Unsheathed

It was dawn when Chen Ping'an left the inn, telling the dozing inn attendant lying sprawled on the counter that he was checking out.

The young inn attendant didn't think much about this, nodding in response to show that he understood.

Even though the young wanderer wearing a bamboo hat was checking out two days in advance, it wasn't like the money that the wanderer wasted would fall into his pockets as a result. Thus, the young inn attendant was lacking energy and motivation as he instructed the female inn worker to clean the room. He would think about these things later.

He turned his head and looked at the quiet street outside the inn, yet the figure of the young wanderer was already nowhere to be seen.

The young inn attendant felt slightly unhappy as he thought about the news that had traveled over from Mural City. The fated opportunities tied to the three murals of the female heavenly officials had all been taken away by outsiders, and this was a complete betrayal of people like him who had wasted their time visiting the murals so often.

He thought to himself that the three divine maidens weren't as ethereal and impressive as they appeared, and they had definitely run away to chase some handsome men and their powerful clan. The more the young inn attendant thought about this, the more deflated he became. This was absolutely infuriating.

Chen Ping'an left the market and went to the row of archways at the entrance of Malicious Ghost Valley, handing five snowflake coins to a guard cultivator from the Flax Robe Sect and obtaining a ninefold seal script jade tablet. If one managed to leave Malicious Ghost Valley alive, one could return the jade tablet and receive two snowflake coins back.

The entrance fee wasn't expensive, and it was only the cost of a dozen or so cups of gloomy tea from the Swaying River.

Moreover, people could enter without paying first, leaving this as a debt to the Flax Robe Sect. As such, many criminals who were desperate and with no other options would do three things after entering Skeleton Shoal. First, they would spend a few copper coins at the river god temple of the Swaying River to offer three sticks of incense and pray for good fortune. Second, they would visit the three murals in Mural City to try their luck. And finally, they would go to the market at Helpless Pass to purchase a Be At Ease Compilation. Afterward, they would enter Malicious Ghost Valley through the row of archways and hand their fate to the heavens.

After paying five snowflake coins, Chen Ping'an received the jade tablet that was inscribed with the seal script characters "Majestic Might of the Heavens Crushing All Ghosts." The powerful yin spirits in the cities in the southern region of Malicious Ghost Valley would mostly refrain from provoking cultivators who possessed these jade tablets. After all, Sect Leader Guochi stayed in Malicious Ghost Valley all year round to oversee a small town, and she would often bring cultivators from the two towns with her to hunt yin entities. However, the city lords of the large and small cities didn't restrict the movement of their subordinate ghosts because of this.

Many city lords in the south had refused to take the jade tablet seriously in the past, and they had insisted on indulging themselves and brutally targeting and killing those who possessed the jade tablet. Zhu Quan, also known as Esteemed Immortal Guochi and the sect leader of the Flax Robe Sect, had led a group of several earth immortal cultivators who were direct disciples of the ancestral hall and charged deep into the territory of their enemies without any regard for the consequences.

Risking damage to the foundation of her Great Dao, Guochi had a strong desire to kill the main culprits and display their lifeless heads to everyone in the region. In fact, Esteemed Immortal Guochi's cultivation journey to reach the Unpolished Jade Tier was only so slow because she always put herself in danger and fought against powerful enemies. She had genuinely been at the Nascent Tier for far too long.