Chapter 110: Memories Like the Wind

After speaking, the ghostly woman in the green robe snorted coldly, withdrawing her spectral claws. With a swift movement, she had already arrived beside a grave ten paces away.

Cui Yue wiped the cold sweat from his brow, thinking how close he had come to having his head split open by this shameless creature.

“Who exactly are you?” he asked.

The ghostly woman, still facing away from him, suddenly froze at his question, stunned in place.

“Who am I? Yes, after all this time, who am I really?”

The skeletal monster opened its blood-red maw, relentlessly pursuing the old strange man, Huo!

Huo, frantic, jumped up and down. This big-footed beast was no easy opponent—strong and agile, and above all, enormous!

“May the Heavenly Lord grant me divine strength, empower my body...”

Evading a strike from the skeletal monster, Huo muttered an incantation of immense power. His muscles bulged fiercely, becoming as hard as rock.

Seizing an opportunity, one of the monster’s heads snapped downward, aiming to bite Huo in two.

As death seemed imminent, Huo did not retreat but charged forward, catching the monster’s upper and lower jaws between his large hands.

Drawing strength deep within, he roared and, with his hands like giant pincers, ripped the monster’s head clean in two, tossing it behind him.

Roar! Roar! Roar!

The skeletal monster, originally three-headed, now had one head destroyed by Huo’s bare hands.

Furious and humiliated, the monster twisted its waist, the massive bone whip lashing out with blinding speed.

Huo, having gained the upper hand, retreated immediately, but it was too late—the huge bone spikes were already inches from him.

With no other choice, Huo blocked with his fists, each blow infused with the power of a thousand weights, meeting the bone whip head-on.

A loud crack echoed!

Several of the enormous bone spikes shattered under the divine might, but the assault was too fierce. Huo was flung backward, crashing through a tombstone before the grave.

---

Lost in darkness, long ago she had forgotten her initial resolve, only recalling the vow you made to me beneath the moonlit flowers.

Mountains and rivers, countless tales of sorrow and betrayal—yesterday’s words only add to today’s troubles.

The ghostly woman in green stood frozen, lost. The black aura that once enveloped her dissipated entirely, revealing a flowing white gown with water sleeves and embroidered crimson shoes.

Now she appeared as an ordinary fragile woman, ensnared by love, her sorrow spreading like a shadow.

She seemed unaware of Cui Yue’s presence, walking to a grave where she sat silently, gazing toward Yunshan Village nearby. Love and hate, anger and sorrow hovered on her lips, as though she were recounting a story or whispering secrets.

A girl, abandoned by her birth parents, was taken in by a family of stone masons who raised her.

Though life was harsh, her foster parents treated her kindly, and the family lived in harmony. Until at nine years old, her foster father learned to smoke opium, and the household’s fortunes quickly declined. Anything of value was sold or exchanged for opium at the Recovery Hall.

Soon, everything was gone. The man changed completely. One day, he even pawned his wife to the Recovery Hall. She knew then he was no longer her father and began to fear him.

Inevitably, nightmare descended. The girl was bound and sold to the hall’s owner as a child bride, never to see her foster father again.

She worked like a beast in the owner’s house, eating less than the gatekeeper’s dog. Knowing she had to survive, one night, when the gatekeeper’s assistant was drunk, she fled without looking back, running until she lost consciousness.

Fortune smiled upon her—she was rescued by a traveling opera troupe passing by. From then on, the troupe became her home, her world.

Her master said she was born to perform, gifted beyond measure. In just a few years, she became a renowned actress, traveling far and wide with the troupe, basking in fame.

Cui Yue listened intently, heart tightening. The girl the ghost spoke of was obviously herself, and the upheaval happened after her rise to fame as the Green-Robed Lady.

The ghost gently stroked her fine hair, her white dress floating softly. Lowering her head, she seemed to recall and yet dream.

That day, her performance of “Mu Guiying Takes Command” received thunderous applause. Yet, inexplicably, she felt uneasy watching someone in the audience. She ended the show abruptly and retired backstage.

From then on, that person often came to see her perform...

“Is that person Pei...?” Cui Yue blurted out.

“Yes,” the ghost sighed softly, “he is Pei Wending.”

---

No one knew when it began, but the two secretly fell in love, bound by a promise of three lifetimes.

Fate played a cruel trick—they vowed to fly together as one, becoming inseparable branches of the same tree. Yet, when they returned to his hometown, Yunshan Village, she discovered he already had a family—a wife and children, with parents above.

Bitter and furious, she turned to leave but could not resist his desperate pleas. He begged for a few days’ patience, promising to explain everything to his family, obtain a divorce, and free her so they could live together forever.

On the night of their agreed departure, beneath a high moon by the ancient well of Yunshan, she waited, ready to escape with him.

But then, she howled to the heavens in despair and rage.

“To think, I was thrown down the well, crushed beneath stones!”

Her emotions spiraled out of control, her ghostly aura surged wildly, her face twisted grotesquely. With a raised hand, she blasted open a nearby grave.

Startled, Cui Yue stepped back quickly, holding his wooden sword diagonally before him.

“To stop Pei Wending from abandoning his wife and children and consorting with a lowly actress like me, Yunshan Village made me a restless ghost in this well!”

“What? How could this be?”

Cui Yue’s heart clenched—she could not believe it was the people of Yunshan Village...

“They all deserve to die! All of them!”

The ghost ground her teeth, voice full of venom.

Cui Yue was shaken deeply. This news was unbearable. The ghost in green had died so unjustly—so tragic.

“Even so, you must not lose all sense of right and wrong, slaughtering three generations of Yunshan Village!”

“Hmph. What does it matter if I destroy three generations? What of the sins they committed? Who will atone for those? When my troupe’s brothers and sisters found I had not returned, they came searching for me. The people of Yunshan feared exposure and secretly poisoned them all. Fifteen members, none survived. Afterwards, they threw all our props into the river, staging their deaths as accidents! Shouldn’t this debt be theirs to bear?”

Cui Yue stood dumbfounded, speechless, his mind reeling as if struck by a heavy hammer, frozen in place.