The Post Sky Tipping Era
Chapter 42 - 33 Returning to Reality

Chapter 42: Chapter 33 Returning to Reality

"We don’t have much time left, hurry up."

Li Yi, wearing a human skin mask, was pulling Zhao Qian along as they ran quickly through Ghost Street.

He had bought Coffin Ganoderma and two Mud Horses, and had resolved all matters, having wanted to spend more but time was insufficient, forcing him to give up—otherwise, he could have spent some of his life span to buy some rare and strange items.

After all, Li Yi was prepared to default on his debts.

Relying on his memory, Li Yi didn’t take the wrong path and quickly led Zhao Qian into the familiar alley from before, then made a left turn and a right turn.

Before long, the two stopped in front of the big gate of a small courtyard.

Looking left and right, and seeing no ghosts lingering nearby, Li Yi dared to speak up, "Miss Zhao, I won’t go in. Please help me say farewell to my master. I’m afraid that if my master sees me and gets caught up with the Coffin Ganoderma business, it will delay your safe departure from here. Moreover, I need to go back home."

"My parents are still there to look after, it’s a pity I’m not alone—if I were, I’d really like to go with my master to Xingzhou."

"Brother Yi," Zhao Qian’s eyes brimmed with tears. Although she had spent very little time with Li Yi, meeting him for less than an hour, they had gone through a lot.

Especially just now, for a master whom she had acknowledged for less than an hour, she had directly spent sixty years of her life span.

She was very clear that after parting on Ghost Street this time, it would be difficult for them to meet again in this lifetime.

"It’s okay, you must take good care of yourself and look after the master in the future. If fate allows, we may meet again someday," Li Yi said seriously, patting her shoulder.

"I thought I saw ghost soldiers wandering nearby just now. You better go in quickly; I’m leaving," he added.

At this moment, Li Yi glanced out of the corner of his eye.

It seemed as if an ancient soldier holding a long spear floated past. He broke out in cold sweat, his heart shocked, not daring to continue the conversation. He quickly put on his mask and turned to run.

"Brother Yi..." Zhao Qian called out again.

Li Yi didn’t look back, just waved his hand in farewell, his figure quickly disappearing around the corner of the alley.

"Creak!"

At that moment, Zhao Ge, who was inside the house, heard the noise and hurriedly opened the door.

Looking around and seeing the ghost soldiers wandering nearby, his face changed abruptly. He hastily pulled Zhao Qian into the courtyard and then closed the courtyard gate.

Fortunately, the Door God on the gate had not yet faded.

The ghost soldier passed by without causing a disturbance, merely floating along, then pursuing the scent of other living beings.

Inside the courtyard.

Zhao Ge spoke in a low voice, "What happened? Where’s Meng De? And what’s with the blood on your shoulder?"

His Eye Power was excellent, and he spotted the bloodstain on Zhao Qian’s shoulder at a glance.

That was left by Li Yi when he slapped her shoulder.

"Brother Yi just left. He asked me to bid farewell to father. He wanted to leave Ghost Street to go home because he feared delaying our time, so he did not enter. Brother Yi is fine, he’s safe. This blood was left when Brother Yi made his mark."

Zhao Qian explained, then took out the Coffin Ganoderma, "Father, look, this is the Coffin Ganoderma that Brother Yi bought."

When Zhao Ge heard that Li Yi had left without saying goodbye, he was initially disappointed, but after hearing that Li Yi was safe, he breathed a sigh of relief. However, when he saw the Coffin Ganoderma in his daughter’s hand, his eyes bulged in shock, "Such a large Coffin Ganoderma? How much life span did it cost?"

"Six, sixty." Zhao Qian said, stumbling through her words, unable to hide the truth.

"Sixty?"

Slap!

Zhao Ge became furious instantly, slapping Zhao Qian across the face, "You fool, if Meng De doesn’t understand the ways of the world, don’t you understand either? Sixty years of life span is asking for his life. Your father finally had the good fortune of taking such a good disciple at his old age, and you are ruining him. Medicines are expensive, if we can’t afford them, then so be it. After all, your father’s life is already at its end."

Zhao Qian’s face turned red from the slap, but she didn’t dodge and simply took it, then cried, "How could your daughter not know? But I couldn’t stop Brother Yi, he made his mark without the slightest hesitation."

Zhao Ge kicked Zhao Qian over with another foot and scolded her pointing, "Do you think you can fool others with that talk, fooling me? If you truly intended to stop him, could Meng De have made the mark? Clearly, you were undecided, and in your hesitation you let Meng De buy the Coffin Ganoderma."

"Father, how was your daughter to choose at that moment? I couldn’t afford sixty years of life span. If I could have, I wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment. Although Brother Yi stepped forward, my heart is filled with guilt, but I also didn’t know whether I should stop him. If I had prevented him and missed the moment, I would have had to watch you die with my eyes wide open." Zhao Qian began to weep.

Having said this, Zhao Ge slowly lowered the hand that he had once again raised, then slapped his own face hard.

"Sigh."

He sighed deeply, then sank into a deep self-reproach and pain.

Zhao Qian continued, "Father, Brother Yi has a life span of one hundred and fifty. He will be fine. With cultivation in the future, Brother Yi can naturally recover the lost life span. Don’t you believe in Brother Yi’s speed of cultivation?"

"A lifespan of one hundred and fifty? Is that true? You’re not lying to me." Zhao Ge suddenly looked up at her.

"Brother Yi tested it with a Life Plate. I saw it with my own eyes, it can’t be fake." Zhao Qian said, wiping away her tears and standing up.

