty and desolate. Bored out of his mind, the Ghost Lord turns around and spots a familiar face approaching from the other end of the bridge. His lips curl into a smile, and his entire face instantly blooms like a chrysanthemum.Ayin slowly glanced at him, slowly climbed the stone steps, slowly stopped beside the Ghost Lord who was swinging his legs, and slowly extended her hand, lifting her eyes just a fraction. "Give it to me, make sure it's warm."
What one drinks on the Bridge of Helplessness is known even to a three-year-old child. Yet, to her surprise, the Ghost Lord shook his head, utterly unwilling, and blinked at her eagerly as if seeking praise. "Ayin, no rush, no rush. Let's chat a bit. This time, I arranged for you to be reborn into the wealthiest royal family. In this life, you’ll surely live comfortably, with both power and handsome men!"
Seeing Ayin remain unresponsive, he stroked his chin and calculated with his fingers. "That’s odd. It’s only been seventeen or eighteen years since I sent you off last time. You were a princess of a kingdom—how did you die so early? Could it be that even the imperial dragon’s aura couldn’t counteract your misfortune? Or did your consort dare to be heartless? Did you die of heartbreak again?"
As he spoke, he was about to stir the shimmering ripples on the River of Oblivion to glimpse Ayin’s experiences in this lifetime. Ayin looked up darkly and shot him a sharp glare. "Ghost Lord Xiuyan, no need to look. In this life, my consort was a good man, but he fell gravely ill as soon as we married and passed away in less than a year. It’s true I was a princess, but I couldn’t bear the stigma of being a husband-killer. I caught a chill and died of illness too."
She spoke calmly and evenly, as if recounting someone else’s life.
This Ghost Lord named Xiuyan was not surprised and chuckled softly. "Then why don’t you just skip reincarnation, Ayin? You’re fated to be a ghost, I say. Why not stay in the Underworld with me and guard the Yellow Spring Road?"
Ayin scoffed. Seeing Xiuyan all alone, she thought for a moment, then leaped up to sit on the bridge railing, unable to resist grumbling. "What did you say when I was reincarnated last time? That this life would surely be long, peaceful, and happy. Look how it turned out—still a miserable fate!"
Xiuyan looked rather innocent. "You can’t blame me for that. In the mortal realm, your fate was already as fortunate as it gets!"
Ayin snorted, sighed, and rested her chin on her hand, feeling deeply melancholy.
Indeed, she couldn’t blame Xiuyan—she was even reborn into royalty! Could it truly be, as Xiuyan said, that she was born under an unlucky star, destined to be a jinx?
Ayin was a ghost, and an ancient one at that. Though her appearance was ordinary, she had the good fortune to cling to the coattails of Ghost Lord Xiuyan, known in the Underworld as the "Ghosts’ Dread."
As the old saying goes, "The King of Hell is easy to meet, but his underlings are hard to deal with." Immortals, demons, humans, and monsters alike cannot escape the cycle of reincarnation, and the Ghost Lord guarding the Yellow Spring Road has always held a subtly unique position among the Three Realms. When Xiuyan began guarding the Bridge of Helplessness is lost to time. It is only said that besides possessing a face so stunning it could anger gods and mortals alike, his cultivation is unfathomably deep. For such a mysterious and powerful, handsome Ghost Lord to willingly guard the Bridge of Helplessness for hundreds or thousands of years is indeed a rare wonder.
As for his connection with Ayin, it was a fate forged through persistence and chance.
Ayin was a ghost who remembered nothing of her past. Upon closer reflection, this statement isn’t entirely accurate—Ayin simply didn’t remember anything before she began drifting properly in the Ghost Realm.
Souls are formless, taking shape through cultivation. Ayin had known since her earliest memories that her soul was shattered, leaving her unqualified for reincarnation. She recuperated in the depths of the Underworld for over a century before barely managing to shape-shift into the form of a young woman. Every corner of the world follows the law of the jungle, and the suffering she endured to coalesce her soul into form was something outsiders could never truly know.She considered herself open-minded. The messy business of her soul scattering, forgetting her past, and inexplicably appearing in the Underworld—once she resolved to step onto the Bridge of Helplessness and reincarnate with a clean slate, she couldn’t be bothered to dwell on it anymore.
At first, Xiuyan hadn’t noticed her either. With countless ghosts in the Underworld, why would he remember an inconspicuous female ghost? But Ayin’s bizarre and tragic fate was impossible to ignore. It wasn’t until Ayin stood on the Bridge of Helplessness for the fifteenth time, suppressing her anger as she asked if he could grant her a better destiny, that Xiuyan finally took a slight notice of her. Perhaps it was fate that the usually aloof and indifferent Ghost Lord Xiuyan showed Ayin a rare kindness, even taking the effort to examine her path of reincarnation. And once he looked, he became intrigued.
It had been over three hundred years since Ayin’s first reincarnation. She had crossed the Bridge of Helplessness more than a dozen times, yet in every life, she never lived past twenty, and each time, she died for love. Xiuyan discovered she was a peculiar ghost. Others, after drinking Granny Meng’s Soup and crossing the Bridge of Helplessness, forgot their past lives entirely, starting each new life with a blank slate. But Ayin was different. While alive as a human, she remembered nothing. Yet the moment she died and became a ghost, the memories of every past life would replay in her mind.
