The night was deep.

Braving the heavy snow, Chen Hao and Ye Yuqiao rode a flying eagle from the solitary town to the eastern part of the Ghost Valley.

Sensing a large accumulation of Yin Qi below, Chen Hao turned his gaze to the valley floor covered in white snow, then asked Ye Yuqiao beside his ear, "Yuqiao, what place is this below? Why is the Yin Qi so heavy?"

Ye Yuqiao, who had been closing her eyes in Chen Hao's embrace, slowly opened her eyes and said loudly, "Ghost Valley!"

Because the cold wind in the sky was howling so furiously, she almost had to shout to speak.

"Ghost Valley! Wouldn't that mean there are a lot of ghosts?" Chen Hao mused. "Right, Yuqiao, it seems like ever since I arrived in the Netherworld, I haven't seen many ghosts, but rather I often come across people."

"Silly..."

As the wind by his ear suddenly shrieked, Chen Hao couldn't hear what Ye Yuqiao was saying afterward. Feeling Ye Yuqiao shivering in his arms, he held her closer and forced out more Yang Energy from his body to keep warm.

If it weren't for their profound Yang Energy, both of them, along with the eagle below, would have turned into ice long ago in the high-altitude chill.

After traveling dozens of miles more, the eagle carried them into a mountain range over ten thousand meters high, where the fierce wind finally began to weaken.

"Did you hear what I said just now?" Chen Hao finally heard Ye Yuqiao's voice again.

"I heard it!" Chen Hao nodded. At that moment, he suddenly missed the way they used to secretly communicate through the Nether King's Heart, but to avoid disturbance, they had to freeze the Nether King's Heart.

Ye Yuqiao humphed softly, her voice laced with complaint, "I spoke so much, and you didn't hear any of it."

"Then you didn't speak ill of me just now, did you?"

"Of course I did!" Ye Yuqiao muttered quietly.

"Naughty!" Chen Hao kissed Ye Yuqiao's left cheek, it felt like kissing a smooth piece of ice, and then, shivering slightly, he said, "Yuqiao, these mountains are so tall!"

"It's okay. There are taller ones. In ancient areas, there are mountains even higher, I've heard the tallest can be over twenty thousand meters."

"Over twenty thousand meters!" Chen Hao found it unbelievable, unable to imagine what it would feel like to stand on the peak of a mountain more than twenty thousand meters high.

Ye Yuqiao gave an "Mhm," her tone becoming increasingly dejected, "But, I've only heard about it, never been there myself. Shamefully, even though I was once the Nether King, the furthest I've been is the place we're about to reach. There are so many places I've never visited. I've heard that in the ancient region there is a Wanhua Forest, where the flowers are each a fairy spirit with the shape of a flower on top and short legs below, and their color changes with their mood at any time."

"Do you want one of those flowers too?"

"Yes," Ye Yuqiao's voice became more downtrodden, "I once thought about capturing a few flower spirits to bring back, but they would wither and die as soon as they left the ancient region."

Hearing Ye Yuqiao's words, Chen Hao felt a pang of heartache, thinking about how even though she had been the Nether King before, she couldn't do something that seemed so simple to others.

He could empathize with Ye Yuqiao's past loneliness and helplessness.

"How about next spring, I take you to the Wanhua Forest in the ancient region, would that be alright?" Chen Hao whispered in Ye Yuqiao's ear.

"Really?" Ye Yuqiao turned her head and asked Chen Hao, her pair of eager and bright eyes making her look strikingly like an eight- or nine-year-old girl.

"Of course, boyfriends do have the function of taking their girlfriends out to play," Chen Hao joked.

"By the way, Yuqiao, how much farther is it to our destination?"

"Just beyond this mountain range," Ye Yuqiao said. Then, clutching Chen Hao's arm tightly with both hands, she spoke in a coquettish tone, "You haven't forgotten what you've promised me, have you? Next spring, you said you'll take me to the Wanhua Forest in the primordial region."

"I know, I won't forget. I'll definitely keep my promises to the little lady."

Ye Yuqiao giggled happily and said, "Actually, having a boyfriend is pretty great."

"That also depends on who the boyfriend is."

"Narcissistic!" Ye Yuqiao smiled dreamily, "Alright, having a jerk for a boyfriend is great, happy now?"

Chen Hao nodded, then added, "Oh, I didn't catch it earlier, but why are there hardly any ghosts in the Netherworld?"

Afterwards, Ye Yuqiao told Chen Hao that the Netherworld and Hell were originally two regions with no interaction, connected only by a narrow tunnel. The Netherworld was the dwelling place for those with Nether Souls, while Hell was where the Yin Souls of people from the mortal world went after death.

Latter, the Hell King spent hundreds of years widening the passage connecting the Netherworld and Hell, and had razed the mountain above the tunnel to the ground. On that plain, he constructed a city, and beside the passage's exit, he built a palace. That city and that palace are what's known today as Netherworld City and the Nether King Palace.

After the construction of the Netherworld City, a great number of malicious ghosts and fierce spirits escaped from Hell. Therefore, the Hell King issued a decree forbidding all Yin Souls to leave the Netherworld City, and some particularly evil spirits weren't even allowed to set foot outside Hell. It's for these reasons that Chen Hao rarely saw ghosts, which are Yin Souls, in the Netherworld.

The multitude of ghosts within the Valley of Ten Thousand Ghosts had escaped during the several great upheavals between the Netherworld City and Hell. Since the Valley was riddled with caves and secret pathways crisscrossing one another, it was extremely difficult to capture the spirits, and over time, it became the gathering place for fugitive ghosts.

Moreover, since the great disturbances that led to the escape of these ghosts were mostly related to the Ghost King, and because the Ghost King had once been dispatched by the Great Ancestor of the Nether King to manage Hell, those ghosts living in the Valley of Ten Thousand Ghosts mockingly called him the Ghost King. Later, the title of the Ghost King spread throughout the Netherworld, and the Ghost King himself accepted the name and began to use it.

..

..

As dawn was about to break, Chen Hao and Ye Yuqiao finally walked out of the mountain range. Their view suddenly expanded, with the river covered in ice and snow, the plains, and the distant forests all coming into full view.

"This is the middle to lower reaches of the Hong River basin," Ye Yuqiao introduced Chen Hao, then pointed to the southeast, "Wind Shelter Valley is over there; I once stayed there for a while."

While speaking, the great eagle had already brought the two of them down to the riverbank.

"Boom!" A loud sound suddenly erupted next to Chen Hao's ear.

Chen Hao looked in the direction of the sound and saw on the northern river surface a waterspout, half the size of a soccer field, shooting up. It slowly surged about a hundred meters into the air before cascading down like a waterfall from the ninth heaven, stirring up thousands of waves and countless towering surges; the scene was incredibly spectacular.

Then, after a few minutes, when the river had calmed down slightly, another waterspout shot up.

"Yuqiao, it's so spectacular!" Chen Hao exclaimed in amazement.

"This is called the Dragon Spring of Heaven, also known as Water from Above!" Ye Yuqiao explained, "It can shoot up to two hundred meters high."

"You brought me here just to see this, didn't you?" Chen Hao said with a smile, "It's truly breathtaking!"

"No!" Ye Yuqiao shook her head, "What we're supposed to see hasn't appeared yet, we need to wait a bit longer."

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