Spirit Realm Walker

It was 11 AM on Saturday.

Zhang Yuanqing crawled out of bed with a yawn, his eyes barely open. Ever since becoming a Nocturnal Specter, sleep refused to come at night. He would stay up until dawn gaming, then spend the entire day in a fog of drowsiness, nodding off at every opportunity.

Two days had passed since that evening’s spirit interrogation. Li Dongze and Guan Ya had been heading out constantly, throwing themselves into the search for Black Wuchang and his subordinates. Their absence meant Zhang Yuanqing’s combat training ground to a halt. 

According to the Squad Leader’s original plan, Guan Ya was supposed to handle Yuanshi’s hand-to-hand combat training next. Given a Nocturnal Specter’s enhanced physical capabilities, it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to pick up the basics in a short time. But the incident involving the Holy Grail and the Registry took priority, and Squad Two was already shorthanded as it was.

Zhang Yuanqing had once asked Li Dongze about those teammates who had never shown their faces. The Squad Leader’s expression immediately turned awkward, as though concealing something he couldn’t bring himself to say. Yuanshi Tianzun, perceptive as always, chose not to press the matter.

On a separate note, Wang Qian of the Slaughter Cessation Palace had agreed to become his informant, offering his cooperation with surprising willingness and self-awareness. 

Meanwhile, the Ou Xiangrong incident had prompted Songhai University to crack down hard on campus security. The administration now forbade students staying on campus from leaving at night, which meant the social mixer had been shelved indefinitely.

After a quick wash, Zhang Yuanqing found that his grandma was still preparing lunch, so he returned to his room and began playing with the infant spirit.

At the moment, he was arranging a little selection ceremony for Little Goofball. Once his experience had crossed the fifty percent threshold, both the purity and density of his Power of the Dark Moon received a boost, and he had noticed that the infant spirit, nourished by that same power, had grown slightly more intelligent.

He arranged his textbooks in a circle around the plump, adorable little spirit. Mathematics on the left, Chinese literature on the right, English in front, and physics behind.

”Your master is a man of immense learning and boundless wisdom. You can’t fall behind. Go on, pick one.”

Little Goofball stared up at him with round, shiny black eyes, tilting his head to one side in deep contemplation. After a long moment, the infant spirit finally seemed to grasp what was being asked of it, then scrambled forward on all fours toward the physics textbook.

”Oh, a child with a promising future—”

The smile had barely bloomed on Zhang Yuanqing’s face when the little creature crawled right past the physics textbook and threw itself at the PS5 console. Unable to actually touch the physical object, it flopped face first onto the ground with a soft thud.

”You useless thing! You’re nothing like me!” Zhang Yuanqing scolded the spirit in outrage. ”When I was your age, I was already composing poetry!”

He let out a disappointed sigh. If he wanted to raise the infant spirit’s intelligence and cultivate it into something worthwhile, he would need to master the Nocturnal Specter’s spirit-rearing techniques. That meant leveling up. By his estimation, the second Spirit Realm mission should be coming soon.

***

After lunch, Zhang Yuanqing walked into the bedroom, poured warm water into his teacup, and pulled open the nightstand drawer to retrieve a white pill bottle.

”Honestly, I’ve been so busy lately that I forgot to take my medicine. It’s already two days overdue,” he muttered to himself as he tipped the bottle sideways, shaking a few small pills into his palm. 

Then he froze.

Wait. It had already been two days. Why hadn’t his old ailment flared up?

His condition had been growing steadily worse, the episodes coming more and more frequently. There was no way he should have made it this long without an attack. Was it because becoming a Nocturnal Specter had changed his body?

Come to think of it, I haven’t had a single episode since my promotion. Could it actually be cured? he wondered.

A surge of excitement ran through him, though he didn’t dare conclude anything. He decided to test it.

He drew a deep breath, closed his eyes, and visualized his father’s blurred face in his mind.

Some unknowable span of time later, his heart gave a single violent thump, and his brain overload state erupted. A torrent of miscellaneous sounds flooded his consciousness, and fragmented images surged into life.

The next instant, though, the noise resolved itself into recognizable sounds, and the images were no longer fragmented.

No—it wasn’t that the sounds and images had found order. His brain’s capacity to process information had grown stronger.

He could hear his uncle dancing in the living room to his favorite Jianbing song. His aunt was watching a drama in the bedroom, complaining every now and then that his uncle’s music was too loud and to keep it down. From the kitchen came the clinking of the dishes as his grandma washed the,.

Downstairs, a bed was creaking rhythmically. Based on careful analysis of the collision patterns, Zhang Yuanqing felt confident, even proud, in his determination that the lady of the house was lying face down.

His brain continued processing information.

Guan Ya always carries this indescribable air of confidence, and the Squad Leader seems unusually polite toward her, unlike how he treats me and Wang Tai… 

When I mentioned those missing teammates, the look on his face was embarrassment mixed with helplessness… 

The Musician Wang Qian’s change of attitude is suspicious. Just yesterday he was dismissive of me…

Little Goofball has a strange affinity for Little Aunt. Little Aunt, Little Aunt…

At that precise moment, the bedroom door swung open without warning, shattering his mysterious trance in an instant.

”Come on, let’s go! Take me shopping!” Jiang Yu’er called out in her sweet, coquettish voice.

She was dressed in a knee-length pleated skirt, little white sneakers, and a loose, pale blue top. Paired with her naturally sweet and adorable features, the whole look gave off a wholesome and well behaved mori girl vibe.

That docile appearance was the main reason Jiang Yu’er was such hot property in the matchmaking scene. Confident men figured a beautiful, demure girl would be easy to handle, while less self-assured men found that a beauty like her wouldn’t put too much pressure on them.