For the first few crossings, Ayin could endure it quietly, drinking Granny Meng’s Soup without complaint before moving on. But after fifteen cycles of reincarnation, she finally couldn’t take it anymore.
Being unlucky in life was one thing, but having to relive every miserable life in her memories after death—even as a ghost who had died repeatedly, Ayin felt the heavens were being particularly unfair.
Having guarded the Bridge of Helplessness for over a thousand years, Ghost Lord Xiuyan had never encountered a ghost so utterly forsaken by both gods and mortals. In a strange twist of fate, he took a liking to her. Moreover, the ghosts he dealt with daily were lifeless, merely waiting to be reincarnated. None of them remembered their previous visits to the Underworld like Ayin did. So, over time, the two developed a deep bond.
As the saying goes, "It helps to have connections in high places." Ayin was never one for subtlety. For several lifetimes now, she had been pressuring Xiuyan to find her a good family to be reborn into. Xiuyan, ever resourceful, refused to believe Ayin was truly this unlucky and took the matter to heart. With each reincarnation, he found her a better family than the last. And so, after another dozen or so lifetimes, he had even managed to place her into a royal family this time.
Yet, after a full five hundred years, this unlucky ghost girl’s fate remained as wretched as ever!
Only eighteen years into this life, and she was dead again.
"Ayin." Xiuyan poked her shoulder with two fingers and pointed upward. "I think you’re naturally suited to the Underworld, not to being human. Why not just stay as a ghost? If the opportunity arises, cultivate diligently, and perhaps one day you’ll achieve merit and ascend to the Divine Realm."
Ayin rolled her eyes and snorted. "Xiuyan, do you think I’m still that naive little ghost from centuries ago? In these hundreds of years, even High Lords have rarely appeared in the Three Realms, let alone High Gods!"
The Divine Realm Xiuyan spoke of was the Ancient Realm, an entirely separate space from the Three Realms. It was said that to enter the Divine Realm, one needed at least the magical power of a Demigod. How could a lowly ghost like her dare to harbor such delusions?
Xiuyan was always full of nonsense, but this time, he had gone too far.
Xiuyan rubbed his nose, somewhat embarrassed but unwilling to give up. "Ah, girl, even if you don’t ascend to the Divine Realm, staying in the Underworld isn’t so bad. Over the years, the Ghost King has managed this place like a paradise. If you don’t believe me, just look."He spoke as he gestured toward the River of Oblivion with a flourish, as if seeking praise. The shimmering waters parted, revealing a magnificent scene from a corner of the Underworld.
The Underworld was forever cloaked in darkness, but at this moment, Anhua Street before the Ghost Palace was bustling with noise and excitement. Hundreds of large lanterns floated in the sky above the Underworld, and ghosts crowded the streets, filled with joy. Stalls selling festive lanterns lined the pathways, while the Ghost King’s palace in the distance was adorned with red lanterns, colorful silks, and blooming flowers. Only then did Ayin remember that the day she died in this lifetime happened to be the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the Lantern Festival.
What a pity. While the mortal world celebrated reunion, she was embarking on her journey alone.
Even in death, these ghosts sure loved to make a fuss. Ayin had spent five hundred years striving for a lifetime of good fortune, and she had no patience to watch others enjoy themselves. She grumbled inwardly, wondering when she should drink the soup and move on. Yawning, she turned her head and saw Xiuyan standing alone, looking truly pitiful. She decided to keep him company for a while before reincarnating.
"Ayin, don’t you think the Underworld is just like the mortal world? Why not stay and become a ghost?" Xiuyan, oblivious to Ayin’s yawn, persisted in his efforts to cement Ayin’s place in the Ghost Registry.
Ayin couldn’t be bothered to respond. She waved a dismissive hand, but her eyes inadvertently caught a glimpse of the Water Mirror, and she froze for a moment.
Silence fell on the bridge. Xiuyan followed her gaze.
At the corner of the street’s end, a young man stood quietly.
Clad in white robes, he stood straight beneath a peach tree at the street corner. His elegant, aloof figure stood out starkly against the gloomy backdrop of the Underworld. Countless Ghost Lords passed by the peach tree but dared not approach him. Surrounded by Immortal Qi, it was clear at a glance that he was a rare High Immortal.
In the pavilions and towers lining the street, countless female Ghost Lords tiptoed cautiously, blushing as they stole glances at him. Even a number of Female Immortal Lords were hidden among them. In Ayin’s opinion, half the liveliness in the Underworld tonight was likely because of him.
Yet, his aura of indifference had transformed the area within half a meter of the peach tree into his own transcendent domain, as if anyone who even glanced at that spot would be blessed for three lifetimes.
Clearly, this was no ordinary figure. Ayin stroked her chin, her eyes sliding upward.
With just one glance, Ayin nearly stumbled and fell into the River of Oblivion.
Oh my, his appearance was far too handsome, coupled with that innate nobility and gentle elegance… Ayin dared to swear on her conscience, with her experience from over twenty lifetimes of observing countless men, that this High Immortal was truly a top-tier catch!
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