Zhao Ge said, "With dragon veins and tiger bones, robust Qi-blood, and an extraordinary talent, it’s not surprising to have such a lifespan. But having reduced his lifespan by sixty years, it’s as if he has lost half his life... Our father-daughter pair owes Meng De greatly. Had I known this would happen, you should have left with Meng De and helped to take care of his parents and looked after their daily lives, and you could have taught him the martial arts that I hadn’t finished teaching him."

"Father, I will go look for Brother Yi now, to repay his kindness with the rest of my life." Zhao Qian said and immediately wanted to set out in search.

Zhao Ge hesitated for a moment but ultimately grabbed her before she stepped out of the courtyard, "There’s not enough time. The time for the Soul Leaving Incense is nearly up. Meng De might have already left Ghost Street by now. Never mind, never mind, it seems that my connection with Meng De was just not sufficient. Go back, go back. If fate wills it, we will meet again another day, and you can follow him then."

"Alright. I will abide by father’s decisions." Holding back the urge in her heart, Zhao Qian pursed her lips in resignation.

At that moment.

There was a sudden banging noise at the courtyard gate.

The loud commotion instantly woke Zhao Ge and Zhao Qian.

"Quick, get back into the coffin. The Door God on the door has failed, ghost soldiers and ghosts are about to enter. We cannot stay here any longer, we must go back." Having realized this, Zhao Ge quickly pulled his daughter into the main hall and hurriedly opened the coffin lid.

The coffin was empty.

Zhao Ge first put his daughter into the coffin and covered it, then he himself lay down in another coffin next to her. With a surge of strength in his hands, the lid of the coffin fell shut with a steady bang.

After the two of them lay down, the courtyard gate was suddenly blown open by a gust of cold wind.

The cold wind swept into the hall, whirling the white paper money scattered across the floor.

The Soul Leaving Incense had burned out.

But mysteriously, the two coffins in the middle of the hall had disappeared without a trace.

Zhao Ge and Zhao Qian, who were inside the coffins, had also vanished.

The cold wind swept around, finding nothing, and eventually blew open a window and left the courtyard, leaving behind only chaos and a piece of wood imprinted with a Fist Mark.

Meanwhile.

In a corner of Ghost Street.

Li Yi squatted on the ground, blood dripping from his fingers.

The blood fell onto a small clay horse on the ground.

"Seriously, does this actually work? I can’t believe I’m actually believing such bizarre stuff."

He doubted in his heart, but Li Yi had no other choice but to try as hard as possible, otherwise, he really might end up trapped to death on this eerie street.

However, after the clay horse was stained red with blood, something unthinkable happened.

A black cold wind started whirling around the clay horse.

The wind grew stronger, blowing so fiercely that Li Yi could hardly keep his eyes open.

Then, amidst the howling wind, Li Yi actually heard the neighing of a wild horse.

"Is it really this miraculous?"

When the black cold wind dispersed, Li Yi opened his eyes wide and saw a large and extraordinary black horse appeared before him. The horse wasn’t a live creature; its body was still made of clay, but it could now move freely.

This scene was somewhat beyond Li Yi’s comprehension.

But considering that ghosts and Extraordinary Creatures now existed in this world, what was happening in front of him didn’t seem too strange.

"Take me away from Ghost Street and back home," Li Yi said as he leapt onto the horse.

Although he didn’t know how to ride a horse, he could hold tight to the horse’s neck, keeping himself from falling off.

The horse neighed, lifting its hooves high, and then snorted, exhaling a cloud of black smoke.

Soon after, the horse’s ironclad hooves thundered forward, carrying Li Yi away in an instant.

"What amazing speed."

Li Yi felt only the roaring wind by his ears and the blurring of his surroundings as the horse galloped beneath him, giving him an indescribable sensation, as if riding through clouds and mist.

"Wait, is the flesh on this horse falling off?"

He immediately noticed that as the horse ran, large chunks of something were peeling off its body. Li Yi looked at his hand to see it covered in black soil.

The soil was foul and stinking, mixed with who knows what kind of substance.

But the horse didn’t stop; it just kept running madly in one direction.

The surroundings began to change.

The primitive and bizarre street started to disappear, the big red lanterns overhead gradually went out, and the outlines of high-rise buildings began to appear amidst the surrounding darkness. The nearby roads even started to show many abandoned cars... All these changes happened in a moment.

Li Yi felt as if he had crossed over from another world, returning once more to the modern city.

"I’ve really come back alive."

Suddenly.

The horse’s pace began to slow, and Li Yi found himself at a street entrance in the Ruined District, with that perilous area just behind him.

He looked back.

The eerie street was still there, as if hovering between reality and illusion. Li Yi could even see many terrifying ghost figures roaming about, confirming that all that had happened before was not a dying hallucination, but reality.

The horse now staggered as it ran, its body collapsing severely, even revealing the white skeleton inside.

After a few hundred more meters.

The Mud Horse seemed to have reached its limit, incapable of taking Li Yi back to the old city district. After a mournful cry, it completely disintegrated, turning into a pile of mud and rotten bones.

Li Yi fell from the horse, but quickly steadied himself. Looking at the ruin of the Mud Horse, he felt a pang of regret.

"So it’s a one-time magical item, not reusable. Well, at least I was prepared and bought two Mud Horses," he said as he felt his pocket.

The remaining Mud Horse was intact, without any damage.

However, he decided to keep it as a precaution, not to use it lightly unless necessary.

"I’ll have to walk the rest of the way on my own, it’s not far anyway." Li Yi saw all the familiar surroundings and gradually felt more assured. He didn’t linger and immediately set off back along the route he had taken to the dangerous area.

He briefly looked around.

It was still deep into the night, probably two or three hours away from daybreak.

It seemed that Li Yi hadn’t been trapped on Ghost Street for long.