That was a bewildered female ghost, standing disheveled and pacing before the tree. She still wore the clothes she had worn in life, her face blank and unreadable.
When people die, they are usually dressed in clothes for the afterlife, which is why there is the custom of dressing the dead in burial clothes. It's simply a way of changing the deceased's clothes so they can depart more presentably.
But the woman before him was wearing a professional business suit, looking like a white-collar worker from the city, with a touch of competence.
Looking at her appearance, Jiang Wen felt that this matter might not be simple. If it were a ghost that had been buried, it would usually be dressed in simple white clothes. This would indicate that she had lived a pure life and was now returning to the earth clean and innocent. If she was wearing ordinary clothes from the world, there would only be one possibility: she had not yet been buried, and perhaps even her body had not been found.
Jiang Wen had long anticipated that there would be more and more strange things happening in the world, as was the case with the ghost baby he had encountered before.
These wandering ghosts probably had some grievances that had not been resolved.
Jiang Wen was not in a hurry. He took out a talisman and held it in his hand.
He threw the talisman at the female ghost, and it burst into a ghostly blue flame in the wind.
This flame was called Yin Fire, and it could burn away the baleful aura of ghosts and restore clarity. If it encountered an evil ghost, this Yin Fire would also be a fatal spell, enough to burn the evil ghost to ashes, preventing it from being reborn. Ordinary ghosts would be afraid and give way when they saw this fire, and only a few great ghosts, such as ghost immortals and ghost kings who had cultivated for many years, would not be afraid of its divine power.
However, the Yin Fire ignited around the female ghost, burning from her hair to her heels. Like wildfire burning willow catkins, it burned her clean in an instant.
The female ghost's face became clearer, and even her expression became more lively. She looked around in surprise.
"Where am I?! Where is this?!" the female ghost cried out in panic.
"This is the Jingxu Temple. Doesn't the lady know her own situation?" Jiang Wen asked.
"I... I was sitting in my boss's car on the way to do something. Then the boss said he needed to relieve himself and got out of the car, and then the car was hit by a big truck coming from behind..." The female ghost recalled what had happened before her death, and her last memory was fixed on the moment of the collision.
She only felt dizzy and in great pain all over her body before she fainted. In the end, she lost consciousness and didn't know what she was going to do.
"..." The female ghost was silent for a while, then looked up at Jiang Wen with a pitiful expression. "So, am I dead?"
"Yes," Jiang Wen said succinctly.
"I, I..." The female ghost couldn't speak. Her entire being was filled with immense sadness, and even her body was tinged with inkiness. "I still have so many things to do. I still have my parents to take care of. I have a cat at home that's still waiting for me. How could I have died like this? How could I have died like this...?"
The female ghost sobbed, and a ghostly wind rose around the locust tree. However, this ghostly wind was not as cold as Jiang Wen had expected, but rather carried a sense of unbearable sorrow.
"People cannot be brought back to life once they die," Jiang Wen said. He had many treasures, but few could bring the dead back to life. Dragon blood was one, but it was only effective for cultivators with strong souls. For mortals like the female ghost, forcibly using dragon blood to save her might be counterproductive.
The cycle of heaven and earth is predetermined by yin and yang. Embarking on the path of cultivation also means that even death is difficult.
"I'm sorry, I'm just a little sad," the woman said apologetically. "I don't know where to go now, and I don't know what to do..."
"Your ghost has not dispersed after death, presumably because there is some regret or obsession in your heart that has not been resolved. If you always have concerns in your heart, you will only wander in the world, eroded by the turbid air of the mortal world, and eventually either turn into a mindless evil ghost or dissipate completely. So, is there anything you haven't finished in your heart?" Jiang Wen asked her again.
The female ghost simply shook her head, indicating that she couldn't figure it out either. She had too many things left unfinished in the world. If she were to talk about them, it might take a lifetime to complete them, but unfortunately, she didn't have that much time now.
"Judging from your current appearance, I'm afraid you were deliberately murdered. If you still know the place where you died, how about taking me to see it?"
"Really? Did I... die unnaturally?" the female ghost asked somewhat blankly.
"You have an obsession in your heart that even you yourself are not very clear about. Because you feel that it's impossible for your death to be such a coincidence. Why were you hit after the boss got out of the car? Why didn't your boss find a safe place to park? Don't you find these things suspicious?" Jiang Wen laid out the facts one by one, and the female ghost's expression became more and more normal.
"Yes, why are these things happening? Why haven't I thought about these things...?" the female ghost muttered to herself.
"Actually, you have this kind of doubt in your heart, but you just haven't figured it out yet," Jiang Wen said softly. "Since the obsession in your heart is not resolved, why don't we go and see what the truth is?"
"Okay," the female ghost nodded.
Jiang Wen smiled and waved his hand to summon Flying Frost. The sword floated in mid-air, causing the female ghost to take a long time to recover: "You, you are a god?!"
"A god? No, I'm just a Taoist priest," Jiang Wen smiled. He waved his hand at the female ghost, using his magic to guide her onto the flying sword, and took her to the place where the accident happened.
Ghosts are a very strange kind of living being. Although they originate from the human soul, they are completely different from the human soul. The source of human life is called the soul, but those who wander the world without a fixed place are called ghosts.
Jiang Wen had seen many ghosts and monsters in both the modern world and the Great Qian Dynasty. Some were fierce, some were kind, and all were closely related to their experiences in life.
Yan Gongli said that ghosts originate from the soul but are not extinguished by the soul, and their origin lies in the seven spirits.
The seven spirits of man are called: Corpse Dog, Hidden Arrow, Sparrow Yin, Thief Swallowing, Non-Poison, Filth Removal, and Stinking Lungs.
They correspond to human joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate, and desire.
Although the theories of various schools in the two realms are different, they all lead to the same destination. Therefore, the three souls of man govern life, and the seven spirits govern emotion.
And ghosts and monsters, they obtain the Yin of heaven and earth. Gathering the turbid impurities of the world, they exist by emotion.
Human obsession originates from emotion, and the obsession of ghosts also originates from this.
Therefore, in Jiang Wen's view, ghosts are the embodiment of the collection of emotions, rather than the human soul.
Perhaps it was the female ghost's first time experiencing flight, and she was very excited. Her whole body radiated white light, and her face was filled with unstoppable joy.
Jiang Wen asked her name, and she said it was Zhao Liu. She worked in a listed company, in charge of the company's finances.
When asked if her boss had murderous intentions because of tax issues, the female ghost Zhao Liu revealed after a long time that she had always known about the tax issues, and that the issues were very serious.
Hearing this, Jiang Wen understood.
