No matter how Dong Qiuyue tried to suppress the rebellious reaction from her body, the strange unfamiliar dark place and sudden appearance of the headless lady was beyond her limit. The unwanted emotion and natural instinct of survival kicked in, the fear slowly consumed her mind.

Gnashing her teeth, Dong Qiuyue tried her best to confront this enigmatic headless ghost.

“What do you want?!”

She took a step back to distance herself and took a defensive stance.

The headless beauty didn’t react, but the fog around them slowly became more active.

“Are you a ghost?” Dong Qiuyue tried to probe for information.

But she didn’t receive any feedback.

“Where am I?”

“Who are you?”

She asked the question one by one as to look for any useful information but all of them left unanswered.

Dong Qiuyue frowned, she didn’t know what to do now. Let alone a ghost, she hasn't officially started any martial art training.

She felt down for being dragged in this situation. She learned so much from Niu Chang and hoped for a bright future, but who would have thought such misfortune befall upon her right before she left the bandit hideout.

“Am I destined to die in this place without ever stepping outside? Haha, to stay in this place forever?”

Dong Qiuyue's heart and mind was in chaos, she didn’t receive any response from the headless beauty and she would die in the place she loathed the most.

Fueled by hatred, she recalled her savior. The freedom he showed at that time is still fresh in her mind. Under the restriction of her mind, she reached out for that brilliant light called freedom.

“HAHAHA… you want to kill me? Do you have the ability?” Dong Qiuyue’s face was livid with strong emotion, her eyes were bright and no shadow could cover them.

Her heart was thumping with excitement she never felt before. She was afraid of the unknown future but she didn’t want to give up yet.

The conflicting feelings in her heart become like a cocktail of ecstasy. The feeling she never heard before, but she didn’t resist it.

She fearlessly while smiling widely chose to attack the headless beauty directly without any plan.

No fear. No consideration.

Dong Qiuyue felt the fog to resist her movement but she didn’t care, she would die if she didn't do anything.

The untrained body moved clumsily, the small fist was the first to reach the headless beauty. But it stopped before it touched the headless body.

Dong Qiuyue gained her sanity amidst the overflowing madness, she saw the headless beauty stop her fist with one hand.

She could feel the coldness from a dead body around her fist. Just like how the dead body retains its looks of a living human, Dong Qiuyue didn’t feel soft tissue that can be torn with slight strength or dry texture of dehydrated skin.

From that contact, Dong Qiuyue suddenly felt her mind being infiltrated by external forces. But she couldn’t do anything about it as if watching her body being cutted open piece by piece.

“Ah… is this the end?” Dong Qiuyue lamented in her mind, “I am really weak, I can’t even give my opponent any difficulty. This hopelessness is because I am too weak. If only I am stronger than I can defeat her without any problem… but if I rely on strength alone, what is the difference between me and the bandit?”

“What about the savior? He didn’t rely on his strength… I wonder what his goal is.”

Recalling the image of Niu Chang in her mind, the madness that was suppressed suddenly erupted again with greater momentum.

“That’s right! My savior didn’t rely on his strength to be who he was, so what if I am weak?”

The dimmed eyes slowly regained their light. “HAHAHA… So what if you are strong?! Since you want to enter my mind, I will let you enter it. I want to see if your will and determination is stronger than mine. Can you even break the image of my savior?!”

Dong Qiuyue let go of her struggle, she could sense her mind was expanded and many unfamiliar memories appeared.

But what’s more important was that someone tried to erase her consciousness and replaced it with theirs.

The area under Dong Qiuyue’s control was easily defeated and claimed by the invader’s consciousness. Even with her strong determination, Dong Qiuyue’s will alone couldn’t resist the powerful force.

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Dong Qiuyue didn’t not wavered at all since she remembered the advice from her savior, “the heart was complicated and hard to control, because of this you need to put priority on your heart.”

The image of her savior became Dong Qiuyue’s focus. She could let go of everything but she wouldn’t let go of her first priority.

All areas of Dong Qiuyue’s mind had already become dark and controlled by the invader’s will, but it was unable to control the last piece of Dong Qiuyue’s consciousness.

Even so, with only that small consciousness that no longer remembers who she was or what she was. Only the obsession of following that figure in the image left, now she is officially dead.

The invader’s attack stopped since they already control everything and the original consciousness no longer has anything.

On the outside world.

‘Dong Qiuyue’ opened her eyes. But her eyes were cold and lightless.

She moved her arms in awkwards way to check her body. After a few attempts, she became familiar with the new body.

