Chapter 179 – Turmoil in Northriver Prefecture, A Plump Lamb Enters Ghost Street, Forced Buying and Selling - Part 2
Night fell.
The moon’s chill light washing over everything. Li Yuan bundled the five-year-old Sheng'er in warm layers and a hood, then guided his carriage beyond the township gates to a deserted grove. There, they boarded a small boat on a lakeshore, with Li Yuan cradling Sheng'er in his arms.
Inside the black market ghost domain, the struggle against the human-skin rouge shop ghost domain still raged. For ghosts, their ghost servants were akin to shadow blood for martial artists. Destroying one seldom meant anything final. A ghost servant could die, only to reappear a few days later.
These two ghost domains had been locked in a tug-of-war for almost a year. Any small imbalance had long since evened out, thanks to Li Yuan’s involvement. The fight was now deadlocked.
Yan Yu materialized. She still could not embrace her husband or their daughter like a normal family, forced to remain at a slight distance. After chatting briefly, she focused on teaching Sheng'er how to draw the crows inside her body, a technique that maintained better control over Sheng'er’s ghostly power.
The crows Sheng'er controlled weren’t ordinary birds but a weaker manifestation of the black market ghost domain, merged with Li Yuan’s bird taming skill. To draw a comparison, if Sheng'er were a ghost, then the crows were her ghost servants. A full ghost, along with its ghost servants, could be endlessly reborn, but Sheng'er was still human. If her crows died, they could regenerate, but each time they did so, they siphoned her strength...and hers was not infinite.
Yan Yu taught her daughter for a while but eventually got fed up with the girl’s clumsiness and retreated to Li Yuan’s side. Sheng'er, meanwhile, remained perched on a black boulder, her pale eyes fixed on the ongoing ghost servant battle between the two domains.
“I’ve been working on a way to break through to the fifth rank,” Li Yuan said. “If I can manage that, I’ll be strong enough to help you swallow up the rouge shop ghost domain.”
“Mhm,” Yan Yu responded softly. Then, as if recalling something, she asked, “How about the idea of taking a concubine or maybe a maid? Have you done anything about that yet?”
“As my wife, why are you so intent on this matter?”
“Because rather than clinging to one man, one woman, forever and ever...I’d rather see our little family of three simply survive in peace. I want you to find some stability so you won’t let impatience get the better of you,” she said gently. “Husband, you’re on edge. You’re too eager to break into the fifth rank. And when people become impatient, they make mistakes. If a child slips up, it’s easy enough to fix. But for us, if we make a mistake...we might not be able to take it back.”
He hesitated. “I don’t want to go looking for someone else. Xue Ning suggested we let Xiao Zhu help attend to my needs.”