Zhang Yuanqing stared at his aunt in a daze, and two streams of warm blood suddenly burst from his nostrils.

***

Fu Qingyang sat in the back of a business sedan in the underground parking garage of Songhai Airport. He had been waiting for quite some time. Frowning, the Centurion dialed his assistant’s phone.

When the call connected, he asked in a low, flat voice, ”Why hasn’t he come out yet?”

He was there to pick someone up from a flight that had landed over an hour ago, yet his assistant still hadn’t managed to escort the man out. The Centurion’s time was precious. He had no intention of wasting it on something this trivial.

—Sir, he… 

The assistant’s voice dropped to a near whisper.

—He hit it off with some woman at the airport and refuses to leave. Says he needs to ’connect on a deeper emotional level’…

A vein on Fu Qingyang’s temple began to pulse. ”Tell him he can walk out on his own, or I can go in and drag him out.”

The assistant acknowledged the order and promptly hung up.

A few minutes later, the assistant emerged from the terminal into the underground garage, leading a young man. They headed toward the business sedan.

The young man wore loose, cream-colored trousers and a light blue shirt. His sleeves rippled as he walked, lending him an effortless, almost ethereal elegance. He possessed delicately handsome features, his eyes perpetually half closed in an amused, lazy squint, and he exuded a bone-deep languidness. Approachable, indolent, and harmless—that was the impression he gave.

”You truly are worthy of the title ’Flowery Young Master’ indeed,” Fu Qingyang said, his tone frigid. ”Women are throwing themselves at you wherever you go.”

This young man who shared his rank, another of the Four Young Masters, lived up to his nickname in every respect. He was a playboy through and through. His father was the Sect Master of Taiyi Sect. With a prestigious family background and outstanding personal talent, the beauties that flocked around him were beyond counting.

If it were a case of simple lechery, of course, he would hardly warrant being mentioned alongside Fu Qingyang. The reason Ling Jun had earned the title of Flowery Young Master was that he truly understood women. His reputation among them was remarkably—even inexplicably—good.

In response to the jab, Ling Jun simply narrowed his eyes and smiled. ”Don’t put it so crudely. Beautiful women are works of art. You have to savor them slowly and understand them gradually, before you can truly appreciate their beauty. That is refinement.”

Fu Qingyang’s brow creased. ”Your refinement cost me an hour and delayed important business.”

”Brother Qingyang, life isn’t all about work. There’s so much beauty in the world worth discovering.” 

The corners of Ling Jun’s eyes curved upward as he smiled. ”I already know about the Ghost Eye Judge situation. I’ll assist you fully. Father is deeply concerned about the judge’s death.”

The Centurion studied him. 

”Why?” he finally probed.

”The timing of his death and that of the Demon Lord’s demise is very close. Father suspects there’s a connection between the two.”

”Why is the Sect Master so fixated on the Demon Lord’s death? And on finding the Demon Lord’s successor?”

”Because before the Demon Lord died, he left something very important inside his Character Card.”

”What is it?”

”All I can tell you is that it represents the ultimate. It represents the very essence of the Spirit Realm.”

***

A milk tea shop in Runfa Mall.

Zhang Yuanqing collapsed into his seat, weighed down by shopping bags of every size. He grabbed a glass and took a long, savage pull of iced milk tea. A sigh of pure satisfaction escaped him.

He instantly felt like a man brought back from the dead.

The most exhausting part of accompanying his little aunt on a shopping trip wasn’t the physical toll. It was the spiritual torment.

Fortunately, the lovely figures of the young women strolling through the mall provided some relief from the fatigue. Sipping his milk tea, Zhang Yuanqing found himself in rather good spirits.

He had confirmed something important. The effects of his strange ailment had been significantly alleviated. Beyond just the reduced frequency of episodes, triggering the condition voluntarily had also become easier. Most importantly, the post-episode symptoms of headaches and nosebleeds had diminished considerably.

Perhaps in the future, he could freely control that brain overload state. That meant he wouldn’t even need Wang Tai to help him write papers anymore. He snickered inside.

Zhang Yuanqing hurriedly banished the tempting thought from his mind. No, that was far too pathetic.

”Ugh, this month’s salary isn’t going to be enough,” his little aunt lamented.

He shot her a sidelong glance.

”When has your salary ever been enough? You always spend Grandpa and Grandma’s money,” he chided, his voice dripping with contempt.

Jiang Yu’er was still just a medical intern earning a pitifully low wage, yet luxury goods were never in short supply around her. The vast majority of her spending power came courtesy of their grandparents.

Their grandparents had substantial savings. Their eldest daughter had a successful career, and their eldest son had married a wealthy wife, so neither needed financial support. That left the youngest daughter as the sole beneficiary of their accumulated fortune, free to squander it as she pleased.

Jiang Yu’er pouted, putting on a pitiful expression. 

”That’s right, that’s right. Your auntie is useless. I can’t earn money. The only thing I can do is lean on Dad with all my might.”

As they chatted idly, Zhang Yuanqing pulled out his phone and habitually logged into the official spirit walker forum to browse for interesting posts. 

The forum served two main purposes. First, it was the official channel for important announcements and information. Second, it was a platform for Spirit Realm Walkers across the country to exchange information and intelligence. As far as Zhang Yuanqing was concerned, browsing the forum was one of the fastest ways to broaden his horizons.

Before long, a post caught his attention.

【A massive wave of new A-rank and S-rank Spirit Realms are appearing for the Nocturnal Specter class. Official Nocturnal Specters across all regions have been reported ”missing.”】