Even after a complete possession over a living body, the original headless beauty didn’t have the intelligence of a living human.

It seems, the cause of her becoming a ghost was not perfect leaving this defect to her intelligence.

Without any spiritual intelligence, the ghost moves by instinct which is to feed only living being vitality.

Humans cultivate the qi by meditating or consuming elixir. While other creatures also have their own path of cultivation.

Animals could evolve into ferocious beasts after living for a long time or consuming a rare herb, the plants evolve after absorbing enough spiritual essence of heaven and earth, as for strange creatures like evil spirits or ghosts, they cultivate by absorbing the life essence of other living beings.

‘Dong Qiuyue’ then continued to find the corpse that hadn't been eaten by her due to the sudden appearance of Dong Qiuyue.

. . .

“Senior brother, should we stop at this village for today?” Wei Hong used her sweet voice to ask her senior brother.

“Let's ask the villagers about this village first.” Wan You, the senior brother, has a calm demeanor like a true prominent martial artist. He calmly responded to his problematic junior sister.

Both of them wear clean and neat robes. With white inner garment and fitting long-sleeved robe on the outside. But this was not their sect formal attire, they were on vacation- training in the outside world.

Wan You always tried to delay his promise to accompany his junior sister, but he already delayed it for more than a year. He felt guilty to delay it any further and finally came to this small village.

“Okay okay, I will let you ask them, senior brother.” Wei Hong grabbed her senior brother’ hand and shook them while smiling.

“Ahem, pay attention to your image. You are no longer a child.” Wan You pulled back his hand and reprimanded Wei Hong with a kind tone. But his face was cold showing his disciplined character.

“I understand, how many times do you want to repeat that? I'm already tired of hearing the same word over and over. Senior brother, can’t you come up with a new sentence?” Wei Hong crossed her hands on her chest, she was no longer able to contain herself when hearing the same word her brother said more than twenty times on their journey.

“You… just don’t make any problems.” Wei Hong chose to compromise with his immature junior sister.

Both of them entered the village looking for some villagers to ask. They look around the village with different thoughts.

Wei Hong was looking around with interest since this was the first village that really expanded her vision. “Wow, senior brother, this should be the first village that is very poor in our journey right? I mean the previous villages weren't this poor, at least their houses were not as bad as the houses in this village.”

Wan You looked at his junior sister whose mouth didn’t have any filter at all and said everything that came up in her mind. “Watch your mouth.”

He only gave her a warning.

Hearing the harsh tone of her senior brother, Wei Hong quickly closed her mouth and covered them with her hands. She looked at the side profile of Wan You, and let out a sigh of relief in her heart.

‘Thank goodness that senior brother didn’t get really mad. Or else…’ Wei Hong no longer dared to continue her thought. She knew how strict her senior brother was, he rather chose to train all day long instead of wasting any time.

But because of Wan You’s strong character he entered the top ten strongest disciples in their sect.

Since Wan You didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention, no one knew his true strength. But some speculated he should be at least in the top three.

Wei Hong kept her mouth shut, but her eyes kept wandering left and right. Her expression kept changing from surprise and confusion.

‘How can these villagers live in such a poor environment?’ She wanted to voice her question to her senior brother, but she chose to stop since she saw a villager walking towards them.

The villager was a man in his late forties, his face was dark and wrinkled due to working under the sun everyday. His body didn’t have any unnecessary fat but the muscle didn’t protrude either. He wore thin brown clothes with dirty pants.

The man stopped and quickly bowed to the pair. It was the ethics of a normal civilian when encountering martial artists. This might be different from a big city, but here in this small village, no one cares about the villager life except for themselves.

So, instead of being rude it's better for them to misunderstand anyone as a martial artist. There was no loss of doing so, but not doing so will cost them their lives.

The man gave way to the pair to not block them and kept his head down the entire time.

Taking an initiative might offend the other party, so it's better for the villager to be silent until they leave.

The villager would only talk when asked.

Wan You and Wei Hong stopped a few steps from the man. Noticing this development, the man quickly played the role of a good villager to save his life.

“This lowly one greets the two esteemed guests.”

“You can raise your head, no need to be that formal.” Wan You said casually. As a righteous sect disciple, he naturally wouldn’t bully the weak villager.

The villager let out a sigh of relief in his heart and raised his head. He didn’t dare to look at Wei Hong behind the man in front of him.

“Esteemed guests, please ask away what you want to know. I will try my best to answer your question.”

“Tell me about this village?” Wan You asked